The Evolving World of Robo Advisors

Robots are getting faster and intelligent. Last year, a Rubik’s Cube was solved in less than a second (to be precise, 0.637 seconds) by a machine. It beats the previous best of 0.887 sec by another machine (Human best is 4.904 seconds). This year, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered machine won a 20-day poker tournament.

From Tesla’s autopilot to virtual personal assistants like Siri & Cortana – AI based machines are constantly improving our lives, for now. They have also entered the financial space – where they are acting as advisors on people’s wealth. It’s a welcome relief for those who never understood taxes or those who lost a fortune on bourses.

While Robo Advisors and human advisors work on the same algorithms and financial models, the machines do a better job being faster and free from any biases. Lower fees, transparency and easy access to a larger population are the three critical factors that make Robo Advisors a preferable option.

Consumers across all asset classes are receptive to robo advisors – including the wealthy. 49% of this group would consider investing some of their assets using a robo advisor – Business Insider

73% of respondents in a survey reported investing with automated investing platform satisfactory or very satisfactory – Financial Planning Association and Investopedia

Though most of the investments are still done in an old-school manner with investors preferring human advisors, the trend is likely to see a reversal. For wealth management firms, there is a largely untapped market opportunity in offering low-cost digital platforms to people who have so far lacked quality advisory for their investments.

Moreover, the technology will not be restricted to numerous proprietary algorithmic models as AI-powered advisors will make their space. Hedgeable, a wealth management company, last year announced its AI-powered system which simplifies specific tax management concerns for its high net worth clients. The system pulls data from more than 20,000 financial accounts, live real estate data, and is capable of self-learning.

Market Potential

Investment firms

Investment firms have already used the technology to assist their financial advisors (CFPs) in investment management and financial advice. Using this hybrid approach allows human advisors to focus on other critical areas where Robo Advisors have yet not entered (or being used sparingly). This is because people in particular cases have shown affinity to their traditional ways; examples include estate planning, tax-planning, and retirement planning. Thus, the firms offering a mix of both ‘personalized human’ and ‘low-cost automated platform’ based advisory are in particular better placed in the market.

High net worth individuals (HNIs)

“High-net-worth individuals use online investment tools more than other investors” –  My Private Banking

In the survey-report with inputs from 600 HNIs in the US and the UK, 70% respondents rated automated advisory tools positively. Their ratings were based on the experience with onboarding processes such as registration and account opening, which are more efficient, quicker and highly convenient with automated tools. Thus, investment firms seeking better investment experience for their prime accounts are increasingly adopting Robo Advisors.

Millennials, retirees, and almost everyone

Though figures and projections vary, almost everyone agrees that people interested in investing will have a high exposure to automated tools by 2020. As people get used to personal digital assistants and AI driven chatbots, trust and comfort levels with Robo Advisors are only likely to increase. This trend is likely to influence people across all relevant age groups and geographies.

Is it a disruptive trend?

Although it looks like a disruptive technology, it hasn’t gained traction. Startups relying on digital-only models have failed to make a considerable impact, partly because their major USP is only the lower service fees. While Robo Advisors reduce any oversights or guesswork, their returns are still comparable to what being offered by human advisors. Further, costs related to employee salaries, tech-infrastructure and compliance reduce their profit margins to unsustainable levels. Hence, the technology is being used to its maximum by incumbents – which is not much. The technology is primarily restricted to the US and some European markets. There is a need to extend this platform to emerging markets where there is a lot of space for accelerated growth.

The biggest uptake

While the industry is unanimous about the long-term viability of Robo Advisors, numerous tangible benefits can be drawn on an immediate basis. Incumbents have nothing to lose by experimenting with the platform. They can use the technology to expose, publicize and leverage their existing algorithms to a wider audience. By evaluating their performance, incumbents can scale up their business to automate a larger portion of their business. This approach can help incumbents to stay on top of the technology, offer better customer experience and make appropriate changes as and when required.

Credencys Solutions Inc is a leading software development services and solutions provider which has helped numerous businesses in their business growth. Subscribe to Insights by Credencys for getting similar articles on management, strategy, leadership and more.

India’s trucking industry to see a rebound by tech-startups

2016 was not an impressive year for many startups in India and the logistics sector was not an exception. According to a news report, as many as 212 startups had to wind up their operations including 6 logistics startups; these were – TheKarrier, Truckmandi, Trucksumo, Loadkhoj, Zaicus and Sastabhada.

However, 2017 seems to be a good year for such startups – India has been ranked second only to China on Emerging Markets Logistics Index, 2017. The index gauges the logistics industry in the world’s 50 leading emerging markets by size, business conditions, and infrastructure and transport connections. This is for the second consecutive year that India has been rated among the most favorable investment destinations across the globe.

GST to make an impact on transit times

Much has already been written about the impact of recently implemented GST (goods and services act) in India. The Act is likely to put the truck industry in the fast lane, literally. Trucks in India used to travel only 280 km on daily basis; in the US the corresponding figure is 800 km. With GST being implemented, they can add 164 km per day to their transit schedule. Further, reduction in paperwork and border checks will cut transportation cost by 20-30 per cent. All this will improve operating margins for truck operators.

The lingering challenges for the industry

For small time entrepreneurs in India, launching a trucking business has always been an easy option. To buy a truck, easy finance is available readily with a down payment of only 10% to 15%. Further, after repaying the loan in 3-4 years, the same truck could be resold at around 75% of its original cost. Hence, a small operator can easily accrue a RoI of 500%-700% within 3-4 years time. Despite smaller profit margins, the business return over a period of 4 years is quite impressive. This is not a secret recipe. As seen in the graph below; 75% of truck operators  (with a fleet size of 5 or below) rely on this business model.

ownership-of-trucks

Source: An Overview of the Trucking Sector in India: Significance and Structure, 2015

However, the above model works only for small fleet operators. Profitability ceases to increase  in the same proportion when the fleet size increases. The business follows the law of diminishing returns, as operations and management costs increase rapidly with larger fleets. A decrease in asset utilization, route planning challenges, slower invoicing and liberal credit terms with customers make operations inefficient. To overcome all this, businesses are forced to include a higher administration overhead, without any significant change in returns. Meanwhile, unavailability of drivers continues to plague truck operators. All these inefficiencies compound fleet expansion.


"Before diving into the technology business, I had run a successful retail business. Hence, I know that logistics in India is unlike anywhere else in the world. No management institution will teach you how to deal with truck operators and what to do when things go south. Thankfully, the tech-adoption is increasing and things are getting organized. We have seen increased demand and interest for applications and solutions for the industry."


Sandeep Agrawal CEO Credencys

Finding answers with technology

Tech-driven truck aggregators can make most of the lingering challenges in the industry. By using the tech-aggregation model, startups can allow individual fleet operators to expand without losing profitability. By offering benefits of scale they can reduce fragmentation in the industry. This is achievable as solutions built on artificial intelligence APIs, such as those offered by IBM, can assist fleet owners in route optimization for their vehicles and help them in increasing their asset utilization.

Further, real-time GPS-based vehicle tracking can bring transparency and reliability of service to India’s trucking industry which from the time immemorial has operated only on trust.

IoT is no more a buzzword and startups like Rivigo are already using IoT for real-time data collection of fuel, RPM, engine oil temperature, brake oil pressure and more. All this data can assist in predictive and diagnostic analysis like driver behavior, machine failures, diesel consumption and preventive maintenance.

Also, technology can help in reduction of paperwork such as that involved in lorry receipt, proof of delivery, and invoicing. Cloud-based solutions are particularly useful in this area. This anyway is going to be a mandate for operators as post GST implementation swift billing will be essential for customers to claim their GST input credits.


"200 + leading Indian logistics companies are accruing significant benefits like reduction in cost by 5 -10 %, increase in on-time deliveries by 20%, increase in asset utilization by deploying smart IT solutions in the logistic sector"


ET CIO Jan 23, 2017

Investment climate

There is every likelihood that PE/VC funding will help more startups to capture this vast and expanding space. According to India’s pre-budget economic survey “growth could recover sooner than expected after a shock scrapping of high-value banknotes to fight black money.” Recent investment trends have also been positive; Venture Intelligence reports that funds worth $5 billion flowed in via PE/VC route in 2016, an almost 10 per cent rise over 2015. Tech-startups with a strong business model and a long-term execution strategy can expect to make the most of this positive investment climate.

Credencys Solutions Inc is a leading software development services and solutions provider which has helped numerous businesses in their business growth. We can help you in building a custom fleet management solution. Know more about our services here.

10 Brilliant Psychology Hacks for Marketers

In an era driven by consumers, consumer behavior studies are increasingly getting relevant than ever before. Brands are constantly competing to transform consumer experience. In order to gain some control on consumer perceptions, you might have already invested in consumer studies and research. There is no replacement for insights gained from such studies. However, there are certain psychology hacks which are privy to people involved in business strategy and marketing campaigns. In the following article, we will briefly explore these biases, decision errors, paradoxes and more.

Survivorship Bias

More people are getting affected by Entrepreneurship Porn than ever and one can’t just blame journalists for this situation. Facebook, which has become a natural source of news for people, provides the kind of feed a person is most likely to approve, like & share. This eventually puts people into an endless cycle of reading, viewing and listening to stories that have a happy ending. Though, there is no harm in taking inspiration from successful entrepreneurs, sports persons, actors, writers, leaders, and musicians – these stories are only a small fraction of all the stories that were ever written. More people fail than succeed in any given field. Still, humans generally overestimate their chances of success and the society usually promotes this behavior. This is called Survivorship bias, which perhaps is the mother of all biases. For marketers, it is pretty straightforward to leverage this bias – it’s the oldest trick in the book. Share a successful case study, give it a personal touch to connect with your audience and voila – you’re a successful marketer! Yes, that’s yet another example of Survivorship Bias at work.

Scarcity Error

Hurry Up – Offer Valid Till Stocks Last!
Christmas Special Deal
“Flash Sale” – Register Now!

These are time-tested examples demonstrating the impact of scarcity. The fear of missing out forces consumers to buy with all haste. However, in the age of the internet, you might have to mask your tactics for using this decision error effectively. Flash Sales on e-commerce websites are the latest successful implementation and perhaps you can replicate the same

Loss Aversion

As a marketer, you’ve probably used Loss Aversion in your ad-copy. Instead of telling the benefits, you must have tried telling your customers about what they are losing by not using your product/service. The fear of losing ‘something’ is a better driver than the prospect of gaining something of similar value. This also explains why a newbie in a stock market keeps on holding to a stock for a much longer period than what experienced traders would advise. This type of thinking is slightly related with the Sunk Cost Fallacy, which every marketer should be cautious about. For example, consider your sales team investing a lot of time in persuading a prospect. You have also given your prospective client a better deal and a free trial period. But none of this has led to any business. If you decide to continue persuasion just because you have invested so much time and money in the process, it will make you a victim of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Do not continue projects just because you’ve invested too much into them; decide future investments only on the basis of their projected future pay-off.

Ikea Effect

Now that we have discussed time investment, there’s something you could probably use for engaging customers. Anyone who has assembled an Ikea furniture would know that their installation manuals aren’t best of the breed. You must be a genius to understand those manuals and then do correct assembly in the first attempt. Moreover, whoever assembles the Ikea furniture starts taking a great pride in his/her masterwork. This is called the IKEA effect. Consumers value products highly if they get a chance to get involved in its creation. Allowing customers to make small customizations can also work. There are numerous e-commerce websites which allow designing, customizations and also allow people to boast about their creations in social channels. If you can make your product customizable, you can bank on this phenomena.

Decoy Effect

Every one of us has come across Decoy effect in one way or the other. It is seen that more than often a consumer will change a preference between two options when also presented with a third option (usually an absurd one). Here’s an example:

Decoy Effect

People would be equally divided when asked to choose between small ($3) and large ($7) popcorn. However, buyers are more likely to choose $7 large popcorn when presented with a third option – $6.5 decoy. The Decoy Effect works because one of the options appears considerably more desirable than the decoy. This affects even the best of rational minds, making them buy more than what they need.

The Availability Heuristic

Do you know which animal/insect/reptile is responsible for a maximum number of human deaths? The answer is Mosquito (7,25,000 deaths/year) followed by Snake (50,000), Dog (25,000), Snail (10,000) and Roundworm (5000). Still, people are generally more scared of a Shark bite or a Bear attack than a statistically more lethal mosquito bite. This is because they are affected more by the sensational news reports than boring facts. Hence, whenever people are asked to take a quick decision, the information at the top of their minds cloud their decision. Further, people would also rate the probability of certain events higher than they would be on paper.

For marketers, it is important to know that information most readily and impressively available affects their consumers’ decision. Hence, a story is almost always likely to be more helpful than a stats sheet. That’s why client testimonials and videos are essential for your website homepage.

Social Proof

People are more likely to queue up for a crowded counter in a trade show than an empty one. Same is true for a restaurant. People like and share online posts more readily if others have also done it in the past. These are all examples of Social Proof. As a marketer, if you can effectively demonstrate the social likeability or acceptance for your product/service, it will influence your consumers more. Again, humans are not naturally tuned to understand numbers; hence, use powerful stories to engage your customers.

Confirmation Bias

You must be aware of the health benefits of an Apple. People generally like Apple. However, there must be a kid somewhere in the world who would hate Apples – so he would google – “Apples are bad for health” and he would find something to support his revulsion for the fruit. This is an example of Confirmation Bias at work. Ever worked under a boss who made statements and asked you to validate those with some data? People who make corporate presentations and marketing plans do it all the time. You can find all kinds of contradictory information on the internet to support your personal theories, beliefs, and convictions. Moreover, humans have a tendency to discount any new information that contradicts their beliefs or views. This bias towards favorable information sets is known as Confirmation Bias. Consumers are likely to collect data which supports their choice of brand and ignore information which contradicts it. Also, marketers need to understand why consumers like their brand. Find more on Confirmation Bias and Brand Loyalty here.

Paradox of Choice

The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less’ is a 2004 book by American psychologist, Barry Schwartz. In his book, Barry explains how an abundance of choice has made buying difficult for consumers. He asserts that fewer options are often better for consumers. That is what differentiates iOS and Android – Apple loyalists don’t have too much to worry about – all they have to do is get a new iPhone. On the other hand, Android loyalists have to decide between an endless number of models and brands. Marketers can perhaps take some inspiration from this approach and avoid offering too many subscription plans or offers to their customers.

Winner’s Curse

Digital marketers know that bidding based PPC campaigns include a lot of guesswork. There’s isn’t any scientific formula for marketers to decide how far they should go in the bidding. The auction-based pricing is present everywhere – from eBay to Groupon to Google AdWords. If you’ve ever placed a blog writing assignment on any of the freelancing portals, you must’ve witnessed Winner’s Curse with writers claiming the job for pennies. Auction-based pricing can help you avoid underpricing or overpricing your products leaving the job to the market.

This article was originally published at ITarticle.net.

All you need to know about the infamous D word of Software

People usually misinterpret one of the Agile Manifesto’s declarations “Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation”. Documentation is not a profanity in Agile; all the manifesto says is to restrict it to a bare minimum and not let it become an impediment. The question arises, how to gather and document software requirements in Agile Software Development environment.

How to Document?

It is not rare for teams new to Agile to attempt moving their existing requirements into User Story format. This can create a backlog of thousands of user stories, followed by a lengthy prioritization cycle. At the end of the day, converting the software requirements gathered for a waterfall process to user stories meant for Agile is simply a waste of time; both vary a lot in their intent and scope.

Here’s how User Stories completely differ from traditional Software Requirement Specification (SRS) documents:

User StoryTraditional SRS Documents
Slim: Developed just-in-timeHeavy: Their equivalent Use Cases are much more elaborate
Accurate: During backlog grooming, User Stories are refined with developers’ feedbackInaccurate: Devoid of developers’ feedback, a lot of guesswork is involved in the documentation
Simple, fast and cheap Complex, slow and expensive
Rarely out of dateMostly out of date: Specifications developed today rarely capture the requirements and discoveries six months down the line

A user story is a very high-level definition of a requirement from a user point of view, containing minimum viable information for developers to estimate their effort and plan accordingly.

Standard User Story Format

As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some benefit>.

Example: As a registered user, I want to login so that I can access my account.

User stories are incomplete without their Acceptance Criteria (AC). AC are critical documentation bits which help developers in a team to write accurate test cases without any ambiguity and understand business values better. Although, the Product Owner writes AC, Quality Analysts and Developers also contribute to improving the AC. AC ensure that all the parameters of a User Story are met as per every stakeholders’ agreement. Only when the AC are “Accepted” the user story is marked as “Done”.

Standard Acceptance Criteria Format (derived from Gherkin)

Given <precondition(s)> When <some action> Then <a result/set of results>

Example: Given the user hasn’t ordered yet, when the user adds any apparel into the shopping cart, then apply a discount of 20% to the total


"According to me, Agile development teams are only concerned with user stories and acceptance criteria. That's all the documentation they need. For them, deployment and maintenance manuals are all Greek. We have separate guys for creating those manuals"


Jainam Shah Project Manager, Credencys

What to Document?

Each project has its own requirements, and your domain expertise will let you know what areas require major documentation. While this may logically tempt you to create repeatable templates; it’s not recommended. By keeping close coordination with the end users, you can identify the format and quantum of information they would like you to deliver. For instance, there could be two major document types; the one fed to the product backlog and used by developers and the one which is created at the end of sprint (to be read by client/support teams). Scrum facilitates this close coordination between developers and end users on a more frequent basis which means that documentation can be restricted to a high-level overview. This approach minimizes waste during all stages of documentations viz. discovery, design, development, QA, release and even post release/support cycles.

Where to Document?

This is quite obvious; you will want to keep all your documentation with proper backup and access to all stakeholders. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and there are fewer chances of overlaps or lapses. At the end of every Sprint, you might feel the need to compile all feature implementations, feature improvements, and bug fixes, in the form of a report which is usually referred as Release Notes. As the project progresses, you might consider developing a Wiki page with an index linking to all your documentations in some order.

When to Document?

As Agile is an iterative and incremental process, documentation would continue throughout the project. The best way to document is to do it in gradual phases, not investing too much of time so that feedback from concerned parties takes it into the right direction. Something written in one go, can be rejected in one go. Further, during sprints, it’s recommended to have only that much documentation ready in advance which is enough to fill the product backlog so that development team doesn’t have to wait. You can determine this by taking into account the Sprint duration. The goal of documentation in such time-boxed delivery cycles is to allow product owners provide clarity on what needs to be built with what priority.

Credencys Solutions Inc is a leading software development services and solutions provider which has helped numerous businesses in building strategies for their business growth. Subscribe to our blogs for getting similar articles on management, strategy, leadership and more.

Early Adopters to Bank on Blockchain in 2020

By the end of this year, Accenture predicts that Blockchain will enter early adoption phase forcing financial industry to explore new business models with this revolutionary technology. The Tipping Point is expected to arrive by 2018 and the technology will continue to grow till 2025 when it will become the mainstay of financial services.

01-Graph-Image

 

What is Blockchain?

Blockchain is a public distributed database which is constantly synchronized and secured with cryptography. Though people largely equate it with Bitcoins; it’s a gross misappropriation. To put this in perspective, Bitcoin is related to Blockchain as email is to the internet.

Blockchain = Database

Why is Blockchain so revolutionary?

Decentralization

…Blockchain technology facilitates peer-to-peer transactions without any intermediary such as bank or governing body… – Don Tapscott

It might sound counterintuitive that something which by definition negates central authority is getting investment from central banks and governing bodies. One of the financial industry’s inherent attraction towards Blockchain is its efficiency: as a common, ubiquitous ledger technology, Blockchain promises to remove all sorts of friction traditionally created in financial networks where numerous intermediaries work with their own sets of technology infrastructure. By removing both the intermediaries and their involved tech- inefficiencies, the financial industry will be able to ensure that there is no duplication of records, fewer reconciliation discrepancies and settlements are faster.

Early Adoption

Although, there is also a large room for other industries to innovate and explore, banking and financial services see immediate benefits with Blockchain facilitating Letter of Credits, Payment Remittances, Corporate Debt or Bond, Trading and Repurchase Agreements.

Payments

Bitcoin = Payments; that’s probably a more apt analogy. Bitcoin and 100 other similar currencies have held traders interest in the market. Still, their usage for day-to-day payments hasn’t captured public’s imagination. Nonetheless, the promise of instant payments across geographies is very interesting and banks want to bring this medium into common usage. Yet, regulation of crypto-currencies like Bitcoin is a challenge. At present, different countries have different regulations for Bitcoins and its counterparts. As the Blockchain technology evolves, it’s likely that Payments being only one of its many possible applications will find its place within a regulatory framework which is common to all countries.


"When we talk about cashless economy, we look towards Sweden. However, it’s Africa which leads mobile banking. No one could have predicted the success of mobile phones in India…it will not be a surprise that the biggest uptake of digital technologies like Blockchain will come up from countries in the so-called third world"


Sandeep Agrawal Founder & CEO, Credencys

Trade Finance

emc

 

Albert Einstein once commented, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” Perhaps, one should have invited him to comment on the practices in international trade. Letters of credit and bills of lading follow tedious information flows, generate daunting paperwork and it’s not rare for businesses to identify these procedures as a bottleneck. Blockchain can be the holy grail of Trade Finance automation.

Blockchain apps can facilitate information sharing between exporters, importers and the banks involved in the transaction on a common private distributed ledger. Such apps would improve speed, provide automation via self-executable digital smart contracts and improve real-time data visibility for all parties involved in the trade deal. Global banks have already done successful POCs and the technology is up for grabs. 2017 is likely to be the year when a larger number of banks, corporate clients, and shipping companies will come to a consensus to increase the Blockchain adoption in Trade Finance.

Capital Markets

The prospect of Blockchain transforming the capital markets has attracted huge attention and it has the biggest number of startups to its account. NASDAQ was one of the first to join the bandwagon announcing its POC on Blockchain-based transaction on 30th Dec 2015. Since then, Nasdaq Financial Framework has listed more than 100 of its market operator clients using its Blockchain services. According to Coindesk, 10 more bourses from Australia, Dubai, Germany, Japan, Korea and London have reported progress on investigating and implementing the technology.

Major Challenges

  • ROI: Implementation of Blockchain within their existing infrastructure might not be lucrative for most organizations. This could perhaps be addressed with the creation of shared Blockchain where banks or governments would invest in building the infrastructure.
  • Incentives: However, the present financial ecosystem has several players whose priority for using a shared Blockchain can perhaps create a conflict. This might deter large-scale adoption, again rendering shared Blockchains unviable.
  • Regulation: As discussed earlier large scale adoption is further restricted by regulatory differences. It is not always easy for regulatory bodies to enforce KYC and anti-money laundering rules with cryptocurrencies – a fact which drives its popularity in dark net, drugs, and mafia.
  • Security: At the end of the day, Blockchains will run on the internet – which can make any security expert shift uncomfortably in his/her seat. Hackers have already looted Bitcoin exchanges; hence, Banks will have to evolve secure standards to avoid such losses.
  • Simplicity: The internet would not have been successful if users were expected to learn DOS commands and use the CLI interface on their PCs for ordering a Pizza. Until user-friendly Apps are developed, Blockchain will continue to deter more people than it will attract.

The way organizations respond to above challenges will define their future. In one of our previous articles, we have already described Blockchain as a disruptive technology. More enterprises than ever are engaged in Blockchain PoCs and if you belong to Banking and Financial Services industry, then chances are that you will face more immediate competition in Blockchain innovation in the coming years.

Credencys Solutions Inc is a leading software development services and solutions provider which have helped numerous businesses in building strategies for their business growth. Subscribe to our blogs for getting similar articles on management, strategy, leadership and more.

10 Reasons Why Digital Signage is Beneficial to Your Business

Has the thought of implementing digital signage into your restaurants crossed your mind but wondered if the investment would be worth your time and money? It is absolutely okay to have concerns before getting on board with the idea, considering the daunting upfront installation costs. But if you are reluctant to give digital signage a shot, there is something you should know; digital signage can completely transform your business!

To show you how here are 10 reasons why your business would benefit from digital signage.

  • It eliminates the printing and logistics cost and waiting time incurred in the conventional translite signage set-up
  • It is aesthetically pleasing! Digital signage grabs more attention and it is a great way to attract customers. Not to mention, people tend to pay more attention if you display promotional offers
  • It gives you the accessibility to display anything, anytime and from anywhere across the globe
  • Digital signage will also allow you to generate more revenue from advertisers, especially for places such as metro stations, airports, and large malls
  • Digital signage can be used as a tool to interact with your customers while they are waiting for a sales or customer service executive
  • Placement of digital signage at the point of sale can help you create higher brand awareness and thus uplift their sales
  • You are in control of what is displayed. You have the ability to show and change relevant information depending on when is best for you
  • It goes without saying that digital signage displays make the atmosphere much more lively. If you’re after a unique atmosphere, augmented reality integrated with digital signage is the way to go
  • Digital signage is a great way to help your marketing team send the right message across to the customers
  • Finally, if your competitors have it, so should you!

Let us, at Xynage know if you can think of any more reasons as to why your business will benefit from digital signage.

I advise businesses scrambling to avoid disruption, and this is what I tell them

It is not rare for enterprises to revamp systems and processes only to discover that by the time the entire change is done – it’s time to move again. With advancements in technology and decline in costs, business models and ecosystems are constantly evolving. Technology has become a multi-headed Hydra; it’s not easy to master it. Digital platform is getting increasingly populated with frequent innovations in social, cloud, mobile and data space. Choosing the right technology mix vis-a-vis its associated business value is a complex task and more people with specialized expertise are needed in such strategic decisions. Hence, we see technology experts mushrooming in abundance, joining the strategic c-suite and brainstorming on how to avoid disruption.

You can’t avoid disruption – it’s not a fad

However, in the jungle of disruptive technologies, you can either be part of the disruptive forces or be at the receiving end. There’s no other alternative. Hence, an important shift in attitude is required to sustain and thrive in this jungle; you can’t avoid disruption – it’s not a fad. Instead, strategize to disrupt. This is the only strategy which will keep your stakeholders invested and you alive for a longer period.

Start envisaging the future

The future is never too far away; it’s important to draft a technology roadmap for short term, medium term and long term with clear deadlines. Also, for business strategy planners, optimism and pessimism are only two sides of the same coin. Lee Child puts it very nicely in words – “Hope for the best; plan for the worst”. There’s a caution sign here – be realistic! Don’t plan for doom scenarios that are unlikely to happen. Also, not all technologies and innovations are going to sustain the five year threshold period; so, invest only in those technologies which have some empirical evidence of delivering worthwhile ROI.

Hope for the best; plan for the worst

Transform to Disrupt

Below is a list of technology trends that are most likely to drive enterprise digital transformation in coming years. Aligning your organization’s future strategy with these trends will help you stay strong amidst disruption.

Chat Bots

Bots are invading Chat rooms – and no, this time they aren’t built for scamming. Bots are built on AI Algorithms and are designed to help users perform numerous functions (such as news reading, calendaring and organizing, food orders, flight bookings etc) via Messaging Apps (which are now bigger than Social Media). For enterprises, Bots are even more useful as they can reduce the workload for their customer communications teams. Advancements in speech recognition and natural language parsing is easing development of bots which can gather information from humans and translate it into structured data for processing. Further, Message.io, a Y-Combinator backed startup is now offering bot developers a private beta access to its bot management platform, which makes it possible to develop once and deploy across multiple messaging services.

10K+ developers are building chatbots for Facebook –TechCrunch

Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) is billed as bigger than Industrial Revolution. It’s already making major headlines across the technology corridors. IoT Platforms Xively are allowing businesses to leverage over 300 connected product models. The economy is expanding with numerous vendors offering sensors, connectivity, integrations and application development services. Still, developing high performance and secure IoT systems presently comes at a high cost. A news report quoting Peter Sondergaard, SVP Research at Gartner says that “half the cost of implementing (IoT) solutions will be in integration and security…” It might be the right time to take early advantage. Having said that, investing in DIY IoT is not recommended; form partnerships with organizations which can provide you right strategy and expertise for.

Half the cost of implementing IoT solutions will be in integration and security

Streaming or Realtime Analytics

The premise of IoT lies in leveraging the information from things (and machines) to make them work better. However, the amount of this information or data is unlike anything the world has seen so far. Yet, implementing IoT without making full use of data will be a gross under-utilization. Data can help you in Descriptive (what happened), Predictive (what will happen) and Prescriptive (what could be done) analysis. Still, it’s reported that “only 8% of businesses are using more than 25% of their IoT data”. To derive optimum value from IoT, businesses need to invest in Realtime Analytics; and this is what they seem to be doing. According to a Markets & Markets report, investment in this field is growing at a CAGR of more than 30% (expected to reach $13.70 billion mark in 2021 from just $3.08 billion in 2016).

Only 8% of businesses are using more than 25% of their IoT data – Verizon

APIs

There’s an API for everything. As a business owner, you should look to expedite implementation of your business policies. APIs can help you do this and much more. There is a need to look at API beyond its utility in software development; APIs hold strategic business value. APIs facilitate creation of new user experiences with shared resources and expertise. Amazon’s highly successful business in (AWS) is based entirely onleveraging powerful API-based elements such as EC2. Google Maps would not have been so successful if developers couldn’t access its code and users were made to access it via website only. Hence, as a business, you need to have a strong API strategy for utilizing, sharing and managing APIs.

Netflix receives more than 5 billion daily requests to its public API – Deloitte

Blockchain

While Bitcoins have failed to live up to their initial hype, experts are now showing an increasing interest in the underlying technology. Together, public and enterprise Blockchains are all set to revolutionize the global economy. Blockchains can power financial applications for instantaneous funds transfer across geographies, micropayments, self-executing contracts, government aid/subsidy transfers, healthcare, digital rights management for artists and more. According to CoinDesk Research, “More enterprise firms than ever are working on Blockchain PoCs (70 to be precise)…14 of the top 30 banks are engaged in Blockhain PoCs.” Even central banks across the globe are now taking interest in exploring the platform. Although, making early investments in the technology is not advisable at this moment; it certainly has the potential to be a part of your long term strategy.

Sweden’s central bank is eying Digital Currency – Blockchain is seen as an option – FT

Credencys Solutions Inc is a leading software development services and solutions provider which has helped numerous businesses in building strategies for their business growth. Subscribe to our blogs for getting similar articles on management, strategy, leadership and more.

When people ask me ‘should I do Scrum or Kanban?’ I say, yes.

In the last blog, we discussed how to start implementing or introducing Agile to small groups and prepare them for the change. Next, it comes down to choosing between Scrum, Kanban and various other frameworks which have been evolving since last one decade. There’s no simple formula; each implementation has its own benefits and challenges. Once you understand all these benefits, you can make selections for your team and perhaps form a project management style of your own. Here are few things to keep in mind about all these methodologies:

SCRUM

Although, there’s no strict definition for selecting a methodology based on an organization’s size, there’s statistical evidence supporting Scrum being the most prominently used Agile implementation method. Despite enterprises implementing mature Agile frameworks (SAFe, LeSS, DAD etc), teams continue to use Scrum for managing their work.

Main benefits – Scrum makes you sprint

Being constantly put under deadline, the time-boxed delivery pattern motivates teams to work towards a definite, achievable goal. Asking team members to estimate their task completion times and then report their pending work in daily standups, not only makes them accountable to their work but also keeps them updated with their team’s overall progress. The Retrospective at the end of Sprint provides opportunity to all individuals to analyze what went wrong and what should be continued or avoided in succeeding Sprints.

Groups familiar to strict waterfall-style projects, find Scrum’s rigid structure easier to follow as compared to loosely structured Kanban. At the same time, Scrum gives them more freedom over waterfall when it comes down to responding to change/improvement requirements.

Caution – Mixing Scrum Master and Product Owner Roles

Understand the vital difference between these two roles.  Despite an obvious conflict of interest, in many organizations, a single person plays both the roles. In organizations where Scrum Master is given a Product Owner responsibility, it is generally seen that business priorities take a backseat while development teams remain in their comfort zone. The exact opposite happens when a Product Owner is pushing a team and leading the Scrum. For sanity, it is advisable to keep these two roles allotted to separate individuals. This will help you keep your backlog priorities stable – which is essential for Scrum to function properly.

KANBAN

kanban

According to Scrum Alliance, Kanban is the second most preferred Agile method. It’s common for scrum teams to use Kanban board for improved visibility into their projects.

Main benefits – it’s highly efficient

Though, there’s always a deadline – In theory, Kanban does not rely on time boxed deliveries as in Scrum. Still, it provides high efficiency by posing restrictions on items to be put under Work in Progress (WIP) list. This allows teams to have a better focus on their tasks. Using Kanban tools you can identify more valuable pieces of work and avoid time wastage in duplication, defects or lapses. On the other hand, Kanban allows timely customer feedback to make changes in requirements and priorities. It might appear counterproductive – but this is the very essence of Kanban enabling continuous development and delivery (as per client’s expectation).

Caution – Kanban won’t make your work simple

Kanban can be simple to use, it’s not an answer to all your management worries. Also, it might reduce wastage, but don’t expect it to raise your natural speed of work.

SCRUMBAN

As the name suggests, this hybrid of Kanban and Scrum allows teams to retain planning, review and retrospective meetings without any requirement to make sprint time commitment. Instead, teams using Scrumban are supposed to continuously groom their backlog while ensuring that the task list in WIP column isn’t crossing the defined limit. Usually, planning meetings are triggered when WIP limit is crossed or there are very few items in the list. While removing the constant pressure of Sprint deadline, this approach shifts focus to meeting customer expectation.

Main benefits – Thinking beyond Velocity

Scrumban discards Velocity (story points completed in a Single Sprint) as teams try to meet their commitments, at times compromising quality. Also, with newer teams (new to Scrum), estimates often go wrong and this may prompt stakeholders to question a team’s efficiency. Scrumban replaces Velocity with cycle time. This metric gauges the time taken by a ticket for its completion. By accounting all tickets in a project, one can calculate the mean cycle time and standard deviation for a team. This mean cycle time can help in future project planning and time estimations.

Caution

Although, Scrumban brings in the best of both worlds; it’s not flawless. If work remains in progress for too long, you will not be able to gauge its progress. Visualizing blockages can also be an issue and this can delay your projects. Hence, Scrumban is suitable for mature agile teams working in an unpredictable environment, where plans and requirements change frequently.

The Bottom Line

Choosing the correct Agile implementation can be tricky; however as discussed in this article starting with Scrum is easier for people new to Agile principles. Also, you will get ample training, tools and resources (both online and on-premise) to support your Scrum implementation. Once things get started and teams get familiar with Agile, you can introduce them to newer processes and eventually allow them to make a choice for themselves.

It is important to note that there is always a scope for improvement and you need to accept changes for continuous improvement. Agile, promotes flexibility and adaptation. That’s why every organization has its own method of implementing Agile. You can also experiment and evolve your own hybrid approach while ensuring that all these changes are improving your overall productivity.  All you need to do is take a decision and start.

The-Bottom-Line

Credencys Solutions Inc is a leading software development services and solutions provider which has helped numerous businesses in building strategies for their business growth. Subscribe to our blogs for getting similar articles on management, strategy, leadership and more.

Learning digital the hard way: India’s demonetization chaos

Catching citizens and banks by surprise, India recently discontinued the 500 and 1000 Rupee currency notes in its economy. The government reasons that the demonetization drive was essential to curb the black money and fake currency menace. Indian economy is largely slanted towards cash transactions, which constitute more than 90% of all transactions in rural India. As banks and ATMs run out of cash, people are losing patience. While the debate on whether the move will accomplish government’s said goals or not is still fresh, there is a need to focus on slightly tangential and more primal challenges in front of India’s economy.

Some experts believe that this move will prepare India for cashless transactions. This means that people would be expected to increase usage of e-wallets like Paytm and Ola-money. On the other hand, this will also reduce Cash on Delivery (CoD) transactions for e-commerce players. It may be noted that CoD is huge in India and is a big challenge for e-commerce players who have to bear costs for returns. Such transactions put extra pressure on supply chain and increase payments cycle for e-commerce vendors. Increase in amount of card payments can be a huge relief for the industry.

However, it is not as simple as it seems. India’s literacy levels (more than a third of population is still illiterate) and lack of low-level computer skills pose a huge challenge. A majority of population cannot be expected to make use of smartphones, online portals and e-wallets.

Further, World Economic Forum ranks India on 91st position on Networked Readiness Index; much behind its BRICS and Asian counterparts. While the situation is better in urban areas, rural areas lack basic infrastructure for high-speed connectivity. Overall, only 5.5 percent of the mobile users have mobile broadband and internet penetration is only 15% for Indian households. All this means that the relief for e-commerce players and e-wallet companies can only be momentary as the things are likely to get back to their default as soon as cash supply is normal.

The Silver Lining

The Indian government has ambitious digitization goals and has been generating a huge response with its “Digital India” initiative. 93% of adults or more than 100 crore people now have biometric-based Aadhaar cards, which are facilitating reduction of black money in the economy. The present government also launched 24 crore Jan Dhan bank accounts recently to improve Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT), which ensures credit subsidies directly into the account of beneficiaries, bypassing middlemen in the process. These steps have made a huge impact towards financial inclusion.

However, despite these laudable efforts, only a little over 50 percent of India’s population has access to banking services. Further, according to World Bank, India suffers from high dormancy rate of around 43 percent – which means that the bank accounts are lying idle.

Digitization of Banking Services

The infrastructural changes will take their time. Meanwhile, banks also need to gear up for the future. The answer lies in Digitization. Although it is too early to gauge the impact of demonetization on economic behavior and practices; emerging trends suggest that the things will be getting better by 2020. According to a Google-BCG report, digital payments industry in India will grow 10 times to $500 billion by 2020 and contribute 15% of GDP. Further, the report predicts that non-cash transactions will surpass cash transactions in the Indian economy by 2023. Yet another report from BCG says that about 315 million people in rural India (or 48% of the total online population) will be connected to the internet by 2020.

As the rural-urban divide becomes less prominent; there is a need to focus on solutions which are friendlier to the unique needs of rural India. Banking and Financial services working elsewhere around the globe cannot simply be replicated in the Indian environment. It is essential to get back to the basics, identify and accept all major challenges and then design solutions which meet the average user expectations in India.

The inspiration for these digital strategies can be drawn from the present. It is reported that social media and email accounts for 70% of internet usage in rural India. ICICI was perhaps the earliest to gauge this behavior when it allowed its users to do banking via Facebook.

icicibank

Others can also replicate the same or at least draw some UX and UI learning from social websites to make banking websites and applications friendlier for a rural user. It doesn’t take too much to design a simpler App for smaller screens and low bandwidth telecom networks. The present home pages for most of the banking websites in India are too cluttered, rely on in-your-face advertising and confuse even a normal internet user.

HDFC Bank

Further local language support is a must to make such solutions work across India. As online commerce picks up, people’s trust and familiarity to card payments and e-wallets are likely to increase. Banks need to incentivize and market such cashless instruments.

While the private banks in India have taken an early lead in digital, public sector mammoth SBI is not far behind. The bank is undergoing a technology transformation and is closer to reducing its downtime to five times per year (near to global standards) from around 50 times per year three years ago. Moreover, one-fourth of SBI’s retail customers on web banking now also use its mobile banking option; a figure which the bank is eager to increase as mobile internet usage becomes more common and affordable for an average user.

Increasing the Investment Appetite

Reducing cash dependency for banking and payments is only one side of the coin. The bigger challenge is to increase the investment appetite and discourage cash-hoarding or jewelry buying habits. It’s a tough nut to crack. A majority of population isn’t comfortable parting its hard earned money with any risk-based investment instrument; they are happy with their savings accounts or fixed deposits.  While aversion to risk is an acceptable factor; lack of awareness, misconceptions, and lack of user-friendly solutions is also responsible for this situation.

India holds huge potential for the financial sector to simplify the investment space for a common internet user. While there are portals like Policybazaar, helping users to compare and select mutual funds; it isn’t much of a help as there are too many options available. According to Sanjiv Singhal, founder, Scripbox an average investor is not equipped to take such decisions. There are more than 8000 mutual funds available in the market and without any solution helping a user with proper analytics; users are left to decide on hunches and friends’ advice. Scripbox is trying to make a difference by simplifying and automating mutual funds investment for users. It’s an early mover in the Indian financial investment space and there’s a lot of room for others to innovate and acquire.

Mobile based applications offer a simple avenue to increase investment awareness among the general population. Further, banks and NBFCs can innovate to create solutions that remove unwarranted fears and streamline investing for a common man.

The Bottom Line

Don’t ask a common man to discard cash – give him solutions as simple as using cash!

Credencys Solutions Inc is a leading software development services and solutions provider which have helped numerous businesses in building strategies for their business growth. Subscribe to our blogs for getting similar articles on management, strategy, leadership and more.

One Critical Factor Affecting all Your Agile Initiatives

A Seattle based million dollar company with more than two decades in the industry recently decided to revamp its delivery department with cutting-edge tools and the much celebrated ERP software, which if successful will be implemented across the board. However, the employee response has not been enthusiastic. The mid-management is reluctant to move beyond emails and delivery heads are citing several reasons to delay the implementation.

Sounds familiar? Consider another one

Alex has spent 15 years in a Fortune500 firm. He has worked on big enterprise projects and has led teams, ensuring deliveries on time and as per clients’ expectations. He has recently joined a new organization, but now he is facing issues implementing his favorite tools and processes for software project management. It has come to the management’s notice that their flagship project is heading nowhere as teams under him are underperforming. Some have complained that he is not the right person to lead them.

The above two stories point towards a common problem which science likes to call as Inertia – the middle age executives at Seattle HQ are afraid of the new software while Alex is unable to work with his old ways in his new organization.

Bringing any change into one’s Organizational Culture is perhaps the biggest challenge any company can undertake. This change becomes even more severe for software firms shifting from Waterfall to Agile. The situation is compounded with limited or wrong understanding of Agile and Scrum. There is a lot of noise, and there is no shortage of firms using Agile as a Marketing buzzword. Some even claim that Agile is dead. Amidst all this, finding the right strategy to successful Agile implementation becomes a big undertaking for any organization.

Yet again there are numerous examples of organizations successfully implementing and advocating Agile.

At Credencys, we have been fortunate enough to develop a clear and simple understanding of Scrum – which is a process that works for us pretty well. We are 100% Agile – even Marketing, Finance and HR teams use QuickScrum. Having said that, I think every organization implements Agile differently; and as long as it works, who cares if it’s 100% Agile or not.”

Sagar Sharma, CTO & Co-Founder, Credencys

So how do you take it forward? If you like Agile – you already have the answer.

Start Small

Before going across the board, start with a small project. Identify people who are more receptive to the ideas of Agile. Bring in Agile Coach or Scrum Masters to guide them. Also make sure that the project isn’t so small that nobody takes it seriously; nor should it be so critical that its failure affects your organization adversely.

Sell Bigtime

Start rewarding small successes in the project (e.g. completion of a sprint). This will start conversations, generating interest across your organization.

In Frank Underwood’s world this is a progress as more people would now be open to trying out the new approach.

Communication. Collaboration. Accountability.

The main issue in transitioning to Agile is people’s affinity to traditional waterfall approach under which teams work in silos (or isolated cubicles) with limited or no visibility into what’s happening ahead. Individuals accept accountability for only their own work. The lack of visibility and collaboration gives rise to incompatibilities and eventually an overall reduction in efficiency. People who have worked all their lives under this environment obviously find increased emphasis on communication, collaboration and shared accountability a bit perplexing.

Agile requires people to be accountable to not only their work but also to their team. Hence, you might allow people to sit in their old cubicles, but make them come together for a daily standup. These meetings will keep them updated about each other’s task progress, providing them a better overview of their project. As sprints progress, the members will have to start working on their team velocity (which you can incentivize) by functioning better as a team, looking after each other and working towards a goal. The sprint retrospective, will give you the best opportunity to assess the overall progress of your transition effort.

Increase Change Acceptance

Waterfall is known for its rigid Scope documents. And it gets worse with the Change Management Board. Clients and the change management rarely agree. The change management processes in waterfall make clients weary of giving feedbacks. On the other hand, the developers are also attuned to saying no to any changes. Agile on the other hand requires everyone to think beyond the scope and introduce any changes to meet end goals in a better way. The planning for requirements is dependent more on developers who should be encouraged to create their own tasks to meet requirements. This approach makes everyone a winner.

Get Everyone Involved

Agile is without hierarchy; and by definition, everyone involved in making a shippable product is part of the team. This means inclusion of analysts, quality assurance staff, delivery managers and DevOps. Hence, you need to ensure that the team is available for supporting the software till it is deployed and reaches stability. If you want Agile to be implemented successfully, development has to be aligned with deployment and production support functions.

Moving on, you may have to face challenges like choosing the correct Agile implementation for your firm – something we would answer in our next blog.

Conclusion

It is okay to start small, but you should plan to make it big. At times it will require you to get your hands dirty. You can take inspiration from Lenovo’s CEO, Yang Yuanqing, who wore a “Hello, my name is YY” card – encouraging his employees to call him by his name. He felt that this was essential for bringing a culture change to work with the west where open communication and equality is a norm. As highlighted throughout this article, getting your people ready for Agile is the major task, tools and processes will follow sooner or later.

Credencys Solutions Inc is a leading software development services and solutions provider which has helped numerous businesses in building strategies for their business growth. Subscribe to our blogs for getting similar articles on management, strategy, leadership and more.