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Cloud computing is a convenient on-demand delivery of various IT resources such as data storage, database, applications, servers, networks, and more. Customers have a unique opportunity to access and release this pool of highly customizable and omnipresent services autonomously. The key reasons businesses embrace cloud are cost savings, reduced workforce, and easy management of their IT workloads. The pace of the global market’s growth is incredible. Cloud was already mainstream the previous year and will hit US$330 billion in 2020. The pandemic also drives cloud services adoption, as the recent research reveals. However, before making a switch, customers need to realize it is not something to break into. It is crucial to learn the privileges of different types of cloud computing, common pitfalls, and possible risks.

Following the tendency of digital transformation, companies worldwide face both new opportunities and hurdles to overcome. On one hand, CEOs get new revenue streams, on the other hand, they have to fight off more targeted and sophisticated cyber-attacks, for which highly professional cyber firms are not a problem anymore. Nearly all C-suite executives from the survey were asked about the core objectives and the majority of them believe their companies will have to cope with severe threats and disruptions in a couple of years. In 2019, 75% of С-level executives named cyber security and technology adoption among their top priorities. Today cyber attackers are seeking highly profitable ways to breach valuable data, such as intellectual property (IP), health records, personal information, or financial data. Thus, they perform complex and the most dreaded crime strategies such as monetizing data access using ransomware or Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. A single malicious email can lead to disruptions in most aspects of business operations.

The fast-paced digitalization provoked by Industry 4.0 has modified the business, creating an extremely changing market. Now, the main focus of Industry 4.0 is to implement tech solutions so that the business and development processes run side by side to make manufacturing and logistics resilient, cost-effective, green, and high quality. The research from APICS, Supply Chain Management Review and Loyola University Chicago finds out that operating a responsible supply chain is an increasing priority for 83% of surveyed. Thus, the companies need to find balance in their growth, profitability and green efforts as the demand drives business to supply chain sustainability.

Originally published at https://www.business2community.com/business-innovation/why-iot-architecture-is-beneficial-for-supply-chain-management-02315025 Gartner forecasted that more than half of major new business processes will consolidate some elements of IoT by 2020. Moreover, up to 26 billion smart devices connected to the internet will be installed, making some $300 billion by the end of the decade.  Also, the study shows that a thirty-fold increase in internet-connected physical devices will dramatically alter the way the supply chain works. Besides, the enterprise and automotive Internet of Things market will grow to 5.8 billion by the end of 2020, meaning a 21% increase from 2019.

Advanced analytics such as big data analytics or business predictive analytics gained its popularity worldwide. And, it’s quite smartly described by the Forbes article as ‘a backbone of executing goals by the modern organizations and governments’. Statista proved the importance of advanced business analytics with the following figure: revenue from business advanced analytics will grow up to 274.3 billion US dollars in 2022. Companies invested a lot to launch big data advanced analytics: Amazon implemented AmazonFresh to gain retail and distribution space in the neighborhood around; Netflix beats out HBO or AMC to ‘bring ‘House of Cards’ into people’s living rooms’ due to massive analytical leap (they counted $4 mln episode cost, but put a price tag of $100 mln per two-season deal). Let’s speak about what advanced and predictive analytics is, how to become a data-driven enterprise successfully, and how to implement big data development solutions to uncover hidden patterns, correlations, and make business more cost-effective, optimizing its outcomes.

The recent banking fraud survey in 2019 revealed that modern financial institutions (FIs) have to overcome many challenges, including cyberattacks, data breaches, slow payments, and adopting digital tools. These hurdles are the main reasons why banks and financial firms have faced low efficiency and decreased customer satisfaction. All this inevitably leads to a drop in revenues. The payments today need to be faster and the security within banks needs improvements. Thankfully, the highly digitized fintech industry offers the solution – EDI or electronic data interchange. For the financial sector, EDI means seamless transactions, enhanced security, automated processes, fewer costs, elevated customer service and more. Look under the hood to see how EDI works.

I think intelligent automation can smooth certain tasks that in the past were impossible to be simplified, so not only will we have a much wealthier civilization, but the quality of work will go up very significantly and a higher fraction of people will have callings and careers relative to today. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. Intelligent Automation as comprising technology in the field of RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) is aimed at enabling business processes automation and digital transformation performance. According to the global Statista survey, 39% of respondents share the opinion that intelligent automation is implemented in their enterprises to streamline operational activities. And 32% more notice it is planned to launch RPA in a year. RPA worldwide revenue is growing constantly as it’s seen in the chart below. CMO of Softomotive, RPA solutions development company, Kyle Kim-Hays described the main 2020 trend of intelligent automation in such a way: “It’s specifically for 2020 that robotic process automation is moving from the field of back-office and IT-focused tasks and moved deeper into the production and day-to-day logistics and supply chain management operations”. So, here we propose to outline the basics of the process intelligent automation, the main challenges of the industry now, to follow successful cases of RPA application in SCM and logistics as well as robotics technologies integration to enhance operational efficiency.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has been declared a global pandemic: the number of cases has passed 1,8 million at the time of this writing. In addition to the human tragedy, there is also a huge impact on business. Currently, the responses to the coronavirus pandemic are dramatic: Governments isolating millions of people around the world The US restricting travel from Europe Thousands of schools shut down Thousands of planes parked Conferences and meetings delayed or canceled Supply chains constrained, disrupted, or closed India postponing visas for all foreign citizens (with some exceptions) Most companies ordering employees to work from home

The majority of organizations have been forced to transition to a remote working environment which has become a real challenge. However, there are some well-known technology companies that have never had a stable coworking space. Stack Overflow, Zapier, Stripe, Automattic, InVision, GitHub and many other companies have always had distributed teams. This was not an obstacle for them to succeed in the market. These companies provide teams with the necessary hardware and software, paid maternity/paternity leave, unlimited vacation, and assist in organizing home-based working spaces. Many of us have used the successful products and services these companies offer. So, how do they manage to build the work and keep everything under control being distributed around different places and without physical face-to-face communication? In this article, we are going to overview the trend of remote working in 2020 and outline effective ways of managing distributed teams.

The remote work is the new normal. The current situation when the pandemic is spread worldwide is another reason to start searching for an out-of-office job. Studies demonstrate that remote workers are more productive, healthier and have a more positive work-life balance. They typically take fewer days off sick, stay motivated for longer, stay in their jobs for longer and prefer their freedom over wage increases. Remote work sounds like the revolution of the 2000s, but it’s not something you can simply switch to and hope for the best. As with anything, there are many challenges to overcome, as well. In this article, we’re looking at remote work challenges and how we overcome them.

The article was originally published here – https://hackernoon.com/software-solutions-and-technologies-to-counter-the-coronavirus-pandemic-xr383y4n BlueDot, a Toronto-based artificial intelligence company, was first to spot the mysterious virus causing pneumonia in Wuhan. On December 30, their systems, backed by machine learning algorithms, flagged the outbreak of a new infectious disease. They alerted hospitals, governments, businesses, and other clients from the private sector about the danger. Only 9 days after BlueDot’s discovery, the World Health Organization (WHO) made an official announcement about the spreading of Covid-19. Not a human, but a smart technology system, alerted the global community. The same way technologies can help us survive this pandemic.

Predictive maintenance is often discussed by McKinsey, an American management consulting company, in its reports. They announced a $1-4T value creation in 2025 because of IoT (Internet of Things) in factory settings globally. And a huge part of this value is the result of industrial analytics and predictive maintenance implementation. Applying predictive maintenance tools isn’t necessarily smooth—most companies discard 98% of the data collected. They’re unable to integrate collected data fully into the operational workflow due to the lack of predictive capabilities. In such cases, predictive maintenance software is one of the ways to adapt collected data into learning necessities to carry maintenance out. To implement the described tool, a variety of PdM solutions are introduced to the market. So, what does predictive maintenance mean and why does it matter? Let’s talk about this and try to identify the basic industry challenges, enumerate PdM benefits, and outline strategies for the successful application of IoT predictive maintenance programs.

What is the most common pain point for a company’s executives? Gartner, the world’s biggest IT research firm, gave a clear answer: demand volatility. Too many reasons—from weather conditions to posts by social media influencers—make buyers change their minds frequently. Worse still, things that reshape customer demands happen quite unexpectedly. Think, for instance, of how the new coronavirus may affect your forecasting, turning it absolutely upside down. There is no magic wand to predict global situations like the “coronavirus effect.” But there are technologies to enhance the accuracy of demand forecasting. Although it will never be 100% accurate, it can be trustworthy enough to help you achieve your business goals. In this article, we look through the most popular forecasting methods, the criteria of a useful prediction, and why it is important for your business.

The recent data breach report shows, that over 500 organizations around the globe experienced a cyber attack during 2019. That’s why businesses now demand an urgent and effective solution to mitigate such costly risks like data breaches. The key takeaways from the Cost of a Data Breach survey include: For the last decade, the medical sector paid the highest price for data breach—near US$6.5 million, which is 60% more than other industries. Cybercriminals steal more than 50% of data, and such breach costs US$1 million more than random data violations. The price of a one million data violation may charge organizations of around US$42 million, while for loss of 50 million data records, they would pay US$388 million. Businesses with incident management experts were able to lower these enormous expenses to US$1.23 million. The current price of cybercrime associated with data in the United States is US$8.19 million, twice more of the global rate. GRC software can help organizations to dramatically minimize the impact of the above mentioned cyber crimes.