Day: December 13, 2017

#ICYDK: The former director of public prosecutions (DPP), Ken Macdonald, said in written evidence in Lauri Love’s extradition case that it is normal practice to prosecute hackers accused of attacking US servers in the UK – rather than extradite them to the US https://goo.gl/QkPHwH #Technology #IoT

Mobile devices and apps, wireless networks, and collaborative platforms are just a few of the many technologies that are changing how people approach everyday life. We are constantly engaged in experiences that are highly curated, individualized, responsive, and immediate.

But what most people miss is how this moment in human history is creating immense upheaval for HR organizations as they fight to acquire and retain the right talent – and keep them engaged – to compete effectively in a landscape of constant change and disruption.

A lack of digitally enabled HR processes can limit the ability of a company to have the right talent and thereby thwart future growth. This can be an issue for small and midsize companies as indicated in the Forbes Insights briefing report “Competing for Talent in the Digital Age,” sponsored by SAP SuccessFactors, where less than half of surveyed executives cited having an established strategy and undergoing a coordinated transformation.

Would anyone willingly jump back to technology experiences in the workplace reminiscent to those from 10 years ago? Most likely not – people want the same access to digital capabilities they use outside of work. For the HR function, it’s time to start supporting preferred ways of working to help the business run with an engaged, passionate workforce that is willing to do what it takes to help the company succeed.

Redefining the Value of HR in a Digital World

HR strategies and processes touch every employee, manager, and executive within small and midsize businesses, impacting workforce behaviors and productivity. However, the adoption of digital technology can have a significant influence as well. By marrying processes with technology that mimics favored digital consumer experiences, HR organizations can raise their value to every member of the workforce and ignite a wave of engagement rarely seen in most workplaces.

For example, HR organizations can transition the workplace culture into one that values and encourages continuous learning and career advancement by making development opportunities ubiquitous, simple, accessible, and convenient. Employees can take advantage of individualized learning plans relevant to their current role, future aspirations, and short- and long-term changes in their position. New digital technologies, such as machine learning, can better assess the personalized needs of each individual and intelligently suggest relevant learning courses or mentors. Plus, open collaboration platforms can encourage knowledge sharing across the organization.

Learning and development are just the beginning of the full potential of HR digitalization. Managers can make data-driven decisions based on data that has been transformed into recommended courses of action by using these new digital technologies. And they can do it on the go, anytime and anywhere with their mobile devices. Employees can quickly get the right answers to their questions using natural language instead of guessing where to navigate next on a series of menus. But perhaps most important, work becomes an enjoyable experience as the frustration of making decisions with limited information and using latent, complex IT systems become a thing of the past.

Turning HR Digitalization Into a Foundation for Future Success

The transformational power of digital technology is unmistakable in the world of work. HR organizations can effectively foster digital skills and productive habits that align with current needs, while flexibly evolving work experiences to align with new market dynamics and changes in business strategy in real time.

With a range of cloud-based HR technologies available, small and midsize businesses can increase control of the digital capabilities they adopt, keep IT costs low, secure information confidently, and authorize access to the right people anytime and anywhere. The HR function not only streamlines user experiences and accelerates processes, but also creates a foundation for an engaged, informed, and prepared workforce that can handle anything the future brings.
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Find out how small and midsize businesses are digitalizing HR with cloud-based models to create a competitive edge in the digital economy.
Read the Forbes Insights briefing report “Competing for Talent in the Digital Age” sponsored by SAP SuccessFactors.

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David Ludlow is group vice president of Solution Management for SAP SuccessFactors http://bit.ly/2nZhlP3 #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

Spatial Enthusiasts!

The purpose of this page is to provide you with the one-stop-shop for helpful resources for your journey with SAP HANA Spatial. The page will be updated as needed. If you have a recommendation which is missing from here, by all means, please comment. We also offer an interactive workshop, Spatial Innovation Academy. More information to follow soon. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Learning resources

SAP HANA advanced analytics 

Brief overviews of SAP HANA advanced analytics capabilities and additional links. Did you know that HANA supports a wide range of advanced analytics capabilities? Many customers start with spatial. Why? Because your data already has the location data, just like your data has the time data. Soon, customers learn that HANA provides engines for machine-learning, predictive, graph, text, search, time series, and streaming analysis making “connected business” a reality.

Open SAP for SAP HANA Spatial

Delivered by Markus Fath who kindly breaks down key spatial concepts and different components of HANA Spatial for you.

SAP and Esri integration resources

SAP and Esri integration common questions

An interactive SCN blog to answer commonly asked questions about how SAP and Esri solutions integrate and what is supported. It also contains additional links to Esri’s questions-and answer-pages and help guides

Esri website for SAP HANA

The official landing page for Esri support for SAP HANA

Leveraging SAP HANA and ArcGIS

A great slide deck prepared by Esri experts summarising Esri ArcGIS support for SAP HANA

Try out!

SAP HANA, express edition

Download and use up to 32GB free of charge. Fees apply for additional usage. You can run it on your laptop or in a virtual environment on-premise or cloud. Especially handy if you need an environment easily accessible to you to try out spatial functionality, follow tutorials, do sample development, or connect Esri and other GIS tools to HANA.

SAP HANA Spatial Help

Official SAP HANA Spatial reference guide. It is especially useful if you need to look up different functions and capabilities.

SAP HANA Developer tutorial

A step-by-step tutorial. The tutorials are more recommended for hands-on learners whereas the OpenSAP courses are appropriate for both hands-on and non-hands-on learning experience.

SAP Analytics Cloud trial

SAP Analytics Cloud is a SaaS-based Analytics tool for BI, Planning, and Predictive. It includes location analytics among many features. The location analytics features run natively on HANA Spatial and use Esri JS API.

* If you are using SAP Analytics Cloud in a hybrid mode connecting to another HANA instance on-premise or in the cloud, here is the instruction for how to model the HANA data.
* The modelling of HANA data is not necessary if you are importing data into SAP Analytics Cloud in a pure cloud scenario.
* Using Esri shapefiles from SAP Analytics Cloud
* Using Esri Feature layers from SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP HANA and Esri ArcGIS Pro trial offer

Includes:

* An ArcGIS Pro trial, including access to ArcGIS Online
* SAP HANA, express edition.
* Esri Demographic sample dataset.
* Tutorials for working with SAP HANA data in ArcGIS Pro.

SAP Partner applications

SAP App Center

The ultimate marketplace for SAP Partner applications.

* Search Geo ~ 200 results
* Search Location ~ 80 results
* Search Spatial ~ 7 results
* Search Map ~ 1000 results (which most likely includes non-spatial apps)

Industries

SAP Industries page

Esri Industries page

  http://bit.ly/2nWjg6E #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

My daughter Kyra discovered Ted Baker when she was working in London. “The first items I ever bought were a mint green T shirt with a white bow and a cosmetic bag with the French bulldog signature bow,” she says. “And I love how Ted delivers. My cashmere sweater arrived in a beautiful green box in a nest of colored tissue paper.”

Ted sure knows how to delight and deliver. Shops used to be the only point of sale, but with the opportunity to add digital channels, Ted can deliver even better.

Ted ticks all the boxes when it comes to the top trends in fashion retail. The company is thriving because it produces quintessential quality fashion in a sustainable way. The company  deftly “retailtains” its customers by giving them a unique, personalized experience in the store, and at the same time, making shopping so convenient there is no excuse not to indulge.

“Customers don’t have time to wander around endless aisles in large stores. If people can easily shop online and have things delivered at home within hours, you need something really enticing to get them into the physical store,” says Maria Morais, who helped Salmon implement the entire SAP Hybris solution back in 2013 when Ted Baker started its successful digital transformation journey.

“Small specialized stores are perfect for the urban environment,” she goes on to explain. “Although there is no space to stock a large selection of items, technology enables the customer to virtually browse ‘endless aisles’ of goods in the store and have their purchases delivered at home, at work or via click-and-collect at other stores.”

Salmon helps retailers like Ted implement end to end solutions that drive and support ongoing expansion into new markets, helping them gear up for future growth. Most recently they helped Ted introduce a slick payment app using PayPal technology which is used on the employee’s tablet in the store to help the customer securely order and pay for any item in the entire product range, whether it is in stock or not.

 New opportunities for a balanced approach

Ted’s story is just one example of how technology and retail are joined at the hip as they cater to customer demand for convenience. While current trends present enormous challenges to retailers operating out of large stores, they also open a world of opportunity for start ups and entrepreneurs.

“For many retailers, the store is a big black box,” says Guillaume Waline who co-founded Indigo-Media, a futurist shopping solution, with Laurent Meoni in 2015. “There is a lot of information in that box, but they can’t see it, and don’t understand its potential impact on sales. Many players in the retail service industry have come up with solutions to help retailers access data, but there is still a lot of room for improvement in terms of a complete merchandising dashboard.”

Indigo’s solution enables brands and retailers to set up ‘responsive shops’ that collect data to interpret the customer’s behavior in the store as they enjoy interactive shopping experiences.

“Retailers should not sit around waiting,” warns Guillaume. “Those who don’t deliver enhanced in-store experiences and who don’t respond to product performance data during the purchasing situation won’t thrive in the new commercial environment. They’ll have alienated the modern customer and their competitors will outperform them. We can help them transform their stores into smart spaces for a modern society.”

Plenty of space for start ups

Guillaume and Laurent know the current customer in-store experience is not interactive enough. “People still feel lost in the store. If they can’t find products or information, they get frustrated and walk away,” says Guillaume.

Indigo provide brands and retailers with a big data platform, running on SAP HANA with powerful analytical tools, that enables real time merchandising based on data collected through invisible units in the store. “We saw a business opportunity when we realized that retail is an open market for big data. Early on, we applied to the SAP Startup Focus Program,” he adds.

SAP Startup Focus is an accelerator program that works with startups in the big data, predictive and real-time analytics space (machine learning, AI, data security, IoT, mobile, AR/VR), to develop new applications on SAP technology and accelerate market traction.

“The program has been enormously helpful in terms of business development, helping us scale and build a base of new clients. We got to work with leaders in the data market, giving us a cutting edge position and accelerating our go-to market.”

Innovative tools, bright minds and startup programs are all helping retailers like Ted delight customers. “My face lights up when I see a Ted Baker shop,” says my daughter Kyra. And I must say, that ankle length, high neck, floral gown she wore to the registry office for her civil wedding really was stunning.

Follow me on Twitter @magyarj

  http://bit.ly/2zaPkY2 #SAP #SAPCloud #AI