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Online backup sites seem to be popping up all over the place lately. All of them have similar features and promises of completely restoring your PC in case of an accident or emergency. It’s no wonder why this is such as huge industry today since having a computer in your household has almost become a commodity.

Even businesses are practicing data warehousing to optimize their daily operation.

If there is one thing for certain in this life it’s that you never know what’s going to happen. You can plan for the best but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It’s better to plan for the worst and hope for the best when it comes to your data. There could be all sorts of accidents or theft happen and you would lose everything on your PC if it wasn’t backed up somewhere. It’s always best to have some form of backup.

Well, I’m pretty sure there any kinds of physical backup such as external drive, CD or even by using pen drive are good enough to go.

But what if a fire breaks out or flood damages out of a sudden? Not to mention thievery.

Keeping a backup off site is a better idea and you can keep a copy in another location just in case something happens. That’s what it called Cloud Storage.

A lot of the problem with users backing up their computers is they only think about it when something goes wrong. At the worst possible time because then they may not be able to retrieve the data. You need a solution that will do this for you automatically so you don’t have to worry about remembering it.

There are some companies that allow you download a file onto your computer then run a program that automatically updates your backup at an online location. The backups are usually encrypted and secure so your data will remain safe even in transit. Plus if a disaster happens, you simply log into your online backup account and download their software to restore your computer. You won’t need to worry about it again. The costs of these services vary, but some are around $60 per year depending on what sort of capacity and options you would like. Remember it’s always best to backup before you have any problems in order to keep your data safe.

As the Internet gets faster and computer users store more and more valuable information on their PCs, online backup services have taken off as a secure way to back up data. They’re extremely beneficial to virtually every type of computer user, and if you don’t already have a backup solution, there’s really no better way.

Take a look at a these 4 solid reasons to use an online backup service for your data backup.

* Its automatic. Most online backup services use a proprietary program that runs constantly in the background on your computer. They can be set to back up data once a day, multiple times, or whenever key files are changed. Since the backup is regulated by the program and not by the user, it avoids user error that can cause data loss–i.e., forgetting to back up before a hard drive failure or other catastrophe. You need to make sure that the program is properly set up, but after that point, data is backed up on a perfectly regulated schedule.

* it’s remote. Since data is backed up to a storage server (owned by the company that puts out the data backup software), you don’t have to worry about floods or other natural disasters that would destroy your backup copies if you used a more conventional method of data backup. Many online data backup customers worry about something happening to the actual servers, but usually companies run several servers and use RAID 5 configurations which make data loss at the server end all but impossible.

* it’s cheap. Many online data backup services charge $5 a month–pCloud even offers some free data backup. External hard drives, in contrast, often cost $100 or more, and don’t offer the same backup security as the online services. As far as bang for your buck goes, online data backup services are clearly worth the cash if you need to back up data and you’ve got a fast Internet connection.

* it’s secure. Most online data backup services (but not all) use extremely secure encryption, so if someone gets a hold of your data via the website’s server, they can’t get into it unless they’ve got your password. Note that this means that you can’t get into your own backed up data too without a password, so be sure to keep your password backed up in case you ever need to restore from a backup session.

Do you use an online backup service? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. http://bit.ly/2CqGeGT #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

Hudson Yards was the location for a kick-off Summit establishing a new Digital Procurement Think Tank Community. We welcomed analysts, executives, and thought leaders to brainstorm with us on the future of Procurement, and broke them out into eight teams for a Design Thinking program.

I’m always hesitant to overstate things, opting for a more conservative approach. That’s why I would never say that Team Michelangelo embodied their namesake’s skill and delivered a result rivaling the majesty of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. Never.

It’s completely true, though. Here’s the story of how this who’s who of Procurement visionaries collaborated to produce the stunning vision of CVO Rising.

Assembling after a morning of thought-provoking presentations and concept demonstrations, the team got straight to work. They began by brainstorming all of the challenges they have observed in the areas of procurement and supply chain.

Different prices for the same inventory
Slow cash collection (aging issues)
Too much tactical activity so we can’t focus on strategic
Poor visibility into supply chain performance and risk

Over sixty Post-It notes later, we had the makings of a map. Grouping common issues together, their ideas clustered into eleven distinct categories: supplier onboarding, channel optimization, process efficiency, visibility, risk, organizational positioning, adoption, market intelligence, compliance, finance, and master data. All significant challenges, but we needed to focus.

Respecting their expertise and the merits of a democratic process, the team voted. From that exercise, three core challenges rose to the top:

* Adoption: Stakeholders don’t get procurement involved early in the process when they have a need.
* Master Data: Out of date, duplicated, inconsistent naming conventions of vendor and product data.
* Positioning: Difficult to do business and help procurement to evolve/transform for the future.

As we reviewed these problems and their underlying causes, a pattern emerged. There was a strong tie between how procurement was viewed in the organization (Positioning) and how well the business engaged with procurement (Adoption). The team observed that business users don’t always understand the value or role of procurement. This can be due to a strict or cumbersome process that lacks visibility, compliance, and enforcement. It can also be tied back to procurement’s history of being viewed as a purely operational function. But what is the impact?

If those concerns aren’t mitigated, the business suffers. It produced friction between procurement and other functions, especially finance. It limits procurement’s ability to drive change. It makes it less likely that talented employees are interested in joining procurement. It increases risk and leads to issues downstream, with supplier proliferation and non-compliance. Most significantly, these issues lead to missed opportunities to create value for the enterprise. So what can be done?

With an eye on enabling change, the facilitators posed a simple yet challenging question to the team: How might we position procurement to be viewed as a strategic function? Never shying away from a challenge, the team jumped right in, sharing ideas and building on each other’s contributions.

What about talent rotation programs to cross-pollenate procurement with other business functions?

What if we used AI to identify opportunities for risk mitigation or savings in real-time and presented those tasks as daily to-do reminders for employees?

How about modeling corporate outcomes in a dashboard to show current performance compared to what would be possible if procurement were brought in to manage costs?

With ideas flowing as swiftly as the waters of The Deluge, a core theme emerged: advanced technologies hold the promise of using intelligent automation to manage procurement’s operational and tactical tasks, freeing the CPO to focus squarely on business value. But if the CPO’s focus is no longer on the activities historically associated with procurement, is it still accurate to call her the Chief Procurement Officer? Coming together as one, the team faced an existential crisis. Who is the CPO without procurement?

Aided by the surprising Renaissance-level artistry of SAP Ariba’s own Phil Beck, the team’s vision came to life. With the CPO fallen, an evolution was underway. Out of the smoldering ashes of operational procurement, laid low by the implementation of new technologies, a phoenix emerged. With value in its eyes and transformation in its heart, the majestic creature soared skyward.
In that moment, the team watched in humble amazement as it witnessed a new dawn… The CVO Rising.

If you’re interested in learning more about emerging technologies and their potential impact on Procurement, check out our recent paper, Intelligent Procurement from SAP Ariba.

I also invite you to leave a comment below if you have an opinion on whether new technologies might allow today’s CPO to evolve into tomorrow’s CVO.

Best,

Scott http://bit.ly/2CqSLKb #SAP #SAPCloud #AI

2017 has been an interesting year for small businesses as there have been a variety of different software platforms and different forms converged through data infrastructure. Video conferencing solutions and cloud-based management platforms are becoming more prominent.

We’ve also seen the internet of things (IoT) take shape and form on a lot of business ideas with a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR). We’ve also seen negative impacts with that of cyber-attacks against businesses.

Some of these trends we are happy to leave behind in 2017, while others continue into 2018. Today, we will go over the most prominent trends we’ve seen in 2017.

WannaCry & Ransomeware Target Small Business

Consumers experienced Ransomeware and WannaCry holding their systems hostage in order to blackmail the user for money. 2017 became a prime target for small businesses using both WannaCry and Ransomeware as they started exploiting small businesses with record success.

This led to a significant increase in small businesses setting up backup systems within the cloud. According to some media report’s cyber criminals collected more than $100,000 within a two-week period of a major attack suspected by North Korea. With these attacks, many business owners had to pay, or face the consequences. Thankfully, credit repair services helped out business owners who had their credit score damaged.

Cloud Migration Extending to the Future

One of the most prominent trends we saw in 2017 was that from cloud migration. In a recent study done by IDC for small and medium businesses (SMB) found that 70 percent of small companies with 10 to 99 employees were integrating cloud use into their businesses. IDC also showed that 90 percent of medium-sized businesses with 100 to 499 employees were integrating into the cloud.

The cloud migration is significant for technological advances, software, and the IoT and will continue to grow significantly in the future according to a market estimate in Forbes. Even those who weren’t a fan of the cloud saw it as a safe way to store data. In a report from Spicework on IT saw that companies that had less than 100 employees had 46 percent relying on cloud communication, while 42 percent of these companies used the cloud for a backup system.

Emerging Technologies Slowly Moving Forward

As we briefly talked about earlier, the IoT, AI, and AR are moving forward. Many large companies continue to experiment to great lengths with these technologies, while the sentiment is slowly being integrated into small businesses. According to a report from Spicework, only 29 percent of small businesses had adopted IoT while 13 percent had adopted AI tech.

Trust has to be built in small businesses among that of increased profit. When technology is new, people and businesses are hesitant until it has been proved, tried and tested. Experimental tech only gives half promises, and sometimes there can be problems and bugs. Anything good takes time and small businesses are slowly adapting to these technologies, and this will continue into 2018 and beyond.

Future Thoughts

Small business growth has always thrived when the economy is good and there is room for future growth within specific industries. This 2017, we saw more outlook within the IT industry when it came to Cloud migration, IoT, AI, and AR helping businesses function soundly while keeping them safe from cybercriminals that use Ransomeware or WannaCry. http://bit.ly/2DBs4lH #SAP #SAPCloud #AI