3 Advantages of Incorporating Digitization Into Your Organization

The digital world is a rapidly growing industry, however it is not a new concept and has been around for a while now. Companies are slowly integrating these new concepts into their work. There is also still a ton of work that needs to be done.

Several organizations are making endeavors into the different integration processes for business and customer engagement digitization. Having digital transformation be so prominent as it allows for the use of technology and other digital tools to expand the initial processes. Digital technology has been blended into different departments within a business and has changed the way they function.

There are a handful of companies who have seen more progress than others during the digital transformation process. Regardless, most companies are actually still only considering themselves in the early stages of this new process. This is because most are continuing to work out justifications or arguments that may have come up.

Here are the perks to digitization:

1. Improved Customer Experience

An effortless business calls for having a seamless customer experience.

When integrating digitization and automation into the business, and a client comes in with data they want entered, previously it would’ve been a tedious process, however being digital makes the whole process almost instant.

2. Increased Efficiency within the Organization

Naturally, the digital transformation and transition has made workflow creation and execution more efficient, quicker, and simpler.

While businesses were in the process of transitioning to being digital, they are given the opportunity to make note of what was happening. The improvements that were made helped companies automate labour intensive processes, which makes everything more efficient.

3. Digital Transformation keeps you in the market

As one should, businesses that are successful should keep up to date with their competition. With digital transformation, enabling your organization to run faster and more efficiently, your profits will most probably see an increase.

Any and all of your competitors are familiar with what comes post digital transformation, and you need to recognize that it is an important component for your business’ future.

Incorporating cost management, and quality improvement; they will increase your sales and customer satisfaction, which will then help your earnings to increase. 

In short, digital transformation has the ability to assist your business in growth for success.

The Human Workforce

Increasing the human interaction is a natural model that will help your technique in digital transformation. Anyone from engineers to designers and production managers and all levels are required.

Despite what it is, digital transformation is not just all about technology and tools, in order to be successful, you need balance between humans and technology. Automation is transforming countless industries and employees that are impacted by these technologies must be retrained to make sure they are up to date on the latest opportunities for growth.

Within today’s economy and workforce, it is drastically different from what it used to be 10 years ago. Not only because of the rise in remote work as a new normal, but the gig economy has taken part of this trend.

Every company that gets involved with digital transformation needs to understand the human challenges that control this transformation.

Artificial Intelligence: Machine Learning and Basic Analytics

Artificial Intelligence or AI for short, is one of the driving factors of the digital transformation going to the next level. AI has the ability to analyze patterns in bulk volumes of data.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence work as a team. Machine learning is a subgroup of artificial intelligence and it is what trains a machine how to learn. With this advancement in technology, it has made it astronomically easier to evaluate the amount of data that’s received. Which in result helps with delivering more accurate and useful results.

Nowadays more and more businesses are incorporating AI into their businesses and here’s why:

• To detect fraud that is a universal bug worldwide

• To identify intricate patterns in clients and give notice if something looks unusual

• To grow and create faster, more efficient digitized data

• To identify profitable opportunities for organizations and to avoid unknown risks

Basic Analytics

Having the ability to utilize tools, resources and custom software solutions to complement your business operations is only common sense.

Access to basic analytics is an essential tool to help you have a better understanding about what happens within your organization. AI can help refresh and bring the real power behind basic analytics.

Basic Analytics offers you:

• Ability to create and deliver all the essential techniques

• Ability to focus your attention on what matters for your business, rather than getting sidetracked by irrelevance

• Ability to receive notifications for questionable events

Basic analytics being integrated to AI allows your business to be proactive instead of reactive when doing things for the business.

Advanced Analytics

There are two kinds of advanced analytics: predictive and prescriptive, and they both try to help identify future trends, as opposed to just what the basic analytics offer.

Predictive Analytics: meaning that a problem could happen, like sales being not on track to meet goals. Predictive analytics is the analysis that helps determine where to direct your focus. They are future facing and utilizes trends and raw information to help create plans. Predictive analytics lets you meet your problem head on, and it’s different from any other type of artificial intelligence.

Prescriptive Analytics: offers you more information than predictive analytics and is a different course of action. Prescriptive Analytics will help you search for a more specific goal. They will also not only find the problem, but will help come up with a solution.

Creating action within your business is the main objective, and digital transformation is your best method to help you be successful. Having the technology integrated, you’ll need the best custom software solution at the ready.

Here are ISU Corp, we understand technology and are ready to help out. Reach out to one of our trained experts and we can help you create a custom software solution to assist you with achieving your digital transformation goals.

Top 10 E-Book Apps With The Best User Experience

Technology has changed almost every aspect in our daily life all the way to how we read. E-books have become the new norm when it comes to reading for ease of use and easy accessibility. You can have every single book you want to read all on one device, making portability so much easier.

However once you get an E-book you need a book reading app that is going to make your Ebook experience seamless and enjoyable.

Here are the top ten most popular book apps to choose from:

1. Nook

First on the list is Nook, developed by American Bookseller, Barnes and Noble. Nook offers a satisfying array of books with a collection of over four million books across many different genres. Nook brings convenience by offering features such as bookmarks, highlighting, social sharing options, synchronization across devices and a built-in recommendation system to make it easier to pick your next read. 

2. Amazon Kindle

One of the most well known and popular ebook readers is the Amazon Kindle and for good reasons too. The app comes with a library of over 7 million e books and offers features such as synchronization across devices, brightness and colour adjustment to make reading more enjoyable, and a built-in dictionary. 

3. Google Play Books

So far all the other ebook readers that have been mentioned have been available on both IOS and Android but if you want something that is going to be tailored just for Android then the Google play book reader is for you. It has a night light setting for comfortable reading in bed, as well as a notes feature that you can use while reading that also automatically syncs with google drive. Also, unlike other apps, it is not a subscription based service so you pay for the books you want directly. 

4. Scribd 

Scribd offers a free experience and also has a 30 day free trial before signing up, making this ebook reader stress free and a great customer experience. They have an unlimited sheet music collection, lets you download to listen or read books offline and lets you customize narration speeds for audiobooks. 

5. Apple books

An app that comes downloaded and ready on every IOS device; the apple books app is great for IOS device users as all you need is your pre existing Apple ID to sign up and your ready to go. It also provides great synchronization across all your Apple devices such as Apple watch, ipad etc. It also lets you use the family sharing option with up to 5 members so your entire family can join in on the e book fun. 

6. Kobo Books

Kobo is a free E book reader that offers books in over nine languages and gives the user more of a window shopping experience. Their search feature is easy to use allowing you to access your favourite books based on author, title, topic, and genre. 

7. OverDrive

OverDrive is very different compared to the other Ebook apps mentioned as it covers library-like experience. Instead of buying books you can borrow them from your local library’s digital collection. They have support from over 40,000 libraries worldwide so all you need is an active account with one of the supported libraries to get started. 

8. Moon+Reader

Just like the Google play books app this app is also only available for Android devices. This app has won numerous awards such as the Editor’s choice for 2018. It has a “Keep your eyes healthy” option for the comfort of your eyes, and lets you highlight and annotate within the app, making it great for studying. 

9. PocketBook Reader

This free books app has a wide array of different book formats such as comics, magazines, articles, etc., as well as many different genres. They also support comic books very well with both CBR and CBZ formats available. It also lets you find a book using a barcode scanner so if you have a physical book you would like as an ebook as well, you can just take a picture of the barcode and have it come up instantly. 

10. Audible 

If you love audiobooks this is the app for you. Another Amazon book app, Audible supports millions of audio books and has many features to make your audiobook experience even better, including a sleep timer to stop listening, swap option for exchanging audiobooks and download and listen option for offline access.

If you love Ebooks, using any of the Ebook readers will always provide a comfortable and satisfying user experience. If you want to build an app for your business that will rank top just like the above apps, reach out to us and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

8 Vital Tips to Create Potent SharePoint Team Sites

A SharePoint Team Site helps you to share your thoughts, opinions, and ideas with team members. You can also exchange and synchronize content and information, find insights, and work in a more collaborative way. The platform is quite popular mainly because of its versatility. The numbers speak for themselves as 200,000 organizations use SharePoint worldwide for content management.

In this article we’ll help you incorporate SharePoint in your organization and build productive SharePoint Team Pages, but also ensure that you earn the full ROI on your investment in SharePoint. Here are 8 tips on how to build an effective SharePoint Team Site, based on our experiences.

Tip 1: Construct Your SharePoint Team Site

Think about what your top-level sub-sites are and how you’re going to organize the second and third-level sites as you begin to draft your SharePoint Team Site content and material. Navigation to all the key containers with a basic, clear hierarchy should be included on your homepage, so you can find your information and details faster.

You’d be surprised that a lot of users depend entirely on the smart search feature while choosing to ignore the structure. Although this is a fantastic feature, the end users will often not know which keywords to use to locate the documents they are searching for. They will, however, have a general idea of which libraries to navigate through to find the documents. A structured framework can be very beneficial and significant in increasing the efficiency and productivity of your team.

Tip 2: Modify Your Site Navigation

To customize your site's navigation, you can add, delete, or edit the links on the top navigation bar or the fast launch bar (on the left-hand side, see the image below). This makes it easier for users to find their way around your site. "Click one of the "EDIT LINKS’ options on the homepage of the team site to get started.

If for whatever reason you do not see a "Delete LINKS" option on the homepage of your team, you may not be able to make changes, or your admin may have customized the site to not include the "EDIT LINKS" option on the homepage of the team site. Before you can configure your team site, you need to be a site owner or be granted permission.

Tip 3: Keep in Mind Cross-Device Usability

The fact that your team can access the content from any computer or device at any time is another admired advantage of using a SharePoint Team Site. All that is required is an internet connection. However you need to configure your SharePoint Team Site to be cross-device compatible to ensure that your SharePoint Team Site can be conveniently accessed on all different platforms. Here are a handful of tips:

Sometimes if the top navigation bar and quick launch bar are too long, they won't show on the device being used. Make sure to keep it short and sweet.

To style your content to various devices make sure your SharePoint Team Site uses device channels (part of the SharePoint publishing infrastructure).

Tip 4: On your Homepage Incorporate the Most Frequently Updated Pages

Consider this, what would you like to see on the landing page if you were using a team site for the first time? Would you be able to easily find the content you need if you were a new employee at your organization? Think of the pages that are updated most often and draw more end users. When developing your SharePoint Team Site it’s important to ponder about these things. Good examples include news sites, promotions, corporate activities, job openings, surveys, etc. Display these pages on your homepage with web parts.

Tip 5: Visuals

Simply using text is good and all, however images communicate more effectively. Visuals can offer an exciting look and feel on the homepage of your SharePoint Team Site and can increase the usage rate. In order to improve user engagement, a simple slideshow with pictures of your team is a good element.

Tip 6: Include an Introduction and Guidance

One of the most important things that many users forget to include is a welcoming message at the top of the homepage with a quick introduction to the portal. We recommend including tips like: how to use the SharePoint Team Site. At the end of the introduction, be sure to add a link to an instruction manual that your end users can download. This will serve as a self-training document when your team site is launched and when new hires join your team.

A welcome message on the top of the homepage with a short introduction to the portal is one of the most important items that many users fail to include. Tips such as how to use the SharePoint Team Site, how to keep libraries coordinated, and how to tag. Add a link to comprehensive instructions at the end of the introduction that can be accessed by your end users. When your team site is launched and when new hires join your team, this will serve as self-training content.

Tip 7: Organize Your SharePoint Team Site by Using a Flat Structure

The grouping of your data by metadata rather than files is one of the things you can do with your SharePoint Team Sites. This is referred to as a "flat structure" and relies on marking the content in a particular way. In previous years, this "flat structure with marking" has been commonly used. The three main advantages of a flat structure implementation are:

When you're trying to find the content you need most, you don't have to dig through several layers of folders.

When you use a flat structure approach, you do not need to worry about mistakenly saving content in the wrong folder.

The length of your URL is kept short. There’s a 400-character maximum limit, each folder adds to the length of the URL

If you're going for a flat structure, make sure to correctly plan end-user training and education on how to properly tag your content. One of the downsides of the flat structure is that when you search using common keywords, the search results can be overwhelming. If your end users incorrectly tag your content, it will take longer to locate the correct information/documents and may even lead to loss of information. That is why proper planning and training/education for end-users is a vital part of using your SharePoint team site's flat structure.

Tip 8: Make Changes & Be Flexible

SharePoint is a customizable platform that you can tailor to fit your needs. Have a pilot phase when you first design your SharePoint Team Site, where you can see how it is used by your end users. Be sure to get input from your end users during the pilot period and then make the requisite adjustments to make it your very own team site that meets the needs of your team.

When your team uses your SharePoint Team Site, you will discover expectations and preferences from them that the Team Site does not quite satisfy. SharePoint is a very flexible platform that is highly customizable. This can be used to create an entirely personalized app and platform to suit the distinct needs of your company.

Interested in learning more? Contact us today!