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Connected Products – The Smart Way to Transform Businesses

Smart phone with Internet of things (IoT) word and objects icon,Internet networking concept.

Information Technology, repeatedly has brought tremendous opportunities for businesses to gain competitive advantage. Over the past fifty years, there have been two significant waves, where IT radically reshaped competition and strategy. The first wave came in during the 1960s when IT transformed the manufacturing sector with automated value chains and CAD. The businesses which took this leap made tremendous gains, with the operational benefits and productivity increase. The second wave was the Internet. Companies in the 1980s witnessed, even more productivity increase through the coordination and inter-connectivity between suppliers, vendors, channels and even geographies.

Today, we are riding on the third wave of digital transformation. Gone are the days when we thought of Internet of Things (IoT) as a phenomenon of the future. IoT is already transforming businesses and competition in ways never imagined before. And, as the IoT wave continues to spread, businesses will have to re-imagine their business models and how they think about profitability.

The Evolution of Product to Product-as-a-Service

While the first and the second IT waves changed the way business is done,   the third wave will transform the products themselves. Products will evolve from being standalone units to complex systems involving hardware components, sensors, storage, microprocessors, software and connectivity modules. They will no longer be a one-and-done deal. They will enable businesses to understand and respond to consumer behavior, which was never possible before.

They will enable businesses to understand and respond to consumer behavior, which was never possible before. This ability to gain real-time understanding of consumer behavior makes it bigger than the first and second waves of IT revolution. Getting insights right from the point where a customer is browsing through a store, buying a product to using it and thereby figuring out what more can be done to enhance the experience is a tremendous opportunity in itself.

Smart Connected Products

Smart connected products are essentially products equipped with the capability of capturing and sending real-time data from your products to your network where they can be analyzed to derive meaningful business insights. For example, Schindler’s PORT Technology reduces elevator wait times by as much as 50% by predicting elevator demand patterns, calculating the fastest time to destination, and assigning the appropriate elevator to move passengers quickly. Businesses capturing data from their products will unlock their potential for:

Better insights on product usage, which can open opportunities for new functionality

Enhance customer satisfaction

Identify new revenue streams

Increase profitability

Businesses selling or renting out hardware products which, back in the days, comprised of only electrical and mechanical parts, will soon be competing in the market place with smart connected products. This essentially means that the industry structure would change and these products will expose businesses not only to new opportunities but also to new threats.

Adapting to these changes will entail that the business will have to make strategic choices around how this data is collected, maintained and utilized for value creation and value capture. For example, in medical devices, monitoring will be the core element of value creation. Medtronic’s digital blood-glucose meter uses a sensor inserted under the patient’s skin to measure glucose levels in tissue fluid and connects over the Internet (wireless) to a device that alerts patients and clinicians up to 30 minutes before a patient reaches a threshold blood-glucose level, enabling appropriate therapy adjustments.

The conclusion

With Smart connected products in the market, opportunity of product differentiation will expand and move away from traditional “price only” competition. The new age of competition will be based on enhanced service offerings, value added services, customization for niche segments probably with a higher price margin etc. It’s time that the businesses start thinking on these strategic lines.

What do you think about the potential of connected devices? And what can be the challenges of this revolution for businesses. Do you think it will add value to your business? Do share your thoughts.

Note: This is an introduction blog. In my next blog, I will talk about what smart-connected products can actually do, with real-life scenarios and what impact they have on business. We will also delve deeper into few specific industries to help you understand this revolution better.

By,

Soumika Sarkar

Business Analyst – Digital Business Consulting, RapidValue

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Evolving Technology Trends in Self Service HRMS

Enterprises need to build HRMS services with capabilities that is essential in the current business environment. Businesses need to emphasize on more agile and scalable solutions. Technology has moved from mobile to cloud and there is an explosion in analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). The emergence of newer tools for HR professionals has proved to be a boon as it helps in making better human resources decisions.

The Evolving Technology Trends

With the quest to improve and desire to stay at the top, enterprises bank upon technology to implement cutting-edge solutions. Over the last couple of years, enterprise mobile apps have done a remarkable job in improving employee productivity and reducing infrastructure costs. To stay ahead of the technology curve, enterprises have to take a step forward and revamp their mobile suite with the following latest technology trends:

Chatbots

Chatbot is a program conducting conversation in the form of a text or audio. Chatbots can take instructions from the users and execute various transactions. It proves to be appropriate for making the HRMS mobile app as a self-service app. Some of the typical user scenarios that can be automated with Chatbots are:

Call center help desk: You are able to automate the response provided to the employee calls to help desk regarding HR, Accounts, Admin or Payroll concerns. A simple use case will be that an employee can get details about the per diem policy of the company for business visits.

Chatbot approvals: A chat requesting an approval of a record change or leave application can be sent to a manager for approval. Manager can interact with the Chabot and take informed decision.

Analytics: Chatbots can collect real-time analytics to figure out what kind of queries are appearing frequently. This helps the HR admin to make necessary amendments in the process or take informed decisions to resolve the high priority concerns.

Form filling: HR department often requires the employees to fill lengthy forms. The same can be automated with Chatbots. It can fill forms and at the same time, provide answers to related queries.

Touch ID Login

Get rid of the task of remembering passwords and login with biometric fingerprint authentication technology. A user can configure both left and right thumb prints on the phone and can securely login to application.

Unified SSO Login

Create highly scalable mobile app with a unified SSO login that can create an authentication session which enables the app to talk to different backend systems, simultaneously. SSO mechanism, like ADFS, establishes an identity federation by implementing a trust between security realms of multiple systems. This is achieved by implementing federation servers, one each, on accounts and resources side. The federation server on the accounts side will authenticate the user through active directory domain services and issue a security token that will contain identity and claims about the user. The federation server on the resources side will validate the security token and will, in turn, give another token for the local servers to accept user’s asserted identity and provide controlled access to their resources and services.

Usage Analytics

Monitor app performance and take proactive steps to ensure better usage and high adoption. Mobile backend systems, like MCS, provide analytics API that can integrate with mobile app code to log transactions in the form of events. The mobile backend receives events from mobile app in the form of REST calls along with JSON payload, which provides contextual information like a user’s location, the start and end of a user session, and details about the user’s mobile device. Mobile developer could use various SDK options to customize the REST / JSON payload calls in order to generate specific analytics reports, via Oracle MCS. The analytics reports plots the frequency of incoming events versus the specified time periods. Some of the examples of reports are:

API call count

API response time

New users

Active users

Session count

Session duration

User retention with funnel analysis

Apart from the reports, a developer can write custom code to get specific information from the HR data. Some of the sample scenarios can be:

Absence management: Custom report dashboard can send alerts for increase in sick leaves. A rise in ‘sick leave’ absence request API calls can be an alarm for disease spreading. The HR admin can take appropriate measures regarding hygiene or employee vaccination decisions based on such leave trends.

Benefits administration: By analyzing custom reports depicting the trends in benefits plan enrollment in terms of API calls and time of the year, HR admin can decide on strategizing various discounts on bundled health plan enrollments to ensure comprehensive and economic coverage for employees.

Push Notifications

Improve enterprise communication; make enterprise level announcements as a pop-up on employee’s mobile device. Users do not have to be logged into the app or use their devices to receive them. Notifications can provide timely awareness about tax documents, submission deadline, information update, holidays, appraisal cycles, missed weekly time entries etc. to:

A specific device ID or a collection of device IDs

A specific user or a collection of users

All users and devices associated with a specific mobile backend

Devices or users for a given operating system (iOS, Android or Windows)

Chat messaging along with video conferences

Ensure prompt and encrypted communication between employees with enterprise chat messaging available on company network or VPN or over the internet. An employee can directly ping or make a video /audio call to anyone after searching through employee directory in HRMS app.

Oracle HRMS App

HRMS mobile app, pre-loaded with the above mentioned features, sums up to be a powerful self-service solution. The app seamlessly integrates with Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and other existing enterprise systems. The product focuses on enhancing employee productivity by automating back office functions along with informed business decision -making and improved collaboration from anywhere, anytime. The modular approach in developing the app allows it to be easily adapted to the client’s corporate design, themes, logos, custom functionalities and special security requirements like MDM wrapping, API gateway integration and SSO login.

HRMS self-service product is ideal for customers who need a comprehensive solution to automate self-service process in a quick, scalable and secure manner. The app is built on cross-platform ionic framework and the front-end and back-end code is carefully written to ensure modularity of individual functionalities. Commonly used directives like attachment, fingerprint login with SSO, chats and PDF reader are created in such a manner that they can be reused as plugins.

The app can easily accommodate the varied tech stack availability of an enterprise. It is highly compatible with cloud-based (Oracle MCS/ ICS) or on-premise (custom Java / OSB/ BizTalk) Middleware options. Security for enterprise database is ensured with VPN connections and reverse proxy servers in the DMZ layer. The app can be wrapped easily with MDM certificate to allow better enterprise control on devices. The loosely coupled functionalities of the app supports easy scaling up. And can add more functionalities like appraisal management, employee expense claim, recruitments etc.

Other Key Features of the App

View and edit employee profile

View and edit employee personal information

Benefits administration

Effective leave planning using team calendar

View absence summary and details

Absence dashboard

Apply and approve absence

Employee directory along with organization chart

Manage notifications

View pay slips

Maintain document of records

Multi language support

Time-entry

SIT and EIT’s

Offline review

Conclusion

These latest technology trends are considered to provide scalable access to organizational information in real-time. The technologies help to bridge the communication gap by allowing immediate access to crucial information at all times. The concept of Chatbots is sure to gain momentum as they rise in popularity. Tasks that needs analysis and reasoning, and are backed by sufficient data can be interfaced with users using message bots. The technology trends are the future for many time-consuming tasks that will be handled in a convenient and hassle-free manner. HRMS app is sure to benefit the employees.

By,

Saurabh Bahree

Senior Mobility Consultant, RapidValue

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Chatbots: Changing the Way Enterprises Communicate

What is a Chatbot?

Chatbot, or sometimes just referred to as bots, involves developing an intelligent chat system that can hold meaningful conversations with users. With the evolution of Natural Language Processing (NLP), Chatbots became the next logical step for businesses to consider.

Why Chatbot for Enterprise?

Chatbot is available 24X7.  You never miss that query from a customer and the opportunity to acquire or retain them. Your customers won’t have to read the message, “Our next available agent will get back to you within 24 business hours”. Rather, they get instant service.

Bots can multitask and take the load off from your human task force. Customers would  prefer talking to someone rather than go through your endless FAQ section every time they have an issue or a query. While your agents are able to handle few customers at a time, Chatbots can handle many.

These Robo-advisors can suggest the products or services, as per your requirement and the feasibility.

As part of a shift in buying behavior, we see customers more armed with information before they buy.  They are looking for easy access to the information that solves their problems and Chatbot will hold the key in the coming days.

Where do You Use Chatbots?

Chatbots converse with humans to provide service and that’s exactly when and where you use them.  Look into your organization’s services that have least changes in its process/procedure while requiring more human intervention. Start with the most repetitive tasks with least complexity that can be automated and a trained bot can handle them going forward. You effectively, can make your human task force focus on more complex areas by doing this.

Are you contemplating on using them interactively, capturing customer information? You are thinking on the right track. Organizations have even found Chatbots to be valuable in engaging and retaining talent.

The most common mistake organizations make is to apply Chatbot all over the service you opt for implementation.  Chatbot is built based on intelligence and natural language processing.  This means that bots, like humans, need to be trained to understand user intentions, rules and procedures. Ideally, you should select few use cases within the service which could benefit from using a Chatbot and develop it.  You need a fully conversational bot on a particular topic rather than a bot that talks but provides questionable responses. Add more use cases as you continuously, train your bot.

Chatbot: Behind the Scene

You will need to be aware of different elements required to make a Chatbot work.  Chatbot has a mix of components that need to be put in place for it to be effective.

We will need a communication channel where the dialogues/chat will take place such as Skype, Facebook messenger, Slack, etc.

A component is needed to understand the user’s intention from their chats using a plethora of frameworks available for natural language understanding. You can either develop a bot from scratch using Bot Development Frameworks provided by Microsoft, Amazon, etc. or choose to go with an existing platform on which you will develop your bot known as Bot Platforms.

The bot will need access to relevant information from which it can provide the answers.

Training the bot for contextual understanding and responses.

How to Get Started?

Organizations have seen rapid adoption of chatbots in mainstream communication with customers.  It is necessary to start quick and yet, there is the need to see if it is a viable solution, before you take the plunge.  The best way to start is to do a POC (Proof of Concept) that will help ascertain your understanding and put your ideas into implementation on a small scale, then scale-up eventually.

For a POC, the following steps can be considered:

Discuss with your stakeholders

Initial understanding of the business and a specific service where the bot can be applied.

Identifying the business problem for which the bot can be a suitable solution.

Evaluating specific use cases for human interaction from the business problem.

Defining success criteria for POC.

Based on the above discussion points, the service provider should

Define the goal of the Chatbot.

Design the conversation tree for the Chatbot.

Identify the Chatbot architecture and required bot development framework or bot platform.

Train the Chatbot for a particular area so that it can answer queries by itself.

Deploy and integrate the Chatbot with existing systems for rollout.

Conclusion

Summarizing it, a simple rule for identifying areas where chatbots can be applied is to look for aspects or factors which help you to:

Reduce cost for your organization

Minimize human effort

Reduce time taken to complete a service

If you have any questions on chatbots and how it can digitally transform your organization, You can reach out to me.

Harsha Bindu Business Development Manager, RapidValue

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Machine Learning – Playing a Key Role in Achieving Artificial Intelligence

The Rise of Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence is the future. There is no doubt that Machine Learning and/or Artificial Intelligence has increasingly gained more popularity in recent times. Sometimes, these  buzzwords – Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are often used interchangeably. Though much interrelated, they are not the same thing.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a broader concept. It is a branch of computer science which deals with intelligent and smart devices. These machines are capable of performing tasks which are representative of human behavior and intelligence.

And,

Machine Learning (ML) is simply a way of achieving AI. It is a field which gives computers, software and devices the ability to perform via cognition. These machines have the capability to learn without being explicitly programmed.

An approach to implement Artificial Intelligence

In the earlier days, we tried to replicate human behavior by programming the computers with a lot of logical rules and algorithms, eventually thinking that if we have enough of these rules, we could end up having a computer with “mimicked” human behavior. Then people realized that it is not possible to teach computers everything about the world, rather it is important to make them learn on their own. It is this blend of algorithms, statistics and learning from data which is called Machine Learning.

Artificial Intelligence is the required brain needed to build smart machines, while Machine Learning  provides potential solutions for getting it implemented.

What’s next?

As Big Data is the current trend in the tech industry, Machine Learning has gained immense popularity as it has the ability to predict or suggest based on large amount of input data. But to get the maximum benefit, businesses should know which business process algorithm to select and pair so as to build models and train the machine. Some of the most common and key ML algorithms are:

Random forests

Decision trees

Boosting – Gradient and XG boosting models

Neural networks

Deep learning

However, along with knowing the algorithms, businesses should also, learn to pair them with right processes. Few of them include:

Data exploration

Data quality and its management

Comparison between different ML models and picking the best performer

Automated predictions on outcomes and generating levels of confidence

Industry-specific Applications

Most of the industries have already started using Machine Learning to gain meaningful insights from large amount of data they already had. With this, they are able to gain a competitive edge and work more efficiently.

Some of the industries using machine learning applications are:

Manufacturing        

Predictive Maintenance – Use of Machine Learning can predict when maintenance should be performed and thereby, prevents unexpected equipment failures. The underlying principle is to perform maintenance at a scheduled point in time when the maintenance activity is most cost-effective and before the equipment loses performance within a threshold.

Conditional Monitoring –  Manufacturing systems and processes are becoming increasingly complex, driving decision-making in ‘process control’ a necessity. With condition monitoring, maintenance and other actions can be scheduled beforehand to prevent failure and avoid consequences. Using ML, predictions can be made in advance for those conditions which shorten a normal lifespan of an activity.

Process Optimization – When optimizing a process, it is important to maximize one or more of the process specifications while keeping other constraints same as before. The goal is to minimize the cost and maximize the efficiency.

Demand Forecasting – It is easier to predict the future demand for a product or a service on the basis of past events and current trends using ML algorithms. This can be applied to inventory management, production planning or in assessing the future capacity requirements.

Banking and Financial Services

Fraud Detection – Machine learning algorithms are able to detect and recognize thousands of patterns on a user’s purchasing journey and thus, is more useful in preventing fraud detection. Automated fraud screening systems powered by machine learning can help businesses in reducing fraud.

Risk Analytics – Predictions about risk scores for individual customers can be made with certainty using ML algorithms. It can also help to accelerate and streamline risk processes to reduce costs from credit losses and manage operational risk.

Credit Worthiness Evaluation – When a business applies for a loan, the lender must evaluate whether the business can reliably repay the loan principal and interest. Lenders commonly use measures of profitability and leverage to assess credit risk. Machine learning contributes significantly to modeling these applications.

Customer Segmentation – There are different algorithms available which can help in segmenting the customers based on their purchasing habits. It helps to identify the likelihood of future purchases.

Retail

Market Segmentation and Targeting – With the help of large datasets available, it is now possible for marketers to improve targeting, response rates, and overall marketing ROI by studying and analyzing the consumer spending habits and purchasing behavior.

Product Recommendation – E-Commerce websites are an excellent example in this category. Based on customer purchases, it is possible to predict and recommend similar products or product accessories. In this way, it provides a personalized experience to each customer.

Inventory Planning – Rapid changes in business requirements and the complexity of factors influencing demand are making it difficult to accurately model the causes of demand variation. Machine learning can help companies overcome this challenge. They help in forecasting the demands and thus, in planning the inventory effectively.

Energy and Utilities

Smart Grid Management – It is now, possible to connect sensors, smart meters, and various soft wares to forecast the consumption and monitor assets to improve efficiency. Machine Learning helps in building an energy grid system with smart solutions which helps in reducing outrages.

Power Usage Analytics – Applying machine learning algorithms to large datasets available for utilities data can help in uncovering consumer consumption patterns, managing energy constraints and, detecting and preventing fraud.

Energy Utilization and Optimization – Significant energy savings can be achieved in many manufacturing industries through process integration. Energy utilization can be monitored and optimized based on consumption patterns and seasonal variations.

Travel and Hospitality

Dynamic Pricing – Without the actual need to manually define complex pricing rules, it is now possible to fix the prices dynamically. Thanks to machine learning by which the prices get optimized every time whenever a user is performing any action on it. It keeps on learning itself and predicts whether to display the original price or the discounted price.

Aircraft Scheduling – Many airlines use different techniques to create robust and reusable predictive models to provide a holistic view of operations and enhance business value. Using ML algorithms, it is possible to predict the flight delays, monitor, and improve flight operations.

Traffic Patterns and Congestion Management – Advanced machine learning algorithms can be augmented with real-time data visualization to predict the traffic patterns so as to manage congestion. It is now possible to identify the relationships and gain meaningful insights to take appropriate actions to improve the traffic flow and minimize delays.

The Way Forward

It is essential for organizations to automate the business processes by accurately analyzing huge amount of data to identify trends and patterns. With the help of the ML experts, you are able to get help in identifying opportunities which can be profitable for your business in the future.

Priya Pariyani Pre-Sales Consultant, RapidValue

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Industrial Revolution: The Rise of Smart Manufacturing in 2018

What came first was steam, then electricity and the birth of mass production, followed by computers and automation. And now we have Industry 4.0 or the fourth Industrial revolution.

According to the industry experts, the fourth revolution is going to surpass them all in terms of benefits. The industrial internet will increase operational efficiency and return on assets (ROA) to levels never imagined before. And all this will be achieved through the Internet of Things (IoT).

Smart Manufacturing – Improving Operational Efficiency

The manufacturing industry is leading the IoT revolution, and the reasons are plenty, starting from efficiency, automation, customer-centricity, competitive benefits and the advantages which are offered by using data across the manufacturing value chain and to tap into new revenue sources, a key aspect of digital transformation in manufacturing.

Industry 4.0 talks about the concept of “Smart Factories”. These are factories in which all equipment and machineries would be monitored by cyber-physical components. This means you would no longer require field engineers to go around every hour monitoring the equipment. Sensors will do that for you and send signals, as often as required, to a centralized control system, which can process and monitor those signals. Automating the monitoring part implies that there will be no misses or human errors in identifying issues.

Not only monitoring, but also maintenance would transform from being reactive to predictive. Your historical sensor data would be used to predict a possible breakdown and the system would generate alerts for the right person to take action at the right time, thereby preventing downtime even before it occurs.

This will be coupled with other business relevant insights and self-service dashboards which will help you make the system do the work for you.

Implementing Smart Manufacturing – Understanding the Potential Benefits

Given the complexity and breadth of the manufacturing industry, there are many more use cases, starting from field service and asset monitoring, as discussed above, to asset management, facility management, logistics and ecosystem, customer preference and behavior, quality control, production flow monitoring and many more.

All these features are remarkable and they can work wonders for your business, if implemented the right way. As the saying goes, ’Simplicity is not a simple thing’, and no matter how simple the end results are, implementation needs expertise in technology as well as in business.

Below are some aspects you need to ponder upon before taking the technological plunge towards a ‘smarter’ tomorrow:

1. Data Security: If a manufacturing factory is hacked into, it can result into wasted time, revenue, product and possibly, reputation. Businesses that take action and get ahead in terms of IoT security will be better situated to take advantage of the cutting-edge technology rather than getting bogged down by cyber attacks.

2. Reliability and Stability of the Solution: Once automated using the Internet of things, your processes would change. This means that the industrial internet will be the heart of your business process and thus, it must always be up and running. It should also, be able to handle traffic load and be scalable.

3. Implementation based on your Business Requirements: Needless to say, the business logic has to be properly implemented. Of all things that can be monitored, you need to fathom what will add value to you and your business.

The goal is not to have an abundance of data but a plethora of insights. The insights gained with an integrated IoT approach from the customer side are also, crucial and capable of enabling the businesses to offer better products, quality and services.

The Future of Factories

The benefits of IoT are manifold and they vanquish the risks involved. Nonetheless, they need to be dealt with. With expertise in handling such implementations, dealing with them becomes easy. Hence, business owners must always consider the technical as well as business expertise of partners for a seamless digital journey. Industry 4.0 is known to have been powered by certain advancements and they are smart manufacturing, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). A shift to smart manufacturing ensures that businesses save much money and translate into greater profits, along with producing more jobs and healthier economies. Our machines are moving into a more complex age, so are our workers and products, ushering in a new era of production. There is a necessity to capitalize on smart manufacturing as it is considered to be a strategic asset for growth. This is the age of re-imagining the future of smart manufacturing with digital factories.

By, Soumika Sarkar Business Analyst – Digital Business Consulting, RapidValue

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Robotic Process Automation: Stepping up the game for Financial Institutions

Early 2017 an insurance company set a new benchmark by processing a claims payment in as less as 3 seconds without any paperwork. Powered by Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics, the firm is bringing in newer ways to simplify processes and improve customer experience.

As financial institutions continue to optimize and automate core business processes, new technological innovations are fast emerging. One such innovation is Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which is basically the use of intelligent software to automate data intensive and repetitive manual tasks.

The traditional style

The financial services sector is highly dependent on documentation and legacy systems. From back office operations to account management to transactions, a huge amount of document gets processed and generated daily. By applying RPA to these tedious jobs, financial firms can drastically improve their business performance. In the financial services sector data is getting created at an unprecedented rate through multiple channels and platforms. Managing it manually often leads to data inaccuracy. RPA can help financial firms transfer, manage and migrate system data rapidly ensuring optimal resource utilization and enhanced employee productivity. It’s observed that the IT teams of financial firms often spend too much time in manually performing administration tasks like running batch processes, taking backups etc. With the help of RPA, IT teams can continuously monitor system performance and predict issues faster, making their job more reliable and efficient.

Let’s see how RPA is getting implemented in some of the key areas in the financial sector.

Making insurance underwriting predictable: RPA is helping insurers leverage the power of real-time data analysis and predictive analytics enabling their end-users manage risks and avoid losses more effectively. With insurers becoming more of risk mitigators and advisors from being mere claims processing agents, RPA is changing the conventional ways of insurance underwriting.

Modernizing Finance and accounting: In finance and accounting, RPA solutions are getting deployed for automating data entry, account reconciliation, managing transactions and maintaining master data. Firms have started using robotics to audit expense reports, manage invoices, process vendor payments and handle vendor inquiries.

Automating regulation and compliance: RPA is getting increasingly adopted in automating some of the key regulatory initiatives such as KYC (Know Your Customer), AML (Anti-Money Laundering). Bots powered by RPA can process many of the time-consuming tasks associated with account opening in seconds with 100% accuracy and can also find potential issues.

Simplifying risk management: In financial risk management, RPA can help analyze the changes in risk exposure and also find out the reasons for any discrepancies. Based on the analysis it can also provide recommendations and remedial actions for avoiding any breaches. RPA is also getting implemented for credit limit evaluation and for generating risk reports timely and accurately.

Benefits delivered

RPA is dramatically transforming the core of the financial services business impacting almost everything from productivity, business efficiency and operational costs. Research suggests that RPA can help businesses achieve 25-50% cost savings resulting in higher efficiency, improved accuracy and enhanced customer experience. Several Fintech and Insurtech firms have already taken the first mover advantage by incorporating RPA in some way or the other. In fact various tier-1 financial institutes are setting up their own CoEs and innovation centers to unleash the power of RPA and stay ahead of the competition.

Robotic Process Automation is surely the next big step in the evolution of the financial sector. And when applied intelligently it can help businesses achieve significant benefits.

Are you ready for the next big wave?

By,

Supratim Chakraborty

Sr. Consultant – Marketing, RapidValue

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Infographic | Digital Transformation for BFSI – Future Perspective

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The Rise of Robo-Advice in Insurance Companies

In about half a decade, all big financial institutions will become technology companies. The future of the insurance workplace will be machines and humans working together where machines will be owning certain processes. Legacy insurers who have built their systems using legacy systems would have integrated all their systems using bus and added layers of cloud, mobility, Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The initiatives to please their customers will also disrupt industry, transform society and create new business models. Process and workflow automation initiatives such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) that are already being adopted by many insurers will be re-imagined and merge with AI. These changes will benefit customers to draw deeper insights on products and automate buying and investment management decisions. Adding Robo-advisors to existing customer service channels could be a very powerful way to leverage these technologies and knowledge base.

Robo-advisors – Robo with a human touch

A Robo-advisor is an online platform that produces automated advice based on algorithms without the need for any human intervention. In financial context, it is an online wealth management service that provides automated, algorithm-based insurance and investment/wealth management advice without the use of human financial advisors. It should be noted that both Robo-advisors and human advisors are important.

Robo-advice can be integrated in every step of Insurance. Even though the term is “Robo”, it is not impersonal. If you can translate the type of advice a human insurance advisor would deliver over a cup of coffee into an algorithm, then you can deliver tailored advice in a self-service, automated fashion. Robo-advisors could automate the insurance sales cycle, underwriting process, policy management, claims process and customer support everywhere in-between. According to survey by AXA, 34% of millennials want to interact with their insurer solely online, and 8% don’t want to interact with them at all. Customers are now more than ever open to robo-advice. On the other end of the spectrum, there are customers who donot trust online advice, so they would rather work with a human financial advisor.

The Robo-advisor Race

A survey of 33,000 customers reveals the popularity of robo-advice. The customers are more open to robo-advisors than the insurance industry thinks:

Almost three-quarters of customers for insurance purchases.

Over three-quarters for investment allocation.

More than two-thirds for retirement planning.

For complicated transactions or complaint-handling, two-thirds expect top-notch human interaction.

Interestingly traditional insurers, asset managers and wealth management companies have shown great interest in Robo- advisors. German insurance and wealth management company Allianz invested in Robo-advisor company Moneyfarm. Allianz believed that they are extremely efficient and low cost compared to physical distribution and will increase its footprint in Fintech space.

Other initiatives in this space includes Northwest Mutual acquiring Learnvest, Vanguard launching Personal Advisor Services, Charles Schwab launching Scwab Intelligent Portfolios, Fidelity Investments launching Fidelity Go and the list continues to grow.

The other leading Robo-advisors in Fintech include Betterment, Wealthfront, Personal Capital, WiseBanyan, Wealthsimple, Future Advisor.

The decision for traditional financial institutions to compete with robo-advising is, on the one hand, almost obvious, while still involving some complex considerations. Some traditional customers may never be at par with Robo-advisors. In these cases, Robo-advisors can free human work forces to an extent and increase their productivity, thereby being available to their high value customers to offer more personalized services.

Take an X and Build AI on Top of it

Robo-advisors’ capabilities will increase over time to allow more complicated decision to be automated. Machine learning and technology advancements will enable Robo-advisors to handle complicated situations better.

Current vs. Future capabilities of Robo-advisor (the capabilities is measured in numbers from 1-5, where 5 is highest capability and 1 being the lowest):

Robo-advisors are here to Stay

Insurance is a large, complex industry. Robo-advisor is one of the incremental changes to insurance industry that could not only make buying easier, but also can bring in significant efficiency to the entire value chain. Love them or hate them, Robo-advisors are here to stay. The low cost and passive investment strategy promoted by the financial institutions and Fintech alike, attract many customers, especially millennials who take quick advantage of these.

Robo-advisors are estimated to control about $3 trillion of assets by 2020, from $50 billion in 2015. The scale of this shift is unprecedented and  increasing with more venture capitalists who are pouring in to fund more companies in robo-advisory space. Traditional financial institutions are also building and seeing success in this space. Whilst human financial advisors and agents are scaling up for advising sophisticated products to more traditional and ultra-high net worth families, Robo-advisors are gaining importance with the rest of the world. The mass adoption of Robo-advisors will begin when the “future” features come into play. But the way to get ahead is to start now.

As an insurer or a technology expert, what are your thoughts?

By,

Radhakrishnan NR

Practice Head, Fintech, RapidValue

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DevOps and its Impact on Information Technology (IT)

DevOps refers to an enterprise software development method and a collaborative way of developing and deploying software. The word ‘DevOps’ (Development and Operations) was coined by Patrick Debois, best known as “the father of DevOps” in the year 2009. DevOps is an operational philosophy that promotes better communication between Development and Operations, cross-practicality, and better working relationship. DevOps helps to establish collaborative cross-functional teams that share responsibility for maintaining the system that runs the software and prepares the software to run on that system with increased quality feedback and automation issues.

Benefits of DevOps

DevOps is considered to be a set of business-driven practices that provides rapid and reliable software delivery, providing business value to customers in an efficient manner. It is used to improve collaboration between all stakeholders from the planning stage through delivery and automation of the delivery process.

Some of the benefits of adopting DevOps are as follows:

Improves deployment frequency.

Achieves faster time to market.

Shortens lead time between fixes.

Improves mean time to recovery.

Lowers the failure rate of new releases.

Typical Architecture – How it transforms IT?

Why do Enterprises need DevOps?

There needs to be better communication and collaboration to serve the IT business needs of the organization between the software development team and those working in IT operations. The DevOps culture emphasizes and focuses on creating a fast and stable work flow throughout development and IT operations. The primary role of DevOps is to deploy features into production quickly while detecting and correcting problems whenever they occur, without letting other services getting disrupted.

Guiding Principles

The guiding principles of DevOps consist of CAMS – Culture, Automation, Measurement and Sharing. Culture is pervasive and drives the behavior of the employees of an organization while Automation is considered to deliver measurable business value to the organization. Measurement is a driving force as measuring “DevOps success” is a critical factor and Sharing helps you to know how knowledge is captured and disseminated.

Some of the significant reasons for enterprises to adopt DevOps are:

DevOps organizations can deliver with maximum speed, functionality, and innovation.

Includes technical benefits like continuous software delivery.

Less complexity to manage and faster resolution of problems.

Cultural benefits include happier and more productive teams, higher employee engagement and greater professional development opportunities.

Faster delivery of features.

More stable operating environments.

Improved communication and collaboration.

More time to innovate (rather than fix/maintain).

Continuous delivery, less complex problems to fix, fewer failures.

Faster resolution of problems and more time to focus on high-value features.

Increased customer satisfaction and reduced cloud/server infrastructure costs.

Faster delivery of software features, increase in sales and more stable operating environments.

Who’s doing DevOps?

Companies from traditional retailers to big software companies are now using DevOps in order to bring improvements in their cloud and server infrastructure. They have become aware of the significance of DevOps for facilitating product management and development cycles and enhancing security and application reliability. Before the DevOps movement took place, teams within IT like Operations, Development and QA were somewhat siloed but now, DevOps bridges the gap between development and operations teams and addresses the challenges of today’s timeline for application development.

Tools used in DevOps

These are some of the key tools and practices that are used in various projects.

Jenkins – As a tool, Jenkins is a good choice for DevOps engineers to monitor the executions of repeated jobs. The key features are Permanent links, RSS/e-mail/IM integration, After-the-fact tagging, JUnit/TestNG test reporting and Distributed builds.

New Relic – This delivers application performance monitoring (APM) as a purely SaaS product. It embraces the power and accessibility of the Cloud and has grown rapidly. New Relic has become an integral tool for developers, IT ops teams, and executives around the world.

Nagios – It is an open-source computer-software application which monitors systems, networks and infrastructure. Nagios offers monitoring services for servers, switches, applications and services. It alerts users when things go wrong and informs them when the problem has been resolved.

VSTS – Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) or Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs for Microsoft Windows, as well as web sites, web applications and web services.

Docker Hub – It is a cloud-based registry service for building and shipping application or service containers. Docker Hub provides a centralized resource for container image discovery, distribution and change management, user and team collaboration, and workflow automation throughout the development pipeline.

The Future of DevOps

DevOps is here to stay as it will continue to break down silos and increase collaboration. It has become significant and critical in this competitive age because of the improvement in product quality, speedier resolution to problems, risk mitigation and quick releases and tests of features. Organizations and enterprises value transparency and collaboration hence, they will continue to produce the best products and lead their industries. DevOps increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity while evolving and improving products at a faster pace.

Given the pace at which technology is changing, organizations are embracing DevOps as it focuses on people and process for aligning IT and business, enabling digital transformation and breaking down the silos and improved customer experience and satisfaction. DevOps will remain relevant for the current generation of software developers and the next generations.

By,

Nairita Goswami (Marcom Specialist), RapidValue &

Shahjahan Thapadar (Sr. Software Architect and DevOps Expert), RapidValue

[rapidvaluesolutions-blog]

Blockchain – The Second Era of Internet and How it helps IoT?

Technology is changing at an incredible pace and the advent of nascent technologies will radically shape the future. Technological innovations that emerge every year have the potential to change people’s outlook and lives. One recent technology which is likely to have a great impact in our daily lives is Blockchain. As most of the countries are working on the Blockchain projects, the technology is slowly catching up over the past few years. A Blockchain is considered to be an ingenious invention.

What is Blockchain? We share information across the Internet every day but when it comes to assets like money, stocks, property etc. we depend on intermediaries called middlemen like banks, government, social media etc. These intermediaries perform business transactions which are centralized and can be hacked.

So, what if there is an Internet of value, like a distributed ledger across the Internet where we can manage, exchange, store and track our assets without any powerful intermediaries. Yes, it is called Blockchain.

The Blockchain is an underlying technology behind Bitcoin where all digital transactions are recorded as ‘blocks’ by Bitcoin miners in the network who have massive computing skills. It is decentralized and the blocks are time-stamped and no central authority is involved. In simple terms, it is a distributed database which has all records of the transactions in a network which cannot be tampered.

How does it work? When a transaction has to be added in a Blockchain, it is posted globally across the network and all participants in the network have to validate it (arrive at a consensus). A set of all verified transactions are put together in a block and is sent to all nodes in the network. (These nodes have a copy of the entire Blockchain network.) Here, the miners will validate the block applying some algorithm and the first one to solve the problem is rewarded by a digital currency (Bitcoin). Once they validate the block, it is linked to the previous block and each successive block will have a hash of the previous block.

When someone wants to hack a block they have to hack all the blocks in the Blockchain network which is extremely difficult with the highest level of cryptography used.

Advantages of Blockchain

The main two advantages of Blockchain are:

Decentralized: Blockchain keeps Bitcoin transactions in the network immutable and secure without the need of a central authority.

Non-Expensive: Blockchain may be difficult to understand but the infrastructure and system maintenance costs are less.

Over Coming the Challenges in IoT As much as we talk about the world of connected devices, there are some complexities associated with the deployment of secured IoT model.

Few challenges in IoT are:

Centralized model – server/client paradigm: all devices have to be connected to cloud servers with huge storage capacities.

Managing and protecting the data throughout the entire lifecycle is daunting and expensive.

Implementation of IoT includes integration of various enterprise systems connected to a cloud server and any malfunction at one point will disrupt the whole network.

There are not enough security technologies for growing needs of huge IoT ecosystem in the future.

All physical assets will be turned from offline to online assets opening more space for cyber-attacks.

Secured IoT using Blockchain The Blockchain is believed to settle the security and privacy issues in the Internet of Things. Cryptography used behind Bitcoin transactions will ensure the privacy in maintaining the consumer data. IOT devices can be embedded with digital identities and digital signatures where the devices will have a unique id. Blockchain will enable the smart devices to function autonomously (exchange data or financial transactions) and the history of devices will be stored as an immutable record in a Blockchain. In financial and banking industry, Blockchain will allow peer-to-peer transaction of money without any third parties involved.

For example, a truck fleet with sensors carrying a frozen ice-cream can identify the temperature fluctuation and the information is posted on the fleet provider Blockchain immediately. An alert will be sent to all the stakeholders involved (driver, supplier, fleet provider). The driver can immediately take an action to fix the problem.

Future of Blockchain While many leading IT companies like Microsoft, IBM, Infosys etc. are investing and experimenting ways to adopt Blockchain technology, there are several startups keen to scout out across the world. Some of them include Abra, Filament, Blockstream and Bitnation. This revolutionary technology will establish a ‘trust protocol’ to protect our identity, ownership, and representation. Thus, the disruptors in the industry could be disrupted.

Will Financial Institutions and Government see this as a threat or embrace Blockchain? Will it bring a shared economy and prosperity?

Well, it’s time for us to start exploring the possibilities and applications of the technology in real-time and create a whole new era of the Internet.

By, Nandhini C Business Development Associate, RapidValue

[rapidvaluesolutions-blog]

Return of the Legend | Re-Inventing the Old Classic

While browsing through the milestones in Indian history, something interesting struck me. We have a national bird, the Peacock and a national animal, the Bengal Tiger. What if we had a national automobile? What would it be? Well, the first name that came to my mind was that of The Hindustan Motors Ambassador. The legend dominated the Indian roads and reigned over 74 years of incredible history of the Indian motor car.

Grandeur- Concept design of  new Ambassador

As I was growing up, I took special interest in automobile design and used to make sketches of my father’s vehicle/ truck often. The passion for sketching and designing grew since then. I tried experimenting with new design possibilities for the existing vehicles of the time which helped me to explore the hidden beauty of it. I had the passion for creating things and this passion pulls you in full-throttle and makes you thirsty for more. I love German technology and Italian design. Why not blend those concepts to perceive the perfect classic car? It’s time to re-invent a new design and that should be perfectly Indian.

Image Source- www.huffingtonpost.com

Experts claim that the success and decline of Ambassador was due to its design. Since 1942, the Ambassador ruled Indian roads and was considered to be a symbol of pride and luxury. But emerging competition offered better design, higher levels of fuel efficiency, more comfort, and more benefits. The elegant British design offered more classy and royal features. This dominated the Indian automotive industry at that time. (in 1942)

As a designer, I’m trying to redesign the Ambassador, from the ground up and I call it, the ‘Grandeur’.

My Take on the Design

50% of user experience and 50% of creativity make a good design. Even performance of a car depends on the small lines and bends on its body. To make a new design, the key is observation and user trends. The design process is important where a single line or sketch speaks volumes.

Hand Sketches

3D Rendering Process

What’s New?

At the first glance, one observes that ‘Grandeur’ has changed the structure from the previous model. Let’s come closer. It gets a small facelift with very clear and rounded headlights supplemented with chrome and iconic fog lamps which give an extremely classy look, similar to Ambassador’s design pattern. The front grille also gets a dash of chrome covering with a honeycomb design and lower lip.

Grandeur and Ambassador (L to R)

Ambassador and Grandeur (Top and Bottom)

With redesigned side panel and character line, there is a prominent difference in the aerodynamic drag. 8 Spoke 16″ Alloy wheels and reduced ground clearance make a bold statement in comfort and stability. Shark fin antenna and chrome covered front & back door glasses give an elegant look and feel. I chose the thigh-muscle line above the rear wheel to give emphasis on the beauty with a hint of boldness.

Inspired by the Ambassador, the tail lamps are redesigned and have a rounded edge with clear lens. There is a chrome bar above the logo as the attempt was to keep the character same. The rear bumper is simple and stylish but a little bigger than the traditional Ambassador. Dual exhaust pipes have a chrome cover with a chrome stripe lining on the bumper.

Spotlight

Blend of British and Indian Classic Beauty

A New Ray of Hope with Peugeot

In February 2017, the French car manufacturers Peugeot acquired the Ambassador from Hindustan Motors. With the new acquisition by the reigning champion, Peugeot, we can hope that the legend will be back with greater lustre and glory.

By,

Seethal K

UX/UI Designer, RapidValue

[rapidvaluesolutions-blog]

Infographic | Cross-Platform Development 2017& Beyond

[rapidvaluesolutions-blog]

Automation Testing for Oracle MAF Applications using Appium Tool

Mobile applications, today, are undeniably an integral part of people’s lives. In fact, mobile applications change the way businesses work. New applications are being created to cater to all segments of the society. There are numerous platforms and framework to build mobile applications. It is essential to deliver a high quality product to achieve the desired business goals.

Most of the leading mobile OS platforms provide a development kit for mobile application development, using native coding languages. Cross platform development is, also, very familiar which reduces the development cost and deploys the application in different platforms.

Testing of mobile applications has become pretty much important. Both manual testing and automation testing play a significant role to achieve the quality. Hence, it becomes imperative to have a robust automation framework that can help automate application on any platform.

This article explains the step-by-step approach about how automation testing is performed for Oracle MAF application using Appium tool.

Oracle Mobile Application Framework (MAF)

Oracle Mobile Application Framework (Oracle MAF) is a hybrid mobile framework that enables developers to, rapidly, develop single-source applications and deploy to both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms. Oracle MAF leverages Java, HTML5 and JavaScript to deliver a complete MVC framework with declarative user interface definition, device features integration and built-in security.

Appium — Open Source Mobile Automation Tool

Appium is an open source tool that can be used to automate your mobile applications. Similar to Selenium WebDriver which is an open source tool used to automate web browsers, Appium is an automation library used to drive your mobile applications, and even the web browser within the mobile simulator, emulator or real device. It allows you to write tests against multiple mobile platforms using the same API.

Getting Started with Appium Tool

Launching MAF App using Appium

Before starting your test, ensure that you have set up all the Appium prerequisites in your machine.

JDK (Java Development Kit)

TestNG

Eclipse

Selenium Server JAR

Webdriver Language Binding Library

Appium for Mac

Install and set up Appium client on your Mac machine. Select your desired MAF Application and copy into your system. Make sure that this is an ‘.app’ file because you are running on iOS simulator.

Start your Appium client and choose your ‘.app file path by clicking in ‘iOS Settings’ icon from Appium client. You can choose the application by:

Clicking on ‘Choose’ button and navigate to ‘.app file location.

Copying and pasting your ‘.app file path from your clipboard.

Click on settings button and mark the ‘Prelaunch the application’ option

Then, click on Launch button. Appium launch your MAF application in iOS simulator. For the first time it takes some time to launch the application. Check your Appium log for the status. Sometimes, you may need to relaunch the application, if the app is not launched in the first attempt.

Recording Test Scripts using Appium Inspector

Appium has an ‘Inspector‘ to record and playback the test scripts. It records and plays application behavior by inspecting DOM and generates the test scripts in any desired language. However, currently there is no support for Appium Inspector for Microsoft Windows. In Windows, it launches the Appium Server but fails to inspect elements.

Start with Appium Inspector on Mac Machine

After successful launch of your MAF application in simulator, you can inspect and identify all the elements using the inspector. Appium must be running with an app, open for inspector to work. Otherwise, it will not work.

Click on magnifying glass icon to launch the Appium inspector.

Appium Inspector window will open with your app preview on right window.

Launching your Appium Inspector will show the element hierarchy in column-wise structure. Also, user can apply actions using buttons like Tap, Swipe etc.

Use Record button to begin the building of your tests.

Select the language you want to generate the tests from the lower window of Appium Inspector.

Tap on element you want to execute and choose action steps to generate the tests. You can see the red out line for the fields which is selected.

Test code that is generated by Appium will appear at the bottom of the screen. This will get updated based on the test performed on Appium Inspector.

A code generated for sending a text in a Username UI Text field looks as follows:

Once you are done, copy and paste the code in to your class to run the test scripts.

Before you execute the recorded tests, ensure that all capabilities are set in your configuration file to start the test in simulator or a real device.

A sample Appium configuration class is given below:

Then, create your test class and use test scripts recorded from Appium Inspector. The UI element may not be identifying while executing the scripts. So, convert the UI element as mobile elements and execute the same.

Sample Test Scripts for Few Scenarios

Login to the application with username and password field. The below sample code is used to login to the application with username and password field.

2. Select an option from check box.

Conclusion Oracle MAF is a powerful tool to develop the hybrid application and deploy on both iOS and Android platforms. Manual testing on multiple platforms can be an arduous task for both developers and end-users. Appium helps to develop robust and extensible frameworks. It supports test automation on diverse set of native and hybrid application across different platforms.

By,

Jithin Kannoth Sr. Test Engineer, RapidValue

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MQTT – The IoT Protocol

The Internet of Things (IoT) is emerging as the next technology trend, with powerful and remarkable effects across the business spectrum. IoT connects to the Internet, billions of everyday devices, which range from fitness bracelets to industrial equipment. IoT is merging the physical and online worlds and providing new opportunities and challenges for enterprises, companies, governments and consumers. The Internet of Things is predicted to permeate almost every sphere and industry. Data can be collected from, practically, any conceivable source. MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport)  is a machine-to-machine (M2M)/ ‘Internet of Things’ connectivity protocol. It is designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport and is useful for connections with remote locations.

Real Scenario

Recently, I  worked on MQTT based android application. This application is used to initiate/receive alerts on certain scenarios. The alerts are received in the mobile application using MQTT clients, which then influences the received MQTT message and  presents it to the user in desired formats. The same MQTT message is  delivered to other hardware devices which has subscribed to the same topic i.e. the same MQTT message can be received in the mobile application as well as in the hardware device.  Either of them can influence the received data and present them to the client in a desired format. In certain scenarios,  MQTT message has been preferred over GCM in the application mainly because of the delivery assurance that the MQTT protocol offers.

MQTT – The Lightweight IoT Protocol

MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT), invented by Dr. Andy Stanford-Clark (IBM) and Arlen Nipper (Eurotech) in 1999, is a simple light weight protocol using publish-subscribe messaging protocol. MQTT is designed for high latency, low-bandwidth or unreliable networks.  The design principle  minimizes the network bandwidth and device resource requirements. This also, ensures reliability and delivery assurance to a certain extent. MQTT can also be used in mobile applications.

MQTT is now an OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) Standard and have been implemented across a wide range of industries since the day it was invented.

One of the real-world examples, that you  might have used, is the Facebook Messenger. Facebook has used aspects of MQTT in its messenger.

How does MQTT work?

For using MQTT protocol, you  need a Client and a Broker.

MQTT Client can be any device, from a micro controller to a fully-fledged server, which runs the MQTT library and is connected to MQTT broker over any network. MQTT client libraries are available across a wide variety of programming language platforms like C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Android, iOS etc.

Please refer to GitHub Libraries for a complete list of client libraries.

MQTT Broker is responsible for receiving all messages, filtering, decision making and sending messages to subscribed clients.

MQTT is based on TCP/IP, hence both client and broker is expected to have TCP/IP stack.

What are the MQTT methods?

MQTT methods are also, referred to as verbs. MQTT defines methods to indicate desired actions to be performed on identified resources. Resources can be files or the outputs of  an executable, found on a server.

Methods in MQTT are:

Connect -Waits for connection to be established with the server.

Disconnect – Waits for the MQTT client to finish any work, which needs to be done  and for the TCP/IP session to disconnect.

Subscribe – Requests the server to let the client subscribe  to one or more topics.

Unsubscribe – Requests the server to let the client unsubscribe  from one or more topics.

Publish – Returns immediately to application thread after passing request to the MQTT client.

The Alternatives

There are a number of alternative protocols to MQTT, such as:

Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP)

Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)

Extensible Messaging Presence Protocol (XMPP)

Conclusion

MQTT is the protocol built for M2M and IoT which is used to provide new and revolutionary performance.  It opens new areas for messaging use cases for billions of things connected through the Internet. As MQTT specializes in low-bandwidth, high-latency environments, it is considered to be an ideal protocol for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. The MQTT design makes it appealing for the exponential emerging Internet of Things (IoT) market. Users, who are looking for a very small publish/subscribe protocol, MQTT is the best choice for them.

By Varun C,

IoT Specialist, RapidValue

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What is Digital?

Transforming Enterprises

What is Digital?

All aspect of business is affected by Digital: Customers, Products, Business Operations, Competition, Employees and Partners. Every company, across verticals, is in some stage of digital transformation. For some it is about “Going Mobile” or “Going to Cloud” or “Leveraging Big Data, IoT” or “Having a Social Media strategy” or a combination of all or some.

The fundamental question is “What is Digital?”

Without having a definite understanding of what Digital means, starting on a transformation path will soon lead to a place where it is a step backwards rather than forward with missed opportunities, wasted resources and most importantly lost time.

Yes, the most understandable underlying concept of Digital is technologies but it should not be seen as leveraging one or more technology but it is more of a way of doing things. The second underlying concept of Digital, which many miss to fathom, is the social revolution brought about by it. If you want a definition, then:

Digital is use of any technologies that connect people and machine with each other, gathers contextual data and uses this information to enhance customer experience or improve business process across any channel, anywhere and anytime.

Making a business Digital is a two pronged strategy:

1.Enhancing Customer’s Digital Experience across Touch Points

Today’s customer is very demanding, interacting with company and its product across multiple channels. The key differentiation for a digital business will be delivering enhanced omni-channel experience to its customers. Firms cannot focus on one customer touch point in isolation, they have to optimize and enhance the brand experience across all customer touch points.

Digital Technology

2.Achieving Digital Operational Excellence

Digital business is, also, about striving for operational excellence. It is about increasing agility, efficiency, making employees more productive, better collaboration with partners, predictive and proactive analytical decision making, based on contextual data gathered, anywhere-anytime-any channel accessibility to information and decision making.

To be successful in implementation of this two pronged strategy, companies have to disrupt the whole way of doing business right from the culture to business model.

Those who are able to adapt will survive this digital disruption and those who are not will be a victim of Digital Darwinism or will get uberized.

By,

Avinash Thakur,

Practice Head — Business Consulting, RapidValue

[rapidvaluesolutions-blog]

Animation & User Interface – A New Motion Picture

Animations on mobile In the first half of the twentieth century, User Interface (UI) was of limited use as they were utilized only, for the purpose of certain work. When the computer finally arrived during the latter half of the twentieth century, the nature of UI changed. With the advent of the Internet in the 1990s, UI became user-friendly. Improving User Experience In twentieth century, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Inc., originated the idea of products which are tangibles – iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and intangibles – iTunes and iBooks. With the invention of these products, he introduced one more ingredient to the concoction, i.e. Animation.  Steve Jobs was, not only, a computer pioneer, he was an animation pioneer as well. He co-founded the era of CGI or computer-generated animation. With this technique, he has made UIs more user-friendly and entertaining. Animation on Steve Jobs UX on iOS Devices Apple, Inc introduced a touch-screen style during the late 2000. This style is an interesting way to encourage users to interact with a mobile device or access an application with just a touch of the finger. With the exception of the iPod Touch, the iPhone and iPad make use of GUIs or graphical user interfaces, which allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons. Steve Jobs proved that UIs can be more user-friendly, through his creation of Apple products, such as the iPhone and the iPad. iOS Today, Animation plays a pivotal role in User Interface, such as: The interaction between users and UI is easier and faster. It enables transitions between dashboards and web pages. It provides easy access to web pages, software and applications. Motion graphics, such as moving images, effects, and transitions, as well as colorful. fonts help make the interface look more appealing and more convincing to the user. With these advantages, animation has, not only, transformed UIs into a rapid user-friendly environment, but also, defined a whole-new trend in UIs. Elements of Animation Animation has helped the user interface, immensely.  Animation consists of graphics – shapes, vectors, images and, if necessary, illustrations. These elements, together, make the user interface a delightful experience and have helped popularize the use of ergonomics, including cognitive ergonomics, which is the study of interaction between humans and other elements. One classic example of cognitive ergonomics that can, easily, be applied here is Human-Computer Interaction. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) focuses mainly on the interfaces between humans and computers. Animation – Use Cases Animation has impacted various industries. For example: Gaming Gaming apps Animation, especially, has played a big role in the video game industry. Video games encourage the interaction between players and animated characters, with the usability of an appealing video interface. Now, with the advent of hand-held devices such as mobile phones, smartphones and tablets, video games are represented in the form of game applications, and can be played anywhere, any time. Navigation Animation has also, helped improve the use of navigation, both online and offline. Online: Today, people can search for places on the Internet with the help of digital satellite maps. The user(s) can either search for the place, using the arrows given on the side of the screen to pan left, right, up and down or simply type the name of the place in the “Search” tab at the top of the screen and the user will be automatically, directed to that place on the map. One such example of online navigation is ‘Google Earth‘. Maps are also, represented in the form of applications on smartphones and tablets. Offline: Places on the map can be searched even without the help of the Internet. Driving exemplifies this. If a motorist is driving on the road and trying to find the post office, he/she can take the help of the automation navigation system. The automation navigation system is a roadmap presented on a monitor screen, which bears resemblance to that of a computer. The navigation controls are displayed on the screen itself, thereby, enabling the motorist to find his/her way to the post office. Marketing Business Animation in user interfaces also, helps improve marketing strategies. Today, organizations from all fields employ animation for their websites not just to make themselves look presentable, but, more importantly, to make their goods and services appealing enough in order to meet consumer needs. This method is also, a profitable sign for businesses as it helps in advertising and facilitates consumer satisfaction. For example, if a person wants to purchase a product of a specific brand, he/she can access the website of that brand. If the interface contains some form of animation and is user-friendly then it is likely to impress the person who might end up buying the product. Development – Steps to Consider Sometimes, when you are accessing websites or applications, you might wonder how these things are created. What really goes into the making of something that requires a lot of interaction between humans and devices? What are the necessary steps taken to accomplish such a complicated task? The artists, illustrators, UI/UX designers and animators have the ‘ingredients’ for the recipe. The following helps you in achieving the desired goal: The goal should be “whatever the client asks for, the client gets”. You need to arrange a meeting to discuss the application with the team leader and project manager. Then plan out the way it should be presented by exchanging ideas and concepts. Once it is decided on how to present the application, the UI designers start creating the application pages on the software, Adobe Illustrator. When the introduction and other pages of the application are ready, the UI designers approach the animators for this task. By the time the animators are given the task of animating the pages of the application, the UI designers have arranged the pages in such a way that they have been split into different layers in Adobe Illustrator- text, text patches, icons, etc. Before the application pages get animated, the animators convert each of the layered items into a symbol, which is also done in Adobe Illustrator. The kind of symbol, that each item is converted into, depends on the style of the animation. Once this is done, the animators export the Illustrator file to the animation software, Adobe Animate, and start animating. During the process, you can reach out to client(s), to get their thoughts of the website or application. Another way of presenting applications or websites to the clients is by making explainer videos, which elucidate the usability and accessibility of them. The explainer videos are short one-minute or two-minute animations, which is a method of visual storytelling. Conclusion Animation has helped to increase the use and popularity of the Internet, with websites that have colorful, if not vibrant, dashboards and other web pages. It has helped improve the popularity of mobile phones, with the creation of applications, and the usability of the computer with the creation of tablet computers. The versatility of video games, through game applications and several gaming brands, like PlayStation and Xbox, to name a few; as well as the versatility of podcasts, with the emergence of the iPod and, later, iPod Touch have come to the fore. Animation and UI With breath-taking visual effects, motion graphics and transitions, be it two-dimensional or three-dimensional, animation has, not only, made User Interface more user-friendly, but has helped build a strong relationship between humans and interfaces, as well. From the point of view of the aforementioned HCI, it is an icing on the cake. The user interface has played a vital role in everyone’s lives. It has become a digital playground for fun, exploration and communication and all thanks to this technical art form called animation. By, Rahul Iyer, Motion Graphics Designer, RapidValue

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Winning the Game of Mobile App Testing

With businesses going mobile across industries, mobile app testing is becoming an integral part of enterprise testing strategy. To overcome the challenges involved in mobile app testing, one needs to adopt a pragmatic testing approach, focusing on functionality, performance, usability and security.

Devices, platforms, versions – too much testing v/s too less testing: Testing for each and every existing device is simply not possible. The golden rule, here, is to go for the most commonly used devices and use simulators for the rest. Analyze client’s device level requirement and get the latest version of devices that meet client’s requirements. Create an optimal mix of real devices and emulators, depending on the amount of hardware integration needed.  Make use of emulators, early in the project lifecycle, and real devices, at a later point, to ensure the app is working as expected. Virtualization using third-party tools offered by Perfecto, DeviceAnywhere can provide cost-effective ways to access the hardware required for testing. If the mobile testing needs are huge, then you can create mobile test labs, such as SauceLabs, MobileLabs, Xamarin Test Cloud

Automation- when, where, and how? Automation is not required in the initial stages. As the application gets more stable and 60-65% of its features are built, automation becomes necessary as manual testing can only cover limited number of devices. The smoke test suite that includes the mandatory scenarios to be tested for any platform, should be automated as much as possible. For regressions and sanity tests, automation is preferred over manual testing as it lets you execute the same tests, repeatedly, for multiple user interactions. There are many open source products that provide an automation framework that you can customize to your business needs to cover the end-to-end development experience.  Selecting a commercial solution for test automation with no vendor lock-in could be beneficial.

Test it, like end users use it: Testers should capture the real-time scenarios and situations, keeping in mind the end users. There are various web-service tools available to test the performance of the app. Developing several distinct network emulators can help you test for various real-life scenarios such as different networks like 2G, 3G, WI-FI, multiple time zones, several languages etc. Public cloud can allow multiple and parallel testing of apps on devices connected to live networks. Involving end-users in the beta testing or UAT phase can help you improve the market readiness of the app.

Securing the data: Identify the potential weak spots in your mobile apps with respect to the data flow, data storage and data leakage. Performing regular data audits and incorporating strong encryption techniques result in zero vulnerability. There are various tools like WebInspect that let you identify vulnerabilities associated with your app. Some of the fundamental areas to focus in security testing include testing information like authentication token, password, credit card details saved in the encrypted form, checking the data integrity, testing if the session handling is proper for time outs/user idle cases, performing penetration testing, and regular security scanning.

No matter how great your mobile application is, even one bug is enough to damage your business. There are thousands of mobile devices, hundreds of cell phone networks and multiple operating systems with different versions, resulting in millions of combinations that need to be covered to test a mobile app and this is just the tip of the iceberg. With today’s digitally empowered customer becoming more and more demanding, businesses are keeping no stone unturned in creating mobile apps that is able to delight its users, consistently.

Faced any unique challenges while testing a mobile app? Share your experiences here!

By,

Supratim Chakraborty

Sr. Consultant – Marketing, RapidValue