Infoways

“My Life in Full” by Indra Nooyi is a beautiful memoir of a very successful CEO of an iconic company, who also happens to be a woman, a caring daughter, a loving wife, and a mother. In this book, Indira talks about her academic and professional growth alongside a meaningful personal life complete with many well nurtured and rewarding relationships. She also talks about the gender bias that existed back then and exists even now in our academic and professional world. Without sounding angry or bitter, she points out through her own experiences and her observations about other women employees, the prejudices that exist against female employees, that eventually lead to many of them quitting the workforce.

One example about Employee appraisals particularly stands out in this regard. She says that there exists a culture of “and…” and “but…”, while managers conduct the performance appraisals of male and female employees, which is completely unfair to the women and hinders their professional growth. She also tellingly states that she was called a “Quota” executive, despite being a top-notch performer. I love the way she makes the case for women to stay in the workforce, even after starting a family. She points out that it is not necessary to sacrifice personal career ambitions to sustain a family. She suggests that a spouse, extended family, and society, must play a better role in sharing the caregiving responsibilities so that many competent and intelligent women can climb up the corporate ladder and fulfill their dreams. She makes an emphatic statement that women rising in their careers will contribute significantly towards the economic wellbeing of families and society in general. She strongly feels that women are an invaluable asset to the workforce and their continued professional growth helps families attain better economic status while being personally rewarding to women.

The book also brings out the refreshing attitude of a female CEO, who values her employees’ wellbeing and the company’s responsibility to the community on par with the performance and annual revenues. We see a conscientious CEO, who recognizes that her company’s products are unhealthy for the people in the community and the company’s practices are causing environmental damage. She proceeds to rectify both issues through initiatives like PWP (Performance with Purpose) and starting a new nutrition department to improve the recipes of Pepsi products. We see the parent in her when she starts an initiative to provide on or near-site childcare at all locations of PepsiCo so that the employees can take care of their young kids while at work.

Indira Nooyi, a mother, wife, daughter, a successful CEO, and a Philanthropist is a role model and inspiration to a generation of women.

I strongly recommend that all young women who are about to enter the workforce must read this book and motivate themselves to achieve their dreams.

Cloud computing is gaining traction at an unprecedented rate as more businesses migrate to the cloud to benefit from more regular product releases, lower subscription pricing, built-in backup and recovery, and seamless software integration, among other benefits. Organizations of various sectors are increasing their investment in cloud adoption, manufacturing, in particular, is making strides in this area. Enterprises employ cloud adoption as a solution to increase the expansion of Internet-based database capabilities while lowering cost and risk.

Who Will Benefit From Cloud Adoption?

Cloud adoption benefits a wide range of businesses, including healthcare, marketing & advertising, retail, finance, and education. Construction, real estate, manufacturing, aerospace, defense, healthcare, NGOs, and NPOs are among the other sectors that have benefited from cloud adoption. This technological revolution can help businesses of all sizes including corporations and large companies, entrepreneurs and startups, small and mid-sized businesses

But How Are They Walking the Cloud Path?

Through these 3 techniques:

1. Modernize: In this model, the transition is made from legacy on-premise applications to the cloud.
2. Expand: Here, the extension applications will be deployed in the cloud while the core applications remain in the cloud.
3. Invest: In this approach, organizations are encouraged to adopt industry-specific cloud suites. Examples include Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Manufacturing, Healthcare, etc so that their current and future business models can be adopted in the cloud.

What Are the Benefits of Cloud Adoption?

6 key benefits of cloud adoption

• Cost reduction
• Faster cycles of implementation
• Better security
• Effortless scaling and expansion
• Faster disaster recovery
• Enhanced customer satisfaction

Challenges of Cloud Adoption

Cloud adoption is revolutionary but it brings with it a set of challenges. While evaluating the options for cloud adoption, the following questions need to be addressed to derive maximum value out of cloud adoption.

1. If there is a necessity for the addition of new business functionality, how can cloud infrastructure support the cause?

Technology is transforming every minute and the only way to keep up with it is by introducing relevant features and functionalities. At Infoways, we believe change is the only constant. As seasoned veterans in this field, we have experimented,analyzed, and recorded our observations with our experts which led us to discover the potential of the rarest feature that could bring about a great transformation for businesses. Introducing ‘Extensibility’ – a feature of Infor solutions that organizations can leverage to “extend” their standard functionality or introduce a brand new independent feature. This will make the biggest impact when it comes to scaling and expanding the capabilities of your existing services without having to re-platform.

2. Customization is the new rule. Is it possible to support customization such as reports to suit layouts, additional fields in the cloud environment?

If there is one factor that could bring more sales, retain customers, get better insights and acquire more customers, it has to be customization. Every individual, business, and organization wants to feel special and this can only be done through Customization. Multi-tenant cloud environments do not support customization, this has been the biggest pain point for organizations. A resounding no has been a standard response from vendors. Not anymore. Recently we customized reports using a reporting tool for a large-scale manufacturing organization according to their needs. This single most feature led to a lot of conversions, cost savings, and better productivity.

3. Since cloud environments share several customers’ surroundings with essential security characteristics, how can the technology be modified to suit a specific tenant?

Yes, we spoke a lot about the need for customization, but it brings a lot of challenges with it. It introduces complexities that in turn increase TCO, so many organizations do not encourage customization. The Tx factor of Infor solutions is built specifically to overcome these challenges of security in a multi-tenant environment. Our primary goal is to protect a client’s infrastructure in a multi-tenant environment from standard object upgrades using our release management. These customizations are stored in a software layer(VRC) that is insulated from the landlord software objects. By placing the objects – standard and customized in different layers we ensure that the upgradation of standard objects does not affect the customized objects. This eliminates all possibilities of object overlapping and overriding when the OEM upgrades its software.

4. What are the software development release processes that will prevent modifications from being overwritten when cloud ERP OEMs “push” new releases?

Managing the release cycle is tedious and cumbersome. Be it monthly patches or minor bug fixes with a specific deadline, it brings about a lot of challenges. But without software upgrades, we have to suffer from the repercussions of outdated software and bugs. To tackle this Infor ERP LN offers what is known as VRCTx structure. V is for Version, R is for Release and C is for Customization, Tx is for extensibility. Software components are organized into packages and modules along with unique numbers for identification. The objects created/modified by tenants are stored in a VRC layer in the tx package, whereas the standard objects are stored in another VRC layer. These VRC layers are always linked to each other. When an object is not found in a VRC directory, it is called from a ‘higher level VRC’, ensuring that a modified or standard object is delivered into the user interface.

Infoways – Your go-to solution for hassle-free cloud adoption

Infoways has used these industry-leading cloud suites to develop applications for clients that tackle business operations in a variety of sectors, including A&D, Automotive, Industrial Enterprise, Equipment, Food & Beverage, and Healthcare, among others.

• Infor realized that organizations experience challenges when deploying cloud suites with substantial modifications and complicated integrations, thus the cloud suites have bundled the best practices of vertical sectors as part of the cloud
  suites, allowing users to utilize them as-is.
• Instead of customizing, the concept of extension is introduced when additional organization-specific needs must be developed.
• To accomplish this, the application has undergone the required architectural modifications to preserve their individual customer instances and expand the application to cater to their requirements.
• The toolset offered for each client can be used to customize screens by creating filters and rule-based personalizations. Here you can change the screen layout, reordering, sorting, coloring, hiding and showing fields on the screen, and
  read-only access.
• In addition, you can change the menu, toolbar, message, and system question. Security may be set up at the company level, the DEM role level, or the user level.
• Users no longer have to expand their screens since role-based home pages are now given as standard.
• CDF-Customer-defined fields, which are saved in the client instance, can be used to add additional fields to the screen. These fields can be used in SQL queries to build simple logic. CDF can be part of BOD and reports.
• By programmable UI logic in user exit DLLs, new business functionality can be developed or current functionality can be enhanced.
• Reports can be extended and modified using the Infor reporting solution. All of these changes are kept in the client instance. Document Output Management, which is available as a basic SKU, allows users to share reports in the enterprise.
• ION web services or event-based messaging through BODs can be used to extend the interaction with third-party products.

Our Middle Name Is Simplicity and Our Motto Is Flexibility

Infoways is committed to providing support services that are adaptable and adaptive to your organization’s particular needs, regardless of your eventual destination or present platform. We also offer Service/Support for edge items that include:
Customizations, Integration, implantation, migrations, and testing, across many GEOs, in addition to our network of over 40,000 resources that Infoways can supply to your organization’s requirements.

Transform Your Business In Three Simple Steps

With Infoways you’ll receive a comprehensive, client-centric experience based on our decades of industry expertise.

Whether you’re looking for a stand-alone model or multiple services model we constantly maintain our standards and deliver industry-leading services at a fraction of the cost along with an unparalleled customizable delivery and support network.

• Identifying challenges

To come up with the optimal solution, we begin by thoroughly investigating your company’s challenges. Our Infoways professionals are devoted to assisting you in identifying your most pressing challenges and navigating the best solutions.

• Crafting The Best Solutions

After analyzing your brief, our team of specialists will provide you with several options from which to choose. Because we provide such a diverse selection of services, you may pick and choose precisely what you desire.

• Customizing Services to Meet Your Specific Needs

Our experts will assist you with additional adjustments after you’ve chosen a solution.

Our services are tailored to your company’s needs, enabling our adaptable models to meet you where you are.

Simplify complex business challenges through a data-driven approach to decrease business costs while accelerating your results like never before. Get in touch with Infoways today

Let me ask you a question – if you have changed your job in the last 5 years, I can bet my money that it happened through a digital medium – LinkedIn or other job sites.

If it hasn’t, lucky you because it’s rare nowadays to find someone who has had the real taste of recruitment.

Talent acquisition and recruitment have always been human-to-human activities. What exactly do I mean by that?

It always has been about direct interaction, a conversation, and the connection.

Thanks to Technology, recruitment has indeed been easier than before, but that’s just the tip of an iceberg. Far more complexity is involved here.

The resume was never supposed to be anything other than a synopsis, a menu if you will, of one’s experience and capabilities. There, I said it, a Menu! And while I’m at it, that begs another question, is a candidate’s selection limited to ‘just the resume’?

• Are we digitizing candidates?
• Do we rely too much on analytics to find the right talent? 
• Are our recruitment methods becoming more assembly-line-like?
• Have we forgotten the basic nature and substance of what recruitment stands for, the Human-to-Human factor?
• Is the human touch in recruiting becoming a lost art?

I often find myself pondering these things.

While Job Boards and whatever version of ATS is being utilized, are valuable, nothing matches a robust database of talent that one manages directly and keeps updated via touch. The Humanist method works like a charm to job searchers who are surprised that they are being recruited, interacted with, and given the professional courtesy of being conversed with. Digital recruiting, particularly social media recruitment, can assist in speeding up the process and making our life simpler, and productive, in a manufactured sort of sense, but it pales compared to personal connection.

In-person engagement rarely takes place in a candidate’s selection, especially where remote communications are involved. Given today’s circumstances, and given the technology where remote is the new normal we cannot deny the longing for actual face-to-face interactions. Many talent service providers rely on the commoditization of applications, volume submission of candidates, and rely solely on buzzword selection of candidates, all of which contribute to the deterioration of a human way of recruitment in many cases.

Funny thing is, I’ve been approached by so-called recruiters many times claiming I’d be a great fit for a Java-related job. If only they could look at my LinkedIn page to see that I am not a Java programmer and that my knowledge of Java is limited to technology services. There are still a few companies, mostly in the technology sector, that conduct in-depth interviews with potential candidates in addition to the various candidate search strategies and platforms in use.

We’re all familiar with deadlines, KPIs, and production rates. We’re in the “crying out load” service industry. Yet, there are candidates who are overlooked or never considered simply because we do not see what we need to see in the top third of that profile.

To be clear, owing to competitive pressures and oversaturation of similar services providers who exclusively concentrate on contract placement, the lack of a Humanistic Approach to Recruitment is more of a problem in Contract Recruitment Services than Permanent Recruitment Services. The technology industry is increasingly dealing with a more niche-specific recruiting emphasis, with many clients looking for the prototype of an employee who has left or retired. Clients are looking for John or Jane Doe +10, who is the same John or Jane Doe that just left. As a result, there is no quick way to complete the whole process of recruiting and connecting with potential candidates.

Have that conversation, just don’t simply validate the criteria from a technical or experience aspect, really read between the lines of that résumé, and realize that there is a person behind that profile and not just a submission template.

People are more than their job applications and resume, it’s time we realize that.

Folks, I understand the industry, but keep in mind that humanistic, humanism, and humanist are all words in psychology that refer to a method of studying a person’s individuality and uniqueness.

Let’s all aim to adopt a conversational approach to the recruiting process by using the Humanist Method. Let us treat the applicant the same way we treat our customers and how we would want to be treated.