COVID-19 has brought about a sudden change in our behavior and attitudes as large-scale health crises tend to do. Spending on essential supplies skyrocketed while spending on luxury almost became zero. Even when the vaccine is found and this invisible enemy is defeated, the ghost of COVID-19 will loom large in our lives. Global consumption patterns of the retail industry are not likely to bounce back to the pre-covid days in the foreseeable future.

Apart from changing consumer behavior, consumer safety is also a big challenge for retailers as they open their stores once more. How does one keep the clients and staff safe? When is the best time for consumers of the at-risk demographic to shop? How to store merchandise so as to reduce congestion at different counters?

Let’s look at some of the ways technology can be leveraged to make the transition to a post-covid world easier for retailers worldwide. 

Footfall Analytics

Contact tracing has been an important tool in the fight against COVID-19. Depending on the location, people use govt-issued contact tracing apps or third party applications available online. But what about the people who visit the stores – how can customers be traced to mitigate risk without spending a fortune on a custom analytics solution that might impede their privacy? A footfall analytics solution could be the answer to this problem.

Footfall analytics have been used in retail to identify customers and their consumer-journeys at stores. This system can provide anonymous aggregate footfall analytics to help companies see where customers or employees spent the most (or least) amount of time, and in turn, helps improve merchandising decisions. This data can also be used to identify peak and non-peak hours accurately and promote social distancing to control the occupancy rate of each individual store. 

Demand forecasting

Traditional forecasting models of retail analytics solutions that use historical data such as buying behavior, seasonality, etc. have been particularly hit due to the coronavirus pandemic. Demand forecasting needs to replace its legacy algorithms with short-term forecasting models. These retail analytics solutions use models that take in real-time sales data from a Point of Sale (POS) system and analyze key demands, shortages and forecast necessary adjustments at the store level. 

Customer-facing applications

Many large retail chains have adopted customer-facing applications with varying degrees of success. But in 2020, these technologies have started getting customer acceptance like never before. Applications such as virtual queuing, contactless payment, self-checkout, and retail chatbots have been increasingly used by retailers and their customers. Retailers are leveraging technology such as AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) to offer hygiene centric shopping experiences. 

In the future, people will remember the times we live in as “The Pandemic Reality”. A time when every industry had to innovate rapidly to keep itself afloat. The retail industry is no different – the industry has to focus on how to safely open its doors to customers while also maintaining its supply chain. 

Black Rock IT Solutions has worked with retail giants around the world, helping them create footfall analytics solutions and sales forecasting solutions that have helped them tide through these unprecedented times. If you need a reliable and experienced IT partner to help your business meet future market conditions, drop a mail to sales@blackrockdxb.com

The post Leveraging Technology for a Post-COVID Retail Industry appeared first on Black Rock IT Solutions – Software Product Engineering Services.

To make it to the Inc 5000 list, companies must showcase consistent growth over three years. blackrock grew 184% in the last three years alone, improving its ranking almost 1000 positions in the 3 years since it debuted in the listing.  We believe the secret behind this growth is our focus on delivering value. But what is this “value” for a technology company that designs and develops software solutions?

To Experion, it is the ability to have a positive impact on our customer’s business. We constantly strive to exceed the expectations of our clients when designing and developing software solutions. Over the last 3 years, we have developed world-class software products for our clients around the world, and the examples are plenty. From one of the largest Edutech platforms in the Middle East to a healthcare technology platform in the US, we’ve left our mark across industries. 

No two clients are the same. Even when they are from the same domain or industry, the goals of every individual client is vastly different. blackrock delivers software solutions to these varied demands while consistently maintaining a high customer satisfaction level. 

From 2018, when blackrock was first featured in Inc 5000, to now, the technology landscape has changed drastically – what was once mere buzzwords are full-fledged technologies now. In the last three years, we have seen data analytics technology mature. AI, ML, and automation are increasingly becoming part of every software development services. 

blackrock has consistently invested in these emerging technologies to accelerate its growth and remain competitive – by learning, adapting, and adding these to our technology repertoire. Apart from this, we have also retained our efforts in traditional technology and domain strongholds, such as Healthcare, Retail, Transportation and Logistics, and Fintech.  

Let’s take a look at some of these technologies that blackrock has added focus on in the last 3 years. 

Data Analytics and Visualization

How to remain competitive is always a big worry for enterprises. Data analytics is a great tool to further this goal – it can identify their strengths and weaknesses, and they can then tweak their business, delivery, and customer support models to best fit the clear but unsaid needs of their clients. 

Organizations often do not have a clear data strategy plan; one that manages to capture and analyze their data efficiently. Even organizations that have already invested in BI and Analytics technologies, often lack a comprehensive plan to analyze all their data. Experion’s multidisciplinary teams of Data Analysts have helped enterprises build and deploy comprehensive data-driven analytics solutions that capture, sanitize, interpret, and visualize insights for its users. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

AI and ML have stopped being the exotic technologies that they once were. 

In recent years, accessibility to AI & ML technology products has increased exponentially, allowing even small businesses to invest and reap the benefits of these technologies. Be it in the form of virtual personal assistants (VPAs), chatbots, or intelligent ERP solutions and HRMS solutions, AI and ML are building business advantage by improving productivity and efficiency in business processes, sales, and even HR functions.

blackrock has been at the forefront of providing a full spectrum of services using AI and ML technologies. This includes deep neural networks, traditional machine learning, deep learning, predictive analytics, natural language processing, and much more. Our specialist AI team analyses and delivers intelligent solutions that help small and large enterprises gain a competitive advantage and generate measurable outcomes while ensuring great customer experience.

Computer Vision

Computer vision solutions include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing, and understanding digital images. Computer vision can extract data from the real world and analyze it to produce numerical and symbolic information. Computer vision can help enterprises augment their workforce too.

Computer vision is relatively a recent technology at Experion. Computer vision has immense potential in domains such as Retail, Healthcare, Insurance, Transportation, and even PropTech, all of which are areas in which blackrock has expertise working in.  Our team of specialists can define a computer vision roadmap for enterprises to help them extract the best value out of this emerging field. 

What helped blackrock get featured in Inc 5000 3 years in a row?

Technologies can exist in silos, but IT solutions do not have that luxury. This becomes apparent if you look closely at all the tech that blackrock has adopted in the last 3 years. Data Analytics cannot exist without the predictive quality that AI/ML brings to the table. Similarly, Computer Vision needs Data Analytics to function. With this shift in mind, blackrock has shifted from being just a technology partner to being a solutions provider – a company that has both technology and industry practices in place. 

It is not Experion’s technology expertise alone that has made our growth possible – it’s also the ability to adopt modern technologies and marry them all together to deliver world-class solutions. To do this, blackrock had to focus not only on its people but also on its processes. 

Black Rock IT Solutions was officially accredited as ISO 9001:2015 compliant by Alcumus ISOQAR, a global benchmark for good quality management practices in 2019.  This focus on process has enabled us to remain steadfast on our mission of delivering value to our clients even as our employee strength doubled in the last 3 years.  

To know more about blackrock and its ability to mobilize various technologies seamlessly, or to design world-class software products write to sales@blackrockdxb.com.

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As the call progressed, the client laid out their objectives and requirements, and it went something like this:

“The module should allow us to capture depositions, and as the case progresses, we need to be able to record subpoena related documents too, if any.”

Deposition? Subpoena? Latin had always seemed like a useless, dead language to our young, enthusiastic team of engineers. Until today, that is. 

As the call progressed, the conversation continued to be peppered with Latin terminology that nobody in the team could understand. The project team, especially the Business Analysis (BA)  team, was in deep trouble.

Realizing the anxiety that was threatening to overwhelm his team, the Senior Project Manager at Experion, in a stroke of genius, found an unconventional yet perfectly efficient solution. The best way to learn these Latin words, and understand how to use them in context, was to hear it being used in its home ground – an American courtroom. So as part of the homework for the project, everyone on the Business Analyst team was instructed to watch the NETFLIX Drama Series Suits.

Suits is an American legal drama television series, and it turned out to be the perfect classroom to understand the American legal system, as it follows the journey of an attorney who starts working for a New York law firm. 

Watching Suits helped Experion’s business analysts grasp a better contextual understanding of words such as subpoenas, deposition, affidavit, class action, and discovery in the context of an American courtroom. This helped the team comprehend almost all the common legal terminologies used by the client with relative ease. Armed with the understanding gathered from watching SUITS, the Business Analyst team’s confidence improved dramatically (don’t mind the pun). Interviews and brainstorming sessions with the client stakeholders during the requirement elicitation phase of the project became easier than what the BA team expected after that first call. 

This helped Experion’s project team to swiftly develop and deploy the web-based legal process management solution.As the project closed its first major phase on a triumphant note, the end-users were thrilled at how easy their lives had become with this solution in place. The attorneys’ promised drinks and dinner for the team when they came to visit New York.

Who’d have thought that something as inconsequential as watching a TV show could have a butterfly effect on so many lives? This only goes to prove how a little bit of unconventional thinking can yield spectacular results!

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The scope of change that automation will bring about in the coming years is comparable to the impact cloud computing or digital transformation continues to have today. A good automation strategy enables businesses to use their resources more efficiently, reduce human errors, complete repetitive tasks, streamline business processes, improve delivery models, and contain costs. 

Two popular automation strategies are Digital Process Automation and Robotic Process Automation – both distinct yet compatible strategies in the automation ecosystem. 

Let us take a look at these two strategies in detail.

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Robotic Process Automation is an emerging field within Business Process Automation. It uses artificial intelligence to automate low level, repetitive, rule-based tasks. RPA initiatives often use software bots that act as synthetic IT application users, executing repeatable, structured, high-volume clerical tasks. 

Often using existing IT systems, RPA can often extend the lifecycles of enterprise legacy systems by improving the speed and accuracy of the systems in use. 

However, RPA are not ideal for streamlining operations that include workflows, especially when they include tasks that involve complex decision-making or sophisticated multi-step business rules. They are also not recommended for business processes that need human intervention. In these cases, Digital Process Automation would work better.

Advantages of RPA

• Reduced cost: The speed and efficiency of legacy systems can be improved by automating tasks.
• Lower human errors: It is possible to eliminate human errors in iterative tasks through automation.
• Increase Employee Productivity: Employees are freed from their mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-value tasks and innovation.

What is Digital Process Automation?

Unlike RPA, which was task-focused, DPA is a process-focused strategy. DPA uses a broader, more holistic approach to automation. 

Its focus is not to automate the end-to-end tasks of an organization’s business process but to enhance the organization’s business process strategy by integrating complementary tools that would enable organizations to transform it. 

DPA revamps the company processes and provides a better experience for its customers, employees, and even vendors. DPA strategies include Workflow Automation, Decision Management, Case Management, and AI & Predictive Analytics. These tools automate old techniques and processes, freeing up time for result-oriented and experience-oriented activities. 

Advantages of DPA

• DPA Improves User Satisfaction:   Transforming business processes improves the user experience for all stakeholders (employees, customers, and even external vendors)

• Better Decision Making: A comprehensive DPA strategy can enhance decision outcomes under a variety of circumstances

• Predictive Decision making: Predictive models can be used not only to highlight potential situations, but they can also recommend ‘next best actions’.

The case for using both RPA and DPA at your organization

A successful automation strategy should include both DPA and RPA techniques. The productivity gains of RPA techniques complement the process transformation of DPA techniques, and together, they compound the productivity gains of each of them deployed individually. 

Time-consuming and repetitive work can be performed by bots, saving your employee’s valuable time. For example, say an employee has routine interactions with multiple customers to furnish the same information repeatedly. This interaction can be automated using a bot, improving the experience of both the customer and the employee. Employees can now focus on high-value work and innovation rather than waste time on mundane tasks, improving organizational competitiveness. 

In Conclusion

It is not enough to install a set of tools that tick the “Decision management” or “AI/ predictive Analytics” box – these tools in themselves run the risk of turning into independent silos. Rather, they should be components of an integrated system of automated tools. This needs specialized suppliers – experts, who can integrate these separate technologies into a comprehensive solution that is tailored for the specific needs of your business. 

blackrock helps enterprises across the globe transform their business processes.  We develop holistic business process transformation and automation strategies with a specialized focus in domains such as healthcare, retail, transportation & logistics, and Fintech.

If you would like to take advantage of the transformative power of automation and are looking for a reliable IT partner, drop a mail to sales@blackrockdxb.com

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As more and more apps are being used for contact tracing, privacy concerns have been raised about the systems and solutions employed. 

Living as we do, in a world where healthcare is a buzzword, let’s take a comprehensive look at what patient privacy means, why it’s important, and what governments world-over are doing to protect their citizens. 

Why is patient privacy important?

The importance of privacy in healthcare is a very old idea. In fact, privacy is one of the ideas touched upon by the Greeks in the Hippocratic Oath. Certain diseases can cause fear, the anxiety of social prejudice, and stigma among patients. Because of this, they hide information from healthcare professionals leading to ineffective treatment and complications. 

For effective treatment, it is important that the patients be honest with doctors, and doctors in turn are expected to not break their trust. Patient confidentiality does not just help the individual patient alone. It can help the whole country! It has been found that more people volunteer for healthcare studies and initiatives that have a strong privacy policy. Initiatives like these help fight diseases and reduce the spread of epidemics. 

What are the challenges to patient privacy?

The use of technology in healthcare has increased productivity manifold, especially in maintaining patient information and data use. Many hospitals have introduced PCM (Patient care management)/ EHR (Electronic Health Records) solutions that are large document filing solutions that store patient information. These solutions can share data between various medical institutions and reduce paperwork, but it has also caused a new level of complexity for data privacy and security. Particularly in the way the data is managed and transmitted. Solutions face security and privacy threats from hackers, viruses, and worms. 

One of the main challenges to data privacy is Privacy Merchants. They are for-profit organizations that deal with stolen or privacy-violating information. These companies sell dossiers of private health information to the highest bidder. This information is then used to target individuals in various ways, such as targeted product marketing, disclosing employee health history, among others. 

What are the different industry standards worldwide that protect patient privacy?

Patient confidentiality is not just a good idea – it is the law in many countries. The introduction of PCM/ EHR systems in medical institutions have also renewed the call for stronger healthcare privacy laws around the world. The United States, Europe, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and others have introduced/ strengthened laws to protect an individual’s privacy in recent times. These laws mandate rules on the storage and transfer of private health data. 

Let’s take a look at the many different laws around the world that deal with the complexity of Patient Privacy.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)

The most comprehensive standard that deals with the issue of patient privacy is the  Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The act, formulated and implemented in the USA,  set down rules on how personal health data could be managed and modernized the flow of healthcare information. HIPAA provides protection of health-related information and supplements the current state and federal laws.

HIPAA Privacy Rule regulates the use and disclosure of protected health information (PHI) stored by “covered entities”. Covered entities are health-care clearinghouses, health plans, health insurers, and medical service providers, etc. Some examples of information they are privy to are – health status, healthcare history, health care payment of an individual, among others. You can find more info about the security aspects of HIPAA here. 

HIPAA, however, does not cover data generated by fitness trackers, social media sites, and other health data created by the patient. Health information can be disclosed by patients in emails, blogs, chat groups, or social media sites that are not covered under HIPAA too. So it was necessary to enhance HIPAA regulations and this led to the creation of the HITECH Act. 

Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (2017)

The HITECH Act was enacted to promote and expand the adoption of IT in healthcare. The Act mandated incentives to clinicians for the implementation of electronic health records (EHR). EHR systems enable patients to manage their own data. The act also introduces significant penalties for failing to report data breaches and follow the regulations. To know more about the privacy aspect of the HITECH Act click here.

Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records Act 2012 and Privacy Act 1988

The Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records Act 2012 and Privacy Act 1988 governs how eHealth record information is managed and protected in Australia. PCEHR (My health record) is a shared electronic summary of an individual’s health history. Security measures include audit trails so that patients can see who has accessed their medical records along with the time the records were accessed. Other measures include the use of encryption as well as secure logins and passwords. It is currently an opt-in system with a unique individual healthcare identifier (IHI) being assigned to participants and the option of masking and limiting the information available for viewing controlled by the patient or a nominated representative. Get more information here.  

The key privacy protections provided by the PCEHR Act include the ability for a person to control which healthcare provider organization can access information in their eHealth record, closely defined limits on the circumstances in which information can be accessed outside of those controls, the ability to view an audit trail of all access to a person’s eHealth record, civil penalties for unauthorized access to eHealth records and requirements to report data breaches.

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

Unlike other industry standards on this list, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) law introduced by the European Union envisaged regulating data protection and privacy. The European Union says GDPR was designed to “harmonize” data privacy laws across all its member countries as well as provide greater protection and rights to individuals.

GDPR recognizes data concerning health as a special category of data called “sensitive data” and provides a definition for health data for data protection purposes. Though the innovative principles introduced by the GDPR (privacy by design or the prohibition of discriminatory profiling) remain relevant and applicable to health data as well, specific safeguards for personal health data and for a definitive interpretation of the rules that allows effective and comprehensive protection of such data have now been addressed by the GDPR. Read more here to know about the GDPR healthcare-specific regulations.

Health Information Privacy Code (1994)

To regulate the health information collected, used, stored, and disclosed by health agencies, New Zealand introduced the Health Information Privacy Code in 1994. All agencies that provide healthcare services are bound by the code. If you’re curious for more information on the healthcare privacy regulation in New Zealand, click here.

Conclusion 

Healthcare privacy is a complex issue. There is a delicate balance between keeping patient data private and sharing it between medical professionals to improve the care needs of patients. A plethora of software applications are available in the market that handles healthcare information. Some of these applications such as health trackers, activity trackers, nutrition trackers, etc don’t fall in the ambit of healthcare privacy laws. It is up to the individual to be aware of the potential of their data and who is allowed access to it. 

Black Rock IT Solutions has developed numerous healthcare applications that are compliant with healthcare regimes around the world, including HIPAA, GDPR, PCEHR, and the Health Information Privacy Code. For any information on how to develop applications that comply with the healthcare standards of your country contact sales@blackrockdxb.com.

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But the recent pandemic, COVID-19,  which has the whole world reeling from the repercussions of being locked down,  has made steady paychecks with health insurance benefits look a lot more promising. And while there are advantages to being in the gig economy, there are also disadvantages that cause incredible anxiety to the workers in the ecosystem, the biggest among them, undoubtedly,  being the payment question.

According to a Global Marketplace and Gig Economy Payment Satisfaction report, a survey of gig economy freelancers from various industries around the world found that 73% of gig workers are likely to leave the marketplace due to payment issues. Many gig workers and freelancers face delayed or even denied payments, and many spend weeks tracking down payments every year. And this is where companies who rely on gig-workers can make a difference and digital transformation can be a lifesaver. One could argue that adopting a digital transformation platform to meet employees’ requirements in real-time –  an instantaneous payment platform for instance – will help the gig economy thrive going forward. 

In a move that seemed understanding of this predicament, the US Federal Reserve officially announced in August 2019 that it plans to build a real-time payment service by 2023-2024 called ‘FedNow’. Hopefully, the changes that COVID-19 has brought upon the world economy spurs them on to develop and implement this sooner rather than later. 

In the announcement, the Fed Reserve invited extensive feedback from members of the banking and payment community and in a much-publicized response, Google wrote to the US Federal Reserve Board detailing the successful example of the UPI (Unified Payment Interface) based digital payment platform in India to build FedNow. 

UPI, according to the NCPI website “is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments under one hood.”  It also caters to the ‘peer to peer’ collect request, which can be scheduled and paid according to your convenience. 

Google listed three major qualities of the UPI worth emulating: 

• Interoperability – account to account transfer and not just an online wallet
• Real-time money transfers
• An ‘open’ system – standards are open-source so technology companies can build their implementation of the solution

Let’s look at these qualities a bit closer and understand how they can become game-changers for the gig-economy.

Interoperability

The diverse requirements of the US FinTech industry necessitated multiple channels for enabling payments. The payment systems currently in place don’t interoperate seamlessly. Private solutions are closed-loop systems too –  real-time transfers are possible only between those users who use their specific solution. This is arguably the biggest drawback of the multitude of perfectly functional payments systems that have organically sprung up over the years.

Now imagine a new platform that can now provide you with access to the funds lying in your bank account and can transfer money from your PSP (Payment Service Provider) to another party’s bank account without worrying about the PSP the other party uses. This would essentially convert all PSPs into portals to your financial world. This is what the UPI platform accomplishes.  

Real-Time Money Transfer

As smartphones are replacing physical cards and POS systems, any new system being developed should be able to authorize a payment using a pin or two-factor authentication to transfer cash instantaneously regardless of the platform the merchant uses. Without Visa or Mastercard needing to act as intermediaries. A system that combines all the existing payment rails and can transfer money to any of the nodes seamlessly, just like UPI does.

‘Open’ System

In the current payment ecosystem, different payment rails need different types of authentication information. The new system should simplify and standardize these operations – the different types of authentication for each payment rail should be handled under the hood by the new system.  The result would be an open and interoperable payment infrastructure, compatible with all the existing technologies and has the potential to integrate newer ones. 

This is what will enable any PSP to facilitate transactions to any other PSP instantaneously, leveling the playing field for banking and non-banking PSPs (Fintech firms) when it comes to managing payments. 

The Entrepreneur’s Advantage 

The biggest beneficiaries of such an instantaneous payment platform,  other than gig workers, will be small business owners and the low fixed-income individual who has to wait for a couple of days after a paycheck is deposited for the amount to reflect in their account.

If FedNow works with this kind of an open system, it will create opportunities for small and medium-sized banks, credit unions, FinTech companies, and large retailers to develop their version of PSP applications. And while developing such a system, firms must ensure that they create a simple, intuitive platform for P2P transfers and digital POS systems for their customers. 

It will also create an opportunity for payment and ‘payment adjacent’ solutions providers to develop their own version of PSP apps. For instance, even small FinTech firms can utilize their existing infrastructure and leverage digital transformation solutions to meet customer requirements, offering innovative, secure and user-friendly solutions that can compete with the likes of larger banks.  In this way, they can reposition themselves for continued success, even post COVID-19.

Having developed FinTech solutions for their partners, companies like Black Rock IT Solutions have a distinct advantage in developing PSP apps for their client partners, that companies around the globe can rely on to be top-notch.

To know more about Experion’s Fintech offerings, drop a mail to sales@blackrockdxb.com

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With the popularity of the internet, it has become easier for individuals to create consistent revenue from their underused assets. Any physical asset can be shared with the public as a service. Take for example, a private car that costs a fortune to buy and maintain, spends 95% of its time in a garage or parking space, gathering dust. Would it not be great if there is a system which could facilitate leasing the car to potential users, after the owner’s daily commute to work. The car could serve users for a wedding, special occasions as well as for corporates. The money earned through this sharing will cover the transportation/ service cost of the car, making its ownership expenses considerably less.

Current state of the sharing economy

The sharing economy has already become a major part of the global economy. Even if most of the global population is unaware of the term, most of us have used such services in one form or another. Please note that this term Sharing Economy is an umbrella term, and many of the below different business models can fall under it.

• Collaborative Economy  (Airbnb, Couchsurfing)
• On-Demand Economy  (UberEats, Netflix, UrbanClap)
• Gig Economy  (Uber, Lyft, Upwork, Freelancer)
• Peer Economy  (eBay, Craigslist)
• Crowd Economy (Kickstarter)
• Platform Economy (Amazon, Alibaba)

It is true that some of these new business models have disrupted the older and more established ones. By transforming such older models, these companies have brought in innovation and efficiency to the table in addition to convenience. At the end of the day, sharing economy is part of our larger economy and will spur growth, as it marries real world physical assets with the digital world.

Counter Opinions & Controversies

Experts have raised their opinion against using the term “sharing economy” in cases where such sharing is not true or does not focus on generosity in the strictest sense of the word. Uber is an example. Their argument is that many of the categories that are currently listed under this term are not entirely selfless as the term implies.

As per the WEF article published recently,

“As the sharing economy has grown, it has become a victim of its own success. Some people have charged that much of today’s sharing economy is not really “sharing”, an allegation that is partly right. While on the one hand, there are many platforms that espouse the true spirit of sharing – underutilized assets and building community – on the other hand, increasingly there is “sharewashing” going on: companies latching onto the term because it makes them part of a hot trend. Who doesn’t want to conjure up notions of community and cooperation?

An example of terminology confusion is Uber. Is it ridesharing when a driver leases out a car that they did not own before, in order to provide rides that they would not have taken otherwise? Hardly. Yet, for much of the public and media, Uber is one of the most touted examples of the sharing economy. That said, newer offerings such as Lyft Line and Uber Pool are wonderful examples of ridesharing: they enable more efficient use of cars, full stop. But they represent only a fraction of current rides provided. More broadly, when an entrepreneur claims to be the “Uber of X,” that is an immediate red flag of questionable sharing-economy status.”

(*Source: WEF Article)

However, it cannot be denied that the sharing economy has been responsible for a new world economic order, while parallelly enabling the sharing of idle assets. It has successfully enabled businesses/private individuals to cash in on user convenience. While the idea that Uber is not entirely selfless may be true, it is also true that the service has succeeded in taking off many a private vehicle from the road, thus paving the way for a less polluted environment /less congested roads.

Technologies Enabling Sharing Economy

Technology is the enabler and multiplier of this sharing ecosystem and plays an important role in facilitating both service providers and seekers. Some of the new technologies facilitating this new model of business are,

1. Online Digital Platforms: Sharing economy is often called a platform economy. This is because a digital platform or matchmaker is the most essential part of this economy. Such platforms act as intermediaries, enabling interaction between service seekers and providers.

2. Mobile Applications: More consumers would discover new products and services through their mobile devices than any other source. In fact, more and more people have started using mobile apps to browse, buy, borrow and sell goods than even a year before. This is quite evident from studies which predict that by end of 2018, mobile commerce would constitute a third of the total revenue earned by ecommerce companies.

3. Internet of Things: When sharing an asset as a service, it is important to track the usage of the asset and ensure routine maintenance. Internet of Things (IoT) empowers us to constantly monitor asset location among other parameters. This can be used for routine maintenance work of the asset.

4. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML):  AI and ML can be used to personalize customer experience based on previous purchases and search trends. AI can also be used to determine the price of a product dynamically based on demand.

5. Blockchain:  Trust is a critical component for any trading platform, digital or not. Blockchain technology can be effectively used to build trust into a sharing economy system. Cryptocurrencies, Smart contracts and other implementations of the blockchain algorithm can and will play a critical role in this process.

The Future

In the future we will see a steep rise in the penetration of these type of digital services in our everyday lives. From an earlier model of individuals owning physical assets, we will see a shift where physical assets are shared between individuals. These assets are used only when there is a need and then, the asset will be readily available through a cloud platform. The result is lower cost of ownership while providing consistent customer experience. People have shown a higher level of interest in an on-demand model for shared services in all sectors such as,

• Hospitality & Leisure
• Automotive
• Transportation & Logistics
• Retail
• Consumer goods
• Professional services
• Healthcare

Conclusion

New technology has the immense potential to transform people’s lives. When mobile technology was introduced in some of the developing countries within Africa and Asia, it acted as a leapfrogging technology, saving such countries the huge costs associated with setting up of landline infrastructure, while providing a consistently improved user experience. It had a huge impact on the user lives as well as the GDP numbers (See Blog). Platforms supporting the sharing economy models are examples. Such platforms have the tremendous potential to bypass the asset ownership model of the past to the shared ownership model of the future.

At Experion, we have implemented several projects across the retail, healthcare and transportation domains, many of which have enabled the shared economy business model. We have worked together with nearly 70 early stage businesses to disrupt traditional business models and markets. We have also worked with large and medium enterprises to accelerate their transition to the digital mode by transforming traditional business models.

Please write to sales@blackrockdxb.com to know more.

The post Sharing Economy: Planting the Next Big Economic Revolution appeared first on Black Rock IT Solutions – Software Product Engineering Services.

In an emerging economy, maintaining a frontline sales team forms a significant share of the budget of any fast growing FMCG/ CPG company. This sales team would work directly with the principals (super stockist), distributors, retail outlets as well as the more traditional mom & pop stores. Unlike FMCG/ CPG giants in mature markets, the budget set aside by FMCG players in emerging markets for marketing and branding are much smaller. So bigger companies with deeper pockets get better visibility and sales, compared to smaller players. Betting on an online model alone is also not an option at the moment. Even in a strong economy like India, despite a strong growth rate in retail, e-commerce is just 2.5% of the total retail sales.

Disrupting the FMCG/CPG Business Models

Digital technologies are primed and ready to disrupt the current FMCG models in emerging markets. How exactly would it unsettle the current FMCG sales models, is still up for debate. Even though the wholesale distribution model is preferred in emerging markets, new forms such as cash and carry and direct B2B selling models are getting adopted slowly. In India, companies such as Marico, Dabur, Britannia and Godrej Consumer Products are seen to focus on direct distribution channels and even cash-and-carry accounts in order to bypass wholesale traders. The newer models are costlier (in the short run) but more efficient than the wholesales model. What they lack currently is a strong link to the retailer. In future, other new models will evolve that are efficient, while maintaining a strong link to the retailer.

What would such a model look like?

Imagine a scenario where frontline sales orders are placed directly by the retailer using a mobile application, similar to e-com sites. A retailer would be able to browse the catalogue, select, order and pay using their mobile phone. A sales executive/manager would be able to manage all orders using his mobile app. He then would be able to dedicate more time to stores which need special attention rather than divide his time between stores equally.

A sales executive/manager can service 2 to 3 times more retailers than he would in the traditional business model. This means that a lion’s share of the business’ budget for a frontline sales team can then be used for marketing and branding the company’s products. With a bigger marketing push, companies can generate organic sales without a salesman pushing for it at the retailer end.

Are such digital solutions available?

Presently there are a not many qualified choices for such a solution in the emerging markets. Most of the solutions that are currently available are provided by Mobile Sales Force Automation software providers who retrofit different business models onto their software. One of the notable solutions currently available in the market is FieldMax® developed by Black Rock IT Solutions , an accomplished player in the retail software development sector. Experion, an enterprise software development services company, develops custom software solutions for customers across the globe.

The FieldMax® Retail variant was exclusively developed from the ground up, keeping in mind emerging trends in the FMCG sector. The solution caters to both large and medium size corporations in the CPG space, whose products have high market demand. It can be downloaded and used by even small retailers to order and interact directly with the business without any intermediaries. The workflow of this solution when used by retailers is as given below.

Conclusion

The IT sector, contrary to common perception, will be the main driver of innovation in emerging markets such as India. Adopting newer technologies and techniques will help businesses keep abreast with ever changing scenarios within such growing markets. The opportunities are many, and businesses should use technology as a catalyst in developing better and more efficient business models.

Increasing competition means the industry has to find better and newer ways to keep costs down while finding and engaging with more customers. The retailer app model is one of the many ways FMCG industry can increase efficiency while meeting customer demand. It is definitely a model to look out for in the future. Let us keep our attention focused on such a scenario.

blackrock has been working with world-class businesses in the FMCG/CPG sector to help them grow sales, engage the field sales teams, grow market reach and enhance the connection with the retailer. To know more about how blackrock uses digital technologies to boost FMCG sales, write to us today.

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