The Need for an Intelligent ERP System in the Utilities Industry

A radical change in the utility industry is occurring at a rapid pace. Changes in technologies, business models, standards, and the makeup of utility companies themselves require constant adaptation. Utilities must be able to respond to rapidly changing conditions, yet still comply with all standards. How does a digital core with a true single source of truth help?

Agility
A digital core is an IT architecture that offers stability and long-term reliability for core enterprise processes, yet also provides the flexibility to adapt quickly to new opportunities, challenges, and regulations. This solid foundation gives you a single source of truth, which in turn enables flexibility for innovation to accommodate things like new business models, new regulations, and business events, such as mergers or acquisitions.

Managing Big Data
Every utility company needs the computing capability to carry out complex algorithms with large data sets to support timely, real-time analysis. Everyone in the company must have access to data they need, whenever and wherever they need it. This is also true for the rest of the utility ecosystem so that suppliers can stay up to date with a company’s orders; customer service
agents can see customer history for billing, service, and consumption information; and maintenance teams can accurately monitor asset performance.

Innovation
Utilities must transform to grow profits and reduce costs by simplifying their operations. The value of the digital economy is based on how the consumer or “prosumer” (producer and consumer of energy) is served. Value creation often comes from edge solutions that are based on and coordinated by digital core solutions. It is the framework for innovation and business process optimization, connecting the workforce, suppliers, customers, assets, and the supply network.

Analysis
It is crucial to get the right information at the right time on the right device. Plant processes are supported or controlled by predictive and self-learning systems that interact with machines and business processes. Predictive analytics and machine learning (ML) accelerate the delegation of business processes and decisions from people to machines. People who need the knowledge have digital access on demand and in real time, regardless of whether they are part of the core or the extended workforce.

Stand apart in a world that never stands still – with SAP S/4HANA powered by Approyo
Your business isn't generic. Your ERP shouldn't be either. SAP S/4HANA powered by Approyo provides utility companies with industry best practices built from decades of experience – and allows them to bring cutting-edge innovation in the cloud to their core processes, be it customer engagement, predictive maintenance, or usage-based billing. So they can attain the operational excellence they need to deliver the ultimate customer experience.

• Industry Insight - A world of rapid technological change – distributed energy resources, microgeneration, batteries, microgrids, and electrical mobility – and social media adoption is forcing providers of electricity to rethink how they work, the services they provide, and their business models. The most successful companies will flexibly manage demand, enabled by insights garnered from smart technologies.
• Customer Success - SAP S/4HANA provides re-engineered and simplified business activities transforming the execution from multistep, batch-driven processes with latency in terms of key performance indicators to real-time processes with actionable insights to accelerate invoice processing, increase cash flow, and protect revenue assurance.
• Productivity Improvement - SAP S/4HANA empowers call-center agents and field workers with an end-user centric, consumer-grade experience because, for utilities, it's the call-center agents that add value to customer engagements and field workers who deliver operational excellence.
• Cost Savings - SAP S/4HANA powered by Approyo allows for real-time monitoring of asset health and can predict failure before it happens. Maintenance orders are triggered just in time, avoiding unnecessary inspections and decreasing the cost and risk of unplanned failure.

Start your path to the Intelligent Enterprise with Approyo
Bringing SAP S/4HANA and SAP Leonardo technologies together as a digital core results in a more flexible and intelligent enterprise. Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. Get started today...

Approyo named to the Wisconsin Inno 2019 50 on Fire

We are proud to announce that Approyo has been named to the Wisconsin Inno 2019 50 on Fire.

50 on Fire is a snapshot at some of the biggest movers and shakers across the state’s tech communities. Winners range from innovative upstarts to publicly traded tech giants to organizations looking to make Wisconsin’s tech scene more diverse. Basically, it’s people and businesses that have had a banner year—whether that’s new funding, product launches, big hires or innovative approaches to solving problems.

View the list: https://www.americaninno.com/wisconsin/50-on-fire-wisconsin/meet-wisconsin-innos-2019-50-on-fire

About Wisconsin Inno
Wisconsin Inno is your source for local innovation. Since 2018, we’ve been covering and connecting the state’s ecosystem, producing digital media and events about the entrepreneurs, executives, startups, businesses, trends and topics that are the shaping the present and future of Wisconsin’s economy. Through a twice-a-week newsletter, daily editorial, quarterly events, directories, data and more, Wisconsin Inno is building a portal to and for the state’s burgeoning startup and tech communities.

Approyo named to the Wisconsin Inno 2019 50 on Fire

We are proud to announce that Approyo has been named to the Wisconsin Inno 2019 50 on Fire.

50 on Fire is a snapshot at some of the biggest movers and shakers across the state’s tech communities. Winners range from innovative upstarts to publicly traded tech giants to organizations looking to make Wisconsin’s tech scene more diverse. Basically, it’s people and businesses that have had a banner year—whether that’s new funding, product launches, big hires or innovative approaches to solving problems.

View the list: https://www.americaninno.com/wisconsin/50-on-fire-wisconsin/meet-wisconsin-innos-2019-50-on-fire

About Wisconsin Inno
Wisconsin Inno is your source for local innovation. Since 2018, we’ve been covering and connecting the state’s ecosystem, producing digital media and events about the entrepreneurs, executives, startups, businesses, trends and topics that are the shaping the present and future of Wisconsin’s economy. Through a twice-a-week newsletter, daily editorial, quarterly events, directories, data and more, Wisconsin Inno is building a portal to and for the state’s burgeoning startup and tech communities.

SAP S/4HANA: The Speed and Power of Simplification

SAP S/4HANA eliminates the complexities of legacy ERP databases, giving organizations a vastly simplified digital core with access to business-critical data in real time. The “S” in SAP S/4HANA is a nod to SAP's legacy business suite. SAP S/4HANA is optimized for SAP HANA, which supports a data model that simplifies the business computing environment dramatically. To take full advantage of this design, SAP S/4HANA was created to reimagine and recode the business suite from the ground up.

REUNIFICATION
Traditionally, the typical enterprise computing environment has been split between online transactional processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP). This split is a compromise made long ago: each system gets a copy of the original transactional data, commonly in a different data model, with each optimized for the type of workload (OLTP versus OLAP) in that system. This compromise, though, comes at the cost and complexity of managing two separate environments and moving data between them. Because SAP HANA can support performing analytical calculations and transformations on the fly, organizations can now bring OLTP and OLAP together again. Gone are the complex “helper structures” (indexes and data aggregate tables) that are used to overcome system performance issues running at the speed of disk. Now, with a simplified data model and the speed of in-memory processing, organizations can perform analytics on all data (live and historical) in a single environment – in the moment, as needed.

SIMPLICITY
By redesigning ERP for SAP HANA, the SAP S/4HANA reduces the number of tables dramatically across a wide range of functions. Take, for instance, finance and controlling. While in the past, data was structured in subledgers (accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, asset accounting, cost center accounting, and so on), today they run on a single universal journal. This universal journal brings together postings related to finance (FI) and controlling (CO) in one single source table. The integrity of financial data is guaranteed by design, eliminating reconciliation effort between FI and CO and ensuring that every-one can always access the most current data. Teams are aligned and more effective because the complexity has been removed. Forecasting is faster and more accurate. Key performance indicators such as days sales outstanding (DSO) are avail-able in real time on a granular level. Profit center reporting, profitability analysis, and other real-time analytics performed on top of the universal journal become a reality.

As much as this simplification helps SAP, it also helps our customers. The SAP Tax Compliance application, for example, helps to streamline tax compliance through an automated tax control framework and now runs in SAP S/4HANA instead of a separate system that requires data replication. This application provides an enterprise-wide repository of compliance checks and enables corrections continuously during the current declaration period, freeing tax specialists from searching for anomalies. This simplification to a single source of truth supports new benefits – such as a comprehensive enterprise search. Now business users can search for master data and documents across different LoBs and across systems for a holistic view of the enterprise with zero latency in a modern user interface. At the same time, a built-in authorization framework helps to minimize administrative overhead and enable single sign-on so that users can work across LoBs in a secure fashion, without impediments.

INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY FOR THE INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE
A simplified data model is imperative for intelligent technologies, such as machine learning. Traditional database models that maintain acceptable performance only with added complexity simply cannot scale to meet the needs of machine learning deployments. To run simulations, train algorithms, and improve visibility into what’s coming next, technologies need a data model up to the task. SAP S/4HANA is leveraging machine learning technology in the solution itself. One example is accelerated accounts receivable. With legacy databases and complex data models, accounts receivable can be an error-prone process that crosses multiple systems to match purchase orders to invoices. With SAP Cash Application software on SAP S/4HANA, machine learning technology does the matching automatically – and gets better over time with the addition of new data.

THE DIGITAL CORE
With SAP HANA as its foundation, SAP S/4HANA serves as a digital core for the business – one that helps drive business agility, improve customer experiences, and increase business performance.

Start your path to the Intelligent Enterprise with Approyo
Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. Get started today... 

How can the Intelligent Enterprise Impact the Mining Industry?

The digital economy is disruptive. Mining companies need strategic priorities that drive transformation. SAP supports a reimagined set of E2E business scenarios to support the strategic priorities of working in a digital environment.

• Make the business more predictable, sustainable, and safer - Advanced predictive analytics and machine learning integrated with real-time information help make vast operational data more actionable. Predict outcomes or exceptions to support the right decision-making, making mining more predictable, sustainable, and safer for the workforce
• Collaborate with customers, suppliers, and workers - Transform interactions with all stakeholders into an interactive, collaborative, and responsive network to strengthen relationships, digitalize data exchanges, make the business more agile, increase profitability, and digitalize the worker.
• Enhance operational and commercial agility - Achieve real-time visibility into operations and run a mine like a factory based on advanced planning and execution to increase agility by combining IT and operational technology (OT) along the entire pit-to-customer process.
• Increase productivity through automation - Digitalize and automate manual processes and focus on value-added processes for employees while automating operations to keep workers out of hazardous environments.

Supporting next practices in mining with intelligent ERP
Transformation in the mining industry is occurring at a rapid pace. Changes in technologies, business environment standards, and the need for agility require constant adaptation. Mining companies must be able to respond to rapidly changing conditions yet still comply with all standards. How does a digital core with a true single source of truth help?

Mining companies must respond to rapid change
A digital core is an IT architecture that offers stability and long-term reliability for core enterprise processes yet also provides the flexibility to adapt quickly to new opportunities, challenges, and regulations. In today’s environment, mining companies cannot continue with old ways of working, so they need to change how they operate. This impacts the industry and its IT –the backbone of modern business –which has to be agile to ensure compliance. Support for mergers and acquisitions is also required to ensure swift adaptation to changing markets.

Mine smarter, not harder
The ability to respond quickly is an essential part of managing a mining business. To do this, simulation, prediction, and analytical capabilities are important components. For example, this can be the simulation of profitability scenarios to identify the best method of mining or to determine the best time to sell a mine.

Generate additional value from data
While overall processes in mining do not change much, the speed of business is disruptive. Mining companies need the computing capability to carry out complex algorithms with large data sets to support timely, real-time analysis. The base data comes from sensors that enable precise digital twins of equipment and processes. In a mine, data sets will be available that can be used by machine learning to improve equipment efficiency and availability. This provides more-reliable information for all related processes. For example, mine production output can be planned and executed more reliably.

Addressing innovative opportunities
In the commodity business, you have to differentiate yourself. Mining companies must improve customer interactions as well as increase operational efficiencies to gain a competitive edge. This impacts every facet of business, including end-to-end (E2E) processes across departments and even company borders. Collaboration and sharing of resources will be part of the new operating models –from customers to mine operations.

The Intelligent ERP
Bringing SAP S/4HANA and SAP Leonardo technologies together as a digital core will result in a more flexible and intelligent enterprise. To achieve next-generation business processes, mining companies need an intelligent ERP solution. For example, machine learning can help in daily business by helping ensure the correct spare part is ordered by using image recognition to identify the correct version. Early adopters have already begun this journey to gain the competitive edge for a top seat in the next-generation mining business.

Start your path to the Intelligent Enterprise with Approyo
Approyo provides full SAP service technology with extensive capabilities in consulting, solutions architecture, hosting and managed services, in order to develop the right solution for our customers. Get started today... 

How can the Intelligent Enterprise Impact Professional Services Companies?

In today’s digital economy, there is immense pressure on professional services firms to do more for less. Firms are facing new price pressures and competitive threats. New entrants into the marketplace have changed the way firms deliver services, forcing them to either adopt new approaches or face stagnant or declining revenue growth and margins. Firms must be able to respond rapidly to these challenges yet still comply with the pressure of new reporting standards. How does a digital core with a true single source of truth help?

Strategic Priorities in a Digital Economy
The digital economy is disruptive. Professional services firms must use market dynamics to create and capture new business opportunities and enable their strategic objective of nonlinear revenue growth.

Outcome-based engagements
The simple “time and materials” business model that proved highly profitable for professional services organizations in the past is being replaced by outcome-based models. Clients are increasingly focused on the business outcome of an engagement, rather than the effort involved, and are negotiating prices and relationships accordingly. The key lever for firms is to adopt a superior bidding process resulting inaccurate proposals that will ensure predictability and repeatability of outcomes and thus minimize delivery risks.

Knowledge as a service
Professional services firms are realizing that they have valuable expertise and content that can benefit their customers beyond the typical face-to-face engagement model. In the past, intellectual property (IP) was available for customers only in formal engagements and was a key point of differentia-tion. However, innovative service firms continue to productize their service lines, create knowledge “vaults,” and monetize their institutional expertise. To keep pace, the quote-to-cash “process infrastructure” must be adapted to the emerging business models and address the full lifecycle of the new delivery models for digital expertise and IP services.

Leverage talent networks
Digitalization of talent has made new business models possible by identifying, classifying, and attracting talent on an as-needed basis outside the boundaries of a firm and effectively integrating talent into one team based on powerful virtual learning and collaboration platforms.

Professional Services Capabilities with the Intelligent Enterprise

• Understand and optimize engagement profitability - Reduce service costs with full, real-time insight and automated accounting, time and expense processes, while recognizing more revenue through integrated project delivery and billing processes.
• Assess staffing levels anytime, anywhere - Onboard critical resources in time for upcoming projects, track resources continuously, and access contact details quickly to support collaboration between teams, organizations, and partners.
• Simplify time entry in the cloud - Streamline time-entry processing to notify employees when their time entries are rejected and allow them to correct their timesheets and resubmit them – anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
• Enforce limits on time and expense billing - Boost your clients’ confidence in your services by staying within the defined limit for time and expense with the addition of an upper cap amount to your sales agreements and service contracts.
• Reimagine bid management - Speed bid creation dramatically and improve project margin, with more effective planning, then move smoothly into project execution with consolidated real-time and historical insights. 
• Streamline quote-to-cash - Create customer contracts with competitive pricing, personalized payment plans, and multiple methods of billing, while simplifying billing through consolidated invoicing across all engagement types. 

The intelligent ERP
Bringing SAP S/4HANA and SAP Leonardo technologies together as a digital core will result in a more flexible and intelligent enterprise. To achieve next-generation business processes and business models, companies need an intelligent ERP solution that can be continuously enhanced and extended with innovative business services and applications built on emerging technologies, including machine learning, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

View the full blog post: https://www.approyo.com/single-post/2019/08/08/How-can-the-Intelligent-Enterprise-impact-Professional-Services-Companies

The SAP Intelligent Enterprise and the Experience Economy

Last year, SAP unveiled its strategy to deliver the Intelligent Enterprise. At the core of our strategy was SAP’s strong belief that every company needs to address three key challenge in today’s economy:

1. Intelligent Suite
An integrated, yet modular suite of line-of-business (LoB) applications that enables SAP customers to share insights across functions to better manage stakeholders and their day-to-day operations.

2. Digital Platforms
Data management and cloud platform technologies to dynamically orchestrate the growing volume of data and business processes across an intelligent enterprise, so that customers can make sense of their data in real-time. The digital platform forms the foundation of all intelligent activities.

3. Intelligent Technology
Tools and technologies that turn intelligence into business outcome such as analytics, machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain. They are delivered through the digital platform, embedded within intelligent suite applications, and applied to processes that integrate both SAP and third-party data and applications.

Enter 2019 - The Experience Company powered by the Intelligent Enterprise
In an era in which data plays a vital role in all decision-making and in every business process, having the ability to manage big X-data and O-data, gaining new levels of business insights, and turning them into impactful actions is an absolute key to customer success. As business data volume grows exponentially, and as enterprises have access to an abundance of new intelligent technologies, customers have countless opportunities to influence experiences and reimagine their business processes through data-driven innovation.

The following outlines two examples for the opportunities in reimagining business processes:

1. Drive a step-change in productivity: a global clothes retailer collects big and diverse data from SAP C/4HANA including X-data from Qualtrics software and from third-party sources such as comments on social media.

This data is streamed into a data lake integrated with SAP HANA and dedicated to a customer behavior analysis project where intelligence is applied by building ML models to predict changes in customers’ buying preferences. The results are streamed in real-time to SAP C/4HANA marketing campaigns, where a new campaign is automatically triggered via SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation whenever a change in customer preference is identified, significantly increasing marketing productivity leading to additional revenue.

2. Build new business models: a lighting hardware company uses SAP Leonardo IoT, SAP Analytics and SAP Cloud Platform Integration to deliver a light-as-a-service business model. By connecting the lighting hardware to sensors, and orchestrating and analyzing its data streams, customers can receive a variable bill based on usage instead of paying for lighting upfront. In addition, customers can gain insight into costs and usage with an intelligent solution that is able to predict future costs. This solution helps users to make better informed and confident decisions drives operational efficiency and saves energy.

Technology & Innovation Overview and Outlook
The role of technology and innovation in the evolving Experience Economy has never been more important for the success of our customers. As customers’ and employees’ demand for better experiences increases, enterprises must focus on their businesses and adapt to change, rather than concentrating on technical building blocks. SAP believes that these needs can be addressed with a “business technology platform that provides the required platform services combined with the business semantics, content and context which are key to turn data into meaningful business outcomes. The winners will be intelligent enterprises that utilize this platform to get the most out of their experience and operational data and processes. This is the goal of SAP’s digital platform where the business-centric technologies of SAP HANA, SAP Analytics, and SAP Leonardo power the intelligent suite, enable new data-driven innovation scenarios and together with Qualtrics help SAP customers to turn into Experience Companies.

Therefore, SAP’s vision for the digital platform is to be the business technology platform that provides the required technologies for intelligent enterprises to power the intelligent suite, deliver the next-generation experience management, and offer the necessary technologies standalone to our customers and partners for unlocking new types data-driven innovation.

Read the full blog post on www.approyo.com

Third-party Maintenance Companies are Killing Your Future ERP Innovation

If you are a company with an ERP solution in-place, you are looking at a very bright future. A future where the newest, latest and greatest technologies are coming at you. Your ERP solutions providers are there to support you in your company's growth. These ERP vendors are building software specifically designed to help your company in this new digital age. The old legacy technology is just outdated, and it needs to be refreshed, just like our phones, our bodies, and our minds.

Unfortunately, there are third-party maintenance companies who are taking organizations down a road that will eventually kill innovation within that organization. These so-called “third-party maintenance companies” are telling you and other organizations like you, that status quo is “good enough”. That is not what true innovative technology and business partners should be doing. “Good enough” is socialism. If you want to be a socialist company with zero updates or innovation for the next 15 years, then you're going to be in trouble.

I deal with these horrible “third-party maintenance companies” every day. I listen to their stories on how they help an organization stay on an old antiquated and outdated SAP system. They tell the companies that they will maintain old systems day in and day out for organizations at 90% savings.

Unfortunately, that 90% of savings is a lie a flat out lie.  No third-party maintenance company can provide these kinds of services legally and ethically. I know who these companies are, their executives and their sales team. And they are slick as snake oil. If you really want your company to grow and you think that your firm is cutting-edge, then you need to stay away from these organizations.

Let me give you an example. I personally know of a third-party maintenance company that took over the support for a company running SAP ECC 6. This company is actively looking to grow and innovate its technology footprint. Unfortunately, because they are under contract with the third partner maintenance company that forces them to continue to use outdated technology. The third-party maintenance company lied to the organization. They will not be able to succeed while they are stuck using old ERP solutions. They will have to continue to rely on the third-party maintenance company to try to create custom code to connect everything while paying more costs and losing out by not having access to new innovative technology.

If they would have stayed on a simple upgrade plan from SAP (yes there's a cost to that), instead of believing this third-party maintenance company, they would be able to upgrade their SAP environments around the globe right now. SAP and other software providers have development teams around the globe, upgrading and updating the software every day of the year. To be so naive to think that a software application like SAP, Microsoft or Oracle should not get a license revenue maintenance because of the updates and upgrades that they are providing to an organization is asinine.

Don’t allow your company to fall further and further behind but signing a long term (up to 15 years) contract with a third-party maintenance company. While there will always be a cost to a licensing and maintenance agreement, staying with old legacy technology will cost more at the end of the day.

Don’t let that slick snake oil salesmen sell you.

About the Author - Chris Carter, CEO of Approyo
With almost three decades of extraordinary working experience in the SAP industry, Christopher Carter, CEO at Approyo founded Approyo with the goal of making it easy for customers to embrace SAP HANA. Chris works with businesses around the globe and is known to assist them in their journey to the usage of Big Data in the forms of Hadoop (Cloudera and Hortonwork’s) and SAP HANA. His experience has earned him national recognition by the American SAP Users Group, SAP, Hadoop World, Cloud Expo and more.

Under Chris’s leadership, Approyo has been named to the Inc. 5000 three years in a row (2016 – 2018) and named one the SAP Solution Provider of the Year in 2018 by ACQ5. In 2018, Chris was awarded the Gamechanger of the year by ACQ5, one of the 10 Most Inspiring Business Leaders by Mirror Review and one of the Rising Entrepreneurs of the Year by The Technology Headlines.

Big Data and Digital Transformation

This article from Approyo CEO Chris Carter originally appeared in the Technology Headlines: https://www.thetechnologyheadlines.com/technology/big_data/Big-Data-and-the-Digital-Transformation/

Over the past two to three years, big data and digital transformation have become all the rage within organizations and IT departments around the world. This has led to a lot of confusion and myths in the marketplace. Let’s dig into some myths around Big Data and The Digital Transformation.

The first major myth is that every company has a digital transformation or a big data project in place. The truth is, not everyone has a need for digital transformation and even less have a need for big data and analytics. As you look out into the scope of these initiatives, companies are bypassing big data because of the lack of need within their organization. Companies might be utilizing applications and tools that feature some form of big data analytics, but as far as acquiring new tools, specifically for big data analytics, it’s just not happening.

As far as digital transformation projects, small companies with under a million in revenue per year, are already using some sort of tool or software, with features of digital transformation such as QuickBooks or Salesforce. These types of tools, already have the features and functionality, smaller companies need to succeed.

Another myth is that digital transformation is very difficult to implement within an organization. This really is not the case. As mentioned in our first myth, there are a lot of software tools available with various digital transformation and big data applications built into them out of the box. Many of these applications are available through a web browser or smart device, allowing every individual within the organization, the access and ability to transform their day-to-day activities with these software tools. That’s not to say digital transformation and big data initiatives are easy. This is an important fact to make sure your company understands. However, there are tools and applications out there that can make it easier. The hardest part is knowing what you want to analyze and accomplish. This is really where you start a big data analytics and digital transformation project.

Today, there are vast amounts of data everywhere. You can grab data from your website, apps, smartphones, smart devices in your home, your car and thousands of other devices. With all this information available to your company, it is important to figure out what data is the most valuable. That is the key for anyone working on a big data analytics project. Your business needs to know what data is most valuable, in order to make business decisions that will positively impact your company.

Valuable data is key. It can impact your business and bottom line in many ways. However, dirty data can make any digital transformation or big data project wasteful for you and your company. This is where most companies run into problems with big data projects. They get sidetracked by data that doesn’t have a positive impact on their business. When starting a big data and digital transformation project, your company needs to focus on what data is relevant in helping your business succeed.

The final area of big data, that has caused a lot of confusion in the marketplace, is how you are getting that data and using it. As part of a data transformation, you must make sure that you are compliant with the usage of that.

If you cannot be relied upon to do the right thing with your data, someone will step in to make sure that you are or you could have major legal ramifications like we are currently seeing with Facebook and Google. You need to make sure you have a controllable platform within your organization.

Big Data analytics and Digital Transformation will remain an important key to growing your business today and into the future. Your company needs to stay on the forefront of these trends, in order to succeed in the marketplace.

This article from Approyo CEO Chris Carter originally appeared in
the Technology Headlines: https://www.thetechnologyheadlines.com/technology/big_data/Big-Data-and-the-Digital-Transformation/

Big Data and Digital Transformation

This article from Approyo CEO Chris Carter originally appeared in the Technology Headlines: https://www.thetechnologyheadlines.com/technology/big_data/Big-Data-and-the-Digital-Transformation/

Over the past two to three years, big data and digital transformation have become all the rage within organizations and IT departments around the world. This has led to a lot of confusion and myths in the marketplace. Let’s dig into some myths around Big Data and The Digital Transformation.

The first major myth is that every company has a digital transformation or a big data project in place. The truth is, not everyone has a need for digital transformation and even less have a need for big data and analytics. As you look out into the scope of these initiatives, companies are bypassing big data because of the lack of need within their organization. Companies might be utilizing applications and tools that feature some form of big data analytics, but as far as acquiring new tools, specifically for big data analytics, it’s just not happening.

As far as digital transformation projects, small companies with under a million in revenue per year, are already using some sort of tool or software, with features of digital transformation such as QuickBooks or Salesforce. These types of tools, already have the features and functionality, smaller companies need to succeed.

Another myth is that digital transformation is very difficult to implement within an organization. This really is not the case. As mentioned in our first myth, there are a lot of software tools available with various digital transformation and big data applications built into them out of the box. Many of these applications are available through a web browser or smart device, allowing every individual within the organization, the access and ability to transform their day-to-day activities with these software tools. That’s not to say digital transformation and big data initiatives are easy. This is an important fact to make sure your company understands. However, there are tools and applications out there that can make it easier. The hardest part is knowing what you want to analyze and accomplish. This is really where you start a big data analytics and digital transformation project.

Today, there are vast amounts of data everywhere. You can grab data from your website, apps, smartphones, smart devices in your home, your car and thousands of other devices. With all this information available to your company, it is important to figure out what data is the most valuable. That is the key for anyone working on a big data analytics project. Your business needs to know what data is most valuable, in order to make business decisions that will positively impact your company.

Valuable data is key. It can impact your business and bottom line in many ways. However, dirty data can make any digital transformation or big data project wasteful for you and your company. This is where most companies run into problems with big data projects. They get sidetracked by data that doesn’t have a positive impact on their business. When starting a big data and digital transformation project, your company needs to focus on what data is relevant in helping your business succeed.

The final area of big data, that has caused a lot of confusion in the marketplace, is how you are getting that data and using it. As part of a data transformation, you must make sure that you are compliant with the usage of that.

If you cannot be relied upon to do the right thing with your data, someone will step in to make sure that you are or you could have major legal ramifications like we are currently seeing with Facebook and Google. You need to make sure you have a controllable platform within your organization.

Big Data analytics and Digital Transformation will remain an important key to growing your business today and into the future. Your company needs to stay on the forefront of these trends, in order to succeed in the marketplace.

This article from Approyo CEO Chris Carter originally appeared in
the Technology Headlines: https://www.thetechnologyheadlines.com/technology/big_data/Big-Data-and-the-Digital-Transformation/

Major Benefits of Cloud Computing in 2019

There’s no question that cloud technology is redefining the way we do business, including the sharing, storing, and accessing of data to remote locations. The benefits of moving to the cloud far outweigh any disadvantages. By enabling you to boost organizational efficiency, the cloud helps you run your business more smoothly. The availability of all the resources on demand also substantially reduces your IT costs, allowing you to allocate funds to where you need them more.

Scalability
Cloud solutions can support your ever-changing requirements by enabling you to scale resources quickly and efficiently. You can upgrade your storage or bandwidth plans at any point simply by changing your subscription plan. The pay-per-use option is probably the greatest advantage of the cloud, and the cost transparency makes for reliable planning.

This scalability minimizes the risks associated with in-house operational issues and maintenance. You have high-performance resources at your disposal with professional solutions and zero up-front investment.

Not only are your cloud services scalable, but your business can scale as well with the increased flexibility your cloud services provide. You can allocate funding to other growth opportunities and create efficiencies in areas you have thus far been unable to tackle.

Automated Updates 
In cloud computing, the server suppliers regularly update your software including the updates on security, so that you do not need to agonize on wasting your crucial time on maintaining the system. This will enable your IT team to work on business critical issues to help grow your business.

Security
Security is foremost one of the benefits of cloud computing that guarantee data integrity. A cloud service provider should offer a platform designed with strict security measures. The provider must ensure that servers storing your files are well managed to prevent data theft.

Security features for offline computers are more expensive to get when compared to those of a cloud-hosted platform. Note that data in the cloud is as vulnerable as data on offline computer systems. However, the cloud appears to be safer than offline computers since most cloud service providers fix bugs as soon as they’re detected.

Cloud infrastructure has hundreds of people managing data while offline computers only rely on an individual or team to install the security features.

Collaboration
When your team can access documents anytime, anywhere, they can collaborate more efficiently. Your workflow improves because your employees have the flexibility to edit and share documents when it is convenient. That is not to say that coming into the office is not important; however, you maintain a competitive edge by giving your employees more of a work/life balance.

This increased collaboration on a cloud platform facilitates virtual work all over the world among your employees and your clients. It can reduce time-to-market and improve product development and customer service.

The cloud makes running your business simpler by allowing you to track documents without having to worry about USB drives or other pieces of equipment.

Flexibility
Flexibility covers a wide array of solutions. From storage space to bandwidth flexibility, your business must assess its needs and see how the cloud can meet them.

One of the immediate business advantages that cloud solutions offer in this respect is the increased flexibility of both in-house and remote employees. Document storage in the public cloud allows employees to collaborate more efficiently and work on any platform. Any web-enabled device can access cloud-based tools, which is especially useful for mobile or remote workforces. Your employees can work at any time and in any time zone without restriction.

The flexibility of server loads is another advantage of adopting cloud. You can choose to turn up capacity when you expect more traffic to your site and turn it back down when you don’t need as much. The accelerated implementation streamlines your processes, creating increased accessibility and decreasing your reliance on local hardware or software.

Read the full post on www.approyo.com

Ask Approyo: How is Artificial Intelligence impacting businesses right now?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent machines that work and react like humans. The massive amount of data produced by our devices, sensors, and the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow. Turning this data into actionable insights and reaching new levels of sophistication and efficiency will require artificial intelligence (AI).

Now is the time to start to implement AI solutions at your business. Here are just a few examples of how AI is impacting the day to day operations at companies around the world.

Automating customer interactions
Most customer interactions, such as emails, online chat, social media conversations and telephone calls, currently require human involvement. AI, however, is enabling companies to automate these communications. By analyzing data collected from previous communications it is possible to program computers to respond accurately to customers and deal with their inquiries. What’s more, when AI is combined with machine learning, the more the AI platforms interact, the better they become.

Data Mining
Cloud-based AI apps are so advanced that they can quickly discover important information and relevant findings while processing big data. This gives businesses insights into previously undiscovered information, which gives them a major advantage in the marketplace.

Reducing Human Error
Robotic process automation (RPA) can help businesses avoid costly human errors. Each year human errors cost SMEs millions of pounds. RPA tools are designed to continually collect, analyze and learn from large amounts of data. As such, robots are far more effective at standardizing processes than human employees.

Businesses around the world use RPA software across a range of industries and purposes. For example, making logical and consistent marketing decisions, avoiding expensive fines from mistakes within compliance reports, and using set protocols to reduce injuries at work.

Automation
Since the industrial revolution, the rise of technology has gone hand in hand with the automation of work. From tractors, to automated hotel bookings and advanced robots working in manufacturing factories, the theme remains constant. As far as the introduction of artificial intelligence is concerned, the only difference is where it works. There’s a growing trend towards the automation of routine work. Artificial intelligence is quickly automating routine processes, the same way industrial era machines automated physical labor. Not only are these technologies extremely capable, they also don’t require coffee, lunch or smoke breaks.

Breaking the language barrier
At one time or another, we’ve all used Google Translate to simplify our communication with someone, understand a text in a foreign language, or as a part of our work. While the initial translation solutions might not have been the most efficient, Google has implemented machine learning to teach their digital translator to improve on the go. Now, it delivers highly realistic translations, despite their complexity or colloquial nature.

However, AI has gone a step further, and we now have devices that can instantly translate speech into a variety of languages as you enjoy a conversation with someone who doesn’t speak your own native language.

Read the full blog post at www.approyo.com

Approyo CEO Chris Carter featured in Authority Magazine

Approyo CEO Chris Carter was featured as part of an ongoing series with Authority Magazine on February 27. In this interview with Dr. Ely Weinschneider, Chris shares how he manages to be there for his daughters while running a successful company.

Here is an excerpt from the interview:

"With almost three decades of extraordinary working experience in the SAP industry, Christopher Carter, CEO at Approyo founded the company with the goal of making it easy for customers to embrace SAP HANA. Chris works with businesses around the globe and is known to assist them in their journey to the usage of Big Data in the forms of Hadoop (Cloudera and Hortonwork’s) and SAP HANA. His experience has earned him national recognition by the American SAP Users Group, SAP, Hadoop World, Cloud Expo and more.

Under Chris’s leadership, Approyo has been named to the Inc. 5000 three years in a row (2016–2018) and named one the SAP Solution Provider of the Year in 2018 by ACQ5. In 2018, Chris was awarded the Gamechanger of the year by ACQ5, one of the 10 Most Inspiring Business Leaders by Mirror Review and one of the Rising Entrepreneurs of the Year by The Technology Headlines.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us your “childhood backstory”?
Absolutely I grew up as the oldest son of 4 boys. I was the first to leave for college. My parents were divorced, and I grew up between my mother and my father’s homes. When I left for college, I wanted to go somewhere warm and as far away from my parents as possible. I joke about that now, but at the time it really seemed fitting because I wanted to leave to become a technologist or baseball player.

Can you share the story about what brought you to this specific point in your career?
What brought me to this point in my life was a lot of life experiences. A ton of trial and error. And many times, not trusting others and doing it myself. It took a long time for me to be able to understand the fact that I could trust others which would help grow myself and my business."

Can you tell us a bit more about what your day to day schedule looks like?
Typically, my day starts at 5 a.m. The first thing I do is listen to the news while I’m getting ready. I try to be out the door by 5:30 a.m. because my local radio station plays The Star-Spangled Banner at that time. I can continue to listen to the local news and any national activities going on once I get to the office. I usually have some good time to myself to get ready for my day, go through my notes that I left for myself from the evening prior, and answer any emails that have come in overnight. From that point, I continue my day with a lot of activities with customers and prospects. I meet with my team in the office and staff across the globe with phone call meetings.

Read the full interview at https://medium.com/authority-magazine/to-be-a-great-parent-you-must-be-able-to-enjoy-life-to-the-fullest-with-those-around-you-and-the-45cb5cbc1b96

About Authority Magazine
Leadership Lessons from Authorities in Business, Film, Sports, and Tech. Authority Mag is devoted primarily to sharing interesting feature interviews of people who are authorities in their industry. We use interviews to draw out stories that are both empowering and actionable.

SAP Positioned as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics for Seventh Consecutive Year

SAP announced that it has been positioned by Gartner Inc., the leading provider of research and analysis on the global information technology industry, as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics report — where SAP has been positioned as a Leader since 2013.

The evaluation is based on completeness of vision and ability to execute. According to the report, “Gartner defines a data management solution for analytics (DMSA) as a complete software system that supports and manages data in one or many file management systems, most commonly a database or multiple databases.”

“We are convinced that our improvement on the ‘ability to execute’ axis in the Leaders quadrant of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Management Solutions for Analytics report — as compared to the previous year — reflects the success of our customers and the value they create with SAP HANA. It’s the only data management platform with a multimodel database, advanced analytics, machine learning and AI capabilities,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, senior vice president, SAP Database and Data Management and SAP Analytics.

“Looking ahead over the next year, we are very focused on making enterprises more intelligent through our proven solutions for analytics and our data management portfolios available on premise and in the cloud.”

To qualify for inclusion in this Magic Quadrant, DMSA vendors must have had to support one or more of the following four use cases Gartner identifies that support analytics: traditional data warehouse, real-time data warehouse, context-independent data warehouse and logical data warehouse.

Read the full announcement on SAP.com 

What's new in SAP Data Hub 2.4?

Introduced in 2017, SAP Data Hub is the all-in-one data orchestration solution discovers, refines, enriches, and governs any type, variety, and volume of data across your entire distributed data landscape. It supports your intelligent enterprise by rapidly delivering trustworthy data to the right users with the right context at the right time.

SAP Data Hub 2.4 was released in Janaury 2019. While this is an incremental release, following the Introduction of SAP Data Hub 2.3 major release, it is more than just corrections and bug fixes. There are several new features and key enhancements which provide greater flexibility and more protection for customers.

What's new in SAP Data Hub 2.4:

Extending native connectivity to support more databases and applications
Today, SAP Data Hub already provides a broad spectrum of connectivity to big data and enterprise sources. As integration remains a building block for the digital transformation, one of the priorities is to continuously grow the native connectivity with more enterprise applications.

In this release, SAP added direct integration with several structured data sources including MS SQL Server, MySQL, IBM DB2, and Google BigQuery. Once a connection is established, SAP Data Hub will automatically crawl the metadata for these connected sources. You can then browse, view, profile, catalog, and share the data directly within the Metadata Explorer. In addition, there are more than 350 predefined operators and data pipelines that already exist ready to be used for supporting broader scenarios.

Enabling Data Lineage for disparate & distributed data sources
SAP introduced the SAP Data Hub Metadata Explorer in the previous release. The goal is to provide a centralized location for all data professionals to gain insights on diverse datasets in today’s modern distributed landscape.

This release SAP is increasing our investment in metadata governance by offering end-to-end support for data lineage at the schema level. You can use the new lineage analysis feature to view a graphical representation of the source, transformations, and dependencies of a dataset. Lineage information can be extracted from computed datasets such as SQL View, and other types of computations including stored procedures, BW transformations, datastores, and the Data Hub pipeline modeler.

The Data Lineage feature will further help you to gain visibility about your data assets and greatly simplify root cause analysis. You will have a clear understanding of the data’s origins, how the data may have changed, and which areas might be consuming the data.

The initial support is focused on SAP connections including Business Warehouse, HANA, Vora and data pipelines. Our plan is to extend this functionality towards all supported sources as well as allow a complete audit trails for business security and compliance in future release
.
Providing a new Anonymization operator for individual’s privacy protection
With GDPR being enforced in 2018, SAP knows meeting this regulation is still on everyone’s mind. Previously, you could use the data mask operator to mask out all or a portion of the data that contains sensitive information. Now, you can use the new anonymization operator to further protect the privacy of each individual identity by grouping similar records into a category. Thus, you can discover statistically valid insights from your data without risking re-identification of individuals.

View the full post on www.approyo.com

Approyo recognized as an Industry Leader in Three Categories of the 2018 ACQ5 Global Awards

Approyo, a leading enterprise SAP HANA Solutions Provider, announced today it has been recognized in three categories of the 2018 ACQ5 2018 Global Awards by ACQ5.

• US - SCALE-UP COMPANY OF THE YEAR (IT SERVICES), APPROYO
• US - SAP SOLUTION PROVIDER OF THE YEAR, APPROYO
• US - GAMECHANGER OF THE YEAR, CHRIS CARTER, APPROYO

The ACQ5 Global Awards honor the leading deal teams, firms and professionals whose activities set the standard for our markets. This year, companies and individuals, representing every major market in the world, became finalists for the awards.

“These awards cap off a great 2018 for Approyo,” says Chris Carter, CEO of Approyo. “I would like to thank our great team, partners and customers who make these awards and recognitions possible. To be recognized in so many categories is a true honor”

“Experts whose intimate knowledge and expertise in the corporate, cultural, financial and legal arenas are redefining our industry,” says Jake Robson, Group Editor of The ACQ5. “The 2018 ACQ5 Global Award winners represent the best of breed in all industry sectors and have earned these honors by standing out in a group of very impressive finalists. We are lucky enough to work with some of the most influential and enterprising private organizations in the world and are proud to share their message with our readers. Relying on reader insight and experience to provide nominations to the panel remains the cornerstone of our program and to identify industry leaders, individuals, teams and organizations that represent the benchmark of achievement and best practice in the business world.”

About the ACQ5 Global Awards:
ACQ Global Awards’ Objective as Always: To gather quantitative and qualitative information from and about the sector to be able to give a set of “Best of” awards. One of the industry's favorite awards events was right to anticipate another record-breaking number of votes! The total number of nominations received stood at an amazing 98,621 our highest ever.

The poll was not only designed to reflect actual performance in any particular area of expertise, it was also aimed to reflect direct market share based on a number of criteria. Voters were encouraged to base their decisions on addressing professionalism: experience, value for money & responsiveness in order for ACQ to derive a numerical rating from 1 – 5. In that sense, this poll should be considered a reflection of how professionals view any practice, individual or related sector supplier in terms of overall quality of service.

About ACQ5:
Serving the finance sector since 2003, we provide our Global audience of over 168,000 subscribers with the information behind the headlines.

ACQ5, the English-language magazine news portal is read exclusively by senior executives holding power and authority at major organizations. Our readership are the people who will select and authorize the purchase of your products and services. The magazine is intended for CEO's & CFO's as well as other corporate finance and private equity executives from all corners of the globe.

View the full announcement on www.approyo.com

Approyo named one of the "Best Entrepreneurial Companies In America" by Entrepreneur Magazine's Entrepreneur360 List

Approyo was recently recognized as one of the “Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America” by Entrepreneur magazine’s Entrepreneur360™ List, a premier study delivering the most comprehensive analysis of private companies in America. Based on this study forged by Entrepreneur, Approyo is recognized as a well-rounded company that has mastered a balance of impact, innovation, growth leadership and value.

“It is honor to be recognized by Entrepreneur magazine,” says Chris Carter, CEO of Approyo. “2018 has been a great year of growth for the team at Approyo and this recognition further validities our success in the SAP ecosystem. Thank you to our team, partners and customers.”

“Our annual evaluation of vetted data offers a 360-degree analysis of top privately-held companies across a multitude of industries,” explains Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. “They are deemed successful not only by revenue numbers, but by how well-rounded they are. The companies that make the list have pushed boundaries with their innovative ideas, fostered strong company cultures, impacted their communities for the better, and increased their brand awareness.”

Honorees were identified based on the results from a comprehensive study of independently owned companies, using a proprietary algorithm and other advanced analytics. The algorithm was built on a balanced scorecard designed to measure five metrics reflecting major pillars of entrepreneurship — innovation, growth, leadership, impact and business valuation.

For additional details on the E360 List and the companies recognized, visit: entrepreneur.com/360

ABOUT ENTREPRENEUR MEDIA INC.
For 41 years, Entrepreneur Media Inc. has been serving the entrepreneurial community by providing comprehensive coverage of business and personal success through original content and events. Entrepreneur magazine, Entrepreneur.com, GreenEntrepreneur.com and publishing imprint Entrepreneur Press provide solutions, information, inspiration and education read by millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners worldwide.

View the full announcement on www.approyo.com

Mirror Review names Approyo CEO Chris Carter one of the 10 Most Inspiring Business Leaders of 2018

Mirror Review has recognized Approyo CEO Chris Carter as one of the 10 Most Inspiring Business Leaders of 2018. This recognition is part of the December edition of the Mirror Review Magazine.

The team at Mirror Review has listed Chris Carter, the CEO of Approyo among these inspiring leaders owing to his extraordinary working experience in the SAP and Big Data, as well as his industry, creative mindset, commitments towards driving growth and being a leader.

“I am extremely honored to be named one of the most inspiring leaders by Mirror Review,” said Christopher Carter, CEO of Approyo. “I personally think the entire team at Approyo made this award possible, not just me alone. This achievement continues to validate our success in 2018 and beyond.”

In this story published by Mirror Review, the author has shared the perception of Chris towards business, his secrets towards leading a company towards pinnacle, and his suggestions to the aspiring business leaders. Managing Editor of the magazine, shares, “It takes great courage, futuristic vision, headstrong attitude, and immense amount of patience to successfully lead a company and create a mark in the industry,” shares Anuja Mulmule, Managing Editor of Mirror Review. “Chris is among a very few of the leaders who possess these qualities and among a fewer who leverage these assets.”

The 10 Most Inspiring Business Leaders of 2018 list:
https://www.mirrorreview.com/the-10-most-inspiring-business-leaders-2018/

View the full profile:
https://www.mirrorreview.com/christopher-carter-unlocking-digital-transformation-with-sap-powered-by-approyo/

About Mirror Review
Mirror Review is a magazine company that unwinds the untold stories of Enterprises and their Founders, VPs, CEOs, CXOs, etc., while focusing on the unique services offered by them. As this is a platform for technologists and business people, the company keeps its audience informed with all current affairs in the market. The magazine company focuses on technology sectors such as Big Data, Cloud, IoT, Mobility, Networking, Security, Software, and Virtualization, and has issued numerous successful projects.

Approyo CEO Chris Carter named one of the Successful Leaders in Tech by CIOLook

Approyo is proud to announce that CEO and Founder Chris Carter has been named one of the Successful Leaders in Tech by CIOLook Magazine. The publication sheds light on th most admired tech leaders and their journeys to success, it also provides insights on their mission and vision, their backgrounds, and the traits that make a resilient leader.

"In our edition titled "Successful Leader in Tech," we envision exhibiting the vital contribution of emerging tech leaders who have brought about a disruptive change in their respective industries. With three decades of executive experience in the SAP Industry, the Founder and CEO of Approyo, Christopher Carter has marked his presence in the industry by aiding the commendable provision of optimal SAP solutions. CIO Look recognizes and appreciates his efforts and takes pride to feature him in our very first edition," Pooja M. Bansal, Editor-in-Chief of CIOLook.

“I am extremely honored to be named one of the Successful Leaders in Tech by CIOLook,” said Christopher Carter, CEO of Approyo. “I personally think the entire team at Approyo made this award possible, not just me alone. This achievement continues to validate our success in the SAP marketplace.”

Web Profile: http://ciolook.com/christopher-carter-enabling-customers-to-embrace-sap/
Magazine: Digital Link: http://magazines.ciolook.com/Successful-Leader-in-Tech-2018/

About CIOLook
CIOLook is Global business authority platform where you can explore the perspective of Entrepreneurs, business owners, and innovators who drive business around the globe. CIOLook has unvaryingly been at the front line for its honesty and genuineness acquiring acknowledgment from Business pioneers universally. Alongside, it focuses on showcasing world changing business concepts to help readers get a deeper understanding of the progressive business world.

Consistent updates to our online journals, internet based life and master sentiment give a substance rich perusing knowledge loaded up with fascinating perspectives and remark on the issues of the worldwide business .CIOLook Magazine inspires readers and users to think beyond traditional boundaries, lead conversations and create the future of business.

2019 Technology and IT Predictions

Every year, the team at Approyo gathers a few predictions for the upcoming year. This year we decided to make two lists, one focused on the IT and business world and the other focused on consumer technology.

Top IT predictions for 2019

• Intelligent Data – Businesses are now understanding the impact of big data in the marketplace. The next step is using all that data in intelligent ways to be able to grow your business. In 2018, SAP introduced the concept of “Intelligent Enterprise”. This gives businesses the technology solutions needed to use all the data and make intelligent decisions to improve business, 
• AI and Machine Learning - Creating systems that learn, adapt and potentially act autonomously. In 2019 and beyond, these systems will work with people to create better business processes and improve the bottom line. SAP continues to innovate with SAP Leonardo. It has many features for AI and Machine Learning that can help companies today. 
• Security – As we mentioned in our first bullet point, data is one of the most important aspects of your business. Cloud and hosting partners will need to continue to adapt security measures to protect this valuable information. 

Top Consumer Technology predictions for 2019

• AI in every part of our lives – AI is impacting every part of our lives in ways we probably don’t think about. Digital assistants are becoming widespread, your email is not writing sentences for you and more companies are utilizing AI in everyday business practices. You probably are interacting with chat-bots online or on the phone and you might now even know it. 
• Faster Internet – The Internet is a part of every minute of our lives. Between phones, cameras, voice enabled home systems, computers and even refrigerators, more and more devices require an internet connection. Because of this new reality, 5g and faster Wi-Fi internet will continue to grow. 
• Digital Assistants become the norm – Since the introduction of Apple’s Suri, Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa, the digital assistant has started to be part of our daily lives. Now and in the future, more and more devices will have a digital assistant built in. Everything from speakers, to cars and even appliances will now be enables with digital assistants to help you with daily tasks. 
• Security - We mentioned this on our IT list and it is here as well. More people than ever are online and use cloud services to store pictures, passwords, data and more. This means more phishing scams and hackers. People need to be aware of their security at home and at the office. Make sure you change your passwords on your online accounts and home devices. 

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