Month: December 2019

Impact of Mobility Solutions on Logistic & Supply Chain Industry’s Dynamics

Posted on by stridely

The supply chain and logistics industry have been growing for decades. Predicting how and what is nothing but difficult. Given the pace at which technology is rising, organizations, irrespective of their domain, invest in the same. One such disruption has been witnessed by the logistics and the supply chain industry. It is seen that the optimal inception of technologies in the domain of supply chain and logistics own the potential to amplify business growth.

Further, with rising in technological trends, the demands and the expectations of the customer rises and it becomes imperative for the organization to align their business processes with emerging technologies to map the rising needs of the user.

Of all the transformations embedded by the supply chain industry, mobility solutions happen to be the most influential. Keeping an eye on the package, tracking delivery timelines, and access data in real-time, adding mobility to the logistics and the supply chain industry is proven to enhance the performance and productivity of the operation.

Before we see how mobility solutions affect the industry, let’s have a quick look at the architecture of the supply chain management system.

The Background Check of Mobile Supply Chain System – Quick Review

As the goods are on the move, so is the system. Adding mobility to the supply chain management system leads to the creation of an agile infrastructure that can enhance the asset and inventory management of the enterprise and at the same time, account for real-time data management.

In simple terms, mobility solutions suggest deploying a mobile app to monitor and manage all your supply chain management needs. From tracking data to gaining IoT assistance for multiple touchpoints, a mobile app for your supply chain industry does all. The app has an inbuilt GPS system that renders the best possible route to reach a destination. This not only reduces the time taken to deliver the product but also eases the task of the fleet operator.

In addition to the above, the system is tailored to provide real-time insights on the vehicle, which further helps assess the performance of the driver and delivery.

According to research, companies have reduced their fleet management costs by 50% after adopting a mobile app for the same. Additionally, the overall revenue of the organization improves by 10%.

Now all of these figures provide a shady view of the integration of a mobile app for your supply chain and logistics industry. To help you delve deeper into the prospects and have a better idea of how mobility solutions alter the dynamics of logistics and supply chain industry.

How Mobility Solutions Improvise the Logistics and Supply Chain Industry

  • Create Demand In Real-time

    Ecommerce is on the rise and with it, there lies the need to create an infrastructure that can leverage the omnichannel business and craft ways to deploy demands in real-time. Using industrial tables or software such as CAY, organizations can capture, organize and analyze data.

  • Foster Better Data Handling

    The present-day business relies on data. With more and more data being generated each day by billions of users, enterprises seek to put this data to use and improve their business operations. Where manually operated supply chain restricts the availability and accessibility of data, incorporating a mobile app to do the same, gives leaders the ease to not only use the data but also convert it into meaningful information. Data can then be analyzed, studied and modelled to drive significant insights that further promote data-driven decisions.

  • Improved Communication

    A customized supply chain management system is designed in a way that vehicles have IoT devices that can track the location and notify about the same to the vendor. Also, these devices are connected with mobile apps that keep track of the location of the vehicle in real-time. No longer do you need to call the driver to know about the exact location of the vehicle. Mobile apps account for last-mile delivery solutions where the app gets automatically updated about the current location and also facilitates engagement between the driver, the shipper and the customer. It would not be wrong to state that with mobile apps for logistics and supply chain, everybody involved in the process remains connected and on the same page from start to end.

  • Eliminate Gaps

    Delayed delivery, but the logistics manager isn’t aware of the same. Vehicle breakdown, the managers could not know where is the vehicle. With mobile apps and tracking systems, the supply chain and logistics manager gains 360° of the delivery process. The fact that the vehicle is equipped with GPS and tracking devices, the logistics manager can keep an eye on the minute-to-minute movement of the vehicle. This enables them to stay informed about the whole round delivery and likewise, update the customer on the same. In addition to the above, the managers can also track the fuel consumption of the vehicle, optimizing the performance and efficiency of the same.

  • Improved Vehicle Performance

    No doubt the supply chain industry is always on the go. For enterprises that run throughout the day, the vehicles are always moving. Such rigorous movement might cause the system to break, hampering the entire line of the delivery. With mobility solutions, the next-gen logistics manager embed sensors within the vehicle that are adept in tracking the load fed, the temperature, battery performance and if there arises any discrepancy, it sends an alert to the concerned person, notifying them about the issue. This enables solving the issue long before it damages the system.

The Final Word

While the integration process might be a bit cumbersome, the end result is intimidating. In case you aren’t sure where to start, hire a mobile app development company and they will help you walk down the process of mobilizing your fleet management. It is no doubt that mobility solutions, when adopted in the industry of logistics and supply chain, would streamline the entire line of operations, reduce costs, induce data-driven decisions and also enhance the productivity of the organization.

 

How to choose the right international website structure?

Posted on by stridely

In case you are planning to take your online business beyond borders, there is an array of things to consider. Starting with the products to be added or improved to the website design and structure, everything needs to be revisited to make your site ready to hit the international market.

Of all the considerations, one that leads the charts is how to optimize the international website for SEO. Like you just don’t want to launch a site in the international spectrum, you would always want to monetize the website to grab traffic and earn profits.

Going by the norms of Google Webmaster Tools, there are four different ways to decorate a website with the aim of targeting different languages. These include:

  • ccTLDs (country-coded top-level domains)
  • gTLDs (generic top-level domains) with sub-domains
  • gTLDs with sub-folders
  • URL parameters

The choice you make has a considerable impact on the SEO of the website. It determines how the local search engines view your business/brand and how does it rank the same.

Before we delve deeper, let’s have a quick rundown at the terminology of each.

  • ccTLD

    Acronym for Country Code Top Level Domain. This is regarded as the end part of the domain name which owns the country code. For instance: .co or uk or .fr and not .com or .org.

  • gTLD

    Acronym for Generic Top-Level Domain. The gTLD specifies that there is no significant or defined geographic affinity of the website and can be accessed from all parts of the globe. The commonly used domain names include: .com, .info, .gov, etc.

  • gTLDs with sub-folders

    These are country coded folders where the content is stored in the single domain but packed inside significant folders.

Which Structure Serves the Purpose Best?

Basically, there are three different ways to structure the site, one through ccTLD, other by subdomains and one by subdirectories/folders.

To get a better idea of who is what, let’s take an example for each:

mysite.com/uk : country-code folder.

uk.mysite.com : sub-domain

mysite.co.uk: ccTLD

The above three are examples of each of the three structures.

  • Country-coded

    The first is country coded on the existing site. Meaning that there already existed a site with the URL: mysite.com. .uk is the country code appended at the end of the URL to optimize it for the country.

  • How Does Country-Coded Structure Benefit:
  • For one, it allows website owners to make use of their existing site and extend the visibility to the region overseas.
  • Centralizes all of the content enabling maintenance in a single roof.
  • Reduces the cost of maintenance.
  • Allow consolidation of Google Analytics in a hassle-free manner.
  • Strengthens the website’s domain authority.

Another benefit of using country coded URL is the fact that they can be easily configured and geo-targeted towards a particular location.

Cons: The only downside of using country coded URL is that it may or may not behave properly when it comes to country-specific search engines.

  • Sub-domain

    Next, we have a structure that involves the sub-domain. Sub-domains also work on the existing site and creates an impression that the given website is the local version of a big international website. Using sub-domains makes it easier for the website owner to host sites in different regions without much effort giving it the SEO kick.

Cons: As so it appears, using sub-domains to target the SEO of the website internationally is no longer in use. The fact that users are accustomed to typing www., they often tend to sway of the website. Also, Google doesn’t vote on using sub-domains as the URL and avoids assigning domain authority to such pages.

  • ccTLD

    Probably the best and yes expensive, ccTLD work as a totally separate site. They have higher domain authority, can be geo-targeted and similar to the sub-domains, these websites can be hosted locally in separate regions. What’s more? The site structure is user-friendly and makes it easier for the website owner to optimize the site for international SEO.

Cons: The first and the most important being it’s the price. ccTLD domains are very expensive and also getting a local domain isn’t easy.

Making the Choice

Knowing how each of the above behaves, the question arises which one should you opt for. Whether you should go for ccTLD or sub-domains or subfolders.

As noted, ccTLD leads the charts but the fact that they are expensive, not every business can afford to pay for its services. For organizations that have both a name and fame in the industry can invest in the same. Also, organizations that have branches in the target countries and the resources to build and maintain a customized website can go ahead with ccTLD.

Websites that have good traffic and decent domain authority, looking for opportunities to expand their business across borders can opt for sub-directories. These are the enterprises that do not have the resources to run customized websites. It helps them create a consolidated backlink profile and target the international market. Such a site structure incurs minimal maintenance costs.

For organizations that wish to keep their own brand name intact and the website URL same, no matter which region they are to target their products, sub-domains serve the purpose best. If we compare this with the two mentioned above, sub-domains aren’t as effective as ccTLD or sub-directories and hence it is better to avoid them.

Conclusive Summary

SEO, without a doubt, is one of the most important considerations when it comes to an online business. Regardless of how efficient the business is or how glorious the website looks, it isn’t optimized for SEO, it is of no use. When planning to target the international market, SEO again hit the nerve. The ideal site structure is needed to make the most out of the arrangement. Given the above were three different structures, you can consider before making the choice.

Remember, it is the type of business you are running and the resources you own that determines the choice. So, be cautious before making the final call.

Entering the Decade of Automation – RPA for All

Posted on by stridely

Gone are the days when everything was done manually. No matter how incoherent the job was or how repetitive the task, everything was done through human intervention. However, with time, the trend has changed and technology evolved.

Industrialization 4.0, heard the term before?

If not, you need to brush up your idea on the twenty-first-century technology. One word to define the above is digitization. From machine learning to artificial intelligence, AR/VR and IoT, the fourth industrialization revolution, undoubtedly, took the entire digital world by storm. In line with the above, there arose a new concept, something that we call as RPA or Robotic Process Automation

The technology is proven to craft a seamless engagement between machines, leading to automation. This fosters machine to machine communication with data analytics driving growth and efficiency of the organization.

The sole purpose behind the integration of such a concept was to automate siloed business processes that were otherwise conducted on an ad-hoc basis. Such inception not only saves time and efforts but at the same time, optimizes the efficiency of the entire work. Having said that, the benefits lure you to integrate RPA in your business but the adoption isn’t easy.

In order to make the most out of the Robotic Process Automation, it is important to undertake a strategic approach with greater emphasis on attaining business goals, striving for customer satisfaction, digitizing the workforce and building a value-based ecosystem that drives data-specific decisions. All of this, in itself, sounds complicated but the benefits driven by it are worth investing the same.

While every industry and every leader would have their own conjecture on RPA, we highlight five reasons why do you need to augment RPA within your existing organizational infrastructure.

Top Five Reasons to Embed RPA in Your Infrastructure

Wondering why do you need to embed robotic process automation?

  • Reduce Costs Of Business Operation

    Running a business isn’t as easy as slicing a cake. You need to keep in mind multiple things before actually making the move. Of all the different aspects, cost happens to be the most important one.

    With tons of employees, working on billions of repetitive tasks, organizations incur huge expenses. With the inception of RPA in their day to day business operations, organizational leaders can effectively cut down the manpower hours while reducing the total cost required to run the same.

    Also, since RPA’s are tailored to perform a specific function, hardly do they commit errors. This saves organizations from the pain of reviving the take and turning it mistake-free. In a way, organizations cut down on the extra expenses while optimizing the genuine ones. According to research, organizations that have embedded RPA within their workforce, reduced cost by 30%.

  • Enhance Employee Productivity

    RPA is tailored to take over tasks that are mundane and highly repetitive. Performing such tasks time and again takes hours of work which restricts the undertaking of the employee. Integrating robots to perform the manual, day-to-day repetitive task, enable the employees to shift their focus and work on something that is far more important and efficient. This in a way improves the overall productivity of the employee and the organization.

  • Boost The Time To Market

    Where one employee takes hours to do a single job, a programmed robot can do it within minutes. Now, this is for one single take, imagine the workload of your organization and then determine how quickly can you do all of the tasks which normally takes a day for an employee to finish.

    As organizations collaborate with other vendors and/or customers, time is a vital element. Delayed work can cost you a potential customer and also degrade your brand value. It is seen that RPAs can do the task quickly and at a lightning-fast speed. This reduces the time and speeds up the process. Also, the fact that these are machines, they do not take breaks or leaves, instead can work throughout the day, and trigger the work span.

  • Free-From Errors

    It is a known fact that humans can commit errors. Tons of data entries done by fewer employees, errors are common. However, a single error, no matter how small, can be fatal for the organization’s growth. Whether it is simply a digit mismatch or a computational mistake, organizations cannot afford a single fallacy.

    Working with robots or integrating robotics process automation within your organizational infrastructure turns your system bug-free. As robots are computerized, they are designed to carry out a particular task, leaving no room for errors.

  • Reliable

    Data processing done through robots happens to be extremely reliable. All of the data stored within the organization through RPA is secured and does not allow any information loss. The system is kept secured and none but the authorized employee can access the same.

    No matter whether you are in the healthcare industry or an accounting firm, a software development company or a manufacturing organization, data is crucial for your business and there must not be any discrepancy when it comes to storage and access. Where humans might, out of the need, share and leak significant data, robots are tough to manipulate, in fact, impossible and so you can totally rely on them for security.

The Final Word

Even though this technology has tremendous benefits and can boost the growth and productivity of the organization, critics are not in favour of technology. They reckon that the inception of such a workforce would take over human work and to an extent, that it would leave thousands of employees jobless.

However, this motion doesn’t stand strong as robotic process automation, though manifested to take over basic human work, does not aim to replace humans but along with them. The sole purpose behind such integration is the need to optimize the manual workforce, in a way that it not only automates basic processes but relieves humans from the same so that they can work on other important tasks and enhance the overall efficiency of the organization.

     

    Big Data for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Industry: How and Why Businesses Need it?

    Posted on by stridely

    With data rummaging up all the everyday business operations, entrepreneurs are finding it hard to map customers’ expectations. Nearly every sector is witnessing the transformation, mandating the need to adopt significant business strategies. Similar is the case with the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. A sudden change in their business landscape necessitates the need to prioritize operations and alter their course of action.

    Merging Data with CPC

    Data Analytics is on the rise. Millions of data generated every day and used to drive significant insights highlighting consumer preferences and behavior. Undoubtedly, this part of technology has set off the traditional form of business, opening doors for newer avenues. CPC industry, though a leading and apparently, the most successful sector worldwide, is also experiencing success gaps, given the onset of a consumer-driven economy.

    Today, we thrive in the consumer specific era. People are a lot more active and engage at an enhanced level. Not only has their usage trends altered by dramatically revised, threatening the existence of traditional companies. Sudden change in tastes, uncertain demands, and fluctuating needs, it is turning impossible to predict the buying pattern of a customer. Now, this is where the idea of Big Data dives in.

    Having the potential to analyze consumer behavior, and outlining the next probable purchase, Big Data can definitely turn the tables. It’s time that the consumer packaged companies rethink their business strategies, only to put Big Data to use.

    Integrating Big Data – How Does It Helps CPG Industry

    We are very well aware of the fact that CPG industries generate huge amounts of data every day.

    • What are the products sold
    • What kind of goods are manufactured
    • What should be the minimum value of the product
    • What is the maximum amount a user is expected to pay

    And this continues. With such huge data, the marketing team can generate countless opportunities for growth, helping organizations to reinvent their customer’s experience. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, the real image is far more dazzling than you can ever anticipate. Shedding light on the advantages posed by Big Data in the consumer packaged goods industry, the article would help you have a clear idea of the actual potential of Big Data.

    • Improvise the generated ROI as now the products are tailored keeping in mind the expectations of the consumer.
    • Accelerate the time to market a product as companies can now make better and faster decisions.
    • Amplify shopping experience and remain equipped with stocks through automated stock analysis.

    Data exploitation is no longer a naive term. Every single industry is using it and given the possibilities of growth and success, the CPG industry too needs to scale operations, harnessing the true potential of Big Data.

    Top 3 Strategic Business Priorities – The How of Big Data

    True that Big Data can change the entire face of the digital economy, of course for the good. However, you are not alone in this race and in order to stay above and ahead of your competitors, it’s important that you undertake an organized and strategic approach. Not sure how? Let’s have it then.

    • Invest in Personalized Offerings

      As mentioned above, the present age is consumer-driven. In order to excel in the industry and remain at the forefront, you need to understand what your consumer wants and expects. Gone are the day when a business meant selling, today you need to provide an exceptional consumer experience to actually sell. Customers won’t buy in the fact that you have a product they want, instead, they look for a company that offers the quality and the experience, they have been seeking for ages. Today, selling is an art and it has to be customized in terms of the user’s preferences and choices.

      To do this, you need to engage with your consumers and at a personal level. You need to have a better understanding of their choices and then build your strategies, likewise. Personalized campaigns, one-to-one interaction, social media communication, all add to up to a better outcome.

    • Omnichannel Presence

      Restricting users to a single platform does nothing but restrict your sales and revenue. Today, people are present all across the digital channels. It might so happen that your brick and mortar store still generates a handful of traffic, it isn’t much to stay ahead in the competition. You need to expand beyond the comfort zone and embed different channels giving users the ease to connect with your brand and purchase items on and off the store. Online channels that offer delivery and pickup of items or goods that are consumed regularly is the new face of buying and selling. You too need to incorporate online media channels to offer home delivery of goods.

      For goods that are consumed regularly, you can have a subscription option that automates delivery offering better customer experience. For the consumer packaged goods industry, such a model would help them attract new ones while retaining their existing ones. And while you are doing all of this, your father an enormous amount of data that will boosts sales and marketing methodologies of your brand.

    • Winning As The Ecosystem

      While industries and organizations are working to offer the best in class services and offerings, they are also fueling partnerships leading to better growth. To emerge victorious in their business operations, the consumer packaged good industry people need to collaborate with other departments, such as the logistics, packaging, and co-manufacturing to speed up the selling process while adding flexibility and reliability in their business undertakings. Also, it is important to start building trust and create transparency among the manufacturing process, right from raw materials to production and finally distribution.

    The Final Word

    Gone are the days when professionals undertook the method of guesswork to predict how the customer would react when given a particular product or what would be the acceptance rate. Today,Big Data does all of this, but in a way, that is organized, strategic and highly accurate. It is obvious that Big Data is powerful enough to drive business decisions but only when used the right way.

     

    ASP.NET Core for Modern Web & Cloud Applications – Features To Know

    Posted on by stridely

    Developed as an open-source platform, ASP. NET is the first choice of a majority of the developers when it comes to building feature-rich, scalable web applications. A new release encompasses a modular framework that owns the capability to run on all platforms, irrespective of the kind. If you compare this with the earlier versions, the former seems to be a lot more influencing.

    ASP.NET core comprises of the latest versions of Web pages, Signal R, .NET MVC, and Web API, enabling developers to use each of them either independently or in conjunction to build efficient applications.

    The ASP. NET Core Framework has grabbed the attention of a lot of developers and software companies who now actively invest in hiring DOT NET developers. Greater performance, improved speed and leveraged scalability, the core framework of DOT NET have all. If you aren’t aware of what and how do the recent release of DOT NET benefit the development phase of web and cloud-based applications, this article is just for you. Designed to enunciate the top features of ASP. NET Core framework, we help you get a better view of the technology and underlying benefits.

    Exciting Features To Build Web & Cloud-Based Applications Using ASP. NET

    • Cross-Platform Connectivity

      Unlike the ASP.NET MVC Development Services, the ASP.NET Core Framework supports the cross-platform feature set. Meaning that irrespective of the platform you target to build the application for, it would function seamlessly across all OS. Whether it is Linux or Unix or Mac OS, the framework can efficiently integrate with all and is, therefore, regarded as one of the frameworks with the highest efficacy.

      Additionally, the framework gives developers the freedom to gel with applications or specific technologies that can enhance the performance of the developed application. Docker as a PaaS, Azure for cloud deployment and Kubernetes for app management automation, the all-new ASP. NET Core integrates all. In case you are concerned about the application life cycle, don’t worry about the command line tools as part of the SDK will take care of it.

    • Merging Developmental Models

      The two most important models of application development, Model-view-controller and the web API development, ostensibly are the same and gives an impression of being the same. The fact that both entail the same base controller, which embeds abstract classes to do the task, accounts for the amalgamation. This coalition enables the controller to reveal the feature of the web service along with the view of the application (HTML). Incorporating ASP.NET Core’s MVC model adds functionality when one needs to create web APIs or testable applications. The fusion model also provides support to the data formats whereas the content negotiation leads to ubiquitous applicability of the web across all web and mobile platforms.

    • Improved Performance

      Shifting the HTTP request size from 30kb to 2kb, the entire Microsoft team has worked hard to ensure that the perform ASP.NET core is greater and better than the traditional one. And undoubtedly, they have been successful in doing so. As a matter of fact, the performance of the present version is 10 times better than conventional ASP. NET. Features such as serialization, concurrency, compression, and networking, all of which hold significant importance and usage in web application development, seem to be a lot simpler in ASP.NET Core. All of the above has a compounding effect on the enhanced performance of the framework.

    • Health Check APIs

      Till date, there hasn’t been a feature or a tool that could test the status of the in-application components. With ASP. NET Core, the Microsoft team steps forward, deploying the iHealthCheck Service. This apparently is the diagnostic service applied in the application and is capable of testifying the efficacy of the components as part of the system. Also, it can be used to do a backend check on separate sites and the database, as used in the application. The fact that the framework has tons of libraries along with features and functionalities, the incorporation of such a diagnostic service would help developers keep an eye on the performance of the different systems and other dependencies.

    • SignalR Java Client

      In line with the above, ASP.NET Core extends its feature set to the Java client for SignalR. The team worked upon the same to finance build a library for the Core Framework of ASP.NET. This enables the server code to pitch asynchronous messages to the web applications that reside on the client-side. Depending on the best possible route, the signal itself selects the medium of transporting content from either side. This is possible because the framework uses WebSocket, an HTML API that facilitates bidirectional data transfer. What’s best about this feature is the fact that it promotes the addition of web functionality in real-time.

    • Dependency Injection

      One of the most important and fascinating features that developers look forward to while working on a web development project. The concept of dependency injection walks along with that of the MVC pattern. Using this, DOT Net developers can embed net loosely coupled codes that are proven to better the issues of coupling and accounts for better testability. As ASP. NET focuses on reliability and flexibility components, the integration of the concept of dependency injection adds to it. In case you are planning to work with this much more organized and consolidated architecture model, you need not worry about the implementation as ASP. NET does that for you.

    • Reduced Coding

      ASP. NET Core is designed in a way that it can put the common APIs to use. Meaning that the ones that were deployed for the DOT NET framework or the ones that are specifically tailored to gel with Unix or Linux OS can effectively be integrated with the ASP. NET Core design. No matter whether the API was made for .NET Standard Or Framework, it would function on Core as well, thereby reducing the efforts needed to rewrite the same piece of code, time and again.

    Conclusion

    Evidently, ASP. NET Core is better, stronger and a lot more efficient as compared to the earlier ones. Whether you consider the performance bar or the speed or the efficacy, ASP. NET Core leads the charge. In case you have been looking to deploy mobile web and cloud application, ASP. NET Core would serve your purpose best.