Technology Revolution: The Future of Now

The buzz: One. Employee engagement is at its highest since Gallup started tracking it in 2000. Real number? Less than one-third (31.4%) of US workers were engaged in their jobs in 2014. Why? Success in our global, uber-competitive economy may be less reliant on strategic investments in technology, acquisitions, products – and more on how you treat your employees. Meaning? It may be time to change...

The buzz: The power to inspire. Executives and employees agree: leadership today is lacking. Who says so? A Workforce 2020 studied initiated by SuccessFactors, an SAP company, with Oxford Economics. Why? Because companies are not focused enough on developing future leaders. What does this mean to you? Think about the leadership characteristics at your organization that inspire you to come to work...

Employee engagement is at its highest level since Gallup started tracking this metric in 2000. That's the good news. The truth? Less than one-third (31.4%) of US workers said they were engaged in their jobs in 2014. Success in this global and highly competitive economy may be less reliant on strategic investments in technology, acquisitions, and products, and more reliant on how you treat your emp...

The buzz: Invisibles. Visible healthcare wearables like smart wrist bands and watches are commonplace. What if you prefer non-obvious tracking devices? Almost-invisible-to-invisible innovations are entering the market, hoping to gain your trust and improve healthcare outcomes. Coming soon: under-clothing heartrate tracking strips that detect and report epileptic seizures; "smart pills" that measur...

The buzz: Are you really "you"? Authentication techniques designed to confirm you are who you say you are, typically entail one or more of three techniques: Something I have, Something I know, Something I am. Thus, accessing the things and information we value can range from easy – like physical keys to our home and our car – to complex passwords intended to protect the privacy of our medical reco...

The buzz: Make for me healthcare. In medicine, one-size-fits-all treatments have helped save many people cost-efficiently. But for complicated illnesses like cancer, a standardized approach doesn't always work. Personalized medicine – tailored to a specific patient profile – may be the answer. It sounds promising, but will individualized therapies really work, be affordable, and be appropriate for...

The buzz: Fine Art. To survive, small businesses must understand the fine art of customer engagement and cohesive omni-channel branding. But how can you "know your customers" and where your product fits into their lives? Hint: Social media can help you create mini-focus groups and technology can help ensure customers know you value them uniquely. The experts speak. Susan Wilson Solovic, THE Small...

The buzz: Social. Social media is the new way of doing business: always on, available, working for or against your company and brand. With vast data at their fingertips, buyers simply click a mouse to show support or disappointment. If your company is still debating the value of social media, the better question to ask is whether you know how to use social in ways that create measurable business v...

The buzz: Partners. Small businesses today must deftly manage business partnerships without risking IP, valued talent, or worse, in a business milieu where the lines can blur between cooperation and competition. And in the networked economy, supply chains can shift and transform seamlessly. How can a small business owner shore-up enough protection to avoid getting squeezed out? How often should th...

The buzz: To life! With over two billion people expected to be 60 and older by 2050, chronic illness and diminished wellbeing are fast becoming major global public health challenges. The solution to aging gracefully, managing chronic diseases, and minimizing impacts? Not cure, but treatment. But if we turn to smart technologies and data—a "Connected Care" continuum—to support aging populations, wi...

The buzz: Engagement. Baylor University and SAP researchers found employee engagement alarmingly low worldwide, with just 13% of employees feeling actively engaged. Wondering if complexity in organizations could be a root cause, they explored whether simplification, engagement, and trust together contribute to better-functioning companies. The experts speak. Dr. Ann Mirabito, Baylor: "Everything s...

Today's buzz: Risk. Supplier risk management is the fastest growing discipline within supplier management. Why? When a key supplier disrupts the supply chain, your costs of doing business increase along with perceived and unperceived risks for the buying enterprise. Do you have a solid strategy in place? Think technology. The experts speak. Dr. Van Gray, Baylor: "As our world becomes increasingly...

Today's buzz: Empowering managers. Want to improve your organization's performance management? If you're focusing on HR processes, but not your managers' POV or day-to-day style, listen-up! SAP and Baylor University researchers studied best practices, tools, and processes that empower natural manager behavior to make better performance-based job assignments, promotions, and pay decisions. The expe...

Today's buzz: The Journey. Customers are changing the rules of the marketplace. Digitally connected, socially networked, better informed before making a purchase, they jump between web, mobile, in-store, and phone and expect it to happen seamlessly in a personalized context. Whew! What is their POV on personal data privacy, advice for competing retailers, and definition of the best-ever customer e...

The buzz: Breached again. Forbes.com's "The Big Data Breaches of 2014" include Neiman Marcus, Michaels, P.F. Chang's, Dairy Queen, Goodwill Industries, Affinity Gaming's 11 casinos, Albertson's, plus "22.8 million private records of New Yorkers." Breaches cost merchants dearly in lost customers and profits, a tarnished reputation, and substantial fines. Are merchants waking up and becoming proacti...

The buzz: Safety first. After record vehicle recalls in 2014, automakers are under intense pressure from consumers and regulators to be proactive about product quality and safety issues; protect consumers; and minimize the duration, scale, and cost of recall events. How? Advanced analytics. The experts speak. Mark Gardner, Deloitte: "Anyone who sits on top of the largest hydrogen-oxygen fueled sys...

The buzz: HR here and there. HR practices in Western countries can differ significantly from Eastern countries in terms of organizational structure, motivation, communication and conflict resolution. Whose are the most successful? According to professor Dr. Michael J. Marquardt, American companies think they're the keepers of the best management practices. Consequently, they don't try to learn as...

The buzz: Health. Wearables like wrist bands, watches, glasses, and contact lenses are the NBT. Why? They can now measure body conditions and use the data to support healthier living, disease prevention, and faster rehab. But will patients actively track and share wearables-generated data, despite privacy concerns? And are wearables precise enough to meet medical device quality standards? The expe...

The buzz: Space. Changing the culture and shaking up the status quo in organizations is always challenging, but key to survival. How to make it happen? Build a continuous innovation culture by identifying the right people, process, and space. But working in a tiny cubicle with half-walls or a conference room is hardly conducive to brainstorming new ideas. Hint: Your employees, partners and custome...

The buzz: Recruiting. If acquiring and retaining top talent for your company tougher than ever, three factors may be at play: workforce mobility mindset, competitors' poaching, and your employer brand. If the third comes as a surprise, here's a reality check. Just as customers check social media for product and service reviews, potential job recruits are combing the Web for insider info about you,...

The buzz: Future of Insurance. According to a survey from SAP and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), long-standing insurance companies are struggling to keep pace with strong competition from other industries that offer advanced consumer-facing insurance capabilities. Can traditional insurers survive? It may depend on how well they embrace analytics and learn to incorporate data from M2M and I...

The buzz: Travelers' TMI brbr "The customer is #1" is a customer service industry mantra and mandate, particularly for business-to-consumer travel and hospitality staff who are required to greet each visitor by name. But now that their clients willingly share searchable, "TMI"-level personal data on digital media, how and when should the industry use it, if at all? The experts speak. brbr Deva Sen...

The buzz: IP Security brbr Are market globalization and new competitors grabbing your customers' heads and wallets? If not, soon. How to survive? Innovate sustainably to speed differentiated products to market by streamlining operations, and collaborating, sourcing, partnering globally. A great plan until it raises the stakes by exposing your ideas to rampant IP theft. How do successful companies...

The buzz: Your business in 2015. brbr What hot business trends should you focus on this year? We asked three visionaries to share their insights and predictions. Tune-in and learn from the experts. brbr Ask ten people what the Cloud is and you'll likely get ten different answers. Why? There's still a lot of confusion about what it actually is and what it can do for business. In the first half, Tim...

The buzz: Credit cards.brbr With headline-topping credit card breaches at Target and Adobe, merchants are on high alert to safeguard their systems. A data breach is costly: lost customers and profits, a tarnished reputation, substantial fines. Are merchants proactive or reactive about PCI compliance and security standards? How easy is it for hackers to find unprotected access to merchant vulnerabi...