Account Mining: Benefits

Account Mining, if executed well, can help us ‘Get more opportunities with less effort’.  It is a continuous ongoing exercise as the customer’s business priority is subject to change every quarter. Some of the benefits of the Account Mining exercise are:
  

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Helps us to differentiate ‘Decision maker, Influencer and Executor’ within the client organization
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Helps us to identify Pro, Neutral and Not Favorable executives within the client organization and subsequent actions to be taken to convert Neutral to Po and Not Favorable to either Neutral or Pro
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Facilitates identification of new verticals and geographies to enable services extension
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If working with a software product company (client), Account Mining helps to identify the opportunities in product development (vis‐à‐vis identifying services like new product engineering, sustaining of existing products, release engineering, quality engineering), business solutions, business integration and professional services.

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Helps us to continuously monitor the customer business, market conditions, vertical expansion, geographical expansion, culture, political impact, business leaders’ approaches, needs, requirements and competitors’ business, their technological practice and business support; etc
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Provides the opportunity to identify  the pain areas and provide constructive suggestions to the client 
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Helps us to identify/analyze the value additions provided to the client 

Project Management – Doing the basics right

Project Management is an umbrella term for effectively handling project resources and applying the best practices learned over he period of time.  Doing the basics right is the mantra. Management is just not about planning, it is more about executing the planned Plan. Let us revisit the key facets of IT project management here ‐

1.Project starts with a contract or charter with the client. If possible, managers should have visibility into the contract, so that they can better plan out the downstream activities. T&M and Fixed Bid are two common flavors of contract, both have different client expectations and suppliers involvement.

2.Project’s nature should be taken into account to formulate the implementation strategy. If required, implementation processes should be tailored as per the project’s needs, to deliver in the most efficient way.

3.Project execution strategy could be sequential or iterative, which has to be decided during the initiation phase. Project’s nature, scope and team’s capabilities are the factors which could influence the decision. The most prevalent methodologies are Waterfall and Agile.
 
4.Knowing the historical information of the past similar projects provides a great deal of insight into the various aspects of prject including estimations, risks, and team composition.
 
5.Managers should take appropriate inputs from the teams regarding the things she / he is planning. Though manager is solely accountable for planning, taking valuable inputs from the team and involving them with some planning activities makes the team more responsible and commtted. This also helps in building the team bonhomie.

6.The triple constraints (time, cost, quality) have a major impact on the project’s success. Out of the three components, quality of work is of paramount importance as cost and time constraints can be negotiated but quality is compromised very rarey. In a way, management is about delivering the quality at a particular cost and time. To ensure quality deliveries proactive measures should be taken, like Defect Prevention activities, Reviews and Trainings.

7.Scope creep has to be regularly monitored and controlled. Change Requests related to scope have to be evaluated for their impact on the other project constraints and should be communicted to all the concerned stakeholders. Most of the projects go hay wire because of scope creep and unaccounted change requests.

 8.Risk Management is an iterative process and should be done regularly. Managers should be discussing risks in every team meeting and get latest inputs from the team.
 

Minimizing costs / Maximizing returns while Going Mobile in Retail Environment

Customer expectations for the shopping experience have grown tremendously in the past decade with the proliferation of internet-based retailing and the empowerment of the consumer to comparison shop using ever richer detail and instantaneous information. The more recent onset of mobile phone-based retail integration has served to raise these expectations even higher, with consumers demanding fast and superior service from anywhere and at any time. This consumer mind-set extends itself full circle back onto the shop floor as well, with customers expecting to find what they need and get information on products immediately, and to be able to complete the transaction quickly and securely.Mobile technologies have the potential to make a consummate impact on the landscape of retailing. In the U.S. and the U.K., major retailers are investing in mobile solutions both as an alternative channel for consumer access as well as to streamline store operations. In developing countries, the ubiquity of mobile phones as compared to Internet connections makes it the clear choice for retailerslooking to enhance sales through digital channels. Gartner, in its recent retail predictions report, identifies that the mobile channel will exceed direct sales capacity of other offline channels, such as catalog and call center sales, within just two to three years. They also cite that mobile technologies will drive significant
sales indirectly and may have an even greater impact than e-commerce by the year 2013. With this is mind, Gartner recommends a multi-channel mobility strategy for retailers.

Infogain's new Transformational Customer Support service enables simplified, low-risk transition to Cloud-based Customer Support

LOS GATOS, Calif.- September 13, 2011, Infogain Corporation, a leading technology solution provider specializing in business solutions and services for Retail, High Tech and Insurance industries, today announced the newest addition to its line of services, Transformational Customer Support service. The new service creates a multichannel, community-based knowledge-enabled solution that leverages the benefits of and innovations available in cloud-based contact center offerings.Read More..

The Traditional Approach: Project Management

While project management skills are obviously important for project managers, interestingly the methods and tools that project managers’ use can be helpful for everyone. Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to achieve specific goals. Any task that requires some preparation to achieve a successful outcome will probably be done better by using a few project maagement methods somewhere in the process. Project management includes developing a project plan, which includes defining and confirming the project goals and objectives, identifying tasks and how goals will be achieved, quantifying the resources needed, and determining budgets and timelines for completion. Projects can be various shapes and sizes, from the small and straightforward to extremely large and highly complex. So project Planning might also include specifying milestones or deliverables to be produced, and timelines for achieving the objectives and milestones. In organizations and businesses, project management can be concerned with anything, particularly introducing or changing things, in any area or function, for example:
 
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People, staffing and management
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Products and services
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Materials, manufacturing and production 
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It and communications
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Plant, vehicles, equipment
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Storage, distribution, logistics 
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Buildings and premise
In software development, this approach is often known as the waterfall model i.e., one series of tasks after another in linear sequence. This becomes especially true as software development is often the realization of a new or novel product. In projects where requirements have not been finalized and can change, requirements management is used to develop an accurate and complete definition of the behavior of software that can serve as te basis for software development. While the terms may differ from industry to industry, the actual stages typically follow common steps to problem solving—"defining the problem, weighing options, choosing a path, implementation and evaluation."

SharePoint and its use in Project Management - By Avinash

What is SharePoint?

Microsoft SharePoint is a software platform and a family of software products developed by Microsoft for collaboration, file sharing and web publishing.

SharePoint's multi-purpose platform allows for managing and provisioning of intranet portals, extranets and websites, document management and file management, collaboration spaces, social networking tools, enterprise search, business intelligence tooling, process/information integration, and third-party developed solutions. SharePoint can also be used as a web application development platform

SharePoint is capable of supporting multiple organizations on a single 'server farm'. Microsoft provides SharePoint Foundation at no cost but sells premium editions with additional functionality, and also provides SharePoint as a cloud computing solution as part of Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) and Office 365. The product is also sold as a cloud solution by local third-party vendors. SharePoint provides various methods for customization and configuration of web areas, all of which have granular governance configurations. Beyond basic page-editing, file-storing and custom design ('branding') abilities, one of the more prevalent forms of configuration is the ability to install third-party customizations called 'web parts' (i.e. portlets/widgets/gadgets).

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 makes it easier for people to work together. Using SharePoint 2010, your people can set up Web sites to share information with others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to help everyone make better decisions.

Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011 (SPC11)

About the event
Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011 is the premier worldwide conference dedicated to SharePoint and related technologies. At SharePoint Conference 2011 (SPC11) you will learn more about Microsoft SharePoint 2010, the business collaboration platform for the enterprise. Learn how to apply the latest best practices for building and deploying solutions on the platform and find out how customers and partners are embracing cloud-based services to create value for their organizations.

Join Infogain at Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011 (SPC11)
Infogain welcomes the opportunity to talk with you during Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2011. Leaders from Infogain's Collaboration Practice will attend the conference, along with leading organizations wishing to learn best practices for integrating and managing a SharePoint environment to unlock the full potential of collaboration and teamwork.
Visit the Infogain booth #140 at the SPC11 event and learn more about Infogain's simple, cost-effective, best practice approach to SharePoint solution design and deployment.

Request a Meeting with Infogain's SharePoint Practice during the event.

Event Details
Infogain Booth #140
Anaheim Convention Center
800 West Katella Avenue
Anaheim, CA 92802-3496
United States

Register today to reserve your spot for the event: Register Now

Benefits of Upgrading to SharePoint 2010 with Service Pack 1

SharePoint 2010 offers a number of upgrade benefits for business users, IT managers and developers. Now, with the release of SP1 and the latest Cumulative Update (CU), the platform incorporates support for the Google Chrome browser when using Office Web Apps, support for SQL Server 2011, and an increase in the content database size limitations. Microsoft recommends a combined update of SP1 with the June CU in order to bring your platform up to the latest release level, as SP1 itself resets the baseline for your SharePoint environment while the June CU builds upon SP1 with additional fixes and capabilities.

For more information on SP1, the June CU and the recommended approach for upgrading, please visit the Microsoft Office Sustained Engineering and Release Team's official Blog.

Join Infogain at Dreamforce '11

Learn how to modernize and optimize your contact center with our Transformational Customer Support services

About the event
Dreamforce ’11 brings together all the leaders in cloud computing to collaborate, connect, and inspire new ideas for innovating in cloud.

Leaders from Infogain's Customer Support Practice team will attend the conference along with leading organizations wishing to learn best practices for leveraging the next generation of cloud computing to truly embrace the power of the social enterprise.

Visit the Infogain kiosk at the Dreamforce event and experience Infogain's approach to cloud-based, knowledge-enabled and socially-connected Transformational Customer Support services.

Request a Meeting with Infogain's Customer Support Practice Team during the event.

Event Details
Infogain Kiosk #9
Moscone Center San Francisco Airport

The Evolution to Next Generation Customer Support

CRM, or better still, XRM—which refers to the general realm of Relationship Management with any number of different constituent categories including customers, partners, internal workforce, extended workforce (e.g. agents, representatives), and so on—is a field that has seen dramatic innovation in the past decade. Traditional entrenched CRM packaged applications focused on gathering customer data inside the company and enabling stronger decision-making based on that data. Over time, self-service portals, knowledge management and analytics served to increase the effectiveness of these CRM solutions. However, with the latest XRM technologies that are founded on an adaptive, agile, cloud-based platform, businesses have the opportunity to truly modernize the way they reach and interact with customers to deliver a superior experience that builds loyalty while at the same time reduces infrastructure and operational costs.

With the plethora of opportunities to modernize and advance your capabilities, come a number of critical decisions to make vis-à-vis:

· which functional areas to prioritize

· integration with on-premise CRM apps,

· the design, architecture, and integration roadmap

· how to manage data migration

· the best fit products and services

Another primary concern is how to support the overall solution after transition to the cloud to ensure it grows, scales and changes in response to the ever-changing business environment to which it is connected.Read more...

Transform Your Customer Support Operations

Leverage Infogain’s 3-pronged Transformational Customer Support to modernize your contact center and deliver a better customer experience at reduced costs

Are you considering making some changes to your customer support processes? Are you able to reach, engage and interact with your customers using the channels and social tools they are comfortable with? Have you established a community-based portal wherein your customers can share information and help each other while you monitor, learn and innovate? Does your contact center platform adapt and scale seamlessly to meet your needs without excessive maintenance and support from your IT department?

Our unique 3-pronged approach incorporates the latest capabilities to help you modernize and optimize your contact center to improve your customer experience, increase agent productivity, reduce call volumes and lower operational costs. Infogain’s Transformational Customer Support methodology is:

Cloud-based. Using our Transition Blueprint and Toolkit will ensure the fast and smooth transition of your customer support operations to the cloud and provide you with a fully-integrated solution from the leading providers Salesforce.com or Oracle CRM on Demand.

Knowledge-enabled. By leveraging the latest CRM knowledge management technologies your solution moves beyond data clutter straight to searchable, intelligent information that helps your agents at a call-level and helps your business make better decisions faster.

Socially-Connected. Incorporating social technologies directly into your overall customer support operations provides self-help, peer-to-peer community in a controlled and monitored environment.

This holistic approach enables you to create a multichannel, community-based, knowledge-enabled customer support solution that integrates with your existing application infrastructure and conforms to its security and governance models.