There has been a lot of hue and cry about custom software development in the online space for more than a decade now. With the continually changing IT environment, there has been witnessed an exponential increase in the demand for tailor-made software solutions since these lend strategic advantage to the businesses worldwide.

Every business calls for a unique strategy, unique solutions. In today's dynamic business scenario, generic software does not suffice for the specific requirements of a business or enterprise. The solutions need to be streamlined and exactly befitting the requirement canvas of an enterprise so as to fetch it the dose of competitive advantage and help in the business survival.

For smart enterprise programs, a client-centric approach must be adopted by the business. An enterprise must put in its endeavors to analyze and understand the requirements of its end users so that it can get effective custom software applicant development done to address such demands.

Today, there are countless vendors on the World Wide Web specialized in formulating software application development. However, you must associate only with a good custom software development company, which can devise effective solutions for your business. The software solutions are developed not for the mass market, but for meeting the specific requirements of customers. Hence, highly special skill set is required for their formulation and calls for seasoned professionals to carry out the development process.

There are a lot of benefits of custom software development:

• Easy and User-specific: The custom application development is devoid of any unwanted or redundant functionality. Hence, these solutions are easy to use and more user friendly.
  
• Highly Cost Effective: Since no unwanted functionality exists in custom software solutions, hence you don't need to pay extra bucks for getting these solutions made.
  
• Saves Time: Since these solutions are specifically targeted towards a focused group, hence not much time is needed for their development
  

Samer El Bizri is associated with Codehost, Inc. an innovative software company that brings value added solutions to businesses and OEMs worldwide. Drawing upon its strength in IT outsourcing and custom application development, the company relies on its skilled workforce to deliver timely, high-quality and cost-effective solutions to its clients complex business technology challenges, worldwide

To read more, please visit here:  https://medium.com/@SamerElBizri/

One of the biggest challenges facing organizations today is the need to respond to ever-increasing volatility. For a variety of reasons, product and technology lifecycles are shortening, competitive pressures force more frequent product changes and consumers demand greater variety than ever before. To meet this challenge the organization needs to achieve greater agility such that it can respond in shorter time-frames both in terms of volume change and variety change. In other words, it needs to be able to quickly adjust output to match market demand and switch rapidly from one variant to another. Moreover, organizations of interacting elements (supply-chains are one example) can become Agile and increase their responsiveness if they can accommodate a variety of different kinds of change adequately. The paragraphs that follow describe some of the solid strategic requirements discussed by Samer El Bizri for the types of change that need to be accommodated.

 

Demand Management

 

As more and more organizations focus on improving the quality and customer responsiveness of their operations, attention tends to increasingly fall upon their supply chain. Demand uncertainty in supply chains can be addressed by faster response times. A basic product supply chain can afford longer lead times and batch manufacturing of large lot sizes to meet the demand. A supply chain that produces fashion or mass customization products must respond quickly and be more agile. Most supply chains are moving in the direction to support a more rapid changing of demand by the consumer or customer.

 

Flexibility

 

Critical issues in today's markets that define economically successful enterprises and contribute to increasingly dynamic supply chain environments are flexibility with respect to volume, type and grade of products, transition time and cost, predictability of production, reproducibility of transitions and tight quality control.

 

Postponement

 

Demanding customers and volatile markets are a common practice in many industries and more and more companies are now forced to consider postponement in their supply chain. Postponement centers around delaying activities in the supply chain until customer orders are received, rather than performing them in anticipation of future customer orders or performing them with a focus on customization and cost efficiency. Postponement contributes to agile capabilities through:

 

• the customization of products and services (customized and localized assembly, etc.)
  
• the use of customer order information throughout the supply chain (supply chain operations linked to the customer order, etc.)
  
• the cross functional efforts involved in assembling products in the distribution channel (linking manufacturing and distribution, potentially even product design through the redesign of products around modularity and commonality)
  
• the critical role of supplier networks in postponement, given the need for availability of generic modules and parts before customized assembly, etc.
  

 

Partnerships with suppliers

 

Strategic alliances and partnerships are important for a successful agile supply chain. They encourage firms to focus their attention on the entire supply chain and reduce the number of suppliers they deal with. Many companies have developed preferred vendor (supplier) programs, as well as core carriers, to ensure that a quality product is received where and when it is needed.

 

A successful strategic alliance/partnership has the following characteristics: Extreme trust -Win/win relationship - Team building - Common goals - Cooperation (willingness to assist, better negotiations, less money driven).

 

Virtual Integration

 

As the power of the marketplace shifts to the customer, more pressure is placed on the manufacturer to deliver a wider variety of products, of higher quality and in a shorter lead time, than ever before. The Internet gives each buyer a world of options to choose from. Suppliers must work harder and smarter than ever to survive and succeed. In today's interconnected world, responding to customer demand nearly always involves not only the manufacturer of the product itself, but also a whole chain of suppliers and their service providers. The activities of this supply chain are orchestrated, using Internet technologies for communication, through Supply Chain Management and collaborative planning applications that are coming into more widespread use. A Virtual Factory enables distributed facilities to perform in concert as if they were a single plant. It is made up of an infrastructure and a set of applications, within a connected supply chain, that allows production schedules, product data (configuration, process definitions), plant data and status information to be synchronized and made available throughout the chain.

 

Conclusion

 

Agile is the essence of supply chain management. Adaptive, move-quickly is necessary for an effective SC. Each order must be handled differently. Each customer has its own set of instructions and requirements to satisfy its SC. The logistics director must be a maestro in managing an agile SC with its scope and breadth. The pressure for SCs to be agile will continue. Information technology and collaboration are also vital to agility success. Time demands, inventory pressures, cost and service requirements and continuing global supply chain complexity demand it.

 

Samer El Bizri is CEO of the Zeconomy, Inc. With Zeconomy Bizri provides business-to-business online payment services designed to access liquidity from anywhere in supply chain. Bizri is a successful businessman also and he helps in executive management and cross-functional team leadership.

To learn more, please visit here: https://samerelbizri.wordpress.com/

By many accounts, enterprise software development projects fail between 30 and 40% of the time and over 60% of projects don't meet their stated goals. These projects fall victim to shifting requirements, lack of user communication and un-weildy and un-maintainable code bases. This is a staggering number of projects representing billions in wasted cash.

Enterprise software development projects fall victim to three major issues - shifting requirements, lack of communication and poor execution resulting in un-weildy and un-maintainable software. Fixing these issues is not simple, but the key to success is having disciplined technical project management that focuses on continually shipping working software.

Shifting Requirements are a reality in every business setting and cannot be avoided. What can be avoided is putting the development team into a spin cycle of requirement change. Disciplined project management must be employed to create time-limited "islands of calm" in which development teams have no changes to their requirements for that period of time. Outside of these time slots, the requirements can change significantly, but it is up to the project management to isolate the development team and ensure that they can accomplish useful work in an unchanging environment for a period of time.

Lack of Communication frequently causes immediate problems as development proceeds in the wrong manner due to a lack of understanding between the business stakeholders and the developers. But there is a more insidious problem caused by a lack of communication which is a lack of acceptance by the user base. Software projects generally cause major changes in the way that a business operates but in the majority of projects, users are not fully involved in the development and sufficient time is not allocated for change management post-development. In the major projects we've seen with challenges, a 1-2 year development project typically is given less than 2 weeks between the date it is anticipated to be completed and the date that users will start using is in production as their primary business tool. This timeframe is far too compressed unless all of the users have been intimately involved in the project development process which is often unrealistic.

A lack of communication can be radically reduced through a relentless focus on shipping working code. When the code is consistently deployed working, users, business stakeholders and developers can be united around the demo and can reset their expectations and work with requirements with a common understanding. This is the only way to truly have all stakeholders fully understanding the project and where it should progress from there.

Poor Execution is a failure both of ownership and skill. Think about software development as your own home - if, every time you do something, you were to improve or clean something, your house would improve every day. Make dinner, clean up immediately but also fix that loose handle on the cabinet. Play with the kids outside, do a little weeding at the same time. Software is the same way - with a highly skilled team that feels a sense of stewardship over the code and has management that is technically astute enough to understand this process - every time that the code is touched, it's cleaned up and improved through a process known as refactoring. Without this intent, understanding and discipline, software rapidly becomes un-maintainable and every step forward in the development starts to take longer and longer. This not only kills the forward motion of a project, but also makes the resulting software incredibly expensive to manage and run.

Software development in enterprise is hard. There's no question about it. But with the careful application of strong, technical project management, it can be successful every time. If you need any help then you can consult with Samer El Bizri.

Samer El Bizri is a successful businessman and CEO of the Zeconomy, Inc based in New York which provides help in supply chain management and enterprise software services. The company's business-to-business online payment services are automated and secured, enabling businesses to trade liquidity for price discounts far beyond their direct customers and suppliers without increasing credit risk.

To read more, please visit here: https://samerelbizri.wordpress.com/

Does it seem like your VPs of sales and marketing can't agree on anything?

Chances are, it's more than a case of conflicting personalities. Part of the problem could be that they don't understand each other very well and are used to working in silos. It's essential for these two departments to work well together to achieve revenue goals, and as a leader, it's your responsibility to facilitate that cooperation.

Within any team of leaders from multiple department or regions, success hinges on their ability to collaborate effectively. There are numerous challenges standing in the way of collaboration, including generational gaps, lack of face-to-face interaction in virtual teams and lack of clear decision making authority.
Here are five unique activities suggested by Samer El Bizri that can enhance cross-functional team building.

Generational Trivia

What better way to get to know someone than to ask them questions? Challenge your employees to divide up by generation. Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers can answer questions from generations besides their own. This will shed light on each generation's defining features and provide more understanding of one another. It should also illustrate the differences between generations that team leaders need to address.

The main idea for this game is not to pit one generation against another, but to point out the differences in a friendly environment and break the ice among co-workers of different generations who may not interact on a regular basis.

Two Truths and a Lie

This game is a great way to cultivate trust for team members who do not know one another. Try it on your next kick-off meeting. Each person must think of three statements about themselves, with two being true statements and one being false. The group must correctly guess which statement is false.

Employees sharing information about themselves helps to promote a friendly, trustworthy environment and opens the door to conversations between the most unlikely colleagues. It serves as a tool for communication that can lead to new friendships and even a few laughs.

Team TED Talks

Divide your team into groups and assign each group to give a 15- to 20-minute presentation once a month. Let them choose a topic they are familiar with and comfortable speaking about. This project has many positive aspects for employees, including the time they spend together preparing the presentation and sharing ideas.

Additionally, TED talks provide a platform for your team members to practice their public speaking skills and become confident speaking in front of their leaders and their peers. TED talks often foster development and expose employees to new ideas.

Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts are a fun way for team members to take a break from their busy work schedules and participate with their colleagues in a competitive quest to be the first to collect miscellaneous items. These can be fun, random objects such as another person's business card (besides their own), a restaurant napkin, a takeout menu, or an old hotel room key.

Putting team members in an environment outside of their daily work tasks can help rejuvenate their minds and allow them to be creative in ways they normally aren't in their everyday positions. It calls for them to come up with a strategy, and requires participation and effort from all team members to gather the items as quickly as possible. Google has used this teambuilding activity in the past during its Hong Kong regional training and found it to be a successful use of their time.

For virtual teams, provide each team member with a list of items they must acquire and give them a time frame. They must photograph ALL of their items once they've found them for accuracy purposes and share it with the group. Apps like Scavify and GooseChase help make the process easier for employers by providing tasks teams must complete and enables photos to be uploaded while tracking participants' points.

Training Programs

Training is an important part of leadership's ability to perform at top levels across different departments. Within cross-functional teams, leaders must be able to foster cooperation to achieve results. Ensuring people have the skills to effectively influence others, build and sustain trust, resolve differences, and know when and how to involve others in decisions can help achieve that outcome.

If training sounds like a drag, there are ways to make it more engaging and interactive by disguising it as a game.

Gamification is simply applying game techniques or gaming elements in the workplace to motivate people to achieve their goals. While gamification today often involves digital technology, such as computer programs that allow employees to complete simulated tasks and earn points, it can also include a variety of interactive learning techniques, such as role-playing. Using gamification in leadership development has worked well for a number of companies across industries, from Nike, Starbucks and the U.S. Army to the Deloitte Leadership Academy, which saw a 37 percent increase in the number of returning weekly users after giving learners an opportunity to earn badges after completing training.

Whether it's taking more time to get to know your team or taking a break from your routine to play a game that encourages you to work together in different ways, activities like these have helped thousands of companies around the world. While it may seem counterproductive for your employees to take time out of their day to do something that's not directly tied to profit, these activities can establish trust, build relationships, promote open discussion and brainstorming and take productivity to new levels.
When cross-functional teams collaborate effectively, they set themselves up for success. Even with busy agendas most workplaces have, it's worthwhile to take time out to participate in team-building activities. Leaders who can skillfully moderate collaborative activities among their colleagues will be better prepared to handle other work conflicts as well.

Samer El Bizri is a successful businessman who provides the help in executive management and cross-functional team leadership. Mr. Bizri works with teams in organisations who want to be more effective and achieve sustained success. He writes about Supply chain management and other related topics.
Visit his blog here: http://samerelbizri.kinja.com/

A well accepted principle of effective leadership is that of trust. Without unconditional trust the relationship between team members and management is held together by only the very thin filament of organizational control “Me boss - You Employee".

The term "servant leadership" is much in vogue. For many leaders there is a religious attachment to the phrase. With good reason

There is a significant connection between trust, servant leadership, and the success of a team.

By definition, one of the purposes of a "team” is the collaborative sharing of ideas, knowledge, and resources in order to enact best practices solutions. Team members are perceived as equals with the senior management person there providing a listening ear and acting as a informative shepherd.

When the chemistry of "trust" is present a very interesting group->leader interaction takes place. There may be expectations for the senior person to carry out certain actions. The group may have decided, for example, on a reconfiguration of a work cell. This involves the need for a discussion by the manager with a long term employee and a reassignment of them. This will be a very difficult meeting. At the time of commitment with the group, there is every expectation that the manager will move forward.

Follow through is essential. Trust is in the balance. Future behavior modeling by team members will only occur if the leader carries out what he/she has promised. The team leader has become the servant of the team. This means no waffling, or procrastination, or significantly modifying the agreed upon action. Returning to the team and saying “I had second thoughts" usually is a trust breaker.

Obviously if there is VERY significantly new information or a change in circumstances that prevents the action from taking place then all bets are off. However, this should be a rare exception.

With the example of a "proof is in the pudding" in hand, teams take on a new mantle. Members begin to trust each other more and more. They also now have more trust in the leader.

The result - Discussions are more open and candid. Problem solving is attacked with greater vigor and turf wars recede into the background. Any fear of retribution by team members when areas of disagreement are laid on the table is muted and dissolves over time.

In addition, the esprit de corps of the team grows into commitment and loyalty to the team and the organization. As with other human experiences such as happiness, these positive characteristics are passed along to fellow employees, customers and vendors.

Samer El Bizri is associated with Zeconomy & codehost and a successful businessman who provides the help in executive management and cross-functional team leadership. Mr. Bizri works with teams in organisations who want to be more effective and achieve sustained success.

To know more please visit here: https://samerelbizri.jimdo.com/

The success or failure of any business depends on the efficiency with which it handles it supply chain. As a business owner, if you are planning for exponential business growth, then you will need to look for ways to enhance the efficiency level of your supply chain solutions. Some of them discussed by Samer El Bizri are mentioned below:

Effective Customer Relationship

Companies that experience long-term growth are adept in segmenting their products and customers and come up with supply chain solutions for each of them. It can help you to remove a large part of your inventory and improve on-shelf availability.

Integration of Business Process

One of the biggest concerns of logistics companies is functional silos that exist and have an impact on supply chain performance. One of the best ways of removing them is through the integration of logistics and purchasing. Though are traditional functions in supply chain management, recent research has shown that the alignment of these two can raise the efficiency level to a great extent.

Creation of collaborative relationships

A favorable collaboration between a client and shipment company can be rare, but can ensure excellent results. Organizations that collaborate with their suppliers witness a remarkable increase in revenue. Their product availability will rise, inventory will be reduced and logistics costs will come down to a great extent.

Segmentation of supply base

In order to detect the right partners, you need to have a good idea of segmenting suppliers. One common mistake which is made by most organizations is that they follow a traditional method for segmenting their suppliers. You need to segment them in a number of ways, based on various criteria.

Integration of sales, operations, and finance

To enhance the efficiency level of supply chain solutions, you will need to integrate what your sales plans sell, what operations plans create and what finance has predicted into a single, workable plan. Effective sales and operations planning will help you maintain a perfect balance between client demand, productive capacity and financial performance of your business.

Demand Management

No client buys a stock of a company because of its ability to predict. However, enhancing the predictive accuracy and integration of demand and supply chain functions can ensure higher revenue, lower costs, and working capital. Leading companies are making use of big data and following new approaches for making better predictions of demand.

Track performance of supply chain partners

The failure of a major supplier may have an adverse impact on your performance and affect revenue. To ensure that such a situation doesn't arise, you will need to monitor the performance of your suppliers on a regular basis. To ensure that your supply network functions efficiently, you will need to have a proper system to measure, enhance and if needed, replace partners.

Management of Talent

Talent management is the major requirement for raising the efficiency level of your supply chain. Major areas that you will need to focus on for hiring the best talents include technical proficiency, global orientation, and leadership skills.

Samer El Bizri is CEO of the Zeconomy, Inc. based in New York which provides help in supply chain management and enterprise software. With Zeconomy, Samer El Bizri is solving liquidity needs and reducing compounded costs throughout the supply chain.
For more reading, please visit here: http://samerelbizri.bcz.com/

The present-day business scenario is highly competitive and volatile. Most of the time business managers have numerous plans to execute and multiple strategies to implement. While plans are made rather spontaneously, the time taken to turn them into fruitful action turns out to be quite long. And this problem arises from the absence of what is known as an Execution Management System. This, though a common term in the field of trading and stock market, is as much applicable and relevant for the entire business scenario. The system ensures that your strategies are put into action and that the results are estimated.

When you implement an execution management system, there are certain things you need to do simultaneously. Taking the following steps explained by Samer El Bizri will improve the efficacy of the Execution Management System.

1. To begin with, it is necessary that you make short-term plans instead of long-term ones. Meet up on a quarterly basis; decide on the next set of actions and also the way to go about them. When you meet once in a year, the discussions get longer and the strategies more complicated. Consequently, sound executive management automatically becomes least feasible. Short-term plans, on the other hand, are better executed and the entire scenario looks better at the end of the year.
   
2. Cost reduction exercises are common in every enterprise or market. But more often than not, costs reductions lead to negative impacts on the business model. This is not desirable. So, it is necessary that you review your plan of cost reduction before implementing it. It is found that cost restructuring instead of cost reduction actually helps in better execution of business strategies.
   
3. When it comes to strategizing and executing of these strategies, business enterprises consider certain Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPIs. But the KPIs determined long back lose significance over the time and hence, bring no real value for the organization. So, the best thing to do is to select indicators that are relevant and matter the most. These can be related to cash position, exposure to short or long-term risks and access to capital.
   
4. It is not enough to define an objective but you need to implement it. People in the organization have to take ownership and work towards achieving the pre-determined goals. Let people debate, raise issues, suggest modifications and only then accept the objective. Even if this means investing few weeks of time, never stop yourself as the end result will be satisfactory.
   
5. It is easy to implement strategies and execute them when things go as planned. But it is extremely difficult to even think rationally in times of crisis. Performance coaching, quite popular these days, helps managers keep their calm and stay focused in difficult times. It ensures that plans get executed even with the obstacles.
   

Samer El Bizri is CEO of Zeconomy, Inc and a financial business planner expert. He shares his knowledge about fixed capital, working capital and financial aspects in variety of platforms.

Also read here:  Changing face of Supply Chain Management Solutions

Sustainability supply chain management is an integral part of the sustainability program of every business. Concerning the environmental, social, and economic impact a company can have on its vendors and customers, sustainability is increasingly becoming more of a necessity as all industries strive to move towards a sustainable future for their organization as well as the environment. A lot of factors could be considered as driving forces for this change but corporate pressures triumph over the others.

 

It isn't just about going green anymore. Every individual in contact with your organization - your customers, clients, partners, and vendors - will want to know how exactly you're moving ahead with a mission of a sustainable future. Sure, going green is one way to start but it includes more activities like carrying out tasks that do not affect the environment, do not affect climate changes, do not harm the natural habitat, or in general are just done 'the right way' consistently. According to McKinsey, companies that look after managing their supply chains are more likely to gain from consumer spending that will take place in future, expectedly.

 

Below are a few tips suggested by Samer El Bizri on how to successfully carry out sustainability supply chain management for your organization:

 

1. Seek collaboration with other leading businesses

 

Developing a sustainable supply chain includes creating and maintaining meaningful relations and connections. Tackling certain problems individually is unattainable most of the times, and may also hinder your ability to reach a certain level on your own. A little help during such times goes a long way, especially when it is meant to achieve something great for the society. The collaboration will give rise to new opportunities and also kick-start your innovative ideas to work for good.

 

2. Keep the communication steady and ensure a common vision

 

Ensuring a sustainable supply chain management also means dealing with a lot of individuals who are involved with your projects and activities. While these people could be your distributors, vendors, contractors, etc., they could be inadvertently kept out of the communication loop as long as the work gets done. This will create a gap in maintaining a proper connection and may result in indifference, which needs to be avoided at all costs. Your vision must be clear in all consciousness to everyone who is related to your company. Leave no doubts about the aims and values of the company. People should know what goes on to maintain the level of sustainability your company claims and supports. Creating that link between quality, integrity, sustainability, and the value you hold for each relation will perfectly justify all your operations in future.

 

3. Delineate your supply chain

 

A lot of companies do not realize the considerable effects their supply chain can have on the environment. A criterion can deem helpful for prioritizing suppliers, and it can include factors such as budget, the longevity of the business, and in some ways - geography. Make sure you're aware of the many challenges that you and your suppliers could face. After identifying those challenges, you have to find your major potential suppliers and make sure to trace the flow of supplies, and all the other information about the service. Learn to identify any red flags, understand the levels of risks that come with any potential supplier, and take your call accordingly.

 

Samer El Bizri is CEO of the Zeconomy, Inc. based in New York which provides help in supply chain management and enterprise software. With Zeconomy, Inc. Samer El Bizri injects liquidity where it counts most - reduce cost without added credit risk. If financing costs are eliminated at one or more levels, prices come down across the entire supply chain.

Printing is not what it used to be in the past. Decades ago printers were obsolete as people used to keep handwritten documentation. Can you imagine how many orders were processed by hand and how long that must have taken? Luckily for us, we live in the modern age where printers and computers make our lives much easier and software solutions simply make it a breeze. In saying that, print management solutions are certainly a good way to improve your business and this is how.

 

A print management solution is a software system that allows staff members of a particular organisation to efficiently and quickly print documents. A good print management solution will allow a staff member to conveniently print documents from both a computer and a mobile phone remotely. That means it needs to be a wireless system which integrates easily into an organisation. With most devices being able to operate wirelessly this is certainly a great benefit.

 

Another ideal feature for a print management solution is for it to be accessible to multiple staff members. In large organisations many staff members may require a printer so it would be best to connect, say, one department to one printer and thus control the printing of documents at a central point. Ten staff members could use one printer instead of each one having their own one. Therefore it would save space and costs in terms of acquiring this equipment. This type of print management solution is particularly popular amongst universities where students need to print reports or projects at a central point on campus. Many universities have print rooms at selected areas on campus where students are given access to print their projects.

 

A great benefit of print management solutions is that it is able to keep track of the quantities printed in terms of the number of sheets and the amount of ink used. For managers, this tool makes their planning and budgeting much easier. They can see what the usage was for each month and plan ahead for the next month. Over the period of a year, they can lower the costs with the correct system because they can eliminate over-usage by controlling the quantities.

 

Samer El Bizri is the President of Codehost, Inc. which specializes in Business Management and Competitive Analysis currently lives in New York. Witht Codehost, Inc an innovative software company Samer El Bizri brings value added solutions to businesses and OEMs worldwide from opening the door to Linux and UNIX environments for the world's largest printer and copier manufacturers to the introduction of the world's most efficient to digital solutions.