How an AI platform is matching employees and opportunities

Instead of relying on data-driven signals of past accomplishments, Eightfold.ai is using AI to discover the innate capabilities of people and matching them to new opportunities in their own companies. The company's innovative approach of combining their own AI and virtual hackathons to create and launch new additions to their Project Marketplace rapidly is a model enterprises need to consider emulating.

Eightfold.ai was founded with the mission that there is...

5 October 2020 | Applications

MSPs: Your billing system should not be sitting at their own desk

Despite the economic setbacks shaped by the pandemic, demand for cloud communications services continues to grow. The remote “work-life” arrangement and increased displacement of face-to-face meetings by video conferences has managed service provider (MSP) leaders clamoring to take advantage.

On the downside, this heightened activity has exposed the flaws or outright failures of the billing processes for many MSPs. In fact, “processes” may be too technical a term for how...

29 September 2020 | Cloud

Improving customer success in the IT sector: The power of partnerships

In all areas of business, customers are expecting more. The typical vendor-client relationship is a thing of the past, becoming a partner to your customers is the new norm. However, this is not an overnight process, rather one that takes time, effort, and cultivating.

Of course, growth is important, and organisations always want to acquire new customers. Yet, in order to grow, existing customers must be retained, remain loyal, and continue to be happy with the service they...

11 September 2020 | Case Studies

Embracing an agile culture for business growth: A guide to best practice – and what to avoid

Professional services company Accenture found itself in a crisis. The company’s growth stunted. When leadership investigated the reasons why, they came to realise that their promotions and rewards system benefited those employees who were more focused on self-promotion, compared with those whose focus was helping the organisation succeed.

So, company leaders decided to embrace change and use a different, more collaborative, performance conversation rather than continuing with...

21 August 2020 | Development

Why aligning training and skills development is necessary for the EU future jobs outlook

The European Union (EU) was enjoying its highest labour participation rate since 2000 when COVID-19 hit. The economic impact has yet to be fully calculated but will surely be felt for years to come. The pandemic has also highlighted a critical and growing shortage of workers, and the region faces particular challenges with respect to digital transformation as well. To combat the workforce issues in the EU, training and skills development will be essential.

Understanding the current...

19 August 2020 | Development

How to achieve business success in the midst of rapid workplace changes

Most large enterprises rely on a globally connected ecosystem of workforce, workplace, technology and other key resources for their business operations. Not surprisingly, they have very robust business continuity plans (BCP) in place to protect their human capital, technology and other critical resources. Their plans address many scenarios – from geopolitical to cybersecurity, connectivity, climate or natural calamity related issues. That’s not to mention issues with business partners,...

10 August 2020 | Applications

What are the main challenges chief procurement officers face today?

As we move towards a new world of business, post the pandemic, without a doubt COVID-19 has severely disrupted supply chains on a global scale. Procurement leaders are having to maintain business operations, fulfill urgent demands, and mitigate supplier challenges against a backdrop of significant disruption to their teams and their partner ecosystem.  Moving forward resilience will be the watchword and as CPOs start to think about the short and medium-term needs of the...

29 July 2020 | Applications

How to win friends and influence people: Using workplace technology to attract and retain staff

For years we have been promised that the gap between consumer and workplace technology is closing – from the introduction of policies such as bring your own device (BYOD) to some businesses directly consulting employees on which new technologies they’d like to use.

This sounds great in theory, but the reality of workplace technology is much less perfect for many of us. While the technology people use in their home lives seems to continue improving at an exponential rate,...

20 July 2020 | BYOD

A new dawn amid Covid-19: The rise of the employee

I’ve recently had the pleasure of speaking with communications experts from our customers ranging from ADM and Dow, through to OSF Healthcare and PVH, about how their businesses have adapted in light of COVID-19 and the steps they’re now taking to prepare their employees for a new way of working in some shape or form. As we talked, I experienced this incredible sensation of hope and the realisation that despite everything we are going through we’re on the cusp of something...

27 May 2020 | CIO

Why the resilience of your organisation is a reflection of human strength

Back in 2003 the Harvard Business Review published an article, “The Quest for Resilience” . It stated that “The world is becoming turbulent faster than organisations are becoming resilient.” Fast forward some 17 years and while many companies have improved their ability to respond to the ebbs and flows of business it’s fair to say that no one could have anticipated our current predicament.

The point the article made back then still resonates today. “In the past,...

23 April 2020 | Employee Education