Guidance tutorial

  Whether you’re deep in to a personal project (such as starting your own business, creating a new invention, or making a movie, etc), just starting out on a new venture, or just looking for some good old inspiration, motivational stories and inspirational stories can be just what you need to give you a bit of a boost. Sometimes it’s useful to hear the stories of people who we admire, people who have come before us, and people who have done great things, so that we know others have been through similar (or harder) struggles. This can help us to focus and realise that what we want is within reach, no matter how difficult the circumstances. So here I have compiled a list of the best true motivational stories to help give you that juice you need. My hope is that these real life inspirational stories encourage you to keep going when things feel tough, to realise that there is always a way, and that if you want something, you have to fight for it. While you are reading these motivationa...

  We are living in a truly new world – a  world where social distancing is driving digital proximity. How enterprises engage their customers has drastically changed from paper-based to telephony to the internet economy through Business 2.0 and now Business 4.0. Steve Jobs once said, “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around”.  With COVID -19, we find ourselves at an inflection point with regard to customer experience management – where touch-technology and face-to-face (f2f) interactions are neither considered safe nor preferred by a majority. Existing customer engagement channels have come under strain due to the COVID -19 crisis.  There has been a visible reduction in the footfall at bank branches and in-person meetings with insurance advisors. As remote interactions will increase, the need to go paperless in communication will see a surge. Existing conversational experiences – f2f, voice-base...

  “We cannot solve our problems with the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  --   Albert Einstein Reimagining the customer experience is fast becoming a business imperative for insurance firms as we prepare for a ‘contactless’ world – something that will continue to exist even long after the COVID-19 crisis diffuses. The ongoing pandemic is driving insurers to introspect and plan for future-proofing their business against similar, unexpected systemic disruptions.  Current business models and the product offerings behind them present us with a slew of opportunities for recreating the customer experience . Embracing end-to-end digitalization across the insurance value chain, with a purpose-driven approach, is a conclusive step toward creating a contactless insurance customer experience. Dealing with the odds:  During a sale, customers have a limited role in the insurance purchase process – a factor that can drive them away. One-sided actions – fr...

  We are living in a truly new world – a  world where social distancing is driving digital proximity. How enterprises engage their customers has drastically changed from paper-based to telephony to the internet economy through Business 2.0 and now Business 4.0.  Steve Jobs once said, “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around”. With COVID-19, we find ourselves at an inflection point with regard to customer experience management – where touch-technology and face-to-face (f2f) interactions are neither considered safe nor preferred by a majority. Existing customer engagement channels have come under strain due to the COVID-19 crisis. There has been a visible reduction in the footfall at bank branches and in-person meetings with insurance advisors. As remote interactions will increase, the need to go paperless in communication will see a surge. Existing conversational experiences – f2f, voice-based or bot-ba...

  In today’s pervasive business ecosystem, many enterprises conduct business worldwide through their local subsidiaries and legal entities.  Even the supply chains and delivery channels span across multiple nations. However, with a footprint across the globe, enterprises need to comply with new and emerging country-specific data protection regulations and to existing ones that are becoming more stringent to data compliance.  Enterprises can no longer afford to be complacent or casual about data protection. The complexity of diverse regulations Enterprises operating globally may come under the purview of multiple data protection laws.  Each law has its own binding requirements and nuances that enterprises need to understand and follow. Is it possible for enterprises to comply with all such regulations in a concurrent fashion? Arguably, the question has no easy answer. Building a basic data protection framework On the surface, the terrain may look difficult, but the si...

  We may be under lockdown physically, but our minds cannot be forced into shutdown. By now, most of us have found our own internal rhythm to cope during this pandemic. Every aspect of our lives has been affected in the last few months of 2020 in unforeseen ways.  If there is one thing that makes all of us  subconsciously evolve, it is "learning" – be it in terms of coping with constraints like curfews, figuring out workarounds like video-calls, optimizing scarce resources (for instance when the supply of daily essentials is hit), sharing our good practices through social media, weeding out fake news from real, and watching just enough news to “know, but not panic”.  Moreover, from dealing with future plans on #NewBeginning to surviving the daily crisis, we are growing stronger, learning new skills, habits, technologies. Undoubtedly, learning is a key element in our survival kit. Being the architects of change in a turbulent world Learning is the biggest and most eff...

  The life sciences (LS) industry has recently seen remarkable changes in safety assessment, cost, and clinical effectiveness of new products, supplemented by advancements in technology.  LS organizations always monitor the effectiveness and safety profile risk of a drug from the conception stage to ensure that the benefits always outweigh the associated risks.  Adverse events are reported throughout the drug lifecycle by physicians, patients, caregivers, and other sources. The LS industries collect, process, and evaluate these adverse events on a global scale and then aggregate and analyze the reports to identify potential safety signals and trends.  Safety signals, once detected, are evaluated, and risk management actions are taken if required. This includes changes to drug labeling and communicating with physicians and health authorities. However, of late, traditional data capture mechanisms are being replaced by innovative & intelligent electronic platforms d...

  Insurance is a business of trust - of making promises and keeping them when the time comes. The COVID-19 pandemic is the time for insurers to prove their value to customers, communities, and the economies that support their operations. Tracing the propagation of the COVID-19 virus - from China and South East Asia, through Europe, North America, and rest of the world - all nations are in different stages of battle with the crisis.  This gives insurers an opportunity to evaluate the crisis in each of these countries using different metrics. Using the learnings from those that have moved to the advanced stages, the insurers can identify situations, and prepare a response for others climbing to that stage. As the crisis unravels insurers need to look at plans in the medium term - remaining part of the financial year, once the pandemic subsides - and in the longer term - over the next two years. Impact on the Insurance Value Chain All functions of the insurance value chain have b...

  The global economic downturn brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the lockdown of industries, revenue contraction, travel constraints, and large-scale unemployment across the globe.   The global growth is projected at -4.9% in 2020 . The cumulative loss to global GDP over 2020 and 2021 from the pandemic crisis   could be around 9 trillion dollars . Insurance companies do plan for epidemics and natural disasters, but this one stumped one and all by its sheer severity and spread.  One of the insurance segments that has been severely impacted is the lenders mortgage insurance (LMI).  LMI is a specialty type of insurance that provides protection to financial institutions against losses arising from borrower default on high loan-to-value residential mortgages. The LMI industry is facing a double blow: reducing mortgage insurance business, and the high number of claims spurred by defaulting borrowers.  In the coming months, the conditions will...

  Exploring the potential of 5G and multi-access edge computing with use cases Since the past few years, enterprises are moving infrastructure to a centralized cloud, enabled by virtualization. This helps reduce time to market for new services and reduce total cost of ownership.  Centralized cloud is apt for today’s use cases where ultra-low latency communication is not the predominant factor. However, in recent years, we are observing the emergence of new technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, autonomous factories, and IoT driven smart factories where data is increasingly being produced at the user end of the network.  This in turn is increasing the demand for real time analytics and personalization at the edge itself.  As public edge moves closer to the sites, it will allow enterprises to gain the benefits of better computing power in close proximity to end-users, without the need to own and operate associated infrastructure.  5G and multi-access ...

  We may be under lockdown physically, but our minds cannot be forced into shutdown. By now, most of us have found our own internal rhythm to cope during this pandemic. Every aspect of our lives has been affected in the last few months of 2020 in unforeseen ways. If there is one thing that makes all of us  subconsciously evolve, it is "learning" – be it in terms of coping with constraints like curfews, figuring out workarounds like video-calls, optimizing scarce resources (for instance when the supply of daily essentials is hit), sharing our good practices through social media, weeding out fake news from real, and watching just enough news to “know, but not panic”. Moreover, from dealing with future plans on #NewBeginning to surviving the daily crisis, we are growing stronger, learning new skills, habits, technologies. Undoubtedly, learning is a key element in our survival kit. Being the architects of change in a turbulent world Learning is the biggest and most effective tool...