12 Tips For Your Small Business Doing Digital Transformation

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the main driving force of the Brazilian economy. They represent 30% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - an amount of R $ 4.4 trillion - and are a source of income and employment.

There is a great opportunity to actively explore this segment through digital transformation, which addresses the digitization process of these companies. But the question remains: How can small and medium-sized companies take advantage of this to their advantage and use their full potential?

We must not forget that we currently live in a world of personalization, where decisions are made based on data: data-driven. Enterprises need to collect and process data strategically - and here I include small and medium. Also, it is important to remember that business perception models have changed.

In the past, companies advertised their business in paid media, such as billboards, newspapers, and magazines. Today, just a well-produced video published online will generate more visibility than a prime time ad on TV or radio. That is, digital knowledge and a hint of creativity can make all the difference in the business. In addition, today's consumer makes references to what he has bought, seen and experienced on portals around the world, such as Tripadvisor. It is consumer influencing consumer on the scale and global intensity!

  

Constant innovation driven management

May this innovation always focus on the customer, checking what is important to him and the consumer.

Create a rapid innovation model through short processes and cycles 

Innovate through Minimum Viable Products (PMVs), learn from these experiences and quickly bring solutions to market before anyone else does.

Adopt venture capital fund thinking

Understand which stages and risk limits are acceptable. Set your appetite for risk and respect it.

Innovate before you need it

Challenge your model and status quo and always ask yourself what you could do best or what someone would do better than what you already offer.

Organize your work on agile methods

“Agile methods” is a well-known expression, but above all it is a set of practices made through short cycles, which allows autonomous teams the ability to make decisions, through successive interactions, to get closer to the result. Applying this concept will make the company perform tasks with less time and lower execution costs. If you haven't had time to study agile methods, this is a good opportunity.

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6 Tips for Starting a Freelance Life

To be your own boss, calculate your income differently, set your price, and prepare your work environment

São Paulo - Being your own boss has its challenges, but just organizing the money and routine makes it easier. The goal of having more freedom will only come to fruition if you plan so that the financial instability, typical of a freelance career, does not negatively impact your life.

“There is no profile of people who cannot work as a freelancer. It's all about organization and discipline, ”says a business coach Renato Pradillas of the Brazilian Coaching Society.

In a recently published story, EXAME.com listened to accountants to clarify the costs involved in being self-employed, individual microentrepreneur or entrepreneur. Now we explain in six simple steps how to plan your freelance routine, where work and personal life easily blend together.

1. Prepare for life change

Make the transition from salaried to freelance life in the least radical way possible, because you don't know exactly what your income will be. Prepare a “financial cushion” in the words of coach Roberto Navarro, founder of the Financial Coaching Institute. “It's natural to take a while to make money in the beginning, to network and build a customer base,” he says.

The ideal financial reserve must have a sufficient amount to pay a year of its expenses, according to Navarro. To accumulate this money with interest, let it go to a liquid investment such as a CDB or government bond so you can withdraw any amount you need at any time.

For the financial educator Eduardo Coelho, an amount equivalent to three months of expenses is enough. He also suggests doing work outside the company so that you are more certain that this choice will work. “Were people looking for their jobs regularly or was it just a specific project?” He asks.

2. Calculate Your Income in a New Way

Freelance life can be a seesaw. In some months you can accumulate several projects and earn a lot, but in others, you may risk having fewer jobs than you would like. It is, therefore, safer to set a goal of how much you need to earn per year, not per month, as Navarro recommends.

Remember, too, that you will no longer have benefits such as the company's health plan and pension fund, or paid leave. Add these items to the expense list.

Another tip is to set three different income goals: the minimum you need to earn to survive, the ideal average and the maximum if you can exceed expectations far. They are used to calculate if you need to look for more jobs, as Navarro points out.

Even after the freelance routine gets into gear, Coelho suggests keeping the habit of investing 30% of income in a short-term application instead of 10%, as usually recommended for salaried employees. “Saving 30% is plenty, but remember there is no medical certificate for freelancers,” he says, to say that unforeseen events can happen and you will not have a guaranteed income.

For Padilla, always having a reserve of at least six months of expenses is ideal. Every two months, he suggests that the investor present himself with something he wants to be motivated to keep the reserve.

3. Know how Much your work time costs

Pricing your time is indispensable. To find out how much your work time costs, look at your competitors and your audience. “Feel how much your customer is willing to pay,” suggests Navarro. If time is short or delivery time is too tight, increase the price.

The financial coach also advises working with different price goals: the basic value of how much your service costs, the minimum price you accept to work for, and the standard discount if the client asks to negotiate.

Padilla's suggests another way of calculating the price of your working hours: dividing how much you intend to earn in the year by 2,000, an approximate universal formula that usually works.

“This is important to understand where you should put your workforce and what you will outsource,” he explains. For example, if one hour of work costs more than moto boy charges to mail an envelope, it is more worthwhile to hire this service.

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9 Emerging Technologies That Will Shape the Digital Future

The plant of the future needs to bring together next-generation ERP, machine learning, integrated sensors throughout production, augmented reality training, mobile visualization and predictive flow programming, secure networks and cloud-based tools to manage workflow. Not to mention the need to retool workers and cross-pollinate traditional information and operational technology roles and skills. "Interestingly, many of the things that seemed so incredible 10 years ago are now fundamental," says Deloitte in the tenth edition of the Tech Trends study, released this week.


It is truly remarkable how quickly organizations in all industries and regions have navigated through issues such as cloud adoption, cybersecurity, the internet of things, the imminent impact of mobile devices on the business, and user-centric design. A decade ago, many companies were able to gain a competitive advantage by embracing innovations and trends that were already underway. Today, such a reactive approach is no longer enough, the consultant warns. To stay ahead of the game, companies must work methodically to sense new innovations and possibilities, understand their ambitions for the future, and find the confidence to go beyond the digital frontier.

According to study authors  Bill Briggs and Scott Buchholz, the full potential of technologies such as cloud and analytics remain largely untapped. Investments in them are often departmental and limited in scope. Similarly, in some companies, analytical, cloud, and digital initiatives are disjointed, even competing for efforts.


Meanwhile, three latest trends - digital reality, cognitive technologies, and blockchain - are rapidly growing in importance. Virtual reality and augmented reality are redefining the fundamental ways humans interact with the environment, data, and each other. Blockchain has rapidly moved from bitcoin enabler to a trusted provider. And as cognitive technologies such as machine learning, RPA, natural language processing, neural networks and AI have moved from fledgeling capabilities to strategy principles, we exploit their deep potential for business and society. These three trends are poised to become as familiar and impactful as the cloud, analytics, and digital experience is today.


Three formative forces have proven to be essential in the pursuit of digital transformation: modernization of core systems to serve as a basis for innovation and growth; elevating cybersecurity and the broader risk domain from a compliance-based activity to an embedded strategic function; and reengineering an organization's technology function to deliver on the promise of emerging and existing technologies - or risk failing in its mission.


So nine forces - digital experience, cloud, analytics, blockchain, cognitive computing, digital reality, Business of Technology, central modernization, and cybersecurity - continue to shape our digital future. And just because they're more particularly young doesn't mean they're not vitally important. In fact, one of the most pressing challenges facing technology and business leaders is how to dig and harness the value these macro forces can collectively offer, the report's authors point out.


They point out that it is important to keep in mind that these nine macro forces are just ingredients of a much larger enterprise technology recipe. As with many good recipes, measurements need not be accurate and can be tailored to meet specific needs. But the point of this particular recipe is that macroeconomic forces must come together in a manufacturing line, accounts payable process, or a new way to engage loyal customers. Its collision can unleash vast possibilities. Deploying them individually at this point in the digital revolution is no longer a recipe for success. "In all industries, we are seeing how macroeconomic forces, working together, are driving digital transformation and generating new strategic and operational opportunities,"


Through their collision and unleashed innovation, these forces are likely to dominate IT, business, and corporate markets to an even greater extent than individual technologies. With macro forces, it is a controlled collision that leads beyond the digital boundary.

The nine macro forces are the enduring technological trends that will continue to shape strategies and dominate investment priorities. But consider that they are not independent and isolated entities. The call to CIOs and IT leaders is to reveal which combination is important for any line of business, function, agency or country; confidently chart a path beyond convention and organizational inertia; and raise the narrative from  that  of enabling technology to  that  of the combined effects - going beyond the trends and beyond the digital frontier.
Emerging technology trends may seem illusory and ephemeral, but some become an integral part of a business and IT strategies - and form the backbone of tomorrow's technological innovation.

Reaching the full potential of artificial intelligence

The journey to fully autonomous artificial intelligence is part of a growing trend toward companies becoming AI-powered organizations where AI is an integral component of corporate strategy. This trend also refers to an ongoing commitment to redesign key business systems, processes, and strategies around AI and their possibilities. Its ultimate goal: an organization in which humans and machines work together on digital systems designed to harness data-driven insights.

The number of companies following in the footsteps of AI pioneers is likely to increase over the next 18 to 24 months, as more leaders identify ways to use cognitive technologies to achieve strategic goals. In two consecutive global Deloitte surveys (2016–17 and 2018), cognitive technologies and AI topped the list of emerging technologies in which CIOs planned to invest. Its ambitions are based on practical (and achievable) benefits: AI can increase productivity, strengthen regulatory compliance through automation, and help organizations derive meaning from ever-larger data sets.

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Essential Components to Maintain Edge Data Centers

Edge computing architectures speak to another age of littler infrastructure and new technical maintenance necessities. In any case, even with their scattered nature, factors, for example, unwavering quality, security and edge server farm maintenance are similarly as significant as an on-premises server farm.

Edge sites run similar kinds of universally useful computing hardware as server farms and incorporate stockpiling and systems administration gear. Associations frequently convey them in nontraditional areas, for example, cell towers, industrial facility floors or even outside with no natural security. An edge server farm gives an administration level to different gadgets in the field and regularly bolsters 50 kW to 150 kW of limit.

The greatest change for administrators is the quantity of sites to oversee inside an edge arrange. Therefore, it isn't as down to earth to have a committed group at every datum focus. With on-premises server farms, administrators can stroll through the office, yet that is not really conceivable - or required - with edge arrangements. The other issue is fusing edge offices into the general server farm technique.

These two issues lead to four noteworthy edge computing difficulties administrators must address: security, network, remote administration and heterogeneous hardware.


Bolstering security setups:

Security - both application and physical - is one of the greatest edge computing difficulties for information. Administrators must put resources into application powerlessness the board, just as contributions that identify security dangers and anticipate assaults.

Edge server farms additionally grow the general assault surface on the grounds that each edge site is a potential system passage. Administrators must guarantee that applications running on edge servers aren't a potential launchpad for assaults on other infrastructure.

As a major aspect of edge server farm maintenance, consider the physical shields for gear insurance. Secure entryways at each edge site are a best practice, and ensuring the physical ports makes it less workable for malware infusion or different assaults.

Open ports could have rebel gadgets embedded into them for stacking malware. Administrators ought to scramble information very still so it can't be taken or duplicated from a physical stockpiling gadget. Edge server farms ought to likewise bolster secure lifecycle refreshes that expect check to keep programmers from seizing information "in travel" or embeddings malware into the framework.

In on-premises server farms, administrators don't regularly need to stress over securing extra ports in light of the fact that increasing physical access to the real servers is progressively troublesome.


Maintaining connectivity across the edge:

Servers in an on-premises server farm commonly have a solid, dependable web association; that is not generally the situation for edge organizations, particularly on the grounds that lower data transfer capacity and discontinuous associations are top edge use case qualities. One procedure is to set up an optional control channel. Another is to execute self-sufficient administration capacities that address organize blackouts as a component of edge server farm maintenance.
Managers should likewise consider information reinforcement and assurance work processes. Things, for example, information insurance and accessibility become considerably increasingly troublesome with disseminated server farms, which have a more extensive assault surface.
For instance, lightning could hit one of these edge server farms. Administrators must record for the impact of a brought down site on information misfortune and plan failover methodologies. These can turn out to be additionally testing when the hardware and programming are circulated in light of the fact that every customary datum focus concerns are intensified when information misfortune or blackouts happen over an increasingly different system.
Conventional server farm the board standards don't make a difference to the edge. Especially for important information, one system is to send all information to the cloud or other close by purposes of essence to build strength. Another procedure to decrease space and power necessities is to level information with the goal that solitary hot information is kept at the edge.

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What Things Your Freelancer Clients Need to Know

If you have clients that are like the solo entrepreneurs I saw when I was working as a CPA, getting data from them to do their expense form resembles grouping felines.

Duty time for my old freelance clients was startling. Many had no clue on the off chance that they made a benefit, and they surely didn't have anything put aside to make good on their regulatory obligations.

Nowadays, I'm working all day as a freelance essayist, so I've been on the two sides of this issue. I've pulled together assessment forms from shoeboxes of receipts, joined with written by hand arrangements of pay and costs in addition to perhaps some bank and financial records tossed in for good measure. I've been the one conveying the terrible news that they have a major assessment bill.

What's more, throughout the previous two years, I've been the one adjusting instalments from clients against my costs of doing business and everyday costs. I'm the person who slices those unnerving checks to settle my government expenses. I additionally interface with a huge amount of freelance authors who don't have the business foundation I have, and who are totally worried about cash and duties.

Along these lines, as both a once in the past dynamic CPA and current freelancer, I have a couple of things that a large portion of your self employed entity or "gig worker" clients need to know to be effective:

Here are 9 Things your Freelancer Clients Need to Know

1. Treat Your Business Like a Business

2. Open a Separate Bank Account

3. Get All the Required Business Licenses

4. Don’t Spend Everything You Earn

5. Develop a System for Tracking Income and Expenses

6. Develop the Habit of Long-Term Saving

7. The F-U Fund and the Survival Fund

8. Save for the Future

9. Does Your Pricing Model Make Sense?

1. Treat Your Business Like a Business:

On the off chance that you've at any point needed to shield a customer against the diversion misfortune controls in an IRS review, you realize that the best protection is exhibiting that your customer treats the movement like a genuine business. That implies having a field-tested strategy, counselling with specialists, having the proper aptitudes, among different components the IRS considers. This is additionally an important outlook move that enables your customer to make the jump to a fruitful profession as an independent business person.

2. Open a Separate Bank Account:

This may seem obvious to us bookkeepers, however, I am constantly amazed by the numerous freelancers and gig workers I've met who maintained their organizations completely through their own ledgers. For these freelancers, opening a different financial balance – and a business ledger at that – may appear to be a pointless indulgence, particularly toward the start, when bank expenses eat up valuable benefits.

Be that as it may, as we probably am aware, running everything through a different financial balance makes assessment time a ton simpler. What's more, despite the fact that it's not the most ideal approach to maintain a business, watching the record parity is a no-nonsense depiction into the budgetary soundness of that business. At any rate, your customer can tell on the off chance that they're not making a benefit.

3. Get All the Required Business Licenses:

In all probability, this will be required for starting a business financial balance. What's required will fluctuate as indicated by area and business type. For instance, here in rustic New Mexico, I needed to visit my region zoning division and apply for a business permit.

I likewise needed to enrol to settle gross receipts government obligations to the state. Having a business permit is a piece of treating a systematic business.

4. Don’t Spend Everything You Earn:

As opposed to W-2 employment, the check for a 1099 worker isn't completely accessible to spend uninhibitedly. That money likewise needs to cover operational expense and assessments, at any rate. Furthermore, ideally, your clients are likewise saving assets for retirement and long haul investment funds (more on that beneath).

At the point when my companion Jessica began composing full-time, she was gaining enough to simply cover her everyday costs. Despite the fact that I asked her to save some portion of each store for expenses, and to discover approaches to gain more cash, she just couldn't get it to work. In this way, when duty opportunity arrived around, she had no money to settle her government obligations and needed to set up a portion concurrence with the IRS.

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