Insight (English)

Schrems II as an opportunity for organizational improvement

Jesper Lindblom — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 08:52:48 GMT

I wrote a blog post about my thoughts on Schrems II and additional safeguards. Please do not consider this as solutions but rather me guessing what possible additional safeguards are appropriate. I am trying to identify opportunities of improvement based on the complex information about Schrems II that is available right now. The key takes from this blog is to use Schrems II as an opportunity to start working risk-based and to improve the privacy by design and by default process.

Customers do not wait for your strategic changes to be operationalized

olivia.persson-hedin@knowit.se (Olivia Persson Hedin) — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 07:44:20 GMT

Recent unexpected events, that we never could have been prepared for, have brought flexibility and agility even more to the agenda. Companies are struggling to respond to the evolving use of technology and market changes, and they have finally understood how little time there is to address these changes. The organizations of the future have been able to cope with the changed landscape while the more traditional organizations have struggled to adapt themselves in the new environment. To be able to acclimate to a new reality where consumer behaviors, supply chains, employee needs, as well as legal and government requirements play an important role, companies must consider strategy development as part of their operating business. Again, market changes do not wait for the next strategic planning cycle. If your organization does not change accordingly in time, it may be too late and the rivals in the marketplace will gain advantages and steal your market shares. Therefore, there is a need to replace the classic strategy project to an iterative strategy process with faster feedback loops. In this article, we will present an iterative strategy framework that enables you to cope with the ever-changing environment.

Without knowing where you are, how could you know where to go?

patrik.nilsson@knowit.se (Patrik Nilsson) — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 09:29:50 GMT

IT is becoming increasingly vital for business leaders to drive digitalization when attempting to grow. The possibilities are endless and sorting out what the next step is for each specific organization is difficult. Many organizations struggle with even making a proper diagnosis of their current technology situation. This is where a Digital Flash comes into play, enabling a full view of the current digital and IT capabilities.

New partnership established to attack current business challenges in the energy industry

Christian.Hartmann@knowit.no (Christian Hartmann) — Fri, 29 May 2020 10:57:57 GMT

ix3, an Aker Solutions software company, announced today that they have entered into a partnership with Knowit Insight to strengthen the power to bring long-term value for businesses for an innovative future across engineering, operation and services.

ix3 was established by Aker Solutions in 2019 to keep the energy industry and its customers at the forefront of the digital transformation. As a trusted Google Cloud Partner, ix3 and Aker Solutions has the subject matter expertise, software capabilities, resources and partners required to drive change for the industry. Digitally.

Understand your IT spend to enable short-term cost savings and long-term IT cost optimization

maja.robertsson@knowit.se (Maja Robertsson) — Wed, 13 May 2020 07:13:18 GMT

Too often we at Knowit encounter frustrated CIOs and IT executives that are being challenged to lower their IT spend by business stakeholders, who do not always understand the service delivered nor the received value. As companies become more digital, the volume of IT spend tends to increase, placing greater demands on transparency of IT costs and underlying cost components. Without cost transparency, it is difficult to understand what is driving an increased IT spend, what the link to the business is and what business value it brings. Inadequate traceability of costs thus reduces the ability to create a tight link between business strategy and technology investments and explain the impact of change in IT cost.

Think twice before developing a cloud strategy

patrik.nilsson@knowit.se (Patrik Nilsson) — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 16:52:04 GMT

Cloud is no longer a hype – it is mainstream amongst companies worldwide. Gartner estimates that the global market for public cloud services will reach a value of $266.4 billion in 2020, as adoption of cloud-based services for both software and infrastructure continue to grow. The consensus now states that it is no longer question of “if” a shift to cloud should be executed, but rather a question of “when” it should happen (if it has not already). As such, companies are increasingly focusing their efforts on formulating strategies and roadmaps for the inevitable shift that promises benefits such as cost savings, increased speed and flexibility, improved innovation, and evergreen IT, amongst other. In such a scenario, we ask ourselves, do companies expect the right benefits enabled by cloud?

Does your ERP support innovation?

patrik.nilsson@knowit.se (Patrik Nilsson) — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 07:52:15 GMT

It is no longer news that the rapid development and increasing maturity of technology in recent years have impacted all industries and redefined how business is made. However, many companies are still struggling with how to make use of this new technology, be it to innovate new products, create new business models, generate new revenue streams, ensure operational efficiency or simply just keep up with competition. This article deals with what should be (but isn’t always) considered an important part of the foundation, or the core, of a digital business, namely the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Without this “digital core” in place, innovation efforts tend to become more cumbersome and eventually risk becoming futile. Regardless of how mature your digital core is today, a proper ERP strategy is always a key component of your organization’s strategic plans to be able support the business tomorrow.

Home office and medical quarantine - How to safeguard the company’s progress

kristoffer.biornstad@knowit.no (Kristoffer Biørnstad) — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 10:35:49 GMT

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, many strict guidelines have been placed in order to prevent infection risk in the workplace. We now have a work situation few are prepared for and that will cause major challenges for the continuity and progress.

Bridging the gap between strategic and operational procurement

Christian.petersen@knowit.no (Christian Petersen) — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 13:50:30 GMT

A high-performing procurement unit is a strategic differentiator in project-based industries characterized by high procurement costs and low profit margins. This is especially true for sectors such as real estate and construction, where the cost of procured goods and services typically comprises between 60 and 80 percent of all costs.

Rightshoring – why you need it and how it should be approached

Kristian.Kjernsmo@knowit.no (Kristian Kjernsmo) — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 09:22:34 GMT

Businesses are realizing that the right placement of people and processes is a strategic differentiator. Applying a balanced mix of outsourced, offshored, and nearshored business functions can yield significant advantages to a company, both in terms of quality and cost. Indeed, Knowit is currently supporting a large Norwegian enterprise in their location- and shoring decision with focus on achieving a much more vigorous operating model while at the same time realizing significant cost-out effects.

In this article we guide you through the fundamentals of rightshoring and present a helpful tool that can be used for identifying the right location mix for your business functions.