Bits & Bytes Vol. 1

Happy New Year! On behalf of KASP, I would like to wish you all a happy and successful new 2021. As the world strives to defeat Covid-19 with better treatment protocols and innovative vaccines, the pandemic is expected to remain a major consideration through most of 2021. Extensive travel restrictions, still in effect throughout the world, place challenges to supply chains and professional services delivery. KASP has been early to understand the adjustments needed to ensure the quality and timeliness of service delivery to its long-standing and new customers.

I’m happy to announce that our service delivery during 2020 was on par, and in some respects even improved, compared to previous years. This was all due to the diligence and creativity of KASP experienced professionals as well as the trust and understanding of our maturity for support and service delivery. KASP is also offering its ERP data warehouse solution as a service to its ERP support customers, which greatly speeds the delivery and reliability of complex analytical reports and dashboards, at a very competitive cost. This end-to-end offering oflocal expert ERP implementation, after go-live support and business-intelligence-as-a-service is unmatched in the region in terms ofmaturity, cost effectiveness and speed of delivery.

Dr. Magd Donia
General Manager, KASP.

Coupled with innovative offerings in RPA (Robotic Process Automation), Low-code custom application development, business intelligence and analytics that leverage machine learning (ML) to deliver highly accurate forecasting, and cybersecurity risk management, KASP is poised to offer its customers a wide-range of comprehensive high-value services, aimed at improving efficiency, productivity anddecision-making accuracy at these challenging times. We look forward to a great and prosperous 2021 for our customers, Kuwait and the world.

'Intelligent Automation' is about bringing humans, processes, data, systems and technology together, to future-proof businesses and create a positive impact on the world. We use solutions such as RPA, NLP, Machine Learning, AI and so much more. It is an integral part of a Digital Transformation, and is the culmination of understanding an enterprise’s end goals and how technology and humans can work together to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and productivity, reduce and ultimately eliminate errors and drive much deeper insights and decision-making to deliver exceptional customer service.

1. COVID-19-related spike in enterprise demand for RPA and Intelligent Automation.
According to the vice president of research atGartner, Inc., Fabrizio Biscotti: “The key driver for RPA projects is their ability to improve process quality, speed and productivity, each of which is increasingly important as organisations try to meet the demands of cost reduction during COVID-19.” The recession has forced companies to look to Intelligent automation to improve overall operational efficiency while reducing the cost of manpower. The heightened demand for RPA born from pandemic-related necessity also includes safeguarding businesses from future global catastrophic effects like COVID-19, where automation can continue to ensure fast, intelligent, and error-free business solutions no matter the state of external forces and hindrances.

Mr. Pathik Trivedi
Founder and co-CEO, Hybrid Workforce

2. Intelligent Process Automation Will Come to the Forefront
Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) blends the rules-based automation capabilities of RPA with the sophistication of AI, together with the trial-and-error learning capabilities of Machine Learning and fundamental process redesign.

3. Adoption Shifts to Measure and (Re)evaluate.
In 2021, the question won’t be if the adoption of RPA will grow or not. Instead, debates will increase over the effectiveness of RPA initiatives over last few years. One of the RPA trends in 2021 will be organization's shifting focus on determining if their long-term RPA will deliver actual, desired results. Several companies are likely to re-evaluate their RPA projects to see if they were effectively architected or not and whether the core processes were understood correctly to further scale the project.

4. Much Heavier Focus on Process.
Expect a sharper focus on understanding and optimizing processes as a direct result of the shift from RPA adoption to evaluation and optimization. Plenty of organizations will realize their initial efforts were stymied by processes that they didn’t fully understand or that simply weren’t good fits for RPA.

5. Employee Experience Will Become Significant.
Expect a sharper focus on understanding and optimizing processes as a direct result of the shift from RPA adoption to evaluation and optimization. Plenty of organizations will realize their initial efforts were stymied by processes that they didn’t fully understand or that simply weren’t good fits for RPA.

"KASP & Hybrid Workforces Sign a Strategic Agreement to Bring 'Intelligent Automation' to Kuwait Companies." 

To support the above - in 4Q20 KASP has signed an exciting strategic agreement with the international implementor of 'Intelligent Automation' solutions, Hybrid Workforces.

This marries the deep customer relationships and technical abilities of KASP with Hybrid Workforce, technology agnostic, skills in some of the leading solutions on the market

This will Kuwaiti customers to benefit from increasing the efficiency of their organisations in these challenging times.

Business leaders recognize the dangers that cyber incidents pose to their company and their careers, but they struggle with determining how to properly safeguard their organization. Why is it so difficult to take control of cyber risk? Their challenges stem from many issues:

1. Prioritizing Cost Cutting Over RiskManagement.
Cybersecurity expenses are subject to the scrutiny of CFOs, who tend to focus on eliminating costs wherever possible. Taking SolarWinds as a recent example, the CFO had been celebrated for cutting costs with “great success” in the first 10 years of his company career. Upon later inspection of those cuts, there was evidence of having ignored internal advisory on their cyber risk loss potential. Was the aggressive cost-cutting a demonstration of great financial leadership,or was it negligence? Organizations may also deprioritize risk management measures that could disrupt operations or revenue generation, even if only temporarily. How should leaders determinethe appropriate trade-off?

Mr. Jesper Sahlberg
VP of CustomerSuccess at Maxxsure.

2. Assuming More Technology Is the SoleSolution to Improving Cyber Risk Posture.
No company is impervious to cyber incidents, including companies with well-funded IT andSecurity operations. The CIO, CTO, or CISO often thinks cyber risk can be solved with more technology. However, much of this technology focuses on detecting and containing breaches by malicious external actors. Globally respected studies have found external malicious actors only ranked 3rd among the top 5 cyber risk sources that cause cyber incidents resulting in companies incurring financial losses. Current and former employees are 1st and 2nd on theTop 5 list.

3. Not Measuring Risk
The biggest cyber risk that a company faces is deciding how to measure cyber risk with respect to potential financial loss. Cyber risks are always present, and the threat landscapeis constantly changing. Business leaders have a responsibility to their company to create and maintain awareness of these risks by quantifying them, and then actively monitoring and managing them.

KASP has partnered with Maxxsure to bring you a comprehensive cyber risk management solution.

Maxxsure provides organizations with a holistic identification of all relevant cyber risks, quantified as the M-ScoreTM, a powerful business metric that is easily understood by CEOs and CFOs for actionable decision-making.

Maxxsure is a globally respected cyber risk quantification and management solution to demonstrate your due diligence in managing cyber risk and commitment to protecting customers’ data and other valuable companyassets.

In this growing world of workplace, where technology and processes constantly, radically and at constant speed, its safe to say, “it’s not enough to keep your skills up to date”.For an organization or firm to be agile and responsive to change, employer need multi-faceted team who are flexible, resourceful, lateral thinkers of the skills gained from constant learning and application, rather than being capable of executinga role. Making a commitment, the way you drag yourself to the gym everyday? Yet, you do it anyway, because you know its goof for you. Make the same commitment to learn new things everyday. Learning is habit – most habits are learned in sixweeks.

Read something, you would have heard about most successful people reading several hours per day. Use any mode or reading either online, handheld device or old-fashioned, hard copy, page-turningbook; nothing replaces reading for acquiring knowledge.

Mr. Satish Soni
Manager BI Services &Projects.

Join a discussion, finding like-minded individuals or organizations with a common discussion point is a great way to keep learning. Look for discussion groups, training seminars or networks that lift you up from the familiar and introduce you to new experiences, information and ways of thinking.

Update your existing skills, think about the existing skills you have. Look into upgrading your current skills or obtaining new certifications. Building onyour existing skills will increase your confidence and make you better and more efficient at your job.

Take on a challenge, taking risks is when yourbrain is really challenged. Make a commitment to learn something completely outside your current capacity and comfort zone.

There are so many good reasons for challenging yourself to acquire new skills. So fire-up those synapses, trigger those connectors, build new mental bridges and learn something new! Lifelong learning trains you to be change-ready, instead of change-averse. And in today’s world, change is the only thing we can count on.

As we have finally parted from a year of turbulence, it is worth mentioning that we are indeed beginning this year united together and with new hope to overcome this pandemic. However it has also brought about significant transformations and taught us lessons that we would not have learned otherwise. 2020 was a year that once again iterated and proved the importance of data, with global leaders making strategic decisions to cope with the new situation; we do realize that all this was possible with the right data at the right time.

While this is true for the global health shock wefaced, the same applies to the economic shock we went through. Many businesses that didn't realizethe importance of data earlier feel they lack maturity or actionable understanding to be able touse data effectively and have now started lookinginto the quality of data they have.

Businesses are focusing on bridging this gap and assisting theData-Driven digital transformation they are going through. This pandemic is a watershed moment for the digital transformation of businesses. Updating business models for a digital-first world, led by purpose, is now crucial for almost every industry.

Mr. Mohammed Fazahir
SAP BIConsultant, KASP.

The rules for business success have changed and are ever more reliant on harnessing the power of digital models, which is why we can see many businesses stepping-up online sales by either upgrading the existing online sales platform or giving promotions to encourage the customers towards online purchases. However, unlike the 2008 recession, we are more equipped and ready to embrace the change this time around with better tools and Cloud-based SaaS platforms.

Big data should prove a new secret weapon that better enables Businesses to steer in the right direction to weather the storm. For example, The Machine Learning Ledger Orchestration for Drug Discovery(MELLODDY) is a consortium of 10 pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson &Johnson, AstraZeneca, and GlaxoSmithKline, which is pooling data to train machine-learning algorithms and help develop new antibiotics. As we recover from the greatest economic shock in a century, We can expect to see that Data-driven digital transformation to be the most significant factor for competitive advantage.

Having success in life largely depends on the habits that we repeatedly engage in, which ultimately shapes our life. Our everyday habits determine our attitude and future progress both in life and in our career. The following are some powerful habits that will improve our life and career direction.

1. Practice Meditation
Meditation is a powerful habit that trains our mind to relax by freeing it from negative or stressful thoughts. It not only cleanses our mind and promotes a sense of calm, but it also assists withreducing stress. When we meditate, we increase your cognitive and creative thinking skills which make us highly efficient in our career. Thus, the temptation to engage in other harmful habits is reduced. In summary, meditation will keep us healthy and improve our performance in everyaspect of our daily life.

Mr. Arun M
Senior Account Manager, KASP

2. Practice Gratitude
Gratitude is a powerful practice that brings enormous changes to our life and career. A simple“thank you” makes you seem more friendly, attractive and trustworthy to others. The regular practice of gratitude enhances our psychological health by reducing toxic emotions such asacrimony, thereby increasing our levels of happiness day in, day out. We will eventually startfeeling more resilient to traumatic and stressful events, with a reduced temptation to react, thus helping us make better decisions.

3. Self motivation
In simpler terms, self-motivation is the ability to stay motivated for one’s own interest. It is a key ingredient to living a successful life as it allows us to discover our strengths and weaknesses by which we can fortify the former and overcome the latter. Self-motivation also allows us to become more independent from external factors and we go aboutin achieving our goals based on our abilities. With regular practice, we will experience more self-discipline in our everyday life as we are able tocontrol our thoughts and actions which bring outour best attributes. You will be able to stay focusedon our goals and accomplish them effectively.

4. Overcome Fear of Failure
The fear of failure is a harmful and negative habit that stops individuals from achieving theirpotential. Though it is impossible to go through life without experiencing failure, overcoming your fear of failure is a giant step that will guide your life and career in the right direction. The foremost step in ridding your life from fear is to embrace failureas a learning process; when you learn from your mistakes, you develop both in your personal and professional life.

5. Have a Clear Vision
Your vision is the road map of your life that guides you to your intended destination and also focuses your efforts with persistent zeal. When you develop a vision with a brighterand better future, it enhances your productivity and empowers you to make the necessary changes needed to have a successful life and career. Only your vision allows you to transform your dreams into achievable realities by giving you a sense of purpose to get through in your life and career.

6. Invest in Self Care
In the fast-paced world we live in, we often forget how vital it is to care for ourselves. A failure to do sometimes leads to physical discomfort and deterioration in our performance levels. Self-care refers to the activities which are done regularly to reduce stress and boost our long-term well-being. Some common examples include maintaining a healthy diet, exercising regularly and getting enough sleep. Ultimately, proper self-care increases your levels of productivity both personally and in your career by reducing the risk of fatigue.

7. Self development
will provide employers the opportunity to boost employee experience through technology, especially when working from home. The automation market is likely to address operations and tasks that enhance employees’ morale, productivity and engagement.

8. Avoid self comparison
As humans, most times, it is inevitable not to compare our achievement to others. However, this habit can lead to a negative spiral as it has many shortcomings. To combat this negative habit, recognize your uniqueness and what makes you special as your gifts and talents are exclusive to only you. Also, celebrate your accomplishments and push yourself to achieve more; this will highlight your abilities and increase your personal confidence.

This is not an exhaustive list of good habits totransform our personal & professional life, but it can get you started. Since multiple positive behaviors can spring from developing one goodhabit, start by picking just one that seems attractive and attainable to you. Once you have mastered that habit, consider pursuing another.

Be it any individual, it’s vital to love what you doin any field. If you don’t, it’s going to be difficult to generate the drive to improve. So find the joy in your job. Once you’ve got that joy, it’s easier to identify your strengths and weaknesses. From there, you can take steps — or help your employees take steps— to learn, grow, and improve.

Some of the major points for a successful career are:

Mr. Vamsi Krishna
ERP Consultant, KASP.

"I’m happy to announce that our service delivery during 2020 was on par, and in some respects even improved, compared to previous years. This was all due to the diligence and creativity of KASP experienced professionals as well as the trust and understanding of our valued customers."

Dr. Magd Donia

General Manager, KASP