Five Common Mistakes To Avoid After CRM Go-Live

 I recently came back from an Alaskan cruise. This was a completely new experience for me since I have never been on a cruise before. With beautiful glaciers to climb, rivers to raft and wildlife to watch, Alaska impressed me with its raw, unspoiled beauty. Putting aside whether I am a cruise person or not, one thing I found interesting is that every evening when we walked back into our room, there was a brochure on the bed with everything we needed to know about the following day.

On CRM: What Are The Most Popular Add-Ons For CRM Applications?

 My company sells and implements five customer relationship management applications and we've been doing this for too long to mention here without depressing myself. We've implemented CRM systems at hundreds of businesses. Many of those also take advantage of the add-ons that their CRM vendor provides, usually through a marketplace or app store. Since most CRM systems moved to the cloud during the past ten years there's been a proliferation of add-on applications to fill the gaps in the features not provided.

So what are the most popular add-ons? Full disclosure: I didn't do this scientifically. But I can easily list out the add-ons that my clients use the most. Here are the top five in no particular order.

How To Set And Manage Key Performance Indicators For Software Engineering Teams

 Organizations use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure their performance and progress toward specific goals. In software engineering, KPIs can measure the performance and productivity of software engineering teams. Setting and managing KPIs can be challenging for software engineering leaders, as they need to ensure that the metrics they choose are relevant, measurable and actionable.

The Role Of KPIs In Product Software Security

 Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be used in application security testing to measure the effectiveness of security testing and provide insight into the security posture of an application. Their purpose is to provide visibility into the effectiveness of an organization's application security testing program and to help identify areas for improvement. In a recent IDC survey (paywall) of mid-sized to large-sized software organizations, DevSecOps decision-makers identified the following as their top three KPIs for product security:

1. Vulnerability statistics

2. Compliance time and cost

3. Software build failures and delays

Let's consider each of these in more detail.

Transforming Cybersecurity Into A True Business Process

 Cybersecurity is an arms race of innovation. Cybercriminal gangs continually discover new and more inventive ways to breach their victims' defenses while the security industry toils to find ground-breaking ways to detect and block the attacks.

Yet despite investing in the most recent innovative technology and services, firms still fall victim to incoming threats.

In most cases, the issue is not about ideas or intentions but how security is executed and operationalized. Even when an enterprise has invested in all the right tech, it will not make much difference if the business has not invested in security effectiveness. This means ensuring the security stack is correctly integrated into the rest of the business and underpinned by the right processes and operating model.

Solving this issue requires a decentralized approach to security so that cyber risk is owned and understood by all stakeholders, executives and employees—not just the CISO and their security team.

The Critical Barriers To Cybersecurity Effectiveness

Many firms are still not measuring their security effectiveness, which means they cannot tell if their investments are having an impact. This stems from security's status as the "new kid on the block." While it has become an increasingly critical business priority and has earned a place at the boardroom table, security isn't always linked to broader business goals in the same way areas like finance and sales are.

This disconnect was less of an issue when cyber could more comfortably be considered a niche technical issue, a siloed department away from the rest of the enterprise. But today, security is a responsibility of the entire organization. The fact that the average cost of a breach now exceeds $4 million means few organizations can afford to ignore their cyber responsibilities.

Tackling this significant business risk demands a shift in mindset throughout the organization, particularly at the top. The highly complex nature of cybersecurity means non-technical executives and other stakeholders will be happy to assume that the CISO has things well in hand; however, this erroneous assumption can often lead to the rest of the organization avoiding accountability for security.

CISOs usually come from highly technical backgrounds and possess a breadth and depth of cyber knowledge—but they may not have the broader experience needed to relate this expertise to business operations. It's common to find highly knowledgeable CISOs who struggle to communicate cyber risk and put it into a business context.

Cybersecurity effectiveness hinges on understanding flowing both ways. Alongside non-technical stakeholders getting a clear picture of cyber risk, CISOs also need to recognize how security fits into the rest of the enterprise. They must be able to clearly communicate how security activity is enabling core business operations.

So how do they reach this point?

Developing Skills And Building Strategies

CISOs need to upskill and evolve. This means moving away from their traditional focus on technical enablement and toward a more simplified approach that non-technical stakeholders, company-wide, can better understand.

Making these changes requires self-reflection and honesty from CISOs about their skill sets and operating methods. They must recognize if their communication skills are bridging the gap between security and the wider business. Are they building a strategic plan that meshes with business priorities, or are they focusing on smaller, more easily solved tactical issues?

Developing a more strategic skill set will help CISOs operationalize security better. Cybersecurity is a journey that needs to map out outcomes, impact and the business' unique environment and operations.

Pursuing a tick-box approach is no longer enough. Simply putting measures in place to achieve regulatory compliance or cybersecurity certifications does not mean that these processes effectively keep the company secure.

Instead, cybersecurity effectiveness hinges on outcomes. Security must be a part of the business process, actively and measurably enabling business success. Once security is embedded in this way, all stakeholders will be able to understand security effectiveness and accountability just as quickly as they can for mainstays like sales and finance.

For example, have you considered what business functions will suffer from the biggest impact if they are affected by a breach? How does this view align with different stakeholders? If there are differing thoughts, how can they be unified and addressed?

What are your plans and preparations for an attack if you know your highest-risk assets? Do you have the processes, reporting, and communication to deal with a threat effectively and ensure long-term resilience?

A New Operating Model For Cybersecurity

Answering these questions requires an operating model that uses its technology platform to decentralize cybersecurity, turning complex data into something more digestible for stakeholders.

Because cyber risks threaten the entire business, improving security must be a company-wide responsibility. Everyone must be part of the cybersecurity process and aware of their role and responsibilities.

A top-down approach can help instill this sense of responsibility and bake security into the company culture without impacting the performance of core operations. Teams at the top, including the executive leadership team, can take accountability for each area, implementing and following the proper security measures.

Reinforcing this, the CISO must translate highly technical security issues into something the entire business can understand. This demands a robust set of KPIs for cybersecurity effectiveness, focusing on numbers that can be translated to the board and stakeholders to provide context. The right KPIs also make drawing a direct line between security targets and the wider organization’s business goals easier. This enables stakeholders to make more informed decisions about security investments.

Improving Cybersecurity Effectiveness Together

By fostering understanding and responsibility, security accountability becomes a shared concern across the company, enhancing cybersecurity effectiveness. With well-defined metrics, it's easier to evaluate processes and make necessary refinements. This enables businesses to fully utilize innovative technology, optimize their security stack, save costs and achieve optimal ROI, ultimately making cybersecurity a catalyst for success.

Looking to hire skilled software developers? Contact TP&P Technology - Leading Software Outsourcing Company in Vietnam Today

Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/04/11/transforming-cybersecurity-into-a-true-business-process/?sh=6af03b37454c

How To Make Sure That Your Product Is Ready For Software Development

Bringing any digital product into being is a complex process. Nevertheless, as software developers, we often meet clients who believe that properly written code can solve any problem and is the Holy Grail of building a product. The truth is; however, that code itself lies on the foundation of thorough preparations and includes a lot of stages and processes.

There are situations when a client approaches us after a failed attempt to build their application with other developers. Those other developers may convince customers that the proposal is perfectly complete, but in the end, they turn out to be unable to deliver the expected results exactly because they don't have a full statement of work.

The Importance Of User Experience Design

Based on hundreds of meetings, I find that one of the most overlooked parts of software development is user experience design. Sometimes, when we start talking about it with clients, they do not take it seriously since they believe that these conversations should be held with designers, not with software developers.

As a result of neglect of UX, I often meet clients who have only the idea of an application with a couple of vaguely described features. They see no more than 20% to 30% of their future product and believe it to be enough to start developing it.

UX is an important part of our process. Before writing code, developers need to know what exactly they are working on. I think it's particularly important to base solutions on specifications defined during user research and by the product team.

So, what needs to be done from the point of view of the design team prior to starting the code production per se? There are a few important prerequisites that can be combined into a sort of checklist.

Specify Target Audiences

It's next to impossible to develop a high-quality, sought-after product without knowing who is going to use it. Every function of your product should solve some problem a user has or help them with achieving their goals. It's necessary to define crucial features and extract non-functional requirements based on key user needs.

You can turn to the persona method (putting yourself in the shoes of your users) in order to systemize what you know about the target audience. It requires building personas for each user type of your product according to preliminary conducted user research. A persona usually consists of approximate age and income, location, lifestyle and goals that they want to achieve by using the product.

Defining your users helps with your empathy and understanding toward them. For instance, if we assume that your target audience lives in the U.S., they are very likely to use a two- to three-year-old iPhone. Does this impact what solutions you should employ while developing software? Yes, it does.

Define User Needs

When you know who you are developing your product for, you can better and more broadly understand what they may need from it. I like to use the user story method to describe functional requirements. User stories are a universal language that helps to efficiently convey to everyone on the team—from analysts to coders—what the product should do.

You can use the following format to craft a user story: "As a [role description], I want [capability], so that [received benefit]." In one sentence, it explains who your target audience is, what they should be able to do with your app and which benefits it should give them.

Describe MVP

Now that you understand what exact user needs your app is going to address, you can precisely describe the minimal viable product. The description should be short and clear, like an elevator pitch, and include a definition of the customers, the value of your solution and how it differs from competitors.

Make sure to also mention expected business outcomes and how you are going to measure them. In the end, define criteria for assessment of implementation correctness. Developers need to understand what results are expected from their work and be able to imagine the final product.

Make And Test Prototypes

When the key functions and target platform for your app are defined, it's time to convert them into simple black, gray and white wireframes linked together into a clickable prototype covering all user stories. The prototype is necessary to evaluate your ideas about the product and validate its functionality through usability testing.

It's much cheaper and faster to make sure that everything works properly during the prototype stage rather than when the app is released. During this stage, the team can identify all sorts of issues, from misleading button labels to holes in user flows.

As a result, you end up with the assurance that the product is going to work well and there will be no need to redevelop it again later. Besides, it's much easier to explain to software developers what you expect from them with a prototype. It saves a lot of time and money. When prototyping is completed, usually the stage of visual design starts, which defines how the interface of the product is going to look.

There's one more thing that you should know in order to successfully design your product. Before starting the UX process, it's crucial to determine prerequisites and your company's definition of complete for each step of this journey. To avoid any mess, you need to know what exactly is necessary to kickstart each phase and what outcomes you should get at the end of them.

It doesn't matter if you have your own developers team or you are outsourcing it; without this preliminary UX design work, I have found that no software development proposal can be as efficient as it needs to be and deliver optimal results.

Looking to hire skilled software developers? Contact TP&P Technology - Leading Software Outsourcing Company in Vietnam Today

Article resource:https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/04/11/how-to-make-sure-that-your-product-is-ready-for-software-development/?sh=232066b74dd3

The Role Of KPIs In Product Software Security

 Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be used in application security testing to measure the effectiveness of security testing and provide insight into the security posture of an application. Their purpose is to provide visibility into the effectiveness of an organization's application security testing program and to help identify areas for improvement. In a recent IDC survey (paywall) of mid-sized to large-sized software organizations, DevSecOps decision-makers identified the following as their top three KPIs for product security:

1. Vulnerability statistics

2. Compliance time and cost

3. Software build failures and delays

Let's consider each of these in more detail.

Rethinking Enterprise Software: Three Features You Should Look For In New Enterprise Applications

 Enterprise technology investments are among the most important infrastructure investments for startups, mid-size companies and large organizations alike. These tools may be used by every employee in the organization and, in many cases, will have a role in integrating and orchestrating myriad other task-specific tools. They're often the platforms upon which all other IT infrastructure is built.

Why Decision Intelligence Is The Next Digital Transformation

 Decision intelligence (DI) is how people make business decisions, regardless of their role or industry. It bridges the gap between analytics-focused data and AI platforms.

4 Steps To Simplify Your Technology Investments In 2023

 In a time when companies are trying to do more with less, there’s one thing that’s not lacking: technology. In fact, businesses have many choices when it comes to deciding what tools and solutions to invest in. It’s not likely to get any easier—there are more than 30,000 SaaS offerings available, and the global enterprise software market is expected to grow at an 11.1% CAGR to $404 billion by 2028.