A hybrid workforce blends remote and on-site work models to give employees the flexibility and freedom they value – and expect. In today’s world of work, candidates and new hires are assessing companies for fit just as thoroughly as companies are evaluating them. At a time when jobseekers have the upper hand – and where The Great Resignation of 2021 sees employees leaving jobs in record numbers – getting recruitment and onboarding right is more challenging and yet more important than ever.  Defining the hybrid workforce A true hybrid workforce incorporates HR technology and employee experience ..read more

Contact centers were never more important – or more under the gun – than when COVID-19 brought the world to a grinding halt. “March of 2020 stopped us in our tracks,” recalls Jeremy Hyde, director of customer service for Sun Country Airlines. Desperate calls from panic-stricken travelers flooded the airline’s customer service center, while social distancing measures forced many of its employees to work from home without the infrastructure or support of an office setting. Sun Country Airlines’ customer service agents weren’t the only ones experiencing turbulence. Overall, contact centers had 30 ..read more

Application integration, or enterprise application integration (EAI), is the process of connecting independently designed software applications so they work together. Businesses rely on application integration to increase efficiencies, automate workflows, and enhance interoperability between different departments and teams. The key to realizing these benefits is real-time, bidirectional communication and operational data flows between independent applications – be that on premise or, increasingly, across cloud applications as well. With interconnected processes and data exchanges, businesses c ..read more

Making any aircraft is a complex process that involves many parts, many workers, and many possibilities for error – and absolutely no room for mistakes. GE Aviation makes the engines and avionics for global airlines, including those that power Boeing and Airbus planes. To help its workers who assemble these engines minimize mistakes and work faster, GE Aviation tried out wearable augmented reality (AR). The smart glasses provide assembly information hands-free, putting instructions right in front of workers’ eyes, literally – no more pausing or looking away from their tasks to check printed re ..read more

Response and supply planning is a component of supply chain planning that helps businesses navigate operational challenges and achieve greater efficiency, accuracy, and speed. The practice of response and supply planning has been evolving steadily for several decades, however, the pandemic served to shine a bright light on many of the existing weaknesses and vulnerabilities in modern supply chains. It also accelerated the speed of business and digital transformation – in a climate with tighter business margins and increased consumer expectations. The best supply chain planning systems are powe ..read more

As more companies shift to hybrid work arrangements in which virtual employees can work both on-site and remotely, many advantages are quickly materializing. Companies are abandoning outdated assumptions that put more emphasis on where people sit than what they do and are no longer treating the “ability to commute to an office” as a key hiring qualification. All in all, the arrival and acceptance of hybrid work is long overdue, but it also brings with it new challenges – ones that managers need to navigate effectively and support, such that organizations don’t revert to old structures and habi ..read more

Soap will never be the same. With a 2019 pilot at a factory in Brazil, CPG goods multinational company Unilever began its transition to digital twinning its production with the goal of connecting 300 plants around the world that manufacture soap and other consumer staples. And it’s easy to see why. Implementing a digital replica of operations at that one factory in Brazil to monitor performance and test process improvements elevated productivity while using less energy, saving the company US$2.8 million, the company told the Wall Street Journal. Unilever is really cleaning up. Other companies ..read more

A hybrid workplace model mixes in-office and remote work to offer flexibility and support to employees. In a hybrid workplace, employees typically enjoy more autonomy and better work-life balance – and are more engaged as a result. Employers benefit by building a more productive, healthy, stable workforce.  However, the hybrid workplace is not a simple formula or a panacea for all workplace challenges. Today’s hybrid workplace must be implemented strategically, taking advantage of modern HR technologies that engender connection, collaboration, and employee engagement. “Forty-two percent of cu ..read more

A recent SAP Insights survey on sustainability found that companies’ biggest barrier to taking more environmental action is their uncertainty about how to embed sustainability into business processes and systems. Making more sustainable choices about materials use is one way to address that challenge. Apple, for example, gives customers the option of returning their used phones, laptops, and other products. Newer items earn trade-in credit, which the company recoups by refurbishing and reselling them. It also disassembles unrepairable and obsolete technology, both for parts and to extract and ..read more

Predictive maintenance technologies let you hear what your enterprise assets are trying to tell you. The machines in your factories, your fleet of trucks, your industrial equipment – they’ve been talking to you for years. They’ve been telling you when they’re about to break down and what they need to run longer and more smoothly.   Predictive maintenance allows businesses to anticipate failures and schedule maintenance when and where it’s immediately needed. It arms businesses with the information they need to push for peak performance from their valuable assets yet remain confident that ..read more