Importance of Returns Management and Reverse Logistics

In today’s volatile business environment, manufacturers are having a tough time in managing the forward flow of goods and products due to increased cost factors. Hence, most manufacturers do not care to think about reverse logistics and returns management as it is considered an expense or an additional financial burden. However, contrary to popular belief, reverse logistics and returns management offer great opportunities for additional revenue. With effective returns management and reverse logistics, organizations can not only improve their financial standing but also foster strong relationships with their customers. However, before delving further into the topic, let’s first understand the terms reverse logistics and returns management.

Reverse logistics is “the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the efficient, cost effective flow of raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods and related information from the point of consumption to the point of origin for the purpose of recapturing value or proper disposal.” While returns management is “the management of all logistics operations related to returns of products from their original user to their supplier with the intention of a cost effective recovery, while meeting all legal obligations.” In short, returns management is that part of supply chain management that includes returns, reverse logistics, gate keeping and avoidance.

Two important factors that need to be kept in mind with respect to reverse logistics and returns management are the source of the returns and reasons for the returns. Understanding these returns helps to improve supply chain processes. Take for instance, defective returns and non-defective returns. Defective returns are those items that are returned after purchase and some level of use. Such items have issues with respect to quality, which need to be rectified in the manufacturing or distribution level. While non-defective returns refer to those products where the problem is not with the quality but with the customer’s inability to operate the product properly. In such a scenario, the manufacturer either need to re-engineer the product  or introduce a user manual that  effectively communicates to the customers about the proper way to install or use a product.

The best way to deal with the intricacies of returns management and reverse logistics is to entrust the responsibilities to a 3rd party logistics provider. Here is a look at the returns management and reverse logistics services provided by them.

  • Detrash and destruction of returned materials (CDs packaging materials, etc.)
  • Date code based warranty assessment
  • Test diagnostics and repair
  • Software and/or firmware upgrades
  • Refurbishment
  • Repackaging
  • Warehousing Service and Distribution
  • Legally compliant disposal (i.e. WEEE and SB2050)
  • Web-based inquiry and reporting

With their experience of refurbishing a vast array of products in minimal time and getting them back into the field tested and up to the clients’ cosmetic standard (including “like new”) often within 24 hours or less, enterprises can put in place an effective reverse logistics and returns management processes easily with their help.

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Importance of Reverse Logistic in An Efficient Global Supply Chain

In today's competitive business environment when there are both external and internal pressures, companies can no longer ignore reverse supply chains. Most times, enterprises spend more time and money in fine-tuning their forward supply chains while ignoring their backward supply chains. Enterprises have begun to understand that by giving importance to reverse supply chain, there is a significant reduction in operating costs by reusing products or components. Efficient reverse supply chains bring many benefits to the companies. Enterprises understand that reverse logistics are no longer a necessary evil but can be a tactical asset that can reduce costs.  

  While your supply chain solution can maximize customer value and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, an effective supply chain solution will use adequate metrics to measure performance levels, maintain clear accountability and effectively collaborate and communicate with employees, customers and suppliers for smooth movement of goods. It is evident that continuing globalization and challenges occurring in areas like reverse logistics, environmental sustainability, and supply chain integration make a huge difference in the supply chain.  

  While many companies have been successful in improving their traditional supply chains, most enterprises do not have supply chain management systems which handle the reverse supply chain or, if they do, the existing applications are disconnected. Organizations therefore need to have in place explicit logistics procedures that can handle the returns. By understanding the reason for the return of products that leave the manufacturing or a retail packaging unit makes it’s feasible to recognize the various methods of enhancing the decision-making and supply chain process. Reverse logistics help enterprises with an idea of what is coming back by automating returns across different channels. 

  Understanding the importance of reverse logistics management, many companies these days have chosen to either apply new solutions to better manage their reverse logistics process or, alternatively, to outsource their reverse logistics operations to service providers. Enterprises that have implemented effective reverse logistics solutions will be better equipped to enhance consumer service and response times, minimize environmental influences by minimizing waste.  

  A competent third party service provider will be able to take advantage of economies of scale and specialized expertise in planning reverse logistics operations. The critical phase in ensuring effective returns processing, is in choosing a returns management solution that manages the entire process of reverse logistics in an efficient manner. Leading service providers have developed integrated returns management system designed to help enterprises to specifically deal with the reverse logistics in a logical and efficient manner.  

  Other Links - data center integration

Changing your Embedded Operating System without Porting

The operating system is the most important part of a computer system; it manages the computer's memory, processes, and all of its software and hardware. There are different types of computers and different types of operating systems, they include: real-time operating systems,multi-tasking operating systems, single-tasking operating systems, multi-user operating systems,embedded operating systems and distributed operating systems. Hence, people can choose operating systems that suit their requirements. The following are some tips for selecting an operating system.


Choose an operating system that

* Offers support for your next generation hardware

* More economical and/or requires no royalty payments

* Free and open-source

* Provides better development tools

* Offers a wide range of driver, protocol and middleware support

* Offers better performance and a smaller memory footprint

* Meets required certification standards


However, when requirements change, the operating system needs to be changed as well.  But most people shy away from changing their operating system as changing operating system means a big headache.


The main difficulty with respect to OS change is porting. Wikipedia defines porting as “the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e.g. different CPU, operating system, or third party library).” To make an existing software program adapt to a new OS manually is an extremely tedious and time consuming process where success is not always guaranteed. The solution to change OS effortlessly is a porting kit.


A Porting kit is a C/C++ source-level virtualization technology that allows easy  reuse of  software developed for VxWorks, pSOS, Linux/POSIX, Windows, Nucleus and μITRON on another OS, while providing real-time performance. Here is a look at the contents of a best of the breed porting solution.


* An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for porting of C/C++ applications Application Common Operating Environment (AppCOE)

* An OS Interface for the OS you are moving from

* OS Abstractor for the target OS you are porting to

* Library Package Generator

* Full source code of the OS Interface and OS Abstractor for your target platform

* Full libraries of the OS Interface and OS Abstractor for your host platform (Windows or Linux)

* Sample demo applications for reference

* Project build files for supported tools

* Optimized Target Code Generator

* Generates the OS Porting Interface and OS Abstractor source code, specifically optimized for your application and target environment

* Creates project files for your target

* Includes the system settings you chose in the GUI-based Wizard

* OS Simulator for host development/simulation

* Profiler to view performance data regarding your application and platform.  A Profiler also generates timing reports


Thus, with a porting kit, users can eliminate the manual porting effort, save money and shorten the time to market.


Related Links: OS Simulator, ada to c

Changing Your Operating System Is Easy

New operating systems that are launched in the Embedded Software market are theoretically enhancements of the older version. Product developers often discover that older operating systems are no longer supported by the OS vendor, hardware manufacturers have stopped supporting the OS or that end-customers are requesting that the application be moved to a modern or popular operating system. Some requested enhancements to “application software” might not be possible on the old OS version.


There can be innumerable reasons for changing your operating system. Sometimes the need arises from nothing more than the passage of time. After a product has been manufactured for a few years, it can become impossible to add a new feature to the application code if the feature is not supported by the old OS. Hardware is also constantly changing, new hardware might not support existing product features, new features, or the old OS. New hardware can also require moving to a newer version of the same OS. Therefore, regardless of the reason for change, it is essential to ensure that your new OS:


* Runs on your next-generation hardware

* Is more economical and possibly royalty free

* Is open-source and free

* Offers advanced development tools

* Provides a wide selection of protocol, driver and middleware assistance

* Provides improved performance and a smaller memory footprint

* Meets your certification standards


Changing your operating system is not a complicated process anymore.  Today there are companies that have introduced advanced porting kits that make changing your OS simple and easy. They enable you to re-use the software developed for VxWorks, pSOS, Linux/POSIX, Windows, Nucleus and μITRON on another OS while simultaneously offering real time performance. They save money, lessen the time to market and reduce or eliminate the manual porting effort. The porting kit enables a seamless OS change by connecting a new OS interface to a user’s existing application.


OS change porting kits can be installed on either Linux or Windows host platforms. Depending on the application, developers can select a porting kit catering to their requirements. If the application requires access to more than one kind of API set, then developers can browse through the Cross-OS development platform offered by companies. OS change solution providers’ offer developers the freedom to switch or upgrade embedded operating systems thereby allowing developers to leverage their software investments while averting expensive porting concerns. It further enables developers to write code utilizing a familiar API and operate the application on a wide range of supported target OS platforms.


Related Links: OS Simulator, ada to c

Implications of the 2012 Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Program

The IRS reopened the Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Program 2012 on January 2012 to the U.S taxpayers who are willing to disclose voluntarily the unreported offshore assets. The taxpayers who are willing to take part in the 2012 OVDP needs to file the amended returns for the years covered by the 2012 OVDP, pay any sort unpaid taxes, interests and penalties, file the FBAR forms for every undisclosed foreign accounts help from the taxpayer over a time frame covered by the 2012 OVDP and pay off a one time penalty that almost equals 27.5 percent of the highest aggregate balance of the taxpayers unreported foreign assets over the years covered by the 2012 OVDP. The overseas penalty is applicable to any and every taxpayer's overseas holdings that are associated with the non-compliance with U.S tax laws. Hence, the penalty is applicable not only bank accounts but also to the tangible assets such as real estate or art.

In contrary to the IRS's former two Overseas Voluntary Disclosure Programs i.e. the ones for 2009 and 20011 there is no deadline by which the taxpayers willing to take part in the program needs to submit all their information. This apart, the terms of the 2012 OVDP are virtually identical to the terms of the 2011 programs except the overseas penalty which has increased from 25 percent to 27.5 percent. However, the taxpayers interested in voluntary disclosure need to attempt to remain compliant as soon as possible, as the IRS reserved the authority to amend or change the terms of 2012 OVDP at their own discretion.

Overseas voluntary disclosures are very case sensitive and complicated and are also subject to rigid rules and specific guidelines. The OVDP 2012 is applicable for the citizens who:

  • Informs the IRS voluntarily of his tax violation
  • Has a legal income source
  • Is not under any criminal investigation, for tax aversion
  • Makes total payment of the due amount
  • Files the correct tax returns and cooperates with IRS

In order to gain better insight of OVDP it is essential that taxpayers resort to the services of a tax planning agency that helps them with the following ways:

  • Complete compliance
  • Offers consultation and impact analysis
  • Provides analysis and planning to minimize the FBAR Penalty
  • Offers AMT Strategies and  Foreign Tax Credit
  • Provides Mutual Fund or PFIC computations
  • Helps in preparing the forms needed to take part in the OVDP program
  • Helps in preparing the Tax Amendments and Delinquent FBAR
  • IRS Representation by Enrolled Agents or Affiliated CPAs and Attorneys

The OVDP 2012, like the 2009 and 2011 programs provides the taxpayers a well defined medium of getting their accounts into total compliance, certain taxpayers will be served better by disclosing their foreign assets beyond the boundaries of the program.

Read More About:   IRS Amnesty, Foreign Bank Account.

The Right Anti-Phishing Strategy to Ward off All Phishing Attacks

Aided by technology, Phishing threats and social engineering are increasing in sophistication and it continues to be one of the biggest threats to online privacy & security across the world. The alarming increase in cyber crime rates and security breaches in recent years stress the importance of tightening network security to protect organizations from such attacks. While the usual Phishing scams are easy to identify, most Phishers are using a variety of advanced techniques to make Phishing scams look genuine.

 

Preventing Phishing attacks is no mean feat and can be a challenging task for many organizations as a successful Phishing attack can bring about tremendous losses. These attacks cannot be controlled by merely implementing filters, and therefore organizations require advanced technology controls, continuing education and awareness to fight Phishing attacks. Effective countermeasures like reliable anti Phishing software need to be implemented to tackle these Phishing attacks.


The most important protection against Phishing is constant alertness and reasonable doubt, and successful Phishing awareness and control also needs to include law enforcement and employees of targeted businesses to ensure that they can recognize scams. Business organizations looking for Phishing awareness programs invest in a solution that helps organizations to protect their most valuable assets, their employees, from becoming Phishing victims.


Look for a service provider who can provide an effective anti-Phishing solution that can help eliminate these attacks. Ensure that the solution that you opt for assists your organizations in evaluating the readiness of employees against Phishing and social engineering attacks. The possibility of remote employees’ systems being infected via a Phishing attack and then spreading the infection to the company network makes education critically vital. The solution must also carry out simple simulated Phishing attack. These simulated attacks provide an instant behavioral analysis that leverages a "teaching moment" while also creating a prioritized action plan to reduce possible threats due to such attacks in the future.


This is a great way to prepare the employees so as to enable them to handle such situations during real attacks. With a good solution provider, your organization can build the best line of defense by increasing an employee's awareness and also play a fundamental role in an organization's anti-Phishing strategy.


With Phishing protection becoming mandatory in today’s scenario, it has become essential to protect your employees from becoming Phishing victims. Invest in a complete Phishing protection solution or software to ensure that your organization can ward off all Phishing attacks and function smoothly at all times.


Read More About: Anti Phishing Tool, Protection From Phishing

Respond To Phishing With Anti-Phishing Software

Phishing attacks can be defined as the act of scheming to acquire private data such as passwords, usernames, credit card and passport details by companies and hackers, who appear as trustworthy entities primarily through e-mails. These communications purporting to be from well known auction sites, social websites, IT administrators or online payment processes are generally used to attract the unsuspecting user. Phishing emails might contain links to websites being infected with malware.


Generally, the Phishing attacks are carried out through e-mail spoofing or through instant messaging and it often directs the users to share their private details on a fraudulent website what looks quite identical to the original one. Phishing can well be considered as an outcome of social engineering techniques that are used by cybercriminals and third party hackers to deceive users and exploit the poor usability of current web security technologies. The recent instances of Phishing attacks comprise incidents such as user training, legislation, public awareness and technical security measures.


Sometime back, the RapidShare file sharing website had been attacked by Phishers to attain a premium account, that removes the speed caps on download, waits on downloads, auto-removal of uploads and cool down times in between uploads. Furthermore, cyber criminals also hacked the TD Ameritrade's database, that contained 6.3 million customers' social security numbers, account numbers and email addresses as well as their names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and trading activity.  The hackers further aimed at the account passwords and usernames, so they introduced a follow-up spear Phishing attack post that.


However, keeping all these incidents in mind today service providers have come up with anti-Phishing software that provides an e-learning module. This helps to train and educate the employees about the ways Phishing functions and strengthen their security awareness. Other features and benefits of the software include the following:


* Assists the organizations to estimate the possible threats related to phishing

* Provides elastic reporting capabilities and efficiently integrates them back into the organization’s main performance-indicator framework

* Provides a detailed “road map" solution emphasizing on Phishing awareness and training within an organization

* Helps in recognizing weakness within people, process and technology links

* Helps in prioritizing remediation initiatives through an effective benchmarking and maturity evaluation

* Helps to maximize employee awareness and knowledge to help guard sensitive information


Hence, protection from Phishing has become a core objective for the enterprises. This is because data is of crucial importance and no company can afford to lose vital information that cannot be retrieved. Anti-Phishing solution works towards negating this issue by making the employees expert in detecting Phishing emails that in turn makes them aware prior to sharing any private data on the net.


Read More About: Simulated Phishing Attack, Phishing Protection, Anti Phishing Software

Emergence of Engineering Outsourcing Companies

Today almost 73 percent of OEM respondents state that their enterprises would outsource more engineering work within the forthcoming five years, as compared to a 44 percent for suppliers. This outsourced engineering work usually lands in the suppliers’ domain and is a recent trend that numerous engineering brands find a complex process. Some are of the opinion that by outsourcing they are exporting their technical experience and know-how. Whilst there is another school of thought that believes outsourcing opens a new portal for engineering expertise and fosters knowledge sharing. Keeping in mind the present day engineering developments in multiple sectors today most companies are resorting to outsourcing engineering solutions.


The updated market analysis indicates that the advent of engineering services outsourcing companies are calculated to make the total business rise up from approximately $15B to $200B by the year 2020. According to Value Notes that conducted a survey highlights that the design and manufacturing acquires an important share of outsourced engineering services. Due to the acute global economic recession sometime back there has been a maximized growth and emergence in the vertical of engineering outsourcing.


Outsourcing solutions offered by global engineering services makes it possible for an enterprise to provide better attention to the core issues faced by end users. This apart, the company can also have specialized know-how from a wide pool of skillful professionals that further helps them to address the core competencies and develop new ones as well. Service providers specializing in engineering services outsourcing today has come up with high-end solutions and advanced product verticals that enable consumers to make the most of the benefits received that in turn leads to better productivity. The goods and services provided enables in offering cost-efficient solutions that facilitates better and fast operation of the organization. In addition to that, these companies provide their solutions to multiple domains like product analysis, industrial products, aerospace engineering, civil products, oil and gas engineering industry and many more. Some of the services are listed below:

•                    Special Engineering services and projects

•                    Manufacturing Engineering services

•                    Engineering Analysis

•                    Processes and Plants

•                    Technical Publication

•                    Embedded Systems

•                    Sustenance engineering

•                    Product detailing and designing


Apart from this there are other advantages that users can reap in from these service providers, such as:

•                    The manufacturing processes are of high standards

•                    The time to market is fast

•                    Continuous and customized solutions

•                    There is integrated manufacturing and engineering capacities

•                    Usage of State-of-the-art technologies

•                    The teams involved in work and assignments are technically competent


Modern day engineering services outsourcing companies today assists their end users resort to an organized approach in resolving numerous work related concerns. This makes it easier to generate a good will in the market and results in high profits.

Related Links: engineering services outsourcing, engineering product development

 
 

Use Anti-Phishing Software For Detecting Phsihing Mails

Though the internet happens to be the most phenomenal discovery in the IT landscape, it's not separate from security hazards. The most common and acute one being social engineering and its perils such as Phishing that aims to steal private data and result in massive data losses. The forms that Phishing mails generally use are sms’s, pop ups, emails from unknown sources, instant bulk messages and many more.


Nature of Phishing Attacks


If you carefully analyze, most Phishing attacks in terms of emails and sms’s come from sources that has the name of well known financial institutions, banks, online payment sites, social media websites and so on. These sources are craftily designed by the hackers and Phishers to merely look like the original source but is actually inauthentic in its functions. The cyber criminals today have been designing sophisticated attacks that lead to data loss, revenue loss, brand erosion and corruption of computing devices.


Detecting Phishing Attacks


There are certain ways by which you can detect Phishing attacks. One of them is to keep an eye on the URL link. If there are sub-domains and spelling errors in the URL links then it is not coming from an authentic source. So when you browsing you need to stay alert  and also check on the link offered in the mail. In case it is a re-directional link then it’s a Phishing attack that lead the online user to fraudulent links and websites.


Advanced Anti-Phishing Software


Today most of us have resorted to programs that provides protection from Phishing. Service providers of Phishing protection solutions have come up with anti-Phishing software that addresses the “people”s risk factor effectively. The software has multiple unique uses, that helps companies in the following ways:


* Helps enterprises in estimating the probable hazards associated with phishing

* Offers elastic reporting and incorporate them back into the company’s chief performance-indicator

framework

* Offers a “road map" solution concentrating on security awareness and training within an enterprise

* Helps to recognize weakness within people, method and technology links

* Helps in prioritizing remediation attempts through useful benchmarking and maturity analysis

* Helps in increasing employee awareness and expertise to safeguard crucial information


Hence, if your enterprise has been facing acute concerns with fraud mails coming from fraudulent mail sources then it is important to address the matter with an advanced Phishing protection solution.


Read More About: Anti Phishing Tool, Simulated Phishing Attack

Increase Employee Phishing Awareness through Anti Phishing Software

In any enterprise, the greatest concern when it comes to information security is the threat posed by social engineering-“the art of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information”- and phishing-“the fraudulent practice of sending e-mails purporting to be from legitimate companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information.” Through phishing is already a mainstay in identity theft attacks, a new method of phishing attack is creating great havoc across the world. Known as spear phishing, it targets a specific organization or a specific user to seek unauthorized access to confidential information. Just as a fisherman uses a spear to target a single fish, spear Phishing targets a single person at a time.


Unlike Phishing attacks, where mass emails are sent to hundreds and thousands of people, in spear Phishing attacks personalized emails sent to targeted individuals. Spear Phishing attacks have become so refined that today it is very difficult to identify and avoid them. Hence, employee awareness programs and anti-Phishing technologies are not quite effective in preventing employees from becoming victims. This is because these products and services address the "process and technology" aspect of security but do not adequately address 'people risk'.


Instead of an incident-based reactive approach towards phishing, what is required is a phishing diagnostic solution. With people and process being the two most vulnerable areas, hackers specifically target these two areas, as they are well aware that these are the most difficult zones to guard. With a diagnostic solution, enterprises can ensure Phishing awareness by simulating a Phishing attack and then capturing a user's potential reaction to a real attack. It proactively educates users and helps them identify phishing attacks so they can avoid becoming phish baits in the future. Let’s see how it works.


Enterprises need to install the anti Phishing software internally within the organization, tailored with information about people, processes, and technology. It launches a customized Phishing attack at the target audience and tracks their responses. Social behaviors towards the attack are analyzed and a detailed report is then generated. The simulated Phishing attack provides statistics on user behavior, measures security awareness among employees, identifies data leakage, assesses Data Loss Prevention (DLP) programs and tests the incident response program. When the test is over, a personalized email is sent to each individual, informing him or her about his or her responses and what should be the ideal action. In addition, an e-learning module further educates the user on security awareness.


Thus anti Phishing software plays a vital role in an organization's anti-Phishing strategy by increasing an employee's awareness to Phishing.


Read More About: Phishing Protection, Simulated Phishing Attack, Protection From Phishing