How to Ensure Efficient Supply Chain Management

An organization’s success is greatly dependent on its supply chain. Effective supply chain management is all about delivering the right product in the right quantity and in the right condition with the right documentation to the right place at the right time at the right price. However, managing and controlling supply chain costs while delivering acceptable service is the never-ending goal. With increasing competition in the global market, there is a need to ensure transparency to optimize and enhance the efficiency of the supply chain process. Effective supply chain management is a crucial as well as of strategic advantage for businesses. 

Companies that want to create an effective supply chain must figure out the best way to handle both increased demand for the current product offerings. In order to implement efficient global supply chain solutions for customers around the world, opting for an efficient solution that spans across the entire order fulfillment process from order receipt to fulfillment based on order agreements is the best option. With simple rules and best practices, can help reduce your return costs and keeping more customers happy. To ensure that the supply chain is operating as efficiently as possible and generating the highest level of customer satisfaction at the lowest cost, companies have adopted Supply Chain Management processes and associated technology. 

Effective supply chain solutions can maximize customer value and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Effective supply chain solutions must use adequate metrics to measure performance levels.  It must also main clear accountability and effectively collaborates and communicates with employees, customers and suppliers for smooth movement of goods. Communication is keys to resolving supply chain issues quickly. It is also essential to keep a peer-authoritative relationship between supply chain executives and business leaders.

Successful supply chain solutions allow a company to rethink their entire operation and restructure in a way that permits them to focus on core competencies and outsource the other processes. The supply chain solution that you choose must keep up with the latest technology trends and be capable of responding to a situation faster than any of the competitors in the market.

Today’s economic climate challenge for all manufacturers, especially those with production outsourced to distant partners. Companies have to also evaluate new ideas in the supply chain to remain ahead in the market place.  It is essential for companies to quickly and efficiently respond to today’s rapid changes in both demand and supply. Create an efficient supply chain that saves costs, reduces delays and uncertainties, and builds profits with the right supply chain solution

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Improve Profitability & Efficiency with Advanced Reverse Logistics Solutions

Reverse logistics is crucial to almost every business. Returns are often a neglected part of the business and sometimes even the best run companies fall short in their reverse logistics operations. With no real integration and optimization in a reverse logistics system, a business will literally be throwing away profits. The most successful organizations are those that can leverage their reverse logistics capabilities to provide customers with exactly what they want, and expect, while also creating and maintaining a competitive advantage wherever possible. Reverse Logistics Management automates returns across multiple channels to ensure a business knows what's coming back, and from where and why.

Most distribution networks are not set up to manage product that comes back from the field. Boxes of returns wind up on warehouse shelves taking up valuable space, depreciating quickly, and challenging your operation’s efficiency. If an organization does not have proper reverse logistics processes in place, because they are not the most effective processes, or they do not exist within the organization at all, then it will be virtually incapable of providing the service and support its customers require. 

Organizations that implement an effective reverse logistics solution will be able to improve customer service and response times; reduce environmental impact by reducing waste and improve overall corporate citizenship. Your business’ Reverse Logistics practices must be positioned competitively with other companies in your industry.

 Benefits of effective and advanced returns management solution:

  • Minimizes the overall costs for an organization and allows a trader to receive products back from the consumer or send unsold merchandise back to the manufacturer to be taken apart, sorted, reassembled or recycled;.
  • Can be helpful in increasing product life cycles, supply chain complexity, maintainable practices and consumer preferences; which have to be improved on to maintain productivity and growth.
  • Aids in enhancing the speed of production, reducing costs, retaining customers by improving service goals and meeting sustainability goals.
  • Ensures more value can be extracted from used/returned goods instead of wasting manpower, time and costs of raw materials involved in the original supply chain.
  • Brings about Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty by paying more attention to faulty goods, and repairs of merchandise.  Reverse logistics can include gaining feedback to make improvements and to improve the understanding of the real reasons for product returns

It is important not to overlook reverse logistics as organizations can markedly improve their customer service and response times along with environmental sustainability and company social responsibility. Choose your solution wisely as the right  supply chain solutions can improve a firm’s profitability, enhance customer relationships, and be an essential part of an integrated supply chain management strategy. 

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Cross-platform Development in C

Business expansion and the growth of the enterprises across the globe have led to the growth of offshore development teams and a mobile workforce. Nevertheless, the technological enhancements and the growth of Internet which paved way for enterprises to expand their business also facilitated in the mobile workforce and distant teams to be connected 24/7. Further innovations such as smartphones and tablets along with high speed networks and mobile applications have helped the employees access the corporate data from any remote locations. Nevertheless, there has been an increasing demand for mobility in enterprises.


Though mobility offers new dimensions for the enterprises, this also brings in challenges both for the enterprise as well as the developer. With the ever-changing customer needs, security issues and changing technology, enterprises can keep ahead of the competition by updating operating systems,   or applications. To combat these issues, technology giants have worked out measures that will facilitate professionals to develop flexible and scalable applications customized for clients  without the frequent need to upgrade OS  or change OS.  


Involving in cross-platform development of applications will help enterprises to stay relevant in the competitive market, and evolve as per the customer’s ever-changing digital lifestyle. Living in a world of application mobility the end-users look towards every new software product launch to be available on various operating systems. Launching on any one of the platforms isn’t considered a full launch and being accessible on a desktop and a mobile device has become today’s minimum requirement. With C, and C++, as the most portable languages, the IT giants have worked their way to cross-platform development in C.


A cross-platform application refers to any computer program or software that can run on multiple computer-platforms. The platform however, refers to the computer-architecture,operating system, software-framework and programming languages. Cross-platform software are of two types; one that requires compilation for each platform that it supports, and the other that can be directly run on any platform without special preparation. In order for software to be considered cross-platform, it must be able to function on more than one computer architecture or operating system. With different operating systems have different application programming interfaces or APIs, this is difficult.


However, with today business world being connected through corporate networks and local area networks, the varied IT infrastructure across locations are linked, making cross-platform computing increasingly necessary. The cross-platform development in C with its source-level virtualization technology besides providing robust operating system interface architecture for flexible real-time application development also protects the software from being locked to one OS. Further, with ability of the software to support multiple OS and different versions ensures freedom from porting issues.


Related Links: OS Simulator,  ada to c

Change Operating Systems Swiftly and Effortlessly

After using the same operating system for a while, there are several reasons, which would induce anybody to consider an OS change. Here is a list of some of the reasons to change operating system.


* OS becomes unsupported or obsolete

* New chip architecture has different OS availability

* Customer demands for different OS

* Need to adhere to industry standards

* Change in the user’s technical requirements

* Change in the user’s commercial business model

* Need to use a better development environment

* Need to move to a widely used OS and target platform that offers a wide range of driver, protocol and middleware support


However, switching an operating system is not an easy decision to make as it brings lots of questions like compatibility with your existing apps, system configuration and so on. Changing an operating system being such a challenging call, most people shy away from changing their operating systems.


However, today to change your OS is neither a difficult decision nor a laborious process. With a porting kit, which is a C/C++ source-level virtualization technology that allows users to easily re-use their software developed for VxWorks, pSOS, Linux/POSIX, Windows, Nucleus and μITRON on another OS, OS changes can be easily achieved. It eliminates the manual porting effort, saves money, provides real time performance and shortens the time to market. This solution achieves effortless OS change by connecting the appropriate interface to a user’s existing application that was developed on his/her current OS. Here is a look at some of the benefits of using a best of the breed porting solution.


* Protects existing software investment now and in the future

* Reduces the learning curve on a new OS by developing with the familiar APIs of the current OS

* Captures new markets by extending the support of the product to include many different operating systems

* Enhances the robustness and performance of the application with advanced real-time features

* Supports a wide variety of target and host OS platforms

* 80 OS Changer Kits provide easy migration

* 4 porting interfaces for 20 target OS

* Quick Support for adding new API/OS


Making an existing software program adapt to a new OS is an error prone, tedious and time-consuming task. Porting solutions give users the freedom to switch operating systems while leveraging on their existing embedded code and knowledge base to protect their software investment while avoiding costly porting issues.


Related Links: OS Simulator,  ada to c

Innovative Trends in Biometrics

Over the past few years medical science has progressed manifold both in terms of treatment as well as new medical discoveries. This applies to the dynamic field of Biometrics too, that has been expanding manifold with its global applications for everyday life. There have been new trends and advanced developments that have been proposed to process and acquire various biometrics change. The challenges that were averted in the past and the probable concerns require be assessed together and incorporating deeply as well.


Therefore the main objective of CRO’s (Clinical Research Organization) apart from conducting clinical trial and biometrics companies today is to keep at pace with the high-end technologies on some new age theoretical development along with the new application trends of biometric applications. It is crucial to delve with both the aspects of the development. The recent biometrics development comprises components like finger vein recognition, 3D and thermal face recognition, forensic speaker recognition, hand geometry recognition, contactless biometric system, multi-biometric template protection, hand geometry recognition, biometric performance evaluation and much more.


Today leading CRO’s having the ability to manage multi-centric studies, for both global and domestic needs in multiple therapeutic areas, also have their own dedicated Biometrics team that specializes in a comprehensive set of services. Some of them are listed below:


Database Programming


* CRF Design (paper & electronic)

* CRF Annotation

* Database Programming

* Validation Checks

* Metadata Repository Management


Data Management


* Data Acquisition

* Data Reconciliation

* Discrepancy Management

* Medical Coding (MeDRA & WHODD)

* Database Lock

* Data Extraction for Reporting


Clinical Pharmacokinetic & Pharmacodynamic Studies


* Sampling Point Estimation

* Technical Document Review

* PK/PD Query Resolution

* PK/PD Subject Matter Expert

* Pharmacokinetic support across study engagement


PK/PD Reporting


* SDMS Data Extraction

* PK Data Analysis

* PK Summary Reporting


Biostatistics


* Randomization

* Sample size estimation

* Trial Design Inputs

* Statistical Analysis Plan

* Statistical Analysis

* Biostatistics Subject Matter Expert


Statistical Reporting


* TLF Programming

* CDISC Data Mapping (SDTM & ADaM)

* Clinical Data Repository

* Pooled Data Analysis & Reporting

* Safety (ADR) Reporting

* Patient Profiles & Data Cleaning Reporting


This extensive biometrics service portfolio is often used by multiple biotechnology, pharmaceutical, research and diagnostics organizations. These services also comprise statistical analysis, protocol writing and report writing. Most Biometrics teams in CRO’s are equipped with high-end softwares such as Winnonlin and SAS (SDMS & MED X view).


Read More About: Biometrics Companies, Regulatory Services, Bioavailability

Changing Trends In Indian Clinical Trials

Indian clinical trials along with the overall healthcare vertical today are at an inflection point and are estimated to expand in the long run. However, the Indian clinical expenditure ranks still one of the lowest globally and there are other critical challenges too that needs to be addressed in terms of quality patient care and availability of health care services.  Though this represents a crucial scope for the private sector the Government sector too has an essential part to play it making the evolution possible.


The health care and the clinical trial expenditure when compared with regards to the public-private contribution, also indicates a distorted picture. It has been estimated that the private sector contribution to the Indian medical sector had been 75 percent and is considered as the highest globally in terms of percentage. The public expenditure on the other hand is estimated to be the lowest globally and is also 23 percent less than the global average.


However, apart from these statistical details changes in lifestyle and the emergence of new chronic ailments have given rise to the amount of clinical trials in India. This branches out from the intricacy of the non-communicable and communicable diseases both in the urban and rural regions. The occurrence of chronic disease patterns has influenced the medical infrastructure needs and has also resulted in the architectural challenges for the government as well as the private players. It has also been observed that India often gets rated poorly on the fundamental health care factors when it is benchmarked against developed economies as well as the BRIC nations. This indicates that a huge part of the Indian population is not able to have proper access to health care services. This is a result of:


* Absence of proper medical infrastructure

* Absence of qualified and trained manpower

* Absence of proper regulatory services and quality assurance


Keeping these aspects in mind Indian CRO’s (clinical research organizations) today conducts regular clinical trials concentrating on Phase I to IV medical studies. These CRO’s apart from carrying out innovative drug development and treatment process also carries out research on innovative medical studies on biometrics, medical writing, clinical pharmacokinetic, and other variations of bio-analytical studies. In additional to that, the CRO’s also excel in multiple therapeutic areas and studies related to bioavailability.


Thus, the major objective of having systematic and organized clinical trial phases is to come out with innovative treatment methods and healing modalities so that the rate of chronic ailments can be reduced eventually.

Importance Of Online Brand Protection

With the web becoming more dynamic and an essential part of every enterprise, it has become increasingly important to become proactive in identifying the brand abuses and exploits that happen online and tarnish brand reputation. Brand violation activities by cyber criminals negatively impact business operations by consolidating their internet domain name. Therefore, a protective online brand protection solution needs to be implemented.

 

When products are sold in online gray markets it affects the brand reputation of the enterprise. Furthermore, these enterprises lose important market share for not being able to arrive at a solution to protect their brand reputation. It is also essential that the higher management realize the significance of brand reputation management and the way it can influence short and long term objectives. Today there are online brand protection solutions that help in identifying gray market channel. The solution is also efficient in prioritizing violators and recognizing the syndicates that cause maximum brand erosion.

 

According to Gartner, the ideal online protection program should be well coordinated, cross departmental and needs to undertake an automated approach that goes beyond the legal department and includes marketing, brand management, risk and supply chain management and loss prevention. The program should be active in tracking the brand abusers before they repeat the same attacks and resolve any issues of brand erosion and divert site traffic efficiently. In order to implement such a program the essential steps to take are:


* Recognizing all domain names in the service portfolio

* Monitoring the portfolio efficiently

* Monitoring for potential online abuses

* Responding to abuses


Some of the potential brand abuses take place in the following form:


* Cyber squatting

* Domain abuse

* Trademark infringement

* Traffic diversion schemes

* False associations with unrelated third parties

* Pay-per-click abuse

* Sponsored link abuse

* Logo and image abuse

* Offensive content

* Channel non-compliance with brand guidelines and/or pricing

It is important to keep your brand free from counterfeiting and gray market sales. Advanced online brand protection solutions apart from detecting counterfeits also help in putting an end to illegal brand operations. The solution efficiently and automatically send, cease and desist and DMCA letters. In addition to that it also offers automatic shutdowns. Furthermore, the solutions come with a network of authorized investigation as well as legal partners that helps end users to streamline the enforcement process and in turn helps to maintain a positive brand image.

Read More About: Enterprise Risk Management, Anti-Counterfeiting

Phishing Awareness – A Key Defensive Method

The technologically enabled business world networked through the Internet and corporate networks has made the world connected and smaller. While these benefits every customer, business hours, vendors and end-users tremendously by making everything from business critical data, products and services available at the click of a mouse,   it also challenges the enterprises with security threats. These threats from the cyber criminals tend to harm not just the individual systems but the network of IT infrastructure and the corporate landscape are also at risk.

The wide use of the internet has paved way for Phishing attacks to be used as a popular tool by the cyber criminals. Being one of the fastest growing forms of Internet attacks, these can cause havoc for the enterprises and the end-users. The enterprises thus need to take proactive steps towards protecting the brand, assets and intellectual property. The use of anti- phishing tools and creating strong phishing awarenessamong the users will go a long way in phishing protection.

The anti-Phishing software from the leading developers proactively locates the threats to the organization irrespective of being hidden or public, targeted Phishing attacks or malware.  Phishing attacks by criminals’ tricks the customer into voluntarily providing personal details or critical information that can be subsequently used by them for identity theft, access account or leak out vital business information. Besides the use of anti-phishing tools, a key defensive mechanism that can be used by the enterprise to gain protection from phishing is to ensure that the employees and the distantly distributed teams and mobile workforce have enough phishing awareness.

Though the anti-phishing solutions designed and developed by leading service providers in the help enterprises to protect the vulnerable people and process against any phishing attacks, the security awareness programs adds on to the benefits by being the best line of defense against the cyber criminals. Such educative measures will help the employees and customers to recognize the Phishing attacks when they occur and be on guard for these attacks by protecting all vital information without disclosing it.

With Phishing scams becoming more and more sophisticated, the use of anti-Phishing software helps save costs and prevents losses in business. Enterprises thus need to invest in advanced anti-phishing solutions which can combat the threats, provide statistics on user behavior, measure the level of phishing  awareness among employees, identifies data leakage and scale up to provide phishing protections as per the organizational requirement.

Read More About: Anti Phishing Tool, Simulated Phishing Attack

 

 

Increase Phishing Awareness through Anti Phishing Software

The most valuable asset of any enterprise is not its financial, equipments or services but its employees. This is because it is the employees who play a pivotal role in putting enterprises on the success track through their innovative ideas and successful marketing efforts. However, these very same employees can be responsible for significant financial losses for enterprises in the form of lost customer trust and decline in shareholder value. Just a small slip from their side is enough to cause their fall from grace. And in today’s digital world, the most unpardonable mistake is that of succumbing to cyber attacks.

Of the different cyber attacks that target companies and organizations, the most notorious is social engineering, which is “a non-technical kind of intrusion that relies heavily on human interaction that involves deceiving someone, either in person, over the phone, or using a computer, with the express intent of breaching some level of security either personal or professional.” One of the most popular social engineering techniques is phishing, which is “the fraudulent practice of sending e-mails purporting to be from legitimate companies in order to induce individuals to reveal sensitive information.”

Social engineering and phishing have become major concerns across the world, as the attacks are so refined that they are hard to identify and avoid. While current products and services may address the "process and technology" aspect of security, few solutions adequately address 'people risk'. Hence, what is required is a unique approach that goes beyond process and technology to address people risks as only through phishing awareness that people can avoid becoming phish bait in the future.

Effective anti Phishing software is what organizations need to protect their most valuable assets -- their employees, from becoming Phishing victims. It proactively educates users and helps them identify Phishing attacks. It simulates a Phishing attack and captures user's potential reaction to a real attack. Here is a look at some of its benefits.

  • Helps understand user behavior and effectiveness of the People controls across the enterprise
  • Assists organizations quantify the potential risks of social engineering
  • Provides flexible reporting capabilities with integration back into the organization's key performance indicator framework
  • Provides a road map for building security awareness and training within the organization
  • Identifies weakness within People, Process and Technology links, allowing prioritization of remediation efforts through effective benchmarking and maturity analysis
  • Generates a “Teaching Moment” that provides a safe, customized learning experience for users – resulting in increased employee awareness and knowledge that helps protect the sensitive information entrusted to them.

Anti Phishing tools help organizations to build the first line of defense by increasing an employee's awareness to Phishing.

Read More About: Protection From PhishingSimulated Phishing AttackPhishing Protection

 

It is Easy To Combat Phishing Attacks

Social engineering and Phishing are the two greatest concerns of the IT world. It is impacted global organizations with acute spear Phishing attacks that are so complicated and sophisticated that it becomes difficult to identify and avoid them. These attacks are created and planted by the cybercriminals and social engineers to steal critical data and then share it with third party intruders. This data gathered can vary from any kind of private data to corporate information.

  

Phishing attacks usually have a negative impact on an enterprise’s image and brand equity. It can result in monetary losses and also loosing of consumers trust and decline of shareholder value. All this can take place once an employee becomes a victim of a Phishing attack. Hence, it is crucial to search out ways for Phishing protection in a cost-effective and simple manner that would make employees aware of its consequences. 

 

The Way Phishing Works 

Simply put, Phishing is a criminal strategy that implements both tactics of technical deception and social engineering for stealing identity, financial and other personal data. Social engineering plans make use of fraudulent and hoax mail content and claims that they are from authentic sources. This ends up in leading recipients to faulty websites and URL links. These websites are set up by Phishers in order to steal important data that comprises passwords, usernames, bank details and many more.

 

There have been innumerable Phishing awareness programs that promised to secure companies against technology attacks. Two vulnerable areas here are the people and the process. A strategicPhishing attacks mostly aim in these two specified places. The third party intruders are aware that these are difficult zones to safeguard.

Keeping these concerns in mind, today solution providers have developed high-end anti Phishing software and programs to combat Phishing attacks. It comes in the form of an automated device that is installed internally in an organization where the process, people and technology details are fed it. After this a simulated Phishing attack is generated at the target audience and then the solution traces the user response. The social responses towards this attack are assessed and a detailed report is generated depending on the responses. Anti-Phishing solutions also offer statistics on user behavior, evaluates the security awareness percentage amidst employees, evaluates Data Loss Prevention programs, recognizes data leakage and examines the incident response program. All these put together, secure a company from unwarranted Phishing attacks and resolve the ones that have already taken place.

Read More About: Anti Phishing Tool