Trends In Engineering Services Outsourcing

With the world progressing at a fast pace, the onus today is on industrialization as that leads to an overall economic development. Engineering is an essential industry vertical that has been expanding significantly in various sectors such as aerospace, machinery, oil and gas and the like. As a result, the engineering requirements are varied and has increased over the past last decade. Organizations today are looking for engineering solutions, technologies and resources that assist them in delivering their products within a lesser span of time. Hence, the idea is to be able to generate more with less. Furthermore, they demand cost-efficient solutions that would offer a competitive advantage.


Outsourcing has become the order of the day when it comes to catering to engineering requirements. Eminent brands in engineering services outsourcing offers their consumers with solutions that minimize the total cost of operation and production development. These companies are well networked and have presence globally. Their global operation centers are responsible for exporting controlled projects in multiple locations.


Engineering outsourcing companies have their own team of project engineers and engineering consultants working on projects, that range from production realization, concept designing, oil and gas transportation, concept designing, power generation, industrial products and many more. Furthermore, these companies also own their global product development team engaged in providing better, quicker and value-optimized engineering solutions. Other services include the following:


* Design and detailing

* Manufacturing engineering

* Plant and Process

* Sustenance engineering

* Special Services

* Technical Publications

* Embedded Systems

* Engineering Analysis


The benefits of these services are many. Some of them are as follows:


* Increased focus on core activities

* Users can have access to more manpower flexibility

* The time to market is quicker

* Production development expenses are lessened significantly

* There is knowledge retention

* Consumers are able to shift to a variable cost model


There are several reasons to opt in for outsourcing engineering consultancy services. One of them is bringing down operational expenses. Another crucial reason is that organizations are able to access a worldwide talent pool and take part in intensive global networking. Engineering products and services offered by outsourcing companies undergo layers of inspection and mechanization for being able to fulfill the growing industry requirements. Keeping in mind the increasing demand for engineering solutions it is predicted that engineering services outsourcing will be at its peak by the year 2015.


Related Links: engineering services, aerospace product and parts manufacturing

Proactive Solutions to Ensure Online Fraud Protection

In an era of credit card thefts, ATM thefts, identity theft, and assault on the brands of enterprises, Brand and IP intelligence protection is of utmost importance. The free exploitation of counterfeiting companies has resulted in genuine and legitimate businesses enduring tremendous losses.  Loss of revenue caused by counterfeiting and gray market incursions into an enterprise’s brand status and intellectual property rights has become serious business. The advancement in technology has not spared any business from counterfeits and fraudulent activities and their operations being well organized, sometimes the original businesses barely have a chance to save their reputation and enforce stringent actions against these fraud companies.

 

With the Internet providing counterfeiters and gray marketers with numerous venues to sell their goods, it has become imperative for every business to implement effective measures that produce convincing and compelling results. Regardless of the type of manufacturer, a robust anti-fraud solution is necessary to protect your brand, revenues and your customers. Proactive solutions are the best way to deal with online fraud prevention. The market has a number of promising online brand protection solutions that deliver convincing results. These solutions offer advanced search technology to reach numerous global sources where traditional methods and other software solutions have failed to get any access. Addressing issues of illegal online commerce, these solutions help companies become more hands-on in reducing the impact of counterfeits on their company.

 

Opting for an effective anti-fraud solution that has the ability to reduce the risk of counterfeiting, diversion and other forms of intellectual property infringement  can protect the immediate and long-term value of the brand. Look for  SaaS-based software’s that have the ability to prioritize each suspect according to customer criteria, such as discount percentage, number of products, listings and sales volume. This makes it easy to identify top anti-fraud targets. By engaging investigation and enforcement procedures against these top suspects, your business can enjoy a faster and better ROI.

 

These online fraud protection solutions can also identify the products that are being sold unlawfully. They deploy intelligent practices to effectively identify the violators, assess the level of risks they pose, monitor their online activities continuously, provide prompt and real-time reports and execute stringent law enforcements. These solution providers also have an extensive network of investigative and enforcement partners that can prevent internet fraud. Businesses can put an end to all brand counterfeiting and fraudulent activities by investing in a proactive online fraud protection solution.

 

Read More About : Minimum advertised price, Anti-Counterfeiting

 

Anti-Fraud Solutions to Stop Profit and Brand Reputation Erosion

Wikipedia defines Internet fraud as “the use of Internet services or software with Internet access to defraud victims or to otherwise take advantage of them.” Today online fraud is on a rise, as the Internet is the easiest and the cheapest way to con people out of their money. Internet fraud can occur in chat rooms, email, message boards, or on websites. There are different types of Internet frauds such as Internet Auction Fraud, Nondelivery of Merchandise, Rogue traders,  Phishing, Identity fraud, Spam, schemes, Transferring money, and so on.

 

The greatest nightmare of product manufacturers and enterprises are rogue traders who use all kinds of marketing techniques to sell their products. Thanks to the Internet, rogue traders have numerous venues to sell their goods. Since most consider grey market and counterfeit goods as “the cost of doing business”, the grey marketers and the counterfeiters go unpunished. However, if looked closely these illegal activities leads to not only losses in market share, but also losses in revenues and brand reputation for the original product manufacturers. Not long ago counterfeiting was a threat to trademarks only, but today it is a threat to public health and safety and therefore, instead of a lenient attitude what is required is a proactive approach to combat the counterfeiters and grey marketers.

 

Today, it is more than necessary to prevent internet fraud. Apart from it being a threat to public health, grey marketing and the sales of counterfeit goods are found to profit known terrorist groups, drug cartels, and street gangs. With a robust online fraud protection solution to protect brand, revenues, and customers, an enterprise can gain unmatched visibility in the global open market and seek out counterfeits.

 

These anti-fraud solutions use an advanced search technology to reach numerous global sources where traditional methods and other software solutions have failed to get any access. Being SaaS-based software, these solutions prioritize each suspect according to customer criteria such as discount percentage, number of products, listings, and sales volume. This analysis makes it easy to identify top anti-fraud targets. By engaging investigation and enforcement procedures against these top suspects, customers experience a faster and better ROI.


By investing in an advanced anti-fraud solution, enterprises can easily put a stop to revenue, profit, and brand reputation erosion caused by counterfeits.

 

Read More About: Anti-Counterfeiting, Brand Protection

IRS Amnesty Implications In Tax Compliance

IRS and U.S. Government organizations are presently engaged in attempts and practices in order to bring the taxpayer using undisclosed foreign accounts and foreign entities to avert tax regulations into compliance with the U.S.

Legally, under the U.S. Department of Treasury FBAR policies, an individual calling himself as “United States Person” needs to file an annual FBAR in case:

* The United State person has got a financial interest on one financial account that is situated outside U.S
* The aggregate value of all his existing foreign accounts surpasses $10,000 during the calendar year for reporting

IRS Amnesty for Compliance.

The primary objective of IRS Amnesty 2012 is to bring into the taxpayers using unrevealed foreign accounts and entities that are evading tax compliance policies. The IRS has restarted the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program i.e. OVDP in 2012 as it is carrying on its work on multiple international tax concerns and takes on continuous practices with the Justice Department to pursute criminal prosecution of global tax evasion.

Tax Planning Agencies helping in IRS Amnesty

An efficient tax planning agency or consultant can help in IRS Amnesty by offering a complete insight of the tax codes that is applicable to the resident individuals in U.S that comprises the US citizens and Green Card Holder. The services offered includes:

* Consultation and Impact Analysis
* Analysis and Planning to reduce FBAR Penalty
* AMT Strategies, Foreign Tax Credit
* Review of 2009, and 2010 OVDI cases
* Mutual Fund or PFIC computations
* Preparation of forms required to participate in the OVDP program
* Preparation of Tax Amendments and Delinquent FBAR
* IRS Representation by Enrolled Agents or Affiliated CPAs and Attorneys

Though the phrase “amnesty” is added to IRS there is nothing forgiving about the policy. If individuals have recorded overseas accounts during the years 2003 and 2011 that has not been legally reported then it is essential that they consult their international tax attorneys for the initial account filing. In case this is not done, the one has to face consequences such as huge fines and money extraction from the overseas accounts and loss of other U.S assets including imprisonment.

This initiative helps the noncompliant taxpayers to solve their tax liabilities and reduce their chances for criminal prosecution. When a taxpayer promptly and totally adheres with all the provisions and regulations of the voluntary disclosure practice, the IRS will not recommend criminal examination to the Department of Justice.

Read Also On: Entity Formation  

Secure Your Crucial Data With Phishing Protection

The advent and the gradual success of online trade and commerce, has been welcomed by both the end users and the criminals alike. In simple words, Phishing is a process that robs customer’s personal data, official information and also financial account credentials. In addition to that, there are social engineering attacks designed by hackers  by making use of fake emails and appear that it is coming a from a sanctioned source. This result in consumers visiting fraudulent websites that sell counterfeit products or are malware links. There are technical subterfuge schemes that deploy crime-ware on PC’s to rob away the credentials directly from the client’s sensitive data.


Keeping aside the common hazards that generally occur from Phishing, there are certain adverse influences too. These effects comprise minimizing consumer confidence, financial losses and brand erosion witnessed by the company as well as the customers.


In the recent times, there has been much progress in terms of recognizing the hazards and setting counter Phishing practices. Simultaneously, there is a natural increase in the technical sophistication and attack diversity in online financial forgery and Phishing. Technical crime-ware resources are highly accessible and have been simplified and fully automated that helps in offering appropriate protection from phishing.


Innovative Phishing Protection Solutions


The standard and most common phishing protection solutions usually only end up addressing the process and technology utilized. However, certain solutions are available in the market today that effectively addresses the “people’s risk” factor. One of the latest trend is the “incident based” reactive approach that helps in making the employees aware about Phishing and its impacts.


Other benefits of Anti-Phishing tools offered by leading service providers are as follows:


* Helps enterprises in estimating the potential risks linked with Phishing

* They offer flexible reporting capabilities and incorporate them back into the enterprise’s key performance-indicator framework

* Offers a detailed “road map" solution concentrating on the security awareness and training within the company

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

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

* Helps in increasing employee awareness and knowledge to help guard sensitive information


Therefore, the new age Anti-Phishing solutions assist the organizations to evaluate an employee’s aptitude to reply to any Phishing attack. Hence, the protection therefore pays close attention to computing devices as well as focus on people’s awareness and overall mindset towards Phishing.


Read More About: phishing attacks, anti phishing tools, protection against phishing

Benefits Of Making Phishing Awareness A Necessity

The main objective of phishing attacks and phishing emails are to deceive or trick an individual user by making him/her think that the source of the mail is authentic. Phishing attacks are meant to steal people of their private and confidential data. There have been numerous instances, where individuals and employees of leading enterprises have reported that phishing mails appear sanguine at first glance. Furthermore, most of them have a compelling content, that urges the reader to part with their personal data or click on the links provided that leads to fictitious websites. These mails generally ask the readers to reply immediately via mail, reply to a phone request or visit an unknown URL.

 

However, if analysed carefully every phishing mail offers clear clues that can let a user know that the link and message is not authentic. Any URL links to web portals that are sent via phishing mails generally opens a web page that though appears like an original brand name, but has certain aesthetic or syntax errors that clearly prove its fraudulence. Ebay, leading banks, Alibaba and other online e-cash and e-commerce sites are common targets and have suffered largely owing to phishing attacks. All these negative impacts needs to be dealt effectively and needs efficient phishing awareness programs.

 

Features of a Phishing Mail


Today innovative phishing awareness solutions help in educating a layman and employees know more about the features of a Phishing mail. Such emails most often make use of emotional triggers and force users to respond on impulse. Research has revealed that the possible indicators of phishing e-mails comprise of the following:


* Improper grammar

* Spelling errors

* The email address not matching with the enterprise name

* Using the name of a real company but providing an incorrect email - address

* Forced attempts to prove its authenticity, by making use of words such as “Official”

* Has unsolicited request for personal information

In the recent past, though there has been several standard solutions for phishing protection, most of them have been only addressing the “people risk” aspect of a phishing attack. Furthermore, one of the recent trends that gained prominence is the “incident based reactive approach” that analysis the risk and impacts of phishing based on a particular incident. Esteemed solution providers today provide high-end anti phishing software that helps in updating individuals and employees about the negative impacts of social engineering attacks. Features of this software include the following:


* Enables an enterprise in analysing the potential phishing attacks

* Provides flexible reporting and includes them back into an organization’s chief performance-indicator framework

* Provides a detailed “road map" solution focusing on the security awareness and training within an enterprise

* Assists in identifying 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

Data and network security are two crucial elements that every organization needs to focus on for smooth day-to-day functioning. Advanced phishing protection solution helps an enterprise to attain the same seamlessly and helps in the efficient transfer of data.


Read More On: protection from phishing, anti phishing tool, protection against phishing

Managing Ideas – An Organizations Greatest Asset

“There is no way to create wealth without ideas. Newcomers create most new ideas. So anyone who thinks the world is safe for an incumbent is dead wrong.” –Gary Hamel, chairman, Strategos

 

Ideas can indeed be quite invigorating, whether they are good ideas or bad ones, they invoke strong passions. If anyone suffers from the false impression that ideas are too elusive to matter ought to think again. They make all the difference as they create the stage on which all of us perform. Research shows that no good idea that changes the world is regarded as one at its outset. Ideas need to be looked upon as long term investments that will provide returns in the long run.


One of the best examples that come to mind when one thinks of an innovative idea is Skype. When the idea was seeded, it was thought to be a crazy idea, but it revolutionized telephony and is one of the most successful ventures. Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), a Venture Capital firm, backed it despite disagreement among partners, and sold it to eBay Inc. for more than $4 billion. Skype has changed hands and is now owned by Microsoft that paid a whopping $ 8 Billion for it.


Having an innovative idea is not always enough, one has to implement and make it a success. This needs a lot of patience, hard work and determination. If you look at iPhone, with 50,000 applications, the phone can be turned into anything that you want. Creative application developers are earning millions from selling applications.


Levi Strauss sold denim pants to miners during the Gold Rush. They never thought that denim pants would be very popular even outside of the mining community.


According to Harvey Firestone, the US tire pioneer, “In business, capital isn't so important, nor is experience, because you can get both of these. What is important, is ideas. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need. What is remarkable about ideas, too, is that they multiply, and because of this, there isn't any limit to what you can do with your business and your life”.


Another invention that has become a hit is the Burqini that combines a burqa that Muslim women wear and a swimsuit. Who ever thought that a conservative Muslim woman could swim!

When it comes to innovation, businesses today are not looking only at R&D departments to contribute new ideas; they are sourcing ideas from their employees, customers, and partners to help drive the organization forward.


According to Gallup's research engaged employees are far more likely to suggest or develop creative ways to improve management or business processes and find creative ways to solve customer problems or to involve their customers in creating service innovations.


Most great ideas for enhancing corporate growth and profits come from the people who daily meet company’s challenges, who serve the customers, explore new markets and fend off the competition.

Thus organizations that want to drive growth through innovation should make idea management a part of their organizational growth strategy.  Idea management tools can help businesses keep ahead of the competition. It can bring valuable benefits such as; new products and services, process improvement, improved collaboration, enhanced brand value and best of all identify hidden talent and new ideas of growth.


Read Also On: innovation products, idea management solutions, managing innovation, crowdsourcing software

Phase I Study & Drug Developmnet Process

A decade back could we have imagined that cancer could be treated and healed completely? Could we have imagined that there can other modes of treating cancer than chemotherapy and other heavy medications? The medical landscape has evolved manifold and has successfully introduced innovative diseases to some of life’s chronic diseases. Thanks to the latest scientific development and state-of-the-art medical infrastructure that has facilitated the diagnosis and treatment procedures. This apart, another crucial factor that has impacted the phenomenal expansion of medical treatment are clinical trials and important medical studies.


Medical studies are generally conducted by medical professionals and aspiring medical students on some of the chronic ailments to which there is no advanced cure. These medical studies are carried on in the form of a phased methodology with the help of necessary guidelines and with the help of all the required devices. Furthermore, these studies help to come up with new treatment and drug development process. To name one such branch of medical studies that has contributed immensely in treating diseases and ailments is the Phase I Study.


Today there are eminent clinical research organizations (CRO) in India that have been successful in carrying out Phase I studies along with their vast experience in clinical trials. These CRO’s provide the medical technicians with state-of-the-art architecture to conduct Phase I studies to the healthy volunteers. Some of the comprise of:


* First-in-human

* Single Ascending Dose studies

* Multiple Ascending Dose studies

* New Chemical Entities

* Dose Escalating studies


Renowned CRO’s in India provides specialized services for Phase I Studies, for instance First-in-Man for new chemical entities and new biological entities. It also offers a wide range of service portfolio for a wide range of clinical pharmacology studies that includes Proof of Mechanism & Proof of Concept, Food Effects, Drug Interaction studies, TQTc studies, Pharmacokinetic / Pharmacodynamic studies and other explanatory studies for multiple biomarkers and other Special Population studies.


Apart from the service portfolio, clinical infrastructure too has a huge role play in carrying out Phase I studies. These studies are managed by a group of experienced professionals having expertise on the field and works in close association will highly trained nursing staff. The nursing staff further has the medical know-how in conducting First-in-human and other clinical pharmacology studies. Eminent CRO’s in India along with Phase I Studies also specialize in other medical verticals such as Biometrics, Medical Writing, Regulatory Services, Quality Assurance and Phase II – IV trials.


Read Also On: Bioequivalence, Bioavailability

Automated Language Translation Facilitating Globalization

Translation which has its beginnings from the days of written literature , in its essence refers to  communicating the meaning of a source-language text into an equivalent target-language text. Over the years translators with their inappropriately spilled-over of source language idioms and usage into target languages  and have shaped the languages to what they are today. However,  as a result of  industrialization and the need for documentation, most of the translations have been formalized into schools and professional associations.

 

However, with  business expansion to regions beyond geographical boundaries,  the demand for language translation is vast. Further, a global enterprise dealing with  vast  content every day, requires that the content is also made available to their  multilingual audience comprising of customers and employees in a format that can be easily read and understood. With more than 6500 languages spoken in the world, the translations services deals with a tough job of  providing  trusted, rapid translations to the clientele. The laboriousness of translation into so many different languages as per the customer requirements have led to automated language translation or machine translation which would mechanical aid the human translator.

 

Globalization and technological innovations have facilitated project teams to be globally distributed and yet working together. This however, has other challenges for the team members- understanding and communicating with each other. The automated translation solutions provided by the leading service providers in the field  of language translation  will help teams communicate with each other. Today automated language translation have changed the way the world communicates. This has enabled the  marketing professionals entering new markets to produce product information and content in local languages.

 

Further, the benefits of such automation has led enterprises to deploy these as a part of the enterprise translation services. This way the  professionals can deliver multilingual support for knowledge bases, chat sessions and emails quickly and efficiently. The localization professionals on the other hand can integrate  the automated language translation into human work flow and improve the translation throughput.

 

The automated language  translation platform with its  unique workflow and translation tools reduces the cost of localization  by nearly 50% while doubling translation speed. Besides these, the automated platform also facilitates the customers with  benefits such as :

 

  • Terminology management  with import glossaries, automated extraction and management interface helps to maintain consistency and accuracy  in   messages.
  • Customized machine translation with  searchable resource to aid  human translation.
  • Translation memory to facilitated  content recycling.
  • Project management with dashboard and real-time reporting helps enterprises simplify  coordination between  teams.

 

Together, this provides a collaborative translation platform that gives enterprise  new ways to engage their global communities and facilitates trusted and rapid translations which help to expand the  business in a cost effective way.

 

Related Links : Language translation solution, Language Translation Services 

Why is it Better to Outsource Data Center Solutions

Setting up your own data center or computer room is an expensive proposition both in terms of money, time and deployment of human resources, even if IT is your core business. Besides the high capital costs, there are the high day-to-day management costs which make the regular adding new services or upgrading to the latest technology not feasible. The decision to outsource data center solutions involves a meticulous assessment of options at a strategic level from a business vision perspective. It needs a complete calculated assessment involving asset inventories, facility requirement estimations and budgetary considerations.


Outsourcing data center solutions are the best way for organizations to align IT and business in the most cost-effective manner. There are many significant business benefits that are associated with outsourcing. It makes better sense to outsource activities that are not core proponents of one’s business, as this helps free up time to focus on core activities. These service providers are professionals with more experience and expertise in the practice of running an efficient and highly available data center facility. Ensure that the data center solution that is chosen has complete uptime and that clients have constant reliable access to their data at all times. And efficient data center solution must always support quality and meet your standard of requirement and use highly sophisticated security technologies like digital videos, electronic access controls, fingerprint recognitions, and retinal scans, etc.


Outsourcing data center solutions allow organizations to realize cost savings, reduced capital expenditures, improvement in quality, operational expertise and efficient risk management. The benefits of outsourcing not only include protection of IT infrastructure from technology obsolescence, but they also allow maximum freedom and flexibility in daily IT operations, while simultaneously lowering financial and operational overheads. The solution chosen must have best-of-breed industry standard components, and must also allow future growth and easy upgrades, advanced storage server facilities and (HPC) high performance computing clusters. When combined with extensive hardware and software integration services and successful solution will be able to reduce both cost and risk.


Opt for a data center that provides network neutral access to major telecommunications carriers and Internet backbones. The solution must be focused on delivering superior service at all times. To feel completely secure, it is extremely beneficial to find a data center solution that offers the best up to date security, deploys practices that help in maximizing the IT infrastructure and enhances returns.


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