GIC(Global Infotech Center/Captives) business needs for collaboration & process automation.

The growth of Indian IT story can not be complete with advent of GICs or Global Infotech Centers or Captives of large multinational corporations that have set up their centers in India and other countries. These centers are doing critical work in areas such as Product Development, R&D, Engineering Design Services, Marketing and Customer Support Services, etc. The goal of the global corporations is to leverage the knowledge capital available in India and other locations for meeting aggressive business goals including, scalability of operations, faster development cycles, cost-effective R&D and customer support, etc.

The global organizations invariably have operations at different locations around the world. The GIC is set up to be a resource available to the corporate headquarters, as well as different locations that the organizations operates. In other words, the captive becomes a ‘supplier’ of diverse services, while the other geographically dispersed locations of the organization become ‘customers’ of the services of the captive.

While the organizational goal is clear, getting the operation to work effectively and deliver desired benefit is a challenge.

This spawns the business need to establish a platform that allows for collaboration amongst these entities to automate the processes between the GIC and its ‘customers’. It is vital for the platform to be seamlessly integrated to enable effective collaboration across time-zones.

These processes include identifying the project(s) to be given to GIC, the workflow for request for proposals and work orders, estimation and budgeting, actual work status of the orders received, their delivery, invoicing, etc.

In order to do the job effectively, the GICs need an integrated platform for managing their internal operations, as well. This includes pipeline management, project management, resource management, helpdesk,etc.

GIC Lifeline - Software streamlines interaction between the Global Infotech Centers ( captives ) and its sponsors or parents that route specific projects to them. Integrated framework, Workflow management, Customer Management, Budget verification & Review process, Forecast Process management, Quality review process, Invoicing Management, Request Management, Task Management, Process automation, Deliverable management, Timesheet management, Helpdesk management, issue management, Resource Management, Project Management, SLA management, knowledge management, Checklist management, Custom role based Reports & dashboards.

Integrated Project Management

With increase in number of projects, resources, costs and slipping deadlines, it has become important for companies to bring in automation into the system. A trend is seen that companies adopted Project Management tool to increase the efficiency and meet the deadlines.

It is important for the management to evaluate and understand the return on investment before adopting a product and harness its benefits. Management adopt various application to address pain areas in their business process, but it have been observed that one of the common bottleneck in increase in efficiency of Project Managers is number of discrete & stand alone applications and the team end up managing Data and Reports from ‘n’ number of tools. That is why, companies are moving toward adopting an integrated approach and adopt an integrated Project Management Application.

SMTP and Relay SMTP

SMTP is a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol which is an Internet standard for emailing process over the internet. SMTP is specified for outgoing mail server and a TCP port is assigned to it. Mostly all electronic mail servers and other mail transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages whereas user-level client mail applications use SMTP for sending messages to a mail server and for receiving messages, client applications use either the POP or the IMAP to access their mail box accounts on a mail server. SMTP is a simple, text-based protocol, in which a sender communicates with recipient using a TCP connection and was designed as an electronic mail transport and delivery protocol. Since SMTP is a delivery protocol only, It cannot pull messages from a remote server. However, the SMTP protocol has a feature to initiate mail queue processing on a remote server so that the requesting system may receive any messages destined for it. An e-mail client/application needs the name or the IP address of an SMTP server as part of its configuration. The server will deliver messages on behalf of the user. End users connected to the Internet can use the services of an e-mail provider that is not necessarily the same as their connection provider (ISP). Some Internet service providers intercept the TCP port 25, which restricts their users to send the mails via a relaying SMTP server outside the ISP's network and thus they are able to use only the SMTP server of the service provider(ISP) only. There are some SMTP servers that support ports other than the TCP port 25, using which the user can connect to those SMTP servers even when their TCP port 25 is blocked. It is practically useful to the mobile users, who connects to different ISP. They can connect to these mobile SMTP servers instead of frequently changing their server setting to connect to the SMTP pf the ISP service they are using. These mobile SMTP server or the relaying SMTP server allows the SMTP client settings to be used unchanged worldwide irrespective of the ISP they connect with. Mobile SMTP helps users in many ways, users can use the sane email address anywhere and the same email programs. It helps reduce the server delays, increasing the speed and privacy and avoid blacklisting. Using a relay SMTP or the mobile SMTP is quite easy as well, one can simply download and install your own SMTP server or a user can also use a SMTP relay service.

Building Brand Name

Building Brand name needs more efforts than just building a product/business. Branding in more of communicating the distinctive identity (unique features or value) of a product or a company. There are many attributes that contributes to building a successful brand name.
To build a brand name we need to first create a 'Brand'- a good quality product or a service which is rightly positioned in the market as well as is better than the competition. To create and manage a brand one needs to continuously try to meet the customer and market needs. Once we are done with creating a world class product and defining of customer needs, we can start building the brand by thoroughly and consistently communicating the brand values to the customers. Also to build and maintain the Brand name we need to meet and rather exceed to what our brand promises to the customer, continuously look for opportunities & new trends in the market to always be the first mover and a successful brand. Continuous innovation and taking the first mover advantage plays a great role in establishing a good brand name.

Web Designing Mistakes

Website needs to be planned and designed in such a way that it leaves a long lasting effect on people. Website like Yahoo, Google etc were able to be successful because of there versatile and had effective web designing.

Any website designed should be browser independent, any website that is accessible on the IE doesn't mean its the best if it is not able to execute on any other internet web browser. Another common mistake is the Background sound of the website, the website music is not set to automatic but should be manual as majority of the people would not prefer the music to start on the moment the website is loaded.

A bad UI or a confusing website will not attract people.The website should be light, clear and also easy to navigate. Technologies like Flash are great as they make a great presentation and make website attractive, but a completely flash driven website is also not appreciated since it won't be text driven at all so functions like back button wont work and which may need a little more effort in browsing the webpages.

One of the most common mistake is made when the website is completely image based. The images makes the website heavy and it takes long to load as well as at the same time it is not user friendly. Also avoid using the text images, The text should not be posted as an image but should feel like a paragraph or a document which is easy to read. Another mistake designers make is in using Ajax technology, a good web designer should always use Ajax for the content on the website which changes frequently and not for the static content that do not chance quite often.

Another important point to consider is the browser window resizing and pop-up based website. If a particular website loads itself as a pop-up website or a pop-up window, it should be able to resize to the viewer choice and also to the size of the other open windows.

The above mentioned points are just a few points there are more technical and functional aspect to consider for designing a good website and make people revisit your website.

Personality Grooming & Personal Presentation

"Personality development, wardrobe styling, dining etiquette, skin & hair care, ballroom dancing etc " must be sounding big jargon, but isn't it true that we all want to attain perfection when it comes to public speaking, personal presentation and grooming ourselves. We are living in the society where we strive to give our best to it, but at times our phobias, inferiority complex etc stops us from being what we are and we are just not able to give our best. I came across to an organization (Isra- www.isra.co.in) in mumbai run by smart and dynamic people who help individual analyze his/her behavior, help them in grooming their personality focusing on various personal presentation aspect like styling, etiquette etc.
If one wants to achieve success by putting forward the right foot forward, the best thing to do would be is to go for a personal grooming session and try to know and overcome all the shortcomings.

Marketing Mantras...

"Marketing", its not that simple as it seems to be. Marketing comes along with lot of innovation, patience and strategy ofcourse. Although for a good marketing one need a good product, but still the marketing mantras can help showcasing even a basic product as one of the best available products. Marketing help creating a brand name in itself, a good marketing startegy will help make a place in the market as here we try to pull the customers towards the product and not just enforcing product to customers. When one gets into marketing for a product, he needs to have the market awareness, need & wants of the consumer and at the same time be innovative in product development to achieve the first mover advantage or value over the competitive products I too aim to be a Marketing Mgr for which currently being into business development, I am able to attain the knowledge and understand the market to the maximum. Understand the consumers, showcase the product in a way "what they need" and focus on 'what they want'. One of the best marketing mantra is to focus on product, the promotion strategy(to be in-line with teh product, the value and considering the market), and also on the price (showcase the value that justify the price). Marketing is all about pulling the customer for the value out of the product.