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SA Innovators 2021 - Surviving the pandemic with the help of technology - Recap
Advance Business Consulting held its SA Innovators 2021 focusing on Innovation and Digital Transformation. This years event focussed on how three business leaders tackled the pandemic and how technology can be part of the solution in dealing with disruption.
Welcome to the recap of Innovators 2021, our second event focussing on innovation and digital transformation in South Australia.
This year was a little different! Disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years has affected every business in some way and technology has been a part of the solution in helping businesses to operate and survive.
Challenges can lead to new opportunities and we heard of some bold decisions that had a big impact on business operations.
This year we also added a live stream to the event to allow people to watch the presentations from anywhere, including guests from interstate and you can watch the recording above or by clicking here.
Our speakers included local business leaders:
Andrew Bullock - Managing Director at 1834 Hotels
David Smith - Manager Corporate Services at Meals on Wheels SA
Peter Crescitelli - Manager – Technology & Information Security at MIGA
Emcee and panel discussion led by Troy Forrest - Managing Director at Strategy Road
A few of the key takeaways:
Andrew shared how he was able to reduce the complexity of his business, improve business intelligence reporting with automation and this has enabled 1834 Hotels to separate themselves from their competitors.
David explained that implementing an Intelligent Information Management System allowed his group to digitise their financial model, saving his business $50K per year while increasing efficiency and security.
Peter detailed how he has been able to move the legal arm and Operations arm of his group to a paperless system. This has allowed his business to have a foolproof auditing system which is extremely important for anyone in a heavily regulated environment.
Panel discussion introductions by John-Paul | Director at Advance Business Consulting
Here at Advance, we have been working with clients for over 20 years to help them integrate data, provide insights with leading BI tools and automate processes with content management.
if you would like to know how we can assist you, get in touch with us here or:
(08) 8238 6500
If you would like to learn more about the benefits of using an Intelligent Information Management System, you can watch a short video below about M-Files, a key technology we use internally and a foundation to managing content and digitising any business.
A little more about the speakers:
1834 Hotels
Andrew also leveraged the disruption to implement a new core business system during an interrupted period in the accommodation industry. 1834 Hotels also strengthened business intelligence to automate reporting, freeing up staff from manual spreadsheets and found new insights from daily agile reports and dashboards.
Meals on Wheels SA
David was also able to simplify and streamline financial processes to improve efficiency and compliance. Meals on Wheels automated a manual business process to enable a robust system for processing accounts payable invoices and volunteer reimbursements. This also delivered transparency and an audit trail. The new business process has reduced duplication and has made the role of Branch Treasurer much less onerous.
Medical Insurance Group Australia
Peter and the team at MIGA further digitised manual paper-based processes across their Claim Management and Accounts Payable business functions to deliver efficiency and compliance for MIGA. The operational efficiencies have delivered a great customer experience for internal & external stakeholders. MIGA’s strategy will continue to look into optimising these processes and expanding document management to other areas of the business.
Troy Forrest leading the panel discussion.
A lot of good discussions prior and post event.
Our event was held at Electra house, live-streamed using www.streamadelaide.com.au
For any further information regarding SA Innovators 2021 or how Advance can help implement a successful digital process in your industry, get in touch with us here.
Useful Presentation - Coronavirus Outbreak: CIOs’ Connect with Gartner Short- and Long-term Actions
With the COVID-19 situation changing and evolving every day, businesses and peers are seeking advice and guidance on how to react and plan for business survival and process disruptions.
We will aim to share useful content such as the information provided by Gartner and other leading experts.
Gartner has published a very useful presentation and an on-demand webinar from one of their leading analysts - Roberta Witty | VP Analyst |Security and Risk Management Programs group.
Link to presentation - Coronavirus Outbreak: CIOs’ Connect with Gartner Short- and Long-term Actions
Discussion Topics:
The dangers and opportunities created by the Coronavirus outbreak
Short-term actions to take to address operational disruptions and business decline
Long-term actions to take to increase business resilience and prepare for future growth
Roberta Witty VP is an analyst with 21 years tenure at Gartner, 42 years industry experience CT USA and a part of the Security and Risk Management Programs group.
Are Your Business Processes a Target For Scammers?
Cyber criminals are tricking CEOs out of millions of dollars by exploiting their organisations poor business processes and fooling unsuspecting employees into transferring money.
Cyber criminals are tricking CEOs out of millions of dollars by exploiting their organisations poor business processes and fooling unsuspecting employees into transferring money. The growing trend, known as ‘CEO Whaling’, involves plain text e-mails being sent to employees’ responsible financial transactions, masquerading as their boss requesting them to urgently pay invoices. Those falling victim have no way to recover the money with insurance generally not covering international fraud.
These highly organised con artists are not just spamming companies at random, instead they’re using social media to research potential victims, taking advantage when they’re most vulnerable. For example they may identify through social media that the boss or the person responsible for financial transfers is on a holiday and that’s when they strike, sending an e-mail saying they’re about to get on a flight and need an invoice paid urgently. They use a fake e-mail address and include some personal details uncovered via social media to give the e-mail just enough validity to trick the employee into believing it needs to be done and that requesting confirmation will probably make their boss angry due to the delay caused by being on a flight and unable to respond.
Organisations with business processes that rely on an e-mail from the boss for financial approvals are at high risk of falling victim to this scam as the process doesn’t include any validation that the invoice hasn’t been modified or that the approval has come from the person with authority to approving it. Busy people find the use of e-mail in a process like this convenient as they can be sent at will from virtually anywhere, on any device, at any time, putting them at risk of being exploited. Processes that involve printing, stamping, signing and shuffling paper around for approval stall when the approver is not in the same location as the document. Allowing e-mails to be used in place of an actual signature on the document makes the process susceptible to scammers. This issue was recently reported on in The Advertiser, read that article here http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/how-australian-bosses-are-being-tricked-out-of-millions-of-dollars-by-cyber-criminals/news-story/57318e06c02a8215b8d67d521a219aea.
The solution to avoid being tricked by the scammers is to implement a flexible solution like M-Files where the business process is migrated into the system with secure access provided via desktop, web and mobile app. M-Files stores a single electronic version of the invoice with security that restricts access to only the people involved. This avoids copies of the invoice being e-mailed, instead those involved all refer to the same version stored in M-Files. With the approval process managed via workflow, the approver is notified of an invoice to approve and is required to authenticate themselves to view and approve, which can be done quickly a simply via the mobile app using fingerprint authentication. The people responsible for payment are then notified and required to authenticate to access the approved invoice. M-Files keeps a detailed version history of every change the document goes through, so if the person responsible for payment wants validation that the boss approved the invoice for payment, they can review the documents history to confirm it was actually approved by the boss’s user account. The version history can be used to identify changes to the original document and can potentially identify fraud attempts where bank details for payment have been changed on an invoice. Aside from not falling victim to fraud, the benefits of keeping the records electronically rather than physically include incredibly fast retrieval of information and increased office space when you recycle the filing cabinets for scrap metal.
If you’re still using a manual process that involves printing, stamping, signing and shuffling paper around your organisation for approval that can be short circuited by e-mails, you are at risk of being scammed. If you think it won’t happen to you, think again as the Federal Government have been briefed on the severity of this trend because the losses are increasing into the millions. If you want to know more about how M-Files can help your business, please contact us.
