Blog Archives
Technology: The road to a better organization
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, technology has emerged as a catalyst for change, seamlessly integrating innovation, inclusivity, and inspiration within the fabric of workplaces. This transformation is evident in the journey of one company, a beacon of how the fusion of these elements can not only elevate performance but also cultivate an environment that’s both forward-thinking and deeply supportive.
Cultivating Values for a Positive Work Culture:
At the heart of this remarkable achievement lies an unwavering commitment to fostering a positive work culture. Just as different ingredients combine to create a flavorful dish, core values such as trust, respect, equality, and camaraderie converge to form an environment that resonates with employees. In a world where technology is reshaping the way we work, these values remain steadfast, guiding organizations toward an environment that’s not only successful but also enriching.
This journey of positivity doesn’t falter even when faced with challenges. Like a ship sailing through rough waters, the company’s ability to create new opportunities amidst the uncertainties speaks to its resilience. This surge of growth showcases the company’s commitment to providing stability and empowerment to employees, regardless of external circumstances. By leveraging technology to adapt and innovate, this example underscores how workplaces can thrive even in the most difficult of times.
Guided by a Vision of Excellence:
At the core of the journey towards an exceptional working environment lies a vision guided by excellence. By aligning with a modern corporate governance model and devising innovative programs, the company demonstrates how technology can be harnessed to enhance the workplace experience, stimulate growth, and preserve distinctiveness. By merging technology with foundational values, a roadmap is paved for enterprises aspiring to redefine the parameters of their work environments.
A Blueprint for the Future:
This journey serves as a blueprint for enterprises seeking to harness technology’s potential to create workplaces that are not only dynamic and innovative but also deeply inclusive. In a world where change is constant, this tale serves as a reminder that technology is not just a tool; it’s a conduit for crafting an environment that is empowering and inspiring for all.
The seamless fusion of technology, innovation, and inclusivity stands as a testament to what enterprises can achieve. An exemplar of this is Info Quest Technologies, a subsidiary of the Quest Group, which recently clinched an impressive 4th position in the Greek “Best Work Places 2023” list. Their journey underscores the power of technology in shaping an environment that’s not only successful but also dynamic, creative, and inviting to all.
Data Security: The new Business Enabler
In the digital economy, data is the fuel of innovation. It drives growth, efficiency, and enables new business models. But as the value of data increases, so does the importance of securing it. In fact, data from various reports and sources such as the IBM Institute for Business Value shows that over a five-year period, companies with sophisticated security capabilities outperformed their rivals in terms of revenue growth by 43%.
The Trust Factor
Trust is a precious commodity in the digital age. When customers trust a company, they are more likely to share their data, engage with the company’s digital platforms, and advocate for the brand. This trust is built on the foundation of data security. When data is secure, it fosters trust, and when trust is high, it opens the door to increased customer engagement and business growth.
Regulated Industries: A Higher Baseline
In highly regulated industries such as healthcare, banking, and financial services, the importance of data security is even more pronounced. These sectors deal with sensitive data where a breach can have severe consequences. Regulatory, legal, and brand reputation costs can linger for years after a breach, making data security not just a necessity, but a critical business enabler.
Data Architecture: The Backbone of Security
A secure data architecture is a key component of data security. It allows organizations to take calculated risks on new business opportunities without fear of compromising their data. Effective leaders prioritize a secure, transparent data architecture, which is cited by more than 80% of top CDOs as a critical factor in their success.
Data Security as a Business Accelerator
Data security is not just about protection; it’s about enabling business growth. By re-envisioning data security as a foundation for higher performance, businesses can foster higher trust, take smarter risks, make faster decisions, and achieve greater resilience. It can also position compliance as a competitive differentiator, turning a traditionally cost-centric function into a value driver.
Risk Management: The Proactive Approach
In the realm of data security, a proactive approach is key. This involves embracing risk quantification and qualification to continuously evaluate potential attack surfaces. It means adopting a “how” approach to data security instead of a “no” approach that limits new features and functionality.
In conclusion, data security is not just a protective measure but a business enabler. It fosters trust, enables risk-taking, accelerates decision-making, and can be a competitive differentiator, especially in highly regulated industries. As the digital economy continues to evolve, the role of data security as a business enabler will only become more critical.
“Red Hat Summit”: 8+1 Key Takeaways
During the Red Hat Summit 2023, the company made several significant announcements, all focused on improving the developer experience and streamlining application development. The Red Hat Summit 2023 was a highly technically focused event that demonstrated a strong vision for solving organizational challenges. The company’s aim of automation was still very much in place, and a variety of innovations and tools were provided for developers to help them create, release, and deploy applications more effectively.
- Hybrid Cloud Application Networking: Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Application Networking refers to the networking architecture and infrastructure that enables the seamless communication and connectivity between applications and services across various platforms, such as clouds, containers, virtual machines, and bare metal, while also protecting data and enabling application mobility in a dispersed cloud environment.
- Developer Tools: The Red Hat Developer Hub and Red Hat Backstage plugins integrate with Git and Jenkins, allowing the Backstage developer portal to give a consistent developer experience across platforms such as physical, virtual, hybrid hyperscalers, and OpenShift.
- Security: Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security Cloud Service, , safeguards Kubernetes deployments in hybrid settings.
- Artificial Intelligence: Red Hat OpenShift AI extends Red Hat OpenShift Data Science’s capacity to scale AI innovation, provide consistency in cloud-to-edge deployments, and manage the whole lifecycle for IBM Watson and Ansible Lightspeed.
- Management Tools: RHEL management with Red Hat Insights allows teams to monitor cloud health from a browser via redhat.com, providing a single management experience.
- Linux Migration: A RHEL update for third-party Linux migration was announced, aiming to maintain consistency when upgrading from CentOS to Linux 7, with access to developer subscription and Convert2RHEL tooling and customizations.
- Software Supply Chain Security: The Red Hat Trusted Software Supply Chain solution incorporates security safeguards across the software development life cycle.
- Automation: Ansible Lightspeed (previously Project Wisdom) provides domain-specific AI focusing on automation, while Event-Driven Ansible (EDA) focuses on service delivery and automated decision-making.
- Container Tools: The community edition of Podman Desktop was released, which is intended for application developers who use containers and Kubernetes. It may be installed and executed in any container or pod, connecting local and remote OpenShift clusters.
Red Hat’s unified technology stack is intended to align the learning curve from on-premises to edge to cloud, maximizing application automation and deployment. This is especially important in an era when the vast majority of enterprises operate workloads on two or more cloud service providers, and many are struggling with the complexity of a multi-cloud, multi-location world. Red Hat might decrease the strain on enterprises and make their technical personnel more productive by potentially eliminating the need for IT and developers to learn alternative ways of designing, distributing, and deploying applications.
Harnessing the Power of Hybrid Cloud for Application Modernization
In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations are seeking innovative ways to stay ahead of the curve. One such approach gaining traction is application modernization through hybrid cloud. This strategy leverages the best of both worlds, combining the processing power, security, and reliability of mainframes with the cost-effectiveness, flexibility, and scalability of cloud environments.
Businesses’ operational requirements change as they grow and develop. Nearly 70% of top companies expect their operations to involve specialized combinations of computing and data environments within the following three years, including edge computing, on-premises data centers, mainframes, private clouds, and public clouds. Four out of five executives recognize the urgent need to quickly adopt a more open systems approach and upgrade mainframe-based programs to successfully navigate this shift.
The challenge lies in integrating mainframe operations with cloud-based applications and processes in a way that allows seamless data sharing and peak performance. Modernizing mainframe-based applications is a crucial part of a comprehensive hybrid cloud strategy. It allows deployment of cloud-native applications on the mainframe, creating a unified environment that aligns workloads and interfaces with the most appropriate computing platform.
Legacy mainframe applications, often created using waterfall development processes, were not designed to support the agility, adaptability, and innovation required today. It’s essential to update current programs and integrate them with new applications through a hybrid cloud architecture to stay up with the constantly shifting needs of company.
Organizations have three potential paths to achieve this aim: maintaining the status quo, rearchitecting infrastructure, or optimizing assets through modernization. The latter approach leverages existing mainframe assets and builds new cloud-based applications as part of a holistic digital transformation strategy across the mainframe and cloud.
Hybrid cloud serves as the foundation for comprehensive transformation. It facilitates the alignment of workloads and interfaces with their most appropriate environment from a technical, strategic, and regulatory perspective. It not only helps alleviate cost challenges but also drives better business outcomes through improved agility and reduced risk.
However, a retiring workforce has resulted in a mainframe skills gap, creating a key concern for executives. Organizations can redress this skills challenge by focusing on initiatives to identify and train new hires, developing mixed-language application components, adopting modern languages and processes, and creating an open development environment to attract new talent.
In conclusion, application modernization through hybrid cloud is a powerful strategy that can help organizations optimize their portfolio, mitigate risk, and accelerate market delivery. By leveraging the strengths of both mainframes and cloud technology, businesses can stay competitive in the digital age.
Unleashing the True Potential of ESG: Beyond Sustainability and Reporting
The term “ESG” has become somewhat of an enigma, often confused with sustainability or mere reporting metrics. However, it’s time to view ESG as more than just environmental, social, and governance factors. ESG can act as a transparency-enabler, validating a company’s claims and revealing opportunities for performance improvement and unlocking new value.
Transparency is crucial in this era of skepticism, where stakeholders demand validation of companies’ claims. ESG insights can be converted into greater business value by embedding relevant data in operations for performance improvement or engaging with customers and stakeholders to drive transformational growth.
Despite facing challenges such as inflation and geopolitical turmoil, businesses are increasingly prioritizing ESG. 76% of enterprises now view ESG as central to their business strategy, and 72% consider it a revenue enabler. Consumers are also deeply committed to environmental sustainability (68%) and social responsibility (65%), with many willing to accept lower salaries to work for companies that prioritize these values.
However, organizations still face obstacles in fully embracing ESG. The top three challenges include:
Bad intel: Reliable data is crucial for setting targets and measuring progress, but many organizations struggle with managing and mapping data.
Too many standards: With over 600 global reporting provisions, confusion arises from the variety of ESG disclosure standards, frameworks, and requirements.
Skepticism and distrust: Stakeholders demand greater transparency around ESG initiatives, but only one-third of consumers feel they have sufficient information to make informed decisions.
To fully unleash the potential of ESG, organizations must focus on four pillars of success:
Data and ecosystems: Establishing a robust data framework enables companies to assess current ESG goals, estimate ROI, and manage compliance. Clear visibility into core operations allows for optimization and cost reduction.
Embedding ESG data into operations: Integrating ESG data into core systems can drive performance improvements, such as reducing a company’s carbon footprint.
Sharing transparent insights: Building trust with stakeholders, creating new market opportunities, and supporting innovation through transparency can drive engagement and strengthen relationships.
Collaborating with partner ecosystems: Leading organizations actively collaborate with their partners on ESG, with 60% integrating their ESG efforts with their partner ecosystem.
By redefining ESG as a platform and catalyst for driving transformational growth, organizations can move beyond compliance and reporting to create a sustainable, profitable future.
Be productive on the road with an abundance of power
We are living in the time of the “remote”; the cutting of the umbilical cord between the workplace and the worker. Remote work has only recently become the norm and now there is ample real-world data on the effects – but also side effects – of the worker working from afar. Most importantly, there was proof that a worker does not have to be present to be productive, quite the contrary, in fact. Remote work can be beneficial in many ways, but there are caveats. Here are some tips for you, the aspiring remote worker!
• Look before you leap
Plainly, know what you’re getting yourself into. The internet is replete with experiences of people who have already made the transition. While working from home – or anywhere – can seem romantic, there are inherent difficulties that must be overcome. Read about them and prepare solutions.
• Communication is everything
The very thing that makes remote work possible is communication. The world of today is one of unencumbered communication, the tools exist and are mature, therefore you have to take advantage of all of them. Keep in regular contact with your clients and co-workers, ask for feedback and don’t forget to use Zoom, Teams, or Meet to do face-to-face meetings.
• Home is your anchor
Being on the move can be exciting, but also perilous. Your home is your anchor to the real world. Want it or not, we humans are social animals, reliant on relationships. Don’t forget to keep in regular contact with your family and friends back home, maintain your relationships with them, and don’t get carried away. Your family and friends can be your safe haven when things get rough.
• You are as strong as your Wi-Fi
The internet is your gateway to your work and clients. Make sure your place of residence has a strong and stable connection to it, so that you can attend on-line meetings, make video calls, and log in to your work’s systems unencumbered. Talk to others who have stayed there, talk to the proprietors, and ensure that your connection is up to the task. Moreover, check the availability of data plans and mobile carriers; having a fall-back plan in the form of your cell phone is strongly recommended.
• Keep a tight schedule
Being on the move can make your life chaotic. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that you still have to work, when you’re living the life of the globetrotter. Try to adhere to a strict work schedule; it won’t be easy, especially if you’re traversing time zones regularly, but you just have to muscle through.
• Online networking can help
You’re not alone in this endeavour. There are others like you, and there are on-line hangouts that connect them. Learn about these digital spaces and you’ll have the opportunity to be a member of a community, share experiences and tips, and even forge friendships with like-minded people.
• Power is power
The connection to the outside world comes from your devices. Make sure you keep them charged and powered whilst working. The last thing you want is to run out of power when you have to work. Portable power stations and power banks are elemental to your success.
• Jet lag is real
Don’t overestimate your ability to work after a long flight, or too soon after a drive. Take into account the time your body needs to reacclimate itself to the new conditions and don’t fill your schedule up with meetings or deadlines in your first week in a new location.
• It’s not a vacation
The freedom of remote work is very appealing. Keep in mind, though, that it’s not a golden ticket to a perpetual vacation. You’re still working, you just get to see other places in your free time! Yes, you can (and probably will) have incredible experiences, meet interesting people, visit beautiful places. Just don’t expect to kickback and chillax by the poolside 24/7. It’s still work! The uncoupling of the work from the workplace is entirely possible. Lots of people have done it, by simply staying at home after the pandemic ended. This is largely a first in the history of work, and now we have the necessary information to do it the right way. Now, you do too!