Technology stack, the scalability wildcard for your organization

Judging by the beginning of the title, you'll think that we're about to talk about electric batteries or stacks of objects. We like the second one, so we'll give you the first preview: a technology stack is the software starter pack in companies that need ensure sustained growth with a future project in mind.

It's enough to select the correct objects in this technological stack to expand the commercial horizons of a company from the beginning with IT tools. That is why it's essential to know the scalability capacity.

The definition of a technological stack implies a previous work of strategic analysis because the choice of the software products that are going to shape, it's the tools that are going to work in a systemic way as the business grows with its customers. So this selection should by no means be taken into account in isolation.

Technology stack... what is it?

Stacks in the IT world refer to a collection of programs that work together to provide specific functionality. For example, a web development stack may include an operating system, a web server, a programming language, and a database.

Hand in hand with this, one of its greatest strengths implies ability to adapt to the requirement. If we're facing a project related to the marketing area, we've a MarTech stack. If we're in charge of a finance project, we've a FinTech stack. As each stack has a compendium of technologies, they all provide a standardized set of tools to implement whatever the application is, benefiting to reducing the amount of time and effort in development.

The stacks are commonly used by organizations to develop internal applications and to offer services. For example, a company may use a web development stack to create an e-commerce application. On the other hand, a hospital may use a mobile development stack to create a mobile application for patients.

A clear example we can provide from Lab9 regarding technology stacks is our work for Sharyco, a corporate application supported by at least four developers and a mobile development stack.

How to build a technology stack correctly

While there are no hard and fast rules about what may or may not guarantee your organization's technology success, these recommendations can guide you in how diagram your scalability stack. Next:

Plan for the future: it's true that technology solutions solve immediate problems, but each one must be in the focus of analysis along with the rest of your technology stack, opposite case, the realignment will be very costly.

For example, if you plan to add email to your MarTech stack, you should consider what other channels would be in the future. If you plan to add a chatbot or messaging via WhatsApp, you'd be better off jumping into a platform like Twilio early on.

Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP): the MVP focuses on creating a product or service with basic but easily sellable features. This creation leads to the recommendation to test the project on a smaller scale before making an investment. This way can easily monitor the needs of the market.

Take advantage of open source technology: open source tools are free and freely available, which gives your company free access to use, copy, modify, share and build on existing code and applications.

For example, we can cite the popular MEAN technology stack, which includes MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS and Nodejs, all of which are open source and free.

Create budgets: budgets and tech stacks are two essential topics when diagramming your tech stack. You'll always need the numerical state to start thinking about your future project. Questions such as "what revenue margins will my MVP have to reach to be profitable?" or "how will scale affect your expenses in the future?" should not be missing from your checklist.

Consider the team's experience: building certain types of technology stacks requires different levels of expertise. In fact, adopting new technologies can even slow down or stall progress if you don't have an experienced team. To avoid this, you should training collaborators or hiring a specialist.

The user as the protagonist: there's nothing better than knowing your customer's pain points to come up with an idea that meets each and every one of their needs. Research, analysis and establishment of parameters are essentials for a project to have a budget according to the scalability of the technological stack.

Soft skills + commercial team = an art that you must master

In the background of the City of Light with its typical boulevards and triangular blocks, Lily Collins plays the character of Emily in Paris. A series of Parisian luxury that shows how a young American girl achieves her dream of working for a successful marketing agency. Soft skills play a defining role in many situations that unfold in the story. Intelligent dialogues, teamwork, and empathy among peers and clients are just a few examples of the success of a good command of soft skills within your sales team.

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are nothing more than the inner toolbox in every person when interacting with the outside world. It's how the individual manages to weigh difficulties in making satisfying relationships by knowing how to use verbal and non-verbal communication.

The ability to innovate and learn, active listening, communication, critical thinking, and interpersonal communication skills are characteristics that make a person able to interact effectively in any social ecosystem.

Currently, diplomacy within work environments would be something like gold dust, not only because of the lack of training in general but also because knowing how to link from the mediated word and active listening implies a bonus to nurture trust between brands and their prospects. In other words, the management of soft skills in the corporate environment is a way of being one step ahead of what people are looking for and need.

Why train my sales team in soft skills? The seven reasons

A survey conducted in the United States of more than 650 companies reveals that soft skills are the most in-demand by employers. Unfortunately, emotional intelligence has been relegated to the background for many years. This issue has been biased in university curricula since its inception. This explains why 73% of the employers who participated in the sample affirm that it is difficult to find candidates with qualities and competencies related to soft skills.

We know that speaking in commercial terms implies a whole question of supply and demand, conquered prospects, and closed accounts. But for these things to happen successfully, building lasting relationships with customers goes beyond the technical skills of the person trying to sell a product or service.

Knowing how to detect the client's non-verbal messages from their body language - gaze, posture, tone of voice, silences, and more - implies exceptional handling of communication skills, clearly added to the intelligence to know how to speak at the right time and in the right way. All this little combo leads to your company's business strategies making a significant difference in the company-customer relationship. At the end of the day, commercial impact based on soft skills is guaranteed success.

Here are seven reasons why you should think about enhancing the soft skills of your human resources in the commercial area:

1. They improve decision making

CEOs are responsible for making crucial decisions that impact any organization. In this, the decisions they make are aligned with listening skills. However, these competencies are not only required at the senior level but should act as a cascade effect down to the middle levels, where feedback between manager and team strengthens relationships and encourages innovative ideas.

2. They drive positive change

Lack of communication can generate confusion and inefficiency, which translates into losses for the organization. Avoiding this requires the existence of an excellent communication channel, which should not only exist within the commercial team but also in the rest of the organizational chart in pursuit of the alignment of objectives.

Thanks to this, employees are aware of the challenges faced by the business and can provide brilliant solutions, bringing about positive changes without a doubt.

3. Creates a healthy work environment

Empathy fosters a positive and supportive work environment, eliminating any unnecessary competition. Here employees are more prepared to take risks and move up the ladder. There, employees feel more confident expressing their thoughts and providing honest feedback to the organization. This thing is the kind of valuable input for optimizing processes and discovering new talent.

As a colorful fact, within Lab9's internal team, we work based on agile methodologies, which is why video calls and messages via Slack have a high level of frequency. This tool allows communication between the different areas of the company to be fluid and transparent so that employees can respectfully express their contributions to the organization itself and commercial projects.

4. They help to solve problems more efficiently

Developing soft skills such as communication and active listening will make employees more proactive in recognizing problems and finding intelligent solutions in a more timely manner.

5. Soft skills improve customer service

With employees trained in soft skills, they will learn to identify problems effectively and establish solutions tailored to their customers' needs. Empathy will translate into compassion and patience in dealing with customers, especially in pre-sales and after-sales service.

6. Increases the number of sales

During the negotiation, soft skills match the company's interests with the prospect's needs. In this kind of commercial conversation, the sales team can persuade customers by increasing sales.

7. Improve employee retention

A company's retention rate increases when it begins to focus on boosting the interpersonal skills of its employees. Soft skills training involves personal and professional growth at the same time.

To be and to do Agile in the field of Project Management

To be or not to be agile, that's the question.

What is more worthy of the action of the spirit,

suffer the misinformation of unjust fortune,

or oppose the arms to this torrent of calamities,

and end them with proactivity and innovation?

To be or not to be Agile. That's the question, isn't it? It is in this amusing adaptation of the world's most famous soliloquy - Hamlet's play - that we seek to reflect the more sensitive and poetic side of agility. Agility derives from simplicity as a philosophy of life. Having a thirst to create, being permeable to sudden change, constantly seeking to find value in the little things, and empowering people in their diversity are sentences that in some way give a definite shape to what constitutes the competence of agility.

If we dare to answer Hamlet's solitary question, but in our adapted version, there is only one option to select: to be Agile. In today's world, where dynamism is the currency, companies that maintain traditional management systems should even question themselves more about what they want for their companies and where they are aiming: are they where they always wanted to be? That's why all roads lead to agility.

A lot of Agile here, a lot of Agile there - what is it all about and why is it so useful for companies? To delve into this wonderful dimension of innovation, we should start by learning about one of its many areas, Project Management (PM).

Project Management + agile

Whether they are artistic, construction, technology, or sales projects, all about them are equally important and worthy of being carried out. At a business level, for example, these plans are essential because they generate business value, that is, a tangible benefit from the tangible and the intangible as well. By this, we mean the prestige of the brand and the set of values it inspires both for its customers and collaborators.

Increasingly, results need to be obtained in shorter and shorter periods of time. In addition, projects are developed in complex environments that undoubtedly affect management methods. We talk about technical, economic, social, environmental, and political aspects.

It is in this scenario that the figure of project management appears; the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to the activities of a project to meet the defined objective within a given period of time.

The objective of project management is to obtain an original and practical product that satisfies the needs of your company's customers.

But when does agility appear?

The first step comes from adopting an agile mindset -described at the beginning of this article- and secondly, it brings its methodological application, which is Agile Doing. Its usefulness in these circumstances lies in providing people with a shared point of view to be able to adopt a specific approach when developing products and services in a work environment.

Whatever the organization is, it is up to them to accompany the transformation towards agility, especially if we consider that it is not only a way of doing but also a way of being. Those companies that maintain their traditional schemes have surely wondered how it is possible to transition from an installed organizational culture to a totally different one.

Although that may inspire a bit of fear and uncertainty, we must not forget that everything that implies simplification of steps and reduction of time will benefit any company. It is all about going step by step, respecting the processes of each area, and trying to count on a team specialized in these new methodologies that execute mentoring and advisory actions.

That is why if we focus only on procedural aspects, it is likely that the new procedures that have been put into practice will end up returning to their origins - the traditional - if the organizational culture has never been worked on to shift towards flexibility.

On the contrary, if these beliefs are more agile than the processes themselves, they tend to become more agile. In other words, we talk about the collective vision of the teams working within the company that will determine the degree of difficulty that managers will face when making the transition.

Agile involves an iterative approach that focuses on delivering value during short work cycles to obtain rapid feedback from the client and then better adapt to the new requirements.

In terms of project management, there are four commandments that configure the management process as an agile project:

Prioritize the individual and his interactions so that he is happy with what he is doing and is aware of his usefulness to the project.
Focusing on developing a product or service that addresses the customer's needs, rather than focusing on obtaining documentation
Close collaboration with the customer to ensure smooth communications
Responding quickly and efficiently to circumstantial changes, rather than focusing on adhering to a pre-planned schedule

Liquid organizations. The era of the new servant leader.

Here's a riddle for you related to organizations: he usually wears black and white but is not a zebra, has a piercing gaze but is not a panther, is often quite heartless, and is not the college professor who gave you a three on the last midterm of your life. He's overbearing and more distant than the kingdom of Far, Far Away in the Shrek movie. Want the answer? Here it goes: b-o-s-s.

As if it were an absolute monarchy that - sadly - still constitutes a large part of organizations, the figure of the "boss" as an entity appointed by a supreme God is at the top of the ranking known as "the list of roles that should cease to exist in your company".

The intrepid advance of a technology that does not ask permission to grow, paradigm changing became notorious, especially in the organizational world. Companies and institutions are looking for exponential growth are currently in changing towards liquid management models, or in other words, models with a horizontal organization chart.

Goodbye, bosses. Hello servant leaders.

What are liquid organizations?

Rooted in the term "liquid modernity" by Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist who died in 2017, this conceptualization refers to those corporate structures that evolve and transform in a diluted environment with the particularity of being flexible. That is where the words "adaptation" and "transformation" stand as the north of every mechanism of action and thought.

In this type of organization, working is structured is much faster, more transparent, and more concrete. With a blurred vertical hierarchy, the arrangement of work roles depends of the emergence of multidisciplinary teams that cooperate fluidly on a project basis.

Another characteristic of liquid organizations is that their focus is on human capital, i.e., the person is the center of the company, and every effort is to recognize and retain, not only for the position held but also for the skills and aptitudes -especially digital ones- that only enrich the organizational structure.

Companies and liquid collaborators accept changes and the speed of transformation as something natural, becoming versatile entities and individuals who know how to handle unexpected scenarios, working on innovative ideas that minimize risks.

The new leader in the liquid organizations

With this, the exercise of leadership as such has also evolved. The image of the glass office with a closed door that no one dares to touch has disappeared. Now we are in front of a liquid leader with no walls to separate or doors to terror. He's the one who observes, inspires, and motivates the team of talents to foster relationships.

The quality standards that invite creativity and eliminate any trace of superiority or miscommunication that may perpetuate the poorly executed figure of the boss.

Thus, one of the main challenges of a flexible organization is to achieve true self-discipline since each person's primary task is to develop an awareness of the leading role in the project and how one must act to produce multiplying results as needs arise.

For this reason, the constitution of a liquid person takes into account not only the expected technical requirements but also soft skills such as the development of analytical thinking, active learning, social leadership, the use and control of technology, resilience, service orientation, emotional intelligence and the power to provide original solutions to the organizations.

Agility in liquid organizations

One of the cornerstones of this cutting-edge management is nothing more and nothing less than the philosophy of agile methodologies: be agile, and do agile.

Born at the dawn of the century that has us as protagonists, the concept of agility came to this world as a solution to a series of questions that many technology specialists began to ask: unproductive actions, projects that were canceled due to customer dissatisfaction, unnecessary bureaucracy and paperwork, very long working times … and more.

In this sense, the importance of the agile contribution in this area is the culture. That is, generating a space for organizational evolution and growth that involves not only the structure itself but also the employees.

What is the plus of the agile philosophy?

Structure: it simplifies and eliminates levels, roles, and responsibilities inside organizations. It streamlines and decentralizes decision-making.
Processes: frees time to focus on actions that generate value, manage and enhance planning and performance.
Technology: favors the creation of tools and systems that support the implementation and start-up of rapid and dynamic changes.
People: prepares managers to be servant leaders, manages talent through recognition and fosters organic communication networks.

Process design: an intelligent way to manage organizations

Process design, a crucial business methodology, has significantly influenced how we experience everyday life. Our lives are a blend of emotions, driven by adrenaline and habituation, keeping us alive amidst life's fast pace.

Technological revolutions have transformed consumption patterns and management strategies in organizations. To convert resources into results efficiently, process design offers an invaluable approach.

Embracing process design is no longer optional, but necessary in this digital age. By integrating cutting-edge innovations, organizations unlock their true potential, staying ahead of the competition.

Process design extends beyond businesses, guiding individuals to improve daily routines and achieve work-life balance.

Process design, what’s about it?

Process design establishes functions and determines the process used to produce a product or service. Much of the decision-making in the process is made in the long term and can't be reversed in a simple way, especially when there is a capital investment. For this reason, it's essential that it is designed in alignment with the general strategies of the organization, being functionally satisfactory to the requirements demanded.

This type of work management must have a solid structure that guarantees its effectiveness and efficiency since it allows for the repetition of established tasks. Otherwise, workers will resort to routine actions based on their experience, leading to inconsistency and inefficiency.

Process optimization? Yes.

This type of procedural organization encompasses a wide range of execution modes. From the entirely manual task to automation as a simplification of functions. In this sense, the nature of process design is transformation. Thus, process design must take into account methods and economic considerations.

The structure of a process design

The process has two major components:

Decision in process design: decisions are those strategies arranged by creativity and strategy for the benefit of the company or institution.
Process structure: it comprises specifications and requirements to comply during the cycle. On this, lies the importance of a good design. This way of developing workflows is an input for development. It must establish the functions needed and their consequences by the company's policies. It's precisely here where the proposal of functional alternatives also comes into play according to the cost analysis since the beginning.

In terms of typology, we can recognize three types of design processes:

Intermittent or project-based process (customized, flexible, and highly innovative. Each requirement is worked on independently)
Repetitive process (the work team and the arrangement of resources are functional. It's come up as sales are developed)
Continuous process (there's a high esteem for a specific product or service, so there are standard models. Product variety and innovation are low)

When is the ideal time to introduce process design in my company?

Introduction of a new product or service to the market
Redesign of a product or service
The desire for change in competing priorities within the company
Increased demand for services
Existence of inadequate business performance

It's about new organizations that engage in business process design when they begin to think about the forms and methodologies they will adopt when implementing something entirely innovative or at least thinking about redesigning it. Likewise, effective business processes must be scalable and replicable.

Trial and error

The important thing is to test and verify the new process before it's implemented within the company. A simple and quick way to do this is to execute actions of the cycle and expand. Likewise, another strategy is using specific procedural sabotage, so that the appearance of some defective event occurs. There, the identification, analysis, and subsequent resolution of the problem should be carried out, so that it is eliminated and avoids future situations that slow down the created process.

Marketing + construction companies = guaranteed success

Have you ever thought about powerful marketing can be in real estate development and construction? It is precisely this fabulous duo that triggers the effective and successful realization of a purchase decision.

Marketing is a tool known to be involved in market research, the development of sales strategies, and the analysis of metrics. Whatever the organizational typology, it is essential to resort to actions that allow building the profile of the buyer persona (the ideal customer model that a company has), making a list of objectives, outlining the path to follow, and observing the results (positive or negative), is elementary.

In an arid terrain as the construction industry may seem, the application of tools belonging to marketing, in its range of options such as B2B -business to business- or also known as B2C -business to consumer-, stand as bulwarks against unrealized sales, unreached potential customers and unfulfilled budgets.

If we are talking about a construction company whose stakeholders -strategic customers- are other companies, we are talking about the B2B sales process. In this case, it is of utmost importance to understand where the opportunity and complexity of this marketing technique lie.

Marketing B2B implementation

As we already know, when engaging in a dialogue with a large organization, we are not only faced with a large group of people involved in decision-making but also with a much colder and more strategic attitude when it comes to saying yes at the time of purchase.

For this reason, there are at least five stages that must be during the implementation of B2B:

Definition of the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): making an ideal customer profile of a company based on previous market research so that the company knows who it is targeting and why. All kinds of details are analyzed here, such as the size of the company, its revenues, its location, its data, and more.
Develop a content marketing plan: this is about the creation of content that may be of great interest to customers. The mission here is to inform and establish oneself as a reference in conversations on some topics.
Lead selection and weighting: having a pre-sales team, also known as a Sales Development Representative, to facilitate and organize the lists of contacts ready for purchase.
Diagnosis and proposal: the salesperson already has all the necessary information to determine the best solution that establishes a value proposition adapted to the Lead's needs. Negotiation power and reasonable time to make the final decision also play a role here.
After-sales: at this stage, customer services become essential to further strengthen the relationship with the customer, to ensure contract renewal, and even to awaken possible recommendations to potential customers.

What is B2C in marketing?

If we take an imaginary picture of a person choosing a product from the shelf or choosing which smartphone model and color to purchase from a buying and selling site, we are talking about the B2C process.

In contrast to B2B, where sales strategies start with a company and end with a final consumer, we are dealing with B2C.
Another particularity of this typology is the motivation that triggers the consumer's decision-making. If the B2B world were purely and exclusively rational, in B2C, the mobilizing reason would be emotional. In other words, the emotional perception depends solely on how well the company connects with people's most sensitive side.

Within the company-consumer universe, sales are of lower value and much more impulsive due to the psychological factor involved in goods and services that are in free supply and demand. In this sense, the person discards the selection by specific characteristics of the product but prefers to choose and buy something that involves an added value in terms of the heart: something that reminds him of good times, something that activates his positive emotions, or something that allows him to experience much more than a mere object of consumption. For this reason, in B2C marketing, communications are built on the values of subjectivity, emotion, and creativity.

Unlike B2B, this type of sales has a distinctive feature: it is on the sentimental experience of customers, so it can often happen that the analysis of marketing strategies in these cases is hard to carry out because hearts are still immune to metric X-rays. However, tools can help us to be closer to expectations. Some of them are:

Conversion ratio: it is a metric to know the traffic of visitors converted to customers through the company's website.
Creation of the Buyer Persona: to know the customer's journey, the best option is to know him in detail. From their tastes and preferences to their behavior when consuming a product or service or even to determine their favorite type of music or book.
The connection between your company's brand and stakeholders: you can measure it through interactions between customers and the company's communication channels. The number of views, shares, and likes on corporate websites, social networks, or blogs.

Pharma 4.0: Technological innovation in the pharmaceutical industry

The digital revolution is currently transforming the paradigm of companies and industries while new technologies help to optimize processes that used to take a lot of time and money to perform and still were insufficient to give customers everything they are looking for to leave them satisfied.

Today, information is highly valued, and whoever manages it best is the one who leads the market by being at the forefront.

Technology is revolutionizing the pharmaceutical sector with digital innovations that drive new ways of interacting with health personnel and patients.

Implementing technology solutions applied to product design, manufacturing, delivery, and customer experience makes companies in all industries bet on digital transformation.

The pharmaceutical industry implementing emerging technologies is an example of Pharma 4.0. The term pharma 4.0 belongs to the principles of the technological revolution of Industry 4.0, better known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The digital tools that integrate this phenomenon include advanced data analytics such as Big Data, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence.

The pharma 4.0 concept designates the digital transformation of the pharmaceutical sector

It seeks to redesign the industry's business model to insert improvements in processes and make them more efficient.
The goal is to introduce improvements that benefit both pharmaceutical companies and the patients/customers linked to them.

Pharmaceuticals and medical devices are products and services that influence the health of society. These new technologies offer growth opportunities to improve their health and quality of life.

In a study conducted by Accenture with Top Voice in the Pharma sector, the key to providing greater operational efficiency and personalizing experiences is, for 90% of the executives, the innovation of technologies that apply artificial intelligence.

Most pharmaceutical experts believe that digital technology is essential to develop the current activity of the sector while incorporating the various tools available and taking the trouble to learn to manage them is a valid option if progress is requested.

Pharma 4.0 is about improvements in the four fields of business activity: human resources, processes, information systems, and culture.

Human resources

The pharma 4.0 automation systems in the production line allow for achieving more efficient results in the tasks, adding more precision and autonomy than through human labor.

It's challenging for the human resources area because it re-signifies the hiring schemes since it requires recruiting talents specialized in handling these technologies.

Processes

Improvement of processes allows optimal production to take it to a higher efficiency with the notable reduction of errors. Because of that, optimization depends on the correct integration of these systems and the results generated by each process.

There may be resistance to implementing automation in companies with paper-based manual processes. But with the rise of digital tools, these changes are necessary to reduce physical storage space, allocate all information to the cloud, and streamline the search for data.

Information systems

Automation systems optimize all processes and also have traceability systems and real-time monitoring throughout the supply chain.

Intelligent and automated systems can work with greater autonomy and precision and reduce the margin of human error in repetitive tasks. The idea is to distribute all the data collected inside and outside the plant and create predictive models based on Machine Learning, bringing maximum security to the entire process.

Culture

Pharma 4.0 implies a digital transformation of the physical processes to generate change in the corporate culture, which expands to all areas of the organization.

The gradual adoption of new technologies is part of the constant quest of business managers to reinvent their business model and make it more profitable for people's experience through technological solutions.

Pharma 4.0 is becoming involved in all layers of pharmaceutical production to offer a horizon full of possibilities: added value, quality control, stock optimization, securitization, intelligent operations, connectivity, efficiency, and speed.

This methodology improves the supply capacities and qualities of finished products. Also, it allows us to accompany our growth as a civilization with greater availability of better medicines.

Advantages of Pharma 4.0

Personalized care:

Algorithms and the use of Big Data make it possible to have remote monitoring and access to shared medical histories.

With sensors and digital services, patients have personalized care and treatment 24/7.
In this way, biomedical devices add value to the pharmaceutical industry. That means offering quality medicines that meet patients' needs and information that helps to improve people's experience.

Information management focused on customers and prospects:

Data integration can generate better results because all areas will know what they need and have more alternatives to offer them in an emergency.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers have access to a wealth of data, allowing them to create unique molecular profiles of their customers and provide personalized care. It allows marketing teams to develop relevant strategies to understand the behaviors and needs of potential patients, which will help to have a more accurate record of the drugs to be delivered to suppliers, avoiding stock build-up with unmarketed products.

Automated processes to reduce costs and execution time:

The pharmacy industry evolves and innovates by producing new drugs based on artificial intelligence data.

Cloud-based tools have gained significant relevance in recent years. This tool saves paper and manual labor and facilitates the storage of a large amount of data more securely against information theft, it is necessary to secure the databases with strong passwords and remember to change.

Technology is revolutionizing the pharmaceutical sector with constant innovations

Pharma 4.0, as its name suggests, is a tool of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that has been the center of attention in business. It transforms pharmaceutical personnel's work, making technologies add value to their activity.

This revolution embraces new technologies such as robotics, analytics, artificial intelligence, cognitive technologies, nanotechnology, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Organizations must identify the technologies that best meet their needs to invest in them. If companies do not understand the changes and opportunities brought by Industry 4.0, they risk losing market share.

Stay updated and informed by reading our articles and participating in our networks.

The 6 bases of the collaborative work methodology

When people are open to collaborating on different projects, alchemy improves productivity and creativity in the company.

Innovation is possible because each participant contributes ideas from knowledge and experience.
For collaborative dynamics to be fluid, it is necessary to go step by step with an organization that structures each intervention.

The six bases in the process of team collaboration are:

1- Basis of recognition: how to work as a team for efficiency and speed

If an individual performs a task with expertise, it is probably to achieve the objective. On the other hand, if you work with partners, the work can be richer in content and innovation.

The different experiences and points of view feed the project, bringing value and speed to the project.

If each person is willing to collaborate and share the same objective, the work achieves into practices the collaborative methodology in all its bases.

In teams, there is a synthesis of experiences, different perspectives, and unique ideas. One person's perspective challenges another's and opens a discussion, and by reaching an agreement, project goals are advanced.

The success of a company or organization translates into people working together as a team, either remotely or face-to-face, which can achieve better results and create more impact than working individually.

2- Communication base: the importance of working in teams with connection and trust

A team with good communication, where each person practices active listening and contributes from their knowledge and experience, manages to connect with each other and achieve results and common goals.

To establish a positive connection, each person must feel safe and confident to give their opinions and emotions while playing an important role.

A dynamic that allows effective group collaboration and incorporates the playful experience, where people contribute and give their opinion without the pressure of taking an exam, feeling it as a game where no one loses, and everyone wins.

A Google research regarding collaborative teams concluded that while psychological safety was essential, trust was a critical aspect of teams for high performance.

Building trust is a task that requires respect, asking questions, answering doubts, and keeping the work of each member and the group organized.
The success of a project is born from integrating ideas, not imposing them.

3- Commitment base: the team's commitment to collaborative work

Each idea is a solution, and decisions are made that contribute to the common cause of the team.

With a solid foundation made of commitment and trust, the team achieves actualization by pursuing its purpose, creating together, and making an impact.
At this level, the synergy of a group goes beyond the capacity of what any individual could accomplish alone.

No one likes to feel that they are doing all the work alone or notice that their work has gone overlooked.

In the daily and weekly reports, in addition to communicating progress or doubts, you should help by providing clarity and solutions to problems, thus setting the stage for recognition, which influences the team's commitment.

Working with an innovative mind requires seeing problems as learning and growth opportunities. Developing any project with an optimistic attitude makes a difference. The amount of ideas generated is better, and the work experience improves.

4- Basis of the environment: collaborative environments in work groups

A successful project achieves in collaborative workspaces in optimal conditions.

The commonplace, whether physical, digital, or a combination of both, provides what is necessary for good communication and connection between people.

The office is an obsolete solution because there are too many distractions, and setbacks can cause slow performance. Most workers in technology fields for several years now prefer to work remotely.

-Use the online tools available for team organization and communication.
-The use of file sharing helps remote teams connect.
-Platforms designed for organizations bring agility to online work.

Collaborative teams must have a meaningful or complex purpose to benefit from collaboration.

A brand launch campaign, a branding and marketing study, web development, or the creation of a new service or product; requires a group of people working together who are specialists in each area.

The passion for working together dies when a task becomes a group one, considering that not every project is collaborative.

It is advisable to keep a team of people with few members (up to 6), work better since each individual is essential, and the dynamic becomes faster.

Time is another factor to regulate within the collaborative environment.

The most productive experiences have synchronous and asynchronous times.

If the time a project takes is managed with intention, valuing the contributions of each team member and the time invested in achieving the goals, you will know you are doing right.

In collaborative remote worker environments, the time differs for everyone. You can work in a team from different time zones and geographical distances, thanks to flexibility and organization.

Routine causes stagnation in innovation

Don't always assign the same projects to the same people: mix them up for better results.
Collaboration is not just delegation or task assignment. Assigning projects as a break from the same old, interspersing themes and structures influences more creative collaboration.
What projects and co-workers could benefit from a fresh perspective on collaboration?

5- Organizational base: leadership and management of collaborative teams

Identify individual strengths in the collaborative environment while keeping an open mind. Let your team know that their efforts are not taken for granted.

With realistic expectations and clear objectives, the team can focus more on tasks and decision-making.
The group works with the opportunity to share ideas, receive feedback, support ideas, and have a clear picture of objectives.

Clarify objectives to each team member considering their roles, responsibilities, learning needs, and expectations.

Collaboration helps people learn from each other

Managing workgroups requires a vocation for integration, a deep desire to communicate goals and objectives in order to achieve them, and turn your work into a benefit that has value.
The general objective of any team is to have a common point of view on growth and valuation.

6- Measurement basis: evaluate and analyze the results of team collaboration.

To improve, you need to know what is failing and what is working.

Measure data responsibly, respect privacy, and test the effectiveness of collaboration.
It helps spot trends in design and content, promotes organization, and provides insight into how collaborative work impacts the business and how to improve.

Increase creative output by giving your team as much freedom as possible, but that doesn't mean they'll lose sight of the goals. In the process of knowing the impact, we have to ask about its objective, and how we measure results, there is an equal commitment in the group.

Working together with the team in a productive way by giving them a common objective and achievable goals encourages collaboration and creativity.

Perform periodic measurements and analyze the results

Some marketing strategies require months to see goals achieved and usually provide long-term benefits. Others may receive measurable results in the short term and require constant updates.
Collaborative teamwork allows your company to grow, if you apply this methodology and are looking for a facilitator to guide you in a personalized way, contact us, we are here to collaborate.

The importance of cross-selling in the Amazon business model

Cross-selling is the sales strategy popularized by Amazon where products or services are displayed next to the product your customer is interested in buying.

It is an excellent way to increase customer loyalty. This strategy makes cross-selling an ideal to foster the growth of a digital business.

Implementing the suggestive offer helps to increase sales, as there are features in different products that relate to the ones your customers went to buy. This way, taking advantage of promotions and quantity discounts, they finally buy several related or complementary products.

For example, if a consumer enters the process of buying a TV, the chosen product appears on the screen, and others, such as wall brackets or tables with the measurements for that TV added to the cart.

Although is a pioneer in this model, many e-commerce platforms currently offer to cross-sell: Mercado Libre, Tienda Nube, Diggit, and many others.

Amazon attributes the cross-selling technique to 35% of its sales today.

This action is a commercial strategy to obtain customers that want to buy other products and spend more. Just by logging on to the site and clicking on any product, the other tempting options unfold.

The intelligence of Bezos, the founder of Amazon, to implement cross-selling in a business that offers such varied products has allowed him to obtain millionaire profits over his competitors, taking advantage of the emotion of the customers' purchase.

How Amazon has become the World's largest e-commerce Platform

It has established itself as one of the world's most profitable and popular e-commerce companies for entertainment and various products, along with Netflix, who until now had almost no rivals within the streaming after Blockbuster closed its doors for good. (Read the article on Netflix)

Amazon's rise as a cloud platform is due to its entertainment service and products for sale, such as software, video games, music, books, clothing, furniture, etcetera.

It is gaining millions of followers with content and making great audiovisual productions for series lovers, which it broadcasts via streaming, just like Netflix.

The History of Amazon

It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos. Previously, he had resigned as vice president of D. E. Shaw & Co, a Wall Street company, and moved to Seattle, where he began working on a business plan, which would eventually become Amazon.com.
Bezos chose the name Amazon for his e-commerce business from the meaning of the term "Amazon," linked to the exotic Brazilian region and the river that bears the same name, which is the largest in the world, as he planned to make his company the largest in the world as well.

He drew up a list of 20 products online, of which only five remained: CDs, computers, software, videos, and books. Among this smaller list, the founder decided to sell books online due to the worldwide demand for literature.

The reduced prices for books and a long list of titles brought Amazon success, so it became a recognized online platform to sell digital books.

Amazon's business plan was risky, as it expected to get benefits on its initial investment within five years, which could go very well or badly.

However, luck was on their side because while many companies ended up melting down due to the expansion of the internet in the early 2000s, Amazon stuck with it and started to grow, making huge profits that proved the success of their ambitious plan.

Amazon launched a new marketing strategy called Amazon Prime Day

The company offered the opportunity to its Prime customers to get flash deals on millions of products during 'Prime Day'. However, in 2019 taking into account the success of the previous Prime Day launch, Amazon decided to increase the offers from 24 to 48 hours.

The Amazon case is another evidence that growth does not necessarily have to be short-term, but focusing on the strategy makes the difference too.

Companies like Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Lay's, and Netflix themselves achieved a position in the market by creating products or services designed to meet the demand of a large audience. Amazon is one of the most profitable companies in recent years and probably the second in e-commerce.

Learn about success stories in online business by reading our articles and in our networks.