Blulogix

Revolutionizing B2B Monetization

Monetization Platform

Digital Transformation – Best of Breed vs Building In-house

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Changes accelerated by COVID-19 has made it clear that a shift to the cloud is critical to staying competitive. Often the first thought is, “we should try to build from the ground up.” Usually resulting in a nightmare implementation, costing time and money. 

When thinking about the first steps in digital transformation, building a relationship with a partner you trust and well-versed in digital transformation processes and concepts is vital. A partner to guide digital transformation allows a business to get back to focusing on revenue generation, having freed themselves of many worries of implementation and process challenges. 

Let’s dig into why it’s essential to work with a partner to move your traditional or on-premises solutions to the cloud.

The Pareto Law

Pareto’s Law’s premise asserts that a small percentage of causes produce the majority of consequences. Vincent Pareto, an Italian economist, noticed that 20% of the pea pods in his vegetable garden produced 80% of peas. Pareto then studied Italian land ownership and found that about 80% is under the ownership of 20% of the population. 

Future economists would soon begin to apply Pareto’s Law to business management, analysis, and decision-making. For example, 80% of profits in a given industry is earned by 20% of businesses. For many websites, 80% of organic traffic comes from roughly 20% of keyword searches. In the computing industry, we find that 80% of computer owners use 20% of its features. While not always a clean 80/20 split, the lesson is that the most significant drivers of consequences tend to concentrate on small but significant efforts. As Investopedia explains, “This principle serves as a general reminder that the relationship between inputs and outputs is not balanced.”

With the Pareto Law in mind, it’s hard for any business to justify allocating extensive effort to an area of work outside of their expertise. It’s that 20%, that unique value proposition, on which a business needs to focus. Too much time diverted from the core revenue-driving effort is costly. 

The Upside of Partners

If Pareto’s Law tells us that businesses need to concentrate their efforts in areas in which they already excel, how does a business adapt to changing environments? Success relies on finding a partner who can shoulder the load. Companies know themselves best and with that believe they are best suited for the task. Bringing an outside perspective anchored by deep industry experience is the key to building a complete roadmap and foreseeing challenges that would otherwise take a company by surprise.

Most companies who try to develop a solution are not successful given the obstacles along the way — with almost 42% of implementations failing. Why?

It’s expensive – Requiring a significant upfront investment of new technology and training and hiring employees with the proper skill set. 

It’s distracting – Digital transformation requires 100% diligence and attention to detail which can impact prioritization of goals and take away resources from the main drivers of growth and revenue — the 20%. 

The benefit of engaging a trusted partner is the assurance that their expertise and experience in dealing with similar business cases allows a company to address common pitfalls before they become a blocker to success.

BluLogix: A Partner for Digital Transformation 

At BluLogix, enabling digital transformation in monetization is our 20%. Our expertise allows us to build the infrastructure and features required to find success in the transition to consumption or usage-based economies and design a roadmap configured to meet specific requirements across all business functions. Our platform and methodology are industry proven because we draw on years of experience providing solutions while remaining agile in response to customer needs. Businesses get the best of both worlds: the ability to tailor the tools to business needs and the efficacy of a tried-and-true process.

Companies realize the urgency to put in place monetization technology that addresses complex billing and provisioning scenarios. The same complexity requires tailored guidance to design and scale for sustained growth. Our mission is to reduce the stress and challenges involved—taking the pressure off while remaining transparent and clear throughout the process. The result is an agile monetization platform with the configuration of an in-house tool and the effectiveness of an industry-tested process that allows your business to shepherd through the transition.

 

 

Monetizing the Internet-of-Things: Challenges & Opportunities

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With advances in technologies such as 5G, autonomous vehicles, and artificial intelligence, there has been increasing interest in leveraging the Internet-of-Things across the business world. The interest extends far beyond technology organizations, entering multiple silos of business.

In transportation and logistics, we see autonomous vehicles and freight, delivery with unmanned vehicles, and advanced traffic control. Healthcare firms are utilizing remote health monitoring and diagnostics to treat patients through telemedicine. Industrial robots, factory automation,and data-leveraged maintenance and inspection increase the efficiency of manufacturing facilities.  Security has become stronger with intelligent surveillance, faster emergency response, and smart cities.

These example industries are just scratching the surface. There are a plethora of other business types that have yet to fully embrace the Internet-of-Things. But using IoT devices to improve efficiency and capabilities is only the start. What organizations really need to understand is how to monetize IoT devices and infrastructures to create additional streams of revenue. 

Challenges

Before these sectors can monetize an IoT stack, they must first identify, plan for and overcome challenges. There are a host of operational challenges that must be accounted for, including the following:

  • Multiple platforms: Businesses that deliver multiple platforms or services must design a system of data collection that accurately tracks and unifies the data. This allows the data to be analyzed in the bigger picture instead of only as individual business units. 
  • Disconnected services: For organizations offering multiple services as mentioned above, it can be beneficial to merge those under a single package for clients utilizing more than one service. This requires complex planning and execution. 
  • Control over devices: In many cases, deploying IoT devices means handing the technology over to clients. Organizations doing so need to be able to maintain a level of control over those devices so they cannot be altered or hacked to disrupt tracking. Businesses also need control over devices to protect against unlicensed use. 
  • Tracking and provisioning: If an organization is to charge for usage of IoT devices and data, there must be an advanced system in place to track that usage. The system must be able to identify each unique user and their license ID, which  devices their license has access to, what level of speed, bandwidth and data volume they have access to, and more. 
  • Data Quality: IoT clients expect highly accurate data, so data quality and integrity is a must to ensure customer trust.

In many sectors, managing all of this information is too large of a lift. Designing an IoT data infrastructure in-house can be costly and inefficient. This is because such an undertaking can  draw attention away from primary business pursuits. As a result, team members end up ignoring the areas where they bring the most value to instead work on a project in an area which they are not experienced. What many businesses need is a solution to monetize data from an experienced data monetization partner. 

At BluLogix, we serve as that experienced partner. Utilizing over a decade’s worth of experience in data management, we partner with companies across various industries to design systems for data monetization. From transportation management to drone zoning to billboard advertising, we help companies monetize vast networks of IoT devices. 

Now that we’ve identified some challenges in deploying IoT devices and networks, we can move on to the benefits. As we discuss these opportunities and benefits, keep in mind that ultimately, each seeks to increase revenue by either producing additional streams revenue or reducing expenditures or the cost of operations.

Benefits

Innovation and Improvement

Every organization is constantly seeking to improve their products and value proposition to gain a competitive advantage in their industry. With the data mined from IoT devices connected to products and services, companies are able to understand exactly how customers interact with their services. In turn, they can then modify and innovate products to more accurately serve their clients’ needs.

Operational Efficiency

One of the main benefits of utilizing IoT devices and data is the increased efficiency they offer. With devices deployed throughout the field for businesses such as energy providers or transportation and logistics, these businesses can capture usage down to minute detail. With this level of insight in hand, businesses can refine how they operate machinery or equipment to reduce wasted resources. 

Proactive Maintenance

Connected IoT devices mean real-time monitoring of remote equipment, vehicles, and infrastructures. Instead of the laborious and often too late process of inspecting and servicing equipment periodically, organizations can stay on top of maintenance needs and address them before more severe intervention is required. This can eliminate down time and preserve the lifetime of expensive equipment. 

Monetization of Data

Modern times are often referred to as the Information Age. That’s because the amount of data available and the power of that data allow for significant advances in technology and efficiency. This is what makes data so valuable and it is why not monetizing data is a serious missed opportunity in terms of revenue. 

The data a business can mine from IoT devices is not only internally beneficial. There are countless firms that are willing to pay top dollar for highly accurate, highly informative data. If a business is not harnessing the power of its own data, they are passing up a lucrative stream of revenue.

Let’s dig in even more! Check out our webinar on How to Monetize Your IoT Service Offerings in 2021.

Process Automation vs Workflow

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How Process Automation Enables Scalability 

Building consistent and repeatable processes is a key challenge most companies face in their Digital Transformation. In fact, it is not possible in many cases to make a smooth, full transition without first addressing these processes. 

Addressing the process challenge typically falls across multiple organizational stakeholders, many of which have legacy systems in place they are not compelled to change. Therefore, effective process change must be driven from the top down if it is to be successful. 

In this post we’ll provide some clarity around two approaches to process change as it relates to digital transformation and three suggestions for how to implement these changes. 

Key Distinctions between Process Automation and Workflow 

In the journey toward digital transformation, it is important to understand the differences between process automation and workflow. Process automation is a bottom-up approach that starts at the elemental level of a product catalog where each product in the catalog carries business logic for provisioning or fulfillment. This ensures that when a product is ordered, either a manual or automated task initiates the movement of the product to an active status and triggers further automation throughout the activation process. 

Workflow, on the other hand, is a static sequence of tasks typically associated with a solution or service type order. If all orders fall into the same service type, the product catalog is limited, and there is low order volume, a workflow approach can satisfy the management of manual tasks to complete an order. But because the tasks are driven at the product level, automation of these tasks is never an option. For these reasons, workflows do not promise the same level of agility as process automation.  

The Problem with Workflow 

Many companies start by managing processes manually. As business grows, the hours turn to days and before you know it you have a team of people managing repetitive tasks that could easily be done using process automation solutions. Some businesses get so caught up in the day-to-day that they never stop to question whether this is the best allocation of resources. For example, rather than an entire team, BluIQ™ can manage these tasks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with no vacation or sick time. 

Businesses who have pivoted to process automation have reaped the rewards. In a 2018 survey conducted on companies leveraging process automation tools, 42% of respondents said that they spend less than an hour a day on manual data entry. A BluLogix customer operating as Software Solution Provider recently reported that, “BluIQ™ brought a team of six full-time employees down to one part-time administrator.” 

Workflows relying on manual tasks will inevitably hold a business back. Replacing manual tasks with a process automation solution such as BluIQ™ enables businesses to free up valuable resources. This freeing up of resources creates scalability and profitability that cannot be achieved otherwise. Companies become free to reallocate assets from areas of tedious manual tasks to areas that promise growth and increased revenue.  

Process Automation: 3 Tips for Success 

So–you’re ready to replace manual workflows with process automation. What do you need to know as you take this step? Below are three tips for success based on our experience in helping companies transition to process automation. 

1. Make it a CEO priority 

In designing an automated process, multiple stakeholders across an organization can be affected. If stakeholders are not universally aligned throughout this shift, it becomes difficult to navigate the levels of changes involved in supporting process automation. In this regard, a step in every direction is a step in no direction. If a business is to successfully implement process automation in a way that’s consistent across an organization and accommodates the goals of each department, they’ll need a cohesive effort toward a clear direction. 

The good news is that there is a simple solution: making process automation the CEO’s priority. Process automation has to come from the top down, ensuring organizational goals are synchronized. While various departments within an organization can have independent objectives, it is the CEO who ultimately weaves those together with a comprehensive vision. As process automation can expedite that vision, the CEO must be involved in it’s implementation. 

2. Define a Single Process 

When converting to an automated process, it’s important to design for uniformity. You need to define a single process for all products and services to achieve success. You should identify core elements specific to products and services, and define your standards around the common denominator between them. Use variable data such as quantity, usage, service details, etc. as inputs into this process. A single process across all products and services allows you to remain agile in response to customer demands and industry trends without disturbing the underlying infrastructure.  

3. Create a System to Track Remaining Manual Tasks 

A key part of process automation is leveraging APIs to their fullest potential. Efficient process automation utilizes data integration from multiple API sources in a way that limits the need for manual intervention. Nevertheless, it doesn’t remove manual intervention entirely. 

In the aggregate, the need for manual tasks will be significantly reduced; however, you need to prepare for what remains. Manual tasks benefit from a system of accountability. Tracking manual tasks with notifications and standards of operation will help ensure that those manual tasks have continuity with automated tasks. 

BluIQ™ and Process Automation 

For businesses that want to scale in an environment where customers expect increasingly rapid responses to their needs, process automation is a necessity. Without process automation, a company’s growth is tethered to their ability to update the workflows of manual tasks as well as the time required to execute those tasks. 

If you want to be ahead of the curve, a process automation platform such as BluIQ™ is your solution. At BluLogix, we’ve helped companies across sectors such as SaaS, UCaaS, IoT and more replace outdated manual workflows with process automation through BluIQ™. Part of what makes our methodology so successful is that we place a priority on front-end planning. Giving time to detailed discovery and planning phases allows BluLogix to create and implement a solution tailored to the unique needs of your business. 

Want to learn more about the power of BluIQ™ when it comes to process automation? Check out our Insights post covering Quote-to-Cash automation. If you’re ready to speak with a BluLogix process automation expert, schedule a demo today and we will be in touch. 

Scaling Monetization Globally

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MGI Research estimates that amongst digitally‐focused US‐based businesses attempting a first‐time global expansion, nearly 70% either fail or experience meaningful delays and cost overruns.

BluLogix global customers are challenged with many issues addressed in MGI’s latest report “How to Scale Monetization Globally”. Global Monetization in the digital economy is very different than a traditional international business model. This is especially true with SaaS and IoT Companies moving to a subscription model.

The driving criteria for success for our global customers in an awareness of the issues that don’t typically existing in other models. One good example is the fact that a Company may not be able to control what Country a buyer originates from.

How do you then manage to stay in compliance local tax laws and other regulations related to doing commerce in that country? In what currency are you going to transact the business, using what payment method?

Globalization is huge opportunity for growth and can be navigated but not without right technology solutions that enable automation at the transaction level.

To download a complementary copy of MGI’s “How to Scale Monetization Globally” report click here. To understand how BluLogix can help contact us here to speak to an expert.