Many enterprises have contracts sitting in various repositories, file shares, and servers with key terms and data buried in their text or in Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) platform. Statements of work, indemnifications, assignment terms, revenue recognition policies, auto-renewals, and unknown incentives are a few examples of contract information that add risk and impact liabilities. Since contracting is at a critical point in the business process in which transaction data becomes the source of truth once the contract is signed, data about the transaction (e.g. price, discounts, clauses, rebates, chargebacks) can be delivered to a data warehouse for business intelligence and regression analysis.

While the time and cost-saving are clear, there are many other benefits to the analytical aspect of these systems, like learning the specific terms, vendors, products, and language used in contracts to maximize the accuracy of automated analysis.

What is Contract Analytics?

According to Reuters, contract analytics is the systematic, software-driven analysis of legal documents to uncover relevant information using artificial intelligence (AI). This allows users to uncover performance insights in response to a specific scenario, business question, or regulatory change.

Contract analytics provides valuable performance insights into all areas of contracts – cycle times, deviations, risks, statistics (expiry, renewal, pending, etc.), procurement, contractual values, and sales business metrics. These extracted insights are then represented using powerful visualization tools like Power BI.

These analytics dashboards are configurable for users and can be enabled for power users with the need for deeper business metrics reporting to make high-stakes decisions. Multiple dashboards can be configured for a user to report on various metrics categories.

Contract analytics today can also utilize AI, trained by legal and industry experts – like Icertis ExploreAI – to bring a new level of efficiency to contracting. Icertis’ ExploreAI, in particular, brings the power of generative AI to enterprise contracting. It combines the power of large language AI models and Icertis proprietary AI models to derive insights from contract data, enterprise data, and the Icertis Data Lake to deliver powerful, material business outcomes.

Contract Analytics at CloudMoyo

CloudMoyo has extensive domain and technical expertise in handling contracts. We can connect Microsoft’s Power BI with our client’s data warehouses to fetch and visualize data.

Contract Analytics in Action – Pharmaceutical

We worked with a leading pharmaceutical company and helped them reveal meaningful insights related to user adoption of their new contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform – Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI).

Below are some parameters we proposed to our client based on their requirements. Please note that this analytics requirement wasn’t to pull insights out of the data in the contracts, but rather to have a holistic view of ICI users’ adoption. However, we have expertise in both!

• ICI Adoption – How often is ICI accessed?
  • Measure the total number of times users have logged into ICI – in total, by region, and sub-regions.
• ICI Utilization – How many licensed users are accessing ICI?
  • Measure the number of licensed users who have logged into ICI by quarter, month, and week within each region and sub-region.
• Number of ICI Contracts Entered – How many contracts are being entered into ICI?
  • Measure the total number of contracts being entered into ICI – in total, by region, and sub-regions.
• Number of ICI Contract Deviations – How many contracts are being deviated from standard clauses?
  • Measure the number of Contracts that deviated by contract type, region & sub-region, and deviation type.
• Average ICI Contract Cycle Time – How quickly are contracts being processed?
  • Measure the average cycle time of a contract in ICI from creation through signature, by contract type.
• Average ICI Cycle Time by Process – How quickly are contracts going through major processes
  • Measure the average cycle time of a contract submitted to the legal team in ICI.

Contract Analytics in Action – Railroad

In another case, we helped a North American Class 1 railroad company with contract analytics with the generation of customized reports. These provided valuable insights on cost-saving opportunities, contract renewals, and compliance with government regulations for the various property agreements, including leasing agreements for stations, warehouses, and land for tracks and equipment storage.

While any CLM platform may have the capability to generate reports, there are two reasons CloudMoyo’s contract analytics services stand out:

1. Customized Reports: CLM platforms are usually limited in terms of KPIs that they can provide analysis for, meaning your organization may not receive KPIs that are most useful for your business or business processes.
2. Accessibility: Reports created with CloudMoyo’s contract analytics are sharable outside of the platform so additional licenses do not need to be purchased for multiple departments to gain insights. Other platforms require additional licenses to review reports, meaning increased cost and additional training – our reports allow for more accessibility and a seamless reporting structure.

We can create executive-level reports for CFOs, CXOs, CIOs, CLOs, and any other C-Suite leaders! A sample dashboard for Chief Legal Officers:

Powerful Visuals with Leading Software

CloudMoyo also offers reporting and data visualization capabilities powered by leading software like Tableau, Qlik, Power BI, Kibana, etc. so our customers can now drill into that data through a drag-and-drop interface, creating intuitive dashboards, mashups, and visualizations across numerous data elements, for fast and well-informed decision making. Our solutions enable business users to perform ad-hoc reporting to further explore the information provided in standard reports. And discovery queries are built upon operational reporting views that are easy to understand.

With our Contract Analytics, our clients can:

• Create customizable and tailored reports focused on important information, and make changes to report templates as you go
• Drill down from summary-level to transactional-level detail
• Build charts and graphs in leading software of your choice to visualize the analysis

Ready to get started? Contact us here >>

This article also originally appeared on Datafloq, a one-stop-shop for Big Data. Read the published post here.

Originally published February 9, 2016; updated September 13, 2023

ChatGPT, Bard, Copilot – do these sound familiar? In the last year since ChatGPT’s launch, artificial intelligence has made waves and headlines, transforming the way the everyday traverses life. Students can build essays, marketers can write headlines, a small business owner can make graphics, and developers can refine lines of code all at the touch of a button.

These examples refer to a specific type of artificial intelligence (AI) – generative AI.

Generative artificial intelligence “describes algorithms that can be used to create new content including audio, code, text, images, simulations, and videos” (McKinsey). It’s a new way to approach content generation that has both transformative benefits and uncharted consequences.

Generative AI currently uses machine learning – a way to develop artificial intelligence through data models that can “learn” from patterns without human direction. Machine learning, until recently, was limited to predictive modeling, meaning it could identify patterns like looking for trees in images. Now, it can build an image of a tree!

Building a generative AI language model is incredibly difficult because you need huge amounts of data to train the model before it can generate data for you. You need funding and the world’s best computer scientists and engineers to figure out how to build a language model like ChatGPT or DALL-E. But the potential use cases of AI for code are unbelievable, especially in the opportunities they present for businesses!

Use Case – Coding and Development

One of the most interesting use cases we’ve seen for generative AI is in coding. We all know how complicated and time-consuming writing lines of code is, and we know the frustration of writing code only for it to not work. These lines of code are the basis of so many things – iOS applications, Microsoft Word, Google Sheets, and your phone’s interface.

With generative AI, software development can be made much easier, especially for repetitive tasks. Research by McKinsey shows that tasks like code documentation, generation, and refactoring can be completed in significantly less time. However, when it came to more complex tasks, research found that time savings were less than 10%. Some areas where generative AI exceeded expectations:

• Expediting manual and repetitive work
• Jump-starting the first draft of new code
• Accelerating updates to existing code
• Increasing developers’ ability to tackle new challenges

The same research reveals where generative AI still needs human touch:

• Examining code for bugs and errors
• Contributing organizational context (specific needs of an organization or project)
• Navigating tricky coding requirements

When it comes to generative AI in software development and coding, developers should work alongside these tools and platforms for the most optimal outcomes. It allows developers to work on bigger, more meaningful problems while smaller tasks can be automated.

Use Case – Data Analytics and Data Management

When it comes to business intelligence and analytics, the tools in our arsenal for the last several years have been Excel, then BI tools, and then natural language processing (NLP) technology. All these still require data analysts or data literate folks who can structure the data, run reports, and then make sense of those reports. Even with advances like low-code/no-code, very few people in organizations use intelligence analytics tools not only due to a lack of literacy but also because vendor training is required to use these platforms.

With generative AI, the need to be data literate might be eliminated for many data users. Large language models (LLMs) (a type of AI that mimics human intelligence and uses statistical models to analyze vast amounts of data to learn patterns and connections between words and phrases) can now be applied to organizations’ data, opening data science and analytics to anyone who needs it.

This also frees data experts from responding to report requests as data becomes more accessible to the masses. Added time means data experts and analysts can spend their time working on more in-depth analysis of data.

Generative AI can also transform the way unstructured data becomes structured. According to TechTarget, “It can be programmed to automatically assign vectors to unstructured data as it gets ingested, potentially enabling enterprises to access vast troves of data now sitting untouched.” In layman’s terms, unstructured data is given meaning automatically – which is useful because an estimated 80% of data remains unstructured.

To summarize the above, here are the benefits of generative AI on business data analytics:

• Greater actionable insights generated and available to the masses
• Timesaving for analysts to focus on more in-depth analyses
• Eliminate the need for data literacy and vendor training for platforms

Is Your Data Secure?

While users at an individual or enterprise-level are quickly infusing generative AI to fast-track and automate tasks, it’s important to note that all language models work on the basic principle of consuming data, then generating data. As you feed confidential data to language models owned by various entities, it’s being consumed to train the language model and evolve over time. The most fool-proof way to protect your data is to keep it within the boundaries of your organization. This is where Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI comes into play. Microsoft provides the enterprise a promise of Azure, where you can be sure:

• Your data will not be used to train GPT models
• Your data will not be sent to OpenAI

Azure OpenAI rides on a foundation of enterprise security with all the highest security standards you expect from the cloud. You can depend on their security, where data is private and remains in your control. It also has the most recent language model GPT 4. ChatGPT is built on GPT 3.5.

To learn more about Azure OpenAI, click here.

Artificial Intelligence at CloudMoyo

One of CloudMoyo’s core pillars is to Infuse AI into Business Operations. We harness the power of AI/ML, unlock new efficiencies, eliminate labor-intensive tasks, and pave the way for game-changing innovation. Utilizing AI/ML, we offer predictive and prescriptive analytics services, predictive maintenance solutions, and NLP technology infused in our work.

The possibilities of AI are here, and we’re working closely with our partners to provide the best AI-driven solutions to all our customers.

As an Icertis partner, we’re excited about the launch of Icertis ExploreAI to bring the power of generative AI to enterprise contracting. Utilizing the power of LLMs and Icertis proprietary AI models, customers can derive insights from their contract data, enterprise data, and the Icertis Data Lake to deliver new, powerful, and material business outcomes.

With more than a decade of experience working alongside Microsoft and as a Microsoft Gold Partner, Azure OpenAI Services is a transformative launch for all, powering applications with large-scale generative AI models. Not only can this service support developers in code writing assistance and content generation, but it also has built-in responsible AI and enterprise-grade Azure security to detect and mitigate harmful use.

These tools are the future (and the future of artificial intelligence!) and CloudMoyo is ready to take on the challenge of making generative AI solutions more accessible to our customers. We want to drive efficiency at your organization, save you time and money, and help you transform with resilience.

Ready to get started? Contact us here >>

In one of our last blogs – Building Business Architecture for Resilience – we touched on the importance of building a strong data architecture for your organization. And while data can make up a huge part of your enterprise and informs decisions made, we can’t forget the importance of application architecture at an enterprise.

What is Application Architecture?

According to TechTarget, application architecture “is a structural map of how an organization’s software applications are assembled and how those applications interact with each other to meet business or user requirements.”

Your enterprise applications are meant to integrate your enterprise so all business operations are coordinated across your company, like accounting, finance, HR, inventory, etc. Ideally, an organization would need just one platform to control all these processes (which is why many businesses have started upgrading from on-prem to cloud systems!). Your application architecture connects all these processes.

Application architecture can be designed in different ways but differs from software designs. Your architecture is like the base of a house – beams, foundation, materials – while software is designed around the base (like exterior house colors or countertop finishes).

Components of Application Architecture

Application architectures typically have three basic layers that slice an app into more manageable units:

1. Presentation Layer – the highest layer of software that includes a user interface (UI); how users interact with applications
2. Business Layer – the layer that holds the logic of the application (like currency calculations, workflows, and data models); lets developers design apps to support multiple user interfaces
3. Database Layer – communicates with data source; includes servers, databases, networks, storage, and middleware

Types of Application Architecture

Like architecture in the real world (Baroque, Classical, Gothic, Victorian), there are a few different architectural styles and patterns you can use when developing enterprise applications!

1. Monolithic Architecture: This is a traditional client-server architecture, consisting of the three components mentioned above. It was originally designed prior to the explosion of cloud technology, meaning these apps have had difficulty adapting to the cloud. Monolithic is also sometimes called Layered or N-Tier.
2. Microservices Architecture: Applications are typically broken down into the smallest possible components. For example, in e-commerce, you can break down your app into a shopping cart, customer reviews, and search. The services communicate with each other, and each service can also be built by a different small team.
3. Cloud-Native Architecture: This design utilizes cloud services for building applications. It allows for scalability and agility and typically means faster time to market. The objective is improved speed, scalability, and margin.
4. Event-Driven Architecture: According to HubSpot, “a system design practice built to record, transmit, and process events through a decoupled architecture.” Essentially, your systems don’t need to know about each other to complete tasks and share information! This is best for real-time processing and self-service scenarios – credit card swipes, temperature readings, or even pressing a button. The event kicks off specific tasks related to the action.

Other application architecture types include mobile application architecture and serverless architecture.

Best Practices for Your Enterprise Application Architecture

Every organization has unique needs and different end goals, but one thing is certain – scalable and agile technology is a necessity in today’s world. By 2026, 75% of organizations will undergo a digital transformation predicated on the cloud. This includes nearly all (if not all) business processes and the applications needed to keep your business running.

As you evaluate what your organization needs in terms of building or rebuilding your application architecture, there are a few best practices to keep in mind:

• Flexibility & Agility – How will your architecture scale and adapt as your business changes to support new requirements?
• Security – What risks and security threats need to be addressed when building your application architecture?
• Objectives & Goals – What are your organization’s goals for this architecture? What kind of architecture will best serve the needs of your organization and its projects?
• Documentation & Testing – How will you comprehensively document your architecture so it’s easily maintained and understood? How often must testing be conducted to ensure your architecture is secure and functioning correctly?

CloudMoyo Architecture Advisory Services

As a Microsoft Partner with more than a decade of experience in digital transformation, CloudMoyo’s experts have experience in a variety of technologies like Microsoft Power Apps, Azure, Snowflake, and more to provide a tailored solution that fits your business needs.

Architecture Advisory Services at CloudMoyo starts with a conversation about what your organization needs, whether it’s building and modernizing your data architecture, your application architecture, or both. Whether it’s a transition to Salesforce or moving from on-prem to the Cloud, our business intelligence architects can offer a variety of solutions.

One of our clients faced an obstacle in modernizing its business architecture and sought to improve its end-customer experience. Their current post-sales inquiries were being managed in their legacy Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that lacked many benefits of modern systems built in the cloud.

Our team of experts built a new data architecture that helped our client have centrally stored and updated data flowing bidirectionally. The project was deployed using Azure DevOps and helped provide uninterrupted service to our client’s end customers.

Read the rest of the story here >>

If you’re ready to build (or rebuild) your application architecture or have any more questions, we’d love to connect! Our team would love to work with you and build a tailored solution to stand the test of time.

Connect with us here >>

Gartner predicts that by the year 2026, 75% of organizations will undergo a digital transformation predicated on the cloud as the fundamental underlying platform. This forecast underscores the necessity for businesses to embrace cloud migration, as it’s evolved from being just an advantage to a necessity for sustainable growth and competitiveness.

Cloud migration can revolutionize how companies operate by providing on-demand scalability, cost-effectiveness, enhanced collaboration, and robust data security. The traditional on-premises infrastructure is no longer capable of meeting the evolving needs of modern businesses because it’s costly, inefficient, and unable to keep up with the rapid pace of technology. This is what’s led to the widespread adoption of the cloud. By leveraging the cloud, businesses can focus on their core operations and strategic initiatives, while relying on the expertise and infrastructure of cloud service providers to handle the maintenance.

On-Prem Challenges

On-prem systems were once the standard as companies embraced the technological revolution (think accounting in a physical book versus Lotus, and later, Excel!). However, as agility and scalability have become a bigger priority for enterprises, the challenges of on-prem systems have become more apparent.

Scalability Constraints: On-premises systems require organizations to invest in and maintain their infrastructure. Scaling up or down to meet changing business demands can be time-consuming and costly, as it involves purchasing additional hardware and software licenses.

Costly Maintenance and Upgrades: Maintaining and upgrading on-premises infrastructure requires substantial financial investments. Organizations must allocate budgets for hardware maintenance, security updates, and infrastructure upgrades, diverting resources from core business activities.

Limited Accessibility and Collaboration: On-premises systems often hinder remote access to critical data and applications. Collaboration between geographically dispersed teams becomes challenging, affecting productivity and hindering seamless workflows.

Data Security and Compliance Risks: Organizations managing their own data centers face the daunting task of maintaining robust data security measures and ensuring compliance with industry regulations. The ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape requires constant vigilance, expertise, and substantial investments in security protocols.

Reach for the Cloud – What to Expect on a Cloud Migration Journey

Reaching for the cloud can be seamless with the right partner. And it can bring a great deal of value to your organization, including:

1. Predictable Investment: As is the case with all applications, running apps on-prem requires the setup of an IT stack at the office location, training staff members, and making provisions to protect data. The cost can fluctuate, making financial planning more difficult. Subscribing to a cloud service gives a fixed monthly, quarterly, or annual cost depending on the payment plan.
2. Increased Mobility: Most companies have their corporate location in multiple regions. Moreover, since Covid-19, employees have been working from around the globe. Since quick access to data from the cloud only requires a strong internet connection, this makes it a better choice for users who need to access data frequently from remote locations. Cloud enables quick and disruption-free access. With the application on the cloud, you can leverage the speed and convenience of an on-premises app from anywhere.
3. Quick Scalability: Even with the most data-driven predictions, it’s often difficult to anticipate the load of data that will be flowing in. It’s wiser to use a system that’s flexible to provide resources per demand. This way you don’t have to worry about the infrastructure’s flexibility and only pay for the resources you’re using.
4. Quicker Turnaround Time for Processes: The cloud helps deploy applications that can automate workflows easily. With the help of a good service provider, you can optimize application performance and get a quicker turnaround for processes.
5. Leverage Supreme Data Security Provisions: Most companies trust on-prem systems for data security. However, data security provided by well-known and reliable Cloud Service Providers offers world-class security provisions. Most CSPs provide multi-layered security, including monitoring activities in the cloud, network security, internet security, user training, device protection, and quick recovery provisions. This approach involves protecting data from threats originating from all sources. The teams responsible for protecting the data are experts in cybersecurity with decades of experience.

Want to learn about on-prem versus cloud in a specific environment? Check out this blog >>

And Blast Off! Beginning Your Cloud Migration Journey

We’ve repeated time and time again – your cloud migration journey can be easy with the right partner. CloudMoyo’s cloud experts have supported many of our clients on their journey! Here’s what your journey to the cloud might look like:

Strategize and Assess: Begin by understanding your environment and identifying the key factors that will govern your migration. Conduct a thorough analysis of your existing infrastructure, compliance requirements, and security considerations to prepare for a well-defined migration plan.

Proof of Concept: Select specific components to migrate and focus on ensuring compliance and security during this phase. Execute tests to validate the feasibility and performance of the chosen components in the cloud environment.

Phase-by-Phase Approach: Follow a phased migration approach, starting with infrastructure migration. Evaluate and fulfill all compliance, security, and standard checklist requirements before proceeding to migrate your data, including databases and file systems.

Application Migration: Once the data migration is successfully completed and validated, migrate your software and applications to the cloud equivalent services. Continuously monitor and optimize system performance, validating key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure seamless operation.

Step-by-Step Optimization: Gradually maximize the benefits of the cloud environment, fine-tuning your infrastructure, applications, and overall system performance to align with your organization’s goals and objectives.

Final Validation: Validate the performance and functionality of your migrated systems, ensuring that all applications are running smoothly in the cloud environment. Monitor KPIs to measure and validate the success of your migration journey.

By following a comprehensive migration journey, organizations can achieve a successful and optimized cloud migration experience, maximizing the benefits of scalability, flexibility, security, and cost-efficiency.

Ready to Reach for the Cloud (& Beyond)?

On-premises systems are outdated. They’re expensive, costly, and limit your organization’s ability to collaborate.

The cloud offers many benefits – scalability, agility, cost-effectiveness, security, and lower maintenance costs. And in a world where we need quick access to our apps and data, cloud migration is the perfect solution to connect your enterprise whether you have global or local offices.

Your cloud journey can be seamless, especially with our cloud experts who can guide you from strategy to optimization (and even more!).

Ready to get started? Contact our team!

As the second quarter of 2023 comes to an end, a huge question on many of our minds is, “when will the recession happen?”

We first heard of a looming recession around July 2022 as interest rates rose and prices were increasing like crazy. Economists all around the world told us to prepare for a recession in 2023, but we’re halfway through the year and it hasn’t happened yet.

There are tons of conflicting indications that’s made predicting this recession difficult. In the case against it, U.S. retail sales grew 0.4% Y-o-Y in April 2023 showing consumers aren’t slowing down. And in May 2023, employment increased by 339,000 jobs.

However, inflation remains high, up 4.6% from 2022 and well above the Fed’s target of 2%. Interest rates also remain high leading to an increase in the cost of loans (like credit cards, mortgages, auto loans, etc.) – this means a reduction in disposable income, weighing on corporate earnings and stock prices.

What does all this mean for companies? What are the effects of a recession? How should businesses prepare for a recession? And how can businesses fare better after a recession?

Companies That Thrive – Smart Investments

After the Great Recession of 2008, economists and publications began coming out with analyses about how companies fared post-recession. Newer analyses began looking at companies that flourished after recessions, outperforming their competitors and increasing their earnings steadily as the economy recovered. The difference between companies that thrived versus companies that didn’t survive was preparation.

Companies that fared well after the recession focused on lowering debt prior to the recession, decentralized their decision-making, looked beyond heavy layoffs, and invested in technology. These focuses have one thing in common – operational efficiency.

How Technology Can Increase Operational Efficiency

Operational Efficiency is defined as “the ability of an organization to reduce waste in time, effort, and materials as much as possible, while still producing a high-quality service or product.” It essentially means that the input required (costs, employees, time) is minimal compared to the output made (like quality, revenue, customer retention, etc.). Focusing on operational efficiency rather than aggressive cost reduction can increase your likelihood of thriving post-recession.

One way companies have increased operational efficiency in previous recessions has been through investments in technology and digital transformation. Technology can help organizations be more transparent, flexible, and efficient.

Technology (like cloud technology) can provide advanced analytics to help management better understand the business, how the recession is affecting it, and where to improve operations – this leads to better business decisions. Technology can also automate tasks (like contract lifecycle management). And technology makes companies more agile without the high cost.

3 Technology Investments to Prepare for Uncertainty

There are tons of options when it comes to investing in technology for a resilient transformation! Here are three investments our experts recommend for businesses seeking to stay competitive in the marketplace.

1) Cloud Migration

Cloud migration can help solve challenges like high setup and operating costs, infrastructure inflexibility, and minimal security. Our team of cloud experts migrates your business applications and databases to the cloud safely and seamlessly. CloudMoyo is a Snowflake cloud solutions partner, and our engineers are also Microsoft Power BI experts.

Check out our on-demand cloud migration webinar here >>

2) Data Modernization

Data modernization transforms your data into complex data landscapes to unlock actionable insights for better business decisions. Our experts focus on data management and governance to create scalable, compliant, secure, and accurate processes. CloudMoyo provides end-to-end support including migration, building, and maintaining modern data platforms so you can extract valuable insights through analysis and prediction.

Explore our full suite of data solutions here >>

3) Architecture Advisory Services

A strong enterprise architecture is necessary to migrate to the cloud, build cloud-based applications, and connect disparate data sources to the latest technologies (like Azure). It keeps your business competitive in today’s technology-driven marketplace. From building architecture blueprints to creating integration strategies, our experts can modernize your legacy platforms for the 21st century and beyond.

Learn more about CloudMoyo’s Architecture Advisory Services in this on-demand webinar >>

Transforming with Resilience Despite Challenges

A recession doesn’t just mean surviving, it can lead to your organization thriving. With the right moves and the right decisions, like investing in the right technology, you can prepare your business to weather the uncertain macroeconomic outlook and bounce back as the economy begins to move.

Businesses that focus on operational efficiency for cost reduction fare better in the long run. Whether you improve operations with cloud migration, data modernization, or modernize your legacy apps and data platforms, the right partner will ensure you’re ready for whatever comes next.

CloudMoyo is a Microsoft Partner and a Snowflake cloud solution partner that wants to help you transform with resilience. Our teams of experts are ready to support you on your digital transformation journey and help you thrive in the coming years (and beyond!).

Ready to get started? Contact us >>

Since ChatGPT was released in November 2022, it’s become a phenomenon that’s swept the globe. You see content creators on social media using ChatGPT to build skincare routines or recommend makeup. It’s also been used to write social media copy, blog posts, and even lines of code.

With ChatGPT’s rising popularity, we also see criticism around the platform and artificial intelligence technology. Many have rising fears and ask the question – can ChatGPT reason? Can this platform give advice like humans do? Is AI coming for our jobs?

How ChatGPT Works

As we’ve previously mentioned in our Reasons to Use (& not use) ChatGPT, the platform is a language model powered by AI that mimics human conversations. It was developed by OpenAI and is a natural language processing (NLP) technology based on transformer architecture.

Some reasons people love the platform are its ability to reduce the time and effort of completing tasks, which could lead to cost savings as tasks are completed faster. It’s also relatively easy to use, quick, and free for users (though you can pay for ChatGPT Plus for additional benefits).

Though it can complete tasks like writing code or answering simple questions, the dataset used to train ChatGPT is limited to information only until 2021. Unlike search engines like Google or Bing, it cannot index web pages to help users find the information they’ve searched for. In fact, it doesn’t have the ability to search the internet at all.

And one of its biggest limitations? ChatGPT isn’t human.

Emotional Intelligence & the Human Touch

We’ve seen stories of people using ChatGPT to write full essays, articles, and social media content (and on the darker side, some plagiarism of others’ works). We’ve also seen articles about AI automating jobs – though we’ve seen technological revolution do this throughout history.

However, ChatGPT remains just technology. It’s built by humans, can generate human-like responses, and access a large amount of information. But in its current state, it doesn’t possess human common sense or background knowledge. As humans, we contextualize the world around us, and our day-to-day decisions are informed by the ever-changing context we perceive.

In that context also lie subtle emotional cues and complex emotional situations. While ChatGPT may give a seemingly empathetic response, it doesn’t have true emotional intelligence. For example, you may ask ChatGPT (or any AI tool) to write a customer service email for a potential data breach . The email generated may be robotic or cold. While you may ask ChatGPT to rewrite the email in nicer language, users on the other end receiving such an automated email may feel like there isn’t a human that cares about their data security. This could earn you the reputation of an unempathetic business.

Current State of AI

In its current state, artificial intelligence will likely not be taking our jobs, according to Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. He says, “though nobody has any data on the future…we can expect to see short-term disruption and uncertainty, followed by subsequent improvements.”

Think about the evolution of the college classroom. In the early 2000s, you may have seen students bringing notebooks to class to write notes, then heading to the library to do research for their papers. Personal computers were expensive, bulky, and inaccessible to the wider population. Cue to 2023 and you’ll see college classrooms filled with students taking notes on their laptops or even tablets. They no longer spend long hours in the library searching for the right books but instead use the power of the internet to find the materials needed for research. They can then write their papers in student lounges or at home.

It’s scary to think about the disruptions AI may cause in the long-term future and legislators around the globe are working on creating regulations to minimize its impact on society. However, AI may also be the key in allowing humans to refocus on our emotional quotient (EQ) – empathy, consideration, kindness, etc. Humans have something AI cannot replace – creativity. The rise of AI could be an opportunity to innovate further as we have time to be more curious and creative. AI can only work with the dataset it’s given, but it’s human originality and ingenuity that makes the world more interesting.

ChatGPT Is Not Human

To answer the question in this blog, it’s our opinion that no, ChatGPT cannot reason. While it may give human-like answers, it’s still a technology that can’t process the subtleties and nuances humans can decipher. It cannot innovate or create beyond the dataset used to train it. And it will not always be accurate in its answers.

We may see disruptions in the coming future, especially as the AI market increases. We also see countries passing legislation to meet challenges caused by new tech, broader gender and ethnic diversity in computer science graduates, and already an increase in AI job postings (like ai programmers!) in the United States.

There are many possibilities and futures with the rise of artificial intelligence platforms, and we can utilize them to our advantage like automating mundane tasks to make room for innovation and creativity (or even rest!).

Getting Started with AI

If you’re not sure where to start with AI, CloudMoyo is ready to help! Harness the power of AI/ML, unlock new efficiencies, and eliminate labor-intensive tasks with our artificial intelligence solutions.

Our AI/ML expertise includes predictive and prescriptive analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and natural language processing like sentiment analysis and contract redlining. Or you can start even more simply with a chatbot or ai chatbot!

Ready to pave the way for game-changing innovation? Get in touch with us here!

Have you ever wondered if there was one destination for all your business application needs? A place where you can look at multiple applications offered by a variety of vendors, compare them, and get directly in touch with the service providers?

Look no further than Microsoft AppSource! In this blog post, we’ll give you a comprehensive guide to Microsoft AppSource, its features, how it can help your business, and some of CloudMoyo’s services on AppSource that you’ll want to check out!

What is Microsoft AppSource?

Before we get into the details, here’s a quick introduction to Microsoft AppSource. In simple terms, it’s an online marketplace for business services and applications built on Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365, Power BI, and the Microsoft Power Platform. AppSource offers a wide range of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions that help businesses automate processes, analyze data, and increase productivity.

Sounds great, right? But how do you use it?

How to Use Microsoft AppSource

Using Microsoft App Source is easy! Just visit the website and start browsing through the various categories to find the applications that meet your business needs. Once you’ve identified the applications you want to use, you can either purchase them directly or try before buying. You can also get in touch with the service provider by contacting them to learn more about the service/application before purchasing it.

Benefits of Using Microsoft AppSource

One of the most significant advantages of using Microsoft AppSource is the ease of finding the right app for your business. AppSource provides a user-friendly interface that enables users to search and filter apps based on categories, industries, and Microsoft products. This makes it easy to find the perfect app for your business, regardless of its size or industry.

The apps on Microsoft AppSource are designed to integrate seamlessly with other Microsoft products, like Dynamics 365 and Power BI, creating a unified business ecosystem. By using apps from Microsoft AppSource, businesses can simplify and automate their workflows, which increases efficiency and saves time.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the key features of Microsoft AppSource:

1. A Wide Range of Business Applications: Microsoft AppSource offers a vast library of business applications covering various industries and use cases. These apps are built by Microsoft partners, who are experts in their respective fields, ensuring that the apps are tailored to the specific needs of each industry. For example, if your enterprise deals with healthcare or financial services – you can filter specific apps/services relevant to your industry. Additionally, you can also filter services based on categories such as AI, Machine Learning, Analytics, IoT, etc. Moreover, you can filter Microsoft Partners by solution type, designations, and diverse businesses with an environmental and social impact.
2. Microsoft Power Platform: The Microsoft Power Platform is a collection of tools and services that enable businesses to create custom applications and automate workflows. The platform includes Power BI, Power Apps, and Power Automate, which are all available on Microsoft AppSource.
3. Dynamics 365: Dynamics 365 is a suite of intelligent business applications that help organizations manage their finances, operations, sales, and customer service. With Dynamics 365 apps available on Microsoft AppSource, businesses can streamline their operations and provide better customer service.
4. Easy Integration: Microsoft AppSource apps are designed to integrate seamlessly with other Microsoft products, such as Azure and Power BI. This means that businesses can use these apps alongside their existing Microsoft products without worrying about compatibility issues.
5. Trustworthy Microsoft Partners: Microsoft partners are companies that build apps and services on the Microsoft platform. By using apps from Microsoft partners on AppSource, businesses can be confident that they are getting high-quality, reliable solutions that are tailored to their needs.

CloudMoyo’s AppSource Listings to Check Out!

At CloudMoyo, we offer a variety of services that can help you achieve your business goals. Let’s take a closer look at some of CloudMoyo’s services on Microsoft AppSource and how they can benefit your organization:

1. CloudMoyo Platform-Driven App Engineering: Migrating and scaling applications is risky and complicated, especially with dependencies between the app and the underlying operational data store, hardware, storage, and backing services. CloudMoyo Platform-Driven App Engineering Services solve these challenges by applying a platform and product mindset through technical skills and experience for engineering business applications. Our cloud-native apps are quick to deploy and easier to manage and upgrade.
2. Application Engineering: CloudMoyo Application Engineering Services bring end-to-end technology and expertise to your business. These services solve the lack of in-house know-how, inflexible apps, outdated interface design, and a lack of data security. We partner with you to accelerate application development, project delivery, and modernization of legacy applications to position your product strategically in the market.
3. Snowflake on Azure: Our Snowflake on Azure implementation solution is the perfect blend of running the Snowflake Data Warehouse on the Microsoft Azure platform. With this solution, you can utilize Microsoft-managed data centers to build, test, deploy, and manage services and applications, and choose from an array of cloud services to enable your workforce with the right tools and technologies. You benefit from a globally distributed team of Microsoft and Snowflake experts who can guide you on the right strategy for your data migration and platform modernization.P.S. We’re hosting a LIVE webinar on implementing Snowflake on Azure and its benefits for an enterprise. Join us to gain some expert insights and a complimentary 1:1 session with a consultant.
4. Data Platform Modernization: Our Data Platform Modernization solution was created to help enterprises manage huge volumes and variety of structured and unstructured data, and accelerate time-to-insight. We help you develop and execute a phased cloud migration strategy to optimize applications for the cloud and harness the power of data visualization and self-service BI to make informed decisions and drive business growth. You benefit from a long track record in data engineering and cloud technology, as we help your company build resilience through data modernization and democratization.
5. Cloud Migration: CloudMoyo’s Cloud Migration Services make your journey to a cloud infrastructure seamless. We take the headache out of managing applications and databases on-premise, solving challenges like operating costs, inflexible infrastructure updates, and minimal security against hacking, identity, and data theft. To meet your unique business requirements, we strategize your cloud migration with the guiding principles of the four ‘Rs’ – Rearchitect, Refactor, Rehost, and Rebuild.
6. App Modernization: CloudMoyo’s Application Modernization Services help you tap into the latest technology and frameworks for improved performance, scalability, and maintenance. We bring deep domain expertise in building and deploying applications to help you identify and solve challenges like high IT investment and operating costs, low app performance, lack of security, and the absence of integrations with legacy applications.

Whether you’re looking to enhance your analytics capabilities with Power BI, streamline your business processes with Dynamics 365, or create custom business applications with Power Apps, Microsoft AppSource has everything you need to achieve your business goals. And with CloudMoyo’s suite of services, rest assured you’re getting the expertise and support you need to succeed.

AppSource in a Nutshell

Microsoft App Source is a one-stop shop for businesses looking to purchase cloud-based applications that are tailored to their specific needs. With over 4,500 applications available, businesses can find the perfect solution to streamline their operations and improve efficiency. CloudMoyo’s innovative solutions for digital transformation can further enhance the benefits of using Microsoft App Source, making it a powerful tool for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve.

So, what are you waiting for? Head to CloudMoyo’s listings on Microsoft AppSource and discover the many ways you can transform your business with resilience.

For anything else, you know that our team of experts is just a call away.

What’s the difference between an integration platform and iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service)? Well, iPaaS isn’t an Apple product! Neither is an integration platform, but we’re sure you knew that.

All jokes aside, iPaaS and integration platforms make your life easier when it comes to connecting your disparate enterprise applications. They remove manual labor, improve data management, allow better connectivity across an enterprise, and increase agility.

Defining an Integration Platform

In more technical terms, an integration platform enables “independently designed applications, apps, and services to work together” (Gartner). It’s a platform that gives organizations the tools they need to connect their entire ecosystem from point-of-sale to customer service, from accounting to inventory.

Think of your integration platform as the home page of a clothing website. You land on the website and immediately see the latest sales or deals, with some images catching your eye immediately. You can click on that image to find products that are similar and more. However, the website still offers you the option to look at everything they offer by category.

Like the clothing website, an integration platform connects your enterprise ecosystem similarly to the way a shopping site connects you to all its products. How weird would it be to have to enter a completely new site to shop for a pair of pants versus a t-shirt? It would be very inefficient.

iPaaS versus Integration Platforms

To break things down further, iPaaS differs from an integration platform because it’s “a suite of cloud services enabling development, execution and governance of integration flows connecting any combination of on-premises and cloud-based processes, services, applications and data within individual or across multiple organizations” (Gartner).

Essentially, it’s a platform that allows enterprises to integrate on-premise applications (potentially built before the cloud became popular and secure) AND cloud data – both private and public. Large businesses especially hold lots of historical data that’s still useful for forecasting and making long-term business decisions.

iPaaS providers typically provide application servers and infrastructure data. They also help speed up the development of integration flows with pre-built connectors and offer centralized app management for a simpler solution.

But what about an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)?

An Enterprise Service Bus (or ESB) is like an integration platform. It’s an architectural pattern where a centralized software component performs integrations. While most modern ESBs can handle SaaS applications, they’re typically best used for legacy, on-premise, and internal applications. This means it can cost more (because you need an in-house team for maintenance and management), is less scalable, and has a harder time integrating with external B2B applications.

Basic Components and Capabilities of Integration Platforms

There are just a few things to look out for when it comes to choosing an integration platform or iPaaS provider. Some components of the platform should include:

1. API Integration & API Management –
   An API is an Application Programming Interface. It’s a set of defined rules that allow different applications to talk with each other and is the most common style of modern integration. APIs connect your day-to-day operations, saving employees time and breaking down siloes.
2. Data & Application Integration –
   Your integration platform should prevent siloes and keeping in mind data and application integration, a good platform should be able to synchronize and copy data across various applications. Going back to our online clothing store example, a new purchase from the website should automatically update inventory data if you’ve got an integration platform.
3. High-Speed Data Transfer –
   Having real-time data allows you to make better and faster business decisions because you’ve got the whole picture. You can respond to changing trends and the marketplace faster, and you can even forecast with more ease.
4. Security –
   Many organizations are rightfully nervous about security breaches, especially in the age of cloud computing. However, with an integration platform and iPaaS provider, your vendor is constantly managing the platform infrastructure. They provide authentication and verification procedures for all workflows and data flows.

CloudMoyo Integration Platform

With all these integration platforms and iPaaS vendors in the marketplace, CloudMoyo found that many of our clients needed to integrate their applications and data quickly, as well as simplify the whole integration process.

Our team of experts built the CloudMoyo Integrations Platform (CIP) to make choosing an integration provider easy. CIP is what we call a service accelerator meant to FastTrack™ the integration of two platforms. These platforms can be ERPs, CRMs, and even an organization’s custom applications!

How CloudMoyo Integration Platform Simplifies Enterprise Integrations

• Integration Workflow Authoring – easy-to-use, seamless authoring to define integration workflows. CIP defines this workflow so that applications are updated, and data is exchanged automatically.
• Component Modularization Approach – define each component as an Activity to modularize your integration workflow as a set of steps. For example, you run an online store that sells jewelry made to order. A customer orders their jewelry online, but instead of you manually updating your manufacturing unit via email, your website and manufacturing are integrated so a purchase order is automatically created from your customer and sent to the manufacturer. To build this workflow, a few steps need to be in place:
  • Data extraction: This module pulls new order data from your website and converts it into a format that can be used by the manufacturing system.
  • Inventory update: This module updates your inventory system with the new order data, ensuring that stock levels are accurate and up to date.
  • Shipping label creation: This module uses the order data to generate shipping labels, which are then printed automatically.
  • Notification: This module sends an email notification to the customer with their order details and tracking information once it’s ready.
  • These modules are a smaller set of steps in the larger workflow you’ll need to ultimately automate the shipping process. Each of these modules is designed to perform a specific function within the workflow and can be easily reused for different integrations as needed.By breaking down complex integration workflows into smaller, more manageable modules, users can improve the overall efficiency and maintainability of their integration solutions. This approach allows users to easily customize and extend their integration workflows to meet changing business requirements or support new systems and applications.

• Reusability – leverage and reuse predefined, existing workflows to rapid progress. These pre-existing workflows and connectors in CIP make it easy to use and FastTrack™ the integration process.
• Configuration and Expressions – define activity level configuration settings via expressions to enable dynamic processing. For example, you have an integration task that sends data from one system to another. You use activity-level configuration settings to specify things like the number of retries or the amount of time to wait before timing out. With expressions, you set these parameters dynamically based on real-time conditions.
• Transactional Processing View – captures the workflow instances to review/track point-in-time data elements. For example, you can use the transactional processing view to capture and review the data elements at each step in the workflow to track the status of an order.

Learn More About Enterprise Integration & CloudMoyo Integration Platform

Choosing the right partner for enterprise integrations is a big step, but our experts understand that every organization is different. From the way you store your data to the number of custom applications you’ve got, from your ways of defining data to understanding what workflows you need, we work with our customers to build tailor-made solutions.

Learn more about our portfolio of solutions here >>

And we invite you to learn more about integration platforms in our on-demand webinar, CloudMoyo Integration Platform: Integrate Your Systems, Empower Your Business! Our experts will share their knowledge on:

• Advantages of integration – why your systems should communicate
• Challenges of traditional itnegration
• Overview + benefits of the CloudMoyo Integration Platform (CMHub)
• Real-world customer success using CMHub

Register here >>

In the age before computers, you had libraries with professional librarians that had all the information on every single book in that library. Then came computers that could store terabytes of information about all the books, CDs, magazines, and music in the library, like where you could find it, if it was available, the author, etc. Today, you can check out e-books directly from the library and listen on your personal devices like phones or tablets, check the inventory of specific books and if they’re available at other branches, pay late fees, see what books you’ve got checked out, and so much more.

What is a Data Catalog?

Well, in the age of Big Data, Data Catalogs are like libraries. According to IBM, they’re a detailed inventory of all data assets in an organization, tracked using metadata; and they help professionals find the right data for the purpose they need. But a Data Catalog for enterprises would be like a national library system that allows you to view every single book in every single library across the country!

Data Catalog is important for organizations because data is being used to inform our business decisions in many ways. You need the right data to make the right decision, all while staying compliant with increasing rules and regulations like the GDPR.

It’s an integral part of your Data Governance strategy – the set of policies and procedures that ensures your organization’s data is accurate and handled properly when being entered, stored, modified, accessed, and deleted. Data Catalog helps various data stewards, data scientists, and/or chief data officers find and handle a company’s data.

Benefits of Using a Data Catalog

There are tons of reasons to use a Data Catalog for Master Data Management, but to name a few:

1. Understand data’s relevance with improved context – data inventory has all the information data citizens need like descriptions, additional comments, dates, etc.
2. Better operational efficiency – IT staff can spend time on their high-priority tasks while data users find the data they need
3. Improved data analytics – in the age of self-service BI, analysts have access to a company’s entire repertoire of datasets
4. Increased regulatory compliance – data catalog tools are continually enriching metadata of data assets, profiling them and automatically classifying & tagging them to specific regulations

What to Look for in a Data Catalog

Have we convinced you that you need a data catalog to manage your data? If we have, the next step is to figure out what you should look for in a Data Catalog (and in a partner who can help you build one!).

1. Search & data discovery – searching for your data should be easy using keywords and other business terms; searches should be ranked by relevance and/or use frequency (like looking for your favorite Netflix show!)
2. Connection to lots of data sources – metadata should be harvested from a variety of sources, even if they aren’t connected (like on-premise systems and cloud data warehouses)
3. Automation – manual tasks should be automated using artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques on the collected data
4. Integration with existing data governance programs – with your trusted data governance program in place, a data catalog should integrate seamlessly with tools you have in place like workflows or business glossaries

Democratize Your Data with CloudMoyo Data Modernization Services

With more than a decade of experience in the technology industry, CloudMoyo are trusted experts in guiding enterprises through legacy data modernization. We focus on data management and governance to create scalable, compliant, secure, and accurate processes. With end-to-end support from evaluation to action, we help clients migrate, build, and maintain modern data platforms and extract valuable insights through analysis and prediction.

We have expertise in enterprise data management, modern data warehousing, master data management, data migration & integration, big data & streaming, decision analytics, and more. Our experts have supported clients from a variety of industries modernize their data platforms:

• Leading Supply Chain Services Company Optimizes Data Flow
• Improved Performance of Engineering Consulting Firm by Connected Data Management Systems
• Cloud Data Architecture Establishes Readiness for Advanced Analytics & AI/ML Apps at Terracon

Building a Data Catalog that suits your organization’s needs can be easy with the right partner. Implementing a Data Catalog will benefit your entire organization – IT will have more time to work on higher-priority items, data users (technical and non-technical) can access the company’s entire data repertoire, chief data officers can ensure all teams are utilizing data in the compliant and correct way, and your business will have its best data to make the best business decisions.

Ready to build a secure, compliant, and efficient data catalog? Contact us to get started >>

Data is the fuel of the digital era and harnessing its power can ensure productivity and organizational success. Businesses have long struggled with inflexible storage capacities, high operational overhead, and other technical difficulties due to their legacy data stores. As a result, investing in a modern-day data warehouse offers multiple prospects of development to your enterprise.

Snowflake data warehouse is one of these solutions and is built for the cloud. You can leverage an end-to-end analytics technology stack, on-demand computing, and cost-effective Snowflake implementation. Snowflake data warehouse also gives you the freedom to execute an optimal cloud environment that yields advanced analytical data reports for higher visibility into your organizational data.

Moving to the cloud? Explore CloudMoyo’s Data Modernization services to tackle challenges of the traditional data stores and realize true data modernization.

Role of a Cloud Data Warehouse

More and more organizations are realizing it’s time to move to the cloud. When you shift your on-premises data warehouse to the cloud, your business processes become quicker, you lower administration and infrastructure costs, and you support diverse business use cases.

And one of the largest benefits of the cloud data warehouse is the elasticity to scale up or down, depending on your enterprise’s requirements. This offers you virtually unlimited storage to incorporate workloads and users.

A modern cloud data warehouse can help your enterprise propel insights from both structured and semi-structured data at new speeds while ensuring integrity and consistency. This offers you a competitive advantage over your industry rivals. You can boast improved performance metrics, a shorter time to roll out new business products, better security, and achieve uniformity and coherence across the entire organization with a cloud data warehouse.

In short, a cloud data warehouse streamlines business processes and boosts business values for enterprises.

What are the Key Differentiators of Snowflake Data Warehouse?

The Snowflake Data Warehouse solution integrates big data from diverse sources, processes it, and derives actionable advanced analytics and reports on demand.

Legacy data stores are developed in-house with the help of data engineering professionals who work with open-source software. An entire team of data engineers is required to build and maintain this type of data store. However, Snowflake on Azure stands out with its ready-to-use cloud-powered data warehouse. In 2020, Snowflake customers gained benefits worth $21 million over 3 years with the implementation of the Snowflake cloud platform.

Let’s look at what makes the Snowflake data warehouse a better option than your traditional data warehouse:

• 75% reduction in IT support and zero maintenance + administration trouble
• Leverage a unified native platform and establish a single source of truth for the entire organization
• Supports many data formats, such as XML, CSV, JSON, ORC, Avro, and Parquet.
• Snowflake Azure architecture is built over an SQL database engine + is designed for cloud
• Snowflake Virtual Database gives data access to external parties with flexibility to perform ad hoc queries without impacting companies’ production usages
• 50% escalated time-to-market, faster analytics, and business intelligence (BI) with the intuitive Power BI tools, Azure Analysis Services, and full ANSI-SQL language
• High concurrency support and near to unlimited scalability of data and business operations
• Tighter and more sustainable integrations with data protection via data encryption and dynamic data masking
• Realize performance at scale with auto-tuning and automatic parsing, query caching, and seamless cross-cloud replication of data
• Democratize access to data, reporting, and analytics with Snowflake business intelligence

CloudMoyo Expertise: Snowflake Data Warehouse on Azure

With deep domain expertise in cloud and analytics, CloudMoyo has delivered a robust modern data architecture solution with Snowflake data warehouse on Azure that houses a central data repository for deeper integrations, high-end analytics, and secure processes.

In one case, our customer, a major consulting engineering company, was struggling with data silos from an outdated technology infrastructure. The challenge was to align their data strategy with business goals and implement a data-driven culture.

The traditional data storage solution the customer had was an on-premises Oracle data warehouse. This data warehouse was inefficient in handling the unstructured or semi-structured data pouring in from various data sources. It didn’t allow the enterprise to gain insights into the data and thus, made the report-generating process challenging. The major problems the customer was experiencing were:

• Lack of valuable insights owing to traditional reporting and analytics tools
• No central repository for the entire organization
• Missing flexibility and scalability of the legacy data storage solution
• Lack of a unified view of data or a trusted source of data for the organization

Our experts migrated the company’s data from their older, on-premises Oracle data warehouse to Snowflake Data Warehouse on Azure. We employed a variety of tech and tools to curate the entire solution:

• Azure Data Factory V2 to extract data from core divisions
• Azure Analysis Services to mashup the client data into tabular, semantic data
• Azure Blob Storage to stage the unstructured and structured data
• Integrated the data between Azure Blob Storage and the Snowflake Data Warehouse on Azure with custom-built connectors
• Integrated Power BI for a seamless working experience

Our goal was to offer visibility into the customer’s data using the Snowflake Data Warehouse. The now-installed Snowflake on Azure cloud data warehouse boasts sophisticated BI and data visualization tools that provide actionable and dynamic analytics to the client’s workforce. The company now leverages an agile and scalable Snowflake Data Warehouse on the Azure solution that offers a single unified platform to view business performance.

You can read the full customer success story here >>

Building Modern Data Architecture with CloudMoyo Intelligent Data Services (IDS)

The digital era, characterized by growing requirements to manage large data volumes efficiently, calls for modern data architecture solutions that eliminate siloed data approaches, limited visibility into data, redundant data, and manual processes. CloudMoyo can empower your organization with cutting-edge, cloud-enabled Intelligent Data Services (IDS) to foster enhanced business values and growth.

Cloudmoyo utilizes a phased approach to employ data, cloud, and AI for deriving optimum business outcomes from automated business operations. Our technology experts help you enjoy a FastTrackToValue™ with AI, big data analytics, predictive analytics, and machine learning (ML). And using enablers like the Snowflake Azure architecture, we deliver a 360° enterprise-wide digital transformation.

Join our Upcoming Webinar: Unleash the Power of Snowflake on Azure

Want to learn more about Snowflake on Azure? Join our upcoming webinar on Tuesday, May 23rd at 10:00am PDT | 1:00pm EDT. Our experts will be sharing a wealth of knowledge about the powerful platform, and combining them to uncover advanced analytics for your organization.

Register here >>

Originally published Dec. 2, 2020; updated April 12, 2023

There’s no way you haven’t heard of ChatGPT yet, but if for some reason you haven’t, let’s catch you up!

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a language model powered by artificial intelligence that mimics human conversations. Developed by OpenAI, this natural language processing (NLP) technology is based on transformer architecture, a type of algorithm that predicts the next word in a series of words. It interacts in dialogue form and provides responses that appear surprisingly human. This language translation model also performs tasks like answering questions, providing information, and assisting with writing emails, essays, and even code!

Pretty amazing, right? But while ChatGPT offers many benefits, it also has its share of drawbacks. In this blog, we’ll explore the pros and cons of using ChatGPT to help you determine whether it’s right for your personal or organizational needs. Here’s a 1-minute summary:

Pros of Using ChatGPT

Reduced Time & Effort for Tasks

ChatGPT astounded the world by taking minutes to perform tasks that once took hours. Fear followed awe as writers and coders worried that AI would steal their jobs. We’re here to tell you that it won’t. Remember when personal computers first made their way to a traditional corporate office? The fear was, “Oh, our jobs are now replaced by a computer.” And while a computer could now do a lot of mundane tasks that required human intervention, it also gave people time to learn newer skills and carry out strategic tasks that can’t be performed by a computer or bot. Similarly, AI and ChatGPT function as supplemental AI tool that supports the day-to-day tasks of humans. Right from giving you 50+ content creation ideas and ready-to-run codes, ChatGPT can reduce the time and effort spent on tasks significantly, but it will never replace your individuality or voice.

Ease of Use

Hands down, one of the biggest pros of ChatGPT is its ease of use. You don’t need any training and can start using this technology by simply creating an account.

Speed & Efficiency

ChatGPT’s performance is quite amazing. It responds to questions almost instantaneously, making it an ideal tool for businesses that require speedy responses to customer inquiries (trust us, we’ve tried it, and the responses are almost always instant!). It’s also efficient as it can handle a large number of inquiries simultaneously.

Cost-Effective

The trial version of ChatGPT is open to the public and free of cost. The trial version is quite amazing as it offers impressive features. However, the paid version (ChatGPT Plus) comes with added benefits like:

1. Availability with high demand
2. Faster response speed
3. Priority access to new features

Personalization

One of the coolest things about ChatGPT is that it can be customized to reflect your brand’s voice and tone. For example, if you work in marketing and want to build content that resonates with your audience, you can give ChatGPT prompts like: keep the tone of the content young and engaging. ChatGPT will then build content with those specific instructions. This feature ensures that your audience has a consistent experience with your brand, which can help build trust and loyalty.

Analytics

Did you know ChatGPT can collect data on customer interactions and provide insights into customer behavior, preferences, and pain points? This information can help businesses improve their products and services and optimize their marketing strategies.

So, ChatGPT is pretty great, but ultimately – all that glitters is not gold. While ChatGPT might be the shiny new topic everyone’s talking about, it does come with some cons. Don’t get us wrong, we love the capabilities and use cases of AI and ChatGPT but like all technology, there’s always room for improvement. Here are some lesser-spoken cons of using ChatGPT.

Cons of Using ChatGPT:

Lack of Emotional Intelligence

While ChatGPT mimics human conversations and is designed to have human-like conversations (which it’s surprisingly good at) it still lacks the emotional intelligence that humans possess. This means that it may not be able to pick up on the subtleties of human communication or provide the same level of understanding a human consultant can. This is especially important when businesses today face ethical, behavioral, and sentimental challenges.

Limited Context & Knowledge

ChatGPT may struggle to understand the context of a person’s inquiry, which can result in irrelevant or incorrect responses. This can lead to frustration and dissatisfaction among people. Moreover, ChatGPT in the recent past has received criticism for giving misogynistic answers to certain questions. Since it picks up information from existing sources and is essentially a chatbot by design, it runs the risk of coming off as an insensitive technology. Not just that, the general lack of a diverse workforce in tech has led to racial bias in the past. From infrared technologies that are unable to detect people of color, to facial recognition systems that cannot distinguish people from the same race, there is much work to be done. Diversity in STEM and the tech industry is needed to create technologies that are sensitive and humane.

Security Risks

Data privacy and data security can be a few concerning issues when it comes to ChatGPT. It may pose security risks because it has access to sensitive customer data. If you’re a business using ChatGPT, you need to ensure that the ChatGPT system is secure and that your organization’s/customer’s data is protected against cyber-attacks.

Inexperience

ChatGPT is still in its developmental stages and is constantly learning. It requires a significant amount of time and instructions to function effectively. One also needs to spend some time understanding the platform to get the most out of it.

Technical Glitches

Like all technology, ChatGPT is not immune to glitches and errors. It doesn’t have an answer to every question. It can give you the wrong answer and sometimes you’re unable to use it when too many people are using it at the same time (this applies only to the free version). This can lead to breakdowns in communication and frustrations with people.

Striking the Balance Between AI & Humanity

So how do you choose? Is AI technology a bane of the future or a boon of today? Here’s what we think.

ChatGPT is a powerful tool that offers many benefits for businesses and individuals, including speed, ease of use, reduction in time and effort, efficiency, personalization, and analytics. However, it also has its share of drawbacks, including a lack of emotional intelligence, limited context and knowledge, security risks, training requirements, and technical glitches. The key to using any AI tool including ChatGPT, ChatGPT – 3.5, ChatGPT 4, and any other versions that are released is maintaining balance. A good balance between the latest AI technology and an expert human agent or consultant is the perfect recipe for success! While, Artificial Intelligence brings speed and efficiency, only a human can bring understanding and empathy to the table.

Where AI is Made Human

At CloudMoyo, we harness the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to unlock new efficiencies, eliminate labor-intensive tasks, and pave the way for game-changing innovation. Our unparalleled artificial intelligence and machine learning expertise have helped many businesses solve challenges. We leverage IoT (Internet of Things) for predictive maintenance while Natural Language Process (NLP) uses Sentimental Analysis. Our consultants help you on every step of your digital transformation journey. It’s the perfect balance of AI and human connection!

Connect with our experts and chat about anything you’d like – the possibilities of infusing AI into your business, any pain points, projects, or implementations. Or you can also connect with them for a quick coffee and get any other tech questions answered!

Data is flowing all around you. Texts you send go to satellites in space and then get shot down to the recipient’s device while various platforms store the date, time, and even location of where the text was sent. The phone towers you’re connected to allow your device to exchange data with other devices, tailoring ads and social media content to your surroundings. In the background of your laptops, software is running to track what applications are using the most energy and space on your device.

For all these pieces of data to be stored and saved smoothly, organizations need to build safe, secure, and scalable data architecture to manage the increasing amounts of data created around the world every single day.

What is Data Architecture?

According to CIO Magazine, Data Architecture can be defined as “the structure of an organization’s logical and physical data assets and data management resources.” Essentially, it’s part of an organization’s greater enterprise structure that includes data policies, rules, models, and governance – an important part of Master Data Management.

It’s the foundation that documents data assets, maps how data flows through systems, and provides the blueprint for managing data. Data architecture allows organizations to better understand data needs and align them to business requirements, develop data structures for longevity, improve data quality and consistency, and serve as the foundation for the company’s data strategy. This also improves an organization’s data lifecycle management.

The Importance of Strong Data Architecture

In its infancy, data architecture was simple. It was once mostly structured data from transaction processing systems stored in just a single database. This data was then processed using extract, transform, and load (ETL) processes for data integration.

Think of this process like baking a cookie – you gather all your various ingredients (extract); put those ingredients into a bowl, mix, shape, then bake (transform); you then cool the cookies and serve them on a tray for people to enjoy (load).

This process has become more complicated with the addition of unstructured and semi-structured data from big data technologies. Big Data Technologies have led to the adoption of data lakes in many data architectures, storing raw data in its native format instead of transforming it upfront. Sticking with our baking analogy, we’ve now got to take raw ingredients, like cacao, and make them into something usable, like chocolate chips for our cookies. It’s not as simple as gathering ingredients from your pantry, you’ve got to make ingredients from scratch that can then be used in the cookie recipe.

With rapid technological advancements come complications as legacy data systems can no longer support the data needs of the modern enterprise. An outdated system for enterprise data management can lead to duplicate data, high costs, and increased maintenance time. This makes data (especially big data) harder to consume and makes it more difficult to gain insights – insights that help organizations develop their business strategies.

Good data is an integral part of building your business strategy.

Components of Data Architecture

From a technical point of view, data architecture is “a conceptual infrastructure that’s described by a set of diagrams and documents.”  This framework maps out your data sources and formats, while the next layer focuses on storage and how the data will be processed (lake, warehouse, etc.). Next, the analytics layer aids in how the data will be further processed using data science tools (like AI/ML). The final layer is for the end-user where they can access what they need – like data visualization and reports.

Architecture Advisory Services and the Benefits of Consulting

Data architecture is just one part of the data modernization journey. In a nutshell, data modernization is moving your data from legacy databases to more modern databases for better business intelligence. It allows for data to be used in analysis everywhere within the organization and is a huge (and expensive) step for organizations to take on their digital transformation journey.

But organizations don’t have to jump right into modernizing their data management.

Data architecture advisory services (like that offered by CloudMoyo) are an easy first step in evaluating and figuring out the best way forward for your organization’s unique needs. A consultation with a data warehouse architect allows you to gauge the experience level of your potential partner, as well as understand their portfolio of solutions that may translate to your business needs. Benefits of consulting include:

1. Specialized advice and attention from experts – our experts have decades of experience in various technologies to guide you towards solutions that fit your business needs.
2. Identifying critical areas of improvement – with experience in various business environments, consulting teams have the necessary expertise to pinpoint areas of improvement in your enterprise infrastructure.
3. Increased security, software maintenance, and support – IT consulting teams typically have deep relationships and connections with large partners like Microsoft that offer greater security and software than on-premises resources.

Architecture Advising at CloudMoyo

CloudMoyo is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with more than a decade of experience in the digital transformation world. Our experts have experience in a variety of technologies like Microsoft Power Apps, Azure, Snowflake, and more to provide the best solution that fits your needs.

Our data architecture advising begins with a conversation about what your organization is seeking to transform, whether that’s transitioning to Salesforce or transforming your on-premises technology to the cloud. Depending on your current data structure and needs, our experts and business intelligence architects can offer different solutions to meet your goals.

One of our clients faced just this problem, wanting to improve their end-customer experience. Their current post-sales inquiries were being managed in their legacy Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that lacked many benefits of modern systems built in the cloud.

Our team of experts built a new data architecture that helped our client have centrally stored and updated data flowing bidirectionally. The project was deployed using Azure DevOps and helped provide uninterrupted service to our client’s end customers.

Read the rest of the story here >>

Modernize Your Data Architecture

Modern technology has made it easier than ever for companies to modernize their entire business infrastructure, allowing them to take advantage of cloud technologies to build a more cohesive system that spans across geographies.

Consulting and advisory services, like those offered by CloudMoyo, are like asking a professional chef how to make chocolate for raw cacao! We can guide you in the process of making that cacao into chocolate – the process of helping you understand what the best data architecture is for your organization.

Ready to put on your chef’s hat and get baking? Contact us for a consultation!

“Moving to the Cloud” has been trending in tech for years, especially in the last few in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations around the world are investing or have invested in moving their business to the cloud for increased flexibility as many work from home, reduced cost, and increased agility as they grow. We’re living in an era where public cloud spending will grow 20.7% to a total of $591.8bn in 2023 because of all the benefits the cloud provides, so now may be the time to consider moving from on-prem environments to keep up with the pace of technology.

Security

Security and privacy in the cloud has always been a huge question. Moving to the cloud means trusting your cloud provider in ensuring your confidential data, whether it’s yours or your customers’, follows compliance regulations and keeps your business safe. Cloud technology has made leaps and strides over the decades, with many cloud service providers placing great emphasis on the security of their platforms. For example, Microsoft Azure, the world’s most robust cloud platform, places a high tag on security. Its data platform tools are tightly coupled with Azure Active Directory (AAD) to provide authorization and data-level security, encryption of data in motion and at rest, enable IP restrictions, auditing, and threat detection. Azure presents the most comprehensive compliance coverage amongst cloud providers. It has more certifications than any other cloud provider and is an industry leader in customer advocacy and privacy protection with its unique data residency guarantees.

Economy

The cloud model lowers the barriers to entry, especially when it comes to cost, complexity, and lengthy time-to-value. Cloud pricing differs greatly compared to on-premises infrastructure. With on-prem, you have to take into consideration licensing, manpower, hardware, real estate, electricity, support cost, security, deployment cost, and depreciation. All this comes with a fixed capacity. With the cloud, you get to pay for what you use and can even vary the desired configuration and performance levels. And it isn’t just time and money – cloud deployment can also free up resources that would otherwise be dedicated to managing the new environment.

Transformation

Traditional data warehouses consist of data models, extract, transform, and load processes, and data governance, with BI tools sitting on top. Instead of doing things the old way (which includes structuring, ingesting, and analyzing) enterprise data warehouses flip the paradigm and ingest, analyze, and structure by utilizing the cloud, data lakes, and polyglot warehousing. Your data warehouse is not a single technology, but rather a collection of technologies.

Agility

Many departments within a business have started to use data analytics to justify spend, analyze performance, make better business decisions, and more. These departments need quick access to data to help inform their decisions and waiting for an IT team to provide data to analyze is unproductive. Cloud technologies, like Power BI, exist to remove the middleman, allowing various arms of your business to make decisions quicker. Power BI stores data in a data warehouse and then provides insights to the necessary parties. With an on-prem environment, deployment cycles are very long, you’d need to upgrade every 2-3 years, and data can get very messy.

Intersection with Big Data

Today, a single person creates roughly 1.7MB of data per second. Now imagine all those people working for companies around the world – how much data do you think is generated by organizations? Big data has empowered the world to tap any kind of unstructured data sources to gain insights. And cloud data warehousing is the bridge between structured data from legacy on-premises data warehouses and these newer, unstructured, big data sources.

Time to Move to the Cloud

On-premises workloads will only keep shifting to the cloud. In the days, months, and years to come, cloud data warehouses will replace on-premises data sources as the main source of decision support and business analytics. As you consider your cloud service provider, choose a platform and partner you can scale with as your business grows. Choose a partner that provides the right level of security, and who can transform your unstructured data into insights that will support your long-term business goals.

Azure SQL Data Warehouse, a cloud-based data warehouse hosted on Microsoft Azure is capable of processing massive volumes of data and can provide your business the speed & scale that it needs to manage enterprise data.

At CloudMoyo, we help you migrate your data platform to the Azure cloud, as well as help build customized solutions in Azure to make the most out of your data. To learn more, contact our team for a cloud consultation, or just to ask any questions you have about cloud migration!

Contact CloudMoyo >>

Originally Publish July 7, 2017; Updated February 23, 2023

Have you ever wondered if someone gets raises because they know someone, or if it’s ethical to accept gifts from vendors? Is it okay to allow someone to leave work early to volunteer in a place where they may solicit funds or donations for your workplace? These situations are sticky and fall under the term “conflict of interest.”

Conflict of interest (COI) is when someone’s interests (e.g., relationships, finances) may potentially impact their judgment in professional settings, both private and public. It’s when individuals make decisions that involve personal interests that directly conflict with their employers or business partners. Laws exist in the public sector like U.S. Code 208 that prohibit officers and employees of the U.S. Executive Branch from taking official actions against entities in which they (or their partners, organizations, children, etc.) may have financial interests. The EU has also made some attempts to provide regulations surrounding conflicts of interest like the Market Abuse Regulation.

But why does it matter?

Conflict of Interest and Compliance

Conflicts of interest can influence an employee’s decisions or actions in the performance of their duties. In most cases, they may seem small or innocuous, but they can negatively impact an organization’s reputation and future, and even have legal implications or hefty fines.

Conflicts of interest can be both actual or perceived and, in many cases, appearances are just as important as reality. For example, you’ve been promoted. Congrats! Now there’s an opening for your old position and you’ve chosen to fill it with a well-qualified candidate who also happens to be your cousin. Other employees may pose the question, “is this person qualified or were they hired as a favor?” This decision might appear suspicious and unethical, even if your cousin checked all the boxes and interviewed well. Their employment may then affect morale and culture, so it’s important that your cousin is transparent about their conflict of interest and that the conflict can be investigated through the proper channels.

Capturing Conflict of Interest Information

Richard P. Kusserow (for compliance.com) gives some insight into addressing and investigating COI like:

• Develop policies and procedures
• Require disclosure at onboarding
• Establish a system to manage and track COI

The entire process requires a lot of time and paperwork, along with trusted departments that must keep track of data and processes. Typically, new employees will be given disclosure documents at the beginning of their employment to fill out. These documents must then be sent to the proper approvers for review. If they’re approved, then the process is complete but if not, then documents must be escalated for further review. Keeping track of approved documents, where the documents are in the approval process, and storing these disclosures can be difficult – how many things have been lost to file cabinets or accidentally shredded?

However, as technology continues to evolve, we see many laborious processes being automated with various types of software to give time back to departments – like Human Resources – to focus on more pressing tasks.

Automating the Conflict of Interest Process

Tons of software exists to help make capturing COI information easy. This type of software can automate tagging of records, document resolutions, automate the disclosure routine, and capture insights into disclosure risk profiles with real-time reporting. From automated reminders to audit trails, COI software can truly transform the onboarding process to get employees into work faster, save HR departments time, and save organizations money in the long run.

How do you choose the right partner to automate the conflict of interest process? You’ll want to consider software scalability, cost-effectiveness, and oversight processes. You may also want to consider an organization’s experience and additional offerings beyond automating a single process for your organization.

As companies grow, they have more technical needs, whether it’s moving to the cloud, developing custom applications, or modernizing their data. Consider your company’s future needs and choose a partner who can go above and beyond in streamlining your business processes.

Case Study: CloudMoyo Streamlines Capturing Conflict of Interest Information

Our customer, a non-profit research center, sought to streamline their COI process. With this objective in mind, CloudMoyo experts created a custom application developed and deployed on AWS using PaaS services. This app allowed human resources teams to send conflict of interest disclosure forms to new and existing employess, triggering an automated workflow.

Want to know the full story? Download our case study here!

Compliance to Conclude

Compliance isn’t always the most exciting topic, but it’s incredibly important in ensuring your business thrives and is built to last. Conflict of interest is just one aspect of an organization’s overall compliance with federal and international regulations. It’s a significant risk area due to the repercussions organizations and/or employees face, whether it be hefty fines or employment termination. Disclosing conflicts of interest and being transparent could save your organization from reputational or financial harm.

However, maintaining your conflict of interest process doesn’t have to be difficult. Technology has allowed for the automation of labor-intensive business processes in ways that are secure and compliant with federal and/or international regulations.

If you’re ready to take the plunge into automating your conflict of interest process, make sure to choose the right partner! One who can go beyond automating a single business process, and truly walk with you on your digital transformation journey.

Ready to connect?

Check out more CloudMoyo resources here >>

A growing number of organizations are investing in advanced technologies to empower their business intelligence programs. There’s an industry-wide shift in the way we understand and utilize data today, and data visualization tools have a lot to do with it. Advanced data visualization tools offer a suite of sophisticated features along with data analytics capabilities, with Power BI among the most powerful tools available in the market. Power BI is enabling organizations to make time-sensitive decisions by providing actionable insights from enterprise data in a short time.

With Power BI, you can generate interactive visuals in reports and dashboards to understand relationships between parameters, capture the latest trends, and track projects or campaigns. One of the best practices to follow while using Power BI is to undertake some level of performance tuning for your reports. You may do this for a variety of reasons like Power BI received updated new features and you want to assess/enhance performance, or you encountered performance issues and want to identify bottlenecks.

There are tons of built-in features and open-source tools available to optimize the performance of your Power BI reports – to name a few:

DAX Studio

This tool writes, executes, and analyzes DAX queries in Power BI Designer, Power Pivot for Excel, and Analysis Services Tabular. Analyzing DAX queries can be helpful to understand the performance issues and to improve the writing of DAX queries. DAX Studio includes object browser, query editing and execution, formula and measure editing, syntax highlighting and formatting, integrated tracing, and query execution breakdown. Some of the features:

• Internally uses daxformatter.com, which allows users to keep DAX measures or columns formatted, making code easy to read
• Easily swaps the delimiter style for DAX expressions
• Integration with VertiPaq Analyzer 2.0 (preview feature)
• Connects with a variety of data sources (Fig. 1)
• Only calculates the time taken by the DAX query to generate results on Power BI; does not consider time required for loading visual and network processing.

One of the popular features is ‘Load Perf Data’ which allows DAX studio to import the JSON file from Power BI Performance Analyzer. Once the PowerBIPerformanceData.JSON file is imported, the PBI Performance pane in DAX displays all the queries captured by the Power BI Performance Analyzer. Figure 2 displays various components in the DAX Studio.

Performance Analyzer in Power BI Desktop

Performance Analyzer evaluates and displays the duration required for updating or refreshing Power BI visuals, helping the user identify which visual or element is impacting the performance of the report. Some of the features of Performance Analyzer are:

• Capability to record the user actions and log time for each activity which allows users find the bottleneck
• Collect and display real-time information related to performance
• Captures the duration time in milliseconds for each visual on the page which helps tune the performance of the report
• Each visual’s log information comprises of the duration to complete the following types of tasks: DAX query, visual display, and more
• Allows for saving the performance analyzer list generated by the tool in the JSON format using the ‘export’ option; compare operations after completing multiple required actions

Vertipaq Engine

Vertipaq Engine stores the data column-wise as opposed to the row-wise data storage in SQL databases. It uses internal algorithms to avoid duplicates in the columns which reduces the size of data and time to query. Some of the features include:

• Insights into queries, columns, and the size of the relationships which enables the user to document the model; analyzing the size of the table and columns is an important step in optimizing the data model for Power Pivot, Power BI, or Analysis Services Tabular
• Show the cardinality of columns in the table which helps identify areas in the model that take up space
• Provides a hierarchy list of all columns and size of the rows
• Provides many ‘dynamic management views’ to collect information about the memory used by a data model

Power BI Helper

Power BI Helper is a free tool available to the Power BI community to develop and enhance the performance of Power BI reports. It can help you to find all the details about DAX measures and all the expressions with syntax errors. Some capabilities:

• Allows hiding of tables from report view that are not used in any of the visuals
• Gives directional filters, inactive relationships, and modeling advice
• Shows list of tables and bookmarks, where the tables are being used, and if there are any filters used; also provides information on the measures that are not working
• Allows exporting data in the CSV file format regardless of the row count
• Provides information about all service objects like apps, gateways, data sources, and service configurations

Power BI Field Finder

This tool can be used alongside DAX Studio and Power BI Helper to draw a complete picture of your model and the report. However, it shows the areas where fields are used only in the visuals and filters, not in the relationships or measures. As a result, exercise caution before deleting any columns or measures, especially if your model is being used in other reports.

A typical report generated by Power BI Field Finder (Figure 3) consists of multiple tabs where each tab gives results related to columns, measures, and page details. It shows you how often each column or measure is used on each page. You can investigate each column from the table to see each visual on the page and even take your investigation further to check out where the columns and measures are used in sections of the visual.

Using Power BI Analyzer Tools

Bottlenecks that lead to slow performance are difficult to find for professionals generating Power BI reports. It’s especially difficult to find the exact area of the bottleneck that requires attention.

Designing reports isn’t the simplest part of using Power BI – there are multiple factors that affect optimal performance that need to be investigated. But with tools like Vertipaq Engine, DAX Studio, and more, users can more easily identify the source of performance issues at a more granular level.

Which of these tools do you want to explore or have more questions about?

Let us know or connect with one of our experts if you’ve got any more questions!

Want to read more Power BI and Digital Transformation content? Check out CloudMoyo’s resources here >>

Originally Published 03/27/2020, Updated 02/11/2023

By Vishnuvardhan N, Analytics team CloudMoyo

The pandemic of 2020 pushed all businesses to go digital. It also motivated the tech industry to innovate better solutions that can adapt to quick-changing demands and circumstances.

2022 was a year full of technological advancements. The Metaverse and Artificial Intelligence tools became the talk of the town; people tested the limitations of low-code/no-code to realize its endless potential; Contract Management Services, too, proved to make the contracting processes seamless and efficient. But what lies ahead for them in 2023 and beyond? Let’s find out!

1) Contract Intelligence

Contract Intelligence is the next-generation approach in Contract Lifecycle Management. Contract Intelligence enables sales, procurement, legal, and many other departments across an enterprise to obtain a 360-degree view of contracts that helps track commitments, eliminate risk, and optimize revenue in the most efficient way possible.

Contract intelligence has become a promising and must-have technology for some enterprises as it provides holistic visibility into partner, reseller, and distributor relationships. It also provides information for every stage of the contract, as well as contract agreements; clarifies inter-party obligations; promotes frictionless trade; and enhances business transparency for all stakeholders.

Hence, it is no surprise that the global Contract Intelligence market is projected to rise considerably between 2022 and 2028.

2) Predictive Analytics

In the recent past, businesses have started demanding specific types of analytics, rapidly shaping the analytics market. The most in-demand type of analytics can be divided into four categories based on purpose and order of complexity:

• Descriptive analytics – Describes who or what happened
• Diagnostic analytics – Explains why or the cause behind why something could have happened
• Predictive analytics – Suggests what can happen in the future
• Prescriptive analytics – Makes recommendations about what should be done

Out of the 4 segments of analytics, predictive analytics is the most popular as it has the highest CAGR according to Allied Market Research. The study also suggests that the demand for predictive analytics is followed by descriptive and prescriptive analytics. Most companies may not have a demand for diagnostic analytics as the ability to interpret data is the role of the concerned leader.

AI is said to play a key role in the forthcoming years when it comes to predictive analytics. Infusing AI into business operations and applications to make educated speculations and provide better customer experience is expected to continue growing in 2023.

3) Data Warehouse Modernization

Data warehouse modernization is predicted to grow exponentially to solve the challenges presented by big data. Total data center IP traffic hit 20.6 zettabytes in 2021 – this helps puts things in perspective when it comes to understanding how gigantic the challenges faced by big data are.

To meet these challenges directly, BI vendors will continue advancing their warehousing tools and systems as businesses are starting to pay close attention to their needs and their organization’s data infrastructure.

Apart from this, further integrations of machine learning algorithms can be seen in BI processes. Features powered by AI can manage exhausting warehousing processes – primarily for predictive and descriptive analytics. Time-consuming tasks like rendering historical data, data benchmarking, simulations of numerous scenarios, and forecast modeling can be handed over completely to machine learning. With this time saved, talent in organizations can focus on tasks that require creativity, collaboration, and mainly the process that requires diagnostic and prescriptive analytics.

4) Low-Code/No-Code

Gartner predicts that the global market for low-code technologies will grow by 20% from 2022 and reach $26.9 billion in 2023. The analysts also agree that by 2023-2024 almost 70% of all corporate software will be built using low-code technologies.

The advantages and simplicity of low-code/no-code have made it not just a trend but also a very real and tangible future for enterprises – especially in the IT industry. The combination of simplicity and unlimited potential has led to and will continue to make advancements in the areas of:

• Cloud Technology
• Web 3.0 Development
• Artificial Intelligence

The CloudMoyo Advantage

Now that we know these technological trends are bound to stir up the market in the forthcoming years, one might want to consider incorporating them into their business functions to scale and grow in 2023.

However, it’s not always easy to know which platform, software, and/or solution will be best suited for your business. With so many options, vendors, and so much industry jargon – one can easily feel overwhelmed.

We get it! That’s where CloudMoyo can help you.

Our experts utilize years of industry expertise and our strategic bouquet of solutions to accelerate digital transformations, modernize your business, and drive organization-wide growth. Our consultants will take the time to understand the challenges your business is currently facing and customize a solution that is unique to you to propel organizational growth. We ensure our solutions are efficient, scalable, and most importantly aligned with your business objectives.

CloudMoyo has expertise in:

• Contract Lifecycle Management and Contract Intelligence
• Low-code/No-code and App Engineering & Integration
• Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, and Natural Language Processing
• Data Management and Governance, Data Engineering, and Data Analytics

We have helped scale multiple enterprises in the past with solutions in the aforementioned areas. Here are just a few of our many customer success stories:

1. A Multinational Packaging Solutions Company Boosts Contract Governance with CloudMoyo
2. CloudMoyo improved the performance of an engineering consulting firm by connecting their data management systems
3. CloudMoyo streamlines capturing Conflict of Interest information for new employees at a Non-profit Research Center – CloudMoyo

Starting your digital transformation journey can be confusing and overwhelming. But we’re here to assist you every step of the way. All you’ve got to do is – take the first step!

Marc Benioff (Chair, Co-CEO, and Co-Founder of Salesforce) once said, “If someone asks me what cloud computing is, I try not to get bogged down with definitions. I tell them that, simply put, cloud computing is a better way to run your business.” Regardless of the size and the industry type, companies from all around the world are transitioning to the cloud. The reason is simple – the on-premises environment is traditional and has many inefficiencies. The hardware is more expensive and difficult to maintain. Now, how can the cloud solve this and what are the other reasons for its worldwide acceptance? To understand this, let’s go over the fundamental difference between the cloud and on-premises.

Fundamentals of the Cloud vs. On-Premises Environments

Every organization uses multiple applications to achieve day-to-day business objectives. Such applications are critical to organizations as they lie at the center of the core business. For example, a healthcare organization uses applications for patient bookings and practitioner availability, a department store uses billing applications to generate purchase bills and transactions, and a travel company uses applications to manage flight and stay bookings for their customers. The applications are used extensively throughout the life of the business. Keeping these applications up and consistently running in every region of the business is crucial.

On-Premises Environment

If an organization were to maintain its applications and data generated through its on-premises data centers, the organization would have to build and maintain its stack of physical space, power, internet, hardware, operating system, patches, frameworks, etc. This stack is called an IT stack. Maintaining an IT stack in the corporate location would result in maintenance costs, resource allocation, increased complexity, and less agility. Add to this list the trouble of maintaining both physical and virtual security.

Cloud

On the other hand, if an organization chooses to deploy its applications on the cloud, they’re essentially using the infrastructure of best-in-class Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) on a pay-per-use arrangement. This provides better elasticity, scalability, availability, and standard data security, eliminating the organization from allocating its resources to maintenance, security, and space.

Let’s take electric power as an analogy for the cloud versus on-premises (sometimes called on-prem). In the late 1800s, electricity for factories was pulled from power plants that were locally installed near each factory. However, in the early 1900s, larger power plants were installed to power larger electric grids to supply electricity to large regions. This resulted in the democratization of an important commodity and allowed factories to focus solely on manufacturing operations without having to worry about the source of energy.

Optimizing Human Resource Processes with the Cloud

Every business has an internal entity responsible for managing people – the human resources department. As part of their responsibilities, HR carries out multiple processes for an organization like hiring, recruiting, training, vetting employees, checking employment history, etc. HR uses various applications including Human Resource Management System (HRMS), Employee Onboarding apps, Performance Review apps, and more to carry out such processes. Deploying these applications on the cloud brings several benefits:

1. Cutting Down Costs: As is the case with all applications, running HRMS apps on-prem would require the setup of an IT stack at the office location, training staff members, and making provisions to protect employee data. The cost in this case is higher. Subscribing to a cloud service would give a fixed monthly, quarterly, or annual cost depending on the payment plan – which is usually more affordable.
2. Increased Mobility: Most companies have their corporate location in multiple regions. Moreover, ever since the outbreak of Covid-19, employees have been working from around the globe. Since quick access to data from the cloud only requires a strong internet connection, this makes it a viable choice for HR who frequently require access to personnel records like attendance, payroll, employee performance, employment history, etc. Cloud enables quick and disruption-free access. With the application on the cloud, one can leverage the speed and convenience of an on-premises app from anywhere.
3. Quick Scalability: Even with the most data-driven predictions, it’s often difficult to anticipate the size of the team and subsequently, the load of data that will be flowing in. It’s wiser to use a system that’s flexible to provide resources as per demand. This way you don’t have to worry about the infrastructure’s flexibility and only pay for the resources you’re using.
4. Quicker Turnaround Time for Processes: Following up on emails isn’t the most interesting thing to do. And who better than the HR department to vouch for that? Cloud helps deploy applications that can automate workflows easily. Cloud gives HR the ability to trigger workflows that can get work done faster and with less manual effort.
5. Leverage Supreme Data Security Provisions: Most companies trust on-prem systems for protecting employee data. However, data security provided by well-known and reliable CSPs offers world-class security provisions. Most CSPs provide multi-layered security, including monitoring activities in the cloud, network security, internet security, user training, device protection, and quick recovery provisions. This approach involves protecting data from threats originating from all sources. The teams responsible for protecting the data are experts in cybersecurity with decades of experience.

Data Security in the Cloud

Even though most CSPs offer impenetrable data security, HR departments are hesitant to move employee data to the cloud because of the reservations they have about exporting data to a third party – a valid concern given the nature of the data. The importance of keeping employee data safe and secure cannot be overstated. This data is extremely personal and keeping it safe is the HR department’s highest priority. So which system is more capable of keeping such data safe? The answer isn’t that simple. Both systems are vulnerable to cyber threats. However, it’s important to explore the reality of data security in both on-prem and the cloud.

On-Premises Data Security

Having the entire cybersecurity infrastructure set up in-house makes companies feel that they have more control over data security. If the data collected is never shared with a third-party organization, then the chances of a data breach are reduced by default. However, the organization would be required to set up protocols for accessibility, install security patches, and allocate resources within their IT team that’s capable of fighting against hackers and cyberattacks. Since on-premises security has been around for quite some time, cybercriminals are more familiar with the technology used and find it easier to penetrate the systems.

Cloud Data Security

While outsourcing the objective of data security to the CSP’s remote location may seem risky, it can be a recommended choice if the CSP protects the data with industry-standard encryption, follows appropriate policies and processes, and uses the right technologies to protect the cloud environment from cyber-attacks. If you consider a reliable CSP like Microsoft, their security provisions include secure network infrastructure, secure hardware and firmware, and constant testing and monitoring of the entire infrastructure.

So, Cloud or On-Prem?

While deciding whether to transition to the cloud, it’s important to consider the cost involved with both systems. On-premises can be more cost-effective for small businesses that have an expert IT team dedicated to keeping servers up and running. However, for most businesses, even though the monthly fees associated with the cloud can seem high in the beginning, it’s more affordable once you factor in the cost of hardware maintenance and dedicated internal resources. Cloud gives a clearer picture of the associated upfront cost and better ROI in comparison to on-prem. This raises an important question for businesses still running their applications on-premises – why pay more for less?

And it’s not just the cost. Cloud vs on-premises isn’t a fair comparison. Cloud is the winner. Cloud’s ability to stretch resources per demand makes it more scalable. Its agile nature makes it more adaptive to changing customer needs. It has a simple structure of payment and is a cheaper option compared to on-premises. If you’re careful while selecting your Cloud Service Provider, you can leverage impeccable data security keeping you away from the risk of data breaches. If you work in the HR department, all these features can give you greater accessibility to employee data and a quicker turnaround time for various processes. While you’re working hard to create an efficient work environment at your organization, the cloud can be the deciding factor that your efforts need to make that happen. Cloud truly is “a better way to do business.”

Working with CloudMoyo

Even though the cloud has enormous potential to impact your business, transitioning to the cloud is a complex process for any organization. From choosing the right Cloud Service Provider to planning a long-term cloud roadmap, it can easily get overwhelming. CloudMoyo experts have 10+ years of experience in Azure application development. We’re a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and utilize Azure cloud and data democratization expertise to help transform complex data landscapes and deliver actionable insights.

Founded in 2015, CloudMoyo is a US-based technology and services company that empowers its clients to transform with resilience and realize their digital strategies. CloudMoyo stands at the intersection of cloud and AI, with deep expertise in cloud migration, application development, data management, data analytics, and contract intelligence.

Connect with us today to get started on your cloud journey!

Did you know that the concept of contracts was originally invented 5000 years ago when business contracts were engraved on clay tablets? Today, contracts are used all over the world across all industries and even in our interpersonal lives! From signing job contracts to purchasing homes, they’ve become an integral part of accountability and the exchange of goods and services.

Sellers provide a service for which the buyers pay. They create a contract, sign it, comply with the terms and conditions, then it’s happily ever after. Or is it?

An average Fortune 2000 company will have about 20,000 – 40,000 contracts created and executed, out of which nearly 10% either go missing or get stored locally in the drives of employees across various departments. A huge amount of money, time, and effort is poured into trying to recreate contracts or search for old ones. This poor contract management results in lower efficiency and therefore lower profitability. Moreover, the lack of visibility into the changes made in contracts and the terminologies during drafting and negotiations creates a gap for future disagreements. The go-to solution is using Contract Lifecycle Management software. But before we dive into that, let’s answer the following question:

What is Contract Lifecycle Management?

Contract Lifecycle Management (or CLM for short) is the management of an organization’s contracts from drafting through reviewing, approval, signing, and compliance. It’s the involvement of parties to carry out these stages effectively and with utmost visibility. A contract lifecycle is comprised of the following stages:

1. Requests: This is the initial stage where one party will “request” the commencement of drafting the contract. It highlights the initial information such as dates, obstacles, etc.
2. Authoring: This includes the “writing” of terms, conditions, clauses, and other information about the parties involved relating to the given agreement.
3. Negotiations & Approvals: The approvers & lawyers from both parties will review every bit of information in the contract including the terms, conditions & clauses. Disagreements or errors are negotiated, and once that’s completed, the argued changes are made, then the contract is moved for approval.
4. Signing: The respective parties sign the documents either digitally or physically.
5. Acknowledgment and Storage: All parties acknowledge their responsibilities, deadlines, and deliverables. The contract is then stored in an accessible digital location.
6. Compliance: The contractual obligations during the mentioned term period are observed and adhered to by the parties concerned. This safeguards them from disagreements, incessant operational friction, and untimely transaction of deliverables and payments.
7. Renewal: Once the term period of the contract ends, the terms and offers of the contract are reviewed, evaluated, and amended to make for a more suitable contract.

Where Does Contract Lifecycle Management Take Place?

CLM takes place in any organization that manages contracts. Various types of contracts exist in all types of industries – buy-side, sell-side, distribution, employment, and licensing partner (among many others). All companies, independent of size or industry, require centralized storage of legacy contracts and convenient ways of creating new contracts which makes up for a coherent CLM process. Although it’s primarily driven by legal teams, CLM is not restricted to specific departments and involves multiple participants across various parts of companies.

Common Challenges with Contract Lifecycle Management

Before diving into challenges, let’s take “George’s” example. George is working in the legal department of a multinational organization that’s running multiple projects simultaneously. The organization has thousands of buy-side and sell-side contracts. Each of these contracts is shared locally in the drives of the stakeholders. If George wanted to access any of these contracts for review or compliance, he wouldn’t know where to start.

If George had to create a new contract from scratch with the input, review, and approval of his fellow colleagues, it would take forever to assign responsibilities and keep the status of contract creation visible to all the stakeholders.

Let’s assume that the contract was created successfully and is now sent to the other party for execution. The other party makes a change in the language and sends it back. How would George track that deviation even if there were no changes and the contract was signed successfully? How would he keep track of compliance? The hassle only gets multiplied by the number of contracts to manage. Contracting is a process designed to ensure compliance and inefficient CLM interferes with the goal. The most common challenges with CLM are:

• High volume of contracts to be executed
• Contracts stored locally across departments or individuals
• Discrepancies in contract templates used by various individuals of an organization
• Unstructured and undefined workflow from creating contracts to executing
• Too many manual reminders and follow-ups required to get reviews and approvals on time
• Setting up manual reminders for contract expiry/renewal
• Inability to pull insights from contract data

The Future of Contract Lifecycle Management

In a sentence, the future of CLM is CLM software. With organizations opting for digitalization and automation of labor-intensive processes, CLM is not left off the list. CLM can be easily optimized using AI-based platforms like the Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) platform which covers the entire process of contract authoring, approvals, negotiations, and all other segments included in the lifecycle. The platform provides immense value at the post-signing stage of contracts too by giving complete visibility to the parties involved with a record of the entire contract journey, leaving no stone unturned for compliance. It has the capability to handle large volumes of contracts while ensuring the efficient execution of every single contract. CLM platforms are the future of Contract Lifecycle Management and are already being implemented in many organizations today.

So, are contract lifecycle management platforms a standalone solution? No.

CLM platforms can be complex to operate and require the end-user to be trained. Additionally, when most organizations transition to the platform, the existing contracts are scattered in the local drives of individuals/departments and need to be migrated into the platform. This legacy migration is both the most difficult and crucial part of the transition. It requires thorough analysis, planning, and execution. Any organization that’s ready for CLM optimization with CLM software needs to make an investment in both – the platform and a dedicated + capable implementation partner.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

As a business owner or end-user, you’re probably doing your best to maintain compliance, have a faster execution of new contracts, and control access to contracts among various departments or individuals. However, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself:

• How efficiently are you managing your contracts?
• Is your method error-proof?
• How many resources are you allocating just for simple tasks that can be easily automated?
• How aware are you of the existence and details of all your contracts?
• And most importantly, could you do better?

As dramatic as it may sound, CLM software and the proficiency to use it best is the future. It answers most of the questions an end-user has about their current practice of managing contracts. Efficient CLM helps organizations build stronger relationships based on impervious compliance.

Want to chat about your contract management process and challenges? Connect with our experts!

According to research by Gartner, nearly three-quarters of new apps will be created using low-code or no-code technologies by the year 2025. This means that you don’t need specialized coders or IT teams to build apps to serve your organization!

Application development (or app dev) is a go-to solution to solve many business challenges. However, not every business has an application suite that meets all the necessary requirements – businesses need custom apps. But the pressure to build these customized apps falls on the shoulders of IT resources that might not have the time nor skills to execute, especially within restricted timelines.

However, from the stakeholder’s point of view, the business cannot afford the months of effort it usually takes to build apps. Factoring in cost, app development starts to seem more of a hassle than a solution.

Low-code/no-code is our hero, simplifying app development and allowing the end-user to take app development into their own hands. It is the visual (not textual) way of app development which includes drag-and-drop features, pre-built connectors, and other smart components. It empowers business owners without expertise in coding and people from domains outside of IT to easily create business apps faster, without splurging heavily as one might the conventional way. On average, more than 40% of employees outside of the IT industry customize or build technology solutions.

Benefits of Low-Code/No-Code App Development

According to a Microsoft survey, using no-code or low-code has had a positive impact of nearly 80% on work satisfaction and workload by users. Gone are the days when organizations would need only pro developers to create business applications to solve the company’s business challenges. App development has been democratized with the introduction of low-code app development platforms such as Microsoft Power Platform. Low-code app dev has several advantages for the developer compared to traditional heavily coded apps including:

• 50-90% time reduction to create apps
• Elimination of technical complexities and the need to allocate skilled resources for app dev
• Lower spend on skilled IT developers
• Functionality on mobile, desktop, and browser
• Automation of labor-intensive business processes
• Flexibility, allowing for quick adoption of the solution
• Freedom to create business capabilities to focus on business objectives

Most stakeholders are citizen developers. They understand their business requirements perfectly but have little to no expertise in coding to create an app to fulfill those requirements. In such circumstances, the simplest solution is low-code technology that can give quicker results without going through the hassle of outsourcing to scarce and expensive IT resources. Given the need and effectiveness of low-code, the market today offers several tools that can help a citizen developer to create custom apps including Microsoft Power Apps, Wix Editor X, DW Kit, Mendix, and more.

There are many factors to consider while choosing the right platform – security, compliance, cost, usage, and even scalability. Microsoft is one of the oldest and most reliable contenders in this space and it’ll check most of the boxes in your set of requirements. If you’re looking to get started with custom app dev, Microsoft Power Apps are worth considering.

Learn more about the whole spectrum of Microsoft Power Platform here!

Power Apps? What’s That?

Power Apps is a Microsoft service that’s a part of Microsoft’s Power platform. Through Power Apps, “everyone can quickly build and share low-code apps.” Even though it’s accessible to everyone, Power Apps can only be used to create business apps, not consumer apps rolled out on Play Store or App Store. There are three types of Power apps:

• Canvas: Start as you would with a blank canvas. You can drag and drop elements onto the canvas to design your app. Feel free to position and/or format those elements to create a user interface best suited for your business. Once that’s complete, connect it to multiple data sources using simple formulas (like those used for Excel). Canvas apps are easy to use and are built creatively by anyone with a rudimentary technical understanding.
• Model-Driven: These types of apps have a data-first approach, pull data from Microsoft Dataverse, and offer much less customization to the user interface as compared to canvas apps. Microsoft Dataverse is a cloud-based repository connected to business applications that may or may not have organized data-making model-driven apps more suited for developers having scattered data over multiple sources. With model-driven apps, you can add components like dashboards, charts, and forms to your app quickly.
• Portals: These apps also pull data from Microsoft Dataverse but are customer-facing apps created for purposes like raising a ticket or getting a status of a request.

Other Low-Code/No-Code Tools

Microsoft Power Apps is the strongest contender among all low-code platforms and indeed a powerful tool that enables process automation while keeping intact the security one would expect from a Microsoft platform. Apart from Power Apps, here are some of the most common low-code tools:

• DWkit
• Google AppSheet
• Looker 7
• Mendix
• OutSystems
• Robocoder Rintagi
• Salesforce Lightning
• Temenos (formerly Kony)
• Wix Editor X
• Yellowfin 9
• Zoho Creator

Transform the Smarter Way

More than 80% of enterprises have picked low-code platforms to reduce stress on IT resources and enhance speed-to-market. With the number of advantages low-code/no-code has to offer, it’s safe to say it isn’t just the future of app dev – it’s the present. However, like any other innovation, it has its limitations (reduced flexibility, dependability of platforms to mitigate risk, vendor lock-in, etc.). But if a quick, smart, dependable, and cost-effective app is what your business needs, low-code/no-code app development is just the thing!

Ready to get started with low-code/no-code application development? Connect with us!

The world is driven by technology from our smartphones to our smart cars. Each person, on average produces 1.7 MB of data per second, and technology allows us to capture that data to derive business value through digital transformation. As digital transformation continues to be a focal point for enterprises across industries, technologies like Contract Lifecycle Management are at the forefront. Did you know:

• Organizations using contract intelligence platforms have realized a 40% reduction in contract administrative cost and a 70% improvement in overall contracting cycle time
• Organizations using contract intelligence platforms cut contract creation from 70 steps to 15

Icertis, the leader in contract lifecycle management (CLM), pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with CLM through its unmatched technology and category-defining innovation. The AI-powered, analyst-validated Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) platform turns contracts from static documents into a strategic advantage by structuring and connecting the critical contract information that defines how an organization runs. Today, the world’s most iconic brands and disruptive innovators trust Icertis to govern the rights and commitments in their 10 million+ contracts worth more than $1 trillion, in 40+ languages and 90+ countries.

Founded in 2015 from the need of an implementation partner, CloudMoyo is the first and most experienced Icertis partner for ICI implementation with 120+ ICI implementations. Passionate about enabling digital transformation, their Icertis Center of Excellence accelerates ICI implementation and value realization, providing a full range of expertise to address all needs, requirements, and opportunities across the CLM journey. CloudMoyo was announced as the Partner of the Year – FORTE Values in the 2021 Icertis Partner of the Year Awards.

With a strong foundation, the partnership between CloudMoyo and Icertis allows customers to accelerate their contract lifecycle management (CLM) processes.

Maximize ICI Value

The CloudMoyo Advantage goes beyond experience and expertise. CloudMoyo engineers can help transform your contracts into strategic business assets with the ICI Adoption and Value Acceleration (AVA) Framework. Organizations can go beyond adoption and move towards complete digital transformation with integrated data warehouses, ICI data-powered dashboards using Power BI, predictive analytics, and a scalable data infrastructure.

With AVA, your company gets full access to the scope of our expertise to address needs encountered on your CLM journey. The AVA framework:

• Covers lifecycle stages with on-site workshops and discussions to address concerns and questions
• Ensures successful end-user adoption and ICI administration through custom trainings and regular demos of all workflows
• Extracts breakthrough insights to create visual data for easy reporting
• Trains admins to handle common questions and change requests to quickly meet business requirements
• Frees up legal, IT, and PMO resources for more pressing tasks and projects

CloudMoyo goes beyond the initial framework, providing not only end-to-end ICI implementation across the contract lifecycle but also with ICI applications built in the Microsoft Power platform. The applications have helped customers address specific business requirements, getting even more from their investment in the Icertis Contract Intelligence Platform. CloudMoyo engineers also have expertise in ICI integrations with Salesforce CRM, Workday, and SAP.

End-to-end ICI implementation across the contract lifecycle includes creation through renewal through archiving. Experts not only manage projects and configure the ICI platform, but work on engineering, integration, legacy contract migration, and training for all customers.

Accelerate Contract Management

Contract Lifecycle Management is different for each organization. With CloudMoyo, organizations not only receive specialized services, but customized solutions to solve unique needs.

In one customer’s case, CloudMoyo developed a Contract Request Web Page in integration with the ICI platform to remove manual approval processes for contract requests. They faced a problem with non-ICI users as they lacked access to the ICI environment, leading to bottlenecks in the CLM process. With CloudMoyo’s solution, the client reduced manual intervention in the CLM process, increased CLM efficiency, and standardized process workflows across the contracts.

Another customer, Terracon, simplified their contract redlining process with the CloudMoyo Contract Redlining Application, built to eliminate the manual and labor-intensive work of going through every single contract. Using low-code no-code technologies and Power Apps, CloudMoyo accelerated Terracon’s redlining process, with over 13,000 contracts trained in the Machine Learning model and a 75% accuracy in contract reading.

Working with Icertis and CloudMoyo

The CloudMoyo-Icertis partnership runs deep, with solutions that go beyond the implementation stage. Working together customers can accelerate digital transformation in ways that not only survive disruption, but evolve, adapt, and thrive with a competitive advantage that leads to high growth.

Our current partnership has one of the largest pools of functional, technical, and legal consultants and a completion of 65+ ICI implementations in the past 5 years. CloudMoyo is the first Icertis partner to complete a full, single-phase implementation in less than 90 calendar days and our technologies have integrated the ICI platform with SAP, Salesforce CRM, and Workday.

Together, Icertis and CloudMoyo can help customers free up resources, providing strategic business and process inputs rather than focusing on the tactical aspects of the platform.

Want to learn more about ICI implementation? Connect with CloudMoyo.

Our Partnership in Action

We’re excited to announce a joint webinar with CloudMoyo and Icertis on Thursday, October 13th at 10:00 am PST | 1:00 pm IST! We invite you to join our experts as they discuss the role of Artificial Intelligence in Contract Analytics at Let Your Contracts Do the Thinking for You.

Did you know that by 2024, Gartner estimates the degree of manual effort required for the contract review process will be halved as enterprises adopt AI-based contract analytics solutions? AI is a game-changer that allows organizations to review contracts quickly, organize large-scale contract data more easily, assist in contract negotiations, and increase the volume of contracts that can be negotiated and executed.

Learn more about this topic by registering below!

Data is the most important and critical asset that impacts businesses all over the world today. Every strategic business decision is backed by and made based on data. In fact, companies that leveraged big data on average increased their profits by 8%. That is why your organization’s data needs to be reliable, accurate, high quality, and easily available to all the parties concerned with it. This is where data governance comes into the picture.

Data governance, in a nutshell, is the orchestration of setting up policies, technologies, and responsibilities to ensure an organization’s data is accurate and handled properly when being entered, stored, modified, accessed, and deleted.

Setting up data governance can be a daunting process as it involves multiple steps, implementing many policies, and coordinating with various departments and people. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Although data governance is a big project, you don’t have to complete the entire project in one go, you just need to take the first step and then the next, and then the next.

Steps to Implement a Successful Data Governance Strategy

1. Identify your project
   If this is your first data governance project, choose wisely as this will pave the way for your future data governance projects. Your first project must deliver a good ROI or a return on effort in a reasonable time frame and drive value for the business. Choose a project that can provide metrics that show calculated success and progress in the goals of the organization.
2. Set some goals
   When setting your goals, don’t be vague. Be as specific as possible, utilizing real, attainable numbers. Most data governance projects fail because the goals are too vague, or the expectations do not match. Here’s what your goals should NOT look like:
   – Improve the efficiency of certain projects that have been falling behind because of low-quality data
   – Ensure people comply with regulations more effectively
   – Use consistent and trusted data across the organization to make strategic business decisions
3. Assign the right people
   Even when the actual team for data governance is small, they’ll impact a huge group of people. From employees to customers to partners, pretty much everyone uses data. When multiple people come together for one project, it is likely to be presented with multiple differing opinions that can slow the process. In such situations, having a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (sample below) can help. The purpose of this matrix would be to assign the right people for the right task who then approve/provide feedback at the right time so that everyone is aware of their responsibilities. To make it easier you can divide all the concerned people into the following categories:
   a) Person responsible – project manager who assigns resources and builds the case
   b) Person accountable – one who takes ownership of major decisions and results of the program
   c) Consultants – IT or subject matter experts (SMEs) who help understand the project
   d) Informed – people affected by data governance efforts but don’t have direct say in the workings of the project

   

4. Define the processes
   The processes you set in place for your data governance teams need to be easily repeatable and should support the reality of the task. Here are four processes that support all data governance programs:
   a) Discover – Find out and understand the data being governed
   b) Define – Record all data definitions, processes, policies, and standards; assign ownership and define the key metrics
   c) Apply – Implement the business rules and data governance policies
   d) Analyze and monitor – Analyze the results of data governance policies and monitor compliances
5. Choose the right technology
   Data governance projects are ever-evolving, just like everything else in technology. New developments in projects and risks constantly appear. You need the right technology partner that can deliver value, adapt quickly, and evolve when your requirements change. Consider the following parameters when choosing a technology partner for your data governance projects:
   – Capability to migrate to the cloud seamlessly and without loss of data
   – Allows enhanced collaboration and information-sharing
   – Provides scalability that comes with agility
   – Equips reduced time and turnover dependencies
   – Ability to build and manage secure, compliant environments
   – Potential to conduct rapid analysis, prediction, and processing with AI/ML

CloudMoyo can democratize your data with all the above services and more! We can help your data governance projects be seamless, agile, and efficient with the following services:

• Master Data Management
  Gain access to a unified master data service across your enterprise with Master Data Management. Ensure accurate, consistent, and complete master data access across the enterprise and to business partners.
• Enterprise Data Management
  Consolidate your organizational data across multiple sources to increase efficiency and ensure consistent and scalable data architecture. Leverage Enterprise Data Management and enhance organizational capacity to integrate, govern, secure, and disseminate data from multiple data streams.
• Modern Data Warehouse
  Support your business intelligence activities with a central data management system to store and consolidate data from multiple sources within the organization. Rapidly integrate data in your business environment, improve efficiency, enable innovative new data models, and receive better insights.

What Are You Waiting For?

Designing a data governance is a tall order but the good news is that hard work always pays off. Implementing high-quality data governance across your organization will streamline your business not just for your employees but also your customers and external stakeholders. It also empowers leadership teams and employees to make better decisions quickly and efficiently. CloudMoyo can help you start your data governance journey – get in touch with us to talk about transforming your organization digitally!

If you’d like to learn more about what data governance is and why it is important, head to this blog.

As humans, we’re constantly producing more and more data but falling behind when it comes to consuming this data in a meaningful and structured manner. A person creates roughly 1.7 MB of data per second and 95% of companies express the need to manage their data in a more organized fashion. Not just that but, 80-90% of the data we generate today is unstructured. These numbers provide a clear picture of the need for data governance. But what is data governance? Let’s take a look!

What is Data Governance?

Data governance sets policies and procedures in place and implements them to ensure that an organization’s data is accurate and handled properly when being entered, stored, modified, accessed, and deleted. The responsibilities of data governance include setting up the infrastructure and technology, establishing and maintaining processes and policies, and identifying individuals who have the authority and responsibility of handling and protecting certain kinds of data. But as technology is always evolving, the definition of data governance is not limited to this and could evolve in the future.

The purpose of data governance is to:

1. Discover important data and information
2. Set up a process to manage data
3. Measure the effectiveness of efforts to achieve business objectives

Data governance should not be the collection of impromptu and calculated data-correction projects. Rather, data governance should be a well-thought program that can efficiently streamline processes and make work easier for internal and external stakeholders of an organization.

By now, you’re probably thinking, “Sure, data governance sounds great, but does my organization need it?” The answer to that? Yes. Every organization creates data (some more than others) and every organization (no matter how big or small) needs to have a data governance program in place.

Importance of Data Governance

Data governance should not be done for the sake of data, but rather for the benefit of the organization and its teams. When done correctly, data governance can help an organization’s systems and databases be reliable, reflect the true reality of data, and support the decision-making process.

Data governance is important for your organization because:

1. Reliability
   When the data is governed properly, it ensures that data is accurate and free of errors. When this happens, users will have more confidence in the data, thus more confidence in the decisions they make based on that data.
2. A single version of the truth
   Imagine having all decision-makers and users in different departments working with the same set of data. Seems like a dream, right? You can make it a reality with data governance! It reduces the time spent wondering which spreadsheet is better or more updated as all parts of the organization are coordinated.
3. Regulatory, legal, and industry compliance
   Did you know that most auditors and regulatory representatives do not look at the actual data but at how the data was generated, handled, and secured? A strong data governance program is the key to regulatory, legal, and industry compliance.
4. Reduced cost
   With data governance, day-to-day activities become more efficient and effective. It also reduces waste caused by a decision made based on inaccurate data. Data governance can also greatly benefit the entire supply chain right from logistics personnel, to sales representatives, to customers as working with the same data can avoid confusion, reduce turnaround time (TAT), and execute operations smoothly. This in turn helps reduce the overall costs. It can also help reduce costs during data migrations by improving accuracy and efficiency and reducing the time taken to complete the data migration.

Organizations can thrive when they work with accurate, reliable, and consistent data, and that, in its truest essence, is what data governance is all about.

Up next, we’ll be sharing the steps to starting a successful data governance journey – keep an eye out on our blog to stay posted!

To Sum It Up

Smart data governance that includes the right processes, people, and tools is essential in an organization’s digital transformation journey. Whether you’re looking for better consumer support and management, improved compliance, or better analytics, an organizational data governance program can ensure that your data is reliable, high-quality, and available to everyone who needs it. But it’s not just the processes that need to be changed – a change in the overall culture that prioritizes consistency and responsibility of data governance is also needed for data governance to be successful in an organization.

We’d love to connect with you and chat about our data democratization services that can transform your digital journey. Let’s get in touch!

Aggressive digitalization has fueled business performance immensely – a huge part of that digitalization has been the movement of locally-stored data to cloud-based storage. With continuous challenges of data accessibility, searchability, loss, and even breach, data modernization for businesses is a necessity now more than ever. However popular, choosing the right data modernization partner is crucial to lay out a concrete roadmap of digital strategy.

What is Digital Strategy?

Digital Strategy can be defined as using digital technologies to create new, transformed business capabilities. How enterprises plan to apply their technology resources can help them scale brand focus, reach new clients, and optimize business their approach for better business performance. Considering the effectiveness of digital transformation, it would be safe to say that business strategy is gradually evolving into digital strategy. While businesses continue to form their digital strategy, the use of data is a crucial element because it determines the path for using new technology and devising new business models. This means that along with forming a digital strategy, organizations must also build a data strategy.

What is Data Strategy?

A data strategy is a highly dynamic process used to support the acquisition, organization, analysis, and delivery of data for business objectives. An effective data strategy empowers businesses to enhance the use of data that is generated in various forms and should solve challenges ranging from data security to business processes resulting from poor data quality.

Data Strategy Meets Digital Strategy

Every organization, independent of size, generates data. With data modernization in place, this data can be stored, processed, and analyzed easily. Any organization can use this data to enhance its capabilities like customer experience and internal processes only using technology, making data strategy a crucial part of digital strategy. Data modernization, therefore, opens doors for organizations to gain valuable insights to fulfill their digital strategy.

Modernize Your Data Strategy with CloudMoyo

CloudMoyo has more than a decade of experience supporting organizations through their digital transformation journey. Our experts have vast experience across technologies, including creating solutions to modernize data strategies. We work alongside clients to identify business goals, tailoring a data strategy best suited to their needs.

If you’d like to learn more from our experts, watch our on-demand webinar Modernize Your Data Strategy to Achieve Digital Success – get the webinar here!

Data Modernization in the Real World

Recently, CloudMoyo helped a large consulting engineering firm create a cloud-based data warehouse and management system to optimize processes and drive better margins. The client was struggling with non-standardized data spread out in siloes and a slow, labor-intensive process. They needed more agility and usability to accommodate the higher scale and more diverse types of financial data. CloudMoyo designed and built a finance data cloud warehouse using Azure SWL Data Warehouse, with best practices in data migration and security, paving the way for a holistic view of business, in-depth data insights, and cost analysis for better business insights.

Read more about CloudMoyo’s solution here!