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Shefiq Abdulla: Helping Clients with Award-Winning ICT Solutions and Services

Meet Shefiq Abdulla, the CEO of Dubai-based Telephony Group of Companies, an ICT solutions and services leader with over two decades of experience serving the private and public sectors of UAE and the region. Currently, Telephony’s team has over 600 employees in the UAE, with over 300 employees spread across other regions, entirely committed to delivering state-of-the-art telecom technology. 

Shefiq started his career in Sales as an entry-level junior sales representative selling the company’s ideas, innovations, and excellence to the customers. However, he gradually succeeded on the way up and soon became the Chief Executive Officer of the Group Businesses.  

“A lot of people consider me lucky for achieving a lot at a young age and becoming a CEO for the whole group. If you look at it from my perspective, you realize that it means that I had to take a lot at a young age and mature early. Everything I do now and with every struggle I face, I feel more determined to continue the path. I hear a lot of whispers about me being a workaholic and so committed to this journey that it might consume me.“- Asserts Shefiq. “But the truth is I find pleasure in what I am currently doing, and this is what gives me power, focus, and a good sense of direction. When you do things out of pleasure, you simply immunize yourself against all the criticism and negativity that you hear now and then.“

A Diverse Portfolio

Telephony Group of Company offers a diverse portfolio for its clients, which is reflected in the number of projects it undertakes and its expansions to other countries worldwide. Telephony treats its clients as partners and offers all the possible guidance to help them choose the solutions that best serve their businesses most effectively. Instead of chasing revenues like many other companies, Telephony Group of Company wants to ensure repeat businesses and a lifetime relationship with its clients. 

Shefiq believes that when a company understands its partner’s business needs and offers advice on the right solution and guidance through implementation, it can easily create a win-win situation and profitable business relationship for both. 

Success and Failure

“My greatest accomplishment is getting the chance to spread what I know to the world. Knowledge is wasted when not shared. Maybe my audience is small today, but at least now I have a voice and people to read, interact and comment on my thoughts. That is by itself an accomplishment for me.“- says Shefiq.

Shefiq prefers to measure success differently as he doesn’t link it to achievement or growth. Instead, he links it to the positive influence that he leaves on people’s lives. 

Around five years ago, Shefiq decided to take a different path and start to effect change, so he started with himself and went on a personal transformational journey to learn from the wise and the giver, to get enriched with knowledge. Shefiq immersed himself in readings and took a vow to spread that knowledge. One day he plans to write all that journey down for the benefit of others and to encourage people to be less selfish and more human.

Although he failed in various situations and times, every time, Shefiq chose to clear his head, review his mistakes, and start over again. 

Shefiq states, “Perhaps the most important one to mention here is when I happened to expect everyone around to be of the same drive and understanding of the importance of transformation to the sustainability of any business, including my own. Now, I am more mindful of how I want to achieve my objective and will hopefully soon share that vision out loud.“

Implementing New Ideas

Shefiq believes new ideas require a welcoming attitude and an open mindset. He says, “If we don’t first start with that, we are likely to fail in our attempts or suffer to reach our goals. I am against the idea that change requires time, not when you are in technology, and you are demanded to innovate consistently.“

He wants to convince people regarding the necessity of new ideas instead of enforcing them. With everyone onboard, things mostly go efficiently and smoothly. Shefiq wants to start first by developing a work culture that helps support innovation, quality, and sustainability which are the primary growth driver for any company.

Future Plans

Telephony Group of Companies has a strong vision, with high moral values and dedication, customer-centric innovations, and business ethics. The organization is built on three core pillars- People, Purpose, and Peace. Under Shefiq’s leadership, it further intends to grow, expand, and innovate while maintaining and spreading these values to everyone it works with. 

Additionally, the organization plans to offer digital services to improve efficiency, transform, and grow businesses in the future. It also wants to empower communities to pursue ultra-digital transformation and use technology and innovation to change people’s lives, especially youth and women. 

To enable 3000 women entrepreneurs globally by 2025, the organization is also planning to guide and help ten women in 2022 to start their entrepreneurial journey with it.

Richard Liao: Helping with Most Sustainable Packaging Materials

Born in Springfield, Illinois., Richard Liao moved back to Hsinchu, Taiwan, at the tender age of two and again returned to the U.S. in 1999. During his second stint in the country, Richard completed his high school in C.A. and finished his college degree from Cornell University with a B.A. in ORIE and a Master of Engineering in Financial Engineering. Soon after completing his education, Richard landed a job at JP Morgan, a corporate & Investment bank on Wall Street. He worked for the investment bank for three years, but due to the subprime mortgage financial crisis, times were not good, so Richard left the organization to complete his MBA from NYU Stern. 

Soon after completing his MBA in 2012, Richard got a call from his dad, as he needed some help with the family business. So, Richard returned to Taiwan and relearned his philosophy on work and what to do with the business. After identifying several critical areas of improvement, Richard could transform the company from a gross margin of 7%, doubling to 14% by 2021 while reducing the total headcount from 1200 to 650. 

Presently, Richard serves as the CEO of his family business Hwa-Hsia Glass, the only glass manufacturing facility specializing in ‘small quantities with a vast variety’ strategy in Asia-Pacific. The organization annually produces nearly 400k tonnes of glass containers, including food, milk, alcoholic beverage, medical-use, light bulb, and cosmetic containers. 

Besides the traditional B2B businesses, Richard helped the company to launch a B2C brand named ‘Aqua-Soul,’ targeting lifestyle-driven consumer segments in daily storage glass products, including decanters, wine, and whiskey glasses, tea sets, etc., to introduce glass in a much more elegant way. 

“We also focus on B2B2C clients with our “total solution strategy”- for small retailers who want to open new restaurants, shops we can provide end-to-end solutions for any glass-related packaging needs, and we launched on our e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba or Amazon, Shoppee, etc.“- states Richard.

Reviving the Brand

Once Richard decided to help his family run H.H. Glass, he realized the company was facing three primary problems, firstly, it had no new business model; secondly, it failed to attract employees; and thirdly, the image of the industry.

  • Solving the old problem: The Aquasoul brand and total solution were Richard’s ideas, so the company could create a new business model and improve its gross margin. Richard demanded that the team must give H.H. glass 30% of the gross margin, which resulted in a gradual improvement of the overall gross margin to 14%, and with the new brand, the firm was able to launch as many as 200 products with cross creativities from several industry leaders and designers. 
  • Attracting Employees: Under Richard’s leadership, H.H. Glass launched its digital transformation strategy and invested in SAP ERP to identify bottlenecks in its value chain. It also introduced 15 robotic arms to increase productivity. This eventually freed up 25% of labor times, which helped to do more high-value work and decreased headcount by 45%. With this level of digital transformation, H.H. Glass could compete in talent recruiting in the harsh environment of Hsinchu, Taiwan.
  • Solving the Sunset Industry Problem: Richard launched ESG initiatives, through which he was able to guide the company against GRI and SDGs set by the U.N. Although the brand was not required to do so, in August 2022, it issued its first-ever ESG sustainability report. In this report, the firm has identified several important ‘stakeholders’ with respect to shareholders, workers, clients, suppliers, etc. The firm also reduced 17425 tonnes of CO2 emission in 2021. Richard says, “We believe that making glass from recycled, reused, and reduced is sustainable, and as we keep doing this business, we are doing our earth good; that’s our mission.”   

Tackling Daily Challenges

Richard finds it challenging to assess whether the level of tasks is easy or hard because each day is different. He says, “To cover all areas of the business and discuss with a meeting on important issues to look into can be challenging yet rewarding once you can identify insights of next step. Different from a department perspective, and it is more of a global perspective.”  

Under Richard’s leadership, H.H. Glass aspires to provide the most sustainable packaging materials globally to avoid harmful packaging materials to the earth, such as plastics or PET. He believes the firm is following its mission and vision with its new branding strategy, digital transformation, and ESG initiatives. It is a matter of time when people will understand the usage of 100% recyclable products like glass packaging needs to be increased to reduce our waste and damage to the already fragile ecosystem. 

Picture of the Future

Richard believes it’s very tough to predict the political and economic outcome of our world, and as a company leader, it isn’t easy to understand a lot of things happening across the planet, which can affect business strategy. 

He says, “As the Ukraine-Russian war goes on, the oil price is skyrocketing; also, living in Taiwan, you are not sure when we will become like Ukraine! So to continue our operations, we are investigating other options such as relocating factories to other southeast countries- but I admit these days running a business, we do face more political and economic risks compared to first-generation leaders.“

 

Role of AI and ML in changing Modern Healthcare

Artificial Learning and Machine Learning have already captured many important sectors worldwide, and healthcare is no exception. In the US a well-developed medical and healthcare system allows them to make more inventions. But many countries in Asia and Africa need to develop and enhance their healthcare system. During the pandemic, AI devices worked in the medical industry and helped doctors and nurses treat patients. Many doctors benefited from virtual meetings with patients, monitoring, and keeping electronic medical records of patients, which could consume too much time for medical staff during that period. 

AI and ML play their role in the predictions and symptoms of diseases in patients. ML uses NLP (Natural Language Processing), which can make clinical notes and decisions by giving doctors time to look for patients. Though there are some challenges regarding the use of AI and ML in healthcare, there are solutions too. Below are some applications and roles of AI and ML in healthcare sectors. 

  • Help in Clinical Diagnosis

Diagnosis of patients is one of the time-consuming and challenging processes for doctors. So specialist doctors sometimes take the help of AI to detect and diagnose a patient’s disease to help them recover faster. ML is the subcategory of Artificial Intelligence. It uses software like NLP to memorize large quantities of data and make analyses on it quickly. In some conditions, doctors try to detect the disease in patients when the patient is in the serious phase, so at that time, these AI smart devices and applications can help to predict symptoms, and doctors also can take fast actions. 

  • AI Chatbots Will Give Primary Care Tips

AI Chatbots are previously trained and defined chatbots that help in different fields to communicate with people by using intelligence regarding that service. AI chatbots are used in business on websites and even in medicine now. Medical Chatbots using AI respond to customers’ queries and schedule appointments easily. If there is a contagious disease like Covid 19, these medical AI Chatbots help to give guidelines regarding disease to people in any language. So it’s accessible to medical staff to use these AI chatbots to light down their workload and give more attention to patients. 

  • Virtual interaction of Doctors and patients

Doctors can treat patients who are in severe health conditions online. Virtual meetings are possible due to AI-based apps and software that take clinical notes regarding a patient’s symptoms and condition. Emergency patients will surely thank this technology because doctors can be available in time to treat them.

  • Help to Keep EHRs

 The medical field and hospital have lots of data regarding patients’ history and registers of information which is quite time-consuming work. EHRs are E-registers that keep medical records in digital form. There is no longer a need to hold hospital registers about a patient’s medical history. More than keeping records, a more difficult task is to find and search for people in physical registers. But these EHRs help to summarize all data properly and medical staff.

  • Prognosis of Disease

The prognosis of a disease is one of the important steps in treating a patient’s disease. Prognosis refers to the prediction of the progress of the disease in the future. And the Machine Learning system is also run on these predictions using artificial intelligence. So ML is used in medical science to accurately predict and detect that disease’s steps. Disease like Tuberculosis and cancers includes steps of infection. Early diagnosis is a good way to recover patients easily for doctors. So this prognosis process is very important in the medical field.

  • Helps Healthcare Professionals

As a part of the medical staff, you need to work 24/7 for patients. But repeated tasks like keeping records and patient’s medical history are a little hard to bear. AI and machine learning focus on these tasks and accurately complete them within time. Electronic Health Records, like software and other healthcare management applications, help nurses and doctors give more time to patients than this lengthy work. 

  • Robotic Surgery

AI combines with robotics to rise to intelligent robots. During the surgery of patients, it is hard to take fine and delicate incisions. Robots don’t get tired while working, which is beneficial during surgery. Precise decisions are essential in surgery, so robots are trained with ML and have the intelligence to carry out target work properly. So in the future, there will be robots doing our surgeries in hospitals under doctors.

  • Inventions in Drugs Industry using AI 

AI is now not only for arranging gene sequencing, but it is used for inventions in the drug industry. AI can assist pharma companies in generating medicines and all the other drugs faster. AI devices can identify efficiencies and side effects of any drug used for treating patients. The Drug industry has to do clinical trials after any new pharmaceutical product, but using AI reduces the cost of clinical trials for many pharma companies.

  • AI supports Radiology

Image analysis regarding a patient’s disease is one of the main parts of detecting the exact cause of any disease. Radiologists, cardiologists, and Roth specialists types of doctors do image analysis regularly to check out the body’s inner system and find out the exact affected region inside the body. So, AI-based devices are trained by thousands of images for learning and to get the best results after their training. This innovation in image analysis in medical science will surely help professionals and doctors to make conclusions. 

  •   Use of AI and ML in Medical Emergency

Every time it is not easy for doctors and other medical staff to reach the right time on the patient’s door, and the same case with patients. So, in this situation, AI devices and applications play an important part till the doctor is not treating patients. AI and Ml use their intelligence to predict and analyze the disease, making it easy for doctors to treat patients immediately. 

Challenges Ahead of AI & ML in Healthcare

  • Risk of errors while doing surgery and diagnosis
  • Less availability of AI and ML experts 
  • Sufficient data for training of AI devices
  • Robots may cause injuries
  • Privacy of data 
  • Reduction of employment in healthcare

Conclusion

Though AI and ML technology show its benefits and usage in many sectors, and also in the case of healthcare, it should be improved and optimized more to reduce the risk of injury to patients. But technology like EHR is more convenient and useful in healthcare sectors. If other improvements and changes are made in the future in this tech, then AI will become a transformative journey for medical staff and every single patient.

How Fintech is changing the Banking industry

Fintech is a combination of Financial Technology associated with financial services. Fintech is nothing but the most accepted technological change to carry out financial management in the form of mobile payments, online banking services, mobile banking, and many more. All banking institutions and financial management use Fintech technology wisely for their consumers and customers. So, the Fintech banking industry is improved traditional banking systems. It makes banking systems more accessible and streamlined to use for customers. During the pandemic, these online banking services played a vital role for people to make transactions online within a few minutes. Lengthy banking processes like taking loans and transaction processes are becoming easy due to the use of Fintech. 

The banking industry has changed from physical to digital with the help of digitalization Fintech helps consumers make their own financial decisions and made them financially literate. In short, Fintech combines both traditional and digital services and gives more ease to customers while handling their financial issues. So, let’s discuss the latest financial trends in banking!

Latest Trends in Fintech Related to Banking Industry 

  • Digital wallets

Digital wallets are in the form of mobile apps to carry out user payment processes. It helps to store payment and password information on the mobile of that user. Customers use digital wallets like Amazon pay, Google pay, and other payment apps to handle their finances and transactions, and it helps them to store records of their payments and the history of transactions on mobile. Digital wallets not only handle payments but also help to book plane tickets and help to make hotel reservations also.

  • Virtual cards

Virtual cards are customers’ primary choice for making payments digitally and physically. It is the safest and most guaranteed method for making payments online. These virtual cards can get easily blocked without losing access to the main card. Virtual cards reduce fraud risks and make payment easy and safe.

  • IOT

IoT means the Internet of Things. It includes smartwatches, smartphones, and other online gadgets, which are widely used to make payments online instead of bank cards. Many Fintech companies try connecting with those devices to gather customer insights. 

  • Biometric authentication

Due to Fintech methods, everyone goes towards online payments. And every digital wallet and online transaction method needs passwords to store personal financial information. But currently, users like to use biometric authentication rather than the number of passwords and PINs for verification. So this biometric authentication has become the priority system for all Fintech companies. Your confidential and personal information will remain safe if your device gets stolen or lost. 

  • AI Chatbots

Artificial intelligence shows its ability in every technology sector by making useful and revolutionary changes. And Fintech is also not unaware of AI. Proper customer service is one of the important parts to play for every financial institution. So, AI chatbots help financial systems to contact their customers and inform them about their services and account details on time.

  • Voice payments

Already there are many methods to carry out banking and payment processes for people. But there is also one easier method than a digital wallet voice payments. Voice payments is a technology used in the banking sector which runs on Artificial Intelligence technology. Artificial intelligence is technology in which smart machines and software can be made using human intelligence. With the help of voice payments, we can do our transitions within a minute only by giving a command to that application or device. Only we have to link our credit card no. and other bank details to that device. Generally, the new generation attracts technology easily for their ease and convenience in life, so there are more chances that the future of banking and payments will be voice payments. 

  • Blockchain

Blockchain is the concept involved in cryptocurrency which stores data and helps to make out transaction process digitally. Cryptocurrency is a type of digital banking where no physical method; all transactions and payments are made digitally. So cryptocurrency is wholly based on financial technology because the currency is also in the form of digital coins like Bitcoin. The Fintech industry has a large impact on it. Because the concept of blockchain refers to storing financial data in digital format, which generates more revenue and gives a great user experience and fast financial transactions. The benefits of crypto and blockchain help Fintech to develop and grow more efficiently.

  • Embedded Finance

Embedded finance is also known as embedded banking. Embedded finance is a term that deals with integrating traditional banking or financial services into non-financial services. A few examples of Embedded Finance are Embedded payments, cards, and lending, which bring ease to customers to deal with their money. This technology offers safe and secure payments, loans, and investments without any interference from financial institutions. Its key advantage is that it gives all financial services in one place with safety and security in case of your assets and data. 

Challenges ahead of the Fintech Industry

  • Lack of Data security

The increasing use of digital services and technology leads to the creation of big data, which should be managed and handled correctly. Because data contains confidential payment information of users, physical banks have their CCTVs, and security guards to keep data safe. But virtual security is not that simple; it requires highly efficient cyber security applications or software to do these things.

  • Government Regulations

Finance is the chief factor for every government, so they are customary laws. The government regulates rules to protect every citizen’s data. There is always interference by the government in technology which is related to the financial process. But it is necessary to apply rules and legal terms to any technology to protect it from cyber attackers. If you create any software or application for financial services, you make sure that there is any legal compliance on this tech by the government and then proceed to your work.

  • Increasing Cyber-threats

Technology modification leads to cyber attackers who can track and misuse our data without permission. So, people sometimes see the risk of using technology for financial convenience, which is unsuitable for Fintech companies. The solution for this is to increase the number of cyber security experts to gain security and confidentiality of our confidential data. Cyber security experts can help the Fintech industry to gain customers’ trust issues in their data security. 

Conclusion

We are now on the starting edge of financial technology. Many modified and unbelievable technologies will be waiting for us in the future. As our population increases, there is more need for fast and easy service without any physical contact, which can be possible with Fintech. There is a need to enhance financial tech literacy in the people, which can bring more ease to everyone’s life while banking and payments. We have to find out the solutions for challenges in digital financial services, through which Fintech becomes more accessible to users.

How AI Will Change Your Future!

Evolution and modification are important terms to bring change in technology now.  Technological evolution comes with extraordinary changes, and day by day, it assists human beings in making life better. The primary purpose of machines and technology is to simplify complicated and time-consuming tasks for humans. In the evolution of technology, there is most interesting and advanced term is arrived known as Artificial Intelligence. In 1950, Minsky and McCarthy developed the first AI-based technology, which proved as a great initiative. Firstly, we will try to know what intelligence is. Intelligence is not a skill or any god-gifted thing, but it is the art of learning new things easily, in the case of humans as well as machines, but intelligence in machines is known as Artificial Intelligence. 

AI is not now only a wish for the future; it is established in the present also. In the form of self-driving vehicles, automation in public transport, automotive semiconductors, and many more things are examples that Artificial intelligence tech has entered our life. AI tech is adapted to some human behaviors like problem-solving, reasoning, working speed, manipulation, and gaining knowledge; these are some demonstrations that tell us that artificial intelligence is a replication of human intelligence. In AI-based technology, input data is given to a system or machine to do work, resulting in the output of that AI-based device. Smart devices like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are the best examples of AI tech today. 

As AI is becoming a vast technology field, many software engineers and developers are continuously researching in innovating AI technology. AI technology tools help many businesses to handle their data and workload within a few minutes. So along with the company, other sectors like the governmental, educational, and transport facilities are adapting these AI features. As AI is trying to walk in every field, there are certain types of Artificial intelligence, which are given below. Some of these types of AI aren’t possible in the present situation. It will be possible in the future if engineers will able to develop specific algorithms and software.

Types of AI

  • Reactive AI Devices

In this type, data or information is provided to the respective device to perform certain actions and give output as results. Reactive AI devices only use current data to perform any action and don’t have capabilities like advanced AI. Reactive AI devices don’t remember past details and don’t use any experience for future activities. These types of devices are worked and processed for that given data, and this action makes them limited in the AI field. But this type acts as a foundation for the next inventions in AI.

Examples of Reactive AI: IBM, Chess playing supercomputers, Spam filters, 

  •  Limited Memory AI

This type of AI has the capability to use past data and experience for the prediction of future actions. Historical observations with pre-programmed data help to make and predict decisions. But all this past information is stored in that device’s memory for a short time. For example, Self-driven cars observe other cars on the road, store that information and use it during automotive driving. This understanding and interpreting of observed information are stored in their limited memory.

There are several types of Limited Memory AI:

  1. Reinforcement Learning: Reinforcement learning deals with teaching computers or machines with the help of a particular programming language. This learning helps machines learn and do things—for example, many advanced games Like chess on computers. 
  2. Long-short term Memory(LSTM): In this type, machines can store information in the form of memory like human behavior. Using recent information or memory, machines can predict things to do complex tasks. 
  3. Evolutionary generative adversarial networks(E-GAN): E-GAN is an advanced type of limited-memory AI. According to this type, machines will evolve in every specific generation and do modifications and mutations in their systems. If any previous generation system had an error, it would be modified by the next generation because certain types of programming system models would be fixed in machines. Therefore, E-GAN is quite an interesting part of machine learning and AI. 

Examples of Limited Memory AI: Apple’s chatbot Siri, Self-driven cars.

  • Theory of Mind AI

Up to the 19th century, no one imagined that one-day machines would have emotions too. But the magical and revolutionary changes happening in humans’ technology and intelligence power make it possible today. Theory of Mind in Artificial intelligence is the most advanced type of it. In this type, scientists try to build emotional intelligence and psychological knowledge in machines that will think like humans. Basically, machines will have emotions and feedback on every action. We know it might be hard to digest, but much research is going on to make it happen. Currently, this technology is not established by anyone, but many scientists make efforts towards it.

  • Self-aware AI

Many scientists and engineers predict that the future of AI is Self-aware AI. This type will make machines think and be aware of themselves. There are mainly two terms, self-aware AI and robotics. Sometimes many people think that AI technology and robotics concepts are the same, but these two are completely different concepts. AI technology is used as a programming language or system in robots; robots are entirely machines that improve themselves with AI. In the case of Self-aware AI, many people think this type will dominate human power and intelligence. So can’t predict anything, but what do you think about this type, and what will happen if it becomes reality? 

Advantages and Disadvantages of AI

Advantages OF AI :

  • Help to reduce human error in challenging work.
  • AI is proven as the digital assistance of humans. The use of AI makes human life more manageable.
  • Speed of working is faster than any human power.
  • AI is available at any time to humans.

Disadvantages of AI :

  • AI technology and machines make humans lazy.
  • AI devices do not have any emotional intelligence yet.
  • AI systems don’t have creativity and out-of-the-box thinking like humans.
  • Establishing any AI technology costs higher.
  • Unemployment is the thing that makes us rethink the research on this technology

Top 10 Best Business Magazines in the World for 2022

As an entrepreneur, one has to always look for current news and trends in the business world. Newspapers are not enough to cover each corner of the business news, but magazines cover all the news, people, ideas, and current trends in the business. Reading famous magazines, we learn how successful CEOs reach their target and how startups can maintain their growth. Inspiring stories and defeats of industrialists, investors sometimes level up our business strategies, ideas, and way of thinking. 

Many magazines out in the world flourish with their business-related blogs, cover stories, startup ideas, finance, tax, and much more. Let’s discuss the famous business magazines in the world.

  • Forbes 

Forbes is among the best and most well-known magazines out of the competitors in the category of magazines. It is published eight times a year and publishes reports on startups, finance, business personalities, technology, and politics, so this magazine touches on almost every current subject. The motto of Forbes is “Change the World,” and Forbes has an international edition of Asia and an editing license for 27 countries. The headquarters of Forbes Magazine has been held in New Jersey since 2014.

  • Fortune  

Fortune is a competitor to Forbes in content and rankings and is also known as an ideal magazine for entrepreneurs and readers worldwide. Henry Robinson Luce founded a fortune in 1929, headquartered in New York City. Fortune drives the conversation about business and guides by developing articles focusing on history and giving clues for the future. Fortune’s motto is to light up the path of world leaders and give them tools to make the business better. It dominantly focuses on commerce, industry, and investing concept related to people.

  • Business Today

Business Today is an Indian-origin magazine started in 1992. It is published once a   Fortnight. Business Today magazines mostly publish business, finance, investors, and investing-related articles based in India. Business Today is India’s leading magazine for getting economic and business updates.

  • Entrepreneur 

Looking for the best business magazines, we don’t escape the Entrepreneur magazine. It supports famous personalities and offers a step that new entrepreneurs use to build their ideas and strategies. Inspirational cover stories are filled with emerging and young entrepreneurs worldwide. Stories of new entrepreneurs, small business stories, and startups are all business essentials lightened by the entrepreneur magazine. 

  • Inc Magazine

Inc is an American-origin magazine founded in 1979 and based in New York City. This magazine publishes ideas, tools, innovations, strategies, and marketing ideas-based content. It is known for its unique and to-the-point content in the class of business magazines. It publishes about six stories annually, including social, economic, and financial articles.

  • Business World

BW Business world is an Indian business magazine published by ABP group. It covers news in finance, business, investing, society, and politics with relevant content that helps readers who are interested in entrepreneurship. Articles and cover stories are published fortnightly. 

  • Money

Money is an American finance brand and magazine held in New York. It is an online magazine monthly. Money magazine is always ready with financial, banking, personal finance, and successful investor strategies-related updates, which help new investors and leaders level up their business steps.

Business and Finance magazine is an Irish magazine published by Ian Hyland. This magazine was established in 1964, and for about 55 years, magazines have come with insightful news, making it one of the leading business magazines in the world. Startups’ success, the key to investing, and financial updates are perfectly lined by this magazine every time.

Fast company magazine is the most famous business magazine. It is an American business magazine established in 1995 and published 6 times yearly. It is well known for its uniqueness in creatively designing cover pages of stories and creating updates related to business, technology, video, designs, and podcasts, which turn it into versatile content making.

SUCCESS Magazine is the oldest runner in a race of business magazines from 1897. This magazine reveals the stories of extraordinary businessmen and revolutionary entrepreneurs. The uniqueness of magazines is that they connect with readers and genuinely guide them with relevant content in articles.

Reading allows us to grow and develop our thoughts to succeed. Any editorial, book, or magazine reveals history’s secrets and lightens future updates. We should always allow our minds to gather and pick up knowledge by reading. Today, online magazines are trending and helpful to get in touch with current news of any stream like business, fashion, finance, sports, and many more. So, expand your thoughts, boost your ideas, and be ready with your plan.

Albert Liew: Leveraging Technology Solutions to Manage Today’s Global Workforce

Established in 2010, BIPO is a global payroll and people solutions provider with a vast network of offices across the Asia Pacific, USA, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. BIPO’s products and services pave the way for enterprises to scale up and globalize in the present hybrid business landscape.

The Steadfast Leader

Albert Liew, MD – Singapore and Indochina helms BIPO’s operations in Singapore. An accomplished business leader with a proven track record in leading large teams and driving commercial success, Albert joined the region’s leading payroll and people solutions provider in 2017.

“A chance meeting with Michael Chen, our CEO, was the pivoting point in my career. The opportunity to be a part of an organisation and ecosystem that would positively impact the HR and business community happens once in a lifetime.” – Albert states.

A pioneer of BIPO Singapore, Albert is instrumental in driving the team’s commercial success, overseeing the sales teams, channel partners, and full-service implementation team, including strategic partnerships and alliances. A graduate of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, Albert holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering.

Being the first employee of BIPO Singapore gives Albert the perfect opportunity to leverage his foundation and technical skills as an engineer – working strategically with the firm’s R&D team to develop its intuitive payroll engine. With multi-currency capabilities that facilitate cross-border transactions (one of the first in the region), BIPO’s payroll engine paves the way for a streamlined approach to managing payroll and HR processes.

The entrepreneurial spirit and mindset to drive the group’s business strategy and goals provide Albert with the perfect platform to pivot to a commercial role that includes full P&L responsibilities while leveraging his passion for technology.

Greatest Accomplishments

Commercial success characterizes Albert’s key accomplishments, Driving Integrations & Partnerships and Championing Great People Strategy.

  • Commercial Success: Leading with a “people-first innovation strategy” that emphasizes its clients and employees, Albert plays the role of catalyst. A firm believer in harnessing each employee’s potential, teams are hired based on their potential to contribute to the company. Looking beyond experience or educational qualifications expands new avenues to hire the best talents. When disruption is the norm, Albert has worked tirelessly to form the group’s first global innovation hub in Singapore to complement its four existing R&D centers. Fronted by a core team of talented Data Scientists and Business Analysts, BIPO advocates equal opportunities, working closely with universities to hire undergraduates and fresh graduates to complement its pool of experienced talents, ensuring agility and new perspectives.
  • Driving Integrations and Partnerships: Since BIPO entered the market, Albert has systematically established a partnership and alliance strategy that ensures the group leverages the mutual strengths of BIPO and other global players to create a cohesive HR ecosystem, ultimately benefitting businesses by providing a comprehensive suite of people and payroll solutions, catered to each stage of the business lifecycle.
  • People Strategy: With employees its most significant asset, Albert Liew fostered a “pay it forward” culture by introducing a mentor program that pairs new employees with more experienced team members. Doing so ensures the longevity of BIPO’s unique culture and brand DNA. In addition, the firm believes in hiring and nurturing the most talented professionals energised to use their initiative to drive change for its clients.

A Different Organisation

Powered by its globally compliant HRMS and payroll calculation engine as an anchor, BIPO has expanded its business lines to include services such as global payroll outsourcing and Professional Employer Organisation / Employer of Record. Combining conventional services with an innovative technology platform demonstrates the firm’s commitment to supporting and partnering businesses at every stage of the business lifecycle.

Tackling the Pandemic

While the pandemic is considered this decade’s biggest challenge, BIPO embraced the disruption as an opportunity for growth and change.

“Partnering our clients to support their needs, we identified potential pain points and worked at customised solutions to address their immediate needs – steering BIPO on a committed path towards technology, innovation, and “best-in-class” service delivery standards – core elements that set us apart in the industry.”– states Albert Liew.

The firm’s calculated move to boost its R&D efforts during the pandemic and establish its first global innovation hub in Singapore to enrich its existing four R&D Centres has reaped significant rewards. Implementing machine learning, robotics process automation (RPA), BI, and data analytics to complement BIPO’s core HR and Payroll products is a game changer. Moreover, strengthening such capabilities has cemented BIPO’s position as a leader in Asia’s HR tech space.

Preparing for the Future

Aspirations to be an Asia-based global HR Tech and service provider drives the firm’s strategy, innovation, and technology. BIPO remains committed to providing a hybrid suite of solutions powered by its payroll engine compliant across the countries it supports.

Albert Liew says, “Working closely with our R&D, Product, and Project teams, we consistently strive to advance and enhance our HRMS product, leveraging new technologies like machine learning, BI, and RPA to ensure BIPO’s products remain cutting-edge. A commitment to providing the best-in-class suite of solutions has resulted in numerous industry awards and accolades over the years that I am extremely proud of.”

Serving the needs of businesses across 147 countries, BIPO’s HR Management System (HRMS) platform automates HR processes, simplifies workflows, and delivers actionable insights to build the best Employee Experience. Complemented by its global payroll outsourcing solutions and global PEO/EOR services, BIPO empowers businesses with increased efficiency and convenience to manage today’s global workforce.

Top 10 Trends in Cyber Security of 2022

Today the whole world is connected through a web known as the Internet. So the total dependence of users is on the Internet. And the Internet creates virtual data that includes confidential, sensitive, personal information and users’ data worldwide. Everyone comes to provide online services to their users, from small enterprises to large businesses and even governments. But they need to become aware of data security because issues like cyber crimes and hacking are increasing daily. So we aren’t sure whether our online information in the form of data is safe or not. Cyber attacks like phishing and ransomware are some significant issues that users face. And hence there is an increasing demand for cyber security professionals. Cyber security is frequently changing with new attacks found by hackers. Cyber security experts and users have been facing data security challenges daily. The main reason behind the cyber attacks is the lack of authentication and security for data. Let’s take a look at new trends in cyber security. 

 

  • IoT Attacks – IoT means the Internet of things. IoT devices include home security, activity trackers, smart pacemakers, and augmented reality glasses.  The attacks gain access to internet devices like smartphones, laptops, and minicomputers. They access all the sensitive information and confidential data from the user’s data without his permission. These attacks are increasing daily, so it is essential to be concerned about data security with any proper system. Smart devices which run on the Internet have to take care of their data security by introducing antivirus software, cloud systems, and privacy of passwords are the things that can save your data from a breach.
  • Phishing Attacks – Phishing attacks are the most common attacks in cyber crimes. These attacks create an illusion in the way of messages and emails from reputed companies. And send these emails to users to access their devices and draw all the secure data from the users. So users must be alert every time while providing personal information to any website or while replying to mail. Using good security practices and software, one can secure their data from hackers and scammers.
  • Expansion in MFA – Multi-factor authentication is one of the security practices used by users for privacy related to their sensitive information. MFA is also referred to as a Two-step verification system that analyzes and verifies data provided by a particular user. Whenever a user login to that respective application or software, this MFA will do two-step verification to check if it is a user or not. This MFA system’s best advantage is that every time it verifies the identification evidence of the user when he tries to log-in. So in case, hackers will try to get access to your device, they will not be able to do so.
  • There are security systems and software which secure the data of any user or any governmental agency to secure the data. The technique known as a cloud system is widely used for data security by many business and governmental sectors. Cloud attacks take an hour to secure data while surfing websites and using applications. But hackers and scammers also try to steal information by attacking cloud-based security systems. These attacks are caused due to lack of cloud security, visibility of data, and poor technology used. So be aware of cloud security practices and updated technology to prevent cloud attacks.
  • Ransomware Attacks – Hackers often make ransomware attacks. They first take charge, access your device, and then encrypt all vital information and data. If you ask for data decryption, try to get back access to the machine again. They demand ransom or money for it by blackmailing you. So be attentive during uploading your personal information with any non authenticate websites and maintain some precautions while sharing information with anyone.
  • Automotive hacking – This hacking system deals with taking unauthorized access to any device, hardware, software, or communication system of vehicles using some smart devices near those automobile devices. Communication systems like wi-fi devices in a car, and Bluetooth systems, are the medium of hacking vehicles. Hackers are more interested in your smartphone details to steal data like credit card numbers and passwords, so generally, don’t connect your smartphones to your vehicles; they can access your phones and related data easily. 
  • Use of cyber security starter kit – Attacks like phishing and malware mainly targeted small business and their customers to extort data from them. So there is a need to do some safety practices while running a business online. Some cyber security businesses and professionals offer a starter kit for data security, including multi-factor authentication programs, antivirus software, and guidelines related to security which can be helpful for your employers to understand the importance of cyber security. The starter kit includes USB and related devices prevention and security modes. So using a starter kit is a good security practice that you can introduce into your system.
  • AI Systems in Cyber security –  Artificial intelligence grabs any new field and makes its position in it. AI also takes charge in the cyber world; mainly, AI systems are used to run multi-factor authentication programs for automation in verification systems. Cyber professionals use AI to learn from past data to prevent future attacks. So artificial intelligence helps to save previous data and analyze in the future if any cybercrime happens. In the future and technological revolution, AI can be proved as the best weapon against cyber crimes.
  • SQL Injection Attacks –  SQL is called Structured Query Language, which gives access to and manipulates the databases. Hackers use this language to take out all the information with the help of databases. 

Demand for cyber security professionals –  As attacks and hackers get smarter, followed by increasing cyber crimes. So there is a need for some ethical hackers and professionals who easily protect the data and information.

Top 10 Trends in Digital Marketing for 2022 to Help your Business

Digital marketing is the field where continuous evolution takes place, which offers new technology for customers and marketers. Today we are living in an era of the digital world. Now online services are preferred over offline services, which has a great impact on businesses of every size. Since its inception, ways of marketing and marketing tools have completely changed. Websites, apps, voice search, and social media are the latest tools of digital marketing. Digital marketing helps customers get and find enough product information in a short time. To acquire potential customers and build a digital communication system with customers, taking reviews from websites makes a change. 

Currently, every company’s digital and online presence makes a huge difference in customer acquisition. Large companies often design efficient websites concerning their products. So, by developing better UI and User Experience you can reach your marketing goal. Ideas with product efficiency will develop your marketing skills and digital proximity.

  1. SEO Ranking
  2. Visualization of product
  3. Chatbots for customer service
  4. Role of AI in digital marketing
  5. Website Designing
  6. Personalization
  7. Social media presence
  8. Voice search
  9. Review based marketing 
  10. Creative use of AR
  • SEO Ranking – SEO alleviates the ranking of websites on search engines like Google. It amplifies traffic generated for websites and content. So, SEO plays a vital role in digital marketing. It is closely related to content marketing, quality of content, engaging customers, and attracting visitors, which turn into digital marketing. If your website’s ranking increases, it will pop up first on search engines, when customers try to find products related to your service. Adapting the skill of SEO will upgrade your digital marketing strategies.
  • Visualization of product – Product visualization should be your primary marketing strategy to build business digitally. If you look at visualization-based marketing, it adds value to a product. It also helps to get increase user satisfaction and get genuine reviews from happy customers. Realistically develop your product design by keeping loyalty towards your customers. 
  • Chatbots for customer service – Communicative marketing is the best option to deliver your product’s details to customers. Chatting with visitors and customers will assure them about your service and help you to form bonds with them for a long time. Customers may need your service information at any unusual time, but your customer supporting team will not attend to them. But, you have technology’s hindmost invention, known as chatbots. These chat boxes help your customers solve their queries and provide information about your business anytime. This tool will give responses to visitors in minimum times.
  • Role of AI in digital marketing – AI launches automation in digital marketing. Using AI technology, complex work can be done in a short time. AI chatbots are a new elevation of Artificial Intelligence that proved beneficial to several business sites to enhance their marketing. 
  • Website designing – Web designing is an innovative skill that can level up your website’s overall UI. If users are happy while going through the website, there’s a high chance that they will search for your products. Websites that are hard to navigate and lack appropriate content are rarely preferred by users. Thus, it becomes evident that web designing, coupled with the expertise of a reputable web design agency, plays a crucial role in enhancing your digital marketing journey.
  • Personalization – Personalization means a company tries to make a system in such a way that satisfies customers by analyzing customers’ interests and information. It helps to form bonds with customers and gain loyalty. Personification is also called customization in the services of a company.
  • Social media presence – With the increased use of social media, it’s very important for companies to make their presence felt on various social media platforms. Users sometimes look for their wants on social media, so as a marketer, you need to start making business-related content with a marketing touch. Design posts in a visualized way for your products, making users curious to visit and see them. Start selling on social media platforms. 
  • Voice search- Voice search is a tool that is used to find out any product with some keywords. If your business’s website includes keywords related to business, it will attract traffic and get a high ranking.
  • Review-based marketing – Try to get reviews from reputed and famous sources; trust is built with many users. Also, try to get happy customers’ honest reviews for your recent users. It will improve your selling and product standards to form a brand.
  • Creative use of AR-  Augmented Reality is a new technology that helps customers show how their product looks. Many furniture companies use this AR tool to step up their marketing. This creative tool will surely help in digital marketing.

Before wrapping up, these are trending tools in 2022 used explicitly in digital marketing. These are skills that can creatively structure your website. Join new users and form bonds with them for a long time based on your product’s quality and superficiality.

Ben Fairbank: A Global Leader in Immersive Metaverse Experiences Focused on Media, Retail, Gaming and Rewards

Meet Ben Fairbank, the founder, and CEO of RFOX (RedFOX Labs), building a metaverse of opportunities for people through virtual worlds that empower everyone.

Known for being a customer experience, culture change management, and turnaround expert, Ben is a global C-level executive and has worked for several multination companies, including GRAB, Virgin, and Ooredoo. From a very young age, he always had the vision of having a coffee shop on a beach where he didn’t need to sell a cup of coffee to stay in business, and he could have all his friends come and brainstorm business ideas that they would put into practice.

Ben says, “I started in contact centers and thought of this work as a transition phase, while I looked for something more ‘serious’ and long term to get me to my goal. It turns out that I fell in love with operations and numbers, as contact centers were all about metrics. This leads to my love of Customer Experience and collecting data on why customers respond, engage, and remain loyal. I used this experience to become a consultant in Customer Experience and later graduated to cultural change management and company turnarounds.”

These skills and experiences eventually allowed Ben to travel, live and work in 12 countries and consult for organizations like GRAB, Ooredoo, and Virgin. This was the first part of his dreams becoming true, and it gave him the needed exposure to a wide range of cultures and industries. Being an expatriate for quite a few years, Ben started looking for cheaper options to send money from abroad to his home country Australia. At this point of time, cryptocurrency showed signs of promise, but little in terms of adoption, so he started looking deeper into the world of cryptocurrency and understood that he couldn’t afford to miss out on the revolutionary movement.

Ben states, “I began looking at how companies like Red Hat had introduced applications on Linux and other models where better user experiences and products had been added to great technology base layers. This led to my co-founder and I brainstorming how we could potentially build several products, services, and tools that click together to form a metaverse, where they are all on display in one super dApp. This was the realisation of friends brainstorming business ideas and allowed me to focus on several products, services, and businesses that click together, much the same as I had envisioned for the coffee shop on the beach.”

Building a Platform Focused on Digital Inclusion

Ben always wanted to build a platform entirely focused on digital inclusion and borderless applications that can help creators and users work together. Primarily focused on long-term customer experience, RFOX also builds products it wants to use and can be genuinely proud of.

Since its early days, the founding team was told the idea was either lofty, too ambitious, or couldn’t be done, and most commonly, metaverse would not be a thing because no one was looking at it or its use cases. However, the Covid pandemic expedited the adoption of digital platforms and RFOX’s motivation to succeed, as the need for digital inclusion had never been more real.

The Organization

Ben’s company started its journey in 2018 as RedFOX Labs, and since then, it has become popular as RFOX. Once established, RFOX decided to build several click-together products and tools that would form a multi-medium creator platform in the form of a metaverse. Its RFOX Finance deals with token stalking and farming; RFOX Games has play-to-earn games coupled with interoperable NFT collection and a soon-to-be-launched SDK.

On the other hand, RFOX TV is a part of the firm’s media arm offering TV, streaming, and live minting, RFOX NFT is a complete contract farm, site deployer, marketplace, and creator tool for new collections; RFOX VALT is the brand’s VR virtual world and clicks together all the product offerings. RFOX is also planning to launch its RFOX E-commerce streaming, giving artists, creators, and performers a chance to engage in real-time with a live audience while selling products and services.

The Asian Business Environment

Ben believes that the Asian business environment is vastly different in every country. However, as a region, Asia is extremely promising. A tech-savvy young population and progressive tax systems in some Asian countries have made the region more friendly for foreign businesses. With a population of more than 4.5 billion, it’s clear why this region has and will continue to have a big say on how things move ahead as consumers speak with their spending.

Ben states, “We see GDP rivaling China in countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and others fast scaling consciousness and entering the same conversations as China, India, and Japan. It is an exciting time to be in the region and to see its evolution in real-time.”

Preparing for the Better Future

“We didn’t ever do an equity raise, so the importance of community and those building on the platform can’t be understated. We will ensure that the tools, products, and services we offer are part of an unmatched ecosystem and suite.”– explains Ben.

With RFOX, people with great ideas and products that couldn’t get off the ground previously are now able to thrive. It wants to see brands and organizations born within its metaverse platform and a more collaborative approach to launching based on demand, voting, and collective voices.

RFOX wants to build a platform everyone could use to build and interact. It has realised its job is to get the ball rolling and build the foundation; from there, where it goes depends on who chooses to build with the brand.

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