Category: Internal Collaboration

Galaxy Sports

 

Galaxy Sports are planning the launch of a new range of “smart” running shoes that take advantage of emerging technologies such as Internet of Things sensors and artificial intelligence. At the centre of this, Galaxy has chosen Vmoso to organise communication and knowledge sharing between Galaxy and its suppliers, within Galaxy, and between Galaxy and its customers.

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Galaxy Sports is a manufacturer of sportswear, with running shoes representing its largest market. Galaxy’s product management team are planning the launch of a new range of “smart” running shoes that take advantage of emerging technologies such as Internet of Things sensors and artificial intelligence.

At the centre of this, Galaxy has chosen Vmoso to organise communication and knowledge sharing between Galaxy and its suppliers, within Galaxy, and between Galaxy and its customers.

A selected group of Galaxy customers have been selected to test a prototype of the new running shoe. To support the trial, a community for the early adopters has been created on Vmoso.

Here, Galaxy product managers can interact with the trial participants, analyse data received from the shoes’ sensors, and discuss appropriate actions.

Galaxy have also engaged a professional physiotherapist, Marion, to participate in the trial and engage with the early adopters.

Marion is also involved in the other initiative linked to the new product launch, Galaxy’s “Smart Physio”. This is an artificial intelligence powered agent which delivers personalized recommendations to each member of the trial via private Vmoso channels, based on the data collected from the sensors in their shoes, and aggregated data from the wider trial community. Marion uses her domain expertise to help train the Smart Physio’s recommendations.

Vmoso also hosts all the communication and collaboration between Galaxy and Sportex, the main supplier of the shoes’ materials. This includes both freeform, unstructured communication for general discussion, and more structured business processes for tracking and accountability of formal change requests.

Todd is a loyal Galaxy customer, so was invited to become a member of the early adopter community. He’s been using the prototype shoes for his daily run every day this week, and his feet are suffering from blisters in a way they never did with his previous Galaxy shoes.
He reports this problem to the community, and finds that he’s not the only one suffering in this way.

Nancy in the Galaxy product management team is obviously concerned by these reports. But thanks to the tracking devices in the shoes, she’s able to get a much clearer picture of what’s going on.
She has been receiving daily reports in Vmoso of aggregated data from the trial users, but she can now dig into the detailed data for the runners who’ve reported the problem.

It quickly becomes apparent that the sensors are reporting a higher than expected temperature inside the shoe for all the runners suffering from blisters.

Sportex have actually provided two different versions of the shoe made with different textiles, and Nancy sees that all the shoes exhibiting higher temperatures are using textile variant A.

Nancy gets in contact with her Sportex contact, Howard, about this. Howard suggests that Nancy makes a formal request to stop manufacturing the variant A shoes, and switch to variant B.

Nancy initiates a change request process in Vmoso to do this. Before reaching Sportex, this needs to be approved by Nancy’s manager, Amber.

But before Amber agrees to this, she asks Nancy to find out more about how the runners using variant B are getting on.

The data looks good, but Nancy wants to get feedback from the runners themselves.

The replies she gets are surprising – several of the runners report that their shoes are already showing significant signs of wear. It looks like variant B doesn’t suffer from the overheating problem, but is a lot less resilient than variant A.

Nancy recommends to Amber that she declines the previous request. Instead, she initiates a new process to request Sportex work to address the overheating problem in variant A.

A couple of weeks later, Sportex and Galaxy have an updated prototype for the runners to try. Todd has been using the new shoe for a couple of days and has suffered no recurrence of the blisters.
Nancy is keeping a close watch on the sensor data and sees that the overheating problem does appear to have been resolved.

The more Todd uses the shoes, the more data is collected from the sensors, and Galaxy’s Smart Physio is able to start making recommendations.

Marion has been training the Smart Physio to recognise patterns relating to running style. She notes that some of the group of early adopters have a running style where the heel of the leading foot hits the ground first, combined with a wide stride pattern. This can lead to shin splits and heel damage, so Marion trains the Smart Physio to recognise this, and the recommended corrective action.

Automated analysis of the daily data from Todd’s shoes shows that he’s guilty of this style of running, even though he’s never associated it with some of the pain he feels after running. The Smart Physio makes recommendations, and shows Todd a video of how to correct the running style.

That makes sense to Todd, but he worries that when he’s out running, it would be really easy for him to slip back into old habits. So he asks the Smart Physio to warn him if he’s doing it. As Todd runs, the Smart Physio makes an audible notification when he slips back into his old running style.

As the end of the run, Todd asks how he did – the Smart Physio is able to show how Todd started well, but as he tired, the old pattern came back. It suggests that Todd considers shorter runs until he’s adapted his running style, and offers to recommend a personalised training pattern for Todd over the next week.

With Vmoso at the centre of Galaxy’s communication and collaboration, the launch of the new range of shoes is a huge success.

Bringing together product managers, suppliers, customers, data from smart sensors and artificial intelligence-powered agents around one digital transformation hub means that product development issues are reported, analyzed and acted upon rapidly, increasing product quality and reducing the time to market.

Engaging with customers both person-to-person and via AI creates a compelling customer experience, leading to greater brand loyalty and repeat sales.

Vmoso and GDPR

 

With the introduction of GDPR just months away, it’s important that the systems you use for communication receive the same level of data protection scrutiny as your systems of record. Vmoso brings together internal and external communication, integrated to your systems of record, helping you meet your data protection obligations.

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The General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR is a new set of data protection laws set to be introduced on 25th May 2018. It applies to all organisations in the European Union, and all organisations outside the EU that offer goods or services to individuals in the EU.

It aims to standardize data protection rules across the EU, and for most countries goes significantly beyond the previous national laws in place to establish a wider set of rights for individuals about the information organisations hold about them.

 

GDPR provides individuals with:

  • The right to be informed about the information organisations hold about them, and how it is used
  • The right of access to that information
  • The right to rectification of any incorrect data held
  • The right to erasure of the data
  • The right to restrict processing, limiting how data an organisation holds may be used
  • The right to data portability, allowing individuals to transfer their data from one service to another
  • The right to object to how their data is used, and
  • Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling

 

As most organisations already comply with their data protection obligations, the processes and systems they have in place form a solid basis for ensuring GDPR compliance.

However, in recent years, changes in the way business communication takes place have often worked against organisations’ good intentions around data protection. While their systems of record are typically well-structured and enable organisations to comply with their data protection obligations, their internal and external communication systems are a different matter entirely.

 

GDPR describes how personal data and sensitive personal data is handled. When this remains in an organisation’s systems of record – their customer databases, CRM systems, finance systems , etc, it’s relatively easy to comply with GDPR’s provisions to protect the individual’s rights. The problems start when this personal data is held in, or copied to communication systems that are much less tightly regulated.

 

This problem has been exacerbated by a move away from email into wide range of new communication tools, often brought into the organisation by employees without IT approval. This trend towards “shadow IT” or “bring your own app” puts company data at risk, and makes it almost impossible for organisations to meet their data protection obligations. How can an organisation possible find, rectify or erase an individual’s data if it is scattered across a mish-mash of employee-chosen communication apps?

 

If this scenario sounds unlikely to you, think again. In the UK, one of the largest ever fines imposed by the Information Commissioner’s Office related to the breach of a customer database that had not been approved by the organisation’s IT department.  And it is widely acknowledged that NHS staff are regularly using WhatsApp to exchange patient data, often crossing the boundary of what constitutes “personal data”. Shadow IT is alive and well in most organisations, whether they know about it or not.

 

So all the good data protection work on your core enterprise systems could be undone if you fail to consider how personal data is included in your day to day business communication. One of the major changes GDPR brings is significantly increased fines for non-compliance. For example, Pharmacy2U’s fine of 130,000 in 2015 could have been 4.4m under GDPR. Talktalk’s 2016 fine of 400,000 could have been 59m under GDPR. In the new world of GDPR, no company can afford to ignore the risks of shadow IT.

 

Vmoso from BroadVision helps your meet your data protection obligations by consolidating your business communication in one place, removing the need for shadow IT communication solutions. Instead of messages being scattered across individual users’ email inboxes, or locked into unapproved communication apps like WhatsApp or Line, Vmoso stores all messages in a secure, cloud-based environment, making data discovery, rectification, and erasure straightforward.

 

Let’s look at an example.

 

Galaxy Telecom provides phone and broadband services to residential customers.

 

As Galaxy customer, Sarah is provided with a dedicated Vmoso customer service channel for all her communication.

She has reported a problem to Galaxy customer service, saying she’s unable to access certain websites and is being redirected to other sites.

 

Lloyd in the customer service team asks for details of which sites Sarah’s trying to access and where she’s ending up instead. During this discussion, Sarah confirms the IP address she’s currently using – this is something that GDPR classes as “personal data”.

 

As part of this discussion, Lloyd explicitly asks for Sarah’s consent to use the information provided to resolve the issue. A key requirement of GDPR is being able to demonstrate consent to use personal data, and receiving this consent in Vmoso provides a permanent record.

 

It’s now several months later. Galaxy have recently suffered a security breach of some customer data. They have, as GDPR requires, reported this to the relevant supervisory authority.

 

At the end of her contract, Sarah chose to switch suppliers so is no longer a Galaxy customer. But she hears about the breach in the news and is concerned that Galaxy may still hold some of her personal data. He asks Galaxy to provide her with all the information they still hold about her , and to delete it all.

 

Because all Sarah’s interactions with Galaxy have been through a persistent Vmoso customer service channel, this is trivially easy for Galaxy to do. Galaxy are able to provide Sarah with both the records from their core customer database, and a transcript of all the discussions they had with Sarah on Vmoso.

 

Galaxy’s use of Vmoso enables them to meet their GDPR obligations by providing Sarah with a rapid and comprehensive response.

 

But the impact of GDPR on communication systems isn’t just limited to customer service. It applies equally to any organisation inside or outside the EU that holds personal data about EU citizens, including cases such as:

  • HR departments retaining candidate information for recruitment
  • Charities maintaining lists of donors and volunteers
  • National and local government departments communicating with citizens.

 

With the introduction of GDPR just months away, it’s important that the systems you use for communication receive the same level of data protection scrutiny as your systems of record. Vmoso brings together internal and external communication, integrated to your systems of record, helping you meet your data protection obligations.

 

For more information about how Vmoso can help your organisation, contact us at sales@broadvision.com or broadvision.com/contact

 

Galaxytown Police Department

 

Captain Lombard of the Galaxytown Police Department has a wide range of responsibilities. His daily duties include everything from overseeing budgets, officers under his command, investigations, internal department matters, attending community events for awareness and reporting to city council members.

He’s been struggling lately with cases taking longer to close. It’s difficult to organize, retrieve and retain information and activities on cases due to the multiplicity of difference sources – files, email, chat tools, CRM, and content sharing applications.

This is even more challenging given the need to access the information in the street, not only from behind a desk.

Captain Lombard has noticed recently that because of the proliferation of communication channels and the lack of centralized way to track and organize them, several cases and activities have been falling through the cracks. This has impacted the image of the department and hindered the resolution of the cases.

In an attempt to address the situation, Captain Lombard has recently approved the procurement of Vmoso for his entire department.

This morning, Captain Lombard receives details of a major robbery at a large electronics store. With everything on his plate and emails piling up in his inbox, Lombard decides to use Vmoso to manage his duties and keep everything in one place.

Instead of parsing hundreds of daily emails, now with Vmoso Lombard only has to review a few folders where all his communication is automatically organized and classified. It makes it easy for him to rapidly review cases as they come to his attention. In addition, any assignment made can be easily tracked and documented.

As Lombard reviews the case he uses the Vmoso knowledge map to explore all the connections between cases, and discovers a lot of information he wouldn’t have been aware of without Vmoso.

He identifies a possible tie between this case and another one handled by Detective Peters. Lombard uses Vmoso to assign the case to Peters, and with a single click he includes all the pertinent information.

Peters is working the case and finds evidence at the crime scene that could be vital. Using Vmoso he updates the task to inform the Chief on progress he’s made.

Peters also creates a task for the Forensics department to work on the evidence gathered at the crime scene.

Documents and reports provided from Forensics can be continuously updated with any new findings, so Peters always has access to the most up to date information, even if he’s out of the office.

Once they are finished, Forensics then update the task notifying Peters of their findings.

Peters receives the notification on his cell phone while working in the field, and he can keep his Captain up to date from wherever he is.

The Chief decides to use the knowledge map in Vmoso to see if there are any current or past cases that are similar to Peters’ case. He can easily see previous cases that were worked on and that had success with certain strategies, making it easier for him to find and obtain intelligence or strategic insight.

The Chief finds that one of the suspects lives in the Newtown, 20 miles away. He instructs Peters to reach out and coordinate the arrest with the Newtown Police Department. This entire communication happens on the go, using their mobile devices.

Peters receives vital information from the Newtown detective about the suspect, as well as information on his movements and history.

Newtown PD is not on Vmoso and uses email to communicate with Galaxytown PD. But thanks to Vmoso’s email integration, all the communication with Newtown PD is received and automatically classified and, saving valuable time.

While working on the case, Peters uncovers that the suspects have ties to an international terrorist group that have bombed local cities. He responds to his task to let the Chief know about his findings.

The Chief decides to create a post for the Galaxy Intelligence Agency, notifying them about a possible terrorist threat.

With minimal effort, a huge amount of information stored in files, images, videos, email and chats are shared. This information is stored in a highly secure space with very strict content access.

With the information gathered by the police department and intelligence agency the Captain and Detective Peters are able to close the case.

Using Vmoso enables the Galaxytown Police Department to close cases faster. Vmoso captures, organizes and retrieves information from any device as a single source of truth. Updates on cases and tasks can be viewed from anywhere, at any time with instant notification, thus increasing efficiency and saving time.

With Vmoso, orders never fall through the cracks and information is never lost. Vmoso enhances collaboration with external agencies and communication with the public community to better protect and serve its citizens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vishnu Saini, Voyants

 

Vishnu Saini of Voyants Solutions Private Limited, in conversation with Biplove Belwal of BroadVision, describes his company’s experiences of using Vmoso.

Vishal Singh, Royal Expeditions

 

Vishal Singh of Royal Expeditions, in conversation with Biplove Belwal of BroadVision, describes his company’s experiences of using Vmoso.

Case Study: Document Future

 

Thomas Becker, Managing Director of Document Future, describes how he introduced Vmoso into his company to improve the quality of communication and collaboration and meet a challenging software release deadline.