Month: June 2020

Rehearsal is essential to giving an effective presentation. Rehearsing increases your confidence, ensures you are familiar with your material and allows you to polish your presentation skills. It is important to not only practice delivering your talk, but to practice using your visual aids.

• Rehearse your presentation to yourself at first (speak in front of a mirror or to the cat), then to a friend or colleague.
• Time your rehearsal. Make sure you can complete your talk within the allotted time.
• Rehearse with your slideshow. Practicing running it at the same time as your talk will ensure that it looks and operates as you expect.
• Make sure that the structure of your talk matches the sequence of your visual aids.
• Consider the timing of your slideshow. Does it fit with your words? Is there too much on-screen movement? Too many mouse clicks too close together?

Here are five steps to rehearse effectively.

1. Start with presentation notes.

In PowerPoint, you can write notes at the bottom of each slide. Start writing notes for each slide in full sentences. Read the transcript out loud as you review each slide. Next, cut down the full sentences into bullet points and rehearse out loud again–relying on notes even less. Eventually, cut the notes down to just a few words that will prompt you to deliver the entire concept. The less you rely on notes for your final presentation, the more eye contact you’ll make and the stronger your connection will be.

2. Practice under ‘mild stress.’

Psychologists who work with athletes have found that mirror real-world conditions as much as possible during practice sessions brings out the best performance when the pressure is on. The famous entrepreneur and author, Tim Ferriss, applied this concept to his TED talk. “Mimic game-day conditions as much as possible,” he said after his presentation. Ferriss gave the presentation in front of friends and strangers at various startups to groups of about 20 people. “I don’t want my first rehearsal in front of a large group of strangers to be when I stand up in front of 3,000 people,” he said. 

3. Ask for specific feedback.

Once you’ve practiced your presentation in front of a small audience, most people will say “good job.” They don’t want to hurt your feelings and they’ll have limited feedback. While “good job” might help you feel good, it won’t help you get better. Ask them to be specific: Is there something you didn’t understand? Do I use jargon that you’re not familiar with? Did I make strong eye contact? What did you like–or not like–about my delivery? What can I do to make it stronger?

The musician, Amanda Palmer, invited more than two-dozen people to a watch her practice over a potluck-style dinner. She delivered the talk to students, she gave the presentation to friends over Skype, and did two or three rehearsals in front of TED organizers. She spent countless hours to get it right over a period of four months. Each time, she received feedback and tweaked the presentation–re-writing parts of the script–to condense it into 12 short, powerful minutes.

Ask friends and colleagues for open, honest, and specific feedback

4. Record it.

Set up a smartphone or a video camera on a tripod and record your presentation. You’ll be surprised at what you see. You’ll catch vocal fillers such as ‘ums’ and ‘ahs.’ You’ll find yourself using distracting hand motions like brushing your hair back or jiggling coins in your pocket. You might catch yourself avoiding eye contact or looking at the slides more than you’re looking at the audience. It’s not always comfortable watching yourself on camera, but it’s a critical tool for successful presentations.

5. Practice until it’s effortless.

The hardest question to answer is: How many times should I practice my presentation? Dr. Jill practiced 200 times. Author and scientist Mary Roach practiced 25 times for her TED presentation. I recommend rehearsing the entire presentation until you can deliver it effortlessly, without thinking about the first words you’re going to say about each slide. In my experience as a professional communication advisor, I put the number of rehearsals at 10. Some people might need more; others need a little less. But if you practice your presentation from start to finish at least ten times, you’ll have more confidence than ever.

It’s easy to see how PowerPoint became an industry standard for presentations. It was one of the first tools to offer easy-to-use, customizable templates a major plus for nondesigners.

But design-wise, PowerPoint isn’t the most engaging platform or presentation software. The templates encourage endless bullet points, which can feel tedious after multiple slides, and the styles are often dull, with muted colors and little animation. Fall back on PowerPoint’s stock templates too often and your business presentations will lack the impact you desire.

To create a powerful, dynamic presentation, you need software with more capabilities.

What makes a great Presentation Software?

PowerPoint deserves credit for being straightforward and easy to use. Almost anyone, regardless of skill level, can quickly learn how to use the software and pull together a presentation.

But accessibility is just one factor you need in presentation software. To consistently create presentations that grab audiences’ attention, you’ll need software with greater functionality. An ideal program lets you easily create and display visually stunning presentations across devices at a cost that fits your budget.

Here are the main factors to consider when looking for great presentation software:

• Design library: It should offer a large number of templates, images, and other media to create your presentation.
• Features: Rather than just including standard slides, software should offer alternative formats to share presentation content and engage audiences.
• Shareability: For easy collaboration, users should be able to share presentations with other users and allow simultaneous editing.
• Simplicity: Most users aren’t design experts, so software should be simple enough for any person to use, regardless of their background.
• Cost: Find software that fits your budget so you can consistently create presentations.
• Compatibility: Most people and organizations use multiple devices, so choose software that’s compatible across devices in creating and displaying presentations.
• It’s unlikely that you’ll find software that checks all of those boxes, but aim to match as many of the factors as possible. Find a software with greater assets than PowerPoint and you’ll have tools at hand to create captivating presentations.

The 9 Best PowerPoint Presentation Software Alternatives

Design is subjective, so it follows that presentation software varies widely. Every program is geared toward unique visual goals, so individuals and organizations have many options to choose from when picking a program.

To get started, we’re highlighting nine alternatives to PowerPoint and breaking them down by several factors, so you have a framework to assess each one and pick the program that works for your needs.

Let’s dive in.

1. Prezi

Prezi is about as different from PowerPoint as you can get. Rather than offering a slide-by-slide presentation, it’s more of a visual and interactive mind map, wherein you interact with different elements on a virtual canvas.

Convert your PowerPoint presentation slides into a dynamic user experience, or create a brand-new “prezi” from scratch.

• Design library: Prezi offers roughly 100 templates for building presentations.
• Features: Beyond sequential slides, as with PowerPoint, Prezi lets you create frames that can zoom in and out from one another. This movement is perfect for showing how ideas relate to each other.
• Shareability: Up to 10 people can work on a Prezi at once.
• Simplicity: Prezi has an uncluttered interface with a drag-and-drop editor that’s easy to use.
• Cost: Prezi has a free basic plan and several premium plans ranging from $7 to $59 per month.
• Compatibility: Prezi is compatible with both PC and Mac desktops, as well as iPhones, iPads, and Android devices.

All in all, Prezi is worth using for its features. The ability to show how ideas relate to one another using Prezi’s frames and zoom feature is far more engaging than PowerPoint’s typical bullet-point slides.

2. Vyond

Across industries, video has been shown to grab attention and engage better than most media. Videos have been known to increase people’s understanding of a product or service by drastic margins.

Vyond puts the power of video into the hands of everyone, everywhere. The platform provides anyone, no matter what their production skill level is, with the tools they need to create powerful, dynamic media. With features that go beyond moving text and images, you can build character-driven stories or compelling data visualizations that engage audiences and deliver results.

• Design library: Vyond offers three different video styles with thousands of templates, stock characters, props, and more to choose from.
• Features: Rather than communicate info through slides, Vyond lets you share your content through an animated story. Create characters and make them move in minutes to engage audiences.
• Shareability: Vyond’s platform lets multiple people edit videos simultaneously.
• Simplicity: Vyond has a very clear interface with few tabs, so it’s easy to navigate. The drag-and-drop editing features are basic enough for any user, regardless of their experience level.
• Cost: Starting at $39p/mo (plans with GIF export capabilities start at $89 p/mo)
• Compatibility: If hitting pause isn’t available during your presentation, video can present timing challenges. If this is the case, you can still make a better presentation by adding short video clips or GIFs into your PowerPoint.

Vyond is worth investing in because of its novel animation features. With its platform, you can create a dynamic video in the same amount of time it takes to create a PowerPoint presentation—but the result, an animated clip with characters, props, and more, is far more engaging than a collection of slides. If you’re not looking to create a full video select Vyond plans make it possible to create quick GIFs to use in other presentation platforms (including PowerPoint). You can start from a template and have something more engaging than a PowerPoint slide in a few minutes.

3. Zoho Show

As a PowerPoint alternative, Zoho Show is also a slide-creation platform, but with an interface that’s more basic, clean, and simple than PowerPoint’s.

Offering a free version, Zoho is perfect for any beginner with minimal design skills who needs to create a simple slide presentation but doesn’t want to pay for PowerPoint.

• Design library: Zoho Show offers 17 prebuilt themes, as well as a wide gallery of animation and slide transition effects.
• Features: Zoho Show allows you to present content through slides, just like PowerPoint.
• Shareability: Multiple people can view and edit presentations in real time.
• Simplicity: Zoho Show is very easy to use, with minimal features laid out clearly in just a few tabs, so all users, no matter what their experience level is, can use the platform.
• Cost: Zoho Show is free for teams of up to 25 users. For larger teams, they offer premium plans ranging from $4 to $6 per user.
• Compatibility: Zoho Show works on all desktops and Android devices.

Zoho Show’s biggest advantage is its simplicity, potentially at no cost. If you’re a small team with little design experience, Zoho is a great alternative to PowerPoint.

4. Google Slides

Out of all the software options on this list, Google Slides is most like PowerPoint. It is formatted similarly and lets you upload and edit PowerPoint files on the platform.

There are a few key advantages that G Slides has over PowerPoint, though: It’s free and online, so you can easily collaborate with just a browser.

• Design library: Google Slides has roughly 20 themes for people to use as templates.
• Features: Google Slides lets you create slide presentations, just like PowerPoint.
• Shareability: Presentations can be shared with people and edited simultaneously.
• Simplicity: The task bar is a bit cluttered, with a few small, unclear icons, but overall the software is straightforward enough for most people to use.
• Cost: Google Slides is free.
• Compatibility: Google Slides is available for desktops and iOs and Android devices.

Google Slides is similar to PowerPoint, but it’s still a strong–and free–alternative that allows users to collaborate through just a browser rather than requiring downloaded software.

5. Keynote

Just as PCs are often loaded with PowerPoint, Macs come with Keynote, Apple’s presentation software.

Like PowerPoint, Keynote is designed for creating slides, but it comes with the key advantages of visually stunning templates and a simple, clear interface.

• Design library: Keynote offers 30 themes with clean, beautiful designs.
• Features: Keynote lets users create slides, but it’s slightly more engaging than PowerPoint, being driven more by images and less by bullet points.
• Shareability: Keynote allows you to collaborate on presentations with anyone, anywhere.
• Simplicity: Keynote is slightly easier to use than PowerPoint because the task bar is less cluttered and the icons have clear images and labels.
• Cost: Keynote is free to download for Macs.
• Compatibility: Keynote works on Macs, iPads, and iPhones.

If you’re an Apple user, Keynote is a strong alternative to PowerPoint, letting you engage audiences more with visuals than with endless bullet-pointing.

6. Haiku Deck

If you’re all about visuals, Haiku Deck is one of the most image-oriented presentation programs out there. It’s designed to create slides, just like PowerPoint, but the templates encourage little text, so users can enjoy the stunning visuals in the background.

As a plus, Haiku Deck has a pretty extensive library of free templates and images, so you don’t need much to start building a beautiful presentation.

• Design library: Haiku Deck offers thousands of templates and over 40 million free Creative Commons images.
• Features: Haiku Deck is designed to create image-based slides, unlike the primarily text-based slides of PowerPoint.
• Shareability: Simultaneous editing isn’t supported in Haiku Deck, but presentations can be shared with users to view and edit at different times.
• Simplicity: Haiku Deck has minimal features with an uncluttered sidebar, so it’s easy for anyone, regardless of skill level, to learn how to use the platform.
• Cost: Haiku Deck ranges from $8 to $30 per month, depending on which account you choose.

If you’re trying to engage audiences more with visuals, and your presentation doesn’t need to load a ton of textual content, Haiku Deck may be the solution for you. By highlighting stunning photographs and graphics, Haiku Deck presentations will quickly captivate your audience’s attention.

Whether it’s a desktop or laptop computer, a smartphone or a video game system, every modern computer needs an operating system. That’s the core software on the computer that sits between application software and the hardware, distributing memory and computing resources to apps, managing files and enforcing security rules.

What Operating Systems Do?

Operating systems define how a computer stores files, switches between different applications, manages memory, keeps itself secure, and interacts with peripherals like printers and cameras. Different operating systems take different approaches to all of these, which is why you normally can’t run a Windows program on a Macintosh computer and why permissions look different on an Android phone than on an iPhone.

Some operating systems are designed by groups of people around the world, like the open source, freely available operating system Linux, while others are commercial products made by one company, such as Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s macOS.

Different operating systems run on different types of hardware and are designed for different types of applications. For example, iOS is designed for iPhones and iPad tablets, while Mac desktops and laptops use macOS. Your computer or smartphone comes equipped with an OS, but you can install another one in some cases.

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows has existed in one form or another since 1985, and it remains the most popular operating system for home and office computers. Its latest versions, including Windows 10, are also used on some tablets, and the OS is used on some web and number-crunching server computers as well. Computers from a wide variety of manufacturers can use Windows.

Initial versions of Windows worked with an earlier Microsoft operating system called MS-DOS, providing a modern graphical interface on top of DOS’s traditional text-based commands. Signature features of Microsoft Windows’s user interface include windows themselves rectangle-shaped, on-panel screens that represent individual applications. The Windows Start menu has helped generations of users find programs and files on their devices.

Efforts to use versions of the Windows OS for smartphones have been less successful.

Apple iOS

Apple’s iOS is one of the most popular smartphone operating systems, second only to Android. It runs on Apple hardware, including iPhones, iPad tablets and iPod Touch media players.

Signature features of iOS include the App Store where users buy apps and download free software, an emphasis on security including strong encryption to limit what unauthorized users can extract from the phone, and a simple, streamlined interface with minimal hardware buttons.

Google’s Android OS

Android is the most popular operating system in the world judging by the number of devices installed. Largely developed by Google, it’s chiefly used on smartphones and tablets. Unlike iOS, it can be used on devices made by a variety of different manufacturers, and those makers can tweak parts of its interface to suit their own needs.

Users can download custom versions of the operating system because large portions of it are open source, meaning anyone can legally modify it and publish their own. However, most people prefer to stick with the version that comes on their devices.

Android, like iOS, comes with an application and media store called the Play Store built by Google. Some phone manufacturers and other organizations also offer their own stores to install software and media.

Apple macOS

Apple’s macOS, successor to the popular OS X operating system, runs on Apple laptops and desktops. Based in part on the historic family of Unix operating systems dating back to research in the 1960s at AT&T’s Bell Labs, macOS shares some features with other Unix-related operating systems including Linux. While the graphical interfaces are different, many of the underlying programming interfaces and command line features are the same.

Signature elements of macOS include the dock used to find programs and frequently used files, unique keyboard keys including the Command key, and the stoplight-colored buttons used to resize open program windows. MacOS is known for its user-friendly features, which include Siri, a natural-voice personal assistant, and FaceTime, Apple’s video-calling application.

Linux Operating System

Unlike many other operating systems, development on Linux isn’t led by any one company. The operating system was created by Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds in 1991. Nowadays, programmers from all over the world collaborate on its open source code and submit tweaks to the central kernel software and other programs.

A wide assortment of commercial and open source software is available for Linux, and various Linux distributions provide custom user interfaces and tools for installing software onto machines running the operating system. A favorite of many programmers, Linux is widely used on corporate and scientific servers, including cloud computing environments. Linux can be run on a wide variety of hardware and is available free of charge over the internet.

Types of Operating system

• Batch Operating System
• Multitasking/Time Sharing OS
• Multiprocessing OS
• Real Time OS
• Distributed OS
• Network OS
• Mobile OS

1. Batch Operating System

Some computer processes are very lengthy and time-consuming. To speed the same process, a job with a similar type of needs are batched together and run as a group.

The user of a batch operating system never directly interacts with the computer. In this type of OS, every user prepares his or her job on an offline device like a punch card and submit it to the computer operator.

2. Multi-Tasking/Time-sharing Operating systems

Time-sharing operating system enables people located at a different terminal(shell) to use a single computer system at the same time. The processor time (CPU) which is shared among multiple users is termed as time sharing.

3. Real time OS

A real time operating system time interval to process and respond to inputs is very small. Examples: Military Software Systems, Space Software Systems.

4. Distributed Operating System

Distributed systems use many processors located in different machines to provide very fast computation to its users.

5. Network Operating System

Network Operating System runs on a server. It provides the capability to serve to manage data, user, groups, security, application, and other networking functions.

6. Mobile OS

Mobile operating systems are those OS which is especially that are designed to power smartphones, tablets, and wearables devices.

Some most famous mobile operating systems are Android and iOS, but others include BlackBerry, Web, and watchOS.

The advantage of using Operating System

• Allows you to hide details of hardware by creating an abstraction
• Easy to use with a GUI
• Offers an environment in which a user may execute programs/applications
• The operating system must make sure that the computer system convenient to use
• Operating System acts as an intermediary among applications and the hardware components
• It provides the computer system resources with easy to use format
• Acts as an intermediator between all hardware’s and software’s of the system

Disadvantages of using Operating System

• If any issue occurs in OS, you may lose all the contents which have been stored in your system
• Operating system’s software is quite expensive for small size organization which adds burden on them. Example Windows
• It is never entirely secure as a threat can occur at any time

Open-source software (OSS) is a type of computer software in which source code is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose. Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative public manner. Open-source software is a prominent example of open collaboration.

Open-source software development can bring in diverse perspectives beyond those of a single company. A 2008 report by the Standish Group stated that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion (£48 billion) per year for consumers.

Open source software is released through a specific kind of license that makes its source code legally available to end-users. There are many such licenses, but typically software is considered open source if:

• It is available in source code form without additional cost, meaning users can view the code that comprises the software and make any kind of changes to it they want.
• The source code can be repurposed into other new software, meaning anyone can take the source code and distribute their own program from it.

In the early days of computing, programmers and developers shared software in order to learn from each other and evolve the field of computing. Eventually, the open-source notion moved to the way side of commercialization of software in the years 1970–1980. However, academics still often developed software collaboratively. For example, Donald Knuth in 1979 with the TeX typesetting system or Richard Stallman in 1983 with the GNU operating system. In 1997, Eric Raymond published The Cathedral and the Bazaar, a reflective analysis of the hacker community and free-software principles. The paper received significant attention in early 1998, and was one factor in motivating Netscape Communications Corporation to release their popular Netscape Communicator Internet suite as free software. This source code subsequently became the basis behind SeaMonkey, Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird and KompoZer.

Netscape’s act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring the Free Software Foundation’s free software ideas and perceived benefits to the commercial software industry. They concluded that FSF’s social activism was not appealing to companies like Netscape, and looked for a way to rebrand the free software movement to emphasize the business potential of sharing and collaborating on software source code. The new term they chose was “open source”, which was soon adopted by Bruce Perens, publisher Tim O’Reilly, Linus Torvalds, and others. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage use of the new term and evangelize open-source principles.

While the Open Source Initiative sought to encourage the use of the new term and evangelize the principles it adhered to, commercial software vendors found themselves increasingly threatened by the concept of freely distributed software and universal access to an application’s source code. A Microsoft executive publicly stated in 2001 that “open source is an intellectual property destroyer. I can’t imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.” However, while Free and open-source software has historically played a role outside of the mainstream of private software development, companies as large as Microsoft have begun to develop official open-source presences on the Internet. IBM, Oracle, Google, and State Farm are just a few of the companies with a serious public stake in today’s competitive open-source market. There has been a significant shift in the corporate philosophy concerning the development of FOSS.

The free-software movement was launched in 1983. In 1998, a group of individuals advocated that the term free software should be replaced by open-source software (OSS) as an expression which is less ambiguous and more comfortable for the corporate world. Software developers may want to publish their software with an open-source license, so that anybody may also develop the same software or understand its internal functioning. With open-source software, generally, anyone is allowed to create modifications of it, port it to new operating systems and instruction set architectures, share it with others or, in some cases, market it. Scholars Casson and Ryan have pointed out several policy-based reasons for adoption of open source – in particular, the heightened value proposition from open source (when compared to most proprietary formats) in the following categories:

• Security
• Affordability
• Transparency
• Perpetuity
• Interoperability
• Flexibility
• Localization: Particularly in the context of local governments (who make software decisions). Casson and Ryan argue that “governments have an inherent responsibility and fiduciary duty to taxpayers” which includes the careful analysis of these factors when deciding to purchase proprietary software or implement an open-source option.

Information is generated by processing facts. These facts may be represented by symbols, such as alphabets, digits, diagrams, graphs, pictures, etc. and they are popularly know as data. For the purpose of developing services for generation of information, one would need data processing resources or IT resources.

These resources may be broadly classified into four categories, namely, hardware, soft­ware, data and human resources. It is essential for a manager to be aware of the features and significance of each of these resources. Such awareness will not only help the manager to plan the IT infrastructure but also to assess the cost of the IT infrastructure.

1. Computer hardware

Computer hardware refers to computer sys­tems and other associated equipment including the communica­tion links that a modern IT installation may need. With the rapid advancement in computer hardware technology, a large variety of computer. Systems with varying sizes, speeds and functional fea­tures are available.

To be able to determine the hardware resource requirements, it is necessary to properly assess the nature of IT needs, the volume of data to be processed, sources of data, complex­ity of data analysis and impact of other related factors. Such an assessment should also make provision for expected changes in these factors in the Future.

In fact, demands from IT infrastructure in­crease as the-IT infrastructure matures in any enterprise. As the IT infrastructure is used, people in the enterprise get familiar with the system, its applications and benefits. Similarly, with the in­creased use of IT infrastructure, new applications are developed and existing applications are improved upon in the light of the feed­back received.

This results in increased demand from the IT infra­structure. It is, therefore, advisable to make sufficient provision for such increase in the demands from the infrastructure. Due to very high rate of obsolescence in the computer industry and downward trends in prices of hardware, it is advisable to keep the plan period for computational needs as short as possible. These and other re­lated issues regarding the design of IT infrastructure shall be taken up later in the book.

2. Software

Putting it simply, sets of inter-related computer pro­grams are collectively called computer software. Software is life­line of the IT infrastructure and it makes the computer hardware function. Software determines what the hardware does and makes the hardware perform.

Software, thus, is a very important IT resource and must be carefully selected and properly maintained. Software, being intangible, sometimes gets a back seat in planning for an IT infrastructure. In fact, improper selection of software may become a major cause of failure of an IT infrastructure in achiev­ing its objectives.

Unlike computer hardware, software acquisition is a slow proc­ess involving persistent effort for acquisition, maintenance and im­provement. A rich library of well-tested software packages to meet information needs of an enterprise is a valuable resource for any IT infrastructure.

Computer software can, in fact, protect the IT infrastructure against the potential dangers/faults in the other three basic IT re­sources.

3. Data

Data are collections of facts or events represented in the form of symbols, such as digits, alphabets, pictures, graphs, etc. Captur­ing, processing and storage of data are the essential functions of any IT infrastructure. Data are the basic raw materials in the proc­ess of generation of information. Data may be collected from inter­nal sources as well as external sources.

Data are, thus, generally available in diverse formats using varying methods of ascertain­ment and valuation for each data item. Most of the internal data are well structured, clearly defined and complete. But, external data is fraught with a variety of weaknesses with regard to these char­acteristics.

Proper integration of internal and external data is es­sential for generation of quality information. Data as an IT resource are peculiar in the sense that most of the data are acquired over a period of time. Although a variety of sources of external data offer it off the shelf (e.g. Internet, Commercial Databases), a major part of data used is internally captured and therefore, it takes a long time to acquire it.

Unfortunately, data recorded on magnetic media are more prone to risks of physical security and privacy. High density of recording on these media and its exposure to computer hardware accidents make it imperative to take necessary steps to ensure security.

High density of recording and quick transferability of computer read­able data poses dangers to the confidentiality of data. Unauthorised access to data can result in major injury to the interest of a busi­ness enterprise. It is necessary to carefully preserve and protect this resource.

4. Human resources

The effectiveness of an IT infrastructure is a function of the type of IT personnel available to it. In fact, best of computer hardware, software and data may be spoiled and may cause havoc if the human resources are not competent, hon­est or reliable.

Qualities like competence, honesty and reliability are critical to any work environment. But in IT infrastructure it is all the more important. Hardware is very sensitive equipment, and software and data are intangible and fragile.

Since the in­formation generated with the help of IT infrastructure is meant for guiding action in the enterprise, any flaw in generation of information can prove costly. Since human resources are cata­lysts in process of generation of information, their role becomes vital in its effectiveness.

There is a wide gap between the demand and supply of com­puter professionals and as a result, turnover of IT employees is perhaps the highest. According to a survey conducted by ‘Dataquest’ magazine, in India the average stay of computer pro­fessionals is 3.9 years and the average manpower turnover in the computer industry is 16% per annum.

Another survey puts the average turnover rate at 14%. It adds that 60% of the com­panies surveyed were planning to increase their hiring of IT professionals. The major factors that are driving the increased hiring of information technology professionals include techno­logical trends and high rate of growth in the IT industry.

Sub­stantial jumps in pay and opportunity in updating and upgrad­ing knowledge keep enticing the computer professionals change their jobs. It is, therefore, essential to impart requisite skills among the users of information systems as well. This reduces the dependence on computer professionals for day-to-day use of the system.

5. Elements of Information System

As the quality of information generated through the IT infrastruc­ture depends, to a great extent, on the IT resources, they are also sometimes termed as elements of information systems. Some au­thors add one more element to this list – that is procedures.

These procedures include the operational and control procedures for the use of IT infrastructure. The procedures play an important role in the smooth and effective utilization of information resource. They also protect the information resource and maintain its quality.

Thus, the procedures as element of information system refer to the in­structions to users regarding the use of IT infrastructure for nor­mal day-to-day activity and also for handling special situations such as systems failures and crashes. They include user access permissions and disaster recovery procedures as well. These element of information system are represented in.

For a company to be digital, it needs to rethink its business strategy, organization model and culture. As we are seeing in the market, digital disruption is occurring across every industry. Who would have thought of Uber as a competitor to FedEx? But now Uber aims to deliver packages and they most certainly are a major disruptor.

Organizations that don’t start at that point will continue to face disruption. Once your business strategy is redefined in the context of the digital age, then you can start to build the organization model, culture and capabilities required to not only survive, but to become a digital disruptor yourself.

The capabilities to succeed as a Digital Business are:

1. Extreme Customer Centricity

Every product and process has to be reviewed with customer’s lens. Customers can interact with your products & systems from anywhere they walk in the door, access you via mobile, the Internet, or through your call center and more. Customers can connect through one channel and continue their transaction through another. They still expect you to understand them completely and customize their journey by understanding the context on a real-time basis.

2. Thinking Big, Scaling Incrementally

Today an organization can start operating and quickly scale to become a global business. Many traditional barriers to becoming globally competitive have disappeared. This forces large, global enterprises which were built in an age when those barriers were high, to retool themselves into agile competitors themselves. This requires a new “digitized” operating model, built to be able to respond to individual customer journeys.

3. Being Empowered By Data

You have the means to access all the data you want. You can not only collect data online at every point of interaction, but physical experiences through IoT can now generate data as well. For example, sensor-fitted objects and machines can provide new types of data previously unavailable. A supply chain manager can know where their inventory or finished goods are going, how much time they take to deliver, if they are optimizing the best routes, and be able to respond to new information in real time. At Wipro Digital, we understand that this machine-generated data can power new ways of working and create a competitive advantage for our clients.

So what does it take to become digital? Organizations need to go back to their core business strategies and embed them with “Digital DNA.” It may sound daunting to enact such deep change, but Digital DNA can be developed.

There are 3 tenets that define the DNA of a Digital Business:

1. Agility

You must be agile. Customers expect greater responsiveness, so organizations need to be fast, agile and collaborative. You must be able to make quick decisions, come together in small groups and work collaboratively because silos can’t exist in digital. Marketing, sales and R&D must work together in order to respond to customers at speed. Organizations also need to reexamine rigid policies and procedures that were created years ago to industrialize and standardize operations.

2. External Orientation

Organizations with a higher degree of external orientation are the need of the hour. There’s a lot of innovation outside the enterprise, so if you’re not able to tap into this innovation and these different ways of thinking, then your organization will become extinct.

3. Risk Taking

Be willing to take calculated risks and be comfortable experimenting. You don’t need to invest billions of dollars before you know whether it will work or not. In the Digital age, you can experiment. For example, Google can launch a new product in beta to a micro-segment, gather feedback and data, and see what works and what doesn’t, to further refine and better the product. After this, they can fully launch and be more certain of the investment and outcome.

For some larger, traditional businesses, this kind of ground level change may seem intimidating or just plain impossible. But there are three paths larger organizations can take to transition:

The first path is to create small subsidiaries and incubate them outside the existing structure. Walmart, for instance, created labs headquartered in the Bay Area rather than at Walmart headquarters in Arkansas.

A second path to quickly ramp up digital is to acquire start-ups and bring Digital DNA in-house quickly. BBVA acquired the Internet bank startup Simple for $117 million and that upped their digital capability very rapidly.

Finally, the third path is to organically build within an existing organizational structure but provide freedom to operate differently.

Different types of organizations and businesses will transform differently. Some enterprises and industries are getting disrupted faster than others.

The less regulated and more consumer facing the industry is, the less time it will have to shift to a digital ready business before its disrupted. On the other hand, highly regulated industries, such as pharmaceuticals and healthcare may have a little more time to make the shift. Certain areas in banking could also take two to three years before they can get truly disrupted but certain products that are less regulated are already getting disrupted by new fintech players. If you look at it through a 2 x 2 matrix – how regulated versus how consumer facing the industry is you get an idea of the amount of headroom available before one must complete their digital transition.

Digital economy is one collective term for all economic transactions that occur on the internet. It is also known as the Web Economy or the Internet Economy. With the advent of technology and the process of globalization, the digital and traditional economies are merging into one.

Digital economy is defined as an economy that focuses on digital technologies, i.e. it is based on digital and computing technologies. It essentially covers all business, economic, social, cultural etc. activities that are supported by the web and other digital communication technologies.

The term was first coined in a book “The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence” by author Don Tapscott in 1995.

There are three main components of this economy, namely,

• e-business
• e-business infrastructure
• e-commerce

In the last 15 years, we have seen the tremendous growth of digital platforms and their influence on our lives. Now consumers are influenced by things they see on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and other such popular websites (youtube. Etc.).

So this economy is a way to exploit this opportunity. Now it is integrated into every aspect of the user’s life healthcare, education, banking, entertainment etc.

Merits of Digital Economy

Digital economy has given rise to many new trends and start-up ideas. Almost all of the biggest companies in the world (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon) are from the digital world. Let us look at some important merits of the digital economy.

1. Promotes Use of the Internet

If you think about it, most of your daily work can today be done on the internet. The massive growth of technology and the internet that began in the USA is now a worldwide network. So there is a dramatic rise in the investment on all things related hardware, technological research, software, services, digital communication etc. And so this economy has ensured that the internet is here to stay and so are web-based businesses.

2. Rise in E-Commerce

The businesses that adapted and adopted the internet and embraced online business in the last decade have flourished. The digital economy has pushed the e-commerce sector into overdrive. Not just direct selling but buying, distribution, marketing, creating, selling have all become easier due to the digital economy.

3. Digital Goods and Services

Gone are the days of Movie DVD and Music CD’s or records. Now, these goods are available to us digitally. There is no need for any tangible products anymore. Same is true for services like banking, insurance etc. There is no need to visit your bank if you can do every transaction online. So certain goods and services have been completely digitized in this digital economy.

4. Transparency

Most transactions and their payment in the digital economy happen online. Cash transactions are becoming rare. This helps reduce the black money and corruption in the market and make the economy more transparent. In fact, during the demonetization, the government made a push for online transactions to promote the web economy.

Demerits of Digital Economy

1. Loss in Employment

The more we depend on technology, the less we depend on human resources. The advancement of the digital economy may lead to the loss of many jobs. As the processes get more automated, the requirement for human resources reduces. Take the example of online banking itself.

2. Lack of Experts

Digital economy requires complex processes and technologies. To build the platforms and their upkeep require experts and trained professionals. These are not readily available, especially in rural and semi-rural areas.

3. Heavy Investment

Digital economy requires a strong infrastructure, high functioning Internet, strong mobile networks and telecommunication. All of this is a time consuming and investment heavy process. In a developing country like ours, development of the infrastructure and network is a very slow, tedious and costly process.