So, You Found The Perfect (Smart) Robot For Your Store. Now What?

I’m not going to lie, choosing to invest in intelligent automation is not a simple undertaking. There are a lot of factors that must be weighed when evaluating the economics of a smart robot and an exhaustive list of performance, security, safety and management criteria to consider when shopping for this type of technology. We discussed many of them in these two blog posts

• The Economics of – and Business Case for – Intelligent Automation
• Retailers: Read This Before You Commit to An Intelligent Automation Solution

So, you might feel a bit of relief once you have made your selection and prep for implementation. You’re finally in the home stretch. But you can’t take your eye off the ball yet because what you do (or don’t do) next will directly influence your return on investment (ROI) time frame.

SOLUTION DEPLOYMENT IS NOT THE FINISH LINE

Though technically a software solution, intelligent automation utilizes a very large hardware component that – if not properly assimilated – can lead to employee resistance, lagging adoption and loss of investment value. So, while your focus is going to shift to the deployment stage quite quickly after you select an intelligent automation solution, don’t skip the most important step in your implementation: employee training and adoption.

Even if you do everything right on the back end to integrate the shelf inventory and pricing data collected by the smart robot into your prescriptive analytics, inventory management and demand planning solutions, those insights could be rendered useless if associates – the ones who must ultimately act on those insights – don’t understand how to leverage them. The last thing you want is your team wasting time duplicating the robot’s work because they are unfamiliar with how to use it or embed it in their daily workflows. At the same time, if front-line workers perceive intelligent automation to be a threat to their jobs, your investment could end up being a blow to morale versus boosting it as intended.

Something else to remember is that intelligent automation can cause both confusion and interest among customers, both of which could become disruptive to your operation and their shopping experience if not proactively mitigated. When people first see a smart robot roaming store aisles, they may get excited or they may become uncomfortable because it is unfamiliar to them. Be sure you consider both your employees’ and your customers’ potential experiences with intelligent automation as you work through the design and implementation requirements. And make sure you clearly communicate its role in driving in-store and online service improvements to customers once you start to deploy. Change management is critical for everyone, not just your associates.

In other words, taking care to properly onboard your intelligent automation solution is critical to achieving your desired outcomes, but the deployment alone will not determine the performance, value, or ROI of this technology. You must prepare your people for what’s to come and educate them – better yet, show them – how the intelligent automation solution will help them deliver even more value.. Solution adoption (by your entire team) is what will secure the win.

HOW TO GET YOUR INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION SOLUTION IN SYNC WITH YOUR BACK-OFFICE SYSTEMS AND FRONT-LINE TEAMS

I know you’ll be eager to put your intelligent automation investment to work. But, before you plug anything in, be sure you sit down with the right internal and external stakeholders to:

1. Set expectations and define goals.

It’s important to outline all the reasons why you embarked on this new endeavor. Are you hoping to reduce your overall operation cost, speed up your cycle time and/or recover lost revenue?

Even if you have completed this exercise before – and it’s very likely you’ve done this several times at this point – it’s imperative to do it again now. Though not recommended, it’s not unusual for a singular disciplinary team to spearhead the solution evaluation and selection processes. So, as you start to build and engage a cross-functional team to go the last mile – and sustain the intelligent automation system long term – you may not find the same people sitting around the table anymore, and everyone needs to be on the same page.

Even if you did have multiple parties engaged from day one, it’s quite possible that things have changed since you started this journey. Your “wish list” may have doubled in size, or you may have identified new challenges or opportunities that could impact objectives. Remember, intelligent automation is not just a single component. It’s a complete system that must integrate with many other systems, which can introduce more complexity once your entire technology architecture is mapped out and understood. At the same time, the software is very scalable and adaptable, so you may decide in the 11th hour that you need to adjust your intelligence mandates to achieve desired outcomes.

Just be sure to define the acceptable improvement thresholds as setting clear quantitative and qualitative performance metrics will keep your team focused on the most critical levers that support your goals.

2. Understand the implementation process – and what happens next.

Educating your team and selecting champions to lead this change is the first step in attaining your goals. It’s imperative they are fully onboard with what needs to happen and what they’re being asked to do. It’s usually recommended to start with a minimally viable product, or MVP implementation that can serve as a proof of concept. This enables you to de-risk major areas of concern before you fully deploy. At this stage, your objectives are less about ensuring that the technology you are implementing is working perfectly and more about understanding the many different ways that intelligent automation could support your business goals based on system capabilities in your unique operating environment.

Even though IT plays a key role in deploying intelligent automation since it provides servers, network access, and business integration, it is not the end user. Involve business operations, to include store managers, front-line associates, and other users of the intelligent automaton implementation output to ensure they:

• understand what it can do.
• are comfortable with what it does.
• know how to interact with all system components, including the hardware (i.e. robot) and software (i.e. intelligence being pushed to their mobile computers and other devices).
• fully accept the solution as a valued member of the team. (You may have to incentivize them, and that’s okay.)
• are clear on their individual and collective roles in the implementation as well as post-deployment solution monitoring and management.

If you’re innovating in the way in which your business provides After Delivery Reports (ADR) using a system such as Zebra Smartsight™ EMA, make sure to involve the users who leverage these reports to provide you valuable feedback and provide guidance on how to maximize your ROI case.

A word to the wise: Do not omit the scaling plan! Everyone needs to be clear on how an intelligent automation implementation would grow its footprint within your business. There should be no surprises. Plus, the more time people have to plan for what’s coming, the more time they have to process and accept the changes and their role in them. It may be best to incorporate in the training curriculum.

3. Prepare your business.

Though discussions will remain prevalent throughout this phase, this is when you’ll start to take very targeted, tangible actions to turn on the system.

Once your internal stakeholders are ready to go, provide your partner with access to the data and business assets required to develop the detailed implementation plan. This might include operational insights, schedules and other dependencies that could impact integration, refinement and security decisions. They may also ask you to adjust other areas in your infrastructure required to support the intelligence automation solution, such as your IT infrastructure (i.e. Wi-Fi and servers) or user interfaces such as handheld mobile computers, wearables, scanners or tablets.

No two intelligent automation solution integrations are the same, and its best practice for solution providers to customize each engagement to their customers’ unique needs. (That’s why it was so important to lay all expectations out in earlier planning meetings.) Support your partner and their efforts, as this isn’t the first time they’ve done this. In fact, we’re often told by customers that they chose to work with Zebra because we’re uniquely able to develop, deploy and support intelligent automation solutions in an incremental way that’s best for their businesses.

A word to the wise: Capture a snapshot of your current business operation and performance before you make any changes and then at regular intervals to compare progress and flag issues that may arise.

BEWARE OF THESE TWO POTENTIAL ROADBLOCKS

Your partner is going to do everything in its power to simplify the solution rollout (or they should, at least). But there are a couple of things that the Zebra team has encountered quite commonly when working with our customers that have made intelligent automation implementations more challenging than necessary:

1.  Involving the departments that support the actual deployment as described above but forgetting to ramp up the other teams that interacting with it on a daily basis long term. (This is why I recommend engaging all end users before you even start the proof-of-concept implementation. Front-line workers and those managing the system on the back end must buy in before you go live.)

2. Selecting the toughest applications to test the technology rather than a standard application. These complex applications doom the new implementations to fail and cause you to build a conception of its dysfunctionality because they are normally corner cases with little contribution to the ROI case. Therefore, starting with the most common applications (i.e. low-hanging fruit) is critical to building small wins. You can then expand the solution’s capabilities from there. Don’t forget that new technologies – and new capabilities within existing technology platforms – are being developed daily. It will become easier to tackle your more difficult applications over time. That’s why it’s so very important to select a partner that’s capable of innovation.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I can’t stress this enough, but deployment of your intelligent automation solution is not the end game – it’s just the enabler on your journey to becoming a more intelligent enterprise (or small business). The right partner will know that and likely emphasize it as much as I do. More importantly, they will take that fact into account as they’re working with you to define the solution implementation and employee education processes.

That’s why you need to scrutinize both a solution’s capabilities and the solution provider’s capabilities with equal discernment. If you enlist a manufacturer to guide you on this journey because they have “good products,” just be sure it also has the ability to:

• provide effective support for current products.
• continually innovate so that you aren’t suddenly stuck with an obsolete system. (Ask about its development strategy and roadmap on day one.)
• implement the solution squarely in the context of your pain points. (If they’re trying to force fit the “solution” into your environment and it doesn’t center on your target issues, then it “isn’t going to solve anything.)
• help you scale intelligently and in stages without introducing unnecessary risks.
• develop an agile project plan for your sub-projects so that you’re not stuck guessing the best next step to take. (That would be a bit ironic, wouldn’t it?)
• stretch the boundaries of its solution and expand the scope of your project (and its support) as you continue to grow your implementation footprint.

It is also critical that you remain agile throughout this entire process. It will help if you proactively:

• monitor your key performance indicators (KPI) and track them overtime.
• evaluate solution performance periodically and select areas for improvement.
• take measured steps to adapt your business to these newly untapped potentials.
• leverage your displaced labor in other areas within your operations which potentially impact your customer’s experience (and help boost employee value and morale).
• award champions of this advancement within your team and continue to empower them to lead.

My last piece of advice (for now): accept that things may not always go as planned. There may be hiccups during the deployment. There may not be instant harmony between your associates and the intelligent automation solution. And a million external factors could interfere with your ability to achieve desired outcomes in the timeline you defined. (Can you imagine what retailers must have felt when COVID-19 hit in the middle of their solution rollout?)

But if you take all of the above tips into account and have the right partner on speed dial, things should turn out better than expected! In fact, those who had deployed the Zebra SmartSight robot-as-a-service (RaaS) solution prior to the pandemic found themselves better able to recover from the initial surge demand impact. Their teams had the visibility they needed to manage shelf stock more efficiently and employees who may have been resistant at first became appreciative of the “extra eyes” on the floor as well as the actionable intelligence it was feeding to their mobile computers. They didn’t have to scramble quite as much as their peers to appease customers and save sales.

Originally published here.

The scope of the student loan crisis is significant. Forty five million borrowers owe a cumulative total of 1.6 trillion dollars in student loans, ranking just behind mortgage debt as the second highest debt category. [1] After making monthly payments on their student loans, borrowers have less in their budget for basic living expenses, but also higher ticket items like the purchase of a home, cars, appliances, furniture, and vacations. The resultant financial stress has an impact on borrowers’ quality of life, productivity at work, loyalty to their employers, and even the economy as a whole.
 
An Employee Financial Wellness survey conducted by PWC, found that 80% of student loan borrowers reported not being able to meet all of their financial obligations after making their monthly student loan payments. Another survey by Robert Half found that that 64% of workers are willing to change companies every few years if it comes with perks, such as assistance with student debt. The PWC survey also found that 49% of student loan borrowers indicated they spend three hours or more per week dealing with personal financial issues that adversely affect their productivity at work. [2]

Another effect of student debt is latent retirees: an alarming statistic is that there are 2.1 million senior citizens still paying off their student debt. [3] If older workers are not able to save for retirement due to the burden of student loan debt, they aren’t likely to be able to retire at what is considered normal retirement age. If they cannot retire with dignity, many seniors are compelled to continue working beyond normal retirement age. These latent retirees raise the cost of employment in the workforce due to higher health insurance costs of an aging workforce. [4]

In a study conducted by American Student Assistance 86% of employees indicated they would stay with a company for five years or more, if their employer offered a program to help them repay their student loans. In a MetLife study, 72% of employees surveyed said that customizable benefits would increase their loyalty to an employer. [5] Student loan repayment benefits can be a great way for a company to increase employee productivity, as well as an effective means to both attract and retain talent to an organization.

Join us for an informative webinar where we offer tangible, actionable solutions for individuals with student debt, as well as employers looking for ways to help their employees navigate their own personal debt crisis.
Webinar Date and Time

April 22^nd at 12:00 PM CST, with an expected duration of 1 hour. Register here!Webinar Speakers

• Tom Kret, Sr. Vice President, UBS Financial Services | Moderator
• Laurel Taylor, CEO, FutureFuel.i.o. | Speaker
• Mark Rose, Vice President of Product, FutureFuel.i.o. | Speaker
• Jenna Hokanson | Speaker

Sources:

[1, 3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/02/03/student-loan-debt-statistics/?sh=191a19c6281f

[2, 5] https://www.gradifi.com/notebook/workplace-trends/how-student-loan-debt-impacts-your-employees

[4] https://www.valuepenguin.com/how-age-affects-health-insurance-costs

For over three decades, as a Senior Retirement Plan Consultant, I have focused on assisting employers and their retirement plan participants to accumulate assets for their retirement. If you’d like to discuss how UBS’ Financial Wellness program could be a helpful resource to your employees in attaining their personal financial goals and objectives, call or email me. 

Direct: 847-277-2123

Email: thomas.kret@ubs.com

FALLS CHURCH, Va., March 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Kastle Systems announced today that it is providing property owners, tenants and employees with a new ability to add vaccination status as a factor to control access to offices and buildings, an important step in helping workers get back to the office safely. In addition, Kastle Systems allows for integration of testing results into its technology platform, facilitating another screen for granting access to workers and visitors to office buildings and suites and, when combined with its KastleSafeSpaces products and protocols, will help create the safest possible office environments

Vaccination status can be verified by employees and visitors in the KastlePresence® App or by the employer’s HR team on behalf of the employee through the myKastle web portal. This feature will allow building and office management to use vaccination status to determine access, consistent with each building and office suite’s specific set of policies, as they prepare for office occupancy to return to pre-pandemic levels.

“We are proud to be a leader in pioneering solutions in helping buildings re-open and helping tenants and workers get back to the office safely and more quickly. With 100 million Americans now vaccinated, adding an individual’s vaccination status to provide access to the office is a big, important next step,” said Haniel Lynn, CEO, Kastle Systems. “We are arming buildings and businesses with an easy and effective way to implement the safe return to the office consistent with the policies that work best for their specific workplaces, including considering vaccination status.”

Kastle technology is installed in more than 3,600 buildings and 41,000 businesses across 47 states and 14 countries. By integrating vaccination and testing data with a building’s access control infrastructure, Kastle offers additional layers of precaution for office workers nationwide.

Kastle customers can choose to enable this offering for their building or office suite. For more information, visit www.kastle.com.Originally published here.

It may come as no surprise that a majority of organizations have automation in mind for 2021 initiatives.

Incorporating automation into your business processes can help to reduce error, save time, and reduce costs – but without the right guidance and support for your automation strategy, challenges can quickly arise.

Olenick’s Automation Enablement methodology can help to expedite automation efforts by identifying the types of automation that would be beneficial to your organization, defining implementation layers for automation projects, and providing direction for automation teams to successfully test and implement new automation processes.

We invite you to watch our webinar below, as Olenick Vice President Brent Melson takes us through a step-by-step approach organizations may follow from automation workshop planning, training and coaching for teams, automation test creation and execution, script and architecture quality review, and – perhaps most importantly – automation value measurement and reporting. For more information on Olenick’s Automation Enablement services, click here or reach out to us. To stay up to date on future webinars and blogs, make sure to sign up for our Subscription List here.

Originally published here.

EMPIST’s John Kampas Ranks Among the Top 25 IT Managed Services CEOs of 2021

Chicago, Illinois:The IT Services Report just named the Top 25 IT Managed Service CEOs of 2021, and EMPIST is proud to announce that their very own Founder & CEO, John Kampas, was listed among the 25 winners. 

In order to be considered as one of the Top 25 IT Managed Services CEOs, you must guide businesses across industries with superior and dependable technology solutions on a consistent basis. These CEOs come from varied backgrounds. Some have an extensive background in IT managed services that began early in their career, while others found their way to their current role through less traditional means.  

The IT Services Report states that, “One thing unifies these executives, and that’s their commitment to their customers.  Offering services spanning overall IT management, workflow improvement, remote monitoring, cloud migration, help desk support, and more, these leaders have maintained a dedication to innovation, pioneering processes so they can continually bring value to their clients.”

John founded EMPIST (formerly Digerati Group) in 2000 in Chicago shortly after obtaining a degree in Management Information Systems from Loyola University Chicago. While EMPIST was initially founded as an IT services company, John has spent the last 20+ years growing it via expansion and acquisitions into a one-stop-shop for all business technology needs.

If you’re struggling to design an IT program that works for your business, managed services may just be for you. Offering an efficient, cost-effective, and innovative solution to your support needs it’s time you considered using managed services for all or part of your technology care. Visit EMPIST online at www.empist.com for more information.

EMPIST: At EMPIST, our mission is to guide our clients’ growth. We offer customized IT services, cloud solutions, and full-stack agency support under one roof so our clients can remain efficient, focused, and protected.

Press Contact Name

EMPIST  

312.360.1900

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Is Your Website Safe? 

Most businesses these days have a website. However, many users are doing little to nothing to ensure their website is secure. Remember, the security of your website greatly influences the credibility of your business, and a website that isn’t secure also puts your business’s sensitive data at risk. Learning how to test if your website is secure is essential to keeping your digital business running safely and smoothly.

Step By Step: How to Test If Your Website Is Secure 

Checking the SSL Certificate

The first step for how to test if your website is secure is checking if your website is SSL certified. When a computer connects to a website, there is an exchange that happens between your computer’s web browser and the web service it is being hosted on. Your SSL validation certificate does two things for your website. It grants permissions for encrypted communication through the Public Key Infrastructure, and it also authenticates the integrity of your certificate’s holder. 

If your website starts with “HTTPS” versus “HTTP”, this means that your site is secure with an SSL certification.

Website Themes Matter 

How to test if your website is secure requires digging deeper than just the site URL. Did you know that website themes are made with code? As time goes on, an older website theme may be more vulnerable to hackers, or the code may even become obsolete. Checking that you are running a current theme on your website is another simple way to keep your website secure.

Your Site & Security Tools 

Let’s talk about antivirus! Always ensure that all your systems have up-to-date antivirus software and are on a program for automatic updates. 

Security Tools   

Websites like Virus Total and Google Safe Browsing can scan your website for malicious risks and vulnerabilities, so you can best select your ideal antivirus software and plugins to keep your website secure.  

Vulnerability Scans  

Does your system have any weak links? It should be an industry standard to have annual vulnerability scans done on your network. However, this procedure is often pushed by the wayside. Business owners don’t realize how risky it is to ignore cybersecurity check-ups on their systems. Vulnerability scans can test across various operating systems, devices, and applications. Every scan will help identify software flaws, malware, missing patches, and misconfigurations. This will help your company stay on top of premature and existing site issues.  

Better Safe Than Sorry

Our final thoughts on how to test if your website is secure!Think of cybersecurity programs as an insurance policy for your business. There is a chance you won’t get hacked, but you are always better safe than sorry. Billions of dollars are poured into cybersecurity in the United States because security breaches can cause sizeable issues for a company. So, make sure you are doing everything you can to keep yourself and your business safe online.

For more IT news, blogs, and industry insights throughout the week, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Originally published here.

Account Manager can feel like a job title from the advertising days of yore, an artifact from the pre-internet corporate world in which human interaction was a necessity and not a luxury. 

At Logical Media Group and digital marketing agencies around the country, client work is being executed and delivered at an unprecedented pace. The software we invest in automates processes and allows us to move faster, because our clients don’t just want the results we’ve already produced, but also a glimpse of the strategy that will shape the results of tomorrow. Customer service is streamlined into a ticket submission process. Project management tools allow you to see the status of your project the same way you’re able to check the status of a pizza delivery. 

As a growing company with four consecutive appearances on the Inc. 5000 list, we understand the importance of moving quickly, being nimble with limited resources and spending every dollar wisely. But we also know that while we push the boundaries of efficiency, it can be all too easy to let the human element of marketing fall by the wayside. 

That’s why – in 2019, Logical made the decision to build and grow an Account Management team to ensure client satisfaction. We cultivated a staff tasked with a singular mission: relentless advocacy of our clients. For Logical, the decision to create this team began to pay dividends almost immediately. We saw dramatic increases in client retention in addition to higher scores in our customer satisfaction surveys.. Our clients joined us for breakfast meetings at our office in downtown Chicago, lunch meetings at our favorite local eateries, and yes even the occasional cocktail meeting in the many watering holes in our neighborhood. To say the least, we were proud of our team and pleased with the results.Then came 2020. 

Chaos and economic anxiety can make the world feel cold, and suddenly the problems our clients were experiencing couldn’t be solved by a ticket submission or a quick email exchange. Our Account Management team transitioned from power lunches to the front line of defense. Up early fielding phone calls, overhauling months of strategy work on a dime, and helping our clients comprehend the role that digital marketing would need to play in their businesses as the world began to close. The human element of any business takes on a new meaning when you are no longer able to be around the humans you do business with. 

As we approach the one year mark of the beginning of the pandemic, lessons of the past year shape our customer service strategy of the future. The ability to pick up a phone and have it answered isn’t just a luxury but a necessity. Feeling that your agency contact is an extension of your team, or your brand, is a fun thing to say in theory, but making it a reality can make all the difference in the world. 

Logical Media Group continues our pursuit of relentless improvement, the benefits of which we pass on to our clients. The technological evolution of business is unceasing, and we will evolve in stride. As for relationships, and service, our young Account Management team survived a true trial by fire, thanks to a global pandemic. We stand ready to answer your call, respond to the late email, and provide that level of customer service that might just remind you of the old days, when business was done between people. 

Learn more about Logical Media Group and the services we offer by contacting sales@logicalmediagroup.com

Originally published here.

Venzee is transforming the #future of supply chain.

Venzee is the first compute-based platform to automate the end-to-end supply chain connection between manufacturers and retailers.

Learn more at venzee.com.

Check out their video ‘What is Venzee?’ here!

Going public requires endurance. When I was on the M&A side, I’d often joke that the two exit paths are analogous to a founder running on a treadmill who has three options to select from; i) continue running at the same or higher pace, gradually cool down and come to a full stop, or crank up the speed at a very high incline and see how far you can go.

Going public and staying public is definitely not easy. In 2019, I had drinks with the CEO of a publicly-traded company on TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) and I asked him what every executive should think about before going public. His response? “Every CEO should believe without an ounce of doubt that they can get their business past $100M+ in valuation (with the sights of hitting the billion mark). If you have that kind of vision, then going public is worth the effort.”

So what does a founder have to think about or do in order to get the company in a position where a milestone like going public is feasible? Let’s dig in. *Please keep in mind that some of the points mentioned pertain more to the Canadian public markets which often sees earlier-stage companies going public relative to U.S. markets*:…

To read the full article, click here.

As a result of the pandemic, many technology companies were forced to change the way they operate and reevaluate the needs of their workforce. What will employee perks programs look like now and into the future?

To find out, we’re conducting a nationwide survey, TECHniques: Perks, PTO & Policies that Attract & Retain. Understanding how your employee perks and policies compare to other technology employers can reveal strategies for how to attract new talent and continue to engage the seasoned team you already have.

Assurance and MMA Midwest are inviting 1871 members to complete the survey and receive a complimentary copy of the results. The survey should take you no more than one hour to complete.

The survey will remain open until March 12, 2021. Click here to get started.

Please contact Joe Spallina at jspallina@assuranceagency.com with any questions.

Strengthens Robotic Process Automation in Basis, Centro’s Omnichannel Ad Management Platform

Chicago, February 24, 2021 – Centro (www.centro.net), a global provider of enterprise automation technology, announced the acquisition of QuanticMind (https://quanticmind.com), a developer of predictive advertising technology for digital channels. QuanticMind’s martech platform utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to unify and analyze data, which powers its software for search, keyword bid management, and marketing intelligence visualization.

Basis, Centro’s flagship automation platform for marketers, is the industry’s most comprehensive, automated, and intelligent digital media platform, and the only software solution of its kind to consolidate digital operations across programmatic, direct, connected TV (CTV), search, and social campaigns. It delivers robotic process automation to omnichannel advertising and media workflow. Integrating QuanticMind strengthens Basis by providing:

• A paid search ad platform utilizing predictive analytics algorithms for keyword bid management optimization on search engines, shopping, and retail sites.
• A marketing intelligence platform for consolidating disparate data sources into easily accessible dashboards and visualizations.
• A customer data platform (CDP) that enables ID resolution by unifying and centralizing customer data.

 “Centro is far ahead in building for marketers the most comprehensive omnichannel digital advertising platform. QuanticMind drives our vision by enabling us to weave PPC and search advertising seamlessly alongside all other digital capabilities,” Shawn Riegsecker, CEO of Centro. “We’re embedding QuanticMind’s best-in-class data science, AI-driven algorithms, and SEM software with the proven benefits of workflow automation and programmatic advertising in Basis. Centro is one step further to completing our vision of a singular, unified platform helping advertising agencies and marketers save time, money and resources by eliminating data and process silos through improved organization and automation of critical functions.”

Basis is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering with fully-integrated essential elements for marketers: media governance through workflow automation tools, programmatic advertising through its top user-rated demand side platform (DSP), and business intelligence through a data analytics engine. More than 500 agencies and marketers have implemented Basis since its launch in 2018 with more than $1.5 billion in digital ad spend being facilitated through it. Learn more at: https://www.centro.net/solutions/basis.

QuanticMind originated in 2011 with an intelligent keyword bid-management platform, which ingests data from disparate marketing tools generating improved search and PPC performance using proprietary machine learning to optimize marketing performance. Centro is infusing it with additional resources to continue development, innovation and support for its customers.

QuanticMind was represented by investment bank Nfluence Partners. QuanticMind’s 30 employees are now part of Centro’s renowned workplace culture. Centro’s 700 team members across 44 offices cover North America, South America and Europe. As Centro integrates systems, adds capabilities and improves features, it is continuing to grow with plans to hire more than 150 new team members across its product, engineering, data science, operations and sales teams. Explore careers at: https://www.centro.net/company/careers.

About Centro

Centro (https://www.centro.net) is a provider of ERP and automation software for digital advertising teams and organizations. Its technology platform, Basis, is the first of its kind SaaS advertising solution unifying programmatic and direct media buying, along with workflow automation, cross-channel campaign planning, universal reporting and business intelligence. It streamlines business operations and optimizes advertising performance by enabling marketers to plan, buy and analyze real-time bidding (RTB), direct, advanced TV, search and social campaigns in a single platform. Headquartered in Chicago with 44 offices covering North America, South America and Europe, Centro has received numerous accolades for its commitment to employees and workplace culture.

# # #

Originally published here.

A global pandemic, wildfires, racial protests and a polarizing election: at this moment, a ranking of stores that offer a satisfying shopping experience might seem completely irrelevant. And if that’s what you’re feeling, we won’t argue. But still, if there were ever a time when one wanted to feel listened to and accommodated, it’s now. Newsweek has again partnered with respected global data research firm Statista to identify the stores that consistently provide the Best Customer Service 2021. Whether it’s an intuitive website, a generous return policy or a friendly voice on the other end of the phone, these companies have found a way to put you, the consumer, first.

Even amid this ongoing pandemic and its resulting restrictions, our families still want—and need—things. And don’t forget that the holidays are fast approaching! We hope our Newsweek-Statista rankings of the Best Customer Service 2021 companies will help make your shopping an easier, more efficient and more pleasant experience—at a time when even a little bit of satisfaction goes a long way.

Originally published here.

For the second consecutive year, CSC Corptax^® has been named to Built In’s list of the Best Places To Work in Chicago and also ranked at the top for benefits. This year’s program more heavily weighted criteria like remote opportunities and programs for diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

“I was thrilled to hear that we’d won this award for the second year in a row—it’s such an honor for us! This year has thrown many challenges our way. We’ve had to adapt how we operate as a business to continue to provide a great experience for our employees and customers while everyone is working remotely. CSC Corptax has always believed in flexibility. Our strong company values have allowed us to stay connected as an organization and not lose our identity or culture,” says Justin Stull, CSC Corptax talent acquisition manager. Check out the full press release here: corptax.com/press-releases/corptax-named-a-2021-best-company-to-work-for-in-illinois/.

CSC Corptax has employment opportunities in software development and tax analysis throughout the greater Chicago area and beyond, including remote positions. To learn more or apply, visit corptax.com/careers.

Principals Cass and Kara interview Professor Chris McGowan from University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. As an investor, advisor and teacher, Chris has been in the private equity industry for 26 years, when he began his own career in private equity as an associate at AEA Investors in New York City.  In this episode, Cass and Kara explain their own personal impact that Chris has had on their careers, and Chris gives advice for MBA students and non-students alike who are trying to navigate breaking into private equity.

Listen to the podcast episode here!