Steven ten Napel
CEO
Message from CEO
“Products have users, Platforms have Communities”
As the world is busy dealing with the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis, we are also discovering the power of communities and networks in disseminating information on best practices, prevention measures, and strategies to contain the pandemic. The power of collective institutions whether formal or informal are best illustrated in a time of crisis. I am a great admirer of the Israeli Kibbutz- collective communities that transformed an inhospitable land into a thriving agricultural powerhouse. They illustrated the power of communities, driven by a collective interest, growing and supporting each other and working towards a common purpose.
Message from CEO
“Products have users, Platforms have Communities”
As the world is busy dealing with the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis, we are also discovering the power of communities and networks in disseminating information on best practices, prevention measures, and strategies to contain the pandemic. The power of collective institutions whether formal or informal are best illustrated in a time of crisis. I am a great admirer of the Israeli Kibbutz- collective communities that transformed an inhospitable land into a thriving agricultural powerhouse. They illustrated the power of communities, driven by a collective interest, growing and supporting each other and working towards a common purpose.
While we are collectively figuring out how to handle this crisis, I am also struck by the realization that communities, (especially for products and/or platforms with a large group of users) also have tremendous value in driving business success.
Some of the biggest platforms that come to my mind are Microsoft’s MSDN forums, Apple Support Communities, and Salesforce communities. All these three iconic businesses have reaped enormous success thanks to the power of these communities.
Any product or platform that aspires to scale can no longer ignore the power of communities – it is not only a first line of defense and support, but also a critical success factor for customer acquisition and retention.
We at coMakeIT have a collaborative partnership with Telligent, an industry-leading community platform, with which we can help you build and scale powerful communities.
Steven ten Napel
CEO
In the early days, communities in the software industry served a very narrow function – namely, sharing static content related to product support and trouble shooting. Since that time, communities have evolved into a multi-faceted and versatile tool to increase brand awareness, develop brand loyalty, generate insights on product usage, understand customer needs and deliver better outcomes. Communities should try to facilitate and fulfill the following critical needs for any product or platform:
Generate real-time feedback & facilitate customer discovery
For most businesses, collecting and processing customer feedback is often an expensive and time-consuming process. Communities serve as an important platform to test new ideas, collect real-time feedback on existing and new features, which could be an invaluable tool to plan future enhancements and deliver improved customer experience. Communities can provide an early and continuous feedback loop which will allow businesses to discover evolving customer needs and help them adjust their product development roadmaps.
Build user generated content on product usage
Traditional support content doesn’t cater to every conceivable product use case and hence is ineffective in providing troubleshooting guidance in non-standard scenarios. Online communities encourage users to share their experience, knowledge, and issues, which helps in producing lots of user-generated content, that is more authentic, engaging, and practical. Over a period of time, successful communities nurture and develop engaged customers, which goes a long way in increasing loyalty.
Brand building, customer loyalty, and retention
Many successful products and platforms have built massive online communities and engaged their customers through a multitude of channels. Consistent engagement leads to a sense of belonging to a community, which results in better branding, develops customer loyalty, and ultimately over a period of time delivers increased customer retention. Businesses must build communities with a broader goal of providing an effective platform to engage and support their customers and members and deliver consistent value.
New Customer Wins
We are delighted to add Simbox and Siemens to the coMakeIT family.
Siemens is a pioneer in infrastructure, energy solutions, automation software for industry, and is a world leader in medical diagnostics.
Simbox offers advanced solutions consisting of state-of-the-art methods for forecasting, optimization, and simulation using data science and AI.
New Customer Wins
We are delighted to add Simbox and Siemens to the coMakeIT family
Siemens is a pioneer in infrastructure, energy solutions, automation software for industry, and is a world leader in medical diagnostics.
Simbox offers advanced solutions consisting of state-of-the-art methods for forecasting, optimization, and simulation using data science and AI.
News you can use
Coronavirus: Social giants police web with AI as staff sent home
Major websites are turning to automatic systems to moderate content as they tell their staff to work from home. YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are all relying on artificial intelligence and automated tools to find problematic material on their platforms. The tech giants admit this may lead to some mistakes – but say they still need to remove harmful content.
US government reportedly in talks with tech companies on how to use location data in COVID-19 fight
U.S. government officials are currently in discussion with a number of tech companies, including Facebook and Google, around how data from cell phones might provide methods for combating the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to a new Washington Post report. The talks also include health experts tracking the pandemic and its transmission, and one possible way in which said data could be useful is through aggregated, anonymized location data, per the report’s sources.
Google Translate now lets you transcribe conversations in real time
Google announced that it is launching a feature to let users transcribe conversations in other languages in real time using its Translate Android app. The transcribe feature will roll out shortly to support eight languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.
GitHub’s new mobile app is now available on iOS and Android
Microsoft-owned GitHub released its new mobile app as a free download for iOS and Android. The app for the popular code repository service is primarily designed to help developers manage projects while away from their PC, letting them organize tasks, give feedback on issues, respond to comments, and review and merge pull requests.
Manchester is fastest-growing tech city in Europe – report
The northern English city of Manchester is the fastest-growing tech hub in Europe, measured by the rate of increase in venture capital funding, with investment jumping from 48 million pounds ($59 million) in 2018 to 181 million pounds in 2019, industry body Tech Nation said. As well as Manchester, Britain had four other cities in the European top 20: London, which ranked top in Europe, Bristol, Oxford, and Cambridge, the report said.
How Technology Can Battle Natural Disasters
Earthquakes, storms, heat waves and floods have been leading causes of death from natural disasters during the past year, affecting all regions around the world. The most recent figures show that natural disasters caused losses of $131.7 billion in 2018 and affected millions of people around the world. While Mother Nature is unpredictable, several technologies promise to help with forecasting and prevention and allow responders to act sooner rather than later.
Analyst Corner
50% of Organizations will experience increased collaboration between business and IT teams by 2022
Over the next two years, 50% of organizations will experience increased collaboration between their business and IT teams, according to Gartner, Inc. The dispute between business and IT teams over the control of technology will lessen as both sides learn that joint participation is critical to the success of innovation in a digital workplace
AI to become integral to every business in India by 2025: IDC
Artificial Intelligence will gain a firmer foothold in businesses across multiple sectors this year, according to a report by the International Data Corporation on the ‘Top 10 Artificial Intelligence Predictions 2020 and Beyond for the Indian Market.’ The report stated that AI adoption is on the rise, especially in terms of gaining valuable insights for business in the data-driven economy. Artificial Intelligence will be leveraged by businesses to streamline unorganized data to gain valuable insights.
The shared services or global in-house center (GIC) model has undergone significant change in recent years, evolving from low-cost service provider to change agent, and moving from largely an arbitrage play to innovator. Societe Generale’s Global Solution Centre (SG GSC) is a success story example. Over the past five years, the center has evolved into a strategic and value-adding partner for the global bank, with full delivery ownership and end-to-end accountability for the services delivered, with a clear focus on driving outcomes
coMakeIT Blog Digest
Scalability Testing of Web Applications
This blog describes how to do scalability testing of web applications that are deployed using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). It is absolutely important to test both horizontal and vertical scaling of applications to ensure consistent user experience.
Test automation enables you to deliver better quality, more frequently, and with higher confidence
This case study describes how we enabled a software maker to expand test coverage and execute 650+ test cases for every daily build through automation, compared to less than 60 test cases, which used to take manual effort by 5 people over 2 days.
Push Notifications in mobile Apps
Push notifications are messages that are typically used to update customers and users about any important changes, updates, or status through their mobile / desktop devices. These messages can be of a generic nature or personalized for a specific user. This blog presents an overview of push notifications, and describes its different components and features.
Using Keycloak for Identity and Access Management
Would you like to have an access management system that doesn’t require repeated user authentication? Learn how to implement Keycloak, open source solution for Identity and Access Management (IAM).
A quick guide to practical implementation of DevOps
In this blog post, a detailed step-by-step process illustrates how to practically implement DevOps with an automated Build-Integrate-Test-Release pipeline.
News about coMakeIT
Be the Change, Walk the Talk : We launched an innovative initiative to promote United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through a booklet to share daily actions related to 17 SDGs. Through this booklet, we hope to make all our employees ambassadors of Sustainable Development at home, at work, and in society with 170, easy-to-follow actions as part of their day-to-day life.
International Women’s Day & Sehat Month: We hosted numerous activities to celebrate the International Women’s day, with a specific emphasis on good health & well-being. We organized a health camp and offered free screening for all our women employees. We also conducted a session on ‘mindfulness’ to reduce stress, and improve quality of life, in which a counselling psychologist shared her insights on how to tackle serious mental health conditions such as ‘clinical depression’ with our employees.
Tree of Gratitude: We launched ‘Tree of Gratitude’ an innovative drive to spread positivity among all our employees. We encouraged them to recognize their colleagues to whom they feel grateful for any reason, and urged them to not reciprocate, but pay forward to others. We strongly believe such initiatives will go a long way in nurturing empathy, which is a critical success factor in collaborative environments.
News about coMakeIT
Be the Change, Walk the Talk : We launched an innovative initiative to promote United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through a booklet to share daily actions related to 17 SDGs. Through this booklet, we hope to make all our employees ambassadors of Sustainable Development at home, at work, and in society with 170, easy-to-follow actions as part of their day-to-day life.
International Women’s Day & Sehat Month: We hosted numerous activities to celebrate the International Women’s day, with a specific emphasis on good health & well-being. We organized a health camp and offered free screening for all our women employees. We also conducted a session on ‘mindfulness’ to reduce stress, and improve quality of life, in which a counselling psychologist shared her insights on how to tackle serious mental health conditions such as ‘clinical depression’ with our employees.
Tree of Gratitude: We launched ‘Tree of Gratitude’ an innovative drive to spread positivity among all our employees. We encouraged them to recognize their colleagues to whom they feel grateful for any reason, and urged them to not reciprocate, but pay forward to others. We strongly believe such initiatives will go a long way in nurturing empathy, which is a critical success factor in collaborative environments.