Is there more to FinOps than cost reduction for financial services organizations? Our FinOps experts share their perspectives from their firsthand experience. In recent years, the financial services sector has seen an increase in the pace of digitization. This is a reaction to the demands of the omnichannel customer and…
HKA, a leading global consultancy in risk mitigation, dispute resolution, expert witness and litigation support services, announces today that Andrew Flower and Matthias Cazier-Darmois have joined the Forensic Accounting and Commercial Damages (FACD) practice, as Partners based in the firm’s Paris office. These two significant appointments further strengthen the firm’s…
“I’m eager to expand our platform into a worldwide one-stop yoga place” Entrepreneurship was never a major ambition of one of the most popular yoga teachers worldwide on YouTube. But Esther Ekhart knows like no other just how a passion and a mission to make authentic yoga accessible to…
At Q5, we constantly challenge ourselves to push the boundaries of what we can achieve with our clients – and with every breakthrough comes new learnings, that we bring back in-house and cross-pollinate across our clients. Our recent work on Systems Leadership has presented a new perspective on organisational design,…
1. What is nearshore software development? Nearshoring is a model of co-working and using different resources from an organization in a nearby country with lower average wages but highly qualified teams. Typical nearshoring locations in Europe are Croatia, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria, among others. Outsourcing and co-working with organisations in…
From the pandemic to inflationary pressures, supply chain struggles, workforce shortages and the cost-of-living crisis, you name it, retailers worldwide have worked through it. Over the last three years, businesses have overcome diverse and unprecedented challenges with reactive, problem-solving attitudes. And while the industry we know and love is overdue…
The findings are from a qualitative study which investigated why more school leaders are not exploring alternative approaches to behaviour management. It argues that resource limitations and other concerns have left teachers feeling trapped within the prevailing system of mounting punishments. Under this, more than a thousand students are excluded,…
In February 2023, two devastating earthquakes claimed more than 55,000 lives and affected over 10 million people in Turkey and Syria. Responding to this massive humanitarian crisis is everyone’s business – including private companies. Indeed, after the Turkey-Syria earthquakes, semiconductor technology company ASML matched employee donations made to Turkish NGO…
Generative AI solutions, e.g., Open.AI/Microsoft’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Meta’s LLaMA are a generational leap forward from previous AI tools. While previous generations remain highly effective for their specifically trained tasks, they are otherwise limited to “one-trick-ponies.” Generative AI tools are more versatile and adaptive and capable of performing a…
Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what’s happening in the world of legalized marijuana. This week, we check in on the move to put adult use on the ballot in Florida. We see that Maryland is working on regulations, as July 1 draws nearer. We…
Good design isn’t just about looking good; it can merge form and function, transforming everyday objects into something truly exceptional. In line with this vision, Samsung and TOILETPAPER debuted a collection at Fuorisalone 2023 in April as part of Milan Fashion Week that aimed to redefine the essence of good…
The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) supports the growth of US renewables at an unprecedented pace. Solar, storage, and onshore wind capacity could reach more than 1,240 gigawatts (GW) over the next decade, growing 2.7 times faster than projected before the IRA took effect (Exhibit 1). The IRA…
Today’s boards can no longer afford to solely prioritise shareholders and maintain an inward-focused approach to business. Instead, they need to consider stakeholders and the wider ecosystem that gives rise to complexities, challenges and also opportunities, said Sonia Tatar, executive director of the INSEAD Corporate Governance Centre (ICGC) at the recent…
Seyfarth Synopsis: As Canadian wildfire smoke spreads across the Northern United States, employers should review the CDC/NIOSH guidance on occupational exposure to wildfire smoke and implement effective measures to protect employees. Canadian forests continue to burn, with about 3.8 million hectares (9.4 million acres) burned at the time of this writing,…
The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously rejected the Ninth Circuit’s opinion that a poop-themed dog toy should be protected as a parody under the First Amendment. SCOTUS ruled today in Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products, Inc. that the right to free expression does not excuse “trademark law’s cardinal…
Everyone is interested in investing in digital transformation solutions. Leaders want to take their products and services online to provide a frictionless digital customer experience with the added benefit of improving their bottom line.This is the frontier of value creation for businesses, and it is much more than automating current processes behind the guise of digital transformation. The opportunities for digital transformation continue to expand as ground-breaking innovations like cloud technology and artificial intelligence create new options.In this guide, we explore the common misconceptions about digital transformation solutions, review the common pitfalls encountered when choosing a solution, define digital transformation strategy, and explain how to create a digital transformation roadmap.
Does your organization actively measure and report on your customer experience (CX)? Or is your customer experience a vague catchphrase, like “This initiative is critical to the customer experience” or “We are a customer-driven organization?” No one can argue the validity of statements like that. But if you’re like many organizations, you rarely have the necessary tools to accurately analyze the customer journey to back up those customer experience statements with actual data. Historically, customer satisfaction (CSat) and net promoter scores (NPS) are the responsibility of the analytics team, measured every six months. So, how do teams typically collect information on the customer experience? The secret lies in purpose-driven CX with an actionable assessment tool. In this guide, we explore the need for a CX assessment tool, explain how to create a customer journey map, and explain how to measure points along the customer journey.
The Research The author conducted the research underlying this article while co-leading Mercer’s Workforce Sciences Institute.i The author analyzed the results of his research team's statistical analyses of three to five years of employee data for 20 large and midsize, mostly global, employers representing manufacturing and services companies in a…
If you spend time in Scotland, it’s useful to check whether you’re there enough to become a Scottish tax resident. And if you’re already a Scottish tax resident you might also need to be aware of the implications on your wealth. Peter Webb, our Head of Tax Advisory, takes a…
An “oracle” is traditionally somebody who offers advice or delivers a prophecy, often thought to come from divine origins. Stories of legendary oracles like Pythia, who delivered prophecies from the Greek god Apollo, tell of people travelling from far and wide to hear her wisdom. It is perhaps quite fitting…
A prospective purchaser of property in the UK will ask what taxes they will encounter. One of the taxes is Stamp Duty Land Tax or shortly known as “SDLT” . You must pay SDLT if you buy a property or land over a certain price in England and Northern Ireland.…
Latin America was once considered an e-commerce laggard, full of consumers who were reluctant to buy online. No longer. The region now has one of the fastest-growing e-commerce sectors in the world. The start-up Melonn (founded in Colombia in 2020 by six friends) aims to capitalize on Latin America’s booming…
The Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) of the National Science and Technology Council have recently released their latest update to the US Government’s National AI Research and Development (“R&D”) Strategic Plan (the “Plan”). Updated to account for the substantial developments in technology, the Plan sets out a comprehensive blueprint to ensure…
Implementing FinOps relies on governance, support, and ownership FinOps uses technology and data to lower the cost of operations in line with the cloud computing model selected by cloud vendors. However, achieving a profitable and efficient optimization model requires more than the basic applications of FinOps optimization actions. Success starts…
Consumer engagement is critical for any consumer products company today. Understanding your consumers, their motivations, and their connection to your product is what drives success, and it needs to be a cross-functional effort. In our last episode of Taking Stock, we dove into the concept of consumer engagement – what…
Stock issued by a corporation is treated as qualified small business stock (QSBS) only if, among other requirements, at least 80% of its assets (by value) are used by the issuing corporation in the active conduct of one or more “qualified trades or businesses” (the active business requirement) during substantially…
On 1 June, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) issued their response (“Response”) to the UK Government’s (“Government”) AI White Paper (“Paper”) consultation, detailing their considerations on the proposed framework the UK seeks to implement in the regulation of artificial intelligence (“AI”). The CMA’s response is the latest contribution…
A energetic and tightly grouped collection of social media reaction icons including hearts, thumbs up, happy and surprised faces along with comment and texting bubbles and hashtags. You probably already know what social media is. Whether you cringe at the memory of your Myspace page from the early 2000s, keep…
CAN ANYONE INVEST IN UK REAL ESTATE EVEN WITHOUT A UK PASSPORT? Yes. Foreign individuals (over the age of 18) and corporate entities (subject to being registered at Companies House) may purchase or invest in UK real estate. WHAT TYPES OF INVESTMENTS CAN BE MADE? There are many ways to…
A European Green Deal is one of the six strategic priorities targeted by the European Commission for the years 2019-2024. It aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by becoming a modern, resource-efficient economy. The EC believes that access to data (both open and private) is crucial to…
On May 3, 2023, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation into law increasing New York’s minimum wage for most employees beginning January 1, 2024, through 2026. Enacted as part of the state’s budget legislation, increases to the minimum wage beginning in 2027 and beyond will be indexed to the…
You’ve likely heard collaboration categorized as a “soft skill.” Distinguished Harvard Fellow and award-winning author, Dr. Heidi Gardner, says that’s not true. Dr. Gardner was in Toronto for BLG’s smarter collaboration session, sharing the stage with Patrice Walch-Watson, senior managing director, general counsel and corporate secretary for Canadian Pension Plan…
Mr Smith has been a client of Dixcart’s for many years and he wants to explore the options available to provide financial help to his children, as they get older and start their careers. The children are all in their teens, with the eldest just about to start university. Mr…
The current AI revolution is often compared to the industrial revolution, but a more fitting comparison is to the creation of the nuclear bomb, as the Centre for AI Safety recently highlighted: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and…
For many years, brands talked at their customers instead of with them. Marketers told customers what they wanted, rather than asking them what they needed. Advertisers addressed everyone with a single campaign. Thanks to conversational marketing — connecting with customers through personalized, two-way conversations in real time — these “one…
Customers traveling on Delta can take advantage of more than 650 weekly flights across the pond in peak summer, a remarkable 30% increase in the airline's seat capacity compared to 2022. Delta's largest trans-Atlantic schedule ever is officially in full operation, and customers are flocking to idyllic locations like the…
As you accumulate wealth, it is important to consider what would happen to your estate in the event of your death. An estate is defined as everything a person owns when they die, and this can include property, investments, money, and personal possessions. The time to consider your estate isn’t…
Samsung Electronics today announced the launch of the new Less Microfiber Filter, an external washing machine filter designed to significantly reduce plastic microfiber emissions during laundry cycles. Designed with inspiration from apparel maker Patagonia and expertise from the global ocean conservation organization Ocean Wise, the filter builds on the success of…
We’re expanding our test of Meta Verified to India after seeing good results from our early testing in several countries globally. We’ll also continue honouring verified badges that were granted previously based on existing criteria. To help up-and-coming creators grow their presence more quickly on our apps, in February we…
There is arguably nothing more valuable to your company, and central to its success, than data. According to a 2023 survey, 88% of business leaders are increasing investments in data and artificial intelligence (AI). But only 39% of companies make data training available to all employees. We can help you…
