Alexa for Business: Overview

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The release of Alexa for business has provided new avenue for businesses to increase efficiency. Alexa allows for easier communication in the workplace and the removal of mundane corporate tasks like ordering new supplies, turning on video conference equipment, setting reminders etc. Alexa is able to complete those tasks in half the time according to Amazon. The service is a monthly subscription of seven dollars per shared device per month and three dollars per enrolled use per month.

Alexa for business has two categories shared and personal devices. Shared devices can be placed in public locations and can be used by anyone. These devices would be placed in conference rooms, lobbies, and or other company wide spaces. Personal devices have enrolled user with Alexa so it can complete personal tasks like managing to-do lists and setting reminders. Personal devices also have the ability to send messages, conduct calls, access calendars, schedule meetings etc. Personal users can also sync their personal home Alexa with Alexa business. The devices price ranges from $49.99 to $229.99 plus the monthly subscription of $7 per shared device and $3 dollars per enrolled user. Shared devices do not need to be personally enrolled. Alexa can book conference rooms by linking with the calendar provider and give her authorization to enable the room booking feature. Alexa can also check the availability of the room and find out who booked the room. Alexa can be synced with the corporate calendar which allows her to directly turn on video conferencing equipment and join the respective meeting. This eliminates time spent trying to set up equipment using meeting IDs or a conference call number. Alexa also has a dashboard that manages user and devices, add or remove skills, manage video conferencing options, invite new users, and manage corporate calendars.

Alexa for Business can improve work efficiency however the price for the subscription and the price for the device isn’t worth it for some business owners. At the moment not, many business owners are willing to take on extra costs just to make daily tasks easier. Amazon believes that Alexa can bring companies into a more high-tech era but the results may not be totally worthwhile.

Source:

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/10426-amazon-alexa-business-details.html

Sabre88, LLC Named One of the Nation’s Fastest-Growing Inner City Businesses

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

October 4, 2018

Newark, NJ Sabre88, LLC Named One of the Nation’s Fastest-Growing Inner City Businesses

Annual ranking by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City published in Fortune

Boston, Massachusetts Oct 1ST & 2nd, 2018 – The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) announced that Newark NJ’s Sabre88, LLC has made the 2018 Inner City 100 list of the fastest-growing inner city businesses in America, based on revenue growth. ICIC, a 25-year-old national nonprofit founded by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter, promotes economic prosperity in America’s inner cities through private sector investment that leads to jobs, income and wealth creation for local residents.

The list was revealed at the 20th Annual Inner City 100 Conference and Awards in Boston October 1-2.  The full list is available on Fortune’s website. Sabre88, LLC, led by CEO Robert Cottingham, Jr. was ranked #40th based on its growth rate from 2013 to 2017 of 218.81%. Its 2017 revenue was $4,982,269.00. This is the fifth consecutive time that Sabre88 has been recognized by the ICIC.

Said ICIC CEO Steve Grossman, “Inner City 100 companies are forces of economic opportunity, optimism and transformation in their communities. They lead the way in innovation, job creation and economic revitalization and it’s an honor to shine the spotlight on their leadership and accomplishments. In addition to excellence in business, these pioneering entrepreneurs have demonstrated a deep commitment to and passion for their communities, which significantly impact the wellbeing of their local economies”.

 

Now celebrating its 20th year, ICIC’s Inner City 100 list has long celebrated urban entrepreneurship. Since its inception, ICIC’s list has recognized 975 companies, which have seen average growth rates of more than 400 percent during a five-year period and have collectively created more than 126,000 meaningful jobs in America’s distressed and underserved communities and neighborhoods.  The Inner City 100 program opens doors for other budding urban entrepreneurs and stimulates inner city business development and job creation through recognition, networking and learning.

“These businesses and their owners are a testament to the impact innovation and entrepreneurship have had in rejuvenating urban areas across the U.S. Companies such as Sabre88, LLC are experiencing revenue growth and increased investment, which are in turn creating more jobs and economic opportunity for citizens in the communities where these companies call home” said ICIC President and COO, Matt Camp.

2018 Inner City 100 by the numbers:

 

  • Average growth rate of 436 percent between 2013 and 2017
  • Represent 46 cities in 23 states
  • Employed 10,085 individuals in 2017
  • Created 5,516 new jobs in the last five years
  • On average, 36 percent of employees live in same neighborhood as the company.
  • Average company age is 15 years
  • Average 2016 revenue is $14.8 million
  • 31 percent are women-led
  • 38 percent are minority-led
  • Represent 26 industries

CEOs from the winning companies were invited to the Inner City 100 Conference and Awards, two days of robust networking opportunities and educational sessions led by Fortune 500 executives and academics from top-tier universities, including Harvard Business School. Past winners have reported connecting with multi-million-dollar investors as a result of appearing on the Inner City 100 list and attending the Conference.

Inner City 100 Methodology: The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) defines inner cities as core

urban areas with higher unemployment and poverty rates and lower median incomes than their

surrounding metropolitan statistical areas. Every year, ICIC identifies, ranks, and awards the 100 fastest

growing businesses located in America’s inner cities. In 2018, companies were ranked by revenue

growth over the five-year period between 2013 and 2017. This list was audited by the independent

accounting firm AAFCPAs.

Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC)

ICIC is a national nonprofit founded by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter. ICIC’s mission is to promote economic prosperity in America’s inner cities through private sector investment that leads to jobs, income and wealth creation for local residents. Through its research on inner city economies, ICIC provides businesses, governments and investors with the most comprehensive and actionable information in the field about urban market opportunities. The organization supports urban businesses through the Inner City 100, Inner City Capital Connections, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, and Santander Bank’s Cultivate Small Business program. Learn more at www.icic.org or @icicorg.

Blockchain Technology’s Impact on Business

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Nowadays, the fast-developing information have impacted people’s lives immensely. About three decades ago, the invention of the internet enabled information sharing process easy and transparent. Similarly, to the internet, Blockchain is an emerging idea that seems to be the newest revolution in peoples’ life. Blockchain is the backbone behind crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin, which is a decentralized electronic currency that can be sent from user to user on the bitcoin network without the need for intermediates. Blockchain works as the distributed ledger that can record Bitcoin transactions between two parties verifiably and permanently. As more and more companies tend to adopt this new savvy technology to promote their business and reputation, Blockchain is going to change the traditional way of doing business and impact the future business development.

To begin with, that fact that Blockchain can reduce transaction costs and transaction complexity helps companies to secure their capitals. Crypto-currencies are used in a decentralized system thus there will be no fees to associate them. By getting ride of the burdensome limitation of loans costs and transaction fees, individual business can accept capitals from investors and venture firms across the world in a short time. Another benefit of making transactions through Blockchain is that the whole transaction will not be accessed by a single third party such as PayPal. Each end user has the ability to control information on their own nodes. In addition, Blockchain automates daily business process and creates transparency. For example, Blockchain is able to track any procurement responsibility throughout its life-cycle, which ensures information accuracy and accountable transactions. An automation process like this will reshape the traditional relationship between suppliers and customers. Lastly, Blockchain creates a distributed and decentralized storage marketplace. With blockchain, each firm’s data is fully decentralized because it is stored on multiple nodes across the globe. A decentralized Cloud storage beats traditional storage methods as it maintains data on both public and private cloud.

Blockchain is definitely an evolving technology that is going to change today’s market, and the adoption of Blockchain technology is very likely to be the next strategy of many entrepreneurs.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/01/29/three-ways-blockchain-will-disrupt-traditional-business-and-impact-marketing-in-2018/#47dda9315e26http://techgenix.com/blockchain-technology-for-cloud-storage/

AI: A Solution for Businesses Struggling to Digitize

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In order to survive in today’s economy businesses have embraced technology to increase efficiency and improve their productivity. Specifically, businesses realized that to survive in a rapidly changing digital age business completely change and restructure themselves replacing their analog operators with websites and software. However, there is new innovation that could revolutionize businesses for years to come. Earlier this year at the I/O Conference Google CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled a new AI addition to Google Assistant. Called Duplex, this new fully autonomous AI is designed to imitate a real-world office assistant capable of automatically booking appointments via the phone. Using advanced networks, voice recognition technology, and speech engines Duplex can easily mimic human speech and conversation using a human sounding voice with the ability to say interjections like “Hmm or “Erm”. Duplex’s advanced capabilities was put to the test when Pichai asked Duplex to set up an appointment with a local hair salon during the conference. The AI flawlessly booked the appointment while totally duping the unwitting salon assistant through casual conversation.

Of course, Duplex is still limited, it can only complete specific tasks such as booking appointments or making dinner reservations. However, the introduction of this technology opens up new possibilities for small businesses. For those businesses that still use analog operators they do not need to buy a website with built-in appointment booking. Instead the customers can just use Duplex to appoint them. Additionally, businesses don’t need to train up new staff to book appointments since Duplex can do that for them. Duplex can also reduce no-show appointments since it can remind customers about their upcoming appointments that either allows rescheduling or cancellation. For businesses that are on holiday or on off hours Duplex can take calls during those hours which reduces the overall calls to the business and give more information to their customers.

Duplex is able to offer a nice middle ground between the usage of analog operators and the fully digitized. The introduction of Duplex represents a great advance in AI technology as well as new shift in business technology. The need to fully digitize a business is now a choice instead of a need for survival.

 

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/09/10/the-future-of-small-business-technology-may-have-an-interesting-plot-twist/#475c7f454cb6

https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/duplex-ai-system-for-natural-conversation.html

New Directive to Comply with AAP

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An Affirmative Action program is a management tool designed to ensure equal employment opportunity. The programs are required as per regulations placed by the US Department of Labor. These regulations are described in Executive Order 11246, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam War era Veterans Readjustment Act of 1974. However recent developments in the US Department of Labor have resulted in new regulations be emplaced. These regulations have been specifically targeted towards Federal Government Contractors and their rules in complying with AAPs. As of August 24, 2018, the Federal Contract Compliance Programs or OFCCP (part of the Department of Labor) issued a new directive. Called Directive 2018-07, the directive’s intent is to verify whether contractors are complying with their affirmative action program (AAP) requirements. The new directive will include:

  • Annual certification of compliance with AAP requirements by contractors.
  • Revising the neutral scheduling method to increase the likelihood of compliance reviews for contractors that failed to give certification.
  • Compliance checks to verify contractor compliance with AAP requirements.
  • Requesting the AAP from contractors that request extensions of time to give support data in response to a scheduling letter for a compliance review.
  • Eventually, the annual collection of AAPs from federal contractors.

The directive is a result of an US government study that estimated that up to 85% of government contractors do not support current AAPs. The reason for such a high rate of non-compliance is due to limitations in previous regulations which relies on the government contractor’s voluntary and unsupervised compliance. However, the contractor can be specifically targeted for a compliance audit. In addition, OFCP suspects that many contractors engage in “back-end compliance” by waiting to receive notice of an OFCP compliance audit and preparing their AAPs right after.

The new Directive is a new proactive shift in OFCP procedure and government involvement in company regulation. However, with this new shift comes the possibility of government overarching policies. Whatever the case maybe it is definitely a benefit for those who depend on AAP’s for equality and protection.

 

Sources:

https://shawe.com/articles/the-ofccp-issues-a-flurry-of-directives-and-other-resources/https://

www.natlawreview.com/article/you-might-be-federal-government-contractor-better-check-now

Labor Day

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Overview:

On September 5th, 1882 New York City celebrated the first Labor Day to provide tribute to the social and economic achievements of the American worker. This, however was not considered a national holiday at the time, and the second “Labor Day” that was celebrated in 1884 was proposed by the Central Labor Union and it was known as a “Workingmen’s Holiday”.

How it began:

While most National Holidays have a known origin; Labor Days origins are rather unknown, and to this date no one knows who first proposed the idea for a worker’s holiday.

The first who was thought to propose the holiday was a man by the name of Peter J. McGuire, a general secretary for the “Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor”. He was the first to suggest a specific day in order to appreciate those ‘who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold’.

However, some research suggests that Peter J. McGuire was not the first to propose this idea. It is said that in 1882 a man by the name of Matthew Maguire, a machinist for the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J proposed the idea while he was serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.

Legislation:

As with every national holiday, the bill to introduce Labor Day was first introduced by the state of New York, but the law was first passed by the state of Oregon on February 21st, 1887. During this same year, more states, which included Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York enacted legislation and created the “Labor Day Holiday”.

By the end of 1889, Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania also enacted the same legislation. By 1894, 23 more states had also followed suit with recognizing Labor Day as a holiday, and on June 28th, 1884 the holiday was passed at a federal level and that it would be celebrated on the first Monday in September of each year.

Source: https://www.dol.gov/general/laborday/history

Self-Driving Cars

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Is the time of humans behind the wheel ending in the foreseeable future? Most Americans today are aware of the future of self-driving vehicles, cars that can take you to and from your destination autonomously. What used to be a dream has turned into a reality, a typical commute to work will be free of any driving, one can sip their coffee and eat their breakfast behind a self-steering wheel. We can say this with confidence because self-driving cars aren’t a thing of the distant future or even the foreseeable future, they are a thing of the present. Companies like Uber, Tesla and Waymo are testing their cars on the streets; Other companies like Apple are hinting at their own development. Waymo for instance has announced that it is almost ready to become the first self-driving ride hailing service. Over the past year, in 25 U.S. Cities, over 600 Waymo self-driving vehicles have been on the road, catering to the transportation requests of some 400 plus members of its early rider program. These individuals have trail-blazed the path ahead using the self-driving cars as transportation to school, the mall and other populated areas.

While Waymo is showing that automated driving can be done, Tesla among other companies is working on turning every car on the road into a vehicle capable of such maneuverability. Tesla has had cars that can cruise on the highway for the past couple of years, however its newest software “Version 9” will finally begin to enable full self-driving features.

Apple has recently put its steak in the self-driving game as well. A new Apple patent describes a software that has the car inform riders the route it is going to drive. Apples goal is trying to desensitize the ride, keeping riders not surprised by sudden changes in route. Apples autonomous car initiative, “Titan, seems to be surging upwards in growth after the tech giant hired prominent engineers from both Waymo and Tesla.

Source:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17762326/waymo-self-driving-ride-hail-fleet-management

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/21/apple-self-driving-car-patent-predicts-future-moves.html

AI: The Fourth Industrial Revolution

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Artificial Intelligence the fastest growing field in tech has another prominent country willing to foster further research into the technology. With fear of China potentially leading the fourth industrial revolution,  a new bill was introduced in congress by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Her purpose for the bill is because she felt that “Artificial Intelligence is a constantly developing technology that will likely touch every aspect of our lives”. The major fear that concerns the US government is that with China increasing its funding into Artificial Intelligence the US needed to increase its addition to AI technology development.

According to Stefanik “The new bill will develop a commission to review advances in AI, identify our nation’s AI needs and make actionable recommendations of what direction we need to take.” Essentially meaning that the new commission would have to look into ways into what type of AI research needs to be conducted and give incentives to companies to share data on research that they have already completed.

After the introduction of this bill in March the President had an AI summit that included government officials, researchers, and major companies to discuss the future of AI technology and how it can be used by the government. After the summit the president established a brand-new AI task force that will be tasked with the job of determining the ways in which the federal government should invest in Artificial technology. The president’s goal is to “improve virtually every aspect of our lives, create vast new wealth for American workers and families, and open up bold, new frontiers in science, medicine, and communication.”

The summit was one of many steps taken by the government to help gain an edge in AI. Furthermore, the government has seen growth in investments made in AI and related technology since 2015. In addition, when President Trump introduced his budget for the 2019 fiscal year he made Artificial Intelligence a priority for the budget. All of these advancements made to invest in AI will not only help revolutionize the lives of every day Americans but impact the way business is conducted in every field.

Finally, with all of the investments made by the government in AI technology the business sector that might benefit the most could be small businesses. Most small businesses are always looking for ways to cut cost. With AI technology the use of AI can greatly reduce cost for small businesses that otherwise would not be possible. One of the most important ways that AI can help with cost reduction is with marketing by using AI algorithms. According to Artur Kiulian “small companies can find the best marketing strategy and dramatically reduce their CPC (cost per click) thanks to the sentiment analysis algorithms that analyze customer engagement with their marketing campaigns”. The use of AI algorithms would reduce cost for small businesses because they would have to hire less of a management team while also having a system that could analyze data without the need for additional man power. The use of AI for marketing is just one of many ways that small businesses can reduce cost and help their business grow.

Source:

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2018/03/21/new-bill-would-prepare-us-for-artificial-intelligence-threat/

http://fortune.com/2018/05/10/white-house-artificial-intelligence-task-force/

The Department of Defense and Other Transaction Authorities

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Other Transaction Authorities, commonly known as OTAs, have been in use since the 1950s, but only recently have they become “critical to rapid prototyping in the defense realm,” according to Washington Technology.

Other Transaction Authorities are a business tool allowing procurement through means other than by the Federal Acquisition Regulations; in other words, as defined by Oles Morrison, OTAs describe “streamlined procedures that federal agencies may use to procure innovative research or prototypes.”  Other Transaction Authorities thereby give the Department of Defense and military services a much more efficient acquisition process—saving years of red tape and potential protest—and have drawn much praise and excitement; however, OTAs have also drawn criticism for lacking quality screening and fairness.

Other Transaction Authorities have helped the military accelerate innovation in all sorts of functions, especially in the IT field where the evolution of technology vastly exceeds the pace of a traditional acquisition process using Federal Acquisition Regulations. According to Air Force Director of IT Acquisition Process Development Maj. Gen. Sarah Zabel, some vendors have brought in their ideas and have been given a contract the same day. With the ability to procure needed services as soon as possible rather than services which were needed months or years ago, OTAs have found a lot of popularity in the defense realm for their speed. Additionally, OTAs have proved very useful in engaging small businesses and other non-traditional defense suppliers, diversifying the acquisition portfolio as Department of Defense OTAs must use a non-traditional defense contractor, have all of its participants be small businesses, or have at least a third of its total cost paid by parties other than the government.

Taking advantage of the efficiency, flexibility, and accessibility afforded by Other Transaction Authorities, the Department of Defense’s use of OTAs has grown exponentially from less than $500 million in 2013 to more than $2 billion in 2017. However, Other Transaction Authorities have also received their fair share of criticism.

Strictly speaking, Other Transaction Authorities are not subject to the FAR or DFARS and not subject to procurement statues; they are simply contractual actions. Thus, criticism of both lack of public transparency and proposal integrity weighs heavily, considering the transparency of typical acquisitions. Likewise, the award process draws concern: Just this year, the Government Accountability Office ruled in favor of Oracle America, which argued that a follow-on OTA was made without adequate notice or competition. Therefore, the GAO will review OTA usage, a win for OTA detractors. However, the GAO will only review an agency’s award decision to assess whether the agency was correct in choosing to use an OTA over traditional procurement contract; protesting an agency’s award decision after proper use of OTA is still unprecedented.

Other Transaction Authorities are becoming more widespread, growing as a percentage of defense contract dollars, but going into the future, OTAs will most likely not replace the traditional acquisition process. Traditional acquisitions based on FAR and DFARS have provided many effective services and tools before, and many future services and tools will need to be procured through a process that draws heavily from standardized, well-known regulations. At the same time, OTAs are a tool that can create flexible and fast provision of innovative services. Therefore, federal agencies including the Department of Defense will continue to use both traditional acquisitions and Other Transaction Authorities, for some situations call for quality and transparency while others call for speed and flexibility.

 

Sources:

https://www.transform.af.mil/Portals/18/documents/OSA/OTA_Brief.pdf?ver=2015-09-15-073050-867https://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition/2017/10/ota-contracts-are-the-new-cool-thing-in-dod-acquisition/

Small Business Savvy

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For centuries, businesses and technology have been intertwined in innumerable ways: businesses attempt to protect their patented technologies, businesses seek to gain an edge through commercial technology, businesses birth themselves from a new technology, and the list goes on. And while big, well-known companies tend to take the spotlight, small business are becoming more and more tech-savvy, implementing technology in more frequent and newer ways to improve not only operations but also employee flexibility; however, rise in tech-savvy graph comes with a suite of concerns as well.

Generally, small businesses have been looking to increase employment, and they have been using technology to do so. How? According to CNBC, small businesses attempt to attract new talent by implementing technology which will shorten work hours and create opportunities to work at home. For example, productivity services such as Microsoft’s Teams allow employees to communicate with each other remotely and receive live updates, while customer relationship management software like Zoho and Salesforce helps “future-proof” small businesses, making tasks easier to complete as employees spend more time with the software. Small business owners can also grow their businesses not only independently but also while working at home or at other jobs, hiring employees who can then do the same. This work-life balance that has arisen from small business integration of technology is alluring to potential employees. Contrary to the common concern that technology will replace human labor, small businesses are implementing technology to create more attractive places to work in hopes that they can actually increase employee count.

 

However, a more pressing concern for small business owners is balancing the incorporation of newer technology with rising costs and larger time commitments. Of course, small business owners look to technology to ultimately save time and money in the long run, but nonetheless small businesses still need to initially pay for increasingly expensive technology. Likewise, it takes time to implement new business processes involving the new technology and for employees to learn said new business processes. Even small businesses born from technology platforms find technology mastery challenging. Although owners may inevitably find themselves hesitant to implement new technology because of cost and time concerns, they generally understand that new technology is beneficial in the long run. Increasing employment in conjunction with increased productivity is a long-term benefit too good to ignore. As such, the increasing trend of becoming tech-savvy small business is predicted to continue.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/26/small-businesses-using-big-technology-attract-more-hirees.html