RSI Concepts - Top IT Solution Provider Company in Dubai, UAE - Page 8 of 50

September 18, 2023

Why Off-the-Shelf Solutions Fall Short: Advantages of Custom Software Development

The customer demands are rising, the competition is getting tougher day by day. Businesses are seeking tools and ways to gain competitive advantage to stay relevant in the market. UAE in particular is a highly advanced nation, with almost 99% of the population having access to internet. Businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other parts of UAE are well-aware of the importance of the digital experience. Whether it is your customers or employees, the digital interaction and platforms are dominating the modern day business landscape. Businesses wants to grow continuously and they want to optimize their operations and expenses to maximize the performance. High performing businesses not only grow rapidly but also achieve higher profitability. With the rise of technology the software have become an essential part of a business’s day-to-day operations. It is hard to comprehend if a business can survive on manual paperwork and management practices in this modern day and age. Typically any business tool or a software requires updates or upgrades after a few years, in some cases some software applications are entirely replaced with new more robust and innovative solutions. This is an ongoing ordeal, businesses regularly have to face situations where they need a new software application.

What is the Difference between Custom Software and Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software (COTS)?

When a business needs a new software they have two options, either they chose a ready-made commercial off-the-shelf solution or they get a custom software exclusively developed for their business needs. The custom software are the software that are developed for a particular user group or for a particular business, these tools and apps are developed to meet the design and functionality requirements of the business. However, the COTS or commercial off-the-shelf software are designed for a broader user-base, typically these software are general purpose or designed for a specific industry only. This is why when it comes to aligning the business needs with the features of the COTS, the ideal scenario is to choose a software that matches your 80% of the needs. The COTS can be purchased as a one-time charge or on a subscription based plan. The off-the-shelf software have comparatively less initial cost, and they are can easily deployed. A business can have a commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) solution running within a day or two. However the custom software solutions are difficult to build, require research, have longer development time and could require months to test and deploy for the end-users.

What are the Advantages of Customer Software Development?

Now the question arises why the custom software development is gaining popularity and why businesses are preferring bespoke solutions over the commercial off-the-shelf solutions? Here are the key advantages of the custom software development which make them superior from off-the-shelf solutions.

Advantages of Customer Software: Unlimited Customization

One of the biggest advantage of a custom software development is that it offers unlimited customization. The COTS offer limited functionalities and in some cases there are different packages and plans with a different set of functionalities. Sometimes for just one or two additional functionalities a business might have to purchase a higher tier which also comes with a lot many other features which are not required or never utilized, but still the business will have to pay for them. The custom software development on the other hand is very flexible and offers unlimited customization, a business can have any features they want and as many features they need. There is no limit or restriction with custom software development, which enables businesses to build innovative features and align their software applications with their needs. The entire solution is built around the very specific business needs and requirements. Hence there is no gape left and the business can leverage the full potential of their software application. Adding a new features, or customizing an existing feature is not a problem at all. Businesses have full control over customization and they can also make the GUI aligned with their needs which also increase effectiveness and performance of the custom software.

Advantages of Customer Software: Flexible Upgrade and Scalability

The commercial off-the-shelf solutions are owned by the vendor or service provider, they only update them when they want. If your business grows and you needs increases you will either have to pay additional cost for scaling your software up or in some cases you might have to switch to an entirely different solution. This could be very expensive and problematic. However, the custom software development offers a great advantage, the entire software is built exclusively for your business hence you are the one who owns it, the entire software, and source code belongs to you. So, a business can have full control over it, they can customize it, scale it up, expand features, and upgrade the software whenever they need or want. You don’t have to bear hefty fees or you don’t have to switch to entirely different solutions in order to meet the increasing demands. The COTS are designed for a large user-base and they are designed as per industry standards, hence unless there is a large demand from most of their customers, they usually don’t make huge changes in their software. That is why sometimes when businesses are growing their needs are expanding and they need certain features they will have to migrate to entirely new software. Which is very time and effort consuming and also have huge cost.

Advantages of Customer Software: Easy Integration

One of the biggest challenge in implementing any new software application is the integration. The modern businesses rely on a highly integrated IT infrastructure and digital eco-system where information and data can flow seamlessly and made available for all users when then need it. The integration allow different software applications to communicate with each other in real-time and ensure all the users have the information they need and whenever they need. This is why the integration is usually one of the most crucial aspect of software development. When a business goes for a commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) solution the integration options are always limited. This is why businesses sometime have to migrate and synch data manually which slow down several internal processes and it can interrupt various work-flows. However, with the custom software development the entire source code is in your control, you can mold it in any way you want and you can customize it to align with your integration needs. The capability of easy integration makes custom software far more superior than the COTS. Furthermore businesses can also customize their software whenever they are adding a new tool or software to their digital eco system which increase the compatibility and lifecycle of your custom software application.

Advantages of Customer Software: Data Privacy and Security

In today’s modern world the data privacy and security is one of the most important aspect of any software application. Any data leak could completely destroy a business, and we have witnessed huge enterprises falling and bankrupting after serious data breaches. From the customer standpoint if a business is unable to secure their data and is vulnerable to security breaches, they will immediately lose trust. Which could be devastating for your business growth and even it could jeopardize your business’s survival as well. When we think about the commercial off-the-shelf software solutions, we know that these solutions are offered by large and multinational service providers, who have top-notch security experts and tools at their disposal. However, the history has proven this wrong, we have witnessed mega security breaches and attacks on large enterprises in past. This is not due to negligence or any wrong doing at their end, usually the biggest reason of such breaches is that these large software are available for masses all over the world, which somewhat exposes their structure and make them more vulnerable. However, the level of exclusivity offered by custom software makes them unique, which means no one outside your team will have access to the important sections of your software. Above all your data will be stored with you and will not be hosted on a remote server which might be located on the other side of the world. This is what makes custom software more secure and offer higher levels of data privacy and protection.

Conclusion

Software are an essential part of modern day business operations. No matter which industry you belongs to or what is your business model, you must be using some kind of software applications to boost efficiency and productivity. Even the Microsoft Office we used on daily bases is a commercial off-the-shelf solution. The modern day businesses need to be proactive in order to meet the rapidly changing markets and ever-increasing customer needs. For that businesses needs a lot of different software applications and digital solutions. With the passage of time the businesses grow, hence they need highly scalable solutions to support their growth. Furthermore every business have different needs, different preferences and unique culture which requires unique solutions. When a business decides to implement a new software, they have two routes either they can chose a commercial off-the-shelf software solution or commonly known as COTS, or the business can acquire the services of a software development agency in Dubai, and go for the custom software development project. The custom software development offers many advantages such as the software is fully aligned with the business needs, it is exclusively built for the business keeping the user-preferences in mind, and furthermore the custom software offers flexible integration, scalability and unlimited customization which makes them ideal for the modern businesses.

In this blog we have discussed a few advantages of the custom software development and why the off-the-shelf solutions fall short on certain aspects. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to build a custom software application for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

September 15, 2023

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Custom Software Development Projects

The modern businesses are highly tech-driven and rely on multiple technological tools and software programs. A modern business operating system can consists of 10s of different software programs. That is not all the technology moves on a very fast pace, the techs which are considered top-notch today might go obsolete in just 3 or 4 years. This means a constant demand for technology and software. Furthermore a common consumer in UAE is very tech-savvy. Above all, businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or any other part of UAE know that the UAE is one of the most competitive market in the region. This is what compels businesses to build excellent customer experience, highly productive organizational culture and cost-efficient operation. The modern technologies and software applications help the management to improve performance. Businesses can greatly improve their performance and growth by implementing right software solutions. The technology not only help improving the work-flows and internal processes but a right software solution can greatly help you enhance customer experience and gain higher customer satisfaction, which is a key to long term success.

On an average a business might look up to replace or upgrade an existing software application after just 3 to 4 years of time. The upgrades and updates are a constant process, businesses regularly keep updating their software ecosystem by simply tweaking existing tools or adding new software apps. There are different types of tools that are most common for all types and sizes of businesses:

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning Software
CRM- Customer Relationship Management Software
Inventory Management Software
Communication Management Software
Asset Management Software
Social Media Management Tools
Accounting Software
Production and Operation Management Software

These software tools and countless like these are used by millions of businesses all around the world to drive efficiency and productivity in the day-to-day operations. When it comes to implement a software solution, there are two ways to do so. One is to acquire a commercial off-the-shelf software or the other is to go for a custom software development project. The biggest problem with the commercial off-the-shelf software or COTS is that they are designed as per industry standards which means most of your competitors will be using them, above all the COTS never fulfill 100% of your needs. Mostly businesses have to compromise on the features they can get, the cost and many other factors. However, the custom software development allow businesses to find a 100% solution of their unique and very specific needs without compromising on anything. That is what made custom software development so popular. In this blog we will discuss the common mistakes that every business can easily avoid in their custom software development projects to maximize the impact and ROI of their software application.

These software tools are used by millions of businesses all around the world to drive efficiency and productivity in the day-to-day operations.

What are the Common Mistakes to Avoid in a Custom Software Development Project?

Although the commercial off-the-shelf software doesn’t always fulfill your all business needs, but these tools can be deployed very quickly, in fact most of the times the vendor can make them up and running within a day or two after acquiring them. However, the custom software development is a long process, it requires a lot of research, sufficient knowledge of technology stack and frameworks your software will be based upon and a lot of time to develop, test, and deploy them. That is a lengthy process and most of the times businesses can make a lot of mistakes which not only prolong the development process, but it also increase the cost and sometimes those mistakes can greatly undermine the performance and efficacy of your custom software application. Here are some most common mistakes that business can easily avoid in their customer software development project:

Poor or Incomplete Project Plan
Misinterpretation of Requirements or SOW Document
Lack of Knowledge of the Required Resources
Strict Deadlines and Rushing for Completion
Sub-Standard Project Management Practices
Poor Communication and Lack of Documentation
Lack of Feedback or Ignoring the Feedback
Lack of Testing Framework

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Poor or Incomplete Project Plan

Most of the time when it comes to custom software development projects, the biggest reason to failure is the incomplete planning. A custom software development is a lengthy and complicated process, each and every step has to be planned thoroughly in order to stay on track. A proper plan ensures the final product is delivered as per the expectations and in timely manner.

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Misinterpretation of Requirements or SOW Document

For every custom software development project the requirement document which is also known as the SOW or the Scope of the Work document is very crucial. It serves as the road map for the complicated applications and ensures all features are designed as per the expectations. Poor choice of words, lack of technical details and generic language in this document can cause serious problems at later stages.

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Lack of Knowledge of the Required Resources

It is software development agency or team who is majorly responsible for the research but most of the time the software development team doesn’t spend enough time on researching for resources rather they hurry to start the development phase as quickly as possible. It is extremely important that businesses have some basic understanding and knowledge of the resources, tech stack and frameworks to be able to ensure the development team is choosing the best tools for your custom software development project.

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Strict Deadlines and Rushing for Completion

This is one of the most common mistake businesses made by pushing the development teams to meet all the deadlines, and rush for the completion and delivery of the project. However, this could seriously undermine the quality and efficiency of the product. It is important that you prioritize the deadlines, but leave some space to accommodate delays to let the project complete in the most natural way possible. When the team will work comfortably they are most likely to deliver outstanding quality.

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Sub-Standard Project Management Practices

There are two most common reasons for poor project management for a custom software development project. First is that usually the development teams doesn’t include the project manager or coordinator in all communications, and the second is that the project managers from the business also doesn’t want to involve in such communication, this can undermine their visibility on the development process.

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Poor Communication and Lack of Documentation

The communication is said to be the backbone for the any successful software application. Most of the time there is not proper communication between the development team vendor’s and business’s project managers which seriously undermines the progress and also cause problems disputes and disagreements at the end of the project. Hence a proper communication framework and documentation at each and every stage has to be done to make the project execution smooth and aligned with your business vision.

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Lack of Feedback or Ignoring the Feedback

Most of the time both businesses and the development teams doesn’t pay much attention on the importance of feedback and incorporating it in the project. The custom software development project consists of multiple stages, at each stage the developers must take feedback and the business must provide detailed feedback to refine the product and to rectify the problems. This will keep your custom software aligned with your needs and it is much better than doing it afterwards or at the end.

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Lack of Testing Framework

The testing phase is the most crucial for any software application. Keep it in mind that later on the users of the software would be your employees or your customers and a bad user experience will directly impact your business. Furthermore the security and technical testing is also crucial as it may handle sensitive data. Most of the time businesses doesn’t have a proper testing framework, and by framework I mean, a proper plan for who will participate in UAT, who will use the beta version, how the feedback will be gathered and how it will be utilized to improve your customized software? All these things should be planned thoroughly to ensure the supreme quality of your customer software development project.

Conclusion

The UAE is considered to be technologically much advanced than any other nation in the region. This is due to the government efforts, tech-savvy population, technology-oriented work culture, and highly competitive markets. Businesses are on a constant need to improve their operations, processes, customer services, products and communication. That is not all, the performance and productivity is a key to a sustainable long-term success. A business does need improvements but at the same time it also needs to minimize it operational cost or to optimize the overall expenses. This is what can only be achieved with the right technology and tools in your arsenal. The software plays a crucial role in any modern-day business’s success. Businesses of all types and sizes use multiple software and application to perform their day-to-day tasks and to effectively run their operations. This means that businesses need up-to-the mark software and tools in order to effectively operate. When it comes to the software, there are two major routes a business can take, one is simply acquiring a ready-made commercial off-the-shelf software solution or you can have a custom software development project which can help you build solution for your very specific and unique business needs.

The custom software solutions are great at full filling the needs of the business and they can also provide a great competitive advantage due to their exclusivity. If we consider the long-term ROI the custom software solutions are proven to be much more cost-efficient than the ready-made software tools. However, designing and developing a custom software solutions is not as that simple, a business needs to team up with a professional custom software development company in Dubai, or anywhere in UAE and they need to have adequate understand of the process in order to develop a high-quality product. In this blog we have listed the most common mistakes businesses made during their custom software development projects. Avoiding these common mistakes will enable you to develop a high-performing and reliable tailor-made software for your business needs. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you need our help to take care of your custom software development project. Please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

September 11, 2023

Building a Successful Email Marketing Funnel with Email Marketing System

Businesses in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and all across UAE have witnessed huge rise in conversion by implementing successful email marketing funnels with advanced email marketing system. There is a common misconception about the email marketing and email marketing systems, that there is a universal or standard framework which every business can follow to get the desired results. However, that mindset is the biggest cause of failure of email marketing strategies. According to several global studies, the CTR (click through rate), Open Rate and the conversion are consistently increasing since past 5 years.

Here it is also important to understand that not all emails are intended to make a sale, most of the email that businesses send to their customers are to build and nurture relationships or for communication. When we talk specifically about the email marketing, it is considered the most cost-efficient marketing channel with almost $40 USD generated against every $1 USD spent on email marketing. That is staggering, but for different industries the benchmarks are different. Furthermore each business have a different personality, a different audience and a completely different preferences and goals. That is why an email marketing system is essential for managing building modern email marketing funnels.

Building a Successful Email Marketing Funnel with Email Marketing System

What is an Email Marketing Funnel?

The email marketing funnel is basically an email campaign consists of a series of different emails designed specifically to mature a lead into conversion by nurturing it and communication the right message according to the targeted audience throughout the entire customer journey. In fact it is a tactics to effectively manage customer journey. The funnels are designed not only to convert but to retain and make them loyal customers. That is why it is a long-term strategy consisting of following stages:

Brand Awareness – Present your products/services and the value you offer
Consideration/Engagement – Identify the problems and position your products/services as the right solution
Conversion – Nurturing relationship and facilitating onboarding
Loyalty – Ensuring your customers are satisfied with your brand
Retention/Advocacy – Strengthen relationship, make improvements, offer new solutions

The email marketing funnel is not a standard framework with a set of rules and standard practices. It is in fact different from each business, based on the targeted audience, business type, and even brand personality, the email marketing funnel could be built to maximize the outcome. Every business need to set their goals and acquire insight to understand their targeted audience before setting up their email marketing funnel. Furthermore there is always a room for the improvements.

That is why an exclusive email marketing system is essential for designing a successful email marketing funnel. The email marketing system will help businesses quickly set up and execute their campaigns, it also help automating several repetitive tasks and can automatically handle different audience segments. The email marketing system is a great tool to quickly tweak and fine-tune your email marketing funnel to maximize the results.

What is an Email Marketing Funnel?

How to Build a Successful Email Marketing Funnel with Email Marketing System?

The email marketing funnels can be built easily with an effective email marketing system. The email marketing software help businesses to easily laydown and execute their plans and derive strategies which returns maximum ROI. Furthermore the email marketing systems are based on a powerful software which can be integrated with various internal systems and process.

The integration allow management to easily execute their strategies and measure the effects. Without a proper email marketing system it is extremely difficult to build an effective email marketing funnel. Here are a few simple steps to build a successful email marketing funnel while using an effective email marketing software:

Email Marketing Funnel: Research and Planning

For any successful strategy the planning is a must, and for planning you need proper research. For email marketing funnel the very first step is acquiring insights, doing research and understanding your needs. The research and planning should include:

Acquiring Insight: Starting with acquiring insight, gathering data and understanding customer needs and expectations. It is important to build a comprehensive record of changing customer preferences over the time and then plan your communication accordingly.
Customer Segmentation: You cannot simply send a single email to all of your customers. You should segment them on the bases of their demographics, product/service preferences and also geographical data. Segmentation will help you catering to the needs of your targeted audience.
Customer Journey Mapping: The customer journey mapping is extremely important. Usually businesses doesn’t pay much attention on building customer journey maps. The customer journey map is simply a visual and simplified representation of the steps that your customers had to take form the very first interaction or brand awareness stage to converting into a sale. Different customer segments usually have different needs and also take different route to convert.
Building Email Lists: For any successful email marketing campaign the absolute essential is the right email list. Every business should build an email list. For that you can build opt-in forms, subscription forms, and lead capturing forms. This will help you with segmentation too.
Setting up Goals: It is extremely important that your goals align with the high-level organizational goals and objectives. If your goal is to generate more sales your emails should communicate the value proposition, if you want to build loyalty, your email marketing funnel should be able to engage with customers to increase their satisfaction and gain trust.

Building a successful email marketing funnel requires targeting different customer segments and catering them a variety of different products, services and communication materials as per their needs. Which is only possible if you have an effective email marketing system in place.

How to Build a Successful Email Marketing Funnel with Email Marketing System?

Email Marketing Funnel: Chose the Right Email Marketing Tool

The success of any email marketing funnel depends on how you target the audience, what message you send to them and the right message at the right time is the key to success. This is nearly impossible without using a fully or semi-automated email marketing system. When it comes to email marketing tools there are tons of options available in UAE. Businesses often rely on cloud based services as well, however, there are several factors that you should consider while choosing a right email marketing tool for your business.

It is extremely important that you use a very effective email marketing tool to build you email marketing funnel. Here are the most important factors that you should consider while choosing a right email marketing tool for your marketing funnel:

Features
Price (Initial and Operational Cost)
Integration
Customization
Security and Privacy

When it comes to the features of an email marketing tool, the most important features are the tools to create the email template and the automation tools. Usually all email marketing systems comes with two basic content creation tools, a text editor, and an HTML customizer. Some email marketing tools also comes with a drag-and-drop type content customizer. It all depends on your needs, the HTML editor is the most preferred and commonly used template creation tool.

The success of any email marketing funnel depends on how you target the audience

The integration is one of the most important features, which could have different challenges with different off-the-shelf email marketing tools. The integration helps automating the email campaigns. For example if you are planning to send post-sale emails with follow up surveys or any content, you can integrate your email marketing system with your ERP, or customer database and sales management system which will send a trigger when a new sales is made and the email marketing tool will automatically sends a pre-set email template to the customer.

You can personalize emails for customers and automate the entire funnel, you can send occasional greetings, newsletters and follow up emails, automatically. The customization is another important factor which allow you to keep up with the market trends and enables you to adopt to new practices and add features that suits your needs down the road. Most of the off-the-shelf solutions doesn’t allow any customization and the ones who allow it, offer very little and very expensive customization. If you are using a third-party email marketing tool or a cloud-based solution your data and content is hosted with service provider, you will have limited control and authority over it.

The integration is one of the most important features, which could have different challenges with different off-the-shelf email marketing tools

However, if you are using a customized email marketing system you can avoid all these problems, you can customize is as per you needs, you don’t have to pay hefty fees for upgrades or customization. You are not bound to a single service provider, you can host your data and content with yourself and as you may please. The custom email marketing system is a software which is exclusively designed for your business needs. You can acquire the services of a custom software development agency in Dubai like RSI Concepts or you can have in-house team to develop the custom email marketing tool as per your needs. The ownership rights belongs to you your business, you are not bound to service provider for anything, you can have another team to maintain, manage and customize your bespoke email marketing system.

The final and most important thing is the cost. The cost of a ready-made email marketing system is usually higher, as they are providing you the platform and also the email server which you are using to send email. If you are a small business, you might not require a separate email server. If you are a mid-sized or large enterprise you can easily acquire a third-party email server to utilize with your custom email marketing tool. Altogether the ROI of a custom email marketing system is much higher than a commercial off-the-shelf or cloud-based email marketing tool.

A custom email marketing system is a software which is exclusively designed for your business needs

Email Marketing Funnel: Brand Awareness and Building Lists

Now that you have a clear goal and right tech in place, it is time to start implementing your strategy and plans. The very first step of any email marketing funnel starts with brand awareness stage. At this stage you communicate your brand message, acquire subscribers and build lists. The prime objective of brand awareness campaign is to get as much contacts of your prospects as possible. If you communicate your brand values and produce enough appeal in your content, you will get higher conversion rate at this stage.

There are different tools and channels which can be used for brand awareness campaign. You can embed email subscription in your website and mobile apps. You can set up pop-up forms to collect lead data and you can run adverts on digital platforms to collect as many leads as possible. Because on later stages you will be nurturing these leads to generate sales. You should use lead magnets in your digital campaigns, whether it is a landing page, YouTube display ad, Google search ad, Facebook Ad or Instagram Reel, the lead magnet strategy will help you to collect more leads.

A lead magnet is simple an incentive or appeal to attract prospects and to compel them to take time to fill in the lead form or to provide you their email address. Once you got that start with the welcome series emails where you introduce your brand, different solutions you are offering and present the value your products and services can provide.

The very first step of any email marketing funnel starts with brand awareness stage

Email Marketing Funnel: Consideration – Nurturing Your Leads

With a successful brand awareness campaign now is the time when your prospects are seriously considering your brand and comparing it with their existing brands and any other available solutions they can avail. This is a very crucial stage. At this stage you should build trust by positioning your products, services and solutions as the ideal solution for your prospects’ problems and needs. This is the time when your emails will tell your prospects the true value of your products, services and solutions and what made your brand and your solutions unique and better from other competitors. Your emails should communicate your value proposition, unique selling point and ROI of your solutions.

At this stage your communication should build a sense of urgency to encourage your leads to quickly convert, and also address the most obvious concerns they could have. Ensure your prospects you will provide them good support and service. Studies have revealed that more than 80% of the prospects genuinely consider the rating and reviews of the other customers and this can greatly influence their decision. That is why it is important to include user-generated content, testimonials, customer rating, case-studies and even some free resources which will help you building gaining their trust. You should also include comparisons of your products and services with your leading competitors to give confidence to your prospects.

At this stage you should build trust by positioning your products, services and solutions as the ideal solution for your prospects’ problems and needs

Email Marketing Funnel: Conversion and Onboarding

The most important stage in customer journey is the conversion and onboarding, because that can also be counted as the first comprehensive experience your customers will have with your brand. This is where you should be able to utilize the advance customization and template creation tools of your email marketing system. It is extremely important to make your onboarding simpler and quicker. You should also design a series of emails which share promotions, offers and you can bundle them with freebies and special discounts to encourage your prospects to convert. Here an important thing to consider is that if your emails are too much pushy then it will repel your customers.

It is better to use professional language, eye-catchy graphics with an adequate topping of urgency. Creating urgency is crucial, it will help you keeping your customers focused and not leaving them enough room to do comprehensive research which might change their mind. The onboarding process should be simpler, do not include long forms and complex steps in the onboarding process. Your email should be able to provide a clear and easy-to-follow path to conversion with adequate information and resources which can help your customers to convert conveniently. Any obstacle or complication at this stage will cost you a potential customer.

It is extremely important to make your onboarding simpler and quicker

Email Marketing Funnel: Building Loyalty

The customer journey doesn’t end at conversion, in fact a marketing funnel must include a comprehensive series of emails which are designed to keep your customers engaged. It is important to have a proper loyalty program in place. Your email marketing funnel will help you to achieve more customer loyalty with your loyalty program. You can share regular promotions, exclusive offers for customers, personalized communication, and loyalty rewards to obtain your customers’ loyalty.

At this stage your communication should keep your customers engaged for example, you can create and share content which help your customers to effectively utilize the features of your products, services or solutions. At this stage collecting customer feedback, encouraging them to participate in polls contests and draws will increase their engagement. The customer engagement drives customer loyalty and help strengthening the relationship between a brand and its customers.

Your emails should convey the message that you value your customers and how important they are for your business, you can do so by appreciating their loyalty, offering discounts or special deals, etc. An email marketing system will help you set-up scheduled campaigns and it will also help you personalizing your emails which are more effective than generic emails.

You can share regular promotions, exclusive offers for customers, personalized communication, and loyalty rewards to obtain your customers’ loyalty

Email Marketing Funnel: Increasing Retention

Customer retention is somewhat similar to building loyalty. However, the core difference between the two is that in your customer retention campaigns you include both your new customers and existing customers as well. The customer loyalty is an ongoing process, you will have to keep nurturing your relationship with your customers in order to retain them and get repeated business from them. The customer retention is not only important for getting repeated business, but it will also help you establish a strong and positive brand identity.

The customer retention campaigns will help you maximizing the customer lifecycle which will maximize your ROI. The customer retention campaign is also more targeted, you must segment your customers on the bases of their purchases/subscription, their preferences, interests and demographic data. A good email marketing tool will help you setup multiple email templates for multiple customer segments. You should also focus on the active customers rather than each and every contact is your list. When you will focus only on active customers the chances to get another sale are very high.

The customer feedback also plays very important role in customer retention. You can integrate your email marketing system with a customer feedback system and execute a closed-loop customer feedback campaign which will further help you strengthening the relationship with your customers. When you increase customer engagement, share useful information, offer them personalized and exclusive deals/discounts, and keep them up to date your customer retention increases.

The customer retention campaigns will help you maximizing the customer lifecycle which will maximize your ROI

Conclusion

The email marketing is one of the oldest digital marketing method and still it is one of the best digital marketing method. According to studies a business can generate up to $40 USD on each $1 USD spend on email marketing. However, simply just sending emails to your customers or prospects is not enough. The business operating in Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi or anywhere in UAE are actively utilizing emails to communicate with their customers. However, most of the businesses are unaware of the impact of a successful email marketing funnel.

In this blog we have discussed what an email marketing funnel is and how businesses can easily build a successful email marketing funnel with the help of an effective email marketing system. The email marketing system is a very powerful software tool, which is used to streamline email communication and marketing for a business.

The email marketing tools help automating email campaigns and also enable businesses to send hyper-personalized emails to maximize the impact and ROI. There are two types of email marketing tools, the commercial off-the-shelf tools and the customized email marketing systems. The custom email marketing tools is much superior as it will be designed exclusively for your business and according to your needs.

You can also start with a cloud-based system and build your email marketing funnel. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design and develop a customized email marketing system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

September 1, 2023

How to Develop Custom Performance Appraisal System in UAE?

The custom performance appraisal system in UAE are not very common. Usually businesses rely on cloud-based or commercial off-the-shelf solutions. The biggest problem with ready-made or stock performance appraisal system is that they are standardized for a particular industry, hence they are not as that flexible. However, every business is different and unique, and all businesses develop a completely unique culture and have different goals, needs and preferences for the performance management. Using a stock or commercial off-the-shelf solution can never fulfill such needs.

Therefore businesses start looking into the possibilities to develop a custom performance appraisal system. For that businesses have two choices either they get it done by the internal software development team, which is very less obvious, and most of the time businesses doesn’t have IT teams who can deliver that kind of sophisticated application. The other choice is to acquire the services of a professional software development agency in Dubai or anywhere else in UAE who is experienced in HR solutions and performance management systems.

However, even if a business acquires a professional service provider or vendor, they must still have adequate understand of the performance appraisal system. In this blog we will discuss the important factors which will help businesses to get a high-performance and impactful performance appraisal system in UAE.

How to Develop Custom Performance Appraisal System in UAE?

What is a Custom Employee Performance Appraisal System?

An employee performance system is a set of methods, techniques, tools and framework used to evaluate employee performance and progress against a pre-defined objective and it helps identifying the weaknesses, strengths and areas of improvement. The prime purpose of the employee appraisal system is to ensure that all the available resources are progressing in the right direction and their efforts are fully aligned with the high-level organizational goals and strategic objectives.

The performance appraisal system is a foundation stone for growth and stability. Only by leveraging the full potential of the employees, a business can sustain and grow in the highly competitive and fast-paced markets like UAE. The employee performance appraisal system provides a comprehensive framework to collect employee performance data and feedback and transform this into actionable insight which helps management and HR department to take informed decisions and progress towards their high-level organizational goals and vision.

When we say custom employee performance appraisal system the only difference is how the system is developed. A custom employee performance appraisal system is developed exclusively for a particular business as per their exclusive and very unique business needs. That is why it is called a custom employee performance appraisal system.

What is a Custom Employee Performance Appraisal System?

What are the Benefits of Using a Custom Performance Appraisal System?

An effective performance appraisal system help businesses drive the productivity, it helps them minimize the problems caused by the lack of technical or behavioral competencies. The employee performance appraisal systems are not a tool to scrutinize the employees, but it is a comprehensive framework which lifts up the performance of the employee, increases employee engagements, and over the time strengthen their technical and behavioral competencies.

A good employee performance appraisal system can have massive impact on a business’s growth and success. That is why it is important that the employee performance appraisal system you use is fully aligned with your business needs and resonate with your unique organizational culture and priorities. Here are the key benefits of using a custom performance appraisal system:

Elevating and Enhancing Communication:

The communication is the backbone of our modern business ecosystems. All business functions should have a fraction-less and instant communication enabled in order to boost the operational efficiency. The lack of communication between employees and managers could devastate the performance and efficiency. It frustrate employees, fuel hopelessness and it kills productivity. The performance appraisal system help managers communicate the goals and objectives, and help employee understand the success criteria. Hence the employee are more motivated to progress in the right direction.

Appreciate High Performance and Improvements:

One of the biggest concern of employees and managers is with the outdated appraisal practices is their efficacy and accuracy. A modern custom performance appraisal system help building trust and ensures the high performance is well appreciated while the areas of improvements are also noted accurately. Rightful incentive and appreciation not only boost employee morale but also encourage others to do well in the coming performance cycle. The reviews, feedbacks, and evaluation are done with a systematic framework which help employees and managers to understand what has to be improved and how, which also help raising the morale of low-performing employees.

Impactful Training and Development:

Businesses who are actively offering training and development programs tend to perform well in UAE. A custom performance appraisal system does the heavy lifting and help the HR in many processes, which also enables them to design high-impact employee training and development programs. A well-organized performance data and intuitive reporting provide a better insight and help the HR to identify the training needs. The employee performance data can be analyzed by multiple angles and can be plugged-in into various other systems to ensure the maximum impact of training and development activities. The same can also be used to convince employee to participate in those programs and help businesses make the most impact of their efforts.

Guiding the Right Path:

Studies have shown that the biggest reason of employee quitting form a jobs in UAE is the lack of clarity of their career path. A custom performance appraisal system provides you a wealth of performance data, when this data is coupled with employee data the HR can easily identify the suitable path for the employees and guide them with their long-term goals and career path. Such guidance is crucial, it help employees boosting their morale and confidence and it gives them a sense of importance and valued. When employees are guided to a right career path with a better scope and success in future, they become more loyal and satisfied. Happy and satisfied employees always tend to give their best.

Raise Employee Satisfaction:

A modern custom performance appraisal system is a great tool to maximize the employee engagements. The employee appraisal system provides a systematic approach to engage employees at various levels and decision making processes. The digital aspect increase their trust, successful training and development programs raise their loyalty and satisfaction. With transparent evaluation practices, reward and recognition programs and frequent feedbacks and interactions the employees gain more confidence and become more satisfied with their job, knowing they are important and their concerns are addressed and their voice is heard. The employee engagements can greatly reduce the employee turnover too.

Help Under-Performers:

Here in UAE business leaders and HR specialists are agreed that the under-performers are the employees who can seriously undermine the organization’s overall performance. A custom performance appraisal system helps HR to accurately identify the under-performers, closely monitor their performance and the impact of coaching and training and give them a fair chance to improve. The performance appraisal system is very much capable of identifying the reasons of poor performance which greatly help HR to address the real issues. It also help managers to provide right guidance, coaching and mentorship to encourage under-performers and to boost their morale.

A good performance appraisal system not only align employees with the organization goals and objectives, but it also help developing and nurturing a highly productive organizational culture where the employees can improve and grow over the time.

What are the Benefits of Using a Custom Performance Appraisal System?

How do I design a custom performance appraisal system?

Most of the time when businesses decide to adopt a custom performance management system they think it is a very sophisticated and time-consuming task. However, designing a custom performance appraisal system is not difficult at all. It is a very simple process, all you need is to consider following important aspects of performance appraisal and you can design a high-impact custom performance appraisal system:

Understand Modern Performance Appraisal System:

The modern performance management is way too different than the traditional/annual appraisals. More than 80% of the employee, business leaders and HR experts have shown distrust form the annual appraisals, as they majorly focused on the most recent events, and progress. However, the modern performance appraisal system facilitates more frequent and even continuous performance monitoring. Another drawback of traditional appraisals is that it is very time consuming. However, the modern performance appraisal systems leverage digital technologies and software based tools. Which ensures continuous monitoring, more contextual and comprehensive data, and highly accurate reports.

Set Your Goals and Objectives:

Whenever a business is acquiring a new system or implementing a solution they have clear goals and objectives, what they want to achieve with that system. Same is applicable here too, if you are designing a custom performance appraisal system you should set goals and objectives for that, it would be simply what you would want to achieve by implementing that system, such as getting better and deeper insight to employee performance, communicating the expectations, increase employee performance, driving efficiency and reducing redundant work, reducing the time, effort and cost of the appraisal process and so on. Setting up clear objectives for the system will help you maximizing the ROI as well.

Define Benchmarks and Setting up Standards:

It is important to do some research on industry standards and define benchmarks and set up your standards accordingly. It is very important to include the most effective elements and features in your custom performance appraisal system. In order to understand the impact of different strategies and features the market research is the key. Furthermore the case studies can help you understand different features of the performance appraisal system and accordingly you can vision your custom performance appraisal system. Studying market trends is equally important. That is why it is crucial to do some research and consult experts to define the scope of your system.

Develop Metrics and Establish Success Measures:

Since you already have a clear understanding of what you would want to accomplish with your custom performance appraisal system, it is absolutely essential to setup metrics and establish clear success measures. So, you can gauge your performance against your objectives. Furthermore establishing success measure will also help you to evaluate the efficacy and impact of your custom performance appraisal system. It is not as that complicated as it may sound, let us take an example of a goal which is ‘improving employee performance’ for that your custom performance appraisal system should be able to communicate what is expected from the employees, it should have tools to measure employee performance against pre-set goals and it should have features to ensure employee alignment with goals.

Evaluate Your Current Appraisal Processes:

It is important to scrutinize your existing performance management and appraisal processes and practices. This will help you identify the areas of improvements and missing tools or features which you can include in your new custom performance appraisal system. It is also important to collect user feedback, in this case the employees, supervisors and managers are your audience. You should conduct interviews with a sample from different audience/user pools and consider their recommendation as well. The next step is to analyze that data and revisit your success measures and ensure your success measures and goals are fully aligned with the benchmarks you are planning to achieve with your new custom performance appraisal system. We are still in the planning phase so any step can be revised and adjustments can be made if needed.

Establish the Scope of the Project:

Above all steps are mostly part of the planning. Forming a clear scope of the project is what you will hand over to the development team and get the system done accordingly. It is important to understand that the scope of the project is a high-level technical guideline or in fact a blueprint of your custom performance appraisal system. Make sure you add enough details and also expected outcomes. This will help the development team to build the features and functionalities in your custom performance appraisal system. At this stage you can also engage IT/Technical teams to make this charter more contextual, descriptive and technically understandable for the development team.

How do I design a custom performance appraisal system?

How to Implement a Custom Performance Appraisal System?

Once you have a completed the planning phase and prepare a detailed scope of the project with all the features you need. Now is the time to appoint a custom software development team to execute the project. Remember the employee appraisal system and performance management is not just a method or strategy, but it is actually a very powerful software application which lifts the heavy load and enable the HR to effectively implement their employee appraisal and performance management strategies.

This requires a powerful software engine which can collect performance data, analyze it as per your needs, and produce intuitive reports to let the management understand the performance status and provide them administrative dashboard with required features to acquire insight and take informed decisions and then effectively implement their decisions and action plans to course correct and take measures to ensure the set-goals are achieved at the end of the performance cycle.

The software development team will follow the scope of the project document, and build that software engine for you. You can hire in-house team to build custom appraisal system for your business or you can outsource it to a well-reputed and experienced vendor who can further help you refine your system and provide required training for the system to ensure maximum impact can be created with it.

How to Implement a Custom Performance Appraisal System?

Conclusion

Businesses who are operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or any other emirate of UAE are well aware of the fact that the employee retention is one of the biggest obstacle in growth. The overall UAE market is very competitive and it is relatively easier to switch the job. In such scenario retaining good talent is quite difficult. Furthermore the markets are very competitive and the businesses have to ensure their customers are having a satisfactory experience and excellent service which is nearly impossible with your employee performing with optimum level of productivity and efficiency.

Therefore businesses tend to implement various different types of performance management and employee appraisal systems to ensure they achieve their high-level organizational goals. In order to achieve your organizational goals and strategic objectives, the employee must be aligned with your goals, satisfied with their job role, motivated, guided, trained and engaged. This all can be achieved only when you implement a systematic framework to measure and monitor your employee performance and offer them a highly transparent and fair appraisal system.

A business have two choices, either they can acquire a commercial off-the-shelf solution or they can develop a custom performance appraisal system. The bespoke solutions tend to deliver more comparing to standardized off-the-shelf solutions. In this blog we have discussed how a business can develop and highly-effective and most impactful custom performance appraisal system. If you want to learn more or if you need our help to develop a custom performance appraisal system for your business in UAE, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

August 22, 2023

React Native Apps and Cross Platform Software Development

Every business wants to grow, for that they need a robust information and data structure which can be used by their employees and customers. Businesses need to ensure user satisfaction by offering them a great digital ecosystem which enhances the digital user experience. Businesses use various software and applications to improve their processes, operational efficiency and to drive productivity and performance. That is not all, businesses always have several challenges, the tough competition, the ever increasing customer demands, the low performing teams and employees, and what not. When it comes to custom software development, businesses chose the solution which matches their technical requirements and also fits in their budgetary limitations. Businesses in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other parts of UAE are well-aware of the impact of digital tools, software and mobile apps. However, most often businesses do not realize that they don’t need to acquire different applications for different platforms (which is very expensive), in fact they can have a completely customized software using the technique of cross-platform software development, which is most cost-effective way of launching your software or app to multiple platforms.

What is React Native?

The React Native is a JavaScript based framework and library to develop the frontend UI for software and applications. It is an open-source platform, which means it is free to use and it is developed by Meta, formally known as Facebook. The reason why it is so popular is that it enable developers to utilize native capabilities of the platform and develop cross-platform software applications while utilizing only React framework. This simplifies the software development process and enable developers to develop excellent applications for multiple platforms with very less time and efforts. Furthermore the software developers can easily utilize their JavaScript skills to work on React Native framework which minuses the learning curve. The React JS and React Native often confused with one another, however, both are different. The React JS is majorly used for developing websites and web-apps however, the React Native is a cross-platform software development framework which is built on top of React JS and it allow developers to develop applications for Android, iOS, MAC OS, Windows and a few other platforms. Furthermore the React Native can also be utilized for both frontend and backend development which make it superior from other counterparts.

What is Cross-Platform App Development?

The cross-platform app development is simply a method of providing your software, mobile application or web-apps to a diverse range of audience who are using multiple different platforms. This means all users from different platform would be needing same user experience, features, UI, etc. The biggest challenge of cross-platform software development is that a business would be needing multiple different teams to work on different platforms. Here are some cross-platform development tools:

Popular cross-platform development tools:

JavaScript: For website and web-app development
Kotlin: For Android app development
Swift: For Apple iOS app development
.NET: For Windows software and tools development

If you want to make your software and app available for all above platforms, then you will be needing at least 4 different teams to work on your single app/software. This could be very expensive, moreover it is difficult to manage multiple teams working on a same software or app. Furthermore each platform team will have different costing mechanisms, hence it would be difficult to meet release date. Later on, when you will be needing any maintenance, update or upgrade, your efforts and expensive would be multiplied to the number of platforms you are working at. That is where the React Native comes to play, it allow businesses to hire a single team and make cross-platform software development seamless and very cost-effective. The maintenance/updates are also easier and very less expensive.

Lear More: What Is Cross-Platform App Development?

What are the Benefits of Using React Native Apps for Cross Platform Development?

The React Native is rapidly growing on Stack Overflow and GitHub. It is widely adopted by businesses and organizations not only in UAE but all across the world. This also means that a developer can easily find community support and a huge number of ready-made plugins and scripts all over the internet which help developer speeding up the cross-platform software development projects. Here are some key benefits of using React Native apps and cross-platform software development for your business:

Quicker Development Process

Since you don’t require to have different teams working on your software for different platforms and only a single team can do that, the development cycle becomes shorter which also enables you to launch your apps quickly. Furthermore the React Native offers several features which help the programmers and developers to quickly develop their applications, and also it enables quick debugging and testing which makes development process much quicker than any other available framework. Moreover the code is also useable at several platforms which make development fast, it also reduce efforts to write code for multiple platforms and making changes to it. That is why the react native can effectively reduce the time and efforts of developing cross platform software.

Reduce the Cost of Cross Platform Software Development

The react native can greatly reduce the cost of your cross platform software development projects. Thanks to its ability to provide a reusable and compatible code for multiple platforms and reducing the efforts the time required to develop such mobile apps, web-apps and software has become very low. This also help reducing the cost. As less time and efforts are needed to develop a cross platform software, the cost is also low and since only one technology stack is required for the entire team, it is easier to find the skilled teams or vendors who can develop such software, apps and tools. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the software development agencies, such as RSI Concepts and many others are offering highly cost-efficient software development services, which also impact the cost of your software development and help business get a highly cost-effective solution.

Support Multiple Platforms

There is a common impression among businesses and non-coders, that the react native is only meant to be used for Android and iOS app development. However, that is not true at all. The react native is a very useful platform with a wider range of compatibility. Businesses can develop applications and software which can be offered on Android, iOS, Windows, MAC OS, Websites and a few more. There is a huge online community support for the React Native platform and above all it is rapidly evolving and growing adding support for newer platforms and technologies. This means businesses and developers both can expect a sharp rise in compatibility and efficacy of the react native and its expansion to various other platforms. That is what makes react native much more superior than other such frameworks.

Native-like Experience and Performance

When it comes to platforms like react native, the biggest concern of the businesses is experience and performance. That was also true, but a few years back, not now. Now a days, there are so many advancements made to the react native core, and furthermore the Meta (Formally known as Facebook) has introduced a new JavaScript engine, Hermes, which enables static optimization and help reducing the app size. Furthermore the React Native can also render components to the GPU which is achieved by eliminating the gap between the JavaScript and the native components and results in high-performing apps. This enables developers to offer a native-like experience and performance by simply using react native and its advanced components.

Quick Debugging and Changes

One of the biggest advantage of the React Native is its features like hot-reloading, live-reloading and fast refresh. When making changes to the application’s source code or debugging it the developers will have to recompile the application, however, with the react native this isn’t require anymore. It means that the developers can see their changes immediately, almost in real-time without the need to recompile the entire application, which is a time consuming tasks. That is why the developers prefer to use react native, as it helps them make changes and refine their work without any extra effort or repeated tasks. Furthermore the new features of the react native framework are extremely useful in debugging typos, syntax and other common errors in the code, which makes it more productive and ideal framework for the agile development teams.

What are the Drawbacks of Using React Native for Cross Platform Software Development?

The React Native is one of the best framework available to this day for cross platform software and apps development. However, same like other technologies, it also has some drawbacks, although these drawbacks usually won’t impact a business, but in certain and very few number of scenarios these drawbacks could become problematic. Here are some drawbacks of using React Native for cross platform apps and software development:

Unlike native technologies such as Kotlin or Swift the React Native is based on JavaScript which is a dynamically-typed programming language. This requires developers to follow certain standards and rules in order to avoid bugs form the apps.
There are certain native modules which are not available in React Native, especially those are related to interacting with device’s hardware, hence when dealing with such functionalities the developers must have to insert native codes, which could also affect behavior and appearance.
When using a framework like react native for cross platform software development, the developers can never achieve the level of performance and integration which can be achieved using the native codes and APIs.
The operating systems of different platforms keep updating very frequently. However, the react native or any other cross platform app development framework is slow on adopting to new changes and introducing new features which are instantly available for the native apps.

There is a clear difference between the native app development and cross platform software development. However, frameworks like React Native are rapidly bridging the gap between these two. The modern versions of react native have already minimized a lot of problems, which makes it ideal for more than 90% of the businesses, there are only a certain sectors or businesses who still need to build native apps because they need sophisticated features and intensive hardware integration with their apps. Otherwise the react native is best for cross platform software development.

What are the Drawbacks of Using React Native for Cross Platform Software Development?

Conclusion

When it comes to mobile app development or customized software tools, the first thing businesses should consider is their needs. Both react native and the native app development has its own advantages and drawbacks. However, cross platform software development can significantly reduce your cost, efforts and time of development which is why most businesses are preferring it. The react native is also preferred choice of software developers as it is convenient, easy to use, debug, and it offers a variety of features which enable them to add advanced features to their mobile apps, and software tools. Furthermore the react native offers almost native like performance and experience. The developers can reuse the code, they can easily debug it and update it, and the overall efforts and development time can be greatly reduced. The react native framework is rapidly gaining popularity all around the world, the Meta is also introducing new features to make it better and the community support is also growing. All these are signs of a very bright future for React Native and cross platform software development. In this blog we tried to cover everything important about React Native and cross platform software development. This blog will give you a better understanding of cross platform and native apps. If you want to learn more or if you want our help to develop a native or cross platform app, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and someone will get in touch with you soon.

August 18, 2023

How to Design a Modern Performance Management System?

The overall business landscape have drastically changed over the past decade, with the rise of smartphones, internet, social media and digital communication, the way business are building and nurturing their relationships with their customers have completely changed. In the modern fast-paced and highly competitive market environment it is crucial for a business to adopt to modern practices, methodologies and technologies. The performance management system is no exception at all, if you will compare the modern performance management system with the performance management practices just around a decade back, the present day performance management is totally unrecognizable. The modern performance management systems are designed with an aim to support every organization’s unique internal culture, minimize the influence of bureaucracy, increase transparency and maximize the impact of the performance management and human resource programs. Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other emirates of UAE are witnessing continuous growth, which is attracting more businesses and raising the competition. The governments are also turning toward a modern UAE government performance appraisal system in order to ensure excellent services for the citizens. Furthermore the rapidly changing market trends, and ever-increasing customer demands are compelling businesses to utilize their resources at the maximum potential in order to ensure stability and growth. That is what make performance management system a game-changing tool.

What is a Modern Performance Management System?

The major difference between the traditional and modern performance management system is that the old method relies on annual reviews, the modern methods offer more frequent reviews, better performance data collection and analysis, and include software tools which makes the employee performance management process more effective and impactful. When the employees doesn’t have a proper communication with their managers, they are blindfolded and couldn’t know if they are progressing in the right direction or not. Another biggest difference between traditional and modern performance management system is that it focuses on the people and help managers maximizing their potential. However, the traditional performance management system focus on what has been done in past, and have no visibility of the future at all. The software aided modern performance management system is more integrated, robust, responsive, and reactive and can easily be incorporated in the modern work flows. The modern performance management system offer a more contextual and comprehensive performance data which help managers and employees to identify the problems and help them set course for the future to achieve the excellence. The modern performance management system doesn’t only focus on the monetary incentives, but it offers in-depth employee development programs, it is more engaging and empowering, and help building trust on the performance management process.

What are the Characteristics of a Modern Performance Management System?

Businesses should be aware of modern performance management trends. Because in order to implement a modern performance management system you must understand what the characteristics of a modern performance management system are which distinguished it from a traditional performance management model.

Digital Transformation: The biggest advantage of a modern performance management system is that it enables digital transformation by implement software based solutions and tools. The performance management software help automating several tasks driving efficiency and accuracy in the process.
People Focused: The modern performance management systems focused on both the high-performing employees as well as the low-performer. It offer a great balance between the accountability and the development, which encourage all employees to perform better and also help low performers to achieve their goals while rewarding high-performing employees.
Continuous: The modern day employees want more frequent and instant reward, they don’t like the concept of waiting for an entire year. A continuous performance management system offer continuous communication, frequent reviews (biannual, quarterly, and even monthly), continuous feedback and frequent one-on-one meetings.
Transparent: Most of the business leaders and the employees don’t trust on traditional performance management system due to several factors. However the modern performance management system offers more transparency, it provide more accessibility to performance data and can keep the record of all past data, meetings, and reviews.
Adaptive: The modern performance management systems are great and offer castigation which enables them to adopt to changes in trends, needs and even allow businesses to implement customized performance management strategies and policies. The ability to integrate with other systems and collect performance data from multiple sources make them more adaptable.

These are the essential features which distinguishes between traditional and modern performance management system.

What are the Characteristics of a Modern Performance Management System?

Step-by-Step Guide on Designing a Modern Performance Management System

Now that we understood the difference between traditional and modern performance management system and its benefits as well, let us dive into the actual process of designing a modern performance management system which resonates with your organizational culture and performance needs.

Identify Your Needs: It is important to understand the needs of your organization. Every business have different priorities, different challenges and different culture, this is why it is important to identify your needs. You will have to review the current performance management model and then do some brainstorming to identify the needs of your new strategy.
Chose The Purpose: Once you identify your needs, you should chose the primary purpose of your modern performance management system. There are five major purposes of implementing a performance management framework, accountability, organizational alignment, cultural alignment, development, and recognition. You should prioritize each one as per your needs.
Understand the Workflows: Understand who is making decisions and how decisions are being made. How the information are flowing, what communication channels you are currently using and what you are planning to use in future. Understand how you are currently defining roles, goals and objectives and how the success should look like.
Performance Fundamentals: No matter what performance management model you want to use, the performance fundamentals are the same, reviews, feedbacks and goals. Implement mechanisms to make reviews fair and transparent. Implement SMART goals, focus on accountability, development and alignment and lastly implement continuous feedback model.

If you follow the above steps you can easily identify your needs and the scope of your new modern performance management system. There are two ways to implement a new performance management system. First you can acquire a ready-made commercial off-the-shelf solution, or the second and more effective way is to acquire a professional software development agency in Dubai, such as RSI Concepts and let them build a customized performance management system as per your needs.

Step-by-Step Guide on Designing a Modern Performance Management System

How to Analyze the Effectiveness of your New Performance Management Model

Once you implemented a tailor-made modern performance management system you will definitely witness improvements, however, in order to analyze the effectiveness of your new performance management system you can perform a thorough analysis using the following steps:

Start with market research, understand your industry trends, and set the performance benchmarks for your industry.
Set and enlist organizational goals and objectives and accordingly set the individual goals that you are planning to achieve with your new performance management system.
Based on your organizational goals and objectives define how the success should look like for individual goals, also classify performance in three categories, high-performer, low-performer and average performers.
Now compare your design of performance management system and its success measures with this performance management model based on industry benchmarks.
Now try to minimize the gap between both performance management models and you will get a most efficient performance management system.

This analysis will help you improving your design of modern performance management system and it will help you maximizing the impact of your performance management program.

How to Analyze the Effectiveness of your New Performance Management Model?

Conclusion

Implementing a modern performance management system can greatly improve your employees’ performance, engagements and help you increase retention. When the employees and managers both trust on the performance management models and tools they tend to perform well and it also help elevating their morale which is absolutely essential for productivity and efficiency. There are several modern performance management systems available in the market, however, it is highly unlikely that any off-the-shelf performance management software can fulfill all your needs and produce the desired results. That is why we recommend going for a customized performance management system. In this blog we have discussed the difference between a traditional and modern performance management system, we also discussed how you can design a perfect performance management system which will empower your management and workforce. If is important to critically analyze the performance management model that you are building for your business. You can revise your model many times before reaching to the optimum results. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design your new modern performance management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

August 18, 2023

A Complete Guide to a Multi-Branch Queue Management System

Customer facing environments are most sensitive part of a business’s operations. It is extremely important for a business to maximize the operational productivity to ensure the customers are having a satisfactory experience. For large businesses with multiple branches the management is even more challenging. Usually the senior management is sitting in the head office, it is a time taking process to get the updates and information related to any branch. Most of the time the head office will have to approach the branch manager to provide them the required information. The queuing and customer flow management is always difficult. Therefore businesses need a digital queue management system which can help them streamline their customer flow and improve their operational capabilities. The digital queue management system provides live queuing coverage, instant updates, alerts/notifications, business intelligence data and useful features for service agent, branch managers, head office and senior management. The queue management system is an intelligent software solution with hardware components to offer a full control and monitoring over the customer journey which helps improving customer experience. In this guide we will discuss how business can implement and leverage a multi-branch queue management system to drive growth.

What is a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

A multi-branch queue management system is a centralized queue management system which enables businesses to manage and monitor customer queues and customer flow in real-time across all connected branches. The multi-branch queue management system runs on a centralized software which is hosted on an in-premises server, online or in cloud. The server is connected to all branches. A basic queue management system have multiple devices integrated in a synchronized framework. For example, there is an interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk which not only dispense tokens but also take basic information of the customer and in some cases it has ability to ID the customer as well. There is a digital signage screen which displays the live queuing information along with some multimedia content. The modern queue management systems also have integrated counter name plates which display counter number and the token number which is being served at the moment. Furthermore there is an audio announcement system which is used for customer calling. All these devices form one branch’s setup, and if there are more than one branch, in case of a multi-branch queue management system all these devices in all branches are connected to a centralized queue management software which monitor and control all these components of the system.

How does a Multi-Branch Queue Management System Works?

The multi-branch queuing also works on the concept of queue management system and crowd control, but it provides additional management features which greatly improve the efficiency of the queuing process. In a multi-branch queue management system setup all branches are connected via network to the main server software. The server application communicates with all branches in real-time. Whenever any action is taken in any branch the information is sent to the server and then the response is sent to the branch instantly. Think of a website, the website is hosted on a cloud which might be located in another continent, however, when you click on a link or a file, it immediately opens it. Same technical process works here too. When a user/customer in any branch choose a service to generate a token number, the information is sent to the queue management system software which is hosted on a server, and then in return it issues a token number which is being printed out instantly from where the user/customer made the request. All branches are connected to the head-office in a similar fashion via a public or private network. The smart algorithms and source code is executed at the server, and all the data is also stored in the server. The service agents, branch managers, and the senior management or head office staff gets their dedicated administrative dashboards and the access to data and functionality is managed by an in-built administration and authentication module. That is how a multi-branch queue management system works.

What are the Benefits of using a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

The biggest advantage of a multi-branch queue management system is that it offers a centralized management framework where all the information are stored in a central location, which makes management and monitoring much easier comparing to standalone queue management system. If each branch have a standalone queue management system then the information will be stored in silos, which poses monitoring and management challenges. Furthermore the senior management or head office doesn’t require any intermediate database/integration to consolidate all the information flowing from and towards all branches. Here are the key benefits of a multi-branch queue management system:

Easy Monitoring and Administration from a centralized location
All the data and updates are available in a centralized location which enables real-time monitoring and control over all connected branches
Since there is only one main queue management system software, therefore the implementation, operational and maintenance cost is low
All the dashboards are updated in real-time, the content/configurations can be pushed in real-time to all connected branches
Handling large footfall, congestion, and several other problems is easy with real-time monitoring and it enables the management to take quick and informed decisions
Enables real-time monitoring of customer flow, customer wait time, employee performance and other queuing metrics and system stats
Senior managers, branch managers, supervisors and stakeholders have up-to-date information and data all the time, there is no lag or latency
Easy integration with third-party software tools, customer databases, and central information center help driving efficiency and productivity

A multi-branch queue management system is essential for businesses who are managing multiple branches in remote locations, it help them minimize the administrative efforts while maximizing the operational productivity.

What are the Benefits of using a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

What are the Best Practices for Implementing a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

Implementing a multi-branch queue management system is a crucial task. The businesses should be very careful in choosing the right vendor, technology, queuing system type and several other factors. Here are some key points that a business should consider while implementing a multi-branch queue management system:

Identify your requirements and make a plan of what features you want to include
Find and shortlist multiple queue management system vendors
Scrutinize all vendors, evaluate proposals and finalize the best vendor
Choose the right platform and queuing type for your business
Always start with a pilot project, implement the system at one or maximum two branches
Train your employees, provide them with the manuals and required technical support, etc.
Now closely observe the performance of the branch and try to find what can be improved
Take feedback from customers, employees, managers and relevant stakeholders
Discuss and share your observations and finding with the vendor and make improvements
Monitor the system and evaluate the changes you made, and repeat until your customers are satisfied
Now go for full-fledge implementation or start implementing in remaining branches one-by-one

If you will consider the above suggestions you can save a lot of time and efforts.

What are the Best Practices for Implementing a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

What are the Challenges of Implementing a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

Implementing a multi-branch queue management system is not an easy task, there are several challenges that a business could face while implementing a multi-channel queue management system, such as:

Initial Cost: One of the biggest challenge is the initial cost, if you are planning to implement a multi-branch queue management system across all branches at once, the cost could be very high. That is why the best practice is to start with pilot project, and implement the queue management system to all branches in small chunks, such as one-by-one, or 2 or 3 branches at a time, etc.
System Integration: When you are implementing a multi-branch queue management system or any other system, the biggest technical challenge is the integration with other tools, and data synchronization. A modern queue management system with customer-friendly features would require many different types of integration. If your existing IT infrastructure and other systems are not compatible then you might have to develop intermediate tools to streamline the data flow.
Employee Training: Whenever a business implements a new solution they require training for the employees, same is the case with the multi-branch queue management system. You must have to train your employees in order to enable them to leverage the full potential of the queue management system. User manuals, guides, and training videos can be created to make your employees well versed with your new multi-branch queue management system.

It might sound difficult and a bit challenging though but implementing a multi-branch queue management system is not as that challenging. Businesses will have to face all these challenges whenever they implement a new system. However, a queue management system is relatively easier to work with, furthermore the business can use customized UIs and branding tactics to reduce the training needs.

What are the Challenges of Implementing a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

Conclusion

The customer satisfaction is essential for growth and stability. Businesses are always eager to implement solutions and offer services to raise the customer satisfaction. Businesses managing multiple branches always face administrative issues, the visibility and data flow is one of the most challenging task in any multi-branch setup. That is why when it comes to queue management system, most of the businesses in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other emirates of UAE prefer to implement standalone systems. However, that is not ideal, in order to leverage the full potential of a modern queue management system businesses need a comprehensive multi-branch queuing solution. A multi-branch queue management system is a very effective tool, it help businesses dealing with technical challenges, and it offer real-time monitoring and control over all branches. That is what makes it most effective. In this guide we have discussed multi-branch queue management system in brief details and tried to answer most of the questions a business could have while planning to implement a multi-branch queue management system. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to implement a customized and very cost-efficiency multi-branch queue management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

August 16, 2023

Employee Evaluation and KPIs for Better Employee Performance

With the rise of technology, the customer expectations have increased, the market trends have been changed, and the competition is getting tougher day by day. Businesses need to be very productive in order to be able to survive in the current market landscape of UAE. An effective performance management is the solution to level up your game and out-perform your competition. Businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and other parts of the country are well-aware of the competitiveness of the market and the skyrocketed demands of the customers.

That is why businesses are continuously seeking ways to optimize their internal processes, operations and workforce. Most of the large businesses, enterprises and organizations are using some kind of performance management process, to monitor and improve their performance. Whereas, small and medium sized businesses usually don’t focus much on this aspect. However, the performance management is equally important and effective for all types and sizes of businesses and organizations.

Employee Evaluation and KPIs for Better Employee Performance

It is important for a business to understand where they need improvements and how they can leverage the true potential of their workforce to achieve the business goals. For any business employee turnover is a very challenging aspect of HR. Employee retention is connected to employee satisfaction. The employee satisfaction and employee retention is linked to employee engagements. If you are providing a highly engaging environment to your employees where they are given a productive organizational culture, your employee turnover will be less.

Not only that the employee satisfaction also results in higher customer satisfaction which translates to growth and profitability. When it comes to performance management the employee evaluation and KPIs are they key factors. A good performance management system must provide a comprehensive framework to evaluate employees and monitor their KPIs. In this blog we will discuss how employee evaluation and KPIs can help businesses improve their performance.

For any business employee turnover is a very challenging aspect of HR.

What is the difference between a KPI and a metric?

People often confuse a KPI and Metric, however, both are different. A KPI or key performance indicator is a high-level indicator which provide context about the business goal and it tells how these goals are related to different business functions. The metric is a low-level perspective and it is used to track activities and processes of different business functions. For example, a business wants to increase its customer satisfaction by 20%. That would be a KPI.

In order to achieve that goal, different business functions such as customer service team, sales team, marketing, management and various other departments will have to improve their performance, each department or business functions’ metrics will be used to measure the impact of their activities and processes on the high-leave business goal. The best metric to measure customer satisfaction is the NPS or net promoter score, businesses can also use other metrics such as customer satisfaction index to understand their progress towards their goal.

What is the difference between a KPI and a metric?

How to set KPIs which are aligned with high-level business goals?

The most common mistake businesses made during their performance management campaign is not aligning their KPIs with their high-level business goals. Here are a few key points to consider while creating KPIs:

Start by setting up or analyzing your business goals, for example, if you want to increase sales, or raise customer satisfaction, etc.
Define what you will measure, for example, in case of customer satisfaction you can measure customer satisfaction index, and in case of sales you can measure the increase in sales.
Once you know what you will measure, you have to understand how you can collect that data, for sales, it is easier you can just see how much sales you made, for customer satisfaction you can use NPS or customer happiness gauge, etc.
In order to measure the performance you must have to be able to communicate and relate the KPI to the employees and managers. Your KPI should be able to engage the employees and it should be able to raise the morale and motivate them to put efforts towards achieving it.
Adopting SMART framework is a great way to boost employee engagement. The SMART stands for Scalable, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. Implementing SMART framework and defining the targets or target range is crucial.
Make an action plan for if the KPI falls outside of the target range, and ensure your action plan is realistic and executable given the circumstances and available tools, workforce or skillsets in hand.
Reviewing and analyzing the performance data is a continuous task, the KPIs should be monitored regularly and the data should be analyzed properly to extract meaningful insight from it.
It is important to fine tune your KPIs over the time to ensure your KPIs deliver value to your business and will remain relevant to your business goals, industry benchmarks and competitive landscape.

If you will follow the above steps it would be much easier to set effective KPIs and if you have to redefine them or improve them you can also do easily with the above mentioned steps.

How to set KPIs which are aligned with high-level business goals?

How to collect employee performance data?

When we are measuring something it is usually a number, however, the human performance is not something which can entirely be measured on the bases of hard numbers. Although a good performance management system measures employee performance in quantifiable metrics but this is not as that simple as measuring the weight or height. Here are a few most effective methods of measuring the employee performance:

Rating Scales: Using the rating scales or graphical rating scales is one of the best way to measure employee performance in different performance areas. The graphical rating scales are usually sequential numbers such as 1 to 10 or 1 to 5. Usually the rating scales are used to measure the behavioral competencies, for technical competencies other tools are used.
Feedbacks: The feedbacks or 360^O Feedback is one of the most commonly used and most effective method to collect employee performance data. The 360^O Feedback includes taking feedback from supervisor/manager, peers, customers, suppliers, cross-team management, and any other stakeholder and then it is analyzed for common trends and similarities.
One-to-One: The one to one meetings are a great way to quickly evaluate the performance and identify the areas of improvement. A good performance management system also facilitate one-on-one meetings and provide intuitive features to document them. The one-on-one meetings and discussions can help bridging the communication gap between the managers and employees which is essential for improving the performance.
Management by Objectives: The Management by Objectives or MBO is a process where the employees and the managers define the objectives with mutual understanding. Thus the employees have a better understanding of what is to be expected from them and how the success would be measured. This is a great way to increase employee engagement and improve communication between employees and the managers.
Self-Evaluation: The employee self-evaluation is one of the best way to increase employee engagements and motivation. Often employees are more critical of their performance than the managers are. Which help managers to compare the employee’s self-evaluation with their evaluations. It help finding similarities and provide a better understanding of the employee performance, it also help managers to build good employee development and training programs.
Check-list Forms: A simple check-list form is a great way to quickly evaluate an employee. It could be used for both behavioral and technical competencies. It will help managers identify the employees with major deficiencies in important performance areas and help them improve training programs and also in forming high-performing teams.

There are several other ways and methods to collect employee performance data, however, the most important thing to understand is that the employee performance management requires continuous monitoring and tracking of the employee performance.

How to collect employee performance data?

Conclusion

No matter how high-tech or advanced your IT infrastructure, assembly line, production plant or customer service center it, one thing is essential and it is your employees who will be utilizing those technologies and resources to generate value. The value which will help you satisfy and retain your customers and help you build a good brand image. Markets in Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi or in any other emirate of the UAE are very competitive, the customers tend to switch very quickly if a business fails to meet their needs or expectations.

In such a tough and competitive market landscape it is important to ensure you are utilizing your resources at their full potential whether it is human resource or non-human resource. That is why the performance management system is so crucial for a businesses of all types and sizes. The two core aspects of performance management are employee evaluation and KPIs. In this blog we have discussed what KPIs are and how businesses can utilize them to harvest the highest possible value form their resources.

If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to implement a highly cost-effective and tailor-made performance management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

August 14, 2023

Maximizing Efficiency: The Benefits of Implementing a Queue Management System

Every business wants efficient operation, whether it is some internal process or a customer facing environment, the efficiency is essential. When a business has efficient work flows, processes and even the teams, they tend to produce more and better outcome with whatever resources they have in hand. That is the reason in order to generate value and drive profits a business needs efficiency in every aspect of the operations. Now when we talk about the customer facing environments, the biggest challenge is to adopt and implement modern queue management system to make customer flow efficient and improve customer experience.

Whether you are operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or any other part of UAE you must be aware of the fact that every customer have too many choices, you one mistake and you can lose them to your competitor. Furthermore the customers are also very demanding and they tend to switch service provider very quickly. Even just a single bad experience is enough to make customer the switch. Studies and market research have revealed that it is 9 to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer comparing to selling to an existing customer. That is why customer experience and customer satisfaction is crucial for a business success.

Maximizing Efficiency: The Benefits of Implementing a Queue Management System

What is a Queue Management System?

A queue management system is a tool which consists of software and hardware parts and it is used to manage the customer flow and customer experience. The queue management software is a server application which is connected to an interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk or queuing kiosk. It is also connected to digital signage screens and audio announcement system. Some businesses also use dynamic counter plates which can also be managed through the queue management system.

Furthermore the hardware part of the queue management system includes a ticket dispensing kiosk which allow your customers and visitors to interact with the system and issue them token numbers. There is a digital signage screen, which displays live queuing details and keep your guests informed about the current activities on each service counter. A business can have multiple signage depends on the premises size. Similarly the audio announcement system is also hardware part powered by in-built multi-lingual audio announcements module.

The counter plates are also connected to the queue management system via network and can display the counter number/name along with the current ticket number. These components form a standard queue management system with basic configurations. Businesses can add more software and hardware components to enhance the features of the queue management system.

What are the Drawbacks of Poorly Organized Customer Flow?

A poorly organized customer flow have many drawbacks, it doesn’t only affect your customers but it will also have a negative impact on your employees and their performance. Which will translate to low productivity, poor growth, bad business reputation, higher customer churn rate, lower conversion rate and in the long run it will damage your brand image. When the queues or waiting lines are not managed properly the very first effect is extended wait time. When the customers will have to wait for longer period of time, they will be frustrated and annoyed.

This will cause many other problems such as line jumping, customer complaints and more fraction in customer journey. When the waiting lines are not managed efficiently they employees also suffer, they will have to deal with customer complaints, they will have to manage the queues by themselves and they will have more workload, it will also distract them from their primary tasks which will undermine their performance. The customers will reach to the counter in stress and they will be unhappy, this will result in poor interaction with the service agents, and it will also make it difficult for the service agents to satisfy the customer.

Long waiting lines, and extended wait time will result in higher customer churn. When employees will fail to improve their performance despite putting all efforts, they will leave too. Higher employee turnover will cause several other problems, higher customer churn rate will damage your business’s reputation.

What are the Drawbacks of Poorly Organized Customer Flow?

What are The Benefits of Implementing a Queue Management System?

There are several benefits of implementing a queue management system, but it is important to understand that there are different types of queue management systems available in the market. You must have to choose the right solution that suits your needs and business type. However, one of the best way is to hire a well-reputed queue management system provider such as RSI Concepts and ask them to build a bespoke tailor-made customized queue management system according to your needs. Here are some of the benefits of implementing a queue management system:

Reduction in Customer Waiting Time

When the customer flow is well-organized, they queuing process is automated the customer wait time will automatically reduce. By implementing a queue management system businesses can automate several queuing process. The ticket dispensing is automated, the customer flow is managed by the smart algorithms of the queue management software, and the employee performance is also improved. A queue management system can automatically take decisions, and set customer route according to the historical data and the live queuing data, which is why the customer wait time is optimized.

Furthermore the queue management system also help improving customers’ waiting experience by reducing the perceived wait time. It keep customers engaged and distracted from the waiting by frequently making audio-visual announcements and updating the digital signage. Furthermore the queue management system can also play multimedia content, adverts, promotional and marketing content on the digital signage which also help increasing customer engagement and help optimizing the perceived wait time.

Improved Employee Performance

When a business implements a queue management system the employee efficiency and performance is significantly improved. Without a queue management system the employees will have to adhere to several other tasks, most of which are not productive. Manually managing customer flow, especially during the peak-hours can greatly undermine the employee performance and it also have toll on service quality. However, with a proper queue management system in place the employees don’t have to worry about many things and they are free to focus on their primary and more productive tasks.

This not only boost employee performance but also greatly reduce their workload. When the employees work under a balanced workload their satisfaction increases and they tend to perform better. The queue management system automate several queuing processes, and it also offers dedicated service agent dashboards, which can also lift up a lot of workload and help service agents in many tasks. Businesses can significantly improve employee performance and service quality by implementing a queue management system.

Enhanced Customer Experience

The customer satisfaction depends on customer experience and service quality, better experience results in higher customer satisfaction index. When a business implements a queue management system it automates several queuing processes. When the customers know that their tokens are issued by computer operated system, they have more trust over the system, and it assured them there will no favoritisms, no line-jumping, no intervention from the staff, whatever token is issued to them they will be served accordingly.

Furthermore the queue management system keeps customers and visitors engaged and help diluting the effects of waiting and reduce their stress. This will improve their waiting experience. As the service staff is also aided by the queue management system, they are also more welcoming, fresh and prepared for the customers. This all results in a better customer interaction with the service agent and also tend to improve the service quality.

Implementing a queue management system greatly improves customer experience and results in higher customer satisfaction which help your business building a strong brand image and reputation.

Real-time Monitoring and Remote Management

One of the best advantage of implementing a queue management system is that it offers real-time monitoring and remote management features. Businesses often have multiple branches where they deploy a queue management system, and even in case of only one office the real-time monitoring dashboard and capabilities to manage the system remotely are some of the most productive features.

Usually there is a central location or head office where the top management resides, they want to monitor the queuing activities and stats to take timely decisions. The queue management system is a centralized software system which connects all branches and parts and enable real-time monitoring. The branch manager, or the senior manager at the head office or any other user with adequate access can monitor the live real-time queuing data and stats.

Furthermore it is very easy to implement the queuing polices and strategies across the entire business, remotely from the head office. Businesses can also set automated alerts and notifications for the managers and supervisors to enable them to be more reactive towards the customer footfall and help them improve the customer flow by keeping them up-to-date all the time.

Real-time Monitoring and Remote Management

Collect Business Intelligence Data

The data is the backbone of modern fast-paced markets. Every business who wants to succeed should be able to collect, analyze and utilize the business intelligence data in order to generate value and productive outcomes. A queue management system can provide a wealth of highly accurate and valuable business intelligence data. The queue management system can collect queuing data, system usage stats, waiting time trends, customer footfall trends, employee performance and KPI metrics, and it can also collect direct customer feedback which can be incorporated in several internal decision making process to improve strategies and overall performance of the business.

The queue management system can also be integrated with third-party tools and central information center which enables it to collect data from various sources, and it also allow the queue management system to provide business intelligence data for other systems and tools. Businesses can analyze the queue management system data and customer feedback using in-built analytical tools, or they can extract it in form of various intuitive report formats such as summary reports, trend reports and much more which help them utilize the business intelligence data at its full potential and maximize the overall efficiency and performance of the business.

Conclusion

In modern fast-paced markets where the markets are subjected to subtle and rapid changes, a business needs a proactive approach to deal with up-coming challenges. Managing customer facing environments and maintain a satisfactory customer experience is one of the most challenging task a service-based business ever faces. Poorly organized waiting lines and long queues can have devastating effects on a business. Pool queuing strategy and manual queue management can results in poor employee performance, low service quality, and unhappy customers.

However when a business implements q modern queue management system, they can greatly improve employee performance, customer experience and consequently customer satisfaction. A queue management system offers many features which can help improving the customer flow and minimizing the customer churn rate. In this blog we have discussed what a queue management system is and how businesses can benefits from it.

If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to build you a tailor-made queue management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

August 2, 2023

Why Custom Performance Management System is more Effective?

In the fast-paced business landscape it is extremely important for a business to utilize its resources at fullest potential. Businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and anywhere else in UAE are well aware of the fact that the markets in this country tend to change very quickly, the customer demands are also increasing endlessly. That is why businesses all around the UAE give a lot of attention to performance management system. The performance management is one of the primary task of the HR department and that is the reason HR leaders and businesses are ready to invest a lot in performance management systems and programs.

There is another strong reason for investing in performance management system which is the adaptation of agile processes and methods. When businesses adopt agility, a gap is formed naturally between the managers and the employees. Most of the time the business leaders and managers failed to implement proper people management practices which results in dissatisfaction and distrust among the employees and undermine their performance and productivity.

Why Custom Performance Management System is more Effective?

The modern day employees are also more concerned about their personal development and growth, they want more frequent feedback from their managers which help them improve their skills and productivity. There has been several surveys and studies all around the world which suggested more than 80% of the business leaders lost faith on the traditional performance management practices and annual appraisal processes. Almost similar percentage of employees also express their distrust on traditional performance management methods. Therefore a modern, digitalized and technology based performance management system is needed.

Basically a performance management system is a software tool, which can provide a continuous performance monitoring tools and analytical data and allow both managers and employees to access valuable performance management data in a very intuitive and interactive manner. Only a modern digital performance management system solution can fulfill the needs of the modern businesses. In this blog we will discuss why a custom performance management system is more effective for your business.

Only a modern digital performance management system solution can fulfill the needs of the modern businesses. — Only a modern digital performance management system solution can fulfill the needs of the modern businesses

What is the Difference between a COTS and Custom Performance Management System?

Before we discuss what is the difference between a custom and COTS performance management system it is important to understand that a performance management system is a software which is used to streamline and improve the performance management processes such as one-on-one meetings, acquiring feedback, appraisal, developing personal development and training programs and other such tasks. For any HR department it is their prime goal to retain and sustain a skilled workforce and ensure other business functions can get the required talent and skillset. The performance management system is built on a powerful analytical and statistical engine, along with smart algorithms and AI software tools which makes it more efficient, impactful and effective.

When it comes to acquire a new software tool there are two options, one is hiring a professional software development agency like RSI Concepts and have a tailor-made solution which matches 100% of your business needs. The second option is to quickly implement a cloud-based solution or acquire a ready-made performance management software. Both the ready-made and cloud-based solutions are COTS software, it means Commercial Off-the-shelf Software. The COTS are not designed for a single business or a specific set of users, in fact they are general purpose tools which are designed and available to a mass audience ranging from a few hundred to millions of users.

What is the Difference between a COTSand Custom Performance Management System? — What is the Difference between a COTS and Custom Performance Management System?

What made Custom Performance Management System Superior and a Better Match to your Needs?

Whenever a business needs a software solution and they decide to go with a commercial off-the-shelf software or COTS they usually seek to match as much of their needs as possible, on an average a good COTS solution will meet your 80% of needs. That means you will have to make compromise for the rest of the 20% of your needs. That is one of the major reason business prefer to have a tailor-made custom software solution because a custom software solution is capable of meeting 100% of your needs as it will be exclusively designed for your needs.

Another great advantage of a custom performance management system is that it can provide a great competitive advantage. Furthermore the custom performance management system is exclusively designed for your business, so you also hold the ownership rights for the product. This will free your business from vendor-dependency. Businesses can manage, customize and upgrade custom performance management system in-house as well as they can choose any vendor to do so, as the entire software tool and its resources such as source code, databases and integration tools are handed over to the business who will be using it.

What made Custom Performance Management System Superior and a Better Match to your Needs?

Here are some key advantages of choosing a custom performance management system over a COTS solution:

Custom Performance Management System: Effectively Implement Strategy

It is important to understand that the performance management is a very flexible concept. Every business has a unique organizational culture so does the strategy to implement different performance methods. It is due to the preference which every business have different from the other. These preferences are based on the business goals, strategic objectives and their desire to improve certain aspects of the performance. For example, some businesses might prioritize the technical competencies and some might want to focus on behavioral competencies and so on.

Along with that for a different set of employees the KPIs are different the desired outcome is different, hence the strategy and focused performance aspects would be different. Furthermore there are different performance management methods and every business would have different choice, on top of that most business leader prefer to use a combination of two or more methods to implement their own unique performance management strategy. That is the reason the commercial off-the-shelf software solutions can never fulfill all of your needs. Furthermore the COTS are built as per industry standards and offers more rigid framework.

However, a custom performance management system can offer you more control, flexibility, freedom and customization which enable you to effectively implement your own unique performance management strategy. You can utilize in-built templates and configurations wizards to setup your own customized KPIs, OKRs and performance metrics as per your needs. This allow you to laser focus on your prioritized aspects of the performance management which can greatly improve the impact and outcome.

There are different performance management methods and every business would have different choice

Custom Performance Management System: Easy Integration with Data and Third-party Systems

The entire performance management system depends on collecting, flow and analysis of the data. It is extremely important to understand that if data collection would be easier, the outcome would be more accurate. That is why most modern performance management systems have ability to automatically collect data. Businesses can manually upload data too or they can use dedicated dashboards to input the data but it is important that uploading data or integration and automated-data collection is as per the needs of the business. The IT infrastructure of any organization is a very complex eco-system, it develops gradually and evolve as per the needs and changes within the organization or due to the impact of external factors.

This means there would be a lot of different system some of which might be integrated already with the central information system. There could be a lot technology platforms and different vendors that a business is using to form their IT infrastructure. When a new software application is deployed in such environment the biggest challenge is integration and communication between different third-party systems and tools. Since the commercial off-the-shelf software are usually standardized tools, hence integration could be a big challenge, it could be very expensive and in some cases it could be impossible.

However, the customized performance management system is exclusively built for your needs, so all these problems are already accounted for. All these challenges can be dealt effectively and with convenience when you have full control over the structure of the software that you are building. That is why the customized performance management system are more effective in integrating with third-party tools and databases, which allow them to easily attain automation and built innovative features to minimize the effort and workload of the users. Even in case of manual uploads or dedicated dashboard to input data the customized performance management system is much more effective and far superior to any COTS solution in the market.

Easy Integration with Data and Third-party Systems

Custom Performance Management System: Get Customized Features and UI

Similar to performance strategy implementation, the features of the performance management system also require customization if you want to align the system with your needs. The biggest problem with the commercial off-the-shelf performance management software is that they are built according to the industry standards and only follow standardized procedures and processes. Which is helpful but sometimes it could be a hurdle instead of support. The custom performance management system software is exclusively designed as per your requirements hence there is no such barrier or limitation. You can customize each and every feature, process, SOP, protocol and even the reporting formats and designs.

For any performance management system the ultimate goal is to collect performance data, drive reports from the data and then take informed decisions to maximize the probability of the success. There is another most important aspect which is the user interface (UI). Most of the businesses doesn’t focus much on it, however, it is extremely important aspect of any software application. With the custom performance management system you can customize the GUI or UI as per your requirements, you can have your customized branding, and even functionalities can be customized and labeled as per your needs which can greatly enhance the efficiency and efficacy of the performance management system. The stock or off-the-shelf solutions doesn’t offer such customizations.

Custom Performance Management System: High Scalability and Easy Upgrade

Whenever businesses are acquiring any software solution, the scalability and ability to upgrade it in future are the two most important aspects to consider. The commercial off-the-shelf software comes with several restrictions and limitations. Similarly the commercial off-the-shelf performance management system could be easier and quicker to deploy but down the road it will pose more challenges. Furthermore these software are usually cloud-based and comes in different tiers and plans which are designed to target a specific size or industry. Hence if you need some features which are not available in your plan you might have to subscribe for additional plan, which will be more expensive and at the end of the day most of the features comes with expensive plan might not be useful for your business.

The markets evolve very fast, the customer demands could change over the night, and business need to be very vigilant and responsive towards such changes, which is usually not possible with the commercial off-the-shelf solutions. Furthermore these applications take ages to develop and build new features, there are several challenges for the vendor to upgrade them. Businesses keep growing and after sometime scaling up these software would cost you a lot. The custom performance management system is completely free from all those limitations and restrictions. You can customize it whenever you want, you can scale it up or downsize it whenever you need and without paying even a single dime.

Furthermore you can also customize your custom performance management system to add new features or to make changes at a nominal cost unlike the COTS which incurs hefty fees and charges for such requirements.

Custom Performance Management System: Cost-effective and High ROI

When we compare the initial cost of the commercial off-the-shelf solutions and the customized software applications, the COTS apparently looks more cost-effective. However, that is not true at all. The COTS can be deployed quickly but won’t be able to fully match your 100% of the requirements, however, the custom performance management systems have higher initial cost but can fully aligned with your requirements and fulfill your 100% of the needs. In order to compare the cost we will have to look at the ROI over a longer period of the time. The stock or commercial off-the-shelf solutions have regular subscription charges which you will have to pay on monthly, quarterly or yearly bases as per your plan. You will have no control over the software vendor, the vendor will own the application and in some cases your data is also stored at vendor’s server which is not as that secure.

However, the custom performance management system is exclusively designed for your business, the vendor doesn’t have the ownership of the application, instead you will own the ownership rights of the software and you will also own all the software code, resources and the entire application which will be handed over to you. You can have full control over your custom performance management system, there is no vendor dependency, you can chose any vendor or even in-house team to maintain and upgrade your software. Your data will be hosted with you or at the server/cloud of your choice which offers better security. There will be no subscription fee or hidden charges, the customization will be very cost-efficient and if you calculate the ROI over an extended period of time the custom performance management system will cost you less than half of a reputed commercial off-the-shelf performance management system.

The custom performance management system have longer life-cycle which can be further extended by making few changes and iterations, but in case of COTS you might have to acquire a completely new software after a few years.

Conclusion

Businesses operating in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or any other emirate of UAE knows that very well that the markets here are very competitive. The overall government policies and environment is very investor-friendly hence the competition will keep rising in future too. Furthermore the customer demands are also skyrocketing and the market is subjected to rapid changes. In such environment if a business want to maintain a steady growth it is extremely important for them to have a proactive performance management strategy.

The modern day employees need higher engagements and the business leaders also want more productive and effective tools to maximize the performance and productivity of their organization. That is why businesses deploy performance management systems which are mainly a dedicated software application designed to streamline the performance management processes and aid management in performing performance management tasks.

When it comes to acquire a performance management system software, businesses have two way, one is finding a suitable commercial off-the-shelf solution and quickly implement it and the other is slightly longer path, which is to develop a tailor-made and fully customized performance management system which is exclusively designed for the business by keeping in mind all the needs, requirements, and existing IT infrastructure.

In this blog we have discussed several aspects of performance management system and tried to highlight the aspects which make custom performance management system more superior, effective and impactful then its counterpart, the commercial off-the-shelf performance management software. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to develop an exclusive tailor-made custom performance management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

BLOG OF RSI CONCEPTS

What is the Difference between Custom Software and Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software (COTS)?

What are the Advantages of Customer Software Development?

Advantages of Customer Software: Unlimited Customization

Advantages of Customer Software: Flexible Upgrade and Scalability

Advantages of Customer Software: Easy Integration

Advantages of Customer Software: Data Privacy and Security

Conclusion

What are the Common Mistakes to Avoid in a Custom Software Development Project?

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Poor or Incomplete Project Plan

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Misinterpretation of Requirements or SOW Document

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Lack of Knowledge of the Required Resources

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Strict Deadlines and Rushing for Completion

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Sub-Standard Project Management Practices

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Poor Communication and Lack of Documentation

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Lack of Feedback or Ignoring the Feedback

Custom Software Development Mistakes: Lack of Testing Framework

Conclusion

What is an Email Marketing Funnel?

How to Build a Successful Email Marketing Funnel with Email Marketing System?

Email Marketing Funnel: Research and Planning

Email Marketing Funnel: Chose the Right Email Marketing Tool

Email Marketing Funnel: Brand Awareness and Building Lists

Email Marketing Funnel: Consideration – Nurturing Your Leads

Email Marketing Funnel: Conversion and Onboarding

Email Marketing Funnel: Building Loyalty

Email Marketing Funnel: Increasing Retention

Conclusion

What is a Custom Employee Performance Appraisal System?

What are the Benefits of Using a Custom Performance Appraisal System?

Elevating and Enhancing Communication:

Appreciate High Performance and Improvements:

Impactful Training and Development:

Guiding the Right Path:

Raise Employee Satisfaction:

Help Under-Performers:

How do I design a custom performance appraisal system?

Understand Modern Performance Appraisal System:

Set Your Goals and Objectives:

Define Benchmarks and Setting up Standards:

Develop Metrics and Establish Success Measures:

Evaluate Your Current Appraisal Processes:

Establish the Scope of the Project:

How to Implement a Custom Performance Appraisal System?

Conclusion

What is React Native?

What is Cross-Platform App Development?

What are the Benefits of Using React Native Apps for Cross Platform Development?

Quicker Development Process

Reduce the Cost of Cross Platform Software Development

Support Multiple Platforms

Native-like Experience and Performance

Quick Debugging and Changes

What are the Drawbacks of Using React Native for Cross Platform Software Development?

Conclusion

What is a Modern Performance Management System?

What are the Characteristics of a Modern Performance Management System?

Step-by-Step Guide on Designing a Modern Performance Management System

How to Analyze the Effectiveness of your New Performance Management Model

Conclusion

What is a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

How does a Multi-Branch Queue Management System Works?

What are the Benefits of using a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

What are the Best Practices for Implementing a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

What are the Challenges of Implementing a Multi-Branch Queue Management System?

Conclusion

What is the difference between a KPI and a metric?

How to set KPIs which are aligned with high-level business goals?

How to collect employee performance data?

Conclusion

What is a Queue Management System?

What are the Drawbacks of Poorly Organized Customer Flow?

What are The Benefits of Implementing a Queue Management System?

Reduction in Customer Waiting Time

Improved Employee Performance

Enhanced Customer Experience

Real-time Monitoring and Remote Management

Collect Business Intelligence Data

Conclusion

What is the Difference between a COTS and Custom Performance Management System?