Navigator Consulting and the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry are organising a strategic training programme at the Nicosia Hilton Hotel on 14-15 November 2017. Entitled Digital Project Management and Enterprise Transformation in Cyprus, this 2-day training addresses the key challenges faced by small enterprises in adapting to and competing in a digital world.
Interested executives should contact Mr. Christos Tanteles at the Chamber, tel. 22-889-840, for further information.
Introduction
Digital transformation is the process of adapting corporate processes to an online operating standard. According to Wikipedia:
Digital transformation is the changes associated with the application of digital technology in all aspects of human society. Digital transformation may be thought of as the third stage of embracing digital technologies: digital competence → digital usage → digital transformation, with usage and transformative ability informing digital literacy. The transformation stage means that digital usages inherently enable new types of innovation and creativity in a particular domain, rather than simply enhance and support the traditional methods.
Through digital transformation, small enterprises gain a number of benefits:
The importance of physical space and physical delivery or sales systems becomes less important as consumers and supplier interact online. A good supplier no longer needs to invest in a branch network to the same extent this was needed in the past.
New market segments in Cyprus and internationally can be opened. This approach is critical for numerous businesses in key segments in Cyprus ranging from tourism and professional services (lawyers and accountants involved in international company formation and management) to forex firms, engineers and architects and other professions.
A greater number of communications channels can be employed. The rise of smartphones and the growth of mobile browsing is changing how consumers search for and purchase goods and services.
A greater suitability for specific consumer segments, such as B2B professionals who have limited time available, or millenials (consumers who are 35 years old or younger, and are considered digital natives).
In order to compete today, Cypriot managers must master three related disciplines:
Digital Transformation: How organisations and teams change around a customer-focussed, technology-driven, 24/7/365 environment;
Digital Project Management: How executives manage diverse teams with internal and external stakeholders and vendors to deliver digital and ICT projects;
Vendor Management: How executives will manage external suppliers of digital and ICT services, such as web designers, online advertisers, SEO specialists, and others.
With this in mind, we are implementing a 2-day training programme followed by 1-day company consultations, start in Nicosia, Cyprus on 14-15 November 2017. The training agenda follows.
Training Agenda Day 1
14 November 2017
Module 1: Digital Transformation
08:50 – 09:50 | 60 minutes
Digital transformation is affecting consumers, suppliers and governments all over the world. Today, citizens, consumers and visitors to Cyprus expect digital interaction with the country, for functions ranging from where the best pizza in Cyprus can be found, to ordering a taxi, to paying the annual Company Levy online. This session will cover:
Digital Transformation for Small Enterprises.
Customer demographics: What is a digital native? How do different demographic groups operate online? How do we measure their activities?
Working in Internet Time: Internet time is 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year. Customers interact online across all channels.
How is technology changing? How will the Internet of Things (IoT) and the semantic internet affect consumer interaction?
Module 2: Commitment to Change
09:50 – 10:50 | 60 minutes
In order to succeed, enterprises must make a serious commitment to digital operations. This requires strong leadership, organisational transformation and deep cultural change. This session will cover:
Leadership of digital transformation across organisational silos and barriers.
Enterprise, unit and individual accountability and responsibility.
Corporate culture: Work and customer prioritisation and focus.
Aligning company strategy and positioning with online presence.
Accountability at different levels in the organisation.
Module 3: Principles of Digital Project Management
11:10 – 12:10 | 60 minutes
This session introduces project management for digital projects. The training subjects include:
Understanding Copyright, Data protection, and confidentiality
Understanding Online and Offline Hybrids (Server versus Cloud)
Understanding Hosted Services
Service level agreements (SLA)
Project activities after the project completion
Completion process and verification
Meetings and reporting
Project planning: Gantt charts, timelines, milestones, deliverables
Tender awards and contracts, including price / quality / time tradeoffs
Specifications documents and tenders (RFP / RFQ), including budgets
Distribution into one or more projects, defined as contracts
Identification of Enterprise needs
Project management frameworks, including PMI, Waterfall and Agile
Module 4: Waterfall Project Management: Part 1
12:10 – 13:10 | 60 minutes
Introduction, Project Requirements, Contracting
Contracting
Awarding a tender
Holding a tender
Preparation needed from the contractor side and the vendor side
Allocation budgets in terms of time and costs to milestones and deliverables
Defining Milestones and Timelines
Differentiating between Inputs and Outputs
Drafting a Request for Proposals (RFP) / Request for Quotes (RFQ)
Defining Project Requirements
The five phases of Waterfall Project Management
Module 5: Waterfall Project Management: Part 2
14:10 – 15:40 | 90 minutes
Specifications, Analysis and Design
Data back up and disaster recovery
Data security
CMS and ecommerce issues
User experience / User interaction / customer experience management
Software / Internet design processes: Wireframe drawing and mock-ups
Revising budgets and work allocation
Identifying deviation between RFP and Project Specifications Document
Drafting the Project Specifications Document
Analysis and mapping of business logic and commercial processes
Module 6: Waterfall Project Management: Part 3
16:00 – 17:30 | 90 minutes
Implementation, Verification & Maintenance
Project implementation
Reporting and management
Milestone completion and budget release
Alpha testing: best practise
Beta testing: best practise
Verification
Handover training
Post-project maintenance and support
Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Training Agenda Day 2:
15 November 2017
Module 7: Agile Project Management
08:50 – 10:50 | 120 minutes
This session presents Agile project management. Items covered include:
How to choose an agile technology vendor in Cyprus
Risks of using agile in Cyprus
The role of the project manager or scrum master in agile projects
Scrum & kaizen processes
Impact on agile project management and project budgets
Advantages and disadvantages of self-organising teams and groups
Advantages and disadvantages of iterative design
When to choose agile as a project management method
Agile project lifecycle / adaptive project lifecycle
The Agile Manifesto
Module 8 Digital Outsourcing and Contracting
11:10 – 12:30 | 80 minutes
This session provides an in-depth view at writing digital contracts for specific projects as well as larger outsourcing initiatives. It covers elements that enable a company to “own” and to control a digital initiative, such as web design, pay-per-click marketing, etc. Several contracts will be presented and their clauses explained. Components include:
“Make or buy” decisions: When to outsource; when to hire full-time capability
Role of the outsourced service provider / role of the contractor
Verifying vendor capabilities: how to differentiate hype from reality
Contract structure
Content ownership
Intellectual property rights: own content / vendor platforms / third party providers (for instance, digital photographs or media)
Best practise in contract management
Best practise in digital asset management
Contract milestones and clauses
Penalties and break-up clauses for non-performance
Service-Level Agreement (SLA) contracts, including defining critical incidents, level of impact, response times, and performance levels
Module 9: Using Project & Team Management Software
12:30 – 13:10 / 14:10 – 14:30 | 40 + 20 minutes
This session reviews different options for online project management and team management. This is an effective tool for managing digital projects and initiatives for small enterprises, as it allows for multiple users to login, track progress, assign tasks, etc. We will review:
Jira
Basecamp
Asana
Choosing online project management software
Module 10: Budgets & ROI
14:30 – 15:40 | 70 minutes
Many enterprises cannot adequately measure digital project budgets and return on investment. This session will provide a detailed structure and analytical framework for budgeting using Microsoft Excel.
Expenditure calculations:
Contracts
Cost overruns
Financial versus time expenditure
Opportunity costs
Income calculations
Revenue
Intangible benefits
Long-term revenue opportunities
Return on Investment (ROI) methods
Net cost basis
Terminal / asset value basis
Module 11: A 5-Year Plan to Digital Transformation
16:00 – 17:30 | 90 minutes
We review the core digital operations needed for online competition in Cyprus today. These include:
Website development and core website features and functions
Social media management and advertising
Electronic Newsletters and email marketing
Online advertising (PPC and branded)
Search engine optimisation
Online customer care
Analytics and monitoring
We look at how rapidly the environment is changing, and how we anticipate Cypriot companies will be operating five years from now. Key issues that will be faced in the future include:
Big Data: How will enterprises store and extra value from big data? What types of analytics will be mined for product / service discounting, customer account regeneration, product selection and evolution?
Customer profiling: How will databases use artificial intelligence to general customer profiles, consumption propensity, predictive marketing and tailoring special offers to customer profiles?
Internet of Things: The IoT embeds intelligent agents into items. In the future, everything from food packaging to office materials will be tagged. Items will be traced en route, in storage and in consumption, including disposal. This fundamentally changes how suppliers view and predict ordering, replenishment, pricing, promotions, value chain, buffer stock levels, and all other related activities.
Artificial intelligence and Intelligent agents: Right now, we depend on human agents, e.g. in a call centre, to handle customer requests. In the future, artificial intelligence will handle that automatically. This requires a standardisation of functions and much greater attention to commercial logic pathways and decision-making.
Consolidation of Online Data: Right now, there are too many channels available, and all channels are fragmented. It is impossible, for instance, to integrate Facebook chat information and customer profiles with a standard ERP. In the future, integration will occur automatically, creating new challenges and opportunities for suppliers.
Target Group
The target groups for this programme are:
General and functional managers of small enterprises that understand the need for digital transformation of their enterprises. This is a multi-sectoral need, and involves everything from the need to relate to diverse customer groups on social media, to the need to settle transactions online. It covers the full range of online services, including payroll and HR management, salesforce management, customer relationship management (CRM), online marketing and advertising, customer research (online polling and surveys), demographic segmentation and management, social media branding and marketing, etc.
General and functional managers of small enterprises that are contracting digital services, such as web design, web applications development, search engine optimisation, pay-per-click advertising campaigns, branded online advertising campaigns, Facebook advertising campaigns, and similar services.
Managers of small companies contracting software development and implementation projects, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), salesforce, human resources, stock and inventory control, accounting and financial management systems and equivalent projects. These may be server-based or cloud-based, or hybrid systems.
General and functional managers of web design and IT firms that require a systematic project management methodology for delivering IT-related and web development projects. These include web designers, digital marketing agencies, search engine marketing firms, and others.
General and functional managers of media and advertising companies that offer digital marketing services, and are interested in improving their project management skills and methods in this area.
Training Objectives
The key training objective of this programme is to reinforce the capacity of Cypriot small enterprise managers to:
Strategically prepare for digital transformation, or the process of adapting a significant share of corporate operations to the internet. Digital transformation initiatives include preparing organisations, teams, business processes and corporate culture to orient around a customer-focussed, technology-driven, 24/7/365 environment;
Successfully implement critical digital projects, such as web design, online marketing campaigns, ERP or accounting platform development and installation, and other related online or server-based initiatives. Two specific forms of digital project management will be taught: waterfall and agile.
Manage external vendors of digital and ICT services, such as web designers, online advertisers, SEO specialists, programmers and others more appropriately, in order to maximise benefits to the organisation.
Understand the technological trends which are transforming the modern economy, in sectors as diverse as banking, e-government, tourism, retail, B2B suppliers, customer service, online security, big data and Internet of Things.
Understand how international and Cypriot consumers, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders are adapting to the internet in the process of becoming digital natives.
Systematically prepare own operations for digital transformation by adapting a 5-year strategic development plan which maps which business processes and value chain components must be migrated online.
Develop a comprehensive knowledge of waterfall project management techniques based on a standard 5-phase approach to project management.
Develop a comprehensive knowledge of agile project management techniques, based on the Agile Manifesto, the role of scrum master and self-organising teams engaged in iterative, continual improvements.
Understand, develop and apply digital project management techniques and tools, including specifications and business analysis, software and digital architecture, tendering process via RFP/RFQ, implementation by phases (including Gantt charts, milestones, and reporting tools), alpha and beta testing, verification and service/support via Service Level Agreements.
Understand how to contract, work with and manage the relationship with ICT and digital contractors across multiple disciplines.
Develop effective budgeting processes and return on investment (ROI) methods for digital and ICT projects