Digital Transformation for Small Enterprises in Cyprus

The training will take place online using Zoom on the following dates and times: 

Wednesday, 9 December        14:00 - 17:45

Thursday, 10 December          14:00 - 17:45

Wednesday, 16 December.      14:00 - 17:45

Thursday, 17 December.          14:00 - 17:45

Please review the CCCI Agenda in Greece, attached. 

Wednesday 09/12/2020

14:00 – 14:10  Registration & Familiarisation with Zoom

 14:10 – 15:00  Digital Transformation 

• State of the Internet in the World and in Cyprus
• Digital Transformation: Definition and key functions for small enterprises
• Customer demographics: What is a digital native? How do different demographic groups operate online? How do we measure their activities?
• Psychology and psychography of online customer 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
• Minimum digital functions: what online functions are standards now? What do we expect will be standard in 5 years? In 10 years?
• How is technology changing? How will the Internet of Things (IoT) and the semantic internet affect consumer interaction?
• How has the world changed in 5 years? Which of these trends have already made it to Cyprus? Which will make it in the next 5 years?

15:00 - 15:45  Digital Strategy and Commitment 

In order to succeed digitally, 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

15:45 – 16:00  Coffee Break

16:00 – 17:45  Principles of Digital Project Management 

This session introduces project management for digital projects.  The training subjects include:

• Introduction to project management
• Project management frameworks, including PMI, Waterfall and Agile
• Typical phases and components of digital project management:
• Identification of enterprise needs
• Distribution into one or more projects, defined as contracts
• Specifications documents and tenders (RFP/RFQ), including budgets
• Tender awards and contracts, including price/quality/time tradeoffs
• Project planning: Gantt charts, timelines, milestones, deliverable
• Meetings and reporting
• Completion process and verification
• Project activities after the project completion
• Service level agreements (SLA)
• Understanding Hosted Services
• Understanding Online and Offline Hybrids (Server versus Cloud)
• Understanding Copyright, Data protection, and confidentiality

Thursday 10/12/2020

14:00 – 15:00  Waterfall Project Management (PART 1) 

Introduction, Project Requriements, Contracting

• The five phases of Waterfall Project Management
• Defining Project Requirements
• Drafting a Request for Proposals (RFP)/Request for Quotes (RFQ)
• Differentiating between Inputs and Outputs
• Defining Milestones and Timelines
• Allocation budgets in terms of time and costs to milestones and deliverables
• Preparation needed from the contractor side and the vendor side
• Holding a tender
• Awarding a tender
• Contracting

15:00 – 15:45  Waterfall Project Management (PART 2) 

Specifications, Analysis and Design

• Analysis and mapping of business logic and commercial processes
• Drafting the Project Specifications Documents
• Identifying deviation between RFP and Project Specifications Documents
• Revising budgets and work allocation
• Software / Internet design processes: Wireframe drawing and mock-ups
• User experience/ User  interaction/ customer experience management
• CMS and ecommerce issues
• Data security
• Data back up and disaster recovery

15:45 – 16:00  Coffee Break

16:00 – 16:45  Waterfall Project Management (PART 3) 

Implementation, Verification and 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)

16:45 – 17:45  Using Asana and Bitrix 24 Project Management Software 

Online demonstration of Asana and Bitrix 24 as waterfall-based online project and team management tools.

Wednesday 16/12/2020

14:00 – 14:45 Agile Project Management 

This session presents Agile project management. Items covered include:

• The Agile Manifesto
• Agile project lifecycle / adaptive project lifecycle
• When to choose agile as a project management method
• Advantages and disadvantages of iterative design
• Advantages and disadvantages of self-organising teams and groups
• Impact on agile project management and project budgets
• Scrum process, Kaizen process
• Planning agile processes
• The role of the project manager or scrum master in agile projects, Risks of using agile in Cyprus
• How to choose an agile technology vendor in Cyprus

14:45 – 15:45 Using Agile Project & Team Management Software 

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 and Zoho.

15:45 – 16:00  Coffee Break 

16:00 – 17:25  Digital Outsourcing and Contracting 

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 and 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

 17:25 – 17:45  Using Online Contracting Software 

This interactive session will demonstrate the use of DocuSign software for contracting.

Thursday 17/12/2020

14:00 – 14:30 Budgets & ROI 

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

14:30 – 15:00 Demonstration of Zoho Books Software 

15:00 – 15:45 A 5-Year Plan to Digital Transformation 

Core digital operations needed for online competition in Cyprus

• Website development and core website features and functions
• Social media management and advertising
• Electronic Newsletters and email marketing

15:45 – 16:00 Coffee Break 

16:00 – 17:00 A 5-Year Plan to Digital Transformation  

• Online advertising (PPC and branded)
• Search engine optimisation
• Online customer care, Analytics and monitoring

17:00 – 17:30  A 5-Year Plan to Digital Transformation – KEY TRENDS 

Key Trends

• 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.

17:30 – 17:45 Conclusions and Next Steps 

The final session addresses the conclusions of the seminar, the objectives of the company visit and the next steps in each company’s development.