TEkenable Archives

Developing a deep understanding of business data

Posted on February 19, 2024February 19, 2024 by Oscar Cele

The power of AI goes well beyond chatbots and content creation. Businesses today are on the cusp of unlocking a new level of predictive information

Muhammad Zeeshan Khan, chief technology officer of the Microsoft services division at TEKenable

Today, we can clearly see that AI is destined to change not only IT operations but business processes themselves. However, despite the hype – and genuine excitement – one major question remains: how can businesses get started?

Both soon and one step at a time, said Muhammad Zeeshan Khan, chief technology officer of the Microsoft services division at TEKenable.

This is because using AI, even for straightforward tasks, is a skill. And like all skills it is something that requires practice.

“I think now is the time to start looking at it. Even with generative AI. I have early access to the Copilots from Microsoft and I can say that it takes some getting used to in order to get the best result out of them. It’s like a skill you have to learn, so it’s not a level playing field if there is a six-month gap between two people starting to use AI,” he said.

It is important to get started, though because it is already clear that the direction of travel is that AI will radically change business.

“It’s not just about automating tasks, but also the predictive capabilities of AI that help business decisions,” Khan said.

The predictive ability of AI is not new. However, thanks to new forms of AI, these capabilities are now opened up beyond the realm of developers and data scientists.

“What has changed is that access to AI technology is more widely available. Machine learning [ML] and data science require specialist training and toolsets, whereas the thing about generative AI is that in order to work with it you really only need the language skills,” he said.

The rise of generative AI does not spell the end for ML and other forms of AI, however.

“They’re not mutually exclusive, they actually complement each other. Think of it this way: generative AI can create new data, whereas ML can predict based on data.”

Given this, he said, one interesting application for generative AI is actually using it to create synthetic data for training AI models.

“ML produces a number or forecast. Generative AI produces something much richer from our [human] perspective”.

The key advantage of generative AI for business is that it can make sense of unstructured data, which is to say: most of the data that businesses actually run on.

“It can make sense of unstructured data really quite quickly, and a significant amount of business data is unstructured: emails, social media posts, documentation, all sorts of things.

“A lot of that information will be in a [natural] language, be that English or German or French, and extracting from that, reformatting it and summarising it, is what generative AI excels at. That is the first major use case for Microsoft Copilots,” Khan said.

However, the implications of this go far beyond the chatbots that we have all become accustomed to.

“We have set up a LLM [large language model] in such a way that it can access an SQL database. Right now, if you use an SQL database you are likely a database programmer, but in this case a business user can now query that database.

“It turns the natural language query into an SQL query and then provides the answer,” he said.

“That data is there and you can now unlock it. It’s something that was quite cumbersome before, but is now easy”.

One thing we all know about AI, though, is that the computational power required to run it is so vast that we will not be running it ourselves, instead relying on cloud providers.

In fact, this is only half true, said Khan. In reality, local AI does exist – and for good reason.

“There is a concept of AI at the edge, and while it is true that you do need a lot of data and computational power to create a useful model, it is also true that you can run it at the edge, enabling real-time processing.”

In other words, while the training of an AI demands a lot of power, the inference from the data can be run on more modes systems. This matters in specific cases, notable latency-sensitive applications that can’t wait for a round trip to the cloud to make a decision, such as self-driving cars.

“In the example of self-driving cars, you can see that the AI was trained on a lot of data and trained in the cloud, but it runs locally,” Khan said.

While cars are certainly a dramatic example, they are not the only application for edge AI: many more quotidian examples exist, and new use cases are beginning to reveal themselves, too.

For example, the manufacturing sector, Khan said, can build on existing predictive maintenance techniques and extend this out to the product itself.

“In a smart factory, edge AI can detect anomalies in the production process and immediately take action.

“Or, for instance, the new phone from Samsung, the S24, has a live translator right there on the phone.

“This is all being done locally, though of course the training was done in the cloud,” he said.

The above text was reproduced from the interview published in Business Post on February 16th, 2024.

TEKenable Invests €1.4 Million in Establishing a Data Analytics & AI Practice Creating 20 New Jobs

Posted on September 11, 2023September 11, 2023 by Oscar Cele

And achieves Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialisation

TEKenable is creating 20 new jobs with the establishment of a Data Analytics & AI Practice.

The establishment of TEKenable’s Data Analytics & AI Practice is a key investment area for the company and a critical pillar of its growth strategy. The Data Analytics & AI Practice will help TEKenable create more personalised experiences for its customers.

The Data Analytics & AI Practice will provide analytics services and solutions to help organisations grow and differentiate themselves against competition. TEKenable’s Data Analytics & AI experts will identify use cases that can deliver against a company’s business priorities and create analytics solutions with the right talent and technologies to suit their needs allowing that data’s destiny be leveraged to lift performance, resilience and growth for years to come.

“We have developed TEKenable’s Data Analytics & AI services to help businesses leverage the very latest technology to boost revenues, deliver operational efficiency and improve security,” explains Nick Connors, Group CEO, TEKenable. “By implementing Data Analytics & AI services into the business model means companies can help reduce costs by identifying more efficient ways of doing business.”

TEKenable recently achieved Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialisation in Migrate Enterprise Apps to Microsoft Azure and has two solution designations – Digital & App Innovation and Data & AI. Migrate Enterprise Applications to Microsoft Azure specialization allows partners with an active Solutions Partner for Data & AI (Azure) or Digital & App Innovation (Azure) designation to further differentiate their organizations, demonstrate their capabilities, and build stronger connections with customers. The recognition both validates TEKenable’s technical prowess and depth of experience in digital transformation initiatives using Azure and strengthens the company’s longstanding partnership with Microsoft.

“TEKenable’s App Modernisation on Azure Advanced Specialisation is no easy feat, and it underscores our ability to provide clients with unique value, insight, and innovation in some of today’s most advanced technologies,” adds Peter Rose, Group CTO, TEKenable. “Obtaining this Advanced Specialisation with Microsoft is a meaningful milestone for our partnership and showcases our commitment to the growth and success of our people and our practice.”

The Data Analytics & AI Practice will be headed by a Data Analytics & AI industry expert with a long track record of handling the interests of clients, stakeholders, regulators and partners. The new positions include Cloud Engineering, AI Engineering, Data and Analytics and Consulting and will be fulfilled in 2024.

TEKenable wins €3 million Fáilte Ireland contract for ERP SaaS Solution

Posted on September 4, 2023September 28, 2023 by Tekenable Admin

TEKenable has won a €3 million contract following a comprehensive tendering process. TEKenable will automate and streamline Fáilte Ireland’s business processes within financial management as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering. Microsoft Business Central will integrate with 3^rd party applications such as payroll, banking, CRM, and Office 365, allowing users to connect to and use cloud-based apps over the Internet.

TEKenable will implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS, which will help users in Failte Ireland to perform overall financial management, including supporting the production of the monthly management accounts, financial and operational reporting, annual budget process and annual financial statement.

Under the contract, TEKenable, a Microsoft Solutions Partner, will integrate Continia Expense Management SaaS, allowing employees to upload their receipts through the Continia expense management application – giving immediate visibility and quicker processing of business expenses.

Jet Reports SaaS will provide Fáilte Ireland with robust standard reports and with more accessible/user-friendly reporting capability. This will include intuitive self-serve dashboard reporting for management reporting, and the overall solution will integrate into Fáilte Ireland’s banking providers, revenue and internal applications such as CRM and 0ffice 365.

Jet Reports SaaS will allow Fáilte Ireland to report on any data field within Business Central and create their own customer reports. It is the number one reporting, analytics, and budgeting software for Microsoft Dynamics.

Enabling digital transformation: unlocking the power of AI and data

Posted on August 29, 2023August 29, 2023 by Oscar Cele

AI and data has already transformed our world and the past twelve months have demonstrated that, with the rise of artificial intelligence, more change is to come.

In the age of digital transformation, data has emerged as a strategic asset. We’re told it day and daily: whether it is customer sentiment, the morass of unstructured data locked in e-mail exchanges or the humble accounting ledger, getting to grips with data is the key to keeping a business or organisation at the top of its game.

At the same time, technology has now arrived at a point where data can be interrogated in a myriad of ways rather than just awkwardly forced into a spreadsheet. So, the question arises: how can organisations harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics and machine learning (ML)? And why should they? In addition, what are the challenges associated with data governance, privacy and security?

The power of knowledge

It is all very well to think something, and hunches can lead to great discoveries, but when it comes to making a business case for, well, anything, knowledge is called for. This knowledge can come in many forms, from experience to research, but increasingly important today is data.

But data is not, in and of itself, knowledge. In a sense, data is inert, simply sitting there waiting to be processed into knowledge. Indeed, this is why data lies at the core of digital transformation, acting as it does as the fuel that powers the AI-driven insights that lead to decision-making. In other words, by collecting, analysing and interpreting data, organisations can gain valuable insights, whether that is in relation to customer behaviour, market trends or operational efficiency.

From the accounts ledger to actuarial tables, data has driven decision-making in business from day one. What has changed, however, is not only the amount of data at our fingertips but also the kind of data we have and, indeed, our ability to transform it into knowledge. This is the true transformative potential of AI: by not only doing the adding up but also trawling hitherto inaccessible data, it allows the humans to do the thinking.

AI, in combination with advanced analytics and machine learning, has the potential to unlock hidden patterns and predict future outcomes, and even to automate decision-making processes such as provision of credit, for example. In turn, this enables operations to be optimised based on concrete facts and customer experiences personalised based on both previous use and perception of need. Clearly, this is a significant development, and one that takes us out of the twentieth century ‘Fordist’ production line producing endless amounts of identical goods and services.

With information comes responsibility

This newfound knowledge comes at a cost, however. While the potential of data and AI is vast, organisations are now faced with the need to navigate the challenges associated with data governance, privacy and security.

Data governance involves establishing policies, processes and controls to ensure the quality, integrity and availability of data. This is an important step in mitigating the risk of compliance breaches, of course, but it can also maximise the value of data assets.

And, apparently not needless to say, privacy and security are paramount in the digital era. Businesses and other organisations today collect and store vast amounts of customer data, and governments have not been slow to notice this. Whether in the form of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its equivalents or that of industry-specific legislation governing sensitive sectors such as financial services or healthcare, the expectation today is that businesses will not abuse customer data and will do their utmost to keep it out of the hands of cyber criminals. Interestingly, both data analytics and AI themselves play an increasing role in detecting and preventing cyber attacks, but the lost important step is for organisations to realise that when they are charged with looking after customer data they have both legal and moral responsibilities to do so, not to mention the commercial imperative of the potential for reputational damage in the event of a leak or scandal.

Data for decisions

Leaving risk and compliance aside for the moment, though, it is clear that data-driven decision-making forms the foundation of any successful digital transformation initiative. By leveraging data and AI-powered insights, informed decisions that can be taken, thus driving business growth and competitive advantage.

Practically, this means that by means of data analytics, organisations can uncover patterns, trends and correlations that provide a deeper understanding of customer preferences, behaviours and needs. The result could be, for instance, personalised marketing or even pricing.

Insights can be broader, too, moving from the micro to the macro: AI-powered predictive analytics can support anticipation of possible future market trends and aid with the identification of new opportunities that allows businesses to stay ahead of the competition.

Data also has significant internal uses. By analysing data from sources as varied as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, customer relationship management (CRM) software and even troves of internal documents and e-mail exchanges, bottlenecks can be identified. In turn, this information can then be used to better optimise workflows, including by automating repetitive tasks, and so freeing up valuable resources.

Life on the edge

In short, organisations that effectively leverage data give themselves a distinct competitive edge. And those that don’t face the risk of falling behind. By harnessing the power of data and AI, organisations can gain a comprehensive understanding of their market, customers, and even competitors. In turn, this knowledge can be used to make strategic decisions, differentiate offerings and deliver increasingly personalised product and service offerings to customers.

At the same time, by transforming data into knowledge businesses can chart clearer paths of action and adapt quickly to changing market dynamics. Data-driven agility enables businesses to identify new market opportunities, evolve strategies and respond promptly to customer demands. In this way, data and AI are fundamental enablers of digital transformation, creating unprecedented opportunities for growth and innovation. But effectively harnessing the power of analytics and AI as part of a successful digital transformation journey requires the embrace of data as a strategic asset and the establishment of a culture that values data-driven decision-making. The risks need to be understood, too, such as compliance, security and governance, but the truth is that, in light of the ongoing revolution, standing still is the biggest risk of all.

Embracing agility and simplicity is the key to successful digital transformation.

Posted on August 16, 2023August 16, 2023 by Adeela Kiyani

Digital transformation journeys can build for Success with the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle.

Technology is complex. Despite the Herculean efforts businesses make to ensure customers have a smooth user experience, the reality is that the core technologies deployed today are inherently complicated. No one who has ever committed a line of code needs to be told this, of course, while, in addition, though we rarely think of it, the experience of the cloud obscures extremely complex networking infrastructure.

As a result, embarking on a digital transformation journey, which is necessary for organisations that don’t want to see their market share lost to competitors, can be a daunting prospect.

Worse still, add in the desire to build solutions that respond to exceptional or edge cases and it can easily become overwhelming. It needn’t be so, though.

The simpler, the better

True success in digital transformation comes from an agile mindset that embraces simplicity throughout the entire journey. One way to do this is to keep in mind the famous KISS or Keep It Simple, Stupid design principle. KISS was first used by the US Navy in the 1960s, faced with increasingly complex equipment designs and is intended to help organisations overcome complexity, something that every business today could benefit from.

As I noted in a previous blog post, an important step towards digital transformation success is adopting an agile mindset. Agile methodologies, such as Scrum or Kanban, which promote iterative development, collaboration, and quick decision-making, allow organisations to break free from rigid and slow linear processes and instead focus on delivering value in smaller, incremental steps.

In practical terms, this allows them to respond rapidly to changing market demands and customer preferences by integrating frequent feedback loops into the process, which in turn provide valuable insights for continuous improvement and, if necessary, course correction. By being adaptable and open to change, businesses can then better navigate the complexities of the digital transformation process and develop, maintain and grow a competitive edge.

The KISS Principle

But let’s get even simpler. Underlying a shift to agile should be a focus on simplicity.

While complexity can be tempting (everyone wants everything right now, after all), simplicity really should be the guiding principle throughout the digital transformation journey. This is where the KISS principle comes in, encouraging organisations to avoid over-complicating solutions and processes.

In short, simplifying, streamlining and removing unnecessary complexities will enhance efficiency and reduce costs, as well as improve user experiences. And that is the real ‘why’ of digital transformation.

Remember, complexity is fractal: the more you zoom in on it, the more you will see. As a result, building solutions based on exceptional or edge cases, which can be tempting, is likely to lead to a web of intricate systems that are difficult to maintain and scale – not to mention risking loss of expertise resulting in systems going un-maintained.

Instead, organisations should focus on the core user requirements and technical functionalities that address the majority of user needs. By prioritising simplicity, they can develop lean and efficient solutions that are easier to manage and adapt to changing requirements. And the edge cases? They can still be dealt with, on a case-by-case basis, in the time freed up by the smooth transition to automation or self-service.

Flexibility and Adaptability

If there is one thing that digital transformation should deliver, it is the ability to be nimble. By moving away from monolithic systems and processes, organisations can become more nimble in responding both to users and to market evolution. And they need to: in today’s digital landscape, change is the only constant. As a result, organisations must be prepared to adapt quickly.

Here, simplicity helps: by designing flexible and adaptable solutions, businesses can future-proof their digital transformation efforts. A modular and scalable architecture, with each component focussed on a single task or even sub-task, allows organisations to add or remove components as needed, accommodating new features and functionalities without disrupting the entire system. Furthermore, by leveraging application programming interfaces (APIs) and microservices, not to mention deploying in the cloud, organisations can integrate and interconnect systems more efficiently,a gain promoting flexibility and agility.

The payoff should be rapid. Firstly, simple developments or changes to processes can be deployed quickly and adjusted in response to feedback or user interaction data. Compare this to a monolithic project that may take eighteen months or longer to deploy, and the benefits are clear. Secondly, as feedback is baked into the process and simpler component parts are easier to iterate, you can keep a focus on the customer, understanding their needs and creating solutions that truly meet their expectations.

Thirdly, as we have known at least since the days of Xerox Parc and the introduction of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, simplicity plays a crucial role in delivering exceptional user experiences. Whether in terms of pure user-interface design or in developing the right processes, removing unnecessary complexities and providing intuitive experiences will see businesses enhance user satisfaction – and drive higher adoption rates.

As a result, adopting the KISS principle reminds organisations to prioritise user-friendliness and ease of use, ensuring that digital solutions are accessible to the broadest possible audience.

Simpler means more

There’s more. Or at least, there should be. Complexity can hinder innovation and slow down the pace of digital transformation. However, by embracing simplicity and agility, organisations can foster a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement, which leads to the delivery of not only better solutions to the end-user but also, paradoxically, more of them.

In other words, while simplifying processes and solutions allows teams to iterate more rapidly, it also allows them to add new features with ease. Shorter development cycles mean feedback is gathered sooner, adjustments can be made on-the-fly, and you can get to market faster. Clearly, then, an iterative approach not only accelerates innovation but also enables organisations to get – and stay – ahead of the competition to meet ever-changing customer demands. Keeping it simple doesn’t mean making it stupid, then.

Planning for today and tomorrow to provide more valuable insights

Posted on June 26, 2023June 26, 2023 by Adeela Kiyani

Enterprise resource planning software is at the core of many larger businesses, but in today’s fast-moving world it is more crucial than ever that it acts as a source of data.

When we think about tools for analysing data in business today, at least beyond the level of using spreadsheets as universal tools, typically business intelligence (BI) software is the first thing that comes to mind. But BI has to get information from somewhere, and one of the best sources is often ignored.

And yet, enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, essentially comprehensive business management systems, provide a centralised platform for managing core business activities such as finance, human resources, inventory, procurement, manufacturing, and customer relationship management. It sounds very much like the two should have a close relationship, with ERP driving data into BI tools.

This is the case, said Padraig McCarthy, group sales director at TEKenable. ERPs are designed to help optimise processes, deliver business efficiencies and reduce costs of production, procurement, sales, marketing, employee management and distribution, he said.

“However, in doing so, there is an inordinate amount of transactional ‘real-time’ data being generated that, if harnessed properly, can serve as a vault of key business, customer, financial, employee and operational insights that will help businesses make better, more responsive and more informed business decisions,” he said.

As a result, ERP and BI tools have a symbiotic relationship in that the data generated by ERP software can be brought into BI tools to provide valuable insights to businesses.

“Business intelligence tools like Microsoft Power BI can collate, aggregate and surface the data generated by ERPs into easy-to-understand dashboards and reports,” McCarthy said.

For example, supply chain, operational capacity, stock levels and debtor issues can be quickly identified, and plans put in place to resolve or mitigate issues.

“Power BI can quickly identify trends and where performance improvements can be made across a range of departmental areas such as sales, marketing, operations, inventory management and manufacturing that will result in reduced costs, increased efficiencies, resource optimisation and better customer service,” he said.

Power BI can not only offer analysis and insights on past data, he said, but it can also be used for predictive analysis and modelling to help companies determine the ‘most likely’ future outcomes based on past and present data.

“This is very pertinent in marketing campaign management, capacity planning, customer churn analysis, asset management and evaluating the impact of external factors such as higher inflation and interest rates, for example, on sales revenue and production costs,” McCarthy said.

Klondike Data

ERP is a key source of data that is often left untapped.

“Many organisations see ERPs just as a process management tool for the various departmental functions such as sales, marketing, finance, manufacturing, inventory management and operations and [as a result] do not delve into and analyse the transactional data being generated,” McCarthy said.

That is, in essence, an untapped Klondike of valuable business and customer information.

“Data flows through the entire lead to cash and procure to pay processes. By holistically looking at the data and its journey through the ERP system, a wealth of in-depth and actionable insights can be gleaned,” he said.

‘The rapidity of technological change means on-premise systems lag behind cloud solutions in terms of functional capability, scalability, running costs and also in terms of data and system security.’
_{Padraig McCarthy, Sales Director TEKenable}

These insights can then be used to optimise process improvements, perform deep dive financial analysis, provide a real-time view of potential inventory shortages, supply chain or production capacity issues, and provide an accurate picture of the health of the business at a given moment in time.

McCarthy likened having access to this information to the well-known adage about healthcare: prevention is better than cure.

“Like our own health, prevention is better than trying to cure a problem,” he said.

“Using analytics can also highlight areas where more information is required because data is not clearly visible or obscure – and that is also an untapped source of information,” he said.

Modern Systems

Today, most forward-looking enterprises look to the cloud for ERP as it enables a level of flexibility that is difficult to achieve with on-premise systems. And while migration is rarely popular with management – or with IT departments, for that matter – it is widely recognised as being worth the effort.

Most businesses with on-premise ERP systems are now moving to the cloud, McCarthy said, and are doing so for a variety of reasons.

“The main ones being that the rapidity of technological change means on-premise systems lag behind cloud solutions in terms of functional capability, scalability, running costs and also in terms of data and system security,” he said.

“Cloud solutions like Microsoft Business Central democratise technology and bring it to all sizes of organisations, in that technology that previously could only be afforded by large enterprises is now available to the SMB [small and medium business] sector.”

However, migrating data presents a lot of challenges that businesses need to be cognisant of and plans put in place to ensure a smooth and seamless migration as possible.

The main challenge is that data in the old system is not properly sanitised, analysed and checked for duplication, missing information, incorrect data and misspelling prior to the data migration. This problem can be solved, however.

“Close collaboration and the use of robust and proven migration tools by the people involved in the data migration project is an imperative for a successful data migration,” said McCarthy.

“Thorough testing of the migrated data by the business, functional and technical team is critical to the success of a data migration to ensure that no incorrect, corrupt, or bad data is ingested into the new system.”

While migration of on-premise systems to the cloud is challenging, the benefits are real, McCarthy said, not least because it will get the data into shape.

“It gives you a reason to cleanse your data and streamline business processes. That in itself is a good thing,” he said.

_{The above interview text reproduced here first appeared in Business Post on June 23rd, 2023.}

Chatting with your business to unlock the business value

Posted on June 15, 2023June 15, 2023 by Adeela Kiyani

Gaining business benefits from the mountains of data that every firm already has could be as simple as chatting with your documents.

With OpenAI unveiling ChatGPT late last year and its successor GPT-4 being integrated into virtually all of Microsoft’s applications, it is quite clear that artificial intelligence (AI), specifically the novel ‘generative’ kind that can create new material, will soon be commonplace in business. The question is, then: has generative AI increased the adoption of AI or are businesses struggling to understand it?

“Both,” said Peter Rose, group chief technology officer at digital transformation specialists TEKenable. “We’re running three days, back-to-back, with customers on Microsoft’s implementation of OpenAI’s AIs.

“Some, we are getting up to speed: all the talk of ‘AI, AI, AI’ has got them saying ‘catch us up’. Others are coming in at a different level of maturity and want to talk about implementing it: what will it cost us, what can we do if we implement it?” he said.

TEKenable itself has done more than dip a toe in the water. The company has launched its own Azure-based AI application that is designed to use AI to unlock business value.

“We did it for ourselves. We call it Chat With Your Documents. The contention is that there is more information and knowledge locked up in your unstructured data than there is in your formal databases or ERP and CRM,” Rose said.

Chat With Your Documents aims to solve a real business problem: hitherto, every research report, sales proposal, strategy, product or project document contains valuable institutional knowledge that is progressively lost from an organisation as people leave, and this information is very hard or even impossible for new joiners to acquire.

Chat With Your Documents makes this information accessible and offers the capability in two different forms: one for internal use, to support staff with their day-to-day tasks, and one that is externally facing, to help customers, for example, better understand a company’s products.

While we are all familiar with using search to find documents or information within them, Chat with Your Documents goes further: it searches and synthesises.

“You could have an answer to something spread across five different documents. Chat With Your Document will search for relevant context, even in apparently unrelated documents, and then present them to the LLM [large language model, the technology underlying the new breed of generative AIs], which will summarise them in one response,” said Rose.

Based on Azure OpenAI, this is all done in a private, secure and GDPR-compliant instance of OpenAI and configured with due regard to user permissions. Nobody sees something they should not have access to.

The next step

This kind of application is perhaps on the edge of the true next step in AI development: rather than making existing processes more efficient; it actually creates entirely new use cases. This, Rose said, would be the beginning of a fundamental shift.

“Everyone is looking at efficiencies and things like that. In other words, doing things we do today, but better. I’m waiting for things to come out with something entirely new.

“There are probably business use cases that we have yet to figure out. Nobody really knows what they are going to be used for.”

In the meantime, Microsoft’s introduction of AI to its products and cloud services has got people’s attention, but most businesses want legal assurances that using AI will not result in breaches of compliance with data regulations such as GDPR.

“A lot are waiting on [Microsoft] Copilot. Right now, they’re worrying about the security of AI in terms of keeping your data private. What we’re able to tell them is that Azure OpenAI is secure: the data stays within your instance, your own Azure tenant storage, and under no circumstance will it be used to train the [AI] models,” he said.

“I think it’s a masterstroke by Microsoft. They’ve bought the rights to the OpenAI platform, and they’re incorporating it into everything.”

The focus on generative AI does not mean other kinds of AI already in use have been superseded, however. Generative AI will not mean the end of machine learning (ML), for instance. In fact, Rose said, we can expect to see the technologies working together.

“ML is, in the main, statistical analysis, which is still worthy. It will do identification; it will do regression analysis. There are still the same applications as there were before.

But what there will be is a big ecosystem where these things can work together.

“You start with a set of images and say, for example, ‘Which of these images contain donkeys?’ They will pipeline that to the ML, which will select the images based on probability, and then pipeline it on to the generative AI to make something new.”

Over time, this combining of different forms of AI is likely to become standard practice, he said. This, in turn, will go a long way toward creating entirely new ways to interact with data.

“I think, looking forward, we’re going to see a hyper AI layer which orchestrates things,” Rose said.

_{The above interview text first appeared in Business Post on June 9th, 2023.}

How our values define our culture.

Posted on June 9, 2023July 7, 2023 by Adeela Kiyani

At TEKenable, our commitment to technological development is matched by our strong values.

As we noted previously, TEKenable has officially been certified as a Great Place to Work. This is a welcome recognition of our commitment to both our people and to deploying the latest and most exciting technology.

The role of new technology, which allows our people to develop their careers, cannot be overstated. In addition, however, our values have made a major contribution. Indeed, empowering our staff is central to how we develop both our workplace culture and our business itself.

Of course, virtually every business today talks a great talk about diversity, equality and inclusion, as well as making commitments to ‘ESG’ (environmental, social, and corporate governance) frameworks. But at TEKenable, we mean it.

At TEKenable, our core values are resilience, heartfelt service and a culture of striving for the best and having insatiable curiosity. Our international team, spread around the world and hailing from a variety of cultures, is diverse by its very nature, and we are proud of that fact.

In practice, this means we not only do not tolerate discrimination but actively seek to promote an environment in which our people can thrive.

Fair, fun and forward-looking

Responding to our Great Place to Work survey, 95 per cent of TEKenable staff respondents said they felt they were treated fairly regardless of sexual orientation. 98 per cent, meanwhile, said they felt they were treated fairly regardless of gender and 96 per cent felt they were treated fairly regardless of race.

We are also keenly aware of another, often forgotten, form of discrimination: age. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is especially an issue in the technology sector, given its focus on novelty. However, at TEKenable, 97 per cent of respondents said they felt they were treated fairly regardless of their age.

Overall, 90 per cent responded agreeing to the statement “I can be myself around here”, while 94 per cent agreed that it was a friendly place to work. Some 93 per cent said they agreed people at TEKenable care about each other.

However, ensuring that there is no place for discrimination is only the baseline for us. Equally important is ensuring that our people have opportunities to progress.

This starts with collaboration and communication. At TEKenable, we promote open communication and a management culture that is centred on the ability to be open. 94 per cent of respondents to our Great Place to Work survey said we had succeeded in this and had approachable management, while 91 per cent said they felt free to ask managers any reasonable question, safe in the knowledge that they would get a straight answer.

In addition, we want to see our team members succeed: 86 per cent of survey respondents reported they were offered training that allowed them to further themselves professionally.

Naturally, this benefits us as a company. After all, working in fast-moving sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber security, we need to stay on top of things and even predict where things might go. Training is not limited only to things that benefit TEKenable, however. We see continuing professional development (CPD) as a true win-win situation and want our team members to advance their careers by developing new skills, not just perfecting the ones they already have.

Ultimately, our goal is that, whoever you are, you will be able to become your best self at TEKenable.

TEKenable sets stage for AI and ESG

Posted on June 7, 2023June 14, 2023 by Adeela Kiyani

The business world is being engulfed by the higher demands of ESG while still unsure of AI and automation. Not to fear, Tekenable founders Nick Connors and Peter Rose have you covered.

The two founders of TEKenable have seen it all in tech but are approaching the rapidly changing business and tech worlds with a vigour you can only envy.

Established in 2002, TEKenable employs over 160 people. The business recently revealed plans to downsize its office in Dublin to around one-third of the size as a result of the success of remote working.

“Before you can grow, if the core business isn’t right, you’re not going anywhere”.

In recent months it revealed plans to establish an ESG practice focused on helping its customers figure out their purpose, governance, strategy, decision-making, risk management, and accountability reporting. The new practice involves an investment of €600,000 and will create 10 new jobs in the areas of data collection and reporting, carbon reduction and return on investment.

This follows an earlier €500,000 investment to build technologies that accelerate innovation in the insurance and retail sectors and the acquisition of Greenfinch to create a scaled-up cloud business.

The business is also razor-focused on opportunities in low code and how that could also lead to greater automation within businesses.

An interesting challenge

You get the sense that Connors (CEO) and Rose (CTO) are grasping emerging trends with practised ease, but the road was challenging, at least in the early days. The two founders had to learn to apply discipline to the business, financially and not just technologically, and the result is their ability to adapt the business to today’s new trends and opportunities with practised agility.

Tekenable was borne out of the ashes of the collapse of Digital Channel Partners following the tech crash of 2002.

In a recent interview with ThinkBusiness, Connors said that the growth of the business was conservative for the first decade as it built bespoke tech solutions for banks and insurance firms.

A turning point came with both the opportunities afforded by Microsoft’s approach to the cloud and a sobering look at how it managed its finances.

Taking a more disciplined approach to innovation and finance saw Tekenable go from a €2m to €3m a year business to a business recording revenues of €10m a year and growing.

Getting the balance right gave the founders the confidence to drive the business forward by making smart bets on technology and businesses to acquire.

Connors recalls the origins of Tekenable. “Out of the burning embers of Digital Channel Partners, we took a small group of people and nine customers whose projects would go belly up if we didn’t continue on with them. We pulled a team together, and with no funding, we flipped from liquidation into a brand-new company. It was a bit of a risk, but our customers were good to us because we had good people. Those nine customers got us going. We started breathing again, and we started to grow the company.”

As the business grew, acquisition offers came in, and while the founders spurned those offers, insights from advisers gave them pause for thought. Rose recalls: “One of the comments that came back was that we were delivering great projects, but we weren’t delivering a business. And so we peered into that statement and asked what the gentleman meant. He said we weren’t taking the finances as seriously as we should.

“And there were a lot of functions in the business that, perhaps, if we were going to grow, we would need to put in place from HR to marketing to a sales operation. A lot of the sales, not exclusively, but a lot of the sales, had been done by Nick and myself. And that’s not particularly scalable. So it was nothing earth-shattering, or, or stunning; we simply started to do what every other business of slightly bigger scale to us was already doing. We hired a CFO who opened our eyes to what we should be doing, and we did it, and we followed the advice that people who knew much better than us told us to do. There is no secret sauce; hire a CFO, and take the finances seriously, and that gave us the money to invest in some of the other functions that we needed, like a full-time finance team, hiring a PR company, creating a marketing team, grow our sales team and ground our technical team.

“It’s all very well delivering great projects, but if you’re not making money out of them if you are literally covering the bills, you do not have the money in the bank to fund any kind of expansion, diversification or delivery of new services. We had been just ticking along the bottom profitability-wise. But it wasn’t a dramatic change. It was just a series of small changes that meant we suddenly found ourselves with the money to do the things we always wanted to do but didn’t quite see how to fund.

“It was the easiest change ever because it took a lot of pressure off us. We weren’t making a profit, but we weren’t making a loss either, and there’s an enormous amount of pressure that goes along with that.”

Connors agrees: “We were keeping our customers happy but were not making a profit. So we had that piece right. Before you can grow, if the core business isn’t right, you’re not going anywhere.”

The freedom to focus on areas of growth saw Tekenable flourish through its longstanding partnership with Microsoft, and two years ago, the company added a dedicated Salesforce practice.

“People thought we were mad to be investing in both platforms, but you know, the bigger customers we work with have both,” said Connors. “They use multiple technologies. We want to serve our customers right so that when they come to us, we can talk about it. There’s still a long way to go with the cloud, and there are organisations that haven’t moved to the cloud and are swimming against the tide.

“The reality of cloud is that it is just like running water or electricity; it’s a utility, it’s a service.”

The E, the S and the G

This brings us to Tekenable’s investment in ESG (environmental, social and governance). It is apparent, however, that when many people think of ESG, they tend to focus on the E aspect and don’t realise that the S and G are fundamental to how businesses will run and report in the decades ahead.

I ask Connors and Rose about what ESG really means for businesses today.

“The fundamental part for businesses is that they have to align with regulations that are coming down the track,” Connors explained. “If they are a supplier to a customer, they have to comply. Some of it will be light touch, but complying with these guidelines will be key. It’s nice to say you are doing something to save the world and be part of the sustainability push, which is what we all have to do as businesses. But there are fundamentals to this that you will have no leeway on. You have to be compliant, or you won’t be able to do business with certain customers.”

Rose added: “The regulatory landscape is becoming more and more defined. It has been very fragmented with lots of different standards. But with the advent of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and taxonomy coming in from the EU on mandatory reporting, it is really strengthening up and becoming more difficult to do. You need to be compliant with the regulatory landscape.

“It’s not just about compliance; there are aspects to the sustainability agenda that are really good for your business. When people think of sustainability, they think of reducing carbon emissions, for example. But if you actually move an on-premises server to the cloud, you could get up to a 98% carbon reduction and move up the ranks because of the difference in not having to buy the hardware. A lot of that arises from the fact that Microsoft’s investing heavily in their data centres, not drawing power from the grid but using reusable power sources to power the data centre. So the electricity going into the data centres is actually zero carbon emissions to start with.”

Rose said the ‘E’ for the environment is just part of the picture that firms need to grasp. There are business opportunities in societal impact and governance. “If you look at the broader agenda on sustainability, and not just the carbon side of things, you’ve got diversity and inclusion, for example. I was really proud of our record in diversity. We did a survey with 19 or 20 different nationalities represented in the business, for example. And there are huge benefits to that, not just meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but you’re really bringing in different cultures and different viewpoints and a whole new level of creativity into the business. When you start to do, you start to take diversity seriously, it is not just about regulatory compliance; it’s actually about business benefits as well.”

In recent months Tekenable revealed how it plans to reduce its office footprint based on the reality that because of the explosion in remote and hybrid working that came with the pandemic, it didn’t need so much office space.

Tekenable, which was recently recognised as the 15th Best Medium Workplace in Ireland for 2023 and has doubled its headcount in the last five years, has moved to a smaller office in Dublin that is one-third the size of the original one.

The move to hybrid working is being fully embraced across the business. “I was sitting in a car with Nick a few months ago, and we were travelling to visit a customer, and we got stuck in a traffic jam somewhere around Merrion Square. And we both just looked at each other simultaneously and said we don’t know how we used to always do this; it is insane. We could have literally jumped on a call with this customer and moved on to a call with another customer 1,000 miles away.”

Connors added: “We were doing a piece of work with a customer in Switzerland this week and offered to physically meet them, and they said, ‘no, we’d be happy to do it on Teams.’” So customers are pushing back and saying, ‘No, we don’t want to meet you,’ and that works for us. That’s good.”

Let AI be your co-pilot

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, the whole subject of artificial intelligence (AI) has entered the public spotlight ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public late last year. This has spurred all manner of debate about the implications of this technology for our jobs and, indeed, humanity as the machines show just how clever they can be.

Asked about what ChatGPT could mean for the future of work, Rose says the panic has been a bit overblown, and we need to think about its use differently. “ChatGPT is really advanced; it is really impressive. But it is just another technology tool. It isn’t capable of running solo. It’s an augmented workforce tool. It is something that helps people to be more effective, more efficient. I would be extremely cautious before letting it or any other AI technology have full automated reign over anything. If you think of AI as a sort of top fuel drag racer, if you stamp on the accelerator, it will do one of two things, it will either go off rocketing down the track at a super pace, or it will blow up, and the wheels will fall off. And there’s nothing in between.

“So nobody in their right mind is going to let ChatGPT or any other AI technology respond automatically to customer correspondence without a human having oversight on what is sent back. Microsoft uses the term ‘co-pilot’. It sits alongside you, it helps you, but it is not steering the ship or ultimately making decisions about people’s loan applications.”

Looking to the next 20 years of the business, Connors said: “We’ve had a very successful acquisition a few years ago, and we will probably continue down that road by making acquisitions that we think could benefit and grow the company.

“We have ambitions and aspirations to continue growing the company, and growing outside Ireland is our main focus at the minute.”

_{The text above first appeared in ThinkBusiness.ie Post on June 2nd, 2023.}

How CSR initiatives can make employers more attractive.

Posted on May 31, 2023May 31, 2023 by Adeela Kiyani

Jenny Bowker, Marketing Director at TEKenable, talks about the company’s CSR initiatives and how it is helping the company attract and retain talent.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals have become increasingly important, with more employees choosing to work for companies they believe in.

Employees want to work for organisations where the values align with their own, and this can be clear through internal company culture but also through the work the company does externally.

“When a company embraces CSR, not only does it cultivate a positive impact on society and the environment, but it also creates a workplace where employees are empowered, engaged and proud to be part of something greater than themselves,” said Marina Rivas, brand and marketing manager at Great Place to Work.

“CSR is the bridge that connects individual purpose with collective impact, fostering a culture of empathy, purpose-driven work and unparalleled employee satisfaction. It is also a powerful tool for client and talent acquisition and retention, and a way to differentiate the company from its competitors.”

To find out a little more about what a strong CSR policy looks like, we found out more from Tekenable, one of the entrants on the 2023 Best Workplaces in Tech list.

Jenny Bowker, marketing director at Tekenable, talked about several initiatives the company runs to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability, equity and social responsibility. These include pro-bono mentoring and assistance for start-ups in Ireland, internal fundraisers for Crumlin Children’s Hospital, a Technology for Good programme and a partnership with Cloud Forests.

“The CSR initiatives at Tekenable combine employee and programme-led initiatives. Based on input from our staff and annual audits from Ecovadis and Great Place to Work, we rank CSR initiatives in order of importance,” said Bowers.

“The Ecovadis programme identifies our areas of success and our weaknesses before providing us with a plan of action for the year after. In order to make sure we are making progress and checking in frequently, we divide these tasks among the teams.”

Employee involvement

In order to get the most out of CSR initiatives, it’s always important to involve employees. Bowker said Tekenable does this by asking for its workers’ opinions, prioritising their concerns and including them in meetings.

“Specifically, to make sure that we are offering the kinds of activities that our employees enjoy and benefit from, our sports and social committee holds regular meetings and solicits feedback from the workforce,” she said.

“Our CSR committee is an action team that makes sure the improvements allocated throughout the year are implemented and moving forward.”

Talent retention

Having strong CSR initiatives is a vital factor in attracting and retaining talent, especially in a candidate’s market.

Bowker said Tekenable’s own CSR initiatives have assisted the company in attracting employees to work for it.

“Our commitment to fostering a positive work environment and implementing sustainable business practices is evidenced by our Great Place to Work certification and Ecovadis assessment ratings,” she said.

“Giving employees worthwhile opportunities for development and engagement, like volunteer work and fundraising activities, can raise employee morale, engagement and job satisfaction, which will ultimately result in higher retention rates.”

_{The text above is being reproduced here from the SiliconRepublic post, published on May 31st, 2023.}

Opening Business to Artificial Intelligence

Posted on May 30, 2023May 30, 2023 by Adeela Kiyani

Large language model artificial intelligence has grabbed a lot of attention since the launch of ChatGPT, but the hype about their future potential can obscure the very real business case for using them right now.

It’s fair to say that the November 2022 launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model (LLM) artificial intelligence (AI) shook the world. Here, for the first time, was a conversational AI that not only simulated responses to questions asked of it but did so in an utterly convincing manner. In one fell swoop, OpenAI showed that so-called ‘generative’ AIs are now able to perform tasks once impossible for machines, from drawing to writing e-mails.

It’s no surprise then that it was followed by a flood of articles and videos on everything from how AI will transform our homes to how it will come for our jobs.

To some extent, the dust has now settled as cooler heads prevail. Developments in the field have not settled down, however. If anything, OpenAI and its partner Microsoft have raced forward by demonstrating ever more intelligent iterations of the underlying LLM, not to mention novel applications for its use. In fact, now that we are no longer stunned by the shock and awe of it all, it is a good time to look closely at how AI can be applied in the real world.

At its Build developer conference in May, Microsoft unveiled its plans to make AI a part of daily life. ChatGPT is being integrated not only into the Bing search engine but also into the Windows operating system itself.

Bing Chat will integrate conversational AI directly into the Edge browser. Windows Copilot, meanwhile, will work alongside similar Copilots for common business applications such as Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Microsoft 365, assisting users with complex tasks. These should be of particular interest to businesses as they allow organisations to dip a toe in the AI waters without committing to developing their own applications.

Exciting as these developments are, in fact, AI has been built into Microsoft’s Azure for many years. Azure Cognitive Services, which incorporates OpenAI’s models, allows developers to leverage advanced language processing functionalities to develop applications that can both understand and generate human-like text. Azure Machine Learning, meanwhile, allows for the creation of data-centric machine learning (ML) applications.

However, some other news from the Build conference is also relevant: Microsoft demonstrated Azure OpenAI Service, which brings the power of OpenAI’s generative AI to your data.

Your business, your data, your intelligence

ChatGPT and its successors are applications built on top of OpenAI’s large language model and have access to data provided to them by OpenAI’s engineers. Fascinating as the results have been, where the rubber really hits the road as far as business is concerned is applying the LLM to your own data and building custom applications on top of that.

Chatbots with access to your customer data and an understanding of not only what those customers want, but the tone your company wants to adopt in its communications, are only the most obvious potential application of LLMs in business. It is a powerful one, though. Chatbots have long been used as a cost-saving measure, reducing the load on contact centres, but by giving an LLM AI access to your data, more and more complex queries can be dealt with.

How far LLMs can go is a question that will only be answered as applications are developed, but speaking at Build, Microsoft’s executive chairman and CEO Satya Nadella gave some indication of their vastWhere potential scope.

“Even Azure OpenAI API customers are all new. And the workload conversations, whether it’s B2C conversations in financial services or drug discovery […] these are all new workloads that we really were not in the game in the past, whereas we now are,” he said.

These are exciting possibilities, but there is a strong case for setting LLM AIs to work today. Over time, OpenAI’s LLM in Azure will no doubt be at the heart of all manner of interesting developments. Right now, however, it is already ready to unlock value for the business as it allows users to, in effect, chat with documents, and because it is a private instance, it remains GDPR-compliant in doing so.

It is also easy to get up and running. Unlike with previous generations and other kinds of AIs, you do not need to train it. Instead, you use Azure’s semantic search capabilities, known as Cognitive Search, to search the document repository that you have indexed, meaning it can be instructed to compare documents, find similar ones, and extract and summarise information from them.

In other words, just because the possibilities opened by AI are endless doesn’t mean its use should be relegated to only the most imaginative applications. As the old saying goes: a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Today, thanks to AI, even that single step can be quite the leap forward.

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