This article focuses on how new regulations in the financial services industry and innovative technologies enhance customer experience (CX) by making services more efficient, faster, and less expensive. The authors describe new directives — such as the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), applicable across the European Economic Area — that, together with new technologies such as blockchain, present a window of opportunity for financial services providers. The authors highlight how service providers, armed with information about target customers and with reduced risk of exposure to fraud, can better serve consumers. The authors also show how leveraging blockchain technology and the PSD2 directive can help deliver better CX and value proposition in the financial services industry.

Iweta Laskowska explains some of the myths around blockchain, such as anonymity, transparency, and privacy. She guides the reader to an understanding of what anonymity in peer-to-peer networks means and introduces the concept of “de-anonymization of transaction history,” which involves the identification of the real-world identities of contractors (senders and recipients), as well as the value that is sent. As Laskowska suggests, “The involvement of third parties in the management and authentication of transactions is expensive and time-consuming. Distributed public networks reduce the need for central authorities and eliminate the ‘single point of failure.’” This ultimately allows for greater participation in decision making.

This article explores the business benefits and technical challenges of blockchain technology implementation in the human resources (HR) domain, specifically in a recruitment space. Recruitment is one of the most critical parts of HR management, one in which there must be an establishment of trust at the beginning of interactions between parties. The authors posit that there is a need for a unified platform where certificates and academic degrees are safely kept in order to ensure the integrity of information and to have a means of verifying the validity of the qualifications, all while ensuring privacy. They propose the design and implementation of a platform exploiting two different open source platforms: Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric. They then analyze each architecture’s basic features and compare those features to outline lessons learned.

Artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, at its core, must closely align with a company’s business objectives, ensuring synergy between the corporate strategy and the AI strategy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are technologies that can solve problems and do a world of good. But we must not forget that they are fallible and require human oversight. AI/ML developers must adhere to a strong code of ethics and employ ethicists to audit new applications. They must also ensure valid and reliable data testing and remain vigilant to the possibility that the technology may not work as intended.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are technologies that can solve problems and do a world of good. But we must not forget that they are fallible and require human oversight. AI/ML developers must adhere to a strong code of ethics and employ ethicists to audit new applications. They must also ensure valid and reliable data testing and remain vigilant to the possibility that the technology may not work as intended.

Based on recent findings from a Cutter Consortium survey on customer experience (CX) management in the enterprise, most organizations appear to have somewhat guarded expectations of artifical intelligence’s potential to influence CX.

A business architecture initiative such as business capability modeling can be a challenging endeavor in many organizations. Typically, little clarity exists as to what a business capability is, what business capabilities are used for, and why a business needs them. The challenge is to address these concerns while succinctly articulating why adopting business capability modeling is a good idea.

In Part VI of this Executive Update series on customer experience (CX) management, we examine findings covering the various advanced technologies on organizations’ radar regarding their CX efforts.

Examples of unintended consequences abound in government and the social sciences, but also occur in engineering, business, management, IT governance, and other areas. In this Advisor, we explore some examples.

Design thinking helps companies identify real issues they never knew existed and leads to innovative digital and non-digital solutions never before imagined.

Digital transformation is not an end point; it is just a beginning. It is imperative to continuously evolve your digital solutions to keep meeting the needs of your users and your market.

This Advisor looks at two fundamental project metrics that everyone uses at all levels in the IT organization: size and flow.

This Executive Update describes the unique challenges to quality in the big data domain as well as various approaches to handling and resolving those challenges.

While standard security practices still apply for automation initiatives, there are specific security practices to keep in mind for automation design.

This edition of The Cutter Edge discusses how leaders can prepare themselves for the changes in the software industry; how to master sustainability as technology continues to evolve; what's up and coming with blockchain, and more!

This edition of The Cutter Edge discusses how leaders can prepare themselves for the changes in the software industry; how to master sustainability as technology continues to evolve; what's up and coming with blockchain, and more!

To succeed in the future, we must make difficult changes to move our organizations into the 21st century — and creating real teams is the answer.

Two major challenges hindering organizations from successfully implementing their customer experience (CX) management initiatives include difficulty defining and mapping just what the customer journey/experience should be and an inability to provide a seamless CX across their different channels. To tackle these issues, organizations are adopting customer journey mapping tools and service blueprints — two different but complementary practices.

APIs have moved beyond system-to-system integration and utility. They have now expanded to focus on solving problems for customers, the workforce, and suppliers/partners. So how do enterprises begin to evolve their API platform?

We are increasingly hearing about the role of the CCO — the chief customer officer — who has the authority to ensure that the organization provides a unified and seamless customer journey/experience across all customer channels and guides the adoption and dissemination of CX practices and technologies. But just how standard is the role of the CCO among organizations?

No matter where you are in your journey or what your stance is on digital architecture (is it real or just story?), this issue of CBTJ will challenge your worldview and challenge each of us “to work as the scientist rather than the consumer of the scientist’s work,” building and testing our own theories in the laboratory of our own experience.

Complex technology projects require a pushback against biases, oversimplifications, and the need for certainty that will inform many proposed solu­tions. The role of dissent is to harden and strengthen these proposals and to identify the right course of action among them.

What is the new new thing in artificial intelligence (AI)? What new methods or approaches have been invented? Based on my research, it appears that the real news in AI is processing: advances in computer speed, more solid-state technology, small embedded neural networks, and multilayer neural networks. So what does it all mean?

In Part X of this Executive Update series on statistical project manangement (SPM), we describe many of the metrics within SPM by category.