OracleApps Epicenter

The new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and international financial reporting standards (IFRS) lease accounting standards (ASC 842 and IFRS 16) will take effect in 2020 for private companies. The standards bring many leases onto the balance sheet and could significantly impact a business’ financial statements.

Here is great post on Audit Procedures for Leases under ASC 842. You can get more details at here

Indian tax admin authorities have made it clear to introduce e-invoicing from 01 Oct, 2020, how is your organisation preparing for this ? What changes have you planned in ERP, in the reports, or in the business model ?

Would you like to comment and share your journey to enable this feature ….else will do a details post for more insights

If we talk about e-invoicing , E stands for ‘Electronic’ which clearly indicates the involvement of computers while generating an invoice

The India e Invoicing will be a dramatic change which will introduce a transparency on GST Tax Collection and also stream line revenue process.

E Invoicing as a process is being introduced in many countries and India is a follower in this regard. With the opening of the economy lot of Multinationals operate in India and implementation of e Invoicing is a challenge for many organizations, since they have homogeneous global processes, which need to be adapted for local compliance in India. I have tried to answer some of the common questions related to based on project experience:

How this works for Indian Customer ..

What are the types of documents, which are valid for e Invoicing?

The following type of Invoices will be covered under e Invoicing

• Invoices by Supplier (Supplier side Invoice)
• Credit Note by Supplier (Supplier side CM)
• Debit notes by recipient (Supplier side Debit Note)

How this handled in ERP application like Oracle , netSuite , SAP etc

The e Invoicing is currently valid for B2B Customers. If your customer has a registered GSTIN Number, the standard solution determines the customer to be valid for e Invoicing

The process of e-invoicing goes on like:

1. Businesses are required to generate an electronic invoice on every sale on their respective ERPs. Creating an e-invoice is the prior responsibility of the taxpayer (dealer)
2. The standard invoice format if pre-fixed by authorities for every business. So that proper details are extracted
3. The e-invoice thus generated needs to be reported to the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) of GST
4. On the portal, the Invoice Reference Number (IRN) will be generated and the invoice will be signed digitally
5. Then a QR code will be generated. The code contains all the vital information related to the invoices which will be re-directed to the taxpayer who filed the invoices
6. The IRP will send a copy of the signed invoices to the provided email id of the recipient of supply who is engaged in the whole process

Fig: system Flow

Requirement for Digital Signature

There is no need for the supplier to digitally sign the e-invoice which is to be uploaded on IRP. The e-invoice will automatically get signed after validation

Does GST portal support e-invoice generation?

There is no such mechanism of generating e-invoice directly on the GST portal.

Therefore , companies have develop program for e-invoicing task from ERP/Billing application .

Design thinking is a user-centered way of a cognitive problem-solving process. Design Thinking is Mindset that is Human-Centered & Empathic , Collaborative , Optimistic & Experimental .

Design Thinking is the confidence that new, better things are possible and that you can make them happen. It involves extensive collaboration, using strategies such as mapping customer journeys, concept creation, and prototyping

Watch the video below for a introduction by Jeff Humble as starting point

• What is Design Thinking? Design Thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to
  • understand the user
  • challenge assumptions
  • redefine problems in an attempt to
  • identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding.

At the same time, Design Thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving problems.

In order words , we can redifinee as

” A skill that allows a designer to align what people want with what can be done, and produce a viable business strategy that creates customer value and market opportunity “

• What is underline Process : This consist of 4 Rule and 5 Phase as below

  • 4 RULE : Design Thinking process is progressive and highly user-centric. Christoph Meinel and Harry Leifer of the Hasso-Plattner-Institute of Design at Stanford University (d.school) identified four rules of Design Thinking:

    • The human rule: design is social in nature — problems must be solved in a way that satisfies human needs and acknowledge the human elements in all technologies.
    • The ambiguity rule: ambiguity is inevitable — experiment at the limits of our knowledge, the limits of our ability to control events, and with the freedom to see things in a different light.
    • The re-design rule: all design is re-design — technology and social circumstances are constantly evolving. We need to understand how our human needs were met in the past.
    • The tangibility rule: making ideas tangible facilitates communication — this directly refers to creating prototypes.
  • 5 PHASES : The phases of Design Thinking that influenced the modern day process were coined by Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon in 1969, and originally included 7 steps. Modern versions of the process include anywhere from 5-6 steps. For the purpose of this post, I use the simple 5 step process proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford.

1. Empathize (Understanding the human needs involved ) : The empathize stage is critical to understand where the problems you are trying to solve come from. Immerse yourself into the life of your user to understand their problems. This can also be thought of as finding “gaps in the market”, where there are no straightforward product solutions to a given issue. Identify the need and address it. This phase focuses on research.
2. Define (Re-framing and defining the problem in human-centric ways) :Now that a need is identified and research is collected, you can define the problem in human-centric terms. You want this problem to be broad enough for a flexible and creative approach, but narrow enough to hone in on the problems niche. An example of a successful human-centric problem definition could be: “Professionals need a way to virtually take notes, mark their calendar, set reminders, and sync them for access on work and home devices to streamline organization.”
3. Ideate (Creating many ideas in ideation sessions ) : Now that you understand your users problems and have analyzed your research, you can begin generating ideas to solve the defined problem. A popular way to generate ideas is with a brainstorm. Arrange a meeting with at least four people to start off. Try to come up with as many phrases or word associations as you can — no limits, no rules! Bring in a couple individuals from other teams. People with outside experience contribute valuable ideas by looking at the problem through an alternative lens. The ideate phase focuses on free thinking and unconventional approaches.
4. Prototype (Adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping) : Using the best ideas from the ideate phase, you can now produce several basic iterations of your problem solving product. Early stages of the prototype phase are generally where user testing allows designers to identify kinks or missing elements of their designs. This stage focuses on experimenting by creating multiple approaches to solving the problem.
5. Test (Developing a prototype/solution to the problem) :The final stage of the design thinking process, designers now combine the best solutions from the prototype phase into one complete product. This phase involves the most user-testing.

Moreover , there are small variation in Design Thinking but more or less center theme remain same

• What is the value of Design Thinking?

Design thinking can be beneficial to several businesses and individuals wishing to advance or improve their problem-solving methods. Here are a few of the many ways in which design thinking can be important in a business setting:

• Design thinking helps individuals to focus on the solution rather than getting stuck on the problem.
• This process allows companies to better understand their customers’ needs, which, in turn, allows the businesses to better meet these needs.
• Design thinking enables businesses to come up with new and innovative solutions to problems.
• The design thinking process can help to more adequately meet a client’s needs, especially when the client is directly involved in the process.
• Design thinking allows businesses to continually learn about and monitor their customers’ satisfaction as well as allow them to make changes to their products or services when necessary to promote increased customer satisfaction.

• Suggested Reading and Reference
  • https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-design/our-insights/the-business-value-of-design

Design Thinking is both an ideology and a process, concerned with solving complex problems in a highly user-centric way

Design thinking acknowledges that there isn’t one way to solve a problem .As such, the design thinking methodology encourages questioning, experimenting, observing and innovating in an environment that embraces diverse opinions and ideas.

Design thinking has become a key practice for enterprises crafting digital products with the end user in mind.

Read out and understand why and how organizations are leveraging Design Thinking to reassure digital sucess .
https://www.cio.com/article/3210911/what-is-design-thinking-the-secret-to-digital-success-defined.html

If you are looking for an explanation of Computer Security Terms, please visit the following site:

https://www.sans.org/security-resources/glossary-of-terms/

The greatest leaders are those who build an organization or team, or department that continues to thrive after they’re gone.

Collins’ framework provides insight into progression of leaders.

1. Level one’s a capable individual who contributes talent, knowledge, skills, and good work habits.
2. Level two’s a contributing team member who works well with others to produce results.
3. Level three’s a competent manager who can organize employees and resources to attain results.
4. And level four’s an effective leader who inspires commitment to a vision, and rallies support to achieve high levels of performance.
5. Level five is the leader who possesses the combination of humility and a ferocious will for the organization to be remarkable.

Their focus is on leaving the organization stronger and ensuring that it can sustain success.

Arthur’s corporate culture transformation methods have created sustainable organizational culture change in organizations across the world. In his Tedtalk “how to Create Sustainable Organizational Culture Change in 80 Days” explain the types of Organizational Change and different level of organizational culture evolution . You can watch out his presentataion in Youtube.

Key Highlightes

1) Here are four types of organizational changes that make an organization stronger:

4 Types of Organizational Change

• Technological – applications of technology to enhance operations or improve efficiency.
• Structural – change in organizational structure lateral expansion, consolidation of resources, downsizing, product group consolidation…
• Philosophical (Transformation) – the entire mission and direction of an organization changes to reinvent itself to be current and sustainable. This helps an organization go from their current level to their next level of growth by developing a new capacity to meet the needs of those it serves.
• Psychological (Transition) – changing organizational culture, leadership styles, management processes, HR policies… for the purpose of improving efficiency, innovation and engagement.

2) He also highlight The 5 levels of organizational culture evolution are as follows

• The Blame Culture – Here, people have little trust and need to be given proper direction. There’s almost no innovation or member cooperation.
• The Multi-Directional Culture – Members start forming cliques within their respective departments. However, cooperation and trust levels remain low between the management and other departments of the organization.
• The Live and Let Live Culture – While objectives get fulfilled, people remain complacent. Creativity and passion remain at all-time lows.
• The Brand Congruent Culture – Members start believing in their services or products and begin supporting others to fuel expansion. Passion and innovation take the lead, thanks to better culture, management, and processes.
• The Leadership Enriched Culture – An effective leadership ability is instilled in everybody with people transforming into dedicated believers for both the organization and the brand. Creative levels start rising, fueling further excitement. A feeling of ownership is present in all members at this stage.

3) At the last part of his presentation , he also share how to Build the 5 pillars of Sustainable Organizational Culture Change

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Thxs

The Solution to a Tough Problem Isn’t to Overthink It

We all like to consider ourselves smart, but Raw intelligence is undoubtedly a huge asset, but it isn’t everything.

“When we get stuck on a problem, sometimes it’s because we’re overthinking it. Pay attention to when focused thinking isn’t getting you anywhere; perhaps it has turned into obsessing over the same answers or approaches.”

Consider whether experimenting with a new strategy or talking ideas through with others might be more likely to result in success. Take breaks to let your brain relax and get unstuck. Expand your range of skills for reaching insights and coming up with new ideas; don’t be someone who sees every problem as a nail because your only tool is a hammer. And when you do find yourself ruminating, disrupt it by doing a few minutes of an absorbing activity, such as a puzzle. This can be a surprisingly effective way to break your brain out of a rut.

Adapted from “5 Ways Smart People Sabotage Their Success,” by Alice Boyes.

This is a really interesting read and one of the reminders is the importance of emotional intelligence. In his Article highlightes 5 Ways Smart People Sabotage Their Success as below:

1. Smart people sometimes devalue other skills, like relationship building, and over-concentrate on intellect.
2. Teamwork can be frustrating for very smart people.
3. Smart people often attach a lot of their self-esteem to being smart, which can decrease their resilience and lead to avoidance.
4. Smart people get bored easily.
5. Smart people sometimes see in-depth thinking and reflection as the solution to every problem.

Click on Link for Solutions to overcome these problems.You can read /refer to HBR for more management insights…

Nurturing a healthy level of ambition in the workplace can be a tricky thing, organisational consultant Ron Carucci writes. Very driven workers may inadvertently appear too greedy for success or unrealistic about their goals. On the flip side, those that don’t showcase their ambition adequately risk looking cautious or unwilling to improve.

Carucci offers the following framework for achieving success in a healthy, balanced manner.

• What goals can I realistically attain through my own efforts? (Performance ambition)
• What skill or knowledge will I need to improve or acquire? (Growth ambition)
• What rewards do those I lead hope to gain as a result of our efforts? (Achievement ambition)

All questions above are for DIFFERENT areas of ambition; more, improving how leaders operate in business.

As you think about how to manage your career, came across a great article by Ron Carducci in HBR.

Highlights and hits on key points and attributes on ambition, self awareness, and asking and answering the important question every employee and leader may be asked….”How ambitious should you be?”

In layman word Zachman Framework is matrix for managing enterprise architecture.

The Zachman Framework uses a 36-column matrix to help organize your company’s enterprise architecture and lend insight into your organization’s IT assets.

One axis, normally spread about the horizontal of the matrix, consists of the following fundamental elements of human analysis in template include all of the questions that you’ll ask during the process:

• What — Inventory
• How — Process
• Where — Distribution (Location)
• Who — Responsibility (Roles)
• When — Timing (Order of behavior)
• Why — Motivation

The six rows of the Zachman Framework matrix include:

• Executive — (Business) Context, or Identification
• Management — (Business) Definition
• Architect — System Logic, or Representation
• Engineer — Technology Physics, or Specification
• Technician — Configuration

You can read more at CIO site

https://www.cio.com/article/3535909/what-is-the-zachman-framework-a-matrix-for-managing-enterprise-architecture.html