Lean - a set of tool that improves efficiency and the most important - improves profitability. 

Nowadays, hospitals are also using lean tools. Hospitals and other healthcare institutions are required to spend considerable time with patients which keeps other patients in line waiting. To clear problems of all of them, is a stressful job for doctors who attend them. One way to solve this is to add more staff to your organization. But, this has a flip side also. It will add cost to you. So, you have to think in a different way. You have to think in such a way, so that you clear all your stresses without incurring any extra cost.

This is where the Lean comes handy. By streamlining your process, it will add efficiency to your healthcare institution. Some of the immediate outcomes include reduction of lab turnaround time, reduction of emergency department turnaround time, etc. Apart from this, with effective management, doctors, nurses and other staffs attending patients can ease their stress and also they do not keep other patients waiting. You do not have to add extra workforce. Your healthcare institution’s efficiency will improve and cost will reduce.

Located at Sioux Falls, United States, Avera Medical Group applied lean practices to improve efficiency. Read at http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/business-journal/2014/05/07/health-systems-learn-lean/8781179/  to know how the clinic did it.

Most retail companies today operate in the master franchisee model where master franchisee manages the operations of the different stores of the brand. In such cases, it is important to understand the difference between what the company sells to its franchise stores and what the stores in-turn sell to the consumer. This metric is where the insights are hidden. Hence it is very important that companies track &understand this metric to optimally manage stocks and avoid costly stock-out or over-stock situations. Important decisions like the number of new stores that should be opened, best location & size of each store in different cities are not a straightforward choice! Data analytics usage in this space has proved to solve this dilemma. It helps companies to decide the optimal size of each new store they open, while ensuring that these decisions takes into account key parameters like real estate rental costs, catchment area, average incomes in the geographical area, presence of competition etc. Therefore, data analytics is simplifying complex business problems.

Arvind Nagpal wrote about this aspect in his recent article. To read more, please visit the following link:

http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/perspective/288161/analytics-helping-retail-outlets-critical-decision

Cloud is a buzzword that has been taking circles in the IT world for the past few years. Today, every organization demands more software deployment and significant reduction in the response time. To achieve improvement in efficiency and to utilize the resources better, cloud is the sure shot answer.  Cloud infrastructure is also improving its efficiency, availability and security. People who were looking at cloud with suspicion, are now preparing themselves to adopt the technology in a large scale. Cloud is definitely here to stay. There are 3 types of cloud services in offer, namely public, private and hybrid. In the BFSI sector, as data security is one of the core issues, the tendency towards private cloud preference is obvious.

Johnson K Jose, Deputy General Manager, IT Department, Federal Bank, talks about the benefits of adopting cloud model & preference for private cloud in BFSI sector. To read about his views, visit the following link:

http://ibm.informationweek.in/interviews/item/245-private-cloud-is-the-preferred-flavor-in-the-bfsi-segment.html

With the release of its first ever Advanced Analytics Magic Content, the information research and technology advisory firm Gartner reveals Rapidminer is fast emerging as a leader in advanced analytics as against the legacy Business Intelligence Softwares like SAS. 

Big Data and Analytics was one ofthe most hot talks over the internet in 2013 and it is likely to trending upwards in 2014 also as companies are making use of predictive and advanced analytics more and more as business environment is increasingly becoming volatile. 

Outsourcing is an important dimension in this modern era of business, which is responsible for the execution and the handling of specific operational tasks. It allows an organization to allocate its full resources to its core area of interest, instead of deploying a substantial amount of resources in order to achieve specific operational tasks. Outsourcing provides strategic flexibility to an organization, apart from enabling it with a sense of concentrated focus towards its core playing field. 

With the Cloud services in offer, Globalization as its advantage, with competitive offerings from various outsourcing vendor organizations, Outsourcing is the taste of the time we are currently living in.

It is a bulls-eye strategy from an organizational perspective. 

Follow this link for a complete view on this aspect

https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&ved=0CFAQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fast.umich.edu%2Fpdfs%2FWhat-is-shared-services-102811.pdf&ei=8ewMU4GJNYazrgfetIDICQ&usg=AFQjCNFMU-Vool8nS2YKrDuPULXGevM80w&bvm=bv.61965928,d.bmk

Vertellus Specialties Inc., a specialty chemicals company in Indianapolis, IN, is reaping quality and productivity benefits, even as part of its workforce undertakes projects after getting trained in Lean and Six Sigma in 2013. The training participants had learned to make process improvements, eliminate waste, and find better ways to execute and perform respective roles in their functional areas. They have undertaken projects on variation reduction, cycle time and yield improvements, QA/QC, product specifications development, design of experiment studies, etc. The projects aim for greater consistency, higher purity, improved environmental profile, shorter lead times, lower costs, and greater throughput. 

To further this wave of continuous improvement, Vertellus aims to have 25% of its salaried workforce trained in Lean and Six Sigma by the end of 2014.