Facebook – Integrate Uber into Nearby Friends (and Nearby Places too)

One of the nice features to have is the “Nearby Friends” where you can be notified if any of your friends make themselves to be visible (by turning on the “Share Location” option on their Facebook mobile app ) within the same area or town that you are located at around the same time. But here is a scenario where Facebook can make it much easier for us to get connected …

Imagine you have just arrived in a new town/country for the first time….and then you found out that your buddy John is nearby. Both of you then messaged each other and agreed to meet him at a his location “X” . But for someone who is new to the country, how are you going to go about travelling to that location?? Either you need to ask around (if you know the local language) or you just keep looking for the nearest taxi or bus (which you will be spending time trying to figure out the route and bus to take). So normally, you will opt to to use Uber . In South-East Asia, Grabcar is a more popular choice – but a foreigner who is new in the country would not know this .

Here is an idea – wouldn’t it be great if there is a feature to integrate the distance and estimated cost to travel via Uber/Grabcar etc to either meet John directly or to that location “X” ?

Nearby Places

The same feature can be applied to “Nearby Places” too… you want to explore the nearest restaurants to have a nice meal…but you do not know how to get there in the most convenient way . And you also want to know the distance and cost to get there. Instead of you having to memorize the name of the restaurant (and the correct address) and then log into Uber app and key in the information correctly, why not integrate the Uber information so that you can see it there and then??

Hopefully this can be achieved in the near future. and a partnership with Uber/Grabcar etc needs to take place where both parties can benefit from this win-win situation…..

A Successful Six Sigma Project

A Successful Six Sigma Project

In my entire career so far, I have implemented some highly valued projects – infrastructure, applications, policies and procedures etc. Being a student of Six Sigma, it is highly satisfying to be able to translate what you learn into an actual working solution. You will be able to open your eyes and pick out things that need and can be improvised.

Take for example the purchasing approval process. A normal practise which involve manual , paper-based approval from the requestor to the last authorised approver would face typical delays in turnaround time and risk of documents being lost somewhere in transit.  

Six Sigma involves 5 stages called DMAIC where stands D for Define, M=Measure, A=Analyse, I=Improve and C=Control

Step 1 - Define the customers - Basically we need to find out who are the people involved in the process, from the beginning to the end. Who will initiate the purchase request, who will collect the quotes , who will approve, who will monitor and own the process etc? When something goes wrong or unnecessary delays incurred – who will be in charge to look into the issue? Normally the person who is in charge in this case would be the purchasing department and basically the customer.

Define the needs – In this case, we need to find a way to reduce the turnaround time in getting any procurement activities completed

Step 2 – Define the process - Work with the customer and do a walkthrough of the process, use a flowchart and gather the documents involved.

Define how to measure defects - Since we already know the process, we can therefore summarise the cause/s of defects and find out how to measure the key metrics of the current state. In this case the answer is TIME which can be used to define the performance of the procurement process.

Step 3 - Analyze the root cause/s of the problem – which in this case normally is the manual process and hardcopies being used in circulation from one approver to another (sometimes they are located in different locations). Several tools such as fishbone diagrams can be used, where we can further discover more areas of concern such as :

• Absence of approvers in office
• Loss of hardcopies (and therefore more time spent in recovering or restarting the process from the beginning)
• Time taken in delivery of documents within the cycle

Step 4 i.e. Improve – meaning designing and executing the steps needed to resolve the situation which is deployment of a workflow-related application aka the product.

Step 5 – How to sustain the improvement - Control and monitor the results to ensure the objectives are consistently applied . This can be easily accomplished via policy and guidance throughout the organisation about the newly implemented procedures in procurement. We need to identify the respective head of departments such as finance, IT etc in order for them to enforce this new process. Communication need to be planned and executed in order to ensure awareness and proper training (onsite and remote) need to be conducted. As far as monitoring and measuring is concerned, we can deploy, tweak and add the existing monitoring features to keep abreast of procurement cycle performance for review purposes. One of the tools that can be used is Minitab where we can use it for statistical analysis.

In summary - If these factors can be incorporated in pre-deployment or sales pitch to potential customers, greater growth in productivity can be accomplished without much hassle or questions as the measurement of metrics themselves (before and after deployment) can speak for themselves. Statistics play a huge part in measuring success of any new deployment in any organisation…

Lock Chee Hoong - Krabi

Lock Chee Hoong Profile

https://hubpages.com/relationships/CheeHoongLock

Lock Chee Hoong :

• 13 years APAC exposure including as Regional IT Manager-Asia for US multinational company and 3 years in Middle East for Qatar government projects
• Total 20 years experience in hands-on management of IT infrastructure and applications, operations and projects, policies and vendors/stakeholders liaison
• Certified in PRINCE2,ITIL, MCSE, PMP-trained, with ISO experience
• Exposed to banking, stockbroking, manufacturing and property /facilities management businesses

Lock Chee Hoong top skills

• Regional-wide IT operations and projects include collaboration with Global and Regional teams
• Strategic and operational planning
• Facilities / Property Management, Airport
• Banking and Stockbroking
• Manufacturing
• Projects Management (initiation to post-implementation support) including mergers and acquisition migration
• Infrastructure setup and support
• IT governance, Polices and procedures, Risk management, Audit operation controls
• Budgeting and resource planning
• Staff(including virtual teams), vendor, senior stakeholders management
• Six Sigma methodologies and tools
• Business process and operation improvement including digital transformation
• Computerised/Asset MaintenanceManagement System
• ISO management
• Regional SAP rollout projects
• ITIL-based shared services setup and management
• Conducting and develop trainings

Top Asian countries in IT outsourcing

All organizations are continually searching for cost vs benefits adequacy particularly as far as operational cost s concerned. That is the reason a standout amongst the most productive arrangements is to subcontract or outsourced administrations required. Be that as it may, finding the correct supplier is likewise an overwhelming undertaking. You can't be certain whether this outsourcing firm will convey high quality services or not. 

It's fortunate, there are numerous nations that give quality outsourcing arrangements at acceptable rates. What's more, as we are all aware , a large portion of these nations are from Asia. Might you want to know them? Here are the best 5 nations for outsourcing. 

India Throughout the years, India constantly provides competitive rates and quality. They have the biggest population . They have an extensive variety of IT outsourcing firms. Be that as it may, the main hindrance to their development is their capacity to communicate in English proficiently. 

Philippines The Philippines is the toughest contender of India. It likewise has an extensive pool of youthful population and they have the best relational abilities as far as communication in the English language is concerned . This nation has been known as the Contact Center Capital of the World. 80 percent of their customers originates from the US while the rest originates from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and Japan. 

China China is advancing too. They are extraordinary compared to other IT outsourcing arrangements suppliers. However - just like India, their English language capacity has a tendency to be not as much as acceptable. 

Malaysia Malaysia is best in systems integration and IT counsulting mix. Still - they have to upscale their skills to a higher level 

Thailand In light of its low expenses and potential significant yields, it is turning into an alluring outsourcing goal for agents. In any case, they have to update their creativity - bearing in mind the end goal to get long haul ventures, especially in IT-related service provisions . 

Summary All in all, to which nation do you want to locate the best outsourcing answers for your business? All things considered, you should simply comprehend what you have to outsource and conduct research at these nations.

Lock Chee Hoong - Krabi

Tiger Temple

Xiamen

Others :

• Paris
• Korea
• London and Amsterdam
• Qatar

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