Companies Using Technology to Drive User Experience by Capitalizing the Blue Collared Workforce

In our daily lives, we come across a lot of things which we don’t pay heed to; however, they are sometimes capable of bringing in a huge impact on our present as well as future. I gave a thought to it after personally experiencing a few services from a few companies recently.

The first example is that of the eCommerce industry. I ordered a book online. As soon as, I ordered, I received a message and was informed to track my order. I followed the instruction. My order got dispatched and then shipped. The delivery boy came home and as soon as I paid him the amount and signed on his phone, I got a message saying the item is delivered to me.

The second example I would cite is of a cab I booked. As soon as I booked a cab, I got a message with the number of the driver. Immediately the driver called me and informed me about his location at that time and the duration he would take to reach the spot I was at. He asked me for the pin I received on my phone and entered the same pin in his device before starting the journey. Then, he entered my destination in his device and proceeded without asking me the route as his phone guided him adequately.

The third example is not something I experience daily. However, I believe there are many other personnel who are into such practices. It is of a telecommunication company who sent a person to my home after I complained of weak network. The person visited my house with a particular device and recorded the bandwidth I received at my location and sent it to the concerned department.

One of the activities of the Electricity department is the fourth example I want to call out. My electricity consumption meter was not working well. I complained of the same. One person visited me to verify the non-functioning of the meter. He just took his phone and recorded a video of the meter and sent the video to the concerned person in order to report and confirm the same issue.

Now, in all these four examples, there is one aspect that is common. The delivery person, the cab driver, the telecommunication representative, and the electricity department person – all are into blue collared jobs. A few years back, it would have been hard for me to imagine all this to happen so smoothly. In all the above four examples, I personally was very pleased to receive the kind of customer satisfaction I was provided with. At the advent of technology, it looks like companies are very well training the blue collared workforce to drive customer satisfaction in a way quite effective. And from my personal experience, I can definitely say that they are on the right path.

Evolving Payment Solutions

For many centuries, Currencies which had taken over the barter system long ago remained the favorite or only option for payments for the goods and services. It is only in the twenty first century when mankind came up with the new ways of payments. From swiping a credit or debit card on a device to clicking on a computer screen to tapping on smartphone, now you have a lot many options for payments. Thanks to all the other options, you don’t have the burden of carrying cash or currency notes when you go shopping these days. On top of that if you have a payment application on your smartphone, you don’t even have to swipe any cards.

Impact on Ease of Doing Business

The ease of doing business with the evolving payment solutions must not be justified without comparing it with the uneasiness during the currency-only phase. Earlier when you didn’t have the exact required amount for an individual payment, you needed to pay extra and ask for the remaining change or ask to keep the change. This entire process was not only inconvenient, but it was also tedious and time-consuming. With the new payment solutions, at least this issue has been resolved.

When a business received cash from its customers, it had to go to banks to deposit the amount daily or on a regular basis. Digital payment solutions help businesses skip this step by directly depositing the amount from the customers’ banks to that of the businesses. In a broader sense, new payment options brought transparency in payments, leaving less or no scope for corruption or discrepancy.

Security Implications

Just like any other change, evolving payment solutions have also come with their own demands, needs, drawbacks, or concerns. Security implications and regulatory concerns are the two major factors that cannot be ignored at this premature stage.

The following examples can be cited as prominent data security threats out of many in the recent times.

• A malware had infected the network of Hitachi ATMs two years back. The hackers could access login credentials and engage in covert transactions whereas the company could do nothing more than asking its users to stop using ATMs before issuing fresh cards.
•  Recently, a group of hackers gained the private information of over six million users after breaching the security of British Mobile Company. The stolen data was used for purchasing mobile accessories and the unsuspecting users had to bear the expenses for those purchases.

The privacy risks posed by the digital payments harm consumers, businesses, and markets alike. By paying online, consumers expose their account details to a platform, making the account vulnerable enough for fraudulent practices. However, with tight data security from both the ends of the consumers and the businesses or applications, any threat can definitely be avoided.

Some payments systems may suffer from vulnerabilities if they were not prospectively designed based on the Privacy by Design principles. The centralized storage of data may be risky at the back-end whereas at the front-end, it will enable data misuse in case there are faulty capture devices. Payment systems must be designed to protect privacy; they should carry unbreachable encryption and open standards to avoid the possibility of data being transmitted.

Kiki Del Valle, Mastercard’s senior vice-president of commerce for every device, says “We are providing the consumers with the tools they need in the Internet of Things era.”  To ensure security of payments, Mastercard has unveiled a few Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for card issuers, which is expected to provide consumers with a single view of the location of their cards across all digital devices. Consumers can easily control how, when, and where their cards are used when accessing their card issuer’s mobile banking app. They can also remotely deactivate cards or set spending controls at the device level.

Regulatory Concerns

The regulatory concerns on the global digital payments are alarming as a standardized system of rules and regulations to handle, record, and secure global payments is yet to become a reality. Hence, the current practices seem to be moving like an unruly bull with every country having their own way of dealing with the issues.

Regulations for the evolving payment systems originate with a country's financial and government institutions. The banks, credit and debit card issuers also bring in self-regulation by establishing their own stringent rules for transaction security and safety. Many countries including North America and even parts of Europe have made a certificate from an authority mandatory for securing every credit and debit card transactions. However, many other countries such as China, Pakistan, and India are yet to create a regulatory framework to ensure secure online payments. The lack of a sophisticated online shopping or transaction system in these countries can be blamed for the lack of a regulatory framework.

A smart card, also known as an EMV, has been touted to be a solution to bring a higher standard to all global payments. These EMV cards use electronic cash instead of currency and contain embedded 8-bit microprocessors. It cannot be denied that these types of cards pave the path for a standardization capability for a globally regulated payments system. As a different approach, some global payment providers are rather comfortable with digital wallets while others have their faith bestowed on cryptocurrency as a solution to create a unified global payments system.

The Tree in My Neighborhood

It's about a tree in my neighborhood in my hometown, Brahmapur. The tree survived several cyclones that destroyed many parts of the city. However, after the last cyclone, it started losing its life gradually. Something was eating it up from within. It lost all its green and started turning black, lifeless.

There was a hollow at the bottom of the tree, which became shelter for some frogs. A few years back, a plant started growing in that hollow that was narrow enough to protect it from the animals. However, as the tree was dying, the hope for survival of the plant also wouldn't live for long.

Recently, when I visited the place, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. The tree was still there as lively as it was, maybe, some 20 years back. But at my first look, I neither found the plant nor the hollow at the bottom of the tree.

On further investigation, I realized that the plant grew up into a huge tree. It filled the hollow and grew up around the mother tree, holding it tight like a snake on a stick. Both the trees together seemed to be strong enough to survive many more cyclones in the future.

This wonderful anecdote has given an interesting perspective on life.

'Never hesitate to help those who are in real need. Try to provide them with whatever you can afford to offer. On the other hand, never hesitate to take shelter somewhere when you truly need it for survival. However, when you are on your own, do not forget to return the favor with your full capacity.'

Call for “Monsoon-Ready” India

Every year, in the first week of June, we the people in India wait eagerly for the Monsoon rains. Tormented by the hot sun for more than four months, we feel exhausted and look at the sky every now and then wishing the rains to fall, which would be followed by a fall in the temperature. With the approach of the rains, our dry dams, reservoirs, and lakes would be filled with water and through the pipe lines, the water will head towards the tanks in our houses. The farmers would get their crop fields irrigated. People would throng sea beaches and other spots to enjoy the rains at its first arrival. 

Presume monsoon hits India in the first week of June. So what  would our lives be in the second week of June? Some city is flooded due to excessive rains. Some farmer commits suicide because it doesn’t rain on his land on time and his crops get damaged. Some big city is struggling with the traffic issues. Some train gets delayed or derailed. Some people die due to land slide. Some child falls into a manhole. People struggle to live in their roofless houses, some walls fall down on people when they are asleep, some trees fall down on people, etc. 

India has been blessed with this geographical boon called “Monsoon”, where every year it rains for three to four months at a particular period. Still we don’t have a single year in which we don’t experience all the above mentioned debacles. Nature gives us eight months to prepare for the monsoons; however, as soon as it arrives, our lives become worse in many ways. Monsoon has become such an element in our lives that neither we can live without it nor can we deal with it effectively.

The question is if nature has planned Monsoon for us, why haven’t we managed to deal with it? Why do we still have women in many villages walk miles to get a pot of drinking water? India has always been a country of farmers, where a majority of people survive on farming or related occupations. However, still we haven’t done enough to secure the future of so many citizens. We have seen numerous deaths due to cloud bursts. Have we learnt any lessons from them? For example, are Mumbai and Uttarakhand ready to channelize the water in case of another cloud burst?

Precisely, what we need at this point of time after 68 years of independence is a “monsoon-ready” India. We must have better and more number of water reservoirs spreading across the country evenly. We must have rivers interconnected to avoid any situation of flood or drought. We must preserve the rain water, allowing it to go underneath the ground rather than into the sea. It’s not a work of a few days. It might take decades to achieve this goal. However, we can achieve this goal only when we plan and work towards it. Otherwise, even in next million years, we will continue to lose our resources to monsoon rather than gaining from it.

PK: Questions of a Neutral Mind

• If Gandhiji is still relevant in India, it is only as a photograph that too only when appeared on a currency note. For most people, his principles hold no value.
• Nobody is born with any religion. There is no sign of any religion in our body, which will approve our religion. If God had wanted us to follow any religion, He would have given that sign. 
• At times, our brain is so occupied by superstition that we don’t realize the truth. Even if we set out to fight the evil and prove it wrong, we lose our faith when the first notion of victory of the opponent strikes our mind.
• Some people believe they have been chosen to protect their Gods without realizing that they are a very minuscule element of the entire creation and the creator is not so weak to need anyone to protect Him.
• God doesn’t want us to go to faraway places to pray when we are in pain. It’s always the call of the “wrong number”.

Series of Events: Here is How History was Created...

Indian Bureaucracy to Get a Shield

Indian Bureaucracy is about to get a shield against the malicious political class it seems. On October 31, the Supreme course discouraged bureaucrats from taking oral orders from their political bosses. The apex course sought an end to frequent transfers and also suggested a fixed tenure to protect the officers from political interference.

Certainly, when implemented, the action is going to make the political class more accountable. The action would also bell the unruly cats in bureaucracy as well. After getting all the decisions and actions in black and white, they will hardly get any excuse for delaying or accelerating any process. Hence, the lightning of the verdict is going to fall on both the political class and the bureaucracy. Passing the buck is not going to work anymore.  

However, there is certainly a concern in this context. Though the court has said that the parliament must enact a law to regulate postings, transfers and disciplinary action against bureaucrats, how much exhilaration the political class will show to take action on the enactment. How reasonable will it be to expect any speedy action in this context from the same political class which wants to get out of the purview of the Right to Information to prevent itself from the noose of accountability?

The verdict came as a result of a PIL filed by 83 retired bureaucrats, including former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian.