The first place most organizations will go for answers to the remote work dilemma is into the arms of technology vendors. They will make the assumption that a new tool, or the enhancement of a current one will be the key to maintaining a productive workforce despite the continued existence of physical distance. After all, Zoom (arguably the most infamous beneficiary of the pandemic) went from 10 million daily users in December 2019 to more than 300 million in April 2020. In reality, there are sequential steps to take well before any new technology is introduced to the equation.

The culture question

The first step is more introspective, as organizations would benefit from a candid evaluation of their culture that may or may not be a strong foundation for a remote work environment. A dispersed workforce presents unique challenges that will quickly test the foundation of trust between employee and employer. Ryan Malone, founder of digital marketing agency SmartBugMedia finds this counterintuitive. "You've invested all of this time in vetting them," says Malone. "Why would you now say I don't trust you, because I'm not staring at you?” Would your organization be able to quickly adapt to this new degree of independence and autonomy, or would there be a temptation to revert to surveillance tactics to validate effort?

Fortunately, evaluations of the planning landscape reveal many organizations are adopting technologies that move towards a de-siloed, network-based approach to planning. For these companies, the primary goal centers around connecting planning capabilities to “a single version of the truth.” To optimize planning capabilities, it crucial to achieve this connection at the enterprise level as well as into the broader supply network.

But to do this involves using integrated business planning (IBP) or sales and operations planning (S&OP) to collaborate and analyze, perform demand planning to improve forecasting, optimize supply planning, and facilitate synchronization. Each of these areas are critical to a successful planning process and are more powerful when integrated and connected across a network.

I recently posted on LinkedIn to ask my colleagues for advice on how to manage my exploding workload. According to the latest Mental Health Index: U.S. Worker Edition from Total Brain, between November and December there was a 48% increase in the risk of depression—a risk level not seen since this past spring. Further, employees’ focus dropped 62%—a record low since the inception of the research in February 2020. While remote working has its benefits, most of us would argue that we need to make some significant changes for this style of working to be sustainable. Below are a few of the suggestions and ideas from professionals that commented on the post.

Do you have the data needed to determine cash investments, secure borrowing, and make better hedging decisions?

Today, financial services organizations are more focused on what’s necessary to safeguard business continuity and solvency. Much of this begins with greater visibility and reliability of key data to help drive your critical business decisions, especially during critical market changes.

Our current blog series is reviewing cash and treasury best practices you can follow to prepare for instant payments and build true cash visibility. The previous post discussed effective cash positioning and this week we focus on enhancing cash and liquidity forecasting.

Consideration #3: Enhance cash and liquidity forecasting

Treasurers don’t typically have access to a company’s full cash picture. Though efficient business operations require working with multiple financial services organizations across different markets, complex banking structures and sprawling geographical footprints make it difficult to achieve complete visibility into current balances and to measure the accuracy of cash forecasting.

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Cash and treasury: Prepare for instant payments and build true cash visibility

Your Tips & Trips delivered today by our very own Mr. M3, Sean Conner. In just under 3 minutes, he demonstrates configuring a drill back.

Click Here to watch how you can monitor late purchase order lines from your homepage.

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Your Tips & Trips delivered today by our very own Mr. M3, Sean Conner. In just 2:23, he shows you the Power of Ctrl+D. It's Slick. Super. and Easy.

Click Here to watch how Ctrl+D is a great function if you want to manipulate which panels you want to go to in a single session.

About Infor's market-leading ERP

In just 6 minutes, Sean Conner (our very own Mr. M3) will provide an overview on widget configuration and explain how Infor OS monitors work.

And as a bonus, he’ll also show you how to share your homepages with your friends.

Welcome to OS Monitors 101!!!

Click Here to watch ... 

About Infor's market-leading ERP

When you enable Enterprise Search you'll search faster and easier.

In today’s Infor CloudSuite M3 video tip, Sean Conner will show you how, in just two minutes, to configure enterprise search and save you hours of work down the road.

Enterprise search is a time saver because it searches EVERYTHING and ALL AT ONCE!

Click Here to watch ... 

About Infor's market-leading ERP

Welcome to the next video in our "Do You Know Infor CloudSuite M3" series.  It's about how to set up and use your Infor CloudSuite M3 - Customer Service Homepage. Today Sean Conner, Mr. M3 will show you how to customize your home page and tap into all the analytics you will ever need.

He'll show you how to get a snapshot of what’s going on and access rich minefields of information. This information will also give you great business insights with no guessing and help in your decision-making capabilities.

Click Here to watch ... 

About Infor's market-leading ERP

What is Sean going to do today in his latest "Do You Know Infor CloudSuite M3"?  Something pretty exciting. Something you won't want to miss. He's going to configure a monitor to drill back into late order lines.

There are two videos out there that will help you do this – and he will share those with you during today’s Infor M3 – Drill Back into Late Order Lines.

Click Here to watch ... Then, if you want him to configure a monitor specifically for you … leave us a comment below.

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