Ten ‘MUST-HAVE’ Apps

How time flies.. My journey with mobile phone (literally J ) began in ’97 when I was in Singapore.  That time, the popular term was cellular phone.  It was a simple Nokia phone, nevertheless I used to treat it as a prized possession! Changed few more Nokia devices before moving to Blackberry, and the BB love-affair continued for 7-8 long years before the sleek iPhone captured my attention.. finally !

In the meantime, the convergence of IT with telecom industry was happening, ICT became the buzzword. Mundane mobile phone became smart phone & then came millions of apps promising us to make smarter J

And believe me, I took quite some time (call it neophobia, which plainly means fear of learning new things J )  before venturing into the wonderland of Apps!  And considering there are still thousands of people (or could be millions) who don’t know whom to ask or who think ‘what-is-the-big-deal’, here are ten Apps which sure will change your life .. for better, ..just like I discovered!  So, here we go..

1.       Contact Snap –  Assuming you’re in the corporate world for 10+ years, you would have accumulated at least 100 business cards of various contacts. And if you’re in sales, you know how difficult it becomes to manage business card album & find out the right contact when needed. This app lets you scan the business card, it gets stored as a contact with all the necessary info right from phone numbers, email id to office address without any efforts.

2.       CamScanner  - Many a times, we have a need of scanning documents (certificates / ids / license , medical report etc). This software provided provides a much better quality scan, than compared to taking just picture of the document. It also enables you to email the scanned document & related stuff

3.       SportsTracker – So you’re worried about your new year resolution related to weighty matter or cholesterol? This app will help you in achieving that. It lets you record your walking / jogging, shows entire path in a map, maximum speed, total distance covered in walking/jogging, time taken & calories burnt. It saves each walk/run as a workout record so you can see the progress over the days.

4.       MoneyControl -  This is a good app (by CNBC, TV18) I’ve been using since long. It not only gives the stock portfolio overview, day’s gain etc. but also rich analysis of any scrip listed on BSE/NSE.

5.       Currency – This simple but useful app quickly tells you the conversion rate from Dollar or Euro  (or for that matter, any currency) to any other currency. Typically when we’re working on the proposals involving global clients, this app comes handy (or, when you want to valuate your holdings parked in foreign banks J )

6.       Google maps – You need to use it to believe it!  Going from point A to point B was never easier! My friend from US was amazed seeing me using it in Chennai! May it be Chennai or Chicago (or Chechnya), it works like a charm.  A great tool for us men who are somehow hesitant asking driving directions to strangers!

7.       Quora – You always had some question (anything under and beyond the Sun, from humanities to literature to sports to management to sciences etc. etc.) but never knew whom to ask; right? Well, google is there, but Quora does a far better job. The quality of answers is pretty good. You can save some questions/answers & can again read when you have time. Whatever your question may be, chances are someone had already asked it & someone had answered it too!

8.       Dictionary – Comes handy especially when you work in media, content prep, ad agency or when you just have the flair for writing & are looking for that good word ..! Quick test –what is insouciant :-?

9.       Saavn – For the Bollywood music buffs a great app. Has all genres from duets to sad songs to gazals to dance numbers..

10.   Zomato – If you’re one who is a heavy business traveller (or leisure traveller), this app would tell you the great eating places in the town. Lists restaurants neatly under various categories, like seaside, late night eats, Sunday brunches etc.  So you know where to pamper your taste-buds..!

And then there are the usual social media Apps (FB/WA/Instagram/Twitter) & some other hugely popular apps like YouTube & Skype which everybody is aware of, so I didn’t include them here. 

My simple criteria was, the novelty factor, does it boost productivity & is it a free app J

‘Appy Times are here to stay!  Join the bandwagon!!

Disclaimer – I don’t have any stakes in any of the organizations (owner/developer of aforementioned Apps). And how I wish ..J

Corporate Governance, Risk & Compliance

The Dotcom boom of late 90’s, also saw some major corporate scams like Worldcom, Enron & Adelphi.  Some national headlines in US media (“Data theft at nuclear plant went unnoticed for six months” – June 10 , 2006 New York Times, XYZ Manufacturer violates EU pollution laws” – July 06 2006 CIO Tech Informer “US imposes record $100 Million penalty for export control violations” – March 27, 2007 Washington Post, etc.) would accentuate the changed milieu.  This necessitated a major emphasis on data security & vigorous audits (financial / system audits).  Sarbanes-Oxley (commonly called as SOX) act came into existence.  (The sections of the bill cover responsibilities of a public corporation's board of directors, adds criminal penalties for certain misconduct, and requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to create regulations to define how public corporations are to comply with the law).  There was a growing need of more transparent corporate governance, a well-designed whistle-blower policy framework & detail audit log (of who did what & when).

IT firms took these challenges into cognisance & turned it into opportunity to come up with security solutions, seamlessly integrated with organizations’ ERP softwares.  ERP players like SAP acted upon it swiftly & integrated security solutions into SAP under a growing niche product suite called GRC (Governance, Risk & Compliance). SAP’s GRC 10.1 suite handles it through 3 sub-modules of 

Access Control, Process Control & Risk Management.

·         Access Control – It involves managing user roles, who will (& who can) do what in the systems. The principle of Segregation of Duties (SoD) needs be considered while providing access. A simple example of SoD is, never to provide the same user access of creating new vendors as well as issuing/printing cheques.  Giving too little access to user hinders work, whereas giving too much access attracts risk, so due care needs to be taken while designing access control. It also involves super user management & emergency access management.

·         Process Control – This involves checks and balances built into the business processes to avoid/minimize occurrences of fraudulent activities. There are three different types of controls need to be designed: Preventive Controls, Detective Controls & Corrective Controls. The other way to look at building a healthy internal control environment is, following below 5 steps.  1. Documentation 2. Testing 3. Remediation 4. Analysis 5. Optimization.  (The details under each will be covered in a separate article)

·         Risk Management – It helps reduce the risk of failing to comply with the regulations for financial reporting, trade regulations, factory act/s & environmental protection. At a very high level, Risk Management involves:  Identify the risks, analyse the risks, identify risk owners & coordinate responses.

Considering the growing need of ERP-agnostic solutions, many IT consulting companies (like Infor Approva, Greenlight Corp etc) came up with GRC solutions which complement the ERP software (like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics) or seamlessly integrate with it. 

If we talk of India, the Indian corporate world was shaken by Satyam scam, Reebok India & a recent case in India’s top IT firm. In India, Clause 49 came into existence from 31st Dec 2005, for the improvement of corporate governance of all listed companies. (Which entails - It would be necessary for Chief Executives and Chief Financial Officers to establish and maintain internal controls and implement remediation and risk mitigation towards deficiencies in internal controls, among others)

In short, the question ‘Do-I-need-to-implement-GRC’ is no more relevant. Instead it should be, “What are we going to implement under GRC and when?”