Howco, a UK-based company with headquarters in Glasgow, Scotland, specializing in high-grade alloys for demanding applications, hired us for a 5-month engagement to develop a custom price calculator to support their sales representatives in creating quotes. This work was conducted from their US headquarters, based in Houston, Texas.
Client
The Croz team was fantastic to work with from the start. We knew what we wanted to achieve but did not have a path to get there on our own. Croz's development process was exactly what we needed; understand the big picture then chip away and complete the various components, piece by piece. This was not an easy undertaking as the calculator had been in development for the past 15 years. The Croz team worked hand-in-hand with Howco on a daily basis to deliver a product that not only speeds up our quoting process but allows for standardized, global way of quoting.
— Rebecca Levine, IT Implementation Lead at Howco
Case study
The client’s main complaint was an unstandardized and labor-intensive process for calculating the cost of manufacturing complex custom components which prevented sales reps from quickly and accurately creating quotes for their customers.
The business values achieved with this custom solution are process automation and standardization across different regional sales teams, integration with the company’s CRM system, and enhanced cost work-up accuracy, all ultimately contributing to valuable time savings.
A hybrid-agile discovery and development methodology was agreed upon as the best approach for the project.
The calculator’s initial business requirements were derived from a complex excel sheet created by the client’s senior sales representative, who included knowledge regarding good practices collected throughout the years. We began by defining the technical architecture and solving integration challenges with the client’s tech team; in parallel with product discovery, working in tight collaboration with the product owner to understand the client’s needs and outline the solution’s design. We aimed to deliver value for the client as quickly as possible to validate our design, get actionable feedback early, and gain the client’s trust. Development continued in 2-week iterations, delivering new value in every increment and regularly sharing our progress with the client through the weekly demonstrations.
Ultimately, the CROZ team of analysts and developers successfully implemented the custom-made calculator application that supports various functionalities, including defining the starting stock material, specification of the machining component, forging, heat treatment, mechanical and non-destructive testing.
The calculator web application is developed in React (with a Java backend), wrapped as a web component, and seamlessly embedded in and integrated with Howco’s CRM system written in Angular, serving as an essential part of the price-quoting process.
The main challenge was to understand the particularities of the client’s business domain. Our development team overcame this challenge by taking a deep dive into the specifics to ensure the delivery of a highly customized solution that adheres to industry standards.
We are also proud to say that, although the time difference between the Howco team and CROZ is significant, with only two working hours overlapping, we managed to work together as seamlessly as we would with someone from our neighborhood.
Technologies we used
There’s no doubt that we’re deep into the cloud era. In this story, I will try to summarize what problems are Clients addressing and what kind of value are they getting from using Cloud technologies. Of course, if you are an enterprise Client and have complex environments, your journey to the Cloud will not be simple and it requires a lot of planning, experimenting, and a skillful team of experts.
Clients and challenges
There are many books, articles, and other resources where we could just take the main benefits of moving to the Cloud, but we will concentrate on a couple of them that we encountered on our projects.
Two of our Clients are Fintech companies providing specialized IT solutions for financial institutions. From core banking to wealth management systems, they’ve been around for 20 years and traditionally they were using on-premises-based solutions. For each new Client, the onboarding process included setting up new HW/SW infrastructure, separate servers, VMs, network and security, Databases, authentication, logging, and auditing… It was, of course, automated to some degree but still, it was slow and costly. Additionally, they were not able to optimize nor plan the infrastructure costs. Therefore, it was hard for them to calculate how much they should charge to each Client.
So to summarize, the main challenges were:
Speeding up the on-boarding of new Clients
Being able to customize the solution for every Client without affecting other instances
Optimizing costs
Segmentation of costs per Client
Solution
To address those challenges, our Clients decided to move their workload to AWS Cloud. The main goals of the project were:
Setting up new environments/solution instances in a matter of hours vs. days/weeks – increased time to market
Customizing each dedicated solution without affecting other instances (Customers) – increased customer satisfaction
Easier maintenance – decreased OPEX
Control and manage infrastructure costs per each Customer – cost control
How did CROZ help:
CROZ was hired to help the Client with various aspects of moving into AWS Cloud as listed below:
Automating AWS environment provisioning
Using Terraform scripting, new environments are now provisioned with needed components which include:
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with different access zones
Network security with ACLs and security groups
Identity management and security policies
High availability across different zones
Load balancers
Application and network firewalls
AWS S3 storage
Elastic Container Services to run containerized applications
Serverless Database Engine with PostgreSQL (Aurora)
Backup
Monitoring and Alerting (CloudWatch, CloudTrail, AWS Macie, AWS Config, Kinesis data stream for detailed logging to S3 bucks for WAF, SNS)
API Gateway
Lambda functions (Serverless architecture)
Continuous Integration pipelines to support DevOps practice. Pipelines are built on top of the Azure DevOps service. Pipeline capabilities include:
Building new components in case of code commits
Provisioning new environments
GitOps – applying new changes as changes in Terraform scripts are introduced
Component versioning and release management
Advising the Client on how to improve existing applications to maximize Cloud benefits and deployment automation
Different scenarios
Working with our enterprise clients for many years and being in a position to observe and tackle many different challenges across industries we identified a couple of the most common scenarios
1. Migrate AS IS (lift and shift)
We are using the underlying AWS infrastructure and migrating existing applications (AS IS) from on-prem to cloud infrastructure. That means that we are utilizing cloud infrastructure (networking, VMs, security mechanisms, logging and auditing, monitoring…) and deploying applications on top.
2. Migrate and modify applications to use AWS Services
The approach is very similar to the first one, but also includes modification of applications to be able to use some of the AWS services like (S3 storage, API management, managed databases, etc.)
3. Greenfield projects
This one is obvious. You’re building a completely new application based on Cloud Native architecture and you want to use as many Cloud services as possible.
To conclude
There are many specific business cases and scenarios for utilizing the possibilities of the Cloud. Done right – it brings lots of benefits in most aspects of your business. Done wrong it can bring a lot of headaches… And additional expenses.
To make sure you do it right – feel free to contact us for help or advice.
CROZ team has been engaged by one of the world-leading providers of transport solutions as well as a provider of industrial and marine engines. We are one of the partners participating in the implementation of the custom developer-oriented, enterprise-grade platform based on the Azure ARO PaaS offering.
Challenge
The main challenge was to build a standardized and fully managed self-service container platform on top of the Azure Red Hat OpenShift PaaS solution and services offered by the client. The major purpose of this service is to provide a self-service container platform for developer teams, that is both highly available, as well as standardized and managed externally. Additionally, it provides benefits such as CI/CD automation, acceleration of application delivery times, disaster recovery and backup, data persistence and zero application downtime during maintenance of the platform. The ARO platform targets customers ready to benefit from the enterprise-grade Azure services integrated – a containerized application platform that includes unified signup, service management and technical support.
Solution
ARO, standing for “Azure Red Hat OpenShift”, is an enterprise-grade, open-source platform that permits running container-based solutions. This service includes unified signup, service management and technical support. It offers fully managed clusters and provides integration with Azure services.
Microsoft Azure Red Hat OpenShift is a management service with two subdivisions: the full service of the platform and the facilities to develop and run applications on it. The installation and management of ARO as a platform is developed by Microsoft and Red Hat through joint automation. This allowed the customer to focus solely on running and developing its’ applications without having to worry about maintaining the platform or hardware.
The benefits of Azure Red Hat OpenShift include:
the speed of implementation
flexibility and scalability in the solution
the simplicity of the tool
In addition to the benefits provided by the MS ARO platform, HCL and CROZ experts implemented a number of solutions to identified customer-use cases, building on top of the ARO-managed platform. This allowed the customer to take advantage of a complete service, including all required components and operations to host applications. The CROZ team worked on these and other use cases with the customers’ experts participating in daily operational and supporting tasks on the project.
Technological requirements
From the technological requirements perspective, the base ARO platform had to be “enriched” by installing additional verified platform OCP operators, both the official RH certified ones and 3rd party ones. CROZ experts provisioned and configured pre-prod and prod ARO OCP clusters, which included tasks of configuring alerting, OAuth integration, project self-provisioning and templates, general cluster settings, etc. With a project of this size and complexity, cluster logging and observability through alerting are absolutely vital. Therefore, an application and infra logging solution based on the Openshift Logging operator was implemented. Among other use cases identified, there was a need for configurable Openshift builds, which was successfully provided through the configuration of Openshift S2I Docker build with pre-approved RHEL software repositories for developers to choose from. To keep cluster resources uncluttered, we also configured and deployed cluster-wide images/builds/deployments stale-resource pruner cron jobs. Like in any production setting, disaster recovery is a must and has been taken care of by the implementation of the general backup/restore solution based on the Velero tool.
On top of the aforementioned tasks, CROZ consultants also performed standard OCP post-installation configuration tasks, and security hardening practices on both ARO clusters, as well as identified and solved numerous issues with the intended use-case configuration of the deployed operators and other software components.
Overall, the project was very complex and required good coordination and cooperation between all the parties involved. CROZ experts provided specialized Openshift consultancy, education and support, and were instrumental in seeing the project reach its’ go-live phase.
Technologies we used
A list of conferences we’ll participate in, as well as lectures and seminars we’ll hold in 2021, will be updated during the year.
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Who Is An Influencer?
Influencer. Everywhere you look or scroll, you seem to bump on that word. Am I right? (I think that’s a YES). Who is an influencer? What is influencer marketing? How can your business benefit from it? All of that will be discussed in this blog post. Stay tuned.
An influencer is someone who has the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience. Let’s narrow it down a little more. Influencers in social media are people who have built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic (parenting, fitness, food, travel, beauty, etc.). They make regular posts about that topic and generate large followings of enthusiastic, engaged people who pay close attention to their views.
It is important to state that they are not just a marketing tool you use to achieve your business goals but a social relationship asset. So, why are they so popular, and why are more and more businesses using them? Well, first of all, 4.20 billion people are using social media according to We are social. These people inevitably look up to influencers to guide them with their decision-making. Second, if you choose the right influencer, you get access to your target audience for a lot less money than TV, print, or radio, and your product/offer can be shown much more authentically and detailed. One more thing is, followers, especially millennials, trust online reviews as much as family and friends, and 50% of consumers will take some kind of action.
Influencer Marketing
As a hybrid of content marketing and native advertising, influencer marketing is an established trend in marketing that identifies and targets individuals with influence over potential buyers. It works because it uses tactics like word-of-mouth marketing and social proof, which are now critical aspects of a successful marketing strategy. We have covered the basics now, and your next question probably is – How do I get started with influencer marketing? Before we set up 5 main steps, you need to decide will you reach out to influencers personally or through an agency.
On the surface, it may seem reasonable to reach out to influencers personally with the presumed lower cost and easy reach. However, with a vast amount of influencers, each focusing on specific topics of interest, performing influencer marketing and liaising can be a real challenge. To execute an effective influencer marketing campaign, one should be sure to read up on the various aspect of influencer marketing from articles, ebooks and, at the end of the day, already have some experience (and mistakes made!). Alternatively, a marketing agency would be of great help in terms of identifying the right influencer for your marketing campaign, negotiating prices, and measuring results.
5 Main Steps:
define your goals – are you trying to increase brand awareness or drive engagement? Are you building loyalty with your current audience?
identify and define your audience – depending on your organization’s target personas or ideal buyer; you should group consumers by demographics, psychographics, buyer lifecycle stage, or preferred channel
choose a type of campaign – guest posting, sponsored content, re-targeting, co-creation, competitions, mentions on social, discount codes, and more are terrific examples of influencer marketing campaigns
find your brand influencers – when researching influencers, you can search through relevant hashtags, see Instagram’s suggested users based on profiles you follow or check out influencers your competitors are using to get ideas on where to look
track – track the traffic, engagement, conversions, or the other metrics of success you decided when you determined your marketing goals
Influencer marketing is an investment. To get it right, you have to devote time to ensure you find the right influencer to promote content that appeals to your target audience. You also have to spend money and/or resources to reward the influencer, run various campaigns with the influencer, and more, depending on your specific marketing goals. Luckily, many statistics prove influencer marketing is a worthwhile time and monetary investment and show you which metrics are impacted by influencer marketing.
80% of marketers say influencer marketing is effective, and 89% say it works just as well (if not better) than other marketing channels
71% of marketers say the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other sources
Google searches for “influencer marketing” grew 1500% in the last three years
48% of marketers working with influencers say audience relationship is the most valuable factor when considering which influencer to collaborate with
the top three goals of influencer marketing for businesses include increasing brand awareness (85%), reaching new audiences (71%), and generating sales and conversions (64%)
68% of brands use Instagram for influencer marketing
86% of the most-viewed beauty videos on YouTube were made by influencers, compared to 14% by beauty brands, themselves
In 2020, 80% of brands reported an increase in content output over the past two years
Last but not least, let’s mention how much is Instagram marketing actually worth. According to Influencer marketing Hub, influencer marketing is expected to grow to be worth 13.8 billion dollars in 2021, which is a huge growth if you consider that in 2016, it was “only” worth 1.7 billion dollars. Pretty impressive, right?
Types Of Influencers – Why And When To Work With Them
We established how and why to use influencer marketing, but what’s the difference between types of influencers? Which influencer is best for your marketing campaign? How do you find the right influencers? Hold tight, because this is the part where I’ll answer those questions.
You can separate different types of influencers in multiple ways. Some of the most common methods are follower numbers, types of content, and level of influence. I will concentrate on types of influencers by follower numbers:
Nano influencers (1K-10K followers)
Micro-influencers (10k-100K followers)
Macro influencers (100K-1M followers)
Mega or celebrity influencers (1M+ followers)
Nano Influencers
Nano influencers have from 1K–10K followers on their social media channels. They typically have a very engaged social media following and great engagement rates. Nano influencers are typically very vocal advocates of the brands and products they love. Their followers appreciate their authentic recommendations and commentary. They have a very close relationship with their followers and take the time to engage with their followers to cultivate those relationships.
When to use Nano influencers? If you’re a small to mid-size business with a limited marketing budget, nano influencers are a cost-effective option for getting started with influencer marketing. Nano influencers are also a great option if you want to test a product launch or test your products and services with a new niche.
Example of nano influencer:
Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers create relevant content for their audience and communicate with them via social media platforms, blogs, websites, and other forums. Due to the size of their following and the type of content they create, they typically have high engagement rates and a targeted audience.
Having a smaller audience allows micro-influencers to bond with the people who follow them more regularly via their channel. This makes them appealing to work with businesses looking to develop personal relationships among their target audience.
Micro-influencers are real people, so their Instagram content is real, too. Instagram users with a few thousand followers likely post their own content, reply to comments, and behave more authentically than a brand or a celebrity with a social media manager might. If a micro-influencer engages with a promotional post on Instagram, their followers might be more inclined to click to learn more about the brand they’re posting about.
When to use Micro-influencers? When you’re ready to start generating more focused leads, micro-influencers can help you with that. While they tend to have the same close relationship with their followers as that enjoyed by nano influencers, micro-influencers are more specialized so their audience is primed to hear marketing messages within that niche.
Example of Micro-influencer:
Macro Influencers
Macro influencers have between 100K–1M followers and tend toward a broader appeal than micro-influencers. They are typically internet-made celebrities and might be social media stars, bloggers, vloggers, or podcasters. Macro influencers not only have a large audience but they’ve likely developed that audience over months or years of nurturing relationships while growing followers. Because of their larger follower numbers, they will probably have a relatively low engagement rate. Macro-influencers generally have a high profile and can be excellent at raising awareness.
There are more macro-influencers than mega-influencers, so it should be easier for a brand to find a macro-influencer willing to work with them. They are also more likely to be used to working with brands than micro-influencers, making communication easier.
When to use Macro influencers? Macro influencers are great for bringing awareness to your brand, products, and services. You can use this relationship to increase your own engagement rates and boost your brand’s reach. Since macro-influencers have a healthy number of followers, they can help you reach a larger audience and increase your brand’s reputation.
Example of Macro influencer:
Mega Influencers
Mega influencers are the people with a vast number of followers on their social networks. Although there are no fixed rules on the boundaries between the different types of followers, a common view is that mega-influencers have more than 1 million followers on at least one social platform. Many mega-influencers are celebrities who have gained their fame offline – movie stars, sportspeople, musicians, and even reality television stars. Some mega-influencers have gained their vast followings through their online and social activities.
Only major brands should approach mega-influencers for influencer marketing, however. Their services will be costly, and they will most likely be extremely fussy about with whom they choose to partner. In virtually every case, mega-influencers will have agents working on their behalf to make any marketing deals. Also, it’s important to understand that the audiences attracted by mega influencers will be vast.
When to work with Mega influencers? If you’re working on a brand awareness campaign and have a large budget, mega influencers can get your products in front of as many eyes as possible which is great if your brand has appeal across segments.
Example of Mega influencer:
Now that we’ve established types of influencers by the number of followers, I would like to touch on another viral subject among influencers and celebrities – brand ambassadors. A brand ambassador is hired by a business to work under contract to help them achieve specific goals: increase brand awareness and boost conversions and sales. A brand ambassador’s contract is typically long-term (several months or even years). During that time, they represent the brand and the lifestyle associated with it and have deep knowledge about the business’s products or services. Therefore, they don’t necessarily need to be an influencer before becoming an ambassador.
Example of brand ambassador:
Everlasting Question – Payment Or Compensation?
Yes, this is an everlasting question when working with influencers. Do you think compensation still works? Would you get a campaign out of a free product? The answer varies depending on your brand, the value you bring to the table, influencer marketing goals, and negotiation skills.
But, let’s not fool ourselves – paid promotion will always be more acceptable than a product for the post. And the odds of an influencer promoting your product for free, only decline as their follower count increases. Why is that? Because high-quality content and access to an influencer’s large, dedicated audience come at a price. For many influencers, creating content is their full-time job. Also, they’ve worked for years, perfecting their craft and building a following. As a result, most expect to be paid for their services. BUT, unpaid collaboration is still possible.
Brands That Are Able To Run Free Product Only Campaigns Have One Or More Of The Following:
a valuable product like luxury fashion, travel, electronics, etc. Why? Because in most cases, influencers are getting a product worth more than they would charge for a sponsored post.
existing relationship with influencers. An ongoing relationship that has the potential to turn into a formal affiliation can make your campaign more appealing to influencers.
a popular or viral product. Even if your products may not come at a high price, influencers are interested in working with brands that are on trend because their audience has a genuine interest in getting their review.
a household brand name. If your brand is something influencers can be proud to put on their portfolio, you may be a great candidate to run an unpaid campaign. Or, if your brand has a large social following, you can definitely leverage the extra exposure you’ll be giving influencers by trading the promise to repurpose and tag their content on your social media in exchange for promotion.
nonprofits – appealing to the emotional side of influencers can get you a long way. Many influencers are willing to spread awareness about nonprofits and organizations that give back if they believe in your cause.
To Sum It Up
Influencers are a great asset to your business if you set a realistic goal and choose the ones that are right for your brand. If you have an electronic brand, you won’t approach somebody who is all about fashion. If you think you can benefit from influencer marketing, there are two ways of approaching it. You can do it personally or via a marketing agency. Remember, marketing agencies have the know-how, experience and a way of negotiating better prices.
Regarding types of influencers, there are nano influencers, micro-influencers, macro-influencers and mega influencers. Which one you will choose depends on what you want to achieve and how big is your budget. Keep in mind – bigger following doesn’t mean bigger engagement or authenticity, quite the opposite.
Have respect for influencer’s work, because for most of them it’s their full-time job. They need to think of the content, concept, make the review/video/photo, which takes time. Product for post kind of campaign is possible – if the value of your products is bigger than an influencer would charge if you are a brand with a viral product that an influencer must-have if you have an existing, long-term relationship with the influencers, if you are a household brand name, and if you are a nonprofit.
In the end, track your results, keep an open conversation with the influencer and give them enough space to do their job. They know their audience best!
It is challenging to define Generation Z, the Internet Generation, but most agree that with a spending power of more than 100 billion dollars they are more influential than the Millennial generation. In order to reach Gen Z, how should digital designers improve their skills?
The digital design industry is working with brands that need to appeal to the two billion Gen Z-ers globally—a generation of digital natives who could swipe before they learned to walk. Digital design that once worked for Millennials, is now outdated for Gen Z-ers. The new generation is demanding something different. Developing brand messages, designs, and online experiences that engage these savvy kids and teens requires deep thinking and insight.
Here are some key take-outs for designing for Gen Z:
Psychology Of Gen Z
Gen Z-ers, like Millennials, are technically proficient, but since they have been absorbed in it since birth, they are less fascinated by it as an unusual. They view tech as a crucial component, but they are careful in how they utilize it. Equally important, they are extremely skilled at filtering out online content or obstacles that keep them from getting to what they really want.
An important characteristic of them is their strong sense of self. The answers to almost any question are in the palm of their hands since they were born, so they don’t have to rely on others to achieve what they want. Gen Z-ers are independent and innovative – they achieve change through digital spaces and are fuelled by their experiences.
Photo: Courtesy of Kristyna Kulikova / @krstnklkv
Unexpected Combinations
Gen Z-ers receive almost all information through digital media. No wonder there is a craving for tactile, analogous among that generation. Creatives among that generation mimic the feel of analog media with the help of digital tools. Digital images are “wrapped” in plastic foil, putting the effect of grain film, analog photography, crumpled and torn paper. All this indicates a longing for the tangible and the real.
Flexibility And Fluidity
Generation Z likes to break down barriers, unlike other generations, there are almost no subcultures among Gen Z-ers. Uniqueness is no longer achievable by joining certain groups—but by fluidity in one’s identity. They are open and diverse they feel they do not have one clearly defined role in life.
In design, everything is a matter of consistency and control. Generation Z changes the linear way of thinking. Brands will have to become flexible, visual identities modular, elements changeable. The brand refresh that will follow Gen Z trends will be unsustainable—we will have to switch to a Circular design.
Photo: Courtesy of Universal Favourite design studio
Method Of Communication
Generation Z members are hypo-linked and overstimulated. Language that is individual and intimate is the only way you can break through a crowded digital environment. Communication that tries to sound smart and invasive is repulsive to them, it should be in its most filtered form, ie honest.
Tempo
The first generation born in the digital age, to which information is available 24/7 whose view is constantly flying from one screen to another. Their range of attention is the shortest so far. The result is that they decide faster than their predecessors if something is important and are not prone to brands that cannot keep up with their pace.
The best approach to designing is to use their language—quickly and unpredictably. Fast-changing images, short videos, a visible point, vibrant color combinations. Traditional design elements and symbols are one big NO.
A list of conferences we’ll participate in, as well as lectures and seminars we’ll hold in 2021, will be updated during the year. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive fresh information about our activities and lecture announcements. 27.1. Online Onsite SEO In-house seminar (NDA) 10.02. Online Digital apartments Public seminar 22.02. Online Digital analytics In-house […]
Who Is An Influencer? Influencer. Everywhere you look or scroll, you seem to bump on that word. Am I right? (I think that’s a YES). Who is an influencer? What is influencer marketing? How can your business benefit from it? All of that will be discussed in this blog post. Stay tuned. An influencer is […]
It is challenging to define Generation Z, the Internet Generation, but most agree that with a spending power of more than 100 billion dollars they are more influential than the Millennial generation. In order to reach Gen Z, how should digital designers improve their skills? The digital design industry is working with brands that need […]