The New Normal: How We've Adapted
Kiara Walker • November 15, 2021
As we hit the half way point of the year, it’s more than safe to say that 2020 is truly one for the books. When you take a look back at all that’s transpired since March till now, we couldn’t have imagined that this year would’ve turned out this way. In the midst of a global pandemic, we’ve become accustomed to the “new normal” of social distancing and conducting business remotely. More importantly, we’ve learned the importance of maintaining relationships and effective communication during these trying times.
As a family business, Fisher Technology has always prided ourselves on upholding the Fisher Difference. Even when transitioning to work from home, our team quickly adapted to the new realities of this pandemic to ensure that our customers and Partners receive the care and personal touch they expect and deserve.
Small Business Communication
It’s crucial to be proactive with your team to collaborate on projects and meet deadlines, especially with the implementation of work from home policies. Without question, safety is a top concern to many organizations, including our own. At Fisher, we’ve learned how to set daily agendas, maintain weekly strategy meetings, ask for guidance, and overall keep communication constant and flowing. Doing so limits errors that may arise from not being in-person together. Have a burning question or just want to share ideas? It gives you peace of mind to be able to know that you’re not alone while you work because your coworkers are only a Slack message or Zoom call away.
Support
#AloneTogether is a hashtag that’s become familiar in the last few months and serves as a reminder that even when separated physically, we can still be there for one another in other ways. Even since joining the Fisher Technology team last September, I’ve always felt supported and appreciated. But now, more than ever, and especially throughout this pandemic, I’ve gained a support system that I know I can count on. There’s a certain level of professionalism and personal touch that you just can’t get anywhere else but at Fisher. Our small team allows us to be nimble, detail-oriented, and driven toward positive results.
What's New?
So, what’s the Fisher team been up to during quarantine besides back-to-back Zoom calls and bottomless cups of coffee? In case you’ve missed it, in late April 2020, the latest version of BPA was launched, hosting a variety of new features:
- New HTML Pro Tool
- Retrieve text Message Tool
- 200+ Feature Enhancements
- New API
Our blog detailing everything new with BPA 2020 can be found here.
Look out for our next blog update on ‘How Cooking is a Business Process Too!’
It seems like everywhere you turn—from coffee shop conversations to boardroom meetings—artificial intelligence dominates the discussion. As someone who's spent years in the technology industry, I've watched this wave of Ai enthusiasm with both excitement and a healthy dose of realism. The AI Conversation Everyone's Having There's no denying that Ai has captured our collective imagination. Social media feeds are flooded with ChatGPT screenshots, businesses are scrambling to integrate AI solutions, and investors are throwing money at anything with "Ai-powered" in the pitch deck. The enthusiasm is infectious, and frankly, some of it is well-deserved. Working in technology, I've been hearing countless questions from colleagues and partners about how they can leverage Ai to transform their operations. The questions range from the practical "Can Ai help us automate our customer service?" to the almost magical "Can Ai solve all our efficiency problems?". This spectrum of expectations tells a story about where we are in the Ai adoption curve—somewhere between realistic optimism and unrealistic expectations. Ai's Real Role in Technology Here's the thing about Ai that I wish more people understood: it's incredibly powerful, but it's not omnipotent. In the technology industry, Ai serves as an amplifier of human capabilities, not a replacement for human judgment and creativity. The most successful Ai implementations I've observed across the industry have been those where Ai addresses specific, well-defined problems. For example, companies are using machine learning to optimize supply chain logistics, reducing waste and improving delivery times. Others are leveraging it to automate quality control processes, catching defects that might slip past human inspection. Many businesses are also deploying Ai-powered phone systems to handle initial customer inquiries and schedule meetings, eliminating the need for expensive answering services while freeing up employees to focus on higher-value client interactions. A Powerful Assistant, Not the Whole Team This brings me to my main point—Ai is an assistant. It’s sophisticated, intelligent, and powerful, but not a standalone solution. Too often, I see businesses approaching Ai as if it's the missing puzzle piece that will magically solve all their operational challenges. The reality is messier and more nuanced. Successful Ai implementation requires the same fundamentals as any other technology project: clear objectives, quality data, proper infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance. You need to understand your current processes before you can improve them with Ai. Most importantly, you need humans who understand both the technology and the business context to make Ai work effectively. Looking Forward Realistically As we continue to navigate this Ai revolution, I encourage business leaders to maintain a balanced perspective. Embrace the possibilities that Ai offers, but approach them with realistic expectations and solid planning. At Fisher Technology, we're excited about the future of Ai and its potential to drive innovation across industries. But we're equally committed to helping our clients understand that Ai's greatest value lies not in replacing human judgment, but in augmenting it. The conversation about Ai will undoubtedly continue to evolve, and that's a good thing. As the technology matures and our understanding deepens, we'll find even more creative and effective ways to harness its power. Just remember: Ai is a powerful tool in our technological toolkit, but like any tool, its value lies in how skillfully and thoughtfully we use it.
Automation has become essential for organizations seeking efficiency and competitive advantage. BPA (Business Process Automation) Platform provides powerful tools that streamline operations across departments, empowering employees at all levels to accomplish more with less manual effort. Warehouse Management Transformation Warehouse operations rely on precision, speed, and real-time visibility—BPA Platform delivers all three by seamlessly integrating with your existing warehouse management systems. By automating inventory tracking, order fulfillment, shipping notifications, and stock reconciliation, the platform eliminates tedious manual processes and reduces the risk of errors. Additionally, it can trigger automatic reordering when stock reaches critical thresholds, synchronize picking, packing, and shipping to cut down fulfillment time, and generate actionable performance analytics to identify bottlenecks before they disrupt operations. With BPA Platform, your warehouse team can focus on value-added tasks and exception handling, driving both efficiency and customer satisfaction. Support Ticket Resolution Acceleration BPA Platform empowers customer service teams by automating key aspects of support ticket management. Through intelligent routing based on predefined rules and content analysis, tickets are automatically assigned to the appropriate specialists, reducing response times and ensuring consistent, high-quality support. Issues are prioritized according to customizable business logic, while automated status updates keep customers informed every step of the way. The platform also integrates with knowledge bases to suggest solutions for common problems, enhancing both agent efficiency and customer satisfaction. With comprehensive performance reporting and pattern analysis, BPA Platform not only improves resolution times but also delivers the insights needed to continually refine support operations. CRM Enhancement for Deeper Relationships When integrated with CRM systems, BPA Platform empowers sales and marketing teams to build deeper, more personalized customer relationships. Automated data enrichment pulls insights from multiple touchpoints, creating comprehensive customer profiles and enabling precise segmentation. Timely alerts for follow-ups and renewals ensure sales teams never miss an opportunity, while intelligent lead scoring streamlines qualification efforts. Marketing campaigns benefit from behavior-triggered communication flows and synchronized data across departments, resulting in a unified customer view. The outcome: improved conversion rates, stronger forecasting, and more effective, personalized engagement at every stage of the customer journey. ERP Integration for Operational Excellence BPA Platform transforms fragmented ERP systems into a unified, agile ecosystem by seamlessly connecting data across departments like finance, HR, procurement, and production. By eliminating duplicate data entry and automating key workflows such as financial reconciliation, reporting, and approval routing, the platform reduces errors, improves compliance, and accelerates processes like financial close. With real-time data flowing between modules, leadership gains comprehensive visibility and actionable insights to drive smarter, faster decision-making. Transform Your Business Today with BPA Platform Don't let manual processes hold your business back any longer. Fisher Technology can help bring the full power of BPA Platform to your organization, customized to your unique processes and integration needs. Contact us today for a personalized consultation and discover how our automation solutions can drive efficiency, reduce costs, and position your business for sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
When your business uses different tools and softwares that don't communicate, critical information can get lost and workflows can break down. This blog explores how Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) solves this problem by connecting your essential business applications. We'll cover why iPaaS is the best choice to help businesses overcome common challenges, the key benefits of implementing an integration platform, and a look at BPA Platform's specific iPaaS capabilities. Keep on reading to discover how the right integration strategy can transform scattered data into a powerful, unified business resource. Why iPaaS? Data visibility across an organization is crucial for improving efficiency, seizing new opportunities, and identifying potential threats. In the past, businesses operated within a single system, but today, the vast array of available software has led different departments to adopt applications tailored to their specific needs. While these tools enhance departmental efficiency, they also contribute to data silos, where critical information is stored in separate locations. This fragmentation can disrupt sales and accounting processes, hinder collaboration, create inefficiencies, and increase the risk of data errors. Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) provides a cloud-based solution that seamlessly connects, automates, and manages applications, systems, and data across business environments. By replacing traditional middleware with a standardized approach, iPaaS delivers cost-effective integration capabilities. How does iPaaS work? iPaaS is a cloud integration platform that creates a centralized ecosystem for managing data workflows. The platform offers pre-built connectors and automation tools that seamlessly link applications, services, and databases. With iPaaS, businesses gain a unified view of their integration landscape, allowing them to control and modify data flows across their infrastructure. As organisations grow, iPaaS scales effortlessly; new systems and services can be connected without significant cost, and custom functionality can be implemented to meet evolving business needs. The Advantages of iPaaS Reduced costs: Saves costs by automating integrations, reducing manual processes, and improving operational efficiency, which minimizes IT expenses and resource allocation. Reduced resources: Reduce the amount of time and number of personnel concentrating on system integration and data migration. Improved scalability: Easily add new applications and tweak business processes as the business grows. Centralised management: Once central ecosystem to manage data, integrations, processes, and workflows. Improved decision making: With access to real-time data across an organisation, employees and management can make better decisions to help improve efficiencies. ROI: iPaaS can help businesses drive company revenue and go to market quicker. BPA Platform’s iPaaS Solution BPA Platform’s iPaaS tool capabilities include: Drag and drop integration between cloud-based and on-premises systems and applications so that system integration steps are visually represented within a wider automated process. Innovative transformation functions that can be dragged onto the mapping area to change the data between inputs and outputs. RESTful web service integration by removing the need for bespoke development. SOAP web services integration Support OData and SData services Transform Your Business Integration Strategy with iPaaS As businesses continue to navigate the complexities of digital transformation, iPaaS solutions stand out as essential tools for maintaining competitive advantage. By breaking down data silos and creating seamless connections between applications, iPaaS empowers organizations to harness the full potential of their data. The result is not just improved operational efficiency, but also enhanced agility to respond to market changes, better customer experiences through integrated data flows, and ultimately, accelerated business growth. Ready to eliminate data silos in your business? Contact Fisher Technology today to learn more about how BPA Platform's powerful iPaaS capabilities can transform your integration challenges into competitive advantages. Don't let disconnected data hold your business back!
