The face of business has changed over the last number of months. Every industry has had to adapt to operate under new guidelines and restrictions. Veri was delighted to be able to offer services to those who were making decisions about the digital future of their companies. (more…)
We are hiring!!! At the start of this unique time in history I was confident in our ability to survive. I am delighted to be expanding in order to meet additional demands on the back of Covid-19 response programmes for SMEs.
Both of these roles include significant remote-working opportunities. Our Kilkenny base is also a really great benefit and has relocation accommodation available as part of the package. Not everyone wants to go back to a lengthy commute or consider immigration. We expect this is just the start of a major expansion phase for Veri and want interested applicants to get in touch immediately.
It’s time to ensure our brightest and our best have opportunities at home.
We have signed two new contracts to bring our digitalisation tool to new Covid-19 SME response programmes, allowing for real-time quality assurance through cloud-based software. The first partnership is with international digital mentoring company, Profile Tree, for a three-year Digi-Growth Mentor Growth Programme for Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council. The second is with The Agile Executive, with which we have established the MentorsWork initiative.
To meet growing demand from the two new project wins and other work, there are immediate vacancies open for experienced PHP engineers. There is also an immediate start for a VP of engineering who will work closely with myself to develop company’s in-house technology team, product road maps and successful technical partnering with its expanding client base.
For full job descriptions please contact us at [email protected]
Anyone with a business idea has to be smart enough to admit that they might not know all the answers. The key is to reach out and engage with people who can help you along the way.
Working with the South East Business Innovation Centre helped Veri develop strategies that ended in progression for the product.
‘We would not have achieved CSF and HPSU without the strategic support and advice we got from South East BIC.’ Ann-Marie McSorley
We are proud to be featured as one of the many success stories on their website. Read the full extent of their support here.
https://www.southeastbic.ie/index.php/success-stories
On the 21st of January the 12th cycle of Going for Growth got underway in Dublin. The initiative is designed to go beyond helping women set up businesses and to actively encourage growth in their sector. The programme is the brainchild of Paula Fitzsimons. Funded by Enterprise Ireland and KPMG the programme has 83 female participants. The list of entrepreneurs is formidable, collectively producing an annual turnover of €170.6 million and employing just over 2,401 people. As CEO of the Team at Fioru Software Solutions and Veri I am really proud to have been selected as a participant.
The success of Going for Growth rests with the lead entrepreneurs who volunteer their time to mentor a group. These leaders have considerable experience when it comes to growing their business. The belief within the programme is that entrepreneurs learn best from each other not from consultants or trainers. The fantastic lead for Veri and me as CEO is Áine Denn. Áine’s insight is informed by more than 25 years’ experience in enterprise software, business development, operations and customer engagement. Áine was the co founder of Altify which was recently acquired by US technology company Upland Software (UPLD) in a deal worth nearly €76 million.
The take home after two meetings with Áine is the importance of a product development road map. Design Partnership has been our model from the get go. Without input from initial innovators like Bernie Stephenson at the Irish Red Cross, Niamh Fitzgerald from Impact training and Liz Doran at Barrow training we would not have the fit for purpose tool that we have today.
As we grow into new sectors, trying to ensure this model keeps to a customer needs focus while ensuring we are following international developments in data and training management systems, is something we are going to resource more. Recently we have had wonderful inputs from Grant Thornton’s People and Change practice. The team of specialists focus on people challenges facing organisations today and have a huge focus on digitisation and change management. We are learning all the time.
Last week saw I attended my second workshop session run by Geraldine Kelly who is a non-Executive Director at Bank of Ireland Mortgage Board. This round table strategy session uncovered many thought provoking insights. The table was a varied group of impressive women; Glenda Hahn who has a healthcare management platform, Jennifer Lawlor who helps families be organised through her beautiful products, Pamela Doyle co founder of Job Alert and Ellen Gunning director of The PR Training company. It is privilege to be in such company.
Looking forward to the inspiring days ahead with Áine, the ladies in my group and the learning!
“Reporting is stressful”
(Any Training Company Administrator)
It’s QBS time and every company that provides QQI training is stressed at the moment. They are knee deep uploading student certification data for further validation and the issuing of certificates by the state agency.
As you already know Veri is a quality assurance software that helps training providers with programme benchmarking, course delivery tracking and QA compliance. On top of that we can reduce your stress level and digitise your QBS upload too.
At the beginning of February we had a meeting at QQI office in Dublin. We discussed the Veri Quality Assurance Dashboard and Report Automation. The aim was making sure that we have a clear understanding of the process from both sides. We want to define what providers should do on the system and what QQI wants to see on their side of the QBS dashboard.
Our Customer Success Manager, Eugena was welcomed and spent some time with the QBS support team asking many questions and discussing all issues that occur with Veri customers when it comes to the data upload process:
Eugena reported a clear message from the meeting:
nobody likes paperwork and manual upload.
State Agency administrators are showing full support and welcoming the approach for those providers who upload their certification data automatically. As a team, thanks to Eugena’s feedback, we have improved our knowledge and expertise in the area of QBS upload. We are enthusiastic to be able to support our existing clients and to educate new clients on how to simplify this process.
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The world of computer science is not exactly glamorous. There are not many household names in the field. The work is mostly taken for granted and the average computer user never questions how the processes came to fruition. If you have turned on a computer the chances are you have used the copy and paste function. The man responsible for that concept is Larry Tesler and he passed away on Monday.
Mr Tesler’s specialty was in user interface design. He wanted to make computer systems easy to use and accessible to everyone. Back in 1973 he became staff at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre. It was here many of the ideas that molded today’s personal computer were conceptualised.
At the time modes were a common feature in software. Modes allowed users to switch between functions on apps and software but made tasks complicated and time consuming. His loathing of modes is legendary, so much so the licence place on his car reads ‘NOMODES’.
There he came up with Gypsy. Gypsy was one of the first document editors that used the key board and mouse. Gypsy was….. You guessed it, modeless. This meant the interface was always editable as opposed to having to use commands to edit the text.
This innovation caught the eye of Apple where he went on to work for 17 years. After leaving Apple he set up an education start-up, and worked for brief periods at Amazon and Yahoo. Bill Gate, Steve Jobs and Larry Page are all well known names and Larry Tesler never seemed to reach those heights.
What we admire about him is that he wanted to make computers accessible and easy to use. We strive to make our app Veri user friendly. Our whole ethos is about making it efficient to complete daily tasks. Many compulsory tasks specific to individual industries are time consuming and rooted in duplication and paper piles. We hope to see this come to an end. We might have to change our licence plate to ‘digitise’!
Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum said Mr Tesler “combined computer science training with a counterculture vision that computers should be for everyone”. Xerox tweeted ‘your workday is easier thanks to his revolutionary ideas.’ Mr Tesler has left a legacy that all future computer science innovations will be built upon. Ask yourself the question, how many times did you ‘copy and paste’ this week?
The IITD National Training Awards is recognised as the premier Learning & Development event for industry. This case study shows how Impact Training and Veri went on to win Best Consultancy Partnership 2019
Challenge:
Impact Training had high administration processes some of which were required for compliance with regulatory, ETB and examining boards. The aim was to ensure that quality is not compromised by tutors or support staff needing to spend time on manual administration. Listed below are a few examples of administration that doesn’t add value to training delivery.
All this information was stored ineffectively and inefficiently in paper forms, word documents, excel spreadsheets, and emails. The volume of paper meant boxes of paperwork but no management overview as without live data there was no way to re-mediate to ensure maximum success for the learners. The boxes of paper were a valuable resource that could be turned into intelligence. Statistics on learner outcomes (attendance, milestones etc.), tutor successes, course figures, were often impossible to pull together due to the time and administration involved.
Solution:
Veri offers a bespoke digital solution developed for the Irish market specifically for the Contracted Training Sector.
Objectives:
For the learners:
For Impact
Plan:
Impact required innovation to make their large team of 30 plus tutors that were on live off-site contracts simpler and more streamlined in terms of compliance and training management. The conversion of raft of documents to an app was a huge relief to staff as well as a resource and money saver for the administrator. The biggest benefit in terms of use is for the Quality Manager who had weekly reporting on all of these systems previously via paper. Now who just has to click a button.
A detailed project plan was developed which included: scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, communication, risk and stakeholders. The plan was iterative and the primary objective throughout the plan was to maintain the quality of delivery and minimise the risk to learners. As a result of the planning phase we decided on a phased implementation – we selected one course which was live on the system for four weeks before Veri was rolled out across the network. Both companies committed to an agile philosophy in relation to project implementation – in a nutshell ‘if the plan wasn’t working we changed it’.
Execution:
During the execution phase we committed to 1st level support and were immediately available with support for any queries Impact had.
We used ICT for conference calls, remote meetings but we also ensured where it would add value we would put ‘boots on the ground’. This meant Veri staff working in the Impact Offices and each tutor being trained in person by one of the Impact Senior Management team –adoption rates by Impact tutors was 100%.
Result:
The decision to move to the Veri digital platform was not a requirement for the market sector Impact is currently operating in. The decision to progress in this direction stemmed from the ethos that ‘Change before you have to – Jack Welch’. Veri allows Impact to turn large amounts of raw data into meaningful information and reports.
Change is never easy and like any project problems were encountered but the critical success factor was that project was underpinned by a partnership approach. Also Veri’s knowledge and experience of the ETB training sector meant we often understood what was required before Impact even asked.
In 2018 Cambridge Analytica became a talking point around the world, for all the wrong reasons. A former employee confirmed what had been suspected. Cambridge Analytica misappropriated data and used this information to influence voting in political campaigns.
Data mining, data brokerage, data analysis and strategic communication are all strategies that are used in every campaign worldwide. The problem in this instance was that they did not have permission to gather this data.
An app was developed where Facebook users would answer a series of questions and the results were to be used for academic purposes only. It was revealed that a gap in Facebook’s data protection then allowed the app to collect personal information on the people taking the survey. It didn’t stop there. It also allowed access to the personal information of all the people in those users Facebook social network. As a result Cambridge Analytica had accumulated data from millions of people.
So what does this mean? Basically it means that Cambridge Analytica gathered so much data on individuals that they could build a profile allowing them to create targeted advertisements to Facebook users depending on the user’s personality traits. Their aim was to influence people on who to vote for, by showing different advertisements on the same topics to different people. In conclusion, the digital data correlated could potentially win an election.
Our own general election is around the corner and don’t be too surprised to see political advertisements pop up in your newsfeed. In fact the targeted ads based on the data you knowingly provide to Facebook is a vital tool in any campaign strategy. So much so, that from March 2019 to 19th January, Fine Gael has spent over €24,000 on Facebook advertisements.
There are arguments for and against how effective these methods are, but there is no denying that carefully gathered data is a powerful tool. This highlights more than ever that a move to digitisation is essential. Could you imagine the workload of gathering information like that with a traditional paper trail? By the time the required conclusions were gathered the information would be out of date and irrelevant. No business wants to be irrelevant. Moving forward digitisation is the only way to ensure that doesn’t happen.
Yesterday at the Pendulum Summit, a hero of mine management guru Stephen Covey expressed the need for agility for change in business in the new data driven world. His analogy was that it would no longer be the big fish eating the little fish, but the fast fish eating the slow one.
Over twenty years working in training I have seen the mandatory compliance data and how people are locked into a paper process. this process makes no sense with duplication, no transparency and lack of access to vital data. And of course, no time stamps or verification.
There was also an issue for me around the tens of thousands of sheets of paper used fulfilling training compliance. A one year QQI accredited ETB training programme for 20 people could take up to 50,000 sheets of paper. If you take a contracted trainer with 19 programmes, because of the required paper trail, they could generate up to 850,000 sheets of A4 paper annually.
Over 10 years that translates to huge administration costs, paper storage but also alarmingly;
- 2,500 trees
- 56,000 gallons of oil
- 450 cubic yards of landfill space
- 595,000 KW (kilowatts) of energy
(Data Source: www.epa.gov)
So as Greta Thunburg says,
“no one is too small to make a difference”.
For the new decade we decided to partner with a fantastic Environmental Training Agency Envirico and have now got involved in supplying tools to help the Environment Right Now! Envirico as environmental partners consults nationwide and is viewed as a leader of community and field based learning. Evirico are also a Lantra Certified Training Body.
The first of our joint projects using the Veri dashboard is South Tipperary Development Association’s Water Biodiversity Programme. Experts from their 11 strong team of environmentalists will be Training in Citizen Science: Water Quality Monitoring and Community Action in Invasive Species Control.
Our role will be verifying the training. We will be digitally bench marking skills. We will simultaneously communicating with the 40 strong communities’ participants and giving them online access to their learning and progression. Really importantly, our data capture can be visualised to then embed the citizen science research and monitoring data into beautiful graphics dashboards, to tell the story that we all know needs to be heard. We are about to announce a second larger project and we are excited. Like Covey said to be ready for the Tsunami !
Verifying quality training and reducing paper while communicating digitally and collecting data in the cloud, our new partnership brings an eco- innovative approach that we can share with our clients for the New Decade. If your Corporate Social Responsibility defines reducing your Carbon Footprint or like us, as an SME your conscious just makes you want to do one small thing, give us a call today!
https://vericonnect.ie/contact/
Veri are delighted to be apart of this environmental initiative involving so many agencies.
Please contact us by emailing info(at)vericonnect.ie or ringing 087 68 748 87 if you are interested in participating.
