ReleaseWire Connect

Digital transformation is a natural, evolutionary and market process. Many breakthrough innovations have significant prospects and can radically change the economic and social aspects of society. Large companies have long understood this and have already developed transformation strategies, and leading system integrators have identified a stack of necessary technologies that can bring companies to new markets or provide competitive advantages. Typically, we are talking about big data, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things and robot automation of processes.

In December 2016, KFC and ICL Services jointly integrated the Service Desk – a single contact point for receiving, registering, and resolving all the user queries – in some restaurants in Russia. And by mid-2018, the Service Desk project moved to a new stage and began using machine learning. To automate the routine tasks of ICL Services employees working with the Service Desk, a bot was developed that automatically classifies all incidents.

ICL Services' customer — the large international pharmaceutical company. The customer needed comprehensive equipment and software service and support. Since August 2015, the ICL Services has been providing the Company with a full stack of support services for about 2,000 employees.

Information security incidents can be very damaging to business. According to 60% of directors and heads of financial departments and organizations, cyber security is one of the most serious risks (ACCA study), and the responsibility for ensuring cyber security often falls on IT specialists alone.

In 2018, the share of economic harm caused by corruption-related crimes in Russia was about 46 billion rubles, said Yuri Chaika, Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, in an interview with Kommersant. He also noted in the interview that only 8.5 billion rubles were voluntarily reimbursed by corrupt officials. The most common crimes are: providing inaccurate or incomplete information about income, expenses, property and property-related liabilities, there are many incidents involving bribery and the embezzlement of assets. Despite actively combating corruption, the scale of this phenomenon is growing, not only in Russia, but all over the world.

Continuous improvement is the basis for the success of any business. A development strategy that keeps you ahead of the curve, optimal budget planning, and partnership relations with customers are directly dependent on the innovations offered and implemented within the company. Introducing this process in all areas of the business can bring a qualitative change in a short space of time. And there are already examples of this. ICL Services, a large IT service company, even created an internal unit for Delivery Excellence, which main purpose is precisely to introduce innovative changes to the company's practice.

Each company is a kind of planet where its own laws and gravitational forces operate. Companies go to great lengths to avoid being jettisoned into open space outside the employment market. First of all, they try to do everything to provide employees with a comfortable work environment. ICL Services has been using labor best practices for 13 years, which includes introducing new processes and replacing what is no longer relevant.

In 2018, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights turned 70. But, as noted by Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, no one in the world can count on unconditional respect for their rights. Even if we leave aside the most monstrous events of recent years—armed conflicts, ethnic cleansing, repression, and restriction of freedoms—human rights have faced dozens of diverse challenges, even in relatively prosperous societies. We are in a time of growing phobias and reactionary changes after the liberal transformations of previous decades, the struggle for equality and tolerance, and open and bold statements about mass crimes against the person (#MeToo), etc. It seems that these calls concern only two parties: the person and the state as a guarantor of his rights and freedoms. Business is obliged to simply follow the laws. But is corporate ethics right to leave it at that?

Society is facing an ever-increasing number of ecological problems. Man-made fires, loss of unique natural assets, and plastic pollution are no longer a ghostly threat to the future but the sad reality of the present. To deal with these problems, it is necessary to instill eco-friendly behaviors from childhood: in the family, at schools, clubs, and institutions of higher learning. But what if adults in their 30s, 40s, and 50s don't have this education and well-constructed value system? The answer is to engage in developing ecological thinking at the workplace.

More and more celebrities and large international and Russian companies are engaged in charity, developing their own and supporting other people's social projects. Charity marathons on social media, fundraising campaigns, even recreational activities focus on helping socially disadvantaged segments of the population. It is no longer a rarity when paying for an e-ticket for a business conference or a sporting event to see an offer to support a charitable foundation or donate towards the treatment of a specific child emerge.