How to prepare for the 2020 holiday shopping season?

With the 2020 holiday shopping season shaping up to be like no other, here's how you can prepare your business.

• Due to coronavirus restrictions and a possible second lockdown, many stores will limit in-person shopping.

• Businesses should prepare for large volumes of online shoppers and seek to provide a personalized experience.

• To prepare, businesses should boost their websites are performing well and get the word out about shopping deals early.

• This article is for small business owners who want tips for how to best prepare for the 2020 holiday shopping season.

There's no doubt that the 2020 holiday shopping season will be unusual, with the COVID-19 pandemic still affecting how retailers do business and changing how customers shop. With in-store shopping capacities significantly reduced across much of the United States and consumers limiting their exposure to crowds because of the pandemic, huge in-person shopping events typically associated with Black Friday are unlikely to happen this year. As such, businesses big and small are shifting their focus to online sales, with many deals starting early to entice more shoppers.

The impact of many more people online this year has the potential for a major increase in online profits for your business. Let Charter Global help you determine what your app needs to capitalize on this holiday shopping opportunity?

Demand for IT Talent is high, in spite of mass layoffs

The Covid-19 pandemic can be ironically described as a tale of two cites: mass layoffs occurring in certain industries while there is a spike in demand for IT services and support talent. Businesses across a broad range of industries have been drastically affected by COVID-19. Many employees are out of work due to quarantine and social distancing requirements or their business models require in-office presence. Simultaneously, many employees have to adapt to a work-from-home model. Companies are relying on collaboration and cloud computing technologies so employees can perform work duties and communicate with managers, colleagues, and customers.

According to Industry Analysts, tech companies are recruiting for thousands of tech positions, including software engineers, Java developers, project managers, systems engineers, and IT help desk specialists. The Wall Street Journal says major tech companies are reaching out to colleges and business schools new seeking candidates for their executive programs.

IT jobs in high demand

Front-end developer

A front-end developer is mainly responsible for the design and implementation of the front-end requirements, performs code review, and advises for optimization. This position requires strong expertise in web technological innovation and rich internet application development, as well as an in-depth understanding of user experience, interaction processes, and user needs.

UI designer

UI designers have a deep understanding of the user experience and make the interface as user-friendly and convenient as possible. UI designers usually work with a team to collect consumer feedback and implement creative plans to optimize the users’ experience. The designer first makes the prototype of the interface and presents designs to the team. They gather feedback, make modifications, and generate various interface elements including wireframes, storyboards, user flows, process flows, and so on.

Tester

A tester’s responsibilities include designing test cases, preparing test data, and performing tests. Test practitioners need knowledge of testing and the ability to quickly deploy applications and build test environments.

The global pandemic has created an entirely new world. Business leaders will rely heavily on digital transformation to navigate through this pandemic, requiring an increase in the demand for IT talent.

At Charter Global, our goal is to provide you with insights into what is happening in the IT industry. Give us a call or email us if you are looking for your next opportunity or are looking for an IT consultant to be a part of your team.

Digital Transformation: Four ways to prepare for post COVID-19 pandemic

During this period of uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, companies may find themselves at a crossroads. Many industry experts had predicted that 2020 will be a year of major digital transformation initiatives across industries. The question is do companies move forward with digital transformation initiatives or put them on hold?

Some experts suggest that companies continue with their digital transformation programs. Many explanations are offered, but one resonates as a strategy to not only survive the pandemic but thrive on the other side of it. If a company accelerates its business digital transformation projects now, the company will be in a better position after the pandemic ends.

Here are four ways companies and organizations can take now to prepare for the post-pandemic world.

1. Increase IT spending 

 

This suggestion may seem radical in light of current events, but it can translate to a positive outcome. According to KPBG research, 80 percent of revenue growth hinges on digital offerings and operations by 2022, IT leaders should continue transforming their operating models.

Experts believe that companies that continue to invest in their digital strategies will maintain business continuity and resiliency that will provide a platform to emerge from this pandemic more competitive. Research suggests that using solid models that incorporate the best people, processes, and technologies can help companies recover faster. Moving forward with digital transformation initiatives covers a broad spectrum in areas such as e-commerce, AI, machine learning, mobile, and public cloud adoption.

2. Strive to retain and hire IT staff

 

The skills gap was a challenge for enterprise IT departments before the pandemic. That gap will continue during and after the pandemic. Filling in those skills gaps should escalate as a high priority during the pandemic, and most likely will continue after the pandemic.

IT leaders understand the importance and value of having strong IT teams. Through years of experience, IT leaders also know that it is difficult and time-consuming to build highly-skilled and experienced IT teams. But to survive the pandemic, companies will need a knowledgeable, powerful, and resourceful IT team.

 

3. Create a plan to support work-from-home as the new normal 

 

There is no question that work-from-home has become the solution of choice so that companies can continue to operate. Shifting to work-from-home was relatively simple for companies who offered to telecommute and had already adopted a work-from-home model. For many companies, this was a new way to work and required adjustments to the IT communications infrastructure. It also required psychological adjustments for employees who never worked from home as well as remote workers.

Remote access and videoconferencing significantly increased overnight. Companies must determine if these systems are adequately provisioned or secured for long term work-from-home functionalities. Also, companies may need to plan for the distribution of mobile hotspots and other alternative ways to get home workers online.

Some other factors to consider include providing ongoing online training for remote workers. Also, IT employees may need training related to new IT infrastructure, hardware, and software applications.

4. Provide a centralized source of communication

 

The need for central communication is greater than ever during this COVID-19 pandemic. Company leaders should provide information to employees clearly, transparently, and in as timely a manner as possible. Announce decisions, and detail how these decisions were arrived at and why.

Communication is the most important element of leadership. During and after the crisis, a return to successful operations will require leadership.

After the pandemic, a company’s success and growth will depend, in many ways, on what leaders do during the pandemic. Leaders should think long-term and guide their organizations through the pandemic and into a successful future.

When the pandemic ends, there will be a new digital normal. The digital strategies that are implemented during this pandemic will help companies navigate with digital transformation.

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COBOL Makes a Comeback

Imagine working on a technology that runs on an old mainframe computer. Imagine using a 60-year-old programming language, COBOL which stands for Common Business Oriented Language. This computer programming language was developed back in 1959, according to the National Museum of American History. Imagine in 2020 using a programming language that was used to create a very significant percentage of business systems during the1960s, the 1970s, and even into the 1980s.

This is not a movie scene flashing back to an era dominated by mainframes, printers with perforated computer paper, and vintage computer monitors with an occasional IBM electric typewriter. It is the reality facing programmers and state unemployment employees who are implementing The CARES Act which was signed into federal law on March 27, 2020, and will expand unemployment Insurance benefits. It is designed to provide financial relief for workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Implementation of this unemployment program will be performed by individual states.

Challenges facing state unemployment offices

States are incorporating new changes based on The CARES Act into their resource guides. Detailed and instructional information about the pandemic unemployment benefit extensions is still in the process of being released. States must follow guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor to implement The CARES Act.

Most states are trying to implement CARES as quickly as possible, but they are struggling to process the large volume of unemployment claims. More than half of the states in the US, including California, New York, and Pennsylvania, continue to run the decades-old programming language on mainframe systems—including critical unemployment claims systems. Therefore, processing and unemployment claims may take as long as two weeks because of the difficulty of using COBOL. In addition, many developers in today’s technical environment have never used COBOL. This is slowing the government’s effort to get billions of dollars in stimulus checks to millions of newly unemployed citizens.

COBOL programmer’s s are hard to find

Five decades ago, programmer’s s who knew how to use COBOL were in high demand. Fast forward to today’s laptop, tablet, cloud computing, and servers’ technologies and it is a drastically different technical environment. In fact, COBOL programs are generally much older than the average age of current programmers. Another factor that has contributed to the scarcity of COBOL programmers is that many American universities have not included COBOL in their computer science programs since the 1980s.

As a result, businesses have moved away from using the difficult-to-learn aging language, and have incorporated other current and technically relevant software programs.

Less popular, but COBOL is used in certain environments

The number of COBOL programmers has dwindled, but the technology is still in use. According to a 2017 report by Reuters found that there are still 220 billion lines of COBOL in use today. Forty-three percent of banking systems are built on COBOL and 95 percent of ATM swipes rely on COBOL code. COBOL is still used by the federal government, including the federal government, and agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Justice and Social Security Administration, according to a 2016 report by the Government Accountability Office.  The CARES Act was created to help Americans affected by the coronavirus. The economic impact has been drastic. Leaders realize the importance of moving the CARES Act, thus requiring the skills of COBOL programmers. This talent shortage has led to the need for COBOL programmers.

If you’re an expert in COBOL, you are suddenly in high demand because the 60-year-old computer language still powers some government office technology.

Charter Global’s Capabilities in Legacy Technologies

Charter Global is known for its expertise in providing top talent for legacy technologies. We have successfully developed and provided thousands of IT talent to our clients. Among the many services we render at Charter Global, we develop applications and tools using mainframe systems.

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