Bankloch

Digital calendars (like Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar or Apple Calendar) are probably one of the   most used productivity tools   in the world. Almost every employee has a digital agenda, which gives an   overview of all upcoming scheduled events . While these tools are so crucial for the day-to-day productivity of millions of employees, it is strange that the evolution in these tools is still rather limited. Ultimately the digital calendar should become your   central cockpit organizing all your tasks and events , which need to be done on a certain date or by a certain date. Today, this is far from a reality. Instead we have a   variety of tools   managing and tracking our day-to-day tasks, i.e. Task management tools , like BPMS systems Project tracking tools , like JIRA, Asana…​ Location tracking tools , like Google Maps Time tracking tools , like Clarity, My Hours, Jibble, Harvest, Clockify, TimeChimp…​ Availability tra...

In most industries there is an   evolution from pre-paid to post-paid , i.e. instead of having to  acquire products or pay costly subscriptions or licenses upfront (with a lot of unnecessary features), there is a tendency to pay more based on usage. This trend of "Everything as a Service" is converting massively CapEx into OpEx, which finance departments in most firms can only applaud. Following this trend you would assume that   pre-paid cards and pre-paid accounts   will soon also be a thing of the past, although today they are still quite   common , with a strong usage in the telecom industry (for pre-paid phone cards), for gift vouchers and in pre-paid credit cards. The reason they are so popular is their   convenience and the sense of control   they give to the user, i.e. instead of having to take a subscription or open a bank account (which is typically a lengthy process with a lot of due diligence steps), an anonymous sum of money can...

More and more when walking in the large cities in Belgium, I stumble over (e)bikes, eSteps, scooters and cars from different companies, all offering shared mobility solutions and claiming to manage our mobility more efficiently and ecologically. Even in a small country like Belgium, dozens of mobility providers are active (although many players come and go as well), e.g. (e)Bike : Jump, Villo!, Billy Bike, Blue-bike, Fietspunt, Velo, Cloudbike or Spinlister (e)Scooter : Scooty, Felyx or Poppy (e)Step : Dott, Lime, Troty, Bird, Circ, Poppy, Tier, Flash or Hive Car sharing : Cambio, Partago, Zipcar, Bolides, Poppy, stapp.in, CozyCar, Dégage, Tapazz, Caramigo, or Battmobiel Car pooling : Eventpool, Karzoo, BlaBlaCar, Toogethr, Carpool or Airportstop Currently shared mobility is still considered as trendy and innovative (a fun, affordable and efficient way to get around), which results in a lot of support of local governments for such initiatives. Nonethele...

In today’s design of (software) solutions, providing a   frictionless user experience   is (and should be) a top priority within every organization. While payments have already gone through a   major evolution  eliminating much of the frictions (from cash payments to card payments up to contactless card payments and mobile payments), the entire checkout process at a merchant is still a complex and not very user-friendly experience. And when I talk about the   checkout process  this includes not only the payment process, but also steps like scanning the products or asking the bill (e.g. in a restaurant), loyalty card scanning, coupon and discount management, handling guarantees (warranties) and delivering the cash ticket (and potentially VAT ticket or invoice generation). Integrating all those steps into a   single, fully frictionless experience  should not be that complex, as all technology exists already today. Evolutions need to ta...