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WorkACE : The Cognitive and Dynamic eBusiness & eWorking Facility

Introduction

For most of us it’s obvious that man-kind is facing huge challenges in the beginning of the 21 century.
The way we do business and conduct work is changing and since that is the foundation of our societies
and our economies, it has lead to a whole bunch of large ripple-effects and challenges. In short, we can
say that we are in the middle of a revolution with all the turmoil it comes with it. These times can be
seen either as scary or a great opportunity for new business. We at QXSystems have picked the latter.

Knowledge has always been the key for success of any individual, group, organization or even society.
The ones who master knowledge are the rulers (of business) and vise versa. Right now, the challenges to
master knowledge are however bigger than ever before and that is because of the digitalized, connected
world we built without proper planning, understanding or blueprints. The transformation from paper-
based process and content to digital content happened almost overnight and was mainly lead by IT-
engineers. We wanted to see the change only as ‘technical improvements” and not as a large global
sociological change. The “Digital Revolution” was, and still is, purely market driven world, in which
companies offer short-term solutions to an instant demand and never get to think about the long-term
need and effects. What is the difference you might ask? Well, it’s like a child. He demand candy but he
needs (healthy) food. If “market forces” alone are feeding him he will, for sure, grow up to become a
less than healthy person. This same phenomena has happened to our businesses and working system too.
We used to have well functioning (paper and physical location based) work systems that we had learned
to build over a period of 100’s of years. It was “simple” but it worked well. Then suddenly
communication went digital and a bit later data creation and storage too. We got main-frame computers,
then PC’s and LAN’s and finally we got the Internet and mobile hand-held micro computers. What
happened to the well organized office systems? We forgot them since they became outdated and
obsolete. Looking back, it was like a “big bang” when the paper-systems stopped working. What did we
get in return? Higher transaction volumes and a whole bunch of disconnected ‘software apps” to learn
and run. They are supposed to replace our ‘office” and make us more productive, but in fact the opposite

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happened. Today the amount of unrelated computer systems and information is so big that we cannot
cope with it. We don’t see what is important and what is not. Knowledge has been replaced with digital
trash. Neat manageable order has become large scale chaos. Productive, honest, loyal people became
confused and disconnected “system users” who jump ship at the first sign of a crises, taking all the tacit
knowledge with them.

We at QXSystems think it’s time to re-think and put the control and order back into our businesses.
How? That’s what this document is about to tell.

1. Who Needs WorkACE?


WorkACE is needed by any organization who wants to become an efficient business in the Digital
Knowledge Age, aka an “eBusiness”. That applies for basically everybody starting from local SMEs and
non-profits to Governments and globally acting MNCs. With the very rapidly increasing global
competition (and an increasing cost of doing business) the operational efficiency of the organization
becomes crucial for getting the job done, on time, within budjet. At this point, it might be helpful to
know the definition of “eBusiness” to get the correct understanding of the scope this white-paper. An
extract of the wikipedia.com definition tells us:

“Electronic Business, commonly referred to as "eBusiness", may be defined as the utilization of


information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business.
Commerce constitutes the exchange of products and services between businesses, groups and
individuals and hence can be seen as one of the essential activities of any business. Thus, eBusiness
focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with
individuals, groups and other businesses.

In practice, e-business is more than just e-commerce. Often, eBusiness involves the application of
knowledge management system and eBusiness involves business processes spanning the entire value
chain: electronic purchasing and supply chain management, processing orders electronically, handling
customer service, and cooperating with business partners. E-business can be conducted using the Web,
the Internet, intranets, extranets, or some combinations of these.”

WorkACE is a next-generation web-native software technology, built on the wisdom of the QXS
Philosophy, stating that business value is created in an efficient synergy between:

FACILITY  PEOPLE  PROCESS  KNOWLEDGE


Know-How or Knowledge is always the cognitive output of a Process, which is driven by organized
People who work in a common structured place/space or Facility. The better each one of these elements
are designed and built to function together with each other, the higher the value of the output will be
produce and the more we will be paid for our deliverables (products are services). Information, on the
other hand, is the result of chaotic and unstructured working and thus Information does not have any
value by itself, whereas knowledge always has a value and sometimes it can even be priceless.

“WorkACE is the structured digital Facility, where organized People add value by Processing work
inputs to cognitive Knowledge outputs to be sold as high value deliverables.”

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2. A Strong Trend Towards Mobile Computing, eBusiness, and Virtual/eWorking
First we need to understand that Mobile Computing, eBusiness and Virtual eWorking are closely related
to each other. They all have their roots in the creation of the Internet and the World-Wide-Web. In fact,
in a pure eBusiness world all the work becomes mobile and virtual eWork since co-workers are not
working physically together anymore. Not even the colleges in the same office, since it would exclude
the other members of the virtual organization that is distributed out globally anyhow. These trends and
changes are real and permanent. Working and Business is now digital and online. There is no going back
to offline mode. Thus, we want to show some examples of some of these strongly emerging trend, such
as; The Smartphone and Netbook Trend; The EaaS eBusiness Trend and The “Work Anywhere” Trend:,
and how they change the requirements for out IT system.

2.1. The Smartphone and Netbook Trend

A smartphone is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities beyond a typical mobile phone, often
with PC-like functionality. For some, a smartphone is a phone that runs complete operating system
providing a standardized interface and platform for application developers. For others, a smartphone is
simply a phone with advanced features like e-mail and Internet capabilities, and/or a full keyboard.
Regardless of how we define them, they are today a dominant part of our (working) reality.

In terms of features, most smartphones support full featured email capabilities with the functionality of a
complete personal organizer. Other functionality might include an additional interface such as a
miniature QWERTY keyboard, a touch screen or a D-pad, a built-in camera, contact management, an
accelerometer, built-in navigation hardware and software, the ability to read business documents in a
variety of formats such as PDF and Microsoft Office, media software for playing music, browsing
photos and viewing video clips, internet browsers or even just secure access to company mail, such as is
provided by e.g. Blackberry or iPhone.

The latest market data from analyst firm Canalys shows how much the converged device market (all
smart phones and wireless handhelds) has grown over the past years. These, typically high-end, devices
represented around 10% of the global mobile phone market by units in 2007, with annual growth of 60%
making them one of the fastest growing segments of the Technology Industry. Year-on-year growth
climbed every quarter throughout 2007, to reach a peak of 72% in Q4 giving an annualized sales volume
of 142 million units.

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The term Netbook was re-introduced by Intel in February 2008 to describe a category of small-sized,
low-cost, light weight, lean function subnote-books optimized for Internet access and core computing
functions (e.g., word processing) — either directly from applications installed on the Netbook itself or
indirectly, via cloud computing and SaaS. More than 50 million Netbooks are expected to be in
widespread circulation by 2011. Netbooks typically come with a 7-inch to 10-inch screen.

Our point is: Smart-phones and Netbooks are both just mobile access points and interfaces to the new
centralized web-computing environment that sits ‘in the cloud’. The user might as well use a
smartphone, netbook, laptop, PC or even a 3-D virtual words interface to participate in the same virtual
working environment where the ‘action’ is. The PC (Personal Computing) era is over and the software
designed for that era is therefore outdated.

2.2. The “Everything-as-a-Service” eBusiness Trend

The second major trend that we want to bring to you attention is: Everything as a Service (EaaS, XaaS,
*aaS) . This a concept of being able to call up re-usable, fine-grained software components and web
service across a network, like the Internet. The most common and successful example is Software-as-a-
service (SaaS), but the as a service moniker has been associated with many other functions including
Web Services, Communication, Infrastructure and Platforms, most of which are core components of
Cloud Computing.

A number of major players including Amazon, eBay, Apple, Yahoo, Google, IBM, Microsoft,
Salesforce and Hewlett Packard have been associated with the "everything as a service" trend.

- Key characteristics of the EaaS eBusiness are:

• A low barrier to entry is a common theme amongst offerings, with services typically being
available to or specifically targeting consumers and small businesses.
• Little or no capital expenditure as infrastructure is owned by the provider.
• Massive scalability is also common, though this is not an absolute requirement and many of the
offerings have yet to achieve large scale.
• Multi-tenancy enables resources (and costs) to be shared amongst many users.

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• Device independence enables users to access systems regardless of what device they are using
(e.g. PC, mobile).
• Location independence allows users remote access to systems.

- AGartner 2008 SaaS Growth Study:

Beginning in 1998, application service providers attracted a great deal of attention to the hosted software
space, offering web-based access to applications from major enterprise software vendors on a
subscription rather than licensed basis. Since the second half of 2003, there has been a shift in
momentum towards the Software as a Service model. Today this trend has gained so much strength that
it’s ready to go challenge the traditional software distribution models, as the following Gartner Jan-08
study shows:

Adoption of SaaS is driven in part by end-users, who benefit from access to mission critical applications
and data, from anywhere, on virtually any web-enabled device; better licensing and cost control; and
assurance that the most recent version of the application is in use. As a strategic offering, SaaS has
already shown that it can:

• Open new markets, new revenue streams, and new distribution channels
• Provide a stable, recurring revenue model
• Afford consolidation of development and support efforts around single version of code

2.3. The “Work Anywhere” Trend

The third but equally important to the two prevous trends is the trend to work from anybody for
anybody. What we think of as a typical job – working for a single employer, in a single geographical
location, for a wage or salary and with an expectation of long-term employment – became the
predominant means of organizing work in the nineteenth century. The development of the modern job
reflected the shift in the economy from agricultural to an industrial base and the growth of organizations
as a way of coordinating large scale operations. This created a need for people to work full time on the
employer’s premises. The idea of working for 40 hours a week over a 40-year career only emerged in
the twentieth century.

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While conventional job-holding remains the norm, alternative working arrangements have been growing
rapidly since the early 1990’s. For instance, fewer people work in jobs that conform to the ‘standard’
model of permanent, full-time work. The sections that follow review this trend in more detail:

- “Non-standard” Employment

Non-standard employment has been gradually increasing globally and is becoming a significant feature
of the employment landscape. ‘Nonstandard employment’ is a catch-all term for forms of employment
that deviate in some respect from the ‘standard’ model, such as: part-time, self employment, casual,
irregular hours or on-call work, seasonal, temporary or fixed term contracts, undertaken as ‘homework’,
undertaken in the ‘black’ economy or any combination of the above.

In the past, nonstandard jobs were widely perceived to be of low quality – offering low pay, little
security, and few opportunities for training and career development. Today, however, this generalization
does not hold anymore since people are getting paid for output (knowledge) instead of input (hours).
Many non-standard workers enjoy good income, job stability, adequate protections from health and
safety risks and opportunities for training and development. Online eBusiness sites like
www.elance.com and www.rentacoder.com are good examples of this global freelancing trend.

- Changing employment relationships

Those who argue that dramatic change in employment relationships has occurred usually begin from a
set of assumptions about the kinds of relationships that existed in the first three decades after WWII.
These are said to have involved long-term commitments between employers and employees,
underpinned by a “psychological contract” in which the employer provided security and predictability in
exchange for loyalty and reasonable performance. Today such arrangements provided employees with a
false job security, insulating them to some extent from changes in market conditions, and hinder the
prospect of rising responsibility and income. Hence, a growing number of people have chosen to have
several employers and a global work territory. A fixed desk in one physical location for one employer
can hardly produce a better output for either the employee or the employer, whereas it, for sure, will
increase the cost for the job done. That is why ‘outsourcing’, even with all the higher risks associated,
has proven to be a cheaper alternative than the traditional models.

- Work organization and performance

The potential of alternative systems of work organization to enhance the productivity of


workers and improve the quality of working life has long been a concern of management
theorists and social researchers. High-performance work systems overcome this rigidity by reintegrating
thinking and doing in all stages of production and drawing more heavily on the skills, knowledge and
problem solving capabilities of the workforce. Some of the more frequently cited practises include:

• the assignment of work to teams and networks rather than individuals;


• the minimization of hierarchy;
• looser job descriptions and the multi-skills of employees;
• productivity-based pay systems; and
• employee/worker involvement in decisions about the organization of work.

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A key feature of high-performance work systems is a reliance on self-managing teams. This is a clear
move away from the vertical division of labor, reducing the need for supervisory and middle-
management positions. Flatter management structures have the advantage of being less resistant to
change, and they potentially allow for improved communication flows.

As the responsibility for coordinating tasks and meeting output schedules devolves onto lower level
employees, frontline staff is required to exercise what were formerly managerial capabilities. In
particular, there is a need for greater communication and decision-making skills and individuals who can
deal with cognitive complexity and learn new skills. The need for high-performance work systems
therefore also puts stress on the IT systems to be designed collaborative and dynamic enough to support
these requirements. Anybody who has even used an ERP system knows how static and ‘top-down’ they
are and they never will fit for this ‘bottom-up’ purpose.

- People seeking better Work/life balance

The ability to set own schedules, balance paid-work, unpaid work and leisure is a major factor in
people’s quality of life. Most people have a number of responsibilities outside paid work, including to
children, parents and communities, as well as personal interests. When these obligations conflict, we feel
stressed and our overall performance in at least one of these roles is likely to suffer. But, conflict
between paid work and other responsibilities is not only a matter of time pressure. The demands of work
or caring can spill over into other domains through their emotional or physical impacts. Studies show
clearly that people want to work from home, at least a part of the week. Studies also show that when
they do they are more productive. It is just the need for ‘collaboration’ and control that forces people to
“go to work”.

As we can see, the trends for moving the eBusiness and eWorking is there. It is happening, right now.
The next chaper will look at the reasons for it.

3. Why eBusiness and eWorking? - The Benefits


eBusiness and related Virtual organizations are multi-site, multi-organizational, and dynamic by nature.
At a macro level, an eBusiness organization consists of a grouping of businesses, consultants, and
contractors, in other words the whole business ecosystem; that have joined in an alliance to exploit
complementary skills in pursuing common strategic objectives. A few proven business benefits of
eBusiness and eWorking are:

Increased productivity: Internal IBM studies have shown gains of 15 to 40 percent. USWest reported
way back in the year 2000 that the productivity of its eWorking employees increased, some by as much
as 40 percent.

Higher profits: HP has been able to double its revenue per salesperson after moving its sales people to
eWorking mode.

Improved customer service: Andersen Consulting has identified that its consultants are able to spend
25% more time interacting face-to-face with customers, which results in more profitability.

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Access to global markets: John Brown Engineers & Constructors Ltd., a member of the engineering
division of Trafalgar House, one of the world's largest engineering and construction organization, with
21,000+ employees across the globe, is able to access local pharmaceutical engineering talent at various
project sites globally. Using eBusiness arrangements, the firm was able to traverse national boundaries,
enabling it to work with and present a local face to its global clients. This enhanced its global
competitiveness.

Environmental benefits: At Georgia Power, around 15-20 percent of the workers at headquarters are
eWorkers. This helps them in reducing annual commuting mileage by 993,000 miles, and automobile
emissions by almost 35,000 pounds. A U.S. government study showed that if 20,000 federal workers
could apart eWorking just one day a week, they would save over two million commuting miles, 102,000
gallons of gasoline, and 81,600 pounds at carbon dioxide emissions each week. The emission savings for
one week under this arrangement are equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide produced by the
average car over 9.3 years. Just imagine how much of difference it would make to save the planet.

Reduced real estate expenses: Companies like IBM, Sun and Cisco already saves around 40 to 60% per
site annually by eliminating offices for all employees, except those who truly need them. Many
organizations in developed countries estimates that, the savings gained from not having to house an
employee in a typical 64-square-foot space, considering only rent and annual operating costs, at $6,000
per person per year.

The benefits in favor for eBusiness and virtual eWorking are indeed very compelling. Howver, as with
everything in life there is always another side to the coin as well. Let us next take a look at hurdles for
getting aboard the bandwagon.

4. Main Challenges of being an On-Demand eBusiness

When we look at the challenges related to building and running a modern eBusiness it might be good to
break the challenges up into following four main segments:

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4.1. eStrategy Challenges

eStrategy is concerned with specific business models like distributing digital products and the internet
channel. Additionally, eBusiness affects almost all business processes that need to be built specifically
for this purpose. This holds for customer integration via community models, customer-to-customer-
processes (e.g. on demand-triggering of production processes) and changes in the sequence of activities,
like the switch from the print-distribute-paradigm to the distribute-print-paradigm. Very often eBusiness
reinforces complex forms of competitive strategies, especially hybrid strategies like mass scalability in
combination with a ‘personal/customized” touch.

The eBusiness or on-demand model demands even greater attention to process, operational skills,
metrics, training, as well as the ability to succeed or fail quickly and adjust accordingly.

This same fact goes throughout the complete organization, starting from HR, R&D, After-Sale as well as
Administrative work. The fact that these operations does not happen inside the same building or even in
the same country or time zone, makes it all so much more demanding.

Under an eBusiness relationship, continuous client feedback is received to help develop new
functionality and improve application performance or business models. By default, there is more
interaction with end-users in the application environment itself that lead to better prioritization for new
features, bug fixes and system extensions but at the same time leads to a situation in which each day the
new ‘problems’ get the fullest attention while the issues from the day before already are forgotten. In
this kind of an ‘ad-hoc’ working environment the focus of the workforce easily shifts from what should
be done to what feels most urgent or even fun to do.

The challenge is: Since the alternatives with regards to products, distribution and target markets are
almost endless and the business environment very dynamic (both on the buy and the sell side) there is a
high risk of choosing the wrong strategy. The product may be correct but the pricing model wrong or the
geographical market not correct. In addition everything might be just fine except for the timing. Since
the build-up of an eBusiness takes easily years it one might come either too early or too late to the
market. Both of which would have a great negative impact on the outcome. Waiting until a trend is
‘confirmed’ and then getting in with a big marketing budget might not work as well as it did in the
offline economy due to the highly dynamic nature and business speed of eBusiness.

4.2. eResources Challenges

eResources cover IT-Infrastructure as well as HR-infrastructure. To appropriate human resources to


eBusiness is not merely a question of eCompetency, i.e. handling the Internet, new media and the
complexity of eBusiness (volatility, hyper-competition etc). It also requires people to act as entrepeneurs
(some of them as netpreneurs) rather than traditional employees or managers. This means that the
management as well as the employee culture in the organization has to change.

With the new “Everything-as-a-Service” eBusiness models spending money on hard assets and/or
facilities is not the key nominator for success, like it used to be in the industrial age manufacturing
environment. In the past, a big valet almost always guaranteed also good returns. Today rather

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processing the best alternatives, getting the facts right and making sound, long-lasting (group) decisions
regarding what (eResources) to invest (time, energy and money) into is the main point to understand
here.

The challenge is: for the distributed knowledge organization to collect and communicate about a waste
amount of options and alternative solutions, without loosing the focus or objectives and to be able to do
this in high-speed on many ongoing subjects simultaneously. The team that has the best knowledge and
makes the best decisions will prevail.

- Relational Content Management Need

With an ever growing amount of content and data in the world, it has become obvious that there is a
need for building smarter computer system in which the systems build dynamic relationships between
the content objects. Today people still are the only connectors between objects and this has lead to very
low efficiencies, especially when people leave the organization and takes all this ‘tacit’ knowledge with
them. In the next generation computing system, like WorkACE, all this ‘linking’ is taken care of by the
software system itself in the background, leading to a much higher security, compliance as well as
efficient working.

4.3. e-Organizational Challenges

eOrganization is closely connected to virtual organizations and virtual companies. eBusiness relies on all
three dimensions of virtuality, i.e. the temporal, spatial and institutional dimensions (see figure below).
The way these three dimensions are mixed differentiates two (not mutually exclusive) “archetypes” of
virtual organizations, i.e. virtual companies as electronic companies versus virtual companies as network
organizations.

eBusiness is often performed by asynchronous work of experts (companies, departments, e-lancers)


distributed all over the globe and coordinated by loose contracts for specific projects. The framework for

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these value creating e-processes is the value net. It contains the involvement not only of suppliers and
customers, but also of competitors and complementors (like consulting, billing and logistics companies).
The network relations within the value net cover the cooperation and competition, like e.g. alliances,
digital markets and new contracts (new labor relations and freelancers and subcontractors that by-pass
labor unions, etc

- Inter-Organizational Computing Need

We all know about social-networking sites like Facebook on which people are able to interact with their
peers online. This same need is there also between organizations and within networks of organizations.
In short, what is needed is online computing environments in which people can be invited to work and
collaborate easily on defined/shared processes. The ownership of processes and content must be 100%
clear. This kind of inter-organizational computing is especially important when eBusiness organizations
form Joint Ventures or supply networks, to serve common clients and share R&D resources to cut costs
and time to market.

The lack of a common work place (= facility), unconnected coworkers (= people) working with
undefined goals in un defined process trying to make sense of what content to create and present as
knowledge only can lead to complete chaos. To structure the eOrganization so that it stays efficient,
agile and secure with regards to both process and knowledge is the main challenge here. By just
connecting stand-alone software tools/applications to a technically functioning “single sign-on” system
this will NOT happen. We are sure that everybody already have noticed this.

4.5. eCulture and Standards Challenges

eCulture and Standards represent both the soft and hard standards as a mandatory infrastructure for cost-
and time efficient eBusiness. The philosophy of the internet economy relies on a spirit of
entrepreneurship with the dominance of self actualization (in relation to security) on ubiquitous form of
fuzzy relationships (called ‘coopetition’) beyond the traditional cooperation or competition-paradigm as
well as on the acceptance of eBusiness complexity (speed of innovation, short product life cycles etc).
Probably the most controversial item of the eBusiness culture is trust, both among partners and in the
technological infrastructure. Last but not least ‘hard’ standards, i.e. legal norms for internet security
(digital signature, laws concerning hackers and cyber terrorism, etc) represent an important part of the
infrastructure too.

In the early years of eBusiness it has been the norm that the players accepts the lack of security and have
been forced to ‘trust’ each other. Now when the eBusiness has matured the ownership of content and
processes have become a dominant factor for the success. Who wants to invest millions in an eBusiness
only to discover later that the partners have stolen the Intellectual Property and are making millions now
selling the same knowledge that the investor helped to finance. Making things (objects = people,
process, content) UNIQUE and belonging to somewhere (facility) is the basis for building trust and
increased risk taking and commerce. If the risk/reward ratio is too low and the pay-off time too long the
investors are not going to invest into the eBusiness proposal. The PC-era software architecture presently
on the market, cannot offer any help in this regard. Even state-of-the-art SaaS providers like
Salesforce.com and/or NetSuite.com have not solved these issues yet because it would demand them to

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redesign their applications from scratch. Only new eBusiness Facility applications like WorkACE,
designed with these issues in mind, will be able to offer any real solutions to these challenges.

5. The Necessity of having an eBusiness Facility


By now it should be pretty obvious that building an eBusiness to even a moderate success is not an easy
task. Lot’s of new technology, knowledge, attitudes, cultures, time and money is needed, not to talk
about rock-solid leadership, passion and commitment from the people involved. On top of that; up-front,
high-risk investments in the millions is required to even get online with the smallest eBusiness Venture.
One cannot exclude the global competitive nature of eBusiness either, bringing the sales prices down
and the ever changing deliverables and working conditions. It is not just to develop a business idea or
product of some kind and put websites together and get going, like it was in the 1990’s of the ‘dotcom’
days. A solid base and eBusiness Facility, for building, running and maintaining the professional
eBusiness is absolutely needed today to guarantee the eBusiness venture of tomorrow. The Facility has
to be dynamic and cognitive too, which makes it so much more demanding – on all levels. The eFacility
also has to change according to your ever changing needs and carry on as the base many years into the
future. With all this in mind we have built WorkACE.

- Why get WorkACE, the ultimate eBusiness Facility?

While businesses all over the world cheering for WorkACE it might be a good idea to take a look what
is driving this growth and demand? The answers are provided in part by the businesses, which already
deployed WorkACE. The following list represents the primary motivations for making their move:

• Indexed, Structured and Cognitive People, Process and Content


• Security of Intellectual Property and Knowledge
• Enables Flat Organizations
• Ease of Organization Flow
• Business and process Agility
• User-driven technology

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• Bottom up management culture
• Distributed processing and decision making
• Clear definable boundaries, open borders
• Transparency and compliancy
• Information systems are emergent
• Folksonomies
• Simple and fast to implement and learn
• On Demand and Online
• Increased productivity and efficiency among teams and individuals
• Better customer service
• Support for TQM
• Fewer physical meetings
• Automating routine processes
• Extending the organization to map its Business Ecosystem
• Integration of geographically disparate teams
• Increased competitiveness through faster time to market
• Better coordination, communication and collaboration globally
• Providing a new way of efficient working, that differentiates the organization
• Leveraging professional expertise
• Complete Web Presence
• Low TCO on the ICT systems

Earlier we read above about the fast changing technical environment as well as the impeccable
24*7*365 service demands from the eBusiness clients. On top of that, we have to do it to a cost that
makes financial sense for the investors who takes the risks.

Since the risk of starting a profitable eBusiness is so high it is only natural that one chooses as a partner
and business system something that has been built with that success in mind.

WorkACE is the only eBusiness Facility that will take all the aspects into account and minimize the
risks of an eBusiness failure. Why can we say this? Because, WorkACE was not built as a ‘product”, but
as a comprehensive solution for QXSystems own eBusiness needs. We went out to build the ultimate
eBusiness Facility and we succeeded in that task. Every single feature in WorkACE is designed
according to the best available IT and business knowledge with a complete business understanding as
base. Thus, WorkACE is the only holistic eBusiness System in the world built with a long-term vision
and success of the system owners in mind.

6. Main Parts and Features of WorkACE Technology


When we below learning what W~ is and how it can help us, people normally look at it based on what
interest group they belong to or represent. Therefore we have also in this presentation taken into
account, equally balanced, the four view points of:

- A Technological viewpoint – for ICT professionals


- A People viewpoint - for managers, users and HR professionals

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- A Financial viewpoint – for financial professionals, top management and investors
- A Stakeholders viewpoint – for owners, partners and government agencies

6.1. What is WorkACE?

W~ (Pronounced as “WorkACE”) is a cognitive eBusiness and eWorking Facility especially designed


for the Mobile, Digital and Global working communities and organizations of the Knowledge Age. It is
a virtual eFacility with built in features of Intranet, Extranet, Employee Management, Document
Management, Content Management, Groupware, Knowledge Management, Business Ecosystem
Management, Project/Process Management, Supply Chain Management, eMail Server Functions,
Webmail, IM/Chat, Work Flow Management, Wiki Systems, Forums and eSupport; all compiled into a
comprehensive, structured and cognitive online computing environment. WorkACE acts also as the
missing SOA core for any existing ICT web architectures.

Note: ERP Systems, the dominant business software today, are not based on eBusiness but has their roots in accounting and
inventory management (number counting) and not in collaborative value creation. This by itself creates a big gap between
what organizations have, think they have contra what they need in a competitive eBusiness environment.

The flavors of WorkACE technology are:

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* W~CORE - The Core WorkACE Technology described in this document.
* WorkACE.com - An all-in-one Level 4 SaaS + Web 2.0 eBusiness Application for SME’s
* WorkACE~EE - The Enterprise version of the core W~ Technology
* WorkACE+ - A Cluster of Add-On Technologies built around the W~CORE
* WorkACE+SDP - A complete SaaS Delivery Platform build around the W+ cluster

6.2. Features of W~CORE: WorkACE Application Instance (WAI)

W~CORE is the backbone and kernel of the complete WorkACE Technology system. All the features and
modules are integrated tightly so that the Workforce and the eco-system can have secure access to the
W~CORE, which can handle all the daily work processes.

Some of the key features of W~CORE are:

• It has been designed to address the needs of the Digital Knowledge Age businesses, where static
office work has become dynamic eWork.
• It is designed to solve issues pertaining to people, data and assets in the cognitive eWorking
mode of a modern eOrganization.
• It is a fast to implement and secure online eFacility, giving the stakeholders the environment,
service oriented architecture and cognitive tools for efficient and effective eWorking. This makes
WorkACE a prominent entity in Web2.0 space and further.
• It is capturing, organizing and storing the knowledge lost in communication by stand-alone e-
mail, chat, Video conferencing and VoIP systems. (Statistics: It is ~80% of daily process data).
• It eliminates the risk of knowledge and process brain-drain, which occurs when key players
disembark. Replacement staff becomes productive in days rather than months.
• It reduces the time spend by employees seeking and storing information; normally wasted in
clicking and browsing through endless number of unproductive screens in Industrial Age
Software. (Statistics: Is around ~40% or even more).
• It also reduces the time spend by process leaders and managers traveling to keep their
organizational operations moving. (Statistics: ~80% in a paper based organization; ~50% in an
email based one).

The Functional Parts and Modules of W~CORE are:

6.8.1. Business Process Management System: W~BPMS

Business Process Management (BPM) is a method of efficiently aligning an organization with the wants
and needs of clients. It is a holistic management approach that promotes business effectiveness and
efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility and integration with technology. As organizations
strive for attainment of their objectives, BPM attempts to continuously improve processes - the process
to define, measure and improve your processes – a ‘process optimization' process. The main parts of
W~BPMS are:

• Program Management Module


• Project Management Module
• Events Management Module

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• Tasks Management Module
• Activities Management Module
• Work-log Management Module

6.8.2. Business Ecosystem Management System: W~BEMS

A BE is an economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals-


-the organisms of the business world. This economic community produces goods and services of value
to customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem. The member organizations also include
suppliers, lead producers, competitors, and other stakeholders. Over time, they co-evolve their
capabilities and roles, and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more central
companies. Those companies holding leadership roles may change over time, but the function of
ecosystem leader is valued by the community because it enables members to move toward shared
visions to align their investments and to find mutually supportive roles. The main parts of W~BEMS are:

• Accounts Management Module


• Contacts Management Module
• Marketing Management Module
• Sales Management Module
• Purchase Management Module

6.8.3. Content Management System: W~CMS

A Content Management System (CMS) is a computer application used to create, edit, manage, and
publish an endless amount of content in a consistently organized, structured and secured fashion. From
an organization stand point, W~CMS store and manage an organization's electronic document and Web
content so that the employee of the company can reuse the information across different segments of the
operation. The web published content can also be distributed to customers and eco-system partners
outside the organization, enabling the business entity to establish a consistent look and feel throughout
its site. It even gives an organization's non-technical content authors and editors the power to easily and
quickly publish and update their own content using simple, but powerful, browser-based tools; which is
otherwise done by technical programmers. This helps manage content during its entire lifecycle i.e. from
creation through publishing.

A wide range of content and business functions can be published and automated using W~CMS. This can
be characterized as:

• Simple pages for normal company or product presentation


• Complex pages, with specific layout and presentation
• Dynamic information sourced from databases and will change on regular time intervals
• Training material
• Online manuals
• General business documents
• Thousands of pages in total for different categories of customers on hundreds of sites
• Extensive linking between pages and content objects

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• Ecosystem driven modular applications, like: product and events registrations, online networking
communities and sessions as well as user driven content sharing and distribution.

6.8.4. Issues Management System: W~IMS

Issues form a gap between the organization’s performance and stakeholders' expectations. Are such
issues identified in your organization today? Is there an effective system mitigating the impact of issues?
Get to know your issues. And take action to reduce the impact of an issue. What you need is an Issue
Management System that includes all knowledge on your issues, decisions made and actions taken. It
should assist you in reducing the impact that result from issues. It should be able to:
• saves time and money so that you can focus on the most critical task of running your business.
• delivers cost-effective actions so that issue management adds value.
• provides consistency across the organization.
• is accessible to business units across the organization and its eco-system.
• is an invaluable management tool for the return is many times higher than the cost of the
investment.

The W~IMS combines good information and ease-to-use to get maximum benefit out of your issue
management efforts.

6.8.5 Document Management System: W~DMS

A document management system (DMS) is a computer system (or set of computer programs) used to
track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents. There are several common
issues that are involved in managing documents, whether the system is an informal, ad-hoc, paper-based
method for one person or if it is a formal, structured, computer enhanced system for many people across
multiple offices.

W~DMS is a powerful electronic Document Management System module with rich features for
archiving, managing, indexing, structuring, retrieving and publishing documents. Some of the key
characteristics present in W~DMS are:

• Defined Location: Where will documents be stored? Where will people need to go to access
documents?
• Retrieval: Retrieve the electronic documents from the storage. Although the notion of retrieving
a particular document is simple, retrieval in the electronic context can be quite complex and
powerful.
• Indexing: Indexing may be as simple as keeping track of unique document identifiers; but often
it takes a more complex form, when one works in a dynamic mobile, digital and global
environment.
• Distribution: A published document for distribution has to be in a format that can not be easily
altered. As a common practice in law regulated industries, the original copy of the document is
usually never used for distribution.
• Security: Document security is vital in many document management applications. Compliance
requirements for certain documents can be quite complex depending on the type of documents.

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• Storage: Storage of the documents often includes management of those same documents; where
they are stored, for how long.
• Collaboration: Collaboration should be inherent in an eDMS. Documents should be capable of
being retrieved by an authorized user and worked on.
• Versioning: Versioning is a process by which documents are checked in or out of the document
management system, allowing users to retrieve previous versions and to continue work from a
selected point. Versioning is useful for documents that change over time and require updating,
but it may be necessary to go back to a previous copy.
• Publishing: Publishing a document is sometime tedious and involves the procedures of
proofreading, peer or public reviewing, authorizing, printing and approving etc. Those steps
endure prudence and logic thinking.
• Relationships: W~ automatically (in the background) creates relationships between the related
objects for easier control and understanding.
• Dynamic: Due to its intelligent architecture W~ is 100% dynamic which means that hyperlinks
and relationships will stay alive and fully functional even after objects are moved and/or
renamed.

6.8.6 Collaboration & Communication System: W~CCS

As the business expands, worker mobility increases, and travel budgets tighten, comprehensive and
integrated collaboration tools become increasingly important. Employees need integrated
communications tools combining ease-of-use with the ability to choose the medium appropriate to the
task at hand.

By integrating voice capabilities and collaboration applications, such as e-mail and instant messaging,
the business users can help its employees to be more productive, responsive and accessible. One can also
streamline operations, improve accuracy and responsiveness to customers and make vital information
accessible when employees are away from the office. Enhancing business applications with these
communication enablers can drive even more efficiency as the right person is provided with the right
information at the right time.

Collaboration and Communication systems is an application designed to help people involved in a


common task achieve their goals. It is the basis for computer supported cooperative work. Such software
systems as email, calendaring, text chat, Wiki based discussion forums, VoIP (under testing) belongs in
this category and W~CCS comes with all these components

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6.3. WorkACE+ : Add-On's to W~CORE
In addition to the W~CORE technology we are also constantly building and integrating new
technologies and features, as add-ons. Below you can see the Add-On’s which are already ready and in
use since many years back. New Add-On’s are already under development and will be added to this list
soon.

6.3.1 Live Support Management System : W+LSMS

W+ comes up with a comprehensive live support system provision wherein all the support system can be
controlled with the WorkACE Application Instance (WAI) itself. It has different functionalities, starting
from Live chat for immediate/interactive assistance, to Issue management, Forums, and also FAQ’s.
This is also extendable to other functionalities as well.

- W+LSMS : Key Features:

• Enables comprehensive Live Support portal for the clients and end user
 Full featured Wiki based manual
 Live Chat for immediate response
 Issue management, like direct bug reporting
 Forums
 FAQs and more

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 Full Cognitive and Structure (While structuring, organizing, indexing and making all
these information 100% cognitive, so that SaaS service providers are able to provide
efficient support services.)
 SIP based VOIP (under testing)
• Built in Live Support system to interact with the W~SUPPORT Team

6.3.2. Partner Program Management System : W+PPMS

As we see a shift in the way people do eBusiness with the help of W~, there has been an ever increasing
demand of online partner program systems which is seamless and borderless. To accommodate this need
W+ comes with a comprehensive multi-level online Partner Program Management System. This means
that as a W+ user, you have the ability to build your business anywhere in the world regardless of where
you were born, through your own committed network of affiliates and associates.

W+PPMS has various commission setup options including: % from each sale, fixed fee from each sale, %
from first sale, fixed fee from first sale, Per Unique Click. All that options could be used separately or in
combination.

- W+PPMS : Key Features:

• Ability to group items and adjust setting per group.


• Banner and text linking codes system.
• Manage unlimited number of Partners (affiliates, associates etc)
• Integrated mailing system (from admin to all affiliates / associates, approved/non-approved
affiliates / associates)
• Built-in PayPal module for paying commissions.
• Ability to create printable version of reports.
• Manage affiliate / associates accounts.
• Adjustable N-tier for affiliate / associate commission.
• Monitor Affiliates and Partners Activity
• Keep track of campaigns (clicks, leads and sales)
• Keep track of commissions (paid and pending)
• Configurable Commission handling
o Recurring commissions
o Based on sales volume
o Based on levels(Multi level)

7. Case Studies
Different companies have different uses and goals for implementing the WorkACE Technology. The
following case studies have been chosen to illustrate some of the principles we have see in helping to
building Knowledge Age eBusiness and eWorking organizations. Each chosen case study has a common
thread – the implementation of a cognitive eBusiness environment, and how it enabled a critical
eBusiness evolution within the organization which was necessary for the success.

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7.1. WorkACE.com Case: SME chooses WorkACE on SaaS

Company A is a SME in Bangalore India with less than 50 people working in the global IT Industry. For
years A has been selling and building project based IT solutions for their clients but never really had
time to reflect on the bigger picture and long-term objectives of how they should work to be highly
productive and competitive. The work has been basically done in one physical location with sales and
marketing people traveling around the world, trying to acquire as many new jobs as possible to pay the
bills. Over the last 5 years costs have gone up but productivity stayed rather low. With an ever
increasing competition something had to be done before it was too late. That is why company A chooses
WorkACE.com as their new eBusiness facility to build their future business operations around.

Challenge: Replace inefficient location and in-house centric business model; Ensure higher team and
project productivity; changing peoples mindset to customer driven; Maximize people collaboration

Solution: Company A signed up to WorkACE SaaS version at WorkACE.com to create a


comprehensive and a cognitive eBusiness Facility. By deploying WorkACE with its partners,
freelancers, sub-vendors and resellers (i.e. business ecosystem), they all become an extension of the
company's workforce and operations team. Since A chose WorkACE.com, the deployment was instant
and painless. In addition, with the ‘rented’ software model A can pay monthly for the service. Inviting
new users into the system is easy with no downloads or installations needed so the over-all deployment
time was basically just some days. With the option, if needed, to later go for the Enterprise Version of
W~ and move the eFacility to their own servers, A feels very pleased with this mode of delivery.

Results: Increased sales volume; Increased employee productivity; Clear Business Processes and
objectives; Enabled the company to grow faster than before; Enabled the management team to
concentrate its efforts on the right issues and target audiences for better profitability; Easy to customize
and maintain the eFacility and its processes without involving the IT department; Enhanced ability to
accurately analyze near real-time reports on all the process for the organization; No up-front technology
investment or drawn-out deployment with minimal impact on resources; Partners, resellers, suppliers,
sub-vendors and clients woven into the internal team system; Single point control access.

Conclusion: With a minimal cost per user per day of less than 1 USD and a gain of over 10 USD this
initiative gives A 10 fold daily payback on their investment. It is by far the best investment they have
ever done. A has also now joined the W.NMPP and has thus become a reseller Associate of
WorkACE.com.

7.2. Case W~EE: MNC to Gain Better Control over Documents and Workflows

Company G’s activities are the import, transport and sale of gas, grid operations and international transit
of gas through Europe. With over 1000 employees, the company generated a turnover exceeding EUR
2.1 bn. It has offices in most parts of the world but the core operations are in Europe.

Challenge: To improve business processes, optimize knowledge, boost employee productivity in a


global MNC with legacy IT technology. To guarantee an objective evaluation of the project, G set out to
define a number of economic goals and evaluation criteria. Management established a list of quantitative
and qualitative targets and committed to meet these requirements, namely:

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• Increasing employee productivity by 15% to 30%. This increase should mainly be achieved by
reducing the time needed to search and access information while also managing paper documents
or files.
• Re-assigning between 8 and 20 people to other departments.
• Reducing paper storage by 30% to 50%.

Solution: It was decided to implement the standard WorkACE Enterprise Edition with built in eProcess,
Communication, Workflow and Document Management modules which can integrate with existing IT
systems. Since G did not want to have its content outside of the company premises and since there
already was some IT systems in place, like email server, the decision was made to go for an on-premises
W~EE deployment. This option would give G the possibility to easily also expand the technology build-
out further.

Gs wanted to automate key tasks, reduce processing time and costs, decrease risks related to bad file
management, and guarantee long-term, secure filing. In doing so, G aimed at sustaining its strong image
in the market. From an organizational point of view, W~ supports and automates tasks in the different
departments involved (e.g., management of authorization files, validation and signature of blueprints,
archiving of administrative and technical documents, and so on). It covers the complete lifecycle of
electronic documents – from creation, annotation, structured archiving and security to intelligent
research, distribution, validation and sign-offs.

With the "related object function," documents or files and data related to the same document or file are
virtually structured and linked. When users access the document or file, all these (associated)
documents, files and communication data are shown and can be immediately consulted. Other data,
which is not linked to the file, can be found and retrieved from the different databases using a unique
W~ file ID-tag. Processing a document or file is therefore based on all required information, which
implies that employees can work faster and better.

Results: At present the project has been rolled out to all offices and all objectives have been achieved.
G has greatly benefited from the solution by accelerating the process, improving risk management and
reducing its operational costs. . For example, files can no longer be misplaced and there is only one
electronic version of a document. Moreover, two or more people can simultaneously access the same
report, which always contains the latest information as information is being updated in real time.

In addition, W~EE has brought other benefits, such as greater motivation of people, no more document
losses, document retrievals within seconds, even in the case of very complicated searches, a 50%
reduction of paper storage space, an objective measurement of company performance (global
performance, process performance but also individual performance) and an improved overall image of
the company.

Conclusion: With the positive experience and competence that has been gained with the project to date,
G is very pleased and now looks set to further roll out the system both within and beyond the company.
Other companies in Europe have expressed an interest in WorkACE. Meanwhile, G has plans for
integrating W~EE with other applications (e.g., SAP) and developing more e-business by leveraging a
large part of the work that has already been completed in digitizing the company’s internal business
processes.

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7.3 W+LSMS Case: Re-organizing for Better Customer Service

Challenge: Company F had a customer service problem. Their customers were not receiving the kind of
service they needed. F was too slow to listen to client requests and took too long to get new products to
market. The morale was low, and profits were going down. F’s goal was to improve responsiveness to
customers by decreasing the amount of time it takes to process paperwork as well as unstructured
emails. They set a goal of around 40% productivity and efficiency increase, over the next years.

Solution: QXSystems suggested to F to deploy W+LSMS eBusiness Facility to not only enhance the
quality of their Customer Service but to also re-organize their daily operations to better meet the long-
term needs of their clients. F’s reorganization was focused around greater customer contact and greater
contact between employees and sub-vendors. Cultural changes, such as a customer focusing, assigning
all employees to multiple projects and tasks, and decreasing the layers of management, building
cognitive environment around each customer; all contributed to the success

That way all F’s processes as well as new product entries can be indexed and organized under individual
divisions/departments/rooms. There is cognitive eWorking environments built around these unique
objects. Hence, go to market time and confusion is reduced, while forecasting becomes much easier.
Their clients have unique account IDs, which helps F to monitor as well as discuss all related
suggestion/issues/complains, and even payments and follow-ups. All F has to do is, to map its website or
IVR with their WorkACE facility. This way all the post production/ after sales activities along with pre-
production/pre sales activities are capturing in a pre defined processes and locations for a particular
client or roll out. When there has been any inflow and outflow of information for a particular process, it
is structured around its particular object. Hence, it becomes easier to be used/retrieve from any
department based on user defined permission access. This helps to clarity, focus and increase efficiency
of business operations.

Results: It’s estimated that, the new W+ method of working, allows F to provide a superior customer
support, bring new deliverables to market in half the time (relative to previous years). Paper files were
reduced by 80% and F has reached their goal of 40% efficiency increase.

Conclusion: By deploying W+LSMS F did not only solve the issue with a less than prefect customer
support but by looking at the problem in a larger scale and choosing the W+ technology, F was able to
bring the efficiency of their complete operations to a much higher level. Since they now have W~ as
their eFacility it will be very easy to build out their eBusiness further with small affordable investments.

7.3 Case W+SDP: A Complete eBusiness SaaS Delivery Platform Deployment

JY is a major hosting provider and TelCo in Asia. For several years now it has been clear for JY that it is
and will be very hard to make a good living by just offering hosting and datacenter services to their
clients. The emerging SaaS trend looks very promising and has given JY a positive look at the future.
JY’s objective is to offer SaaS application hosting to their existing and new clients in the region.

Challenge: The challenge however is to be able to offer this service to and with the SaaS application
providers (ISV) in a cost effective and automated manner. A SaaS is 24/7/365 business and it must be

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built to be fully automated; starting from billing and installation to live Support and cover multi-tenant
and client customization architecture. Since there will be a lot of applications and a huge number of
clients a very robust and proven delivery technology is needed. In the SaaS business model the smallest
mistakes can become very expensive. To purchase turn-key solutions in this arena is not easy since there
is not many SaaS Delivery Platform available and the available players don’t have much of a track
record or experience yet.

Solution: JY contacted QXSystems and was suggested to deploy this SaaS business on W+SDP which is
the same SaaS level 4 delivery system that QXSystems is offering its own WorkACE.com service on
since many years back. This mature SDP technology will not only give JY all the needed SDP ‘bells and
whistles” but also structure, index and make cognitive all the processes, people and content related to the
business. It will also make it easy for JY to use sub-contractor and SaaS vendors themselves to provide
24/7 live support on their site(s). With the affordable, turn-key, W+SDP JY will be up and running in
some short months time only.

Results: This project is till under deployment and testing and has therefore not generated number or
business results.

Conclusion: One major conclusion can be drawn already now and that it that JY has been able to push
this project through in only some months and with a very affordable budget. Without QXSystems years
of SaaS knowledge and the mature W+SDP solution this project would have been much more risky and
outcome highly insecure.
.
8. CONCLUSION
In order for organizations to compete in the rapidly evolving business markets of today, they must
leverage both proven and new tools to accelerate their developments cycles of new deliverables and
reduce their time to market. External providers together with internal departments and business units
must work better together to respond successfully to the client demands fast and accurately.

While there are many alternatives that offer components of eBusiness solutions, it is important to
recognize and to make the best possible purchase decision, the differences between these alternatives
and WorkACE. Choosing the wrong eBusiness technology provider (and his knowledge/technology)
can, indeed, be a very expensive mistake that easily will take years to discover and to correct. We
predict that choosing the wrong IT partner, regardless of their brand name or history, might very well
become fatal for an ever growing number of organizations in a near future. A static and rigid IT system
will for sure make business process change very difficult or expensive.

Most of the today's eBusiness providers offer 'bits and pieces' computing solutions with minimum
connectivity or even resources to leverage on the full eBusiness opportunity. Not many, if any, of the
developers and providers of these systems have any real eBusiness experience themselves. Therefore
their knowledge and experience in this emerging field can only be limited. To be frank, they are still in
the process of learning. Their focus is to sell the client a minor part of a bigger system that nobody has a
clear picture or knowledge about or have to take responsibility for. This way the costs of learning and
failure will always be carried by you – the client.

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We at QXSystems base our knowledge in this field on the 10 years of hand-on leading expertise in
eBusiness computing as well as our state-of-the art knowledge on how to build highly efficient Mobile,
Digital and Global organizations. QXSystems offers to you, our clients, the exact same eBusiness
system (WorkACE) that we continuously are building better and are using ourselves in our own
eBusiness. WorkACE has gone through 6 major development cycles already and is the most mature
dynamic eBusiness technology on the market. This approach has been very expensive for us but it’s
paying off in high customer satisfaction and less technology development turmoil.

To better understand the difference in our ‘we care’ holistic approach to what other pure “we sell’
software vendors have to offer, we strongly suggest that you immediately contact one of our business
development managers and setup a hands-on demo. Once you have seen the full-scale demo of
WorkACE, the differences between QXSystems and the others will be very clear for you.

Maybe you don’t want to build and run your own eBusiness business and take all the related risks
yourself but are looking for something more of a Joint Venture type of arrangement. For this and for
many other business relationships models with QXSystems we have created a complete Partner
Program, called W~PP. If you are interested to know more, please let us know or sign-up as our Partner
at: https://www.workace.com/wa_nmpp/ , where you also can download more information.

Please contact us at: sales@WorkACE.com

About QXSystems:

QXSystems, a leader in enabling smart and innovative eBusiness and Software as a Service (SaaS),
systems providing cost-effective, turnkey solutions for companies that need to quickly add or grow their
eBusiness revenue. WorkACE, a comprehensive and scalable eBusiness Facility, is the flagship and core
of our technology innovations. Around the core WorkACE Technology we have built many additional
eBusiness solutions for many verticals.

Founded in 1998 in USA and today headquartered in Singapore, with regional operations in USA,
Europe and India and with a over 10 years of continues successful web computing and eBusiness track
record we are very well equipped to handle even the most challenging demand. We are confident to say
that no other company in the world can challenge our position as the true know-how leader in building
smart and dynamic eBusiness solutions.

For more information about QXSystems, visit the company’s web site at QXSystems.com.

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