Challenge     While working for my previous employer , I had to look at the issues that our clients were facing in   the running of their business which were very diverse as we had clients ranging from pharmacy to   network carriers to technology firms . Most of the time the solution was arrived at by asking the   clients some key questions in order to ascertain their unarticulated needs which usually required us   to deep dive with them into their issues faced , be it on the customers end , the supply side or any   other areas . Taking the example of one such client , a retail firm , was facing difficulty in managing the   cost price increases they were facing from their suppliers . Being a global retail firm their suppliers   varied from local suppliers to international ones from the opposite end of the world . This posed the   problem of validating the correct price increases quoted by the suppliers and also difficulties for the   category managers going into negotiations with the suppliers as they had to put together suppliers   profiles before entering into new contracts or renegotiating the current terms .     Selection     This was a problem which involved many stakeholders ( the category managers and the suppliers ) , so   in order to develop a solution , we needed to look at the problem from multiple lenses , understand   their position points and then start to build a criteria to abide by when removing ideas for solutions .   A mind map , one involving key stakeholders seemed like the best way to capture the needs of the   managers and then having them review the basic outline created , taking their inputs and   deliberating with them on their inputs over the course of a few days and creating a plan around it   worked well for us .     Application     Over the course of the project , I created a set of crucial items that were key to addressing the   problems faced . For instance : to keep up with global changes in the commodities , I decided to build   ash index which would encompass most commodities ( sugar , flour , milk , etc ) in order to simplify the   process of validation of price increases submitted by the suppliers in their products . Next was   holding a newsletter which would identify the major ingredients in a business unit ( say groceries )   and showcasing the major threats ( suppliers who might come for a price increases ) and   opportunities ( where prices had decreased and we could renegotiate terms with suppliers ) . After   compiling there in rudimentary forms I floated these along category managers who then came up   with some great additions to the initial mind map .     Insights     Taking the inputs from the category managers , some mind boggling things came to light . The   suppliers who were in contract basis would never review the price in between their contracts and   this at times decreased the margins heavily for the retail firms as those were going untracked . One   of the insights was outsourcing the commodity days collection as there were few portals which   collected index data globally . One managers suggested having rolling suppliers profiles which could   have regular updates and could salai be used to capture soft factors such as past relationship with   the suppliers in order to be fair and accommodating their challenges faced as we did for a cardboard   supplier when few of the supplier ’s factories were shut down owing to new government regulations   passed in China . Another insight was to link the outsourced days to a dashboard which could give us   live updates for the commodity prices and also doing analysis on the data to identify trends and   brace for them beforehand . 

 Approach     Going forward , I feel it would be more fruitful if more people are included in the initial phase of   creating a mind map as it would broaden the problem definition and enable us to look at more   factors affecting the current issue . Having deliberations with different stakeholders over time can   yield valuable insights and interdependence between factors , issues or solutions to them . Also it   would be better to go slowly in this phase and take in as much inputs as possible without biases and   having a skeptic who would question our line of thinking to make it fool - proof or at least fitting the   description of “ satisficing ” when we arrive at a criteria . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Challenge     While working for my previous employer , I had to look at the issues that our clients were facing in   the running of their business which were very diverse as we had clients ranging from pharmacy to   network carriers to technology firms . Most of the time the solution was arrived at by asking the   clients some key questions in order to ascertain their unarticulated needs which usually required us   to deep dive with them into their issues faced , be it on the customers end , the supply side or any   other areas . Taking the example of one such client , a retail firm , was facing difficulty in managing the   cost price increases they were facing from their suppliers . Being a global retail firm their suppliers   varied from local suppliers to international ones from the opposite end of the world . This posed the   problem of validating the correct price increases quoted by the suppliers and also difficulties for the   category managers going into negotiations with the suppliers as they had to put together suppliers   profiles before entering into new contracts or renegotiating the current terms .     Selection     This was a problem which involved many stakeholders ( the category managers and the suppliers ) , so   in order to develop a solution , we needed to look at the problem from multiple lenses , understand   their position points and then start to build a criteria to abide by when removing ideas for solutions .   A mind map , one involving key stakeholders seemed like the best way to capture the needs of the   managers and then having them review the basic outline created , taking their inputs and   deliberating with them on their inputs over the course of a few days and creating a plan around it   worked well for us .     Application     Over the course of the project , I created a set of crucial items that were key to addressing the   problems faced . For instance : to keep up with global changes in the commodities , I decided to build   ash index which would encompass most commodities ( sugar , flour , milk , etc ) in order to simplify the   process of validation of price increases submitted by the suppliers in their products . Next was   holding a newsletter which would identify the major ingredients in a business unit ( say groceries )   and showcasing the major threats ( suppliers who might come for a price increases ) and   opportunities ( where prices had decreased and we could renegotiate terms with suppliers ) . After   compiling there in rudimentary forms I floated these along category managers who then came up   with some great additions to the initial mind map .     Insights     Taking the inputs from the category managers , some mind boggling things came to light . The   suppliers who were in contract basis would never review the price in between their contracts and   this at times decreased the margins heavily for the retail firms as those were going untracked . One   of the insights was outsourcing the commodity days collection as there were few portals which   collected index data globally . One managers suggested having rolling suppliers profiles which could   have regular updates and could salai be used to capture soft factors such as past relationship with   the suppliers in order to be fair and accommodating their challenges faced as we did for a cardboard   supplier when few of the supplier ’s factories were shut down owing to new government regulations   passed in China . Another insight was to link the outsourced days to a dashboard which could give us   live updates for the commodity prices and also doing analysis on the data to identify trends and   brace for them beforehand . 

 Approach     Going forward , I feel it would be more fruitful if more people are included in the initial phase of   creating a mind map as it would broaden the problem definition and enable us to look at more   factors affecting the current issue . Having deliberations with different stakeholders over time can   yield valuable insights and interdependence between factors , issues or solutions to them . Also it   would be better to go slowly in this phase and take in as much inputs as possible without biases and   having a skeptic who would question our line of thinking to make it fool - proof or at least fitting the   description of “ satisficing ” when we arrive at a criteria .
### Output: 