Issue 16 | May ’20
EXCLUSIVE CHARLES EAGAN Blackberry’s CTO on its integration of Cylance, cybersecurity trends, autonomous vehicles and more
SD-WAN DEBATE
Could it become the de-facto industry standard in the next 12 months?
GAINING THE EDGE
Vodafone Business is thriving in the cloud era and betting big on edge computing, says its Head of Cloud Portfolio, Jennifer Didoni
COVID-19 FOCUS Securing workforces in a pandemic | M&A | Tech adoption in recruitment
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elcome to Issue 16 of Digital Bulletin. We have another packed itinerary for you this month, full of some of the sharpest minds in the enterprise technology world. Our cover feature takes us to Vodafone Business, where we speak exclusively to Jennifer Didoni, Head of Cloud Portfolio, about the company’s enterprise business and its “big bet” on multi-access edge computing. The offering of Vodafone’s services arm has expanded rapidly in recent years, far beyond its original scope in the mobile world, and now takes in unified communications, IoT and cloud expertise. Its next exciting venture is in the growing edge space. “There’s a variety of different statistics about edge that I could quote, but the general consensus is that 80% of data that is generated is going to be generated at the edge, as opposed to a core data centre or a cloud,” Didoni tells us in a wide-ranging interview.
Elsewhere, we look at how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting various aspects of the technology world. Blackberry’s CTO Charles Eagan tells us how the enterprise cybersecurity software outfit is working with its customers through the crisis, as well as offering us an update on the company’s integration of Cylance. Our monthly analysis considers whether COVID-19 could act as a catalyst for M&A activity in the financial sector. As practically all of our banking is forced online, could banks look to fintech businesses to plug gaps in their digital infrastructures? Elsewhere, Tanium’s CISO Chris Hodson discusses how businesses can best protect against cyberattacks at a time when great swathes of the workforce have taken to working from home. Lastly, we hope you are all keeping safe in what is a hugely trying time. Please do enjoy the issue.
PUBLISHED BY BULLETIN MEDIA LTD, Norwich, UK Company No: 11454926 www.DigitalBullet.in TALK TO US editorial@digitalbullet.in business@digitalbullet.in
PUBLISHING
MEDIA PRODUCTION
DIGITAL MARKETING
INSIDE VIEW
Uber is reeling after the resignation of one of its most important and longest-serving executives, CTO Thuan Pham. Pictured here at last year’s RISE event, Pham has been with the company since 2013 and was the last remaining influential figure from the Travis Kalanick era
CONTENTS
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NEWS ANALYSIS COULD COVID-19 FUEL FINTECH M&A ACTIVITY?
PEOPLE TANIUM Securing a newly divergent workforce
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3 14 IT SERVICES
VODAFONE BUSINESS Going all-in on edge computing
30 SECURITY
BLACKBERRY An exclusive interview with CTO Charles Eagan
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A LIFE IN TECH
DATA INTELLIGENCE HITACHI VANTARA Why effective DataOps is key to successful transformation
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Zizo CEO Peter Ruffley looks back on 40 years in technology
64 46 EVENTS
FUTURE
KORN FERRY Using AI to win the recruitment war
CONNECTIVITY DEBATE Could SD-WAN become dominant within the next 12 months?
The best digital technology events for your diary
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An exclusive column from Stefano Bensi, General Manager, Softbank Robotics EMEA
NEWS ANALYSIS
2020 YEAR OF
THE FINTECH? The COVID-19 pandemic will bring banks’ claims to be fully digital into sharp focus. Could a scramble to plug gaps make fintechs an attractive M&A option?
AUTHOR: James Henderson
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ust as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic will be felt far and wide. And it goes without saying that the human element is by far the most important element to consider. But the economy and the effort to ensure the virus doesn’t lead to its all-out 8
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collapse is also focussing the minds of politicians, economists and the general public. For the economy to survive in any sort of shape, the financial institutions and therefore the technology supporting them must be rock solid. For some time, the world’s financial giants have claimed that their offerings are ‘end-to-end digital’. With people
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forced into their homes and almost all interactions with banks and lenders being carried out online, those claims will now be put to the ultimate test. Any gap in a bank’s or payment provider’s digital capabilities will be brought into focus more sharply than ever. One of the speediest ways to plug those gaps is M&A, with fintech firms offering nuts and bolts services potentially finding themselves in-demand. Andy Efstathiou, Director Banking Sourcing at BPO analyst NelsonHall, believes the pandemic could act as a catalyst for M&A interest in fintechs for two reasons. “Banks will face cost constraints due to greater numbers of nonperforming loans and lower revenues from consumers/ businesses who face declining revenues,” he comments. “The tightening of budgets will reduce budgets for new IT initiatives.
Frank Zhou
Ian Johnson
Fintechs will find it more difficult to make new sales, which will have the greatest impact on earlier stage fintechs. “Banks will reprioritise their IT investments to focus less on new sales and customer experience, and focus more on default management, business continuity, and cost reduction efforts. Fintechs will need to adjust their mix of offerings and increase their sales efforts. Both of those activities are easier in a larger organisation, which will drive consolidation.” For all the talk of digitalisation in recent years, there is withheld suspicion that many of the more traditional banking institutions and finance houses have actually been incredibly sluggish in their modernisation efforts. That lack of urgency could now be punished, forcing a scramble to bring digital platforms and technology suites
Andy Efstathiou
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up to scratch, making them capable of supporting changing consumer and business habits. “We are living in a transitional period from physical to digital finance - which is the fundamental reason for digital banking solutions to thrive with cheaper, faster, and more convenient banking experience,” says Frank Zhou, CEO and founder of fintech company Zeux. “This was clear prior to the pandemic and the current situation will only understrike the trend. The threat of fintech on traditional banks had been there prior to COVID-19 and the crisis will
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only speed up the process of inevitable digitalisation. “If traditional banks want to keep a sustainable competitive advantage and keep attracting new customers long term, they have to adapt and up their digital infrastructure rather than playing defensively. “One way for banks and large financial institutions to react is to acquire or partner with fintech companies offering flexible solutions which high-street banks wouldn’t be able to implement or come up with quickly enough.” Banks will have to move quickly to first pinpoint where they find themselves
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short in terms of product offering, and subsequently to implement fixes, says Ian Johnson, Head of Europe at card issuing platform Marqeta. “A traditional bank might identify they have a gap in their ability to spot fraudulent activity. This might be because they don’t have access to real-time data and context into which payments should be authenticated,” he says. “As a result, fraudulent payments may only be identified retrospectively. However, the new breed of fintechs are experts in data and analytics, offering the capability to make fraud decisions in real-time. “This would give more digital context, such as spending habits or geo-location data, from ‘cards that think’. The modern payment platforms that power these
cards provide the data needed to make real-time, intelligence-driven decisions on which payments are fraudulent, stopping them before money leaves the account.” While the pandemic could mean fintechs find themselves increasingly attractive acquisition targets, Johnson believes that some of the sector’s new players might have an opportunity to redefine how modern day banking looks. “Historically, people have used a traditional bank as their primary account, while digital banks or fintech apps hold a secondary role for specific activities. However, if digital banks can prove themselves to be a reliable partner to consumers, everything could change. “The health crisis will see digital transformation shoot to the top of the agenISSUE 16
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da for traditional banks, and could see many partnering with, or even acquiring, fintech providers to achieve modernisation goals.” Fintechs specialising in AI tools and data analytics are likely to be in demand, as they were before the spread of coronavirus. For example, Santander has added voice recognition to its banking app, while RBS has trialled AI customer services and DBS Bank is working with IBM to utilise data to provide a better customer experience. “The pandemic brings a more clear view of how customers are interacting with financial institutions and this is an opportunity for companies to rethink their strategies, jump on the digital wave and start in a better position after the crisis,” says Zeux. “To give a complex picture it’s important to say that whilst digital solutions will appeal to many, fintech unicorns will have to work hard to win highstreet banks’ traditional customers and this will take more than just ‘fancy digital app features’ - trust will play a significant role in the decision making.” While banks in the developed world may be some way down the line with digital transformation programmes, financial institutions in developing nations may not have been as fast. The 12
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pandemic should prove to be a catalyst for change, says Efstathiou. “Tier one banks and banks in certain economies - Asia, North America, and mature markets - have known for several years that they need to digitally transform,” he comments. “In contrast, local banks in all geographies, and mid-tier banks in Eastern Europe, and LATAM have been very slow to adapt. This pandemic has highlighted for them that they also must transform to remain competitive.
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Overall, the pandemic has accelerated everyone’s plans to transform digitally.” What is clear is that the financial world is going through a shock that could well put 2008 in the shade, with the after-effects likely to be severe. But with disruption comes opportunity, and potentially the chance for products and platforms previously on the fringes of the finance world to hit the mainstream. “With central banks having been rapidly expanding their balance sheets
by ‘printing money’, inflation is on the horizon,” says Zeux. “Given the finite supply nature of most cryptocurrencies, the value of them being the replacement of money will start showing. A certain type of bold customer might be inclined to explore this territory in order to diversify their investment portfolio. It’s for innovative fintechs to spot the market gap at the right time and offer a compelling cryptocurrency product.”
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VODAFONE BUSINESS
Jennifer Didoni tells Digital Bulletin about the growth of Vodafone’s enterprise business in the cloud era and explains why it has made a “big bet” on multi-access edge computing AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER
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hen Vodafone completed the £1 billion acquisition of Cable & Wireless (C&W) in 2012, it quietly took more steps into the world of managed IT and hosting. Not only was the United Kingdom’s biggest mobile phone company taking ownership of an extensive fibre-optic network at a time when smartphones were becoming the must-have accessory, but the deal also brought with it C&W’s enterprise-level fixed, mobile and IT services.
Few could have predicted back then just how significant these capabilities would become - after all, it was the potential of C&W’s network infrastructure that gained all the attention eight years ago, not Vodafone’s newly-acquired IT services. But with the cloud computing revolution about to hit, Vodafone - having already started delivering IT services to large corporations through its VGE (Vodafone Global Enterprise) subsidiary - took some extra skin in the game. ISSUE 16
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More than anything, I think cloud is about giving our customers the tools so that they can transform their operations and become much more innovative and agile in their markets” As cloud take-up grew, Vodafone’s services arm grew alongside it. Today, its offering goes far beyond mobile, with its Business unit delivering unified communications, IoT (Internet of Things) and cloud expertise to organisations of all sizes around the world. “Between our C&W acquisition in 2012 and now, the market has rapidly changed in the cloud and hosting space,” says Jennifer Didoni, Head of Cloud Portfolio for Vodafone Business. Didoni has been with Vodafone for over a decade, so witnessed the company expand its business for the digital-first era - and she herself played an important part in this change. Between 2014 and 2019, she oversaw product management for Vodafone’s IoT portfolio. Didoni took on a similar job for its cloud services in March this year. 16
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“More than anything, I think cloud is about giving our customers the tools so that they can transform their operations and become much more innovative and agile in their markets. It’s really about that competitive advantage we can give to our customers,” she explains when quizzed on Vodafone’s role in the cloud space. “We have a broad range of partnerships in our cloud portfolio, including close partnerships with Azure, AWS, Alibaba, Google and, last year we announced a deep partnership with IBM and now Red Hat as well, in the multi-cloud space. That looks at how we can augment Vodafone’s capabilities through having managed and professional services that we can draw on IBM for, ultimately to help our customers make that journey to the cloud.” The bumper agreement with IBM was revealed alongside a great publicity drive last January, and for good reason: the $550 million partnership gave Vodafone Business immediate access to IBM’s complete portfolio of cloud offerings, with IBM also delivering managed services to Vodafone Business’ cloud and hosting unit. At the time, Vodafone’s CEO Nick Read said the collaboration would drive “radical simplification and efficiency in our business”. For Didoni, the announcement kickstarted what she be-
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lieves was a transformative year as 2019 also saw Vodafone deepen its collaborations with the hyperscale public cloud providers, all-in-all appreciably elevating its cloud offering. “We were previously pushing what might have been considered older technology for a long time but I now think, through the partnerships that we have gained over the last year, we really have pulled together a market-leading portfolio. 2020 is going to be all about proving that and watching our customers adopt and transform,” she adds. Perhaps the most exciting area for Didoni, however, is the IT paradigm that best marries Vodafone’s long-held leadership in fixed and mobile networks with
its bolstered cloud services; edge computing, or more specifically multi-access edge computing. Multi-access edge computing (MEC) pushes IT services and cloud capability out to the edge of the network. For Vodafone and the world’s other leading telcos, it represents an enormous opportunity to capitalise on their expertise and play a leading role in offering new levels of performance for enterprise customers working with increasing amounts of connected devices and remote applications. “There’s a variety of different statistics about edge that I could quote, but the general consensus is that 80% of data that is generated is going to be generated at the edge, as opposed to ISSUE 16
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We were previously pushing what might have been considered older technology for a long time but I now think, through the partnerships that we have gained over the last year, we really have pulled together a market-leading portfolio”
a core data centre or a cloud. So certainly that centre of gravity of data has moved,” outlines Didoni. The move to MEC is a topic particularly close to Didoni, who was involved in Vodafone’s early work around edge computing when Head of IoT Product Management. “Five or six years ago, Vodafone was working on MEC with standards bodies,” she explains. “I was talking with and inspired by the R&D guys’ vision of the future, and so when the standards were finalised and MEC was becom18
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ing real, about two years ago, I started working with Vodafone to do some detailed analysis on the use cases before building it out from there. “I had just came back from maternity leave, I was trying to find a role for myself and I took on a special project at the time, which was MEC. It kind of snowballed after that and it’s become a fantastic opportunity, and a big bet for Vodafone, and I’m really pleased to have seen it from day zero, let’s say.” The advantages of MEC are compelling: it offers ultra-low, single dig-
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it latency, solving the lag issue often experienced between devices and the cloud, while it allows software applications to tap into local content and real-time information about local-access network conditions. But it is MEC’s potential for data processing at the edge where the real benefits can be seen, enabling the routing of only relevant data back to the core. Vodafone’s edge offering is twofold, with a “dedicated edge” - where a customer is supplied with a bespoke edge infrastructure alongside its private mobile
network - or a “distributed edge”, which supports multiple businesses through a public 4G or 5G network. “In my view MEC brings the best of both worlds,” says Didoni. “So it gives our customers the flexibility, the scalability, the pay-per-use model that they love about the public cloud, but it brings the compute close to the edge, where the data is being generated. “What I don’t want to say is that it’s going to be relevant for every application. I think the leap from 4G services to 4G plus edge or 5G plus edge is a very specific verticalised use case. So it will deliver new capability that is completely transformational, but it may not be that every single person who touches the network is using that application. I still don’t see it, for example, as something that is going to replace the cloud at all. I see it as something that is going to augment the cloud.” The use cases Didoni highlights are video analytics, controlled drones and augmented reality - applications that each demand the low latency and data processing offered by MEC in order to be viable at scale. Other areas where MEC is predicted to have an impact include location services, data caching and more generally in IoT. “If you start to imagine that there may be a world where you have robots delivering packages in the future, that robot is going ISSUE 16
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I think the leap from 4G services to 4G plus edge or 5G plus edge is a very specific verticalised use case. So it will deliver new capability that is completely transformational, but it may not be that every single person who touches the network is using that application�
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VODAFONE BUSINESS
to need to have video to determine what’s going on around it,” she adds. “It would not make economic sense to take all of that video, stream it over the network and store it in the cloud. So being able to filter out only the key events, and send that as a record, is an interesting compromise that we can bring to customers.” Edge computing now sits alongside Vodafone Business’ cloud and IoT services as part of its ever-improving enterprise offering, and the company sees strong potential in MEC technology which is still in its relative infancy. In December, it announced a tie-up with AWS which will see it install AWS Wavelength infrastructure at points of concentration in its networks, delivering edge performance to more developers and devices. Vodafone has also partnered with Microsoft to support its Microsoft Azure Private Edge Zones rollout, so there’s positive progress on all fronts - and Didoni believes the coronavirus might also accelerate the business case for multi-access edge computing. “I thought we were maybe five to 10 years out, but the current context of today kind of changes that landscape,” she concludes. “Potentially some of those use cases are going to be accelerated as we start to think about the fact that we may need more automation as a backup in the case of outbreaks and isolation.” ISSUE 16
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PROTECTING A DISTRIBUTED WORKFORCE The coronavirus pandemic has thrown all manner of challenges the way of enterprise, especially when it comes to cybersecurity and protecting remote workers. Tanium CISO Chris Hodson discusses this rapidlychanging landscape with Digital Bulletin
AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer
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n recent years, enterprise leaders have found themselves frequently debating the merits of remote working. Doing their job remotely has, for some, been the norm for a while. Technology’s certainly blurred the line between professional life and home life. But the majority of employees have still used - and embraced - offices and working spaces. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, that normality has been shattered. Government measures in affected countries have led to the temporary shutdown of 22
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offices, resulting in millions of people forming possibly the largest distributed workforce we will ever see. Almost overnight, the “working from home” movement has had its revolution. There’s a school of thought that says the way we work has changed forever. But with such sudden disruption come daunting challenges. Companies of all sizes are scrambling to facilitate remote working for nearly all of their employees all of the time, rather than for some employees some of the time. And in IT and technology, one of the hottest topics of
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The CISO is having to think incredibly quickly. Do we make time-bound, riskbased calls on reducing or amending security postures? Or do we have to shift from a preventative model to focusing more on detection and response?” Chris Hodson
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the COVID-19 era is security. Releasing workers and their devices from the safe haven of a core network raises obvious security concerns. Chris Hodson is a published author on cyber risk management and has occupied both the end-user and vendor security worlds. As Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for security and IT management firm Tanium, Hodson is well aware of the issues confronting his industry as businesses do whatever it takes to maintain operational continuity while protecting their workers. “It’s a real dichotomy, it’s a real challenge for CISOs at the moment,” he tells Digital Bulletin in an exclusive interview. “If you think about what we do, CISOs aren’t there to implement malware sandboxes, antivirus software and patching solutions - we’re there to give visibility of risk, to be able to advise leaders of potential upcoming incidents that could affect their ability to execute on business strategy. Now we’re working remotely, all we can do in many situations is provide guidance to business leaders on how amending your security posture could have negative repercussions.” Hodson is referring to the temptation for business leaders to put security low among their priorities as they instead focus on keeping their workforce engaged and the cogs of business turning.
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He continues: “The CISO is left in this really uncomfortable situation where: do I tell my business that we’re not going to allow a concession in security posture to facilitate business operations? I don’t know any CISO who wants to be in that situation. You don’t want to say no, all you can really do is advise of the challenges and the increased risk of not having visibility of all your assets. “The CISO is having to think incredibly quickly. Do we make time-bound, riskbased calls on reducing or amending security postures? Or do we have to shift from a preventative model to focusing more on detection and response?” The main challenges arise from taking
devices out of the network, along with employees using their own devices when working from home. A recent study from Tanium revealed that 93% of IT leaders had discovered devices within their organisation’s IT environment that they previously didn’t know about. In this scenario, teams lose visibility and control of all their IT assets, creating vulnerabilities that can be exploited. And it is not a problem that can be resolved quickly, with coronavirus-related logistics constraints preventing businesses from swiftly issuing secure devices to its workforce. Hodson delves into other difficulties currently being faced around mass remote working, adding: “Another one
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Organisations in heavilyregulated industries healthcare is one great example, financial services is another have a legal obligation to ensure that certain environments adhere to rules and regulations”
I see is compliance. Organisations in heavily-regulated industries - healthcare is one great example, financial services is another - have a legal obligation to ensure that certain environments adhere to rules and regulations. “That’s something that becomes rather onerous if either you’re not in control of the device that’s processing data and information, and if you can’t provide any form of update to those devices. “More in the Tanium wheelhouse, there’s the issue of patching. Lots of organisations have a tonne of data centre dependencies to distribute patches. And that’s 26
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just on the tech side - then there are the people challenges. Some CISOs are having calls with their suppliers and saying that SLAs are going to have to change because they don’t have the staff. All of this is compounding the problem of an increased set of threat events.” As a consequence of these remote working challenges, enterprise security normally a subject reserved for specialist industry coverage - has become a mainstream talking point during the coronavirus pandemic. Much of this reportage centres around collaborative working software, which has
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very quickly turned from a handy add-on for employees to a critical tool for business continuity as we all work from home. Naturally, the security postures of these platforms have come under unprecedented security - not least in the case of video conferencing application Zoom. During the month of March, Zoom saw an astonishing 535% rise in daily traffic to its download page. Yet security concerns around the platform quickly hit the headlines; there was a surge in hackers “Zoombombing” meetings, the company was criticised for falsely claiming to use end-to-end encryption and a number of
other minor security flaws were exposed. In normal times, such an exponential growth in users would be nothing other than positive for a business like Zoom. You certainly wouldn’t expect its CEO to have to pen a grovelling apology to its community, as Eric Yuan did at the beginning of April. But Hodson adopts a balanced view when the question of Zoom’s high-profile failings was put to him. “I think the challenge you have with applications, with operating systems, whatever it is, is that as something gains popularity, it gains attraction to cybercriminals,” he explains. “I think the reason the Zoom vulnerability gained so much notoriety is that it was in the news every day. I couldn’t go to a mainstream newspaper without people talking about Zoom. Whenever anything has that level of exposure, any form of negative press is going to be newsworthy. “One thing I will say in Zoom’s defence is that there was a software update within 24 hours - some will say that the damage was done, but it raises the more philosophical question of what happens if there’s an exposure in another provider soon? I know CISOs who’ve removed Zoom from their environment, but the conversation I’m having with them is are they doing similar things if vulnerabilities are reported in other products? The answer varies.” ISSUE 16
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Tanium’s CISO hits on the key point of cybercriminals ramping up their efforts, which is another theme to have emerged from COVID-19. Hackers haven’t just targeted collaboration platforms but the global healthcare sector has also been subjected to an array of attacks as it deals with the pandemic, according to multiple data sources. Hodson has also observed this development and believes a general increase in attacks during the coronavirus is down to the “opportunistic” and “entrepreneurial” instincts of cybercriminals. “I think it’s a fairly realistic picture. I was running a webinar recently where this subject came up, and we spoke about how there are various types of
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threat actors out there at the moment who are entrepreneurial and opportunistic,” he explains. “For example we are seeing, as an industry, an increase in targeted phishing. Phishing always needs some form of pretext to get the end user to essentially click on links and be redirected to somewhere malicious. The challenge you have with a pandemic is there are so many personal issues that are brought into the melting pot. “The pretext we’re seeing from cybercriminals is one that’s particularly visceral to people. If you’ve got relatives who are unwell from COVID-19, or you’re frequently turning to the likes of the World Health Organization and updates around numbers, mitigation and containment plans -
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Phishing always needs some form of pretext to get the end user to essentially click on links and be redirected to somewhere malicious. The challenge you have with a pandemic is there are so many personal issues that are brought into the melting pot” that’s an absolute goldmine of pretext for a cybercriminal to start sending out very authentic-looking communications.” He also brings the point back round to remote working, and how a sudden change from normality can lead to less vigilance when dealing with phishing scams and other malware distribution. “When we talk about phishing generally and malware distribution, we usually talk about whether we have the right technical controls in an organisation - well at this time, people are operating in different working environments. It does change your ability to focus and it does introduce a different stress into your day. “If you bring that into a phishing scenario, where that degree of necessary vigilance perhaps isn’t there because people are working too hard and trying to manage their families as well, I think it creates an additional factor.”
To combat these threats, Hodson believes organisations must take extra responsibility around security technology and communications - but approach that challenge in a way that will strike a tone with employees who are struggling for order and normality as a global pandemic unfolds around them. “Security professionals must provide guidance on the threat landscape, but in human-speak rather than the technical cyber-babble that we’re sometimes guilty of,” he concludes. “Users need to be able to contact the company if they’re stressed or they’re not coping. Changing your way of working so quickly is hard. If people become stressed and have burnout, that has a material impact not only on their lives and health, but also from a cybersecurity perspective with their ability to make reasonable and sensible decisions.”
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SECURING CYBERSPACE Blackberry’s CTO, Charles Eagan, speaks exclusively to Digital Bulletin about its reaction to COVID-19, the trends shaping the cybersecurity market, the integration of Cylance and much more
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ow has the COVID-19 crisis impacted BlackBerry’s wider technology initiatives and goals? Because of our heritage of secure mobile communication, our initial focus was to help companies adapt quickly – especially those that might not have been ready to meet the demands of this new reality. We’re also intent on helping businesses navigate this challenging time, and supporting them with the right solutions to keep people and data safe at all times. Our goals and strategy have not changed: we are still committed to connecting, securing, and managing every endpoint in the Internet of Things. 30
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Beyond a secure enterprise or secure building, we think about constructing critical infrastructure, securing utilities, providing automotive safety, and securing the consumer themselves. Cyberattacks are on the up, many of them COVID-19 related - how can enterprises best protect themselves against attacks, especially whilst home working? While it’s true that home has become the new enterprise, this shift has not been without security risks. For instance, one of the most frequent attacks we are seeing right now is phishing emails. With an increasing number of employees
BLACKBERRY
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PHISHING ATTACKS ARE BECOMING MORE COMPLEX AND CYBER CRIMINALS REALISE THAT TRADITIONAL SECURITY MODELS – BASED ON HUMAN INPUT – ARE SUSCEPTIBLE TO ATTACK DURING TIMES OF PANIC AND HIGH STRESS SUCH AS THESE” logging in from home, phishing attacks and more advanced threats are being increasingly deployed by malicious actors. The first thing an organisation can do is teach its staff how to look out for signs of malicious activity and how to react if they are suspicious. Applying zero trust to your inbox is key at all times. Phishing attacks are also becoming more complex and cyber criminals realise that traditional security models – based on human input – are susceptible to attack during times of panic and high stress such as these. This is where AI-based solutions can address the challenge. Through the ability to learn and adapt, AI solutions can dynamically react and adjust to an 32
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organisation’s – or individual employee’s – needs and risks. Solutions that leverage machine-learning can stop phishing attacks from being successful even when employees are distracted or tricked by specially crafted emails. Security solutions need to leverage machine learning to provide analysis for the likes of millions of characteristics that identify a file as being malicious or benign, and then prevent the latter from executing on an endpoint. This innovative technique renders malware, ransomware, and zero-day attacks ineffective at machine speed. Attackers take advantage of human nature, especially how we behave when receiving or accessing important information from sources we assume to be trusted. The potential to fall victim to a phishing attack is heightened right now. It is more crucial than ever that businesses have empowered teams while also making sure that they have the right tools in place to be protected. Away from the virus, what are the main tech trends you are seeing in the IT security space at present? The threat landscape is wider and more complex than ever. From an IT security technology perspective, we will see continued development of AI-based threat detection and prediction solutions. I can-
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not stress the importance of this enough: today’s cybersecurity threats are vast and incredibly smart, and many are employing AI themselves in a weaponised form. We are seeing more threats designed to evade traditional perimeter defences, which are invisible to the standard threat detection methods that rely on blacklists and malware signatures. This is where AI is so important: intelligent technologies lie at the heart of the solution to rapid and new cyberattacks. These technologies help fuel automated and predictive threat detection, which can spot the signs of a threat before it infiltrates systems – it’s replacing the typical reactive response with a proac-
tive one. AI-based cybersecurity solutions are not only capable of preventing known threats, but of predicting and preventing new threats before they have the chance to cause significant damage. When you look back, how would you reflect on the job BlackBerry has done in pivoting its business to an enterprise software innovator? In 2014, we began executing a strategy to focus on enterprise software. We saw an opportunity to leverage our expertise in mobile-first security and communications, and apply this to a broad set of endpoints, beyond BlackBerry smartphones. We recognised that the Internet
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of Things would transform industries, and that more information would be pushed to the edge. We also realised that these endpoints and the information would need to be connected, managed, and secured as the intelligent edge continues to develop and emerge. BlackBerry is well positioned to leverage the strength of its brand, security expertise, and systems to make an impact on the Internet of Things. Identifying and pursuing the emerging category of billions of connected devices – and the massive market potential that comes with it – has been an exciting challenge. We now have a more clear and developed software business, and we know that we have a unique security and privacy offering that speaks to definite needs in the marketplace. To me, there
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couldn’t be a better time to be here and I’m excited for what the future will bring. What are some of BlackBerry’s major initiatives and programmes of work in the enterprise software security space? In addition to offering our businesses additional assistance in implementing their own remote working programs, at no cost, we’re also focused on some more mid- to long-term initiatives in the enterprise security space. For instance, at the RSA conference, we announced our BlackBerry Spark platform now features a unified endpoint security (UES) layer, which can work with BlackBerry UEM to deliver zero trust security. Leveraging many of Cylance’s technologies – including AI, machine learning and automation – BlackBerry
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Spark now offers improved cyberthreat prevention and remediation, and provides visibility across desktop, mobile, server, and other IoT (including automotive) endpoints. BlackBerry Spark offers the broadest set of security capabilities and visibility covering users, devices, network, apps and data, as well as data management and data privacy. The components of BlackBerry Spark are designed to work seamlessly together to provide the highest level of security and management with a simpler, more productive user experience on any endpoint, from any location, over any network. How has the company been able to integrate the capabilities of Cylance since the acquisition in late 2018, and how has the acquisition improved BlackBerry as a whole? Effective March 1, 2020, we successfully integrated the entire Cylance organisation, including sales and R&D teams. The combination of BlackBerry and Cylance teams form the core of the BlackBerry Spark organisation. Now, as an AI-cybersecurity company, we have more ambition than ever to secure systems in the most proactive way possible. We believe a unified team leads to broader customer coverage, a richer product road map, a clearer sales mes-
WE NOW HAVE A MORE CLEAR AND DEVELOPED SOFTWARE BUSINESS, AND WE KNOW THAT WE HAVE A UNIQUE SECURITY AND PRIVACY OFFERING THAT SPEAKS TO DEFINITE NEEDS IN THE MARKETPLACE. TO ME, THERE COULDN’T BE A BETTER TIME TO BE HERE AND I’M EXCITED FOR WHAT THE FUTURE WILL BRING” sage, and most importantly, very differentiated offerings. We can see this integration in the BlackBerry Spark platform, which leverages Cylance-fuelled artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation to provide improved cyber threat prevention and remediation. The integration of Cylance’s technologies has not only improved BlackBerry’s established solutions, but it has also opened the door for the development of future solutions that are even more secure, sophisticated, and user-friendly. ISSUE 16
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Could you tell us a bit about BlackBerry Labs and how that programme is progressing? As an innovation accelerator, BlackBerry Advanced Technology Development Labs is an intentional investment into the future of the company (which is how our estimates on personnel went from an initial staff of 20 to 120 individuals very quickly). We’ve handpicked the team to include experts in the embedded IoT space with diverse capabilities, including strong data science expertise. Notably, we’re setting up hardware labs in Waterloo and Ottawa to be used by our teams, creating spaces dedicated to specific areas of focus and testing. Overall, most of the investment has been made already, but we’re still looking to build on this unit by partnering with six universities on active research and development. We’re quite proud of these initiatives and think they will greatly benefit our future roadmap. Initially we’ve been focusing on the importance of integrating Cylance’s machine learning technology into BlackBerry’s product pipeline. However, it’s not just about creating an ecosystem of ML-based solutions, but rather smartly and strategically adopting ML into the work we’re accomplishing each day. My role is primarily helping to bridge the different teams and create this connec36
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Blackberry is making inroads into the autonomous vehicle market
tivity and cross-pollination between the various business units. At CES, for instance, we unveiled an AI-based transportation solution geared towards OEMs and commercial fleets. This solution provides a holistic view of the security and health of a vehicle, and provides control over that security for a manufacturer or fleet manager. Born in BlackBerry Labs, the new offering marks the first time BlackBerry Cylance’s AI and ML technologies have been integrated with BlackBerry QNX solutions, which are currently powering
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upwards of 150 million vehicles on the road today. How do you foresee the security sector developing over the next three to five years and what do you believe will be the technologies that define it? The technologies that define the security sector over the coming years will depend upon the technologies being used by cybercriminals. Innovation must be continuous, as attackers continually search for new ways to carry out their nefarious actions. For
instance, we’re expecting new attack strategies in existing, widely-used file formats – last year, we found malicious payloads residing in WAV audio files. It’s difficult to tell how the tech world will spring back after the pandemic, but we hope to see organisations bounce back quickly, and continue to innovate in the IoT sector. New, exciting technologies will always come with new routes for attackers to infiltrate endpoints, so we must create technologies that protect against this. The cybersecurity sector must work together to secure everything, leaving no stone unturned. This means we must continue to investigate threats both new and old, like the Remote Access Trojans sponsored by the Chinese state, which have been targeting Western intellectual property for almost 10 years. Furthermore, we must continue to develop trusted endpoint protection and secure communications technologies that work across all industries. And we must predict the next cyber threats ahead of time, using predictive and intelligent technology. Machine-learning and AI are the way forward for cybersecurity, and we are working with our BlackBerry Labs team to develop these from the ground up.
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ENABLING DATA-DRIVEN TRANSFORMATIONS CIOs find themselves under increasing pressure to deliver transformations to justify large-scale spending on digital platforms and infrastructure. But without effective DataOps, they are fighting a losing battle, according to Hitachi Vantara’s Jonathan Bowl
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recent report from Gartner looking at the major concerns of CEOs will have made for uncomfortable reading for their CIO counterparts. It found that next to concerns over globalisation and economic issues - in a pre-COVID-19 world, it is worth pointing out - “digital dithering” was focussing the minds of boards of directors and Chief Execs. Some digital programmes are almost a decade old - the report said many started between 2011 and 2013 - with hundreds of billions of dollars invest-
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ed in digital platforms and infrastructure to enable lasting transformations. There is now an expectation that such significant outlays start showing tangible results. But many companies are effectively working with one or even both their arms tied behind their back when it comes to digital transformation programmes because of an inability to properly treat their data. That’s according to Jonathan Bowl, Hitachi Vantara’s VP & GM, Big Data & IoT, who tells Digital Bulletin that many businesses have,
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If you are a siloed organisation, you are as far away from digital transformation as it is possible to be” Jonathan Bowl
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and will continue to, fall by the wayside as a result. “There is a phrase that I use that is “Digital Darwinism’, and I think that since 2000, 52% of the FTSE 500 companies at that time no longer exist as they were then,” he says. “They’ve gone out of business or been acquired and what we are seeing now is the survival of the fittest. Businesses that are transforming and modernising are the ones that are keeping pace. “We engage with a significant number of organisations and one of the first challenges we come across is finding the data. Large enterprises will tell us that they have a lot of it but that they don’t know who owns it or who is responsible for it. “Most companies have grown over time in silos, so IT projects have been driven on a departmental basis, you have financial systems, CRM systems for sales, and operational systems. Each department has its own budget and has built up silos of data. If you are a siloed organisation, you are as far away from digital transformation as it is possible to be.” Hitachi Vantara, and Bowl in particular, are vocal proponents of DataOps - combining data and operations - which has been billed as “data management for the AI era”. DataOps, deployed correctly, has the power to realise data’s ultimate po-
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tential by automating the processes that enable the right data to get to the right place at the right time, while ensuring it remains secure and accessible to authorised employees across the enterprise. The volume around data and its value has never been louder, but companies are still coming up against the same issues: human-dependent data collection, duplicated data, inaccurate data and “dirty data” have all been cited as huge roadblocks to transformation. Bowl says that a tendency to look at data exclusively in the present tense is also proving problematic and stopping companies from unlocking valuable insights.
“If you look at a big data maturity model, organisations are using their data to understand what happens today: how many people came into the store, how many products did I sell? But few organisations are using their data to power their business in order to become more predictive and prescriptive and to transform their business. “Our job is trying to help organisations with the data that they’ve got to accelerate through the big data maturity curve in order to become more predictive, more prescriptive and build those data models that help them understand the variables and the metrics that are better ISSUE 16
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Organisations have tonnes of data that they don’t need. When you start talking about real-time sensor data, after a matter of moments it is no longer valuable, it has gone past its usefulness” indicators of performance. This helps with service and engaging with customers in new and meaningful ways.” Hitachi Vantara works with many big enterprise players across the industry spectrum, and comes into its own, according to Bowl, when it is tasked with answering truly challenging data questions. Clients include the likes of Disney, Nasdaq and NASA, while it also works with other business units in the Hitachi eco42
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system, such as Hitachi Rail, where it has built neural networks to take information from thousands of data points on rolling stock to predict issues and pain points. “Organisations have tonnes of data that they don’t need. When you start talking about real-time sensor data, after a matter of moments it is no longer valuable, it has gone past its usefulness,” says Bowl. “We’re working with Hitachi Consulting and other partners to build a plat-
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form that helps the rolling stock to predict when something is going to fail and provides all the necessary contexts. For example, just being told a door is open has no consequence, but if you’re being told a train is going 100mph and the door is open, then that is something to act on. That’s a really good example of where we are using a lot of our assets, both physical and IT, to answer important questions.”
The company has also worked with Stena Line to introduce what it says is the first AI-assisted vessel. The model known as the AI Captain - simulates different scenarios before suggesting optimal route and performance setup and is able to consider a number of variables, such as currents, weather conditions, shallow water and speed through water. “We’re using the knowledge of the people on the vessels together with the ISSUE 16
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Data is so powerful that it doesn’t need a metaphor and the reality is that it isn’t like oil, data does not deplete, it does not wear out”
neural networks that we’ve been building in order to optimise the ships. Neural networks are able to learn over time and what we’ve been able to do is reduce their fuel costs significantly by optimising the vessels using these data points in real time.” One phrase that is used a lot is ‘data is the new oil’, or the new sun or the new gold, the new currency, there are so many metaphors, and Bowl reckons to have heard them all. But there are some key differences that he says makes data stand out on its own as a resource. 44
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“Data is so powerful that it doesn’t need a metaphor and the reality is that it isn’t like oil, data does not deplete, it does not wear out. It can be used for an infinite amount of time over and over again and the more you use your data, the more curated it becomes, which means there is more metadata, more indexing, which in turn makes it more valuable. “The key to DataOps and the key to data engineering will be how you make all of this data available to everybody, because the more you use it the cleaner and
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more valuable it becomes. That is going to be really critical for organisations that want to use data science to find those better indicators of performance.” But as with many areas of enterprise technology, the skills gap and a wider lack of data literacy are combining in a most unwelcome way. He cites a recent study that found almost two thirds of professionals would override decisions made by data platforms based on their gut feeling. “That lack of data literacy and finding the right skills and people is going to be
a major challenge. CIOs are under a lot of pressure so being able to hire people that can interpret data and what their company needs to do to transform and stay competitive is absolutely key. Data scientists and engineers are so important to working with customers and building real differentiations into products and services.” With the proliferation of technologies like AI, machine learning and edge computing, the datasets that are causing CIOs headaches are only going to grow at an accelerated rate, making the need for effective DataOps more marked than ever before, Bowl believes. “There is a big focus on AI and machine learning and that is only going to continue,” he concludes. “CIOs are spending all this money but not seeing much value. So how we build these environments for the future is going to be really important, I don’t think we’ll see just single repositories full of data. “There is all this computing power at the edge, as well as public, private and hybrid cloud, which means a vast array of data. What will be really important is how you can do all of that integration and how you can catalogue and index all of that data in order to find it. Data is not going to be in one place and companies will need to holistically understand where their data is.” ISSUE 16
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HOWAI IS CHANGING THEWORLD OF RECRUITMENT With many industries in a fierce battle for talent, Korn Ferry’s Kay Cooper tells Digital Bulletin how AI is helping companies make better hiring decisions AUTHOR: James Henderson
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ffective recruitment has always been a labour intensive process, with hiring managers often having to sift through hundreds of potential candidates in the hope of finding a diamond in the rough. In a number of sectors technology being a prime example - the war for talent is intense, meaning making the right appointments is more important than ever. Businesses can’t afford to get their hiring decisions wrong, lest they lose ground and revenues to their competitors. Until a few years ago, the method of finding the right person for the job had remained steadfastly similar: basically a numbers game where, for every suitable 46
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candidate, you had to wade through a far greater number of people that simply didn’t fit the bill. But the recent era has been one of the golden ages of technology, helping to drive advancements across the whole spectrum of enterprise, and talent acquisition is no exception. It would be hyperbole to say that the world of recruitment and technology has been turned upside down by the widespread adoption of technology, as has been the case in other areas of industry. But what is undeniable is that technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, along with advanced analytics techniques, are being
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increasingly utilised in the recruitment process, especially in the initial efforts to shortlist sets of qualified professionals. Korn Ferry, a global management consultancy with a rich history in the talent acquisition and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) spaces, was an early adopter and proponent of AI, confident that the technology could complement the efforts of its workforce and take away some of the strain and repetitive elements of the recruitment process. Today, AI forms an important component of its recruitment approach, with the KF Recruit platform at its core. 48
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KF Recruit is an AI-enabled sourcing technology underpinned by Korn Ferry’s intellectual property, optimising recruiters’ productivity by sourcing high-quality candidates in seconds and automating repetitive manual tasks. It is no exaggeration that these are tasks that would previously take its staff hours to do. Speaking exclusively to Digital Bulletin, Kay Cooper, Managing Director of RPO EMEA, says: “KF Recruit is a combination of our proprietary IP and our exclusive partnerships with various tech providers plugged in. We’ve developed success profiles from our advisory
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team architecture around skills required for a role. “We input the hard skills, soft skills, background, competency drivers and training alongside other important information into the platform, which we can combine with what we consider to be a gold standard profile. The tool is able to take all of that and go out and identify all of the candidates it thinks are suitable.” Those longlists are then fed back to the recruiters who can make a judgement on whether the candidates are indeed suitable, with that information a simple tick or cross - helping the AI to better understand why some candidates are suitable and others not, enabling it to improve with each search it makes. Its success has allowed Korn Ferry to build out its ‘success profiles’, which it can arm its recruiters with prior to meetings with external hiring managers. This ability, says Cooper, has changed the dynamic of these meetings, which had previously been a “bit one way”. “Success profiles have massively improved the credibility of the recruiter because in an RPO model when you’re doing 10,000 hires a year, you can’t have every recruiter being a specialist on every requisition that comes in,” she says. “The recruiter can go to those briefing meetings with a detailed, data-driven document that already maps out all of
Success profiles have massively improved the credibility of the recruiter because in an RPO model when you’re doing 10,000 hires a year, you can’t have every recruiter being a specialist on every requisition that comes in” Kay Cooper
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AI helps identify the candidate in a better way and bring them to our clients who are competing against other organisations. By finding the candidate quicker AI is helping the client win the war for talent; we know who the top people are and we’ve attracted them to our client faster” the supply and demand information on that specific market, skills information and competitors that should be targeted that may not be obvious, which is really relevant in digital hiring. “Recruiters can run AI searches prior and go to meetings armed with all of this relevant information and a long list of suitable profiles. We’ve seen a huge spike in feedback from that initial hiring process.” The AI technology has also proven itself to be an internal value adder, fulfilling the often cited potential to take some of the strain of repeated and laborious work away from humans, freeing them up to take on tasks that require more critical thinking. And in turn, the hiring cost to clients has fallen markedly. Cooper says that the previous method required a great deal of “heavy lifting”, trawling through professional networking sites, posting job adverts and 50
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assessing a bulk of applications, with sometimes less than 20% of those being considered suitable. “The value of the work our recruiters and those doing sourcing is far higher because AI is doing the lower value piece. We are an RPO organisation so we need to be efficient, we need to have a price point that is compelling in the market, so the AI really helps to achieve that. “It has a knock on effect to the client, because it might have cost four times what it does under the previous model. The cost of hire with RPO is probably a quarter of what it was, which is obviously hugely compelling.” Any company worth its salt knows that its success and failure is determined by the quality of its recruitment, something that is more important than ever when many industry’s most valuable sectors have pronounced skills
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gaps. Those companies fighting each other for the best talent need an edge. “AI helps identify the candidate in a better way and bring them to our clients who are competing against other organisations. By finding the candidate quicker AI is helping the client win the war for talent; we know who the top people are and we’ve attracted them to our client faster,” Cooper comments. “It also allows you to better engage with them and have more meaningful conversations. Because we can pinpoint who they are, we can pick up the phone and talk to them, which is a nice change from candidates in competitive markets being bombarded by inbound messages. The technology is actually taking recruit-
ers back to techniques that worked much better 15 years ago where they pick the phone up and engage with people.” As with every industry sector, talent acquisition is being hit by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the virus took hold, AI and the wider integration of cutting-edge technologies were predicted to be one of the key trends for the recruitment world in 2020. Cooper believes that the impact of this crisis will only accelerate that process. “As a result of coronavirus, technology in talent acquisition is going to become even more pronounced. Not every client has been swift to adopt technology to transform, even if it is not a cost,” she comments. “Our clients directly benefit from our platform but there are still some companies that barely have an Applicant Tracking System, for example. I think what this will do is force organisations that have been slow to the curve with the talent acquisition technology revolution to get on that curve fast. “Most talent acquisition operating models are going to change and so is the market, once we get through and deal with the consequences we’ll all be re-evaluating everything we do, all businesses will I think, certainly from an efficiency perspective. I think we’ll see much more appetite for that technology.” ISSUE 16
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SD-WAN – TOP OF THE NETWORK TREE? Each month, Digital Bulletin picks the brains of experts in a particular sector of the technology world. This month, we ask: Could we see SD-WAN become the standard in the networking industry over the next 12 months, or is that timeframe too ambitious?
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“ SD-WAN has won the argument, now for dominance” Simon Pamplin, Director, Silver Peak
In our data-driven and highly connected world, companies are looking to the cloud and the network to deliver the soaring promises of digital transformation. However, traditional WAN architectures are failing to fulfil this more demanding role and, instead, the now mature SD-WAN technology is looking poised to champion transformation. With the International Data Corporation projecting the SD-WAN infrastructure market to reach $5.25 billion by 2023 (~£4.2 billion), the addressable market forecasts certainly point to SD-WAN technologies becoming the standard within the next year. Deployment issues which once turned organisations away from SD-WAN have been ironed out, and companies are now fully able to see the widespread benefits it provides. This greater visibility into the tangible business benefits of SD-WAN has sparked an increased uptake. Such solutions can re-define what the net-
work is to an organisation – moving from a compromising parameter that dictates the intensity and scope of operations, to an enabling business-defined tool that is automated and highly specialised to a company’s needs. And companies do need this network transformation. As businesses push forward digital transformation projects, with cloud at the core, they must think about modernising their networks to support their cloud ambitions. To fully utilise cloud and IoT technologies, while maintaining security then network modernisation in the form of SDWAN is key.
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Indeed, the exponential growth in businesses’ use of IoT devices – new Juniper research speculates that IoT connections are to reach 83 billion by 2024 - necessitates networks that can not only scale to support these connections, but also provide the requisite security. As applications migrate to the cloud, so too must security. They need to be thought of as two halves of the same whole. Delivering optimal, cloud-delivered security requires an advanced SD-WAN that can identify, classify and automatically steer traffic on the first packet by applying and enforcing business-driven security policies. Implementing cloud-delivered security services requires establishing primary and backup secure tunnels between branch sites and the closest and next closest cloud-security PoPs. In this GDPR-defined era in which security plays a far greater role in the process of executive decision-making, this too is driving SD-WAN adoption, and in turn, the slow demise of perimeter-based Next Generation Firewalls. That SD-WAN will become the standard in networking is an inevitability. The groundwork has been laid by earlier adopters, and the benefits laid bare for the wider business world to see. Couple this with traditional infrastruc54
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As businesses push forward digital transformation projects, with cloud at the core, they must think about modernising their networks to support their cloud ambitions” ture’s ebbing ability to meet increased demands, and the stage is set for SDWAN dominance. The question of when this will happen is more nuanced. Successful deployments rely on the right choices being made in the companies looking towards transformation. However, if organisations keep to a rigorous criteria of carefully selecting their technology partners, choosing the right product for their organisation, and meticulously planning their deployment, then the world can expect to see widespread SD-WAN as the norm within the next 12 months.
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“ Mixed messaging needs to be addressed” Jonathan Rowan, SSE Enterprise Telecoms
Almost every new piece of technology creates as much uncertainty as it does excitement. Companies want to take advantage of solutions that can improve how they operate, but they often need pointing in the right direction in order to know how they should go about it and why. SD-WAN is no different. Deployed correctly, SD-WAN can enhance network capability by improving visibility, offering greater control and supporting the individual needs of a business. But what needs to be considered for it to become an industry standard over the next 12 months? One of the most common misconceptions around SD-WAN is the idea that it will be too complicated to implement. In fact, 47% of IT professionals feel this way, with 30% feeling they have a lack of skilled resource to manage it. It’s understandable that this would be a cause of concern for businesses. But there’s no need for them to be apprehensive about the roll-out phase. ISSUE 16
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One of the most common misconceptions around SD-WAN is the idea that it will be too complicated to implement” Like any network, the complexity of implementing SD-WAN depends on how many locations it’s being deployed in, and what and where the locations are. The reality is, the network technology can be implemented without disrupting daily business operations, and depending on the number of deployments, it can be set-up in a matter of months. While it may be software-driven, the implementation phase of SD-WAN needn’t be a hassle and doesn’t represent a cause for concern. The idea that SD-WAN can be delivered with zero touch deployment is misleading and is likely the reason why some people believe that just about anyone can deploy it. While it is highly automated, existing sites will require 56
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migration as part of the delivery of the solution which should be taken into consideration. SD-WAN is not necessarily the immediate cost-saver some would want (or maybe expect it to be). But as an investment in operational efficiency it’s a great choice for the modern business. Implementation and deployment can be taken care of in a matter of months and the benefits to the network are immediate. It’s hard to put a timeframe on when it could be an industry standard, but the benefits are there for all to see and it should absolutely be considered by staff in charge of managing their company’s networks. There just needs to be a debunking of some of the myths surrounding the solution.
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“ Current events illustrate the changing needs of the workforce” Silvan Tschopp, Head of Solution Architecture, Open Systems
There are two major drivers for enterprises considering a transition to SDWAN. The first is the speed, efficiency, and flexibility it can offer staff. Recent events have further underlined the need for networking capabilities which adapt to the needs of the workforce, rather than forcing workers to adapt to the network. Indeed, we’ve seen a significant traffic spike in recent weeks and are rapidly helping organisations to roll out new mobile entry points. Even outside times of global disruption, though, economic and technological contexts are becoming more changeable, and businesses will want to be prepared for that. The second, and perhaps more significant, driver towards SD-WAN, however, will be its position as the cornerstone of the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) framework. For a long time, networking and security have been broadly distinct silos, with building connectivity being
step one in IT operations and de-risking that connectivity step two. This has led to a situation where businesses experience increasing pressure from two directions: a shift to the cloud and remote access paradigms means that data must be freed up to move more fluidly, while more stringent regulations and growing consumer concern over privacy and security mean that data must be locked down and monitored more forcefully. SASE, coined by Gartner in 2019, is a framework in which security and net-
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working technologies can instead pull in the same direction, producing both agility in data transmission and certainty about its appropriate usage. These technologies are not themselves new: for the security aspect, zero-trust network access (ZTNA), firewall-as-aservice (FWaaS), secure web gateways (SWG), and cloud access security brokers (CASB) have all been successfully deployed and road-tested as solutions to specific challenges. Bundling them together as an end-toend solution, however, requires real-time insight into users’ network activity. By starting with an SD-WAN implementation and intelligently monitoring traffic at the user level, organisations can move those security tools away from the hub and towards the endpoints of their network. Because its structure secures data at the point of use, SASE enables people to do what they need to complete their work, rather than frustrating them with barriers to entry. In this way, SD-WAN represents more than just an additional evolutionary step forward for an organisation’s networking technology. It might not be the case that in twelve months’ time the majority of the industry will be operating with SDWAN – but it will be acknowledged as the standard direction of travel for developments in networking. 58
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“ Twelve months is probably an unrealistic target” Andrew Halliwell, Product Director at Virgin Media Business
Flexible cloud-centric network solutions have never been more important. Right now, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, enterprises and public sector organisations are facing unprecedented change and have to respond quickly. Whether that’s scaling up networks to support home working or creating remote contact centres, IT managers are really feeling the need for – and are benefiting from – rapidly scalable and adaptable network solutions. In future, our customers will be even more focused on how they can harness the agility and flexibility inherent to SDWAN and cloud centric IT architecture to build network resilience. That said, 12 months may be a bit too soon for widespread adoption. Five years is a more realistic goal – by 2025, we expect businesses across industries to have implemented the technology as standard. However, there will be a group of ambitious organisations seeking a jump start on their competition. With the right
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foundations in place, some might be capable of adopting SD-WAN within a year, but this won’t be the norm. When we’re thinking about timeframes, it’s important to remember that when it comes to installing new networks – or any new technology – a business doesn’t need to make wholesale changes at once. Rather, enterprises should think carefully about how they upgrade their infrastructure so that it benefits their business while minimising disruption. And if they’ve got the right partner they can benefit from strategic consultancy on where exactly these evolutions should take place across their network. Ultimately, SD-WAN is about giving businesses flexibility to deal with change, whatever the future brings. The challenge of growth and a business’ abil-
ity to do so securely is intrinsically tied to the quality of infrastructure. And the importance of the network as a business enabler is definitely going to increase over the coming years. Because SD-WAN is software led, it will be able to evolve with new features and functionality. This will ultimately help enterprises gain value from data to drive new business cases – for example, serving information to customers in a particular location in a way that matches their needs. What’s certain is that SD-WAN will become increasingly important in determining business success in the notso-distant future – bringing exciting new possibilities for network managers and enterprise leaders.
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A LIFE IN TECH
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Peter Ruffley is the founder of Zizo with more than 40 years’ experience in the IT industry. He worked with some of the biggest data technology companies, such as Oracle, IBM and Ingres. Here, he shares some of his life lessons and observations with Digital Bulletin
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information. It’s also true that the biggest changes I expected in the use of monolithic ERP systems haven’t happened.
When I began working in IT 40 years ago there was huge enthusiasm for information technology; we genuinely believed it was going to change the world.
It makes sense to use cloud and SaaS capabilities from a cost and convenience point of view, so it was inevitable that companies would want to run data services there. Also, the cloud as a platform now has so many incarnations there isn’t a reason not to use it.
My first roles at Oracle and Ingres helped shape my career. Both of these companies had missions to allow businesses to break free from what we saw as the tyranny of the computer department. Oracle had a much better marketing organisation and won.
As 5G and edge computing remain in their infancy, these network infrastructure challenges mean that these technologies will struggle to deliver unless businesses quickly begin to understand the value within the data being transferred.
I would say that some of the people that influenced me the most were definitely the salespeople that I worked with at both Oracle and Ingres. They were some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. What I learned from them is that whether it’s an idea, technology or software, nothing in this world happens until somebody sells something to somebody.
There needs to be another network advance available to help solve data issues. To stay ahead, rather than waiting for the next development, organisations need to make changes now.
would describe myself as the living embodiment of the last 40 years of the IT business. I’ve spent the last 24 years as an entrepreneur using IT technology as it should be used to deliver better business value.
Some of the biggest changes I’ve seen are the widespread use of the PC and then the mobile device has definitely revolutionised the ability to communicate
5G is a very short range network that, whilst it will help transfer data faster, will need to be supported by a lot of redistribution points, so will not help businesses until a full network has been rolled out. These nodes could be smaller edge servers, providing more than just connectivity. ISSUE 16
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Moving data around is still surprisingly expensive. It is going to be essential to be able to do analytics at the point where data is collected without moving it back to a centralised data store. This is especially true for the large amounts of low-value data that are going to be collected. Edge computing is going to provide a much easier way for businesses to quantify and understand what they are investing in when looking at collecting data, processing it and moving it. It provides the opportunity to have greater agility and move towards truly ‘real-time’ analytics. 62
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Edge computing is undoubtedly going to have a substantial role to play in helping organisations become more efficient and help them better utilise their resources. Analysing data at the point where it is created and limiting the amount of data being sent on to the cloud will also ease pressure on the cloud network. Of all the sectors, technology should be the one that is a meritocracy and in many cases it is. The technology sector crosses many different types of organisations and many of those are by no means diverse. If it is
PETER RUFFLEY
The failure to understand that digital transformation is a change to the way you do things i.e. the processes involved, and that basing those things (processes) on data is just the start. It is not just about the adoption or use of technology, the organisation has to change, too, in order to gain the most value from the digital transformation. The one thing I would tell myself if I were starting my career all over again is: there is quite a low limit to the scale and rate of change that people are prepared to accept.
a problem, it’s not necessarily a technology sector one. My advice to younger people looking to work in technology would be: don’t just look at the interface. Find out how what you can see got there in the first place. Once you do that you will have a much better idea of what kind of career you were looking for in the sector. There is a lot of adverse publicity at the moment about social media. Once anonymous access to the Internet is curtailed, the benefits of widespread technological contact will far outweigh the downside.
Over the next decade, if you are not online you will not get access to the best opportunities for medical care, education, insurance and a whole range of other services. We must ensure that nobody gets left behind or excluded in that new world. I wouldn’t change a thing when it comes to my career, I have been able to do what I wanted to do which was to try and use IT technology to its best effect. That was why I started off in the business and that is what I’m still doing now.
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EVENTS Industry conferences and exhibitions are off the table for now, but there are still many digital events worth making time in your diary for...
IBM THINK MAY 05–07, 2020 Think 2020 will be an exciting combination of live streamed content, interactive sessions and certifications and locally hosted events, which will highlight IBM’s technology and industry expertise for developers and clients without the risk of travel. Tune into 200+ sessions broadcast over multiple channels. Chat with experts and participate in real-time Q&As during live-stream sessions exclusively available during the conference. Then access on-demand content complete with study guide resources and 64
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takeaways. Think will also focus heavily on leveraging technology to respond to the challenges posed by COVID-19.
MICROSOFT BUILD MAY 19–21, 2020 Experience the latest technologies and learn new ways to solve your development challenges. Microsoft says the event will bring together its community of developers in this new digital format to learn, connect, and code together Topics will include: developer tooling and language innovation; cloud development and containers; AI and machine learning; DevOps
MAY – JUNE
automation; cross-platform apps; IoT; building Microsoft 365 extensions; and low-code tooling.
AUGMENTED WORLD EXPO 2020 MAY 26–29, 2020 With over one billion users and most of the Fortune 1000’s on board, Spatial Computing is finally entering the mainstream. Get awe-inspired where industry leaders get together to shepherd the AR and VR industry into the next decade. Hear from those solving major technical challenges, bringing AR/VR into new sectors, considering ethical and legal issues, promoting diversity, and working on the cutting edge of AR/VR development. Wherever you are, you’ll still be able to experience the highlight of the AR/VR calendar, with 200+ speakers, 200+ sponsors/exhibitors, and the annual ‘Auggie Awards’.
WSJ TECH HEALTH JUNE 02, 2020 Now more than ever, the conversations centered around technology for the healthcare industry are more important than ever.. You’ll hear insights from top executives as well as regulators about the state of innovation in health, medicine ISSUE 16
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and technology. Speakers will explore the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead as companies large and small push for a radical redesign of the medical world as we know it. Executives from the likes of Uber Health, Healthcare Microsoft, SoftBank and Amazon will have all been confirmed as speakers.
CISCO LIVE JUNE 02–03, 2020 Cisco Live, the company’s premier in-person customer and partner experience of the year, is being relaunched as a complimentary, full-scale digital event, enabling remote participation from anywhere in the world. Cisco said its digital experience would build on the original event’s history of delivering high energy live broadcasts and technical on-demand training.The digital event will feature: live-streamed keynotes, innovation talks and technical content; On-demand technical deep-dive sessions; interactive opportunities with Cisco experts; and social media contests.
AGILE + DEVOPS JUNE 08–11, 2020
the comfort of your own digital device, you will have access to all of the same great content and experts you have come to expect from an Agile + DevOps West conference. Agile + DevOps Virtual will be streaming over 80+ talks—including five keynotes, 25 tutorials, and 50+ sessions all in an engaging and interactive premium virtual atmosphere.
COLLISION FROM HOME JUNE 22–25, 2020 Collision from Home brings together the people and companies redefining the global tech industry.Collision from Home attendees will participate from wherever they are in the world, livestreaming talks from tech CEOs, international policymakers and global cultural figures. They’ll chat and connect with each other through the bespoke Collision from Home app and they’ll engage with some of the world’s most influential companies and fastest-growing startups. Some 250 speakers have already been confirmed, including senior execs from Samsung, Microsoft, Uber, Google and Whatsapp.
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In a column exclusive to Digital Bulletin, Stefano Bensi, General Manager, Softbank Robotics EMEA, speaks about getting ahead in the age of cobotics
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s we enter this new decade, business leaders across all sectors continue to prioritise digital transformation as a way to create efficiencies, improve customer service, ensure regulatory compliance and drive innovation. Organisations recognise that to stay competitive in an increasingly turbulent global economy, they need to embrace new technologies and operational models to thrive in the future economy. The narrative around wide-scale adoption of automation and AI technologies has largely been one of fear and uncertainty, with reports of mass job displacement. The widely held view has 68
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been that robots are coming to take our jobs is, in my opinion, why many digital transformation programmes have yet to deliver on their promises, held back by a lack of understanding and buy-in amongst people at the coalface, resistant to change and reluctant to interact with new technologies, However, there are signs that the tide is turning and we’re seeing a more considered view of automation. It is now widely understood that AI will lead to a net increase in jobs over the coming years. Whilst there will be some job changes in specific industries and job roles, AI will also create millions of new
STEFANO BENSI
specialist and highly skilled jobs. Of far greater significance is the impact that automation will bring to types of work. McKinsey predicts that whilst less than 5% of all occupations can be automated entirely using current technologies, about 60% of all occupations have at least 30% of activities that could be automated. Rather than replacing people, automation and robots will work alongside people within a hybrid workforce model, where operations and tasks are resourced according to the relative strengths of both people and technology. The benefits are easy to understand – greater efficiencies, higher employee engagement and improved levels of performance and servicing. Entering The Age of Cobotics In order to accelerate this shift, we need to reframe the introduction of automation, so that it becomes less of a threat to the existing workforce and is instead embraced as a route to interesting and varied work and developing new skills. We need to reassure vast sections of the workforce that robots and AI can enhance their working lives - this is where the concept of cobotics has a big role to play. Cobotics is the collaboration between workers and machines or robots. Cobots are collaborative robots which carry out repetitive or strenuous tasks
Rather than replacing people, automation and robots will work alongside people within a hybrid workforce model, where operations and tasks are resourced according to the relative strengths of both people and technology� which would otherwise be performed by a person, but they work alongside that individual or team, not in their place. Cobots are instructed, controlled and managed by workers on the ground and are there to support workers. Across a whole range of sectors, the introduction of cobots can and will dramatically alter the working lives of people. Whether it is retail, healthcare, hospitality or cleaning, cobots can take away the most laborious and least pleasurable tasks from humans, enabling them to focus their efforts on more rewarding and valuable work. We’re already seeing this happening in a number of sectors where forward-thinking organisations are introducing cobots into their operational models. ISSUE 16
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Within such a human-cobot workforce, businesses reap the benefits of both machines, in terms of efficiency, consistency and performance in carrying out repetitive tasks, and of human workers, with their capacity for objective thought, creativity and problem solving. And in an ever more challenging labour market, where high quality talent is in such demand in so many industries, it makes sense to have your best and expensive people focused on activities which make a real impact. Innovation beyond technology Too often businesses approach innovation solely from a technological perspective; but equally as important is a willingness to embrace new ideas and adopt new business models. Organisations need to embed agility and scalability into operations, ensuring they have the flexibility to adapt to market dynamics, exploiting new opportunities and reacting swiftly to new threats. As organisations introduce cobotics into their operations, they will also seek out more innovative and flexible leasing models. With cobotics, we will see innovative business models allowing organisations to access the very latest technologies without major upfront investment; and all servicing and product upgrades included, taking away the has70
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sle and cost of ongoing maintenance. In addition, cobots can collect valuable data which can be translated into meaningful insight to ensure operations are continually optimised and to make faster, smarter decisions. Cobotics is as much about a commitment to innovation, smart working and efficient operations, as it is about automation and robots. It requires a major shift in thinking, amongst both business leaders and the workers who are engaging with cobots in the workplace. This cultural change is important and businesses need to ensure they have the right strategies in place to influence behaviours and mindsets across the organisation to ensure that cobotics is harnessed in a smooth and seamless way. Technology providers have a role to play here, helping business leaders to manage change, and to reassure, educate and upskill people to work effectively and harmoniously alongside cobots. The Cobotic Difference Rather than bringing in automation by stealth, in ‘The Age of Cobotics’ we are seeing organisations making a virtue of their adoption of cobots and the shift towards a hybrid human-cobot workforce model, to attract new talent, particularly amongst younger generations of workers.
STEFANO BENSI
Cobotics demonstrates a commitment to employee wellbeing at a time when mental and physical health in the workplace is becoming an ever-more pressing concern for businesses and public health authorities. The WHO estimates that the global economic impact of depression and anxiety is $1 trillion every year and organisations across all sectors are struggling to address and promote health and wellbeing at work and beyond. Cobotics removes the strain and stress of certain manual tasks, whilst putting people in the driving seat, making decisions and managing technology, rather than the other way around. It also gives relatively inexperienced or low-skilled people the opportunity to work alongside cutting-edge technology and to develop specialist skills and knowledge. However, it isn’t just prospective workers that will be drawn to organisations
that are embracing cobotics. Such a commitment to innovation and new ways of working is also hugely appealing to prospective customers. Those businesses that are first to integrate cobotics within their operations will create genuine differentiation in the market and attract forward-thinking organisations that are looking to align themselves with future ways of working. Cobotics represents a smarter, more grown-up approach to business and digital transformation; one that harnesses new technology and approaches to deliver efficiencies and increased performance, but also recognises the limitations of automation and AI, and the ongoing need to create an engaged, healthy and productive workforce to work in collaboration with technology. Organisations that get this shift right will set themselves up to thrive in the future.
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