Digital Bulletin - Issue 18 - July 2020

Issue 18 | July ’20

TALKING TECH’S ‘SWISS ARMY KNIFE’ Long feted by techies, Kubernetes is now making the jump to the mainstream

DATA IS THE NEW...

WATER? Leaky data pipelines are costing businesses money and vital insights

TELECOMS TRANSFORMED Tim Shaw tells us how a digital-first and customer-centric philosophy is helping UK telco KCOM deliver world-class broadband

JAMES HENDERSON Content Director

H

ello and welcome to Issue 18 of Digital Bulletin - we have another jam-packed edition for you this month.

Our main cover story takes us to UK telco and IT services company KCOM. Tim Shaw, its Managing Director of Wholesale and Networks, spoke to us about its business transformation and mission to deliver best-in-class broadband services to its customers.

Shaw arrived at KCOM last year with the task of driving its renewed transformation programme, having earned his stripes in a variety of senior roles within some of the UK’s biggest telecoms providers.

In a wide-ranging interview, he outlines how a three-pronged approach to simplify KCOM’s product range, implement digital-first thinking and always being “on” when it comes to service is paying dividends. Grab yourself a coffee and jump to page 20 to read more.

Elsewhere, Dan Vesset, Group Vice President, Analytics and Information Management at IDC, introduces us to

a new analogy to describe the value of data. It is not, as we’ve been told before, the new oil or gold but rather, water.

The claim is part of an in-depth study IDC carried out with Qlik that found many companies are suffering from leaks when it comes to data pipelines, stopping them from being able to properly analyse their information and derive valuable insights.

Elsewhere we take an in-depth look at Kubernetes and find out why it is being dubbed the “Swiss Army knife of technology”, while we also speak to Gartner’s Jason Wong about why multiexperience is one of the main technology trends to watch right now.

Finally, Digital Bulletin launched the first issue of its sister publication Tech For Good in June. We think it’s rather good, but it is your opinion that matters - give it a look and let us know what you think.

We hope you enjoy this month’s offering.

PUBLISHED BY BULLETIN MEDIA LTD, Norwich, UK Company No: 11454926 TALK TO US editorial@digitalbulletin.com business@digitalbulletin.com

Pre-lockdown, members of KCOM’s customer service team group around a screen showing real-time information at the company’s HQ in Hull, UK

INSIDE VIEW

CONTENTS

20 6 CASE STUDY

08

KCOM Putting digital and customer-centricity at the heart of broadband

44

MONTH IN REVIEW NEWS, VIEWS AND ANALYSIS

IT SERVICES

DATA INTELLIGENCE IDC Why enterprise needs to ensure data pipelines are leak-free

36

KAINOS Talking tech’s Swiss Army knife - Kubernetes

52 SECURITY

DEBATE Experts have their say on the greatest cyber threats of the day

86

62

4

A LIFE IN TECH

David Cleevely CBE lifts the lid on his three decades in the technology world

FUTURE

GARTNER Musing multiexperience, the tech trend to watch

90 70 EVENTS

PEOPLE

Q&A How COVID-19 is bringing GRC to the fore

78

CONNECTIVITY DASSAULT SYSTÈMES Smart city planning for the post-pandemic era

The best digital technology events for your diary

94

CLOSING BULLETIN

An exclusive column from Dr Iain Brown, Head of Data Science for SAS UK & Ireland

MONTH IN REVIEW

NEWS UPDATE Digital Bulletin rounds up the news that shaped the enterprise technology space over the last month

NEWS 8

DIGITAL BULLETIN

NEWS UPDATE

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

E

T

he wider economy is undoubtedly set for a drawn-out downturn because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but technology’s biggest beasts continue to buck the wider trend, splashing the cash on a number of eye-catching acquisitions.

Among the biggest of the bunch in June was Amazon’s $1.2 billion purchase of self-driving startup Zoox, marking the company’s most expensive purchase of Whole Foods. Zoox specialises in developing autonomous vehicle systems aimed at ride-hailing applications. Talks between the two were first reported in May. Microsoft reached into its deep pockets twice this month, firstly to buy CyberX, a cybersecurity startup that looks to stop security breaches on IoT and organisational networks.

Microsoft said the deal will complement existing Azure IoT security capabilities, and extends to existing devices including those used in industrial IoT, Operational Technology and infrastructure scenarios. The deal is reportedly worth $165 million.

It also bought ADRM Software, a provider of large-scale industry

data models, which are used by large companies worldwide as information blueprints. Microsoft said the combination of ADRM and Azure will allow customers to create intelligent data lakes where data from multiple lines of business can be harmonised together more quickly.

Apple bought enterprise device management company Fleetsmith, which specialises in managing corporate Apple devices. The deal will enable Apple to help enterprise customers to secure their devices at a time when huge numbers of people are working remotely. Fleetsmith was

ISSUE 18

9

MONTH IN REVIEW

established four years ago and has raised $40 million in funding. It also snapped up open-sourced mapping platform startup Mapillary. The Swedish company collects thousands of street-level images taken by users to build regularly updated maps.

Mastercard agreed an $825 million deal to snap up fintech outfit Finicity, which provides real-time access to financial data and insights. The payments giant said the acquisition was part of its plan to advance its open banking strategy. Finicity’s existing shareholders have the potential for an earn-out of up to an additional $160 million, if performance targets are met.

IBM is to acquire Spanugo, a provider of cloud cybersecurity posture management technology. IBM will integrate Spanugo software into its public cloud to help clients in highly regulated industries to meet their security demands.

VMware has agreed a deal to acquire network security firm Lastline with a view to improving malware threat detection. Lastline’s CEO John DiLullo said the deal would allow it to offer additional capabilities to customers and bring to market comprehensive security solutions for the data centre, branch office and remote and mobile users.

Lastline has raised just over $52 million since it was established in 2012.

10

DIGITAL BULLETIN

FUNDING Big data company Palantir raised $500 million in new funding amid rumours of an IPO filing. Tokyo-based insurer Sompo Holdings Inc. provided the entirety of the funding, the companies announced in a filing. As part of the agreement, Palantir and Sompo will launch a data platform based on Palantir technology with an initial focus on the Japanese healthcare sector.

CRM software company Outreach raised $50 million at a $1.33 billion valuation, a significant increase from $1.1 billion in April 2019. The company said it intends to use the cash injection to drive expansion into Europe, Asia and the Middle east, as well as developing new products. Outreach has also con-

NEWS UPDATE

firmed the appointment of former Qualys executive Melissa Fisher as CFO. Chinese edtech startup Zuoyebang pocketed $750 million from a new funding round. Zuoyebang has more than 50 million daily users on its AI-powered platform.

The company was spun out of Baidu back in 2015. SoftBank’s Vision Fund and the Qatar Investment Authority were among the backers in this bumper round. The edtech market in China is set to be worth more than $80 billion inside two years.

Pagaya has landed $102 million from a new funding round. The Israeli startup specialises in asset management. Its platform leverages artificial intelligence for securitisation and loan collateralisation. The company manages over $1.6 billion of assets for banks, insurers and other financial services providers. Pagaya now plans to hire more data scientists and improve its technology.

A fresh investment round has raised $30 million for analytics specialist Uptycs. The Series B round was led by Sapphire Ventures. Its platform runs on osquery, a universal open-source endpoint agent. “The problem of securing diverse computing environments at scale persists. The question for Uptycs is how can we make a difference?” wrote founder Ganash Pai in a blog posting.

Open-source conversational AI startup Rasa is to benefit from a $26 million cash injection after a Series B funding round, taking total funding to $40 million.

Rasa intends to use the funding to invest in continuing growth in its open source and other products, AI research, developer and community education. The funding was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included participation from the firm’s Cultural Leadership Fund.

ISSUE 18

11

MONTH IN REVIEW

MOVERS AND SHAKERS Silicon Valley was rocked last month by the sudden departure of Jim Keller from Intel. Keller is widely regarded as one of the industry’s very best chip engineers, and was recently called a “microprocessor mastermind” by Fortune.

Intel has publicly thanked Keller for his service, revealing that he will serve as a consultant for the next six months.

Better news for Facebook, where Chris Cox has returned as Chief Product Officer, just a year after leaving the social media giant over differences with Mark Zuckerberg over the 12

DIGITAL BULLETIN

company’s future. As part of his core responsibilities, Cox will oversee the Facebook app, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger platforms. “Facebook and our products have never been more relevant to our future,” said Cox in a Facebook post.

Zoom has tapped up Salesforce’s former head of security, Jason Lee, to become its new Chief Information Security Officer. He was most recently the Senior Vice President of Security Operations at Salesforce, and previously was Principal Director of Security Engineering at

NEWS UPDATE

Microsoft. Lee will lead Zoom’s security team and report to Aparna Bawa, Zoom’s Chief Operating Officer.

Intel has appointed Dion Weisler, former president and CEO of HP Inc., to its board of directors. Weisler will serve as an independent director and member of the compensation and finance committees.

Weisler served as the president and chief executive officer of HP Inc. from 2015 to 2019. Prior to that, he held senior executive roles at HP Co. and Lenovo Group Inc. Australian financial services giant Suncorp has appointed Adam Bennett

as its CIO. Bennett was previously a tech executive for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. He will replace Sarah Harland, who revealed she was leaving Suncorp in March. Bennett will start work at the beginning of next month. “Technology is pivotal to delivering our group strategy,” said Suncorp’s CEO.

Stay right up to date with the latest news shaping the enterprise technology sector with The Bulletin, available at digitalbulletin.com

ISSUE 18

13

MONTH IN REVIEW

RPA - THE NEXT BIG THING IN HEALTHCARE? The usage of RPA is predicted to surge in healthcare over the next three years. Digital Bulletin speaks to three experts to explore how healthcare organisations can get the best out of the technology and where else CIOs should be looking to invest their budgets

AUTHOR: James Henderson

14

DIGITAL BULLETIN

NEWS ANALYSIS

E

ven before the outbreak of COVID-19, healthcare organisations in both the public and private sectors were being overstretched, their capacities being severely tested. At the same time, many have seen their budgets cut, while simultaneously having to treat increasing numbers of patients.

The pandemic has brought these converging issues into sharp focus, forcing organisations to put a freeze on all but essential procedures and treatments.

CIOs from across all industries are having their budgets cut, and those working in the healthcare sector are no different.

It means that CIOs and technologists working in healthcare are under intense pressure to ensure any invest-

ments they make show a strong ROI. According to a report from Gartner, one technology a significant number of healthcare CIOs are setting aside funds to invest in is robotic process automation (RPA).

The study forecasts that half of U.S. healthcare providers will invest in RPA by 2023, up from 5% today, while the heightened need to optimise costs and scarce healthcare resources during the coronavirus pandemic is providing further tailwinds to adoption. If realised, RPA companies such as UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and a host of others can expect revenues derived from healthcare to increase exponentially over the next three years.

ISSUE 18

15

MONTH IN REVIEW

Lauren Bevan, Head of Healthcare for technology consultancy, BJSS, and a former Deputy Director of Finance in the UK’s National Health System (NHS), believes that adoption could be even higher than the study suggests.

“I think the figure will probably be higher – there’s a lot of repetitive tasks in healthcare which can be shifted to RPA to reduce task processing time, minimise errors and cut costs. The acute care and ambulance sectors will likely be the earlier adopters as these have higher volumes of data and transactional processes which lend themselves to RPA. “When you consider the significant backlog of elective surgeries that have 16

DIGITAL BULLETIN

been put on hold [because of the pandemic], RPA will play a critical role in helping organisations manage the disruption and will stop them having to recruit for project roles to keep the costs of these tasks as low as possible.”

Bevan believes the use of RPA during the current healthcare crisis could well prove to be the large-scale use case that is needed for RPA and other progressive technologies to be used more widely across the sector.

Asked what gaps the pandemic has uncovered within healthcare, Bevan comments: “My diagnosis is an acute case of ‘pilotitis’. Mostly, the technology is there, but the biggest issue is adop-

NEWS ANALYSIS

tion and abandonment in healthtech.

Prior to COVID-19, there was a trend for small-scale pilots deployed in departments or in one Trust which never spread anywhere else, even if they had been successful.

“Slow or disconnected procurement processes are also a common issue.

When the pandemic hit, these issues were swept aside, and I hope that there is a more balanced view of procurement processes in the future.”

Bevan doesn’t believe that such a rapid adoption of RPA technology will be at the cost of jobs, and will instead free up clinician time for care provision and reduce the need for context switching which is linked to errors. “Patient outcomes will naturally improve with more contact time, enabling health professionals to provide more compassionate care,” she adds.

It is a view shared by Niki Trigoni, CTO of healthcare start-up Navenio and the recipient of the CTO of the Year accolade at the 2020 Women in IT Awards.

“RPA won’t, and shouldn’t, replace medical staff - it doesn’t have even a fraction of the skills required,” she says. “Instead, RPA can help healthcare teams do their work more efficiently and in a more focused manner. The same goes for support staff - you can automate areas of their work but this is with

the aim of enabling that person to add more value to the wider team.

“Healthcare professionals need to be able to do what they do best - providing excellent, often life-changing, care to those in need. RPA, AI and mobile apps are just three examples of ways teams can be freed from a lot of the burdens which currently slow them down.

“It’s in these areas that RPA can deliver value. Handling the high volume, low variance work which often dominates the back office. Automation can streamline processes and paperwork that drag humans down.”

Of course, RPA is not a silver bullet for all of healthcare’s issues and it is still relatively limited in the tasks that it can carry out. Peter Ford, Public Sector Industry Principal at Pegasystems, believes that to simply utilise RPA alone would be to merely “scratch the surface” of potential efficiency and service gains that he says are well overdue.

Key to realising those gains is Intelligent Automation (IA), according to Ford, who describes it as being the “bigger, better game in town.”

“To get to real scale and transformation beyond the limited simple stuff, IT needs to work together with clinical and back-office healthcare practitioners to design an end-to-end intelliISSUE 18

17

MONTH IN REVIEW

gent automation solution that ties in to pre-existing business systems and accounts for their sophistication and complexity,” he says.

“It should be noted that greater uptake by the healthcare sector will be achieved if focus is also given to other pinch-points such as theatre, bed and equipment availability. RPA with intelligent automation (IA) can help here too.

“The big prizes sit where orchestration across the entire end-to-end process is required, this is especially the case with more complex processes with multiple hand-offs that require more significant integration between systems and data complexity should not be an inhibitor.

It is the ideal candidate for end-to-end IA supported by RPA.” Away from RPA, healthcare technologists will be wrestling with where else they can place parts of often decreasing budgets. So, what other technologies should healthcare CIOs be considering?

“I know this conundrum well!” says Bevan, recalling her time at the NHS. “There are a couple of things which if I was back in the hot seat I would be considering. First is cloud adoption to reduce the cost of data centre storage, taking advantage of on-demand pricing and making it easier to embark on strategic projects around data sharing 18

DIGITAL BULLETIN

NEWS ANALYSIS

for population health management and single patients record.

“Second is doing a strategic review.

Lots of technologies have been thrown at the COVID response and some of these may incur legacy charges so understanding the new landscape and making sure that solutions effectively work in your estate is more critical than ever. This reduces the need to throw a load of middleware solutions at making things work together and paying a lot for not a lot of functionality in the process.”

Addressing the same question, Ford says: “Other technologies that could

help the healthcare sector to ‘tighten its belt’ in times of financial constraint could include the use of customer/patient service solutions that are supported by AI to allow greater self-serve at point of contact.

“Once again, orchestration across systems and data will allow any interaction to be informed with the latest patient information and suggest the next best action to take based on this context. The use of bots - telephone and email as well as social media integration - could also be used to help with spikes in demand and to help reduce cost of contact.”

ISSUE 18

19

CASE STUDY

20

DIGITAL BULLETIN

KCOM

KCOM’s

business transformation Managing Director of Wholesale and Networks Tim Shaw highlights how IT transformation and new ways of working are helping UK telco KCOM deliver world-class fibre broadband to its customers

PROJECT DIRECTOR: Richard Durrant AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer VIDEOGRAPHY: Edward White

ISSUE 18

21

CASE STUDY

I

n the busy UK telecoms space, KCOM has always marked itself out from the crowd. Everything from its backstory to the close relationship it holds with its customers - and even its distinctive branding - speaks to a company proud to be different.

This identity has been forged over more than 100 years of service to the citizens of Kingston upon Hull and the county of East Yorkshire. Founded in 1904 as the ‘Hull Telephone Department’, KCOM moved quickly as technology progressed in the 20th and 21st centuries and revolutionised communications.

Today, KCOM boasts enterprise offerings at a national level, keeping it at the cutting edge of developments in customer and cloud-native services. But its core 22

DIGITAL BULLETIN

purpose remains the same: to supply the very best broadband and telephony to its local people and businesses.

KCOM is uniquely positioned in this sense, holding what Ofcom describes as “significant market power” in the region.

A legacy of Hull City Council’s decision to retain ownership of its entire network when the UK began nationalisation through BT, KCOM is Hull and East Yorkshire’s onestop shop for all things telecoms. This has pros and cons - and so gives KCOM the impetus and ability to innovate.

In October 2019, Hull became the UK’s first city to offer full fibre broadband to everybody, the result of a bold £85 million investment from KCOM seven years earlier. In January 2020, KCOM committed to a further £100 million in spending to take

KCOM

that network to the wider East Yorkshire region. “More people than ever will be able to access one of the best broadband services on the planet,” claimed CEO Dale Raneberg.

With this award-winning rollout picking up pace, KCOM’s commitment to its customers is clear. But in order for the organisation to deliver a level of service that matches its broadband speeds, it is also having to refresh its internal systems and processes, introducing advanced technology and new ways of working. That is where Tim Shaw comes in.

Shaw is KCOM’s Managing Director of Wholesale and Networks and has overar-

ching responsibility for the company’s network and IT capabilities. He joined KCOM in June 2019 to lead its renewed transformation programme, having served in a variety of senior roles within some of the UK’s biggest telecoms providers.

“Digital transformation is right at the top of our agenda,” Shaw tells Digital Bulletin as he settles down to talk about an engrossing start to life at KCOM, which has also included a global pandemic being thrown into the mix.

Shaw’s experience in the industry gave him the nose for what KCOM excelled at and where it could improve when it came to business systems. His assessment of

ISSUE 18

23

CASE STUDY

If you think around telecoms in general, we’ve got to simplify our products” Tim Shaw the obstacles was three-fold, starting with the customer experience.

“If you think around telecoms in general, we’ve got to simplify our products.

Customers are always demanding more, quicker, with less interaction, smoother, less friction. Because of our history, some of our systems and our processes were just not customer-friendly. It was the first thing I noticed when joining and we quickly decided that was the big change we had to make,” he says.

“The second one was really around digitalfirst and how thinking in that way becomes absolutely critical. Voice is still important customers still love to talk to people - but there’s also a large proportion of customers that want that digital experience. They’re very much used to that elsewhere, so we need to be able to move in that way.

“The last one is around service; being able to always be “on”, and have up-to24

DIGITAL BULLETIN

date records and be able to react to issues.

That’s really critical.”

Shaw and KCOM formulated a transformation strategy around upgrading their capabilities in these three areas. This meant not only constructing best-in-class systems, but also ensuring they worked using a scalable delivery model and an industry-leading IT architecture. The aim was to truly elevate the customer and employee experience.

The immediate priority was perfecting the customer journey. KCOM called on the talent across the business in its consumer, wholesale and network teams to reimagine the “customer flow”, from the point of an individual or business wanting a service through to engineers completing an installation. With strategic partner Vlocity in place, Shaw set out an ambitious plan to launch KCOM’s customer ordering and proposition management solution within a matter of months.

“I must admit, when we started the project and we sat down in the kick-off meeting and I set the team the target, I think the look of shock and “that can’t be done” was hilarious,” laughs Shaw.

“But we were ready to go. I’d worked with Vlocity in the month preceding kick-off and we had introduced the concept of an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), really to get the idea of “agile” into the way we do things.

We colocated people, we really brought

KCOM

KCOM leverages the Vlocity Communications Cloud to drive the best customer journeys

ISSUE 18

25

Tim Shaw Managing Director of Wholesale and Networks

Transform to Grow REDEFINING A DIGITAL B2B EXPERIENCE Customer success across industries has never been more important to us. Learn more about how our customers stay agile and grow with digital transformation.

“KCOM selected Vlocity and Salesforce to digitally transform the B2B/B2C customer experience to change how we interact and sell to customers while allowing our teams to work at pace and focus on value-adding activities.”

– Tim Shaw, Managing Director of Wholesale and Networks, KCOM

vlocity.com

CASE STUDY

We had introduced the concept of an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), really to get the idea of “agile” into the way we do things” the teams together and we made it something different that we hadn’t done before.”

KCOM worked alongside Vlocity throughout the launch, leveraging the Vlocity Communications Cloud. Founded in 2014, Vlocity has quickly become a respected provider of industry-specific, cloud-based software applications, enjoying particular success in the telecoms sector. Earlier this year it was acquired by CRM giant Salesforce for $1.3 billion.

“Vlocity is the engine that holds all of our product catalogues and really enables us to configure and drive that best customer journey,” he says. “Given where we are and our ambitions, Vlocity gave us everything that we needed; the speed, the cost-base and the ongoing support.”

Ultimately, KCOM was able to unveil its MVP in January, only five months after the project began. Following a soft launch, the full launch came just 10 days later and in 28

DIGITAL BULLETIN

the months since it has already completed seven releases by working in two-week development sprints. Now KCOM boasts a fully operational platform for customers to seamlessly engage with its products through digital channels.

Shaw says KCOM opted for this Vlocityled platform approach to ensure not only speed of delivery during the build phase, but also to allow for easier configuration of its software moving forward. Vlocity’s “lowcode” solution means KCOM is able to train non-specialists to configure it, leaving the Technology team to focus on other priorities.

He wants to take this “Know the Platform,

KCOM’s customer ordering and proposition management MVP was released just five months into the project

KCOM

Trust the Platform, Clicks not Code” approach on to other implementations.

“It has given us a real boost in productivity.

We can now put our coders on our digital experience right at the front-end where we can add the real difference,” he adds. “When we get to the product journeys, this means it’s all around configuring the best experience. The idea that small changes should be done by the commercial teams, and medium to large-scale changes by the technology teams, is something I’m really keen to do.

“Why do I think that’s critical? The business is forever changing, whether that’s a new product, new pricing, a new feature

KCOM & COVID-19: DEALING WITH LOCKDOWN “ When the lockdown was announced it was all hands to the pump. How do we get our workforce working from home, which traditionally we’d never been able to? Some roles we were able to, but moving a contact centre that we’ve got in Hull, to everyone working from home, is no easy feat. And some of us have never seen that work, especially with some of the legacy systems that we’re trying to move away from and transform. “ By the first week we had just over 60% of people working from home, and then halfway through week two, we had over 85, 86% of people working from home. Everyone mucked in, worked in the way that needed to be done. In a short period of time, we managed to build up a really constructive model that enabled us to move forward. “ I think it just shows with the right focus and everyone working together, you can really achieve anything.”

Tim Shaw, Managing Director of Wholesale and Networks, KCOM

ISSUE 18

29

CASE STUDY

30

DIGITAL BULLETIN

KCOM

- if that’s something the commercial teams can do in the moment, and it gets checked and tested and can be released the next day, why wouldn’t we do that? That’s the direction we’re starting to really think about how we take the Vlocity platform and the work we’ve done with Salesforce at the front end.”

The automated testing element built into the platform underpins the broader DevOps approach adopted by Shaw’s technology team, as he goes on to explain.

“When we’ve got that ability to test everything automatically and be confident, your ability to develop faster and release faster is really enabled. DevOps does create a better way of working between your development team and your operations team, but without that test automation, you can’t get to the point of fast delivery, which is the ultimate goal of DevOps.” Another critical change KCOM has made to maximise order fulfillment is greatly reducing its number of base products.

At the beginning of this transformation process Shaw oversaw an audit which revealed that more than 100 different products were being offered to its relatively small consumer base. Order fallout, especially around new products, is a common problem for telecoms operators.

To address this issue, the team consolidated KCOM’s various products into a core range of less than 10 and Shaw says this ISSUE 18

31

CASE STUDY

catalogue-driven approach has had a simplifying effect on the company’s processes.

“We can simplify our billing, we can simplify the way we construct our systems, the way we provision the network - everything becomes a lot more straightforward because it’s just got to be done for 10 different variations, instead of over 100,” he states.

“This was a hard one to get across to the sales teams: the idea that we can manage with only a certain number of core products to be sold. Through the new platform they can make commercial variants, but there are set, core products. It certainly helps that everyone knows that billing has always been a challenge for us because of the number of products we offered.”

Simplification is a running theme through32

DIGITAL BULLETIN

out KCOM’s transformation story. In the short time since launch, its platform has resulted in quicker fulfillment cycles and reduced customer fall-out, which has led to better use of engineering time and a high Net Promoter Score. The next steps for Shaw are creating these efficiencies everywhere possible.

“Like any transformation, launching the new platform is the milestone,” he says. “Actually closing the legacy so that everything is on there is now my biggest focus. We need to get to a point where this is the only game in town and we can really start to declutter our IT estate across the business.”

For IT leaders, the challenge of technology implementation is matched by challenges

KCOM

around people and skills. Employee satisfaction, alongside customer experience and revenue, has been a motivating force behind KCOM’s work up to now and will continue to be going forward.

Shaw concentrated significant effort on ensuring members of his technology team were armed with the right skills and certification to excel on the Vlocity platform.

After some intensive training on Vlocity’s programmes, KCOM can now claim to have some of the most proficient people on the platform within its own organisation.

Going beyond that, Shaw admits the transition to new ways of working hasn’t always been easy - but that the wheels are now very much turning on what he calls “business transformation”.

“I will never forget sitting down with the teams in our contact centres, trialling our new system and them trying to use the same process they use today and saying it wasn’t the same and could it be changed to match what it was before. That was a surprise for the teams in that area, realising that a new system doesn’t just mean following the same way you’ve always worked.

“We’re having to change everything that we do going forward. How do we shift the way that we think? How do we change the way we work? From that point onwards, it moved away from just being technology transformation to business transformation.”

Another milestone in the journey came during a meeting at the beginning of this year, adds Shaw.

ISSUE 18

33

CASE STUDY

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

When I joined, we were just at the start of thinking about this transformation, and now, nearly a year on, we’ve achieved so much”

34

DIGITAL BULLETIN

KCOM

“We were in a meeting and I was giving an information update on digital transformation. As I was starting to go through it, you could really start to see the room understand what the transformation was delivering and, although challenging, how it was helping to change the business for the better and also benefit customers.

I think that was a big ‘penny dropping’ moment for some of our employees.”

Moving forward, Shaw is confident his technology team is creating the right culture for change and success, led by an agile approach and design-thinking. The next step in its digital transformation is driving through a new service management solution, working to a similar timescale to that of the previous MVP. As it has done throughout its long history, KCOM is acting fast and staying innovative - qualities Shaw believes make it an exciting place to work.

“When I joined, we were just at the start of thinking about this transformation, and now, nearly a year on, we’ve achieved so much,” he concludes. “The best thing about working here is actually seeing ideas that I’ve seen before, I’ve done before, but actually at the size of business where you can make significant change really quickly. You can just watch the business - and the way we do business - move with what we do.”

ISSUE 18

35

DATA INTELLIGENCE

DATA IS THE NEW OIL GOLD WATER

Data has a fresh analogy; no longer the new gold or oil, it is now the new water, according to a study from IDC and Qlik. Dan Vesset, Group Vice President, Analytics and Information Management at IDC tells Digital Bulletin why companies must ensure that their data pipelines are leak-free AUTHOR: JAMES HENDERSON

36

DIGITAL BULLETIN

IDC

S

uch is its value and importance to driving the global economy, it has often been said that data is the new oil. But it is an imperfect comparison: oil is scarce and finite whereas data is an abundant and infinite resource. Moreover, the idea of comparing data with fossil fuel at a time when sustainability is more important than ever seems outdated, while the most effective data is clean data.

Data has also been likened to gold, both hyper-valuable commodities that have to be refined and analysed from a raw state for their ultimate potential to be realised. But this, too, is a flawed analogy, with data being easy to obtain and its supply increasing. Given its importance to the global economy, data is inarguably more valuable than gold.

While previous attempts to come up with a perfect physical parallel for data have come up short, market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) and the business intelligence organisation Qlik believe they have come up with the perfect comparison: data, they say, is the new water.

It is an analogy the two companies recently ran with when they collaborated to deliver a new report: Data as the New

Water: The Importance of Investing in Data and Analytics Pipelines, which involved speaking to 1,200 companies in an attempt to find out how closely data is tied to business success.

“We started thinking of water as a useful metaphor for data because you see terms like pipelines and data lakes being widely used and understood. The water idea has been part of the lexicon of data professionals for a little while,” says Dan Vesset, Group Vice President, Analytics and Information Management at IDC. “Like water, data needs to be accessible, it needs to be clean and it is needed to survive. Oil had its use and a lot of economic impact but data is bigger, it has a greater economic effect. We believe data as the new water has a far better social context and helps to elevate the value of data in the executive suite.”

Unsurprisingly, the study found organisations that strategically invest in creating data-to-insights capabilities through modern data and analytics pipelines are seeing significant bottom line impact.

Companies in the survey with the highest demonstrable data-to-insights capabilities overwhelmingly reported that strong data pipelines are driving better

ISSUE 18

37

DATA INTELLIGENCE

Like water, data needs to be accessible, it needs to be clean and it is needed to survive. Oil had its use and a lot of economic impact but data is bigger, it has a greater economic effect” Dan Vesset

38

DIGITAL BULLETIN

decisions, resulting in significant bottom line impact. Stand-out results included 76% saying operational efficiency improved by an average of 21%, 75% saying revenue increased by an average of 21% and 74% saying profit increased by an average of 22%.

“We looked at four steps and we ended up calling that data-to-insights, which encompasses identifying data, gathering data, transforming data and analysing data,” Vesset reveals. “What was really interesting to me was that if you look at the correlation of each individual step to better decisions there was a positive correlation.

“One of our data statisticians then looked at creating a composite variable combining all four steps and that correlated with the decision making being even better. To me, that says that you need to really focus on all of those steps and that led to the pipeline, water and leakage metaphors.

“It doesn’t matter when they leak, the result is going to be the same. You’re not going to get enough fresh water out of the other end if there is a leak somewhere - the whole thing has to work together and you have to invest in everything.”

The challenges to deploying data pipelines that drive better decisions and business outcomes are stark, however. The results show that many

IDC

companies find themselves inundated with data, struggling to maximise its value as it flows through “unintegrated and leaky pipelines”.

“Many companies don’t have the right processes, governance and technologies in place so are spending 80% of their time preparing, cleansing and gathering the data, and just 20% on analysis - the ideal situation is 80/20 the other way,” Vesset comments.

“Others are making decisions based on bad data, which has costs connected to it. That can be incorrect product recommendations, treating customers in a suboptimal way because you don’t

have a lifetime view of them or personalising offers that you can’t actually fill because you don’t have intelligence about your inventory.”

Organisations, the study found, are dealing with complex and varied data types and sources, which can leak through data and analytics pipeline gaps. Of those surveyed, over 60% experienced significant challenges in assessing the value of data and identifying valuable data sources, often due to a lack of data cataloguing.

And over 42% surveyed identified assuring data correctness as a main challenge when processing or transforming data for analysis.

ISSUE 18

39

DATA INTELLIGENCE

Enterprises have many more applications that can be in a number of locations and different clouds, and there is more real-time data as opposed to being collected at the end of the day” Vesset says that there is “an element of resignation” over data quality being the top challenge when it comes to gleaning valuable insights. Companies must, he believes, waste no time in seizing the initiative by meticulously collecting and tracking ever-increasing datasets to ward off leakages.

“It is an issue that has existed for decades, and a perennial challenge,” he says. “Over the last several years that data environment has become hugely more complex, there has been a move away from data warehouses to data lakes and various cloud environments.

“Enterprises have many more applications that can be in a number of locations and different clouds, and there is more real-time data as opposed to being collected at the end of the day. As that data environment complexity has increased, the ability to identify where all the data is

40

DIGITAL BULLETIN

and when it was updated, who updated it, and the lineage of the data becomes even more complex.

“It might seem trivial but the cataloguing and taking of inventory is a really important first step. Then it is about the gathering of data, and knowing which data sources can be combined to deliver real insights. For example, can I get weather data from a government source and combine it with my logistics data so I can optimise my transportation routes?

Can I add traffic data to that?”

A lot has been said down the years about the importance of collaboration between IT and business, but a new dynamic is emerging. The importance of getting data strategy right has never been greater, and is resulting in more companies adding executives solely focussed on data in the form of Chief Data Officers or Chief Analytics Officers.

IDC

“These roles are being elevated, you can’t just say IT and business, you need that third person,” says Vesset. “The teams and the leadership in those teams needs to recognise that, and see that the analytics and data function is a standalone service, not something that is just distributed across a few analysts.”

Increasingly, those data and analytics experts are considering how various technologies can aid them in ensuring datasets are accurate and suitable to be mined and analysed for insights.

Any technologist worth their salt will want to consider how artificial intelligence (AI) could help them, but Vesset is cautious about its suitability for the specific problem of data leakage, and is steadfast that the best results come from a combination of man and machine, at least for the time being.

“There is so much noise and marketing around AI that some people think it is the solution to everything, but the reality is that it is still pretty rudimentary. When it comes to complex business decisions

ISSUE 18

41

DATA INTELLIGENCE

it is still really in its early stages, so there has to be this interplay between people and machines,” he says.

“It is important to start looking at technology that incorporates some form of automation and increasingly that means some level of machine learning. That doesn’t mean that the engineers and business analysts need to have PhDs in statistics, data science or AI, because the software itself can start looking at the patterns and see where there might be data quality issues.

42

DIGITAL BULLETIN

“It can recommend fixes and options to take where there are problems, giving the analysts the option to decide. Eventually after time there will be enough learning that it might be possible with closed loop automation where it starts correcting some of those data quality errors itself, and that would also work with data visualisation as well. But it is still early days.”

With IT spending taking a significant hit because of the COVID-19 pandemic, some companies might be reluctant to

IDC

There are some sectors like travel that are in crisis mode but outside of that maintaining some investment in data and analytics will position businesses better for the recovery, I have no doubt about that”

invest significant sums into their data strategies and technologies. Research from IDC shows a fluid situation, with the most recent figures from the U.S. suggesting a third of organisations still say they will increase budgets for this type of technology but 52% will cut spending, up from 40% in March.

“We are entering a world where the advantage of having better enterprise intelligence is going to become more and more real, and we see that already with the likes of Netflix and Amazon

that are heavily data driven, while companies like McDonald’s and IKEA are actively going out and acquiring companies to help them in this area,” Kesset concludes.

“There are some sectors like travel that are in crisis mode but outside of that maintaining some investment in data and analytics will position businesses better for the recovery, I have no doubt about that.”

ISSUE 18

43

IT SERVICES

44

DIGITAL BULLETIN

K AINOS

LIVING IN A KUBERNETES WORLD AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer

A

little over three years ago, Jim Zemlin stood up at Google’s Next conference and made an assertion: “Kubernetes,” he said, “was the Linux of the cloud”.

Zemlin is Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, so knows a thing or two about the power of open-source. He was speaking at a time when Kubernetes was still finding its enterprise feet after being released in 2014.

Move forward to 2020 and we live in a post-pandemic world where public cloud application deployments are soaring. It’s safe to say that Kubernetes - as an open-source container orchestration system is fulfilling the potential outlined by Zemlin. With the container application

Gareth Workman, Head of Cloud Practice for Kainos, charts the rise of Kubernetes with Digital Bulletin and discusses the future of a platform he describes as the “Swiss Army knife of technology”

market expected to grow 30% year-onyear by 2025, Kubernetes is now locked into the mainstream.

This is a view backed up by Gareth Workman, who as Head of Cloud Practice for digital transformation specialist Kainos sees first-hand the efficiencies that Kubernetes can drive for technology teams. He believes that two factors lie behind its rise.

“The community building real things with it has been instrumental; you’re able to point to real-life, national-scale services that are running off the back of the platform,” he tells Digital Bulletin. “Then there are the cloud providers themselves, who have developed their own specific offerings. Microsoft, Amazon and Google all provide Kubernetes-as-a-service now, and they’ve put their weight behind it and rapidly developed its capabilities.”

ISSUE 18

45

IT SERVICES

Workman, who has been with Kainos for more than 15 years, has kept a close eye on Kubernetes’ maturation.

The platform was birthed by Google six years ago, as an open-source version of its Borg System for large-scale, internal cluster management. Within a matter of months, some of industry’s heavyweights, including Microsoft and IBM, had joined the Kubernetes community.

While it was Docker that first transformed the application space with the release of its container platform in 2003, Kubernetes has taken things even further by offering the deployment and management of containers at an unprecedented scale. Workman refers to Kubernetes as the “Swiss Army knife of technology”.

When Docker came out, it provided this fantastic run-time to be able to run containers on top of hardware or within virtual machines, but what it didn’t provide was a way to take those containers and orchestrate and distribute them at scale.

It didn’t have an answer for that, and that’s where Kubernetes came in” Gareth Workman “When Docker came out, it provided this fantastic run-time to be able to run containers on top of hardware or within virtual machines, but what it didn’t provide was a way to take those containers and orchestrate and distribute them at scale. It didn’t have an answer for that, and that’s where Kubernetes came in,” he explains.

“Kubernetes is that tool that allows you to distribute loads and gives you high availability out of the box. And that’s why it’s the Swiss Army knife - very few tech-

46

DIGITAL BULLETIN

K AINOS

nologies would give you portability, scalability, high availability, and have been so battle-tested out of the box. Normally, you have to plug those gaps yourself as an IT department or a project team.”

It’s this versatility that has seen Kubernetes enjoy explosive growth in such a short space of time. A 2019 survey by the Cloud-Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), the vendor-neutral home of Kubernetes and many other open-source projects, revealed that 78% of respondents from primarily software and technology sectors were using Kubernetes in production, up from 58% the previous year.

The CNCF puts this down to rocketing cloud-native adoption and Workman agrees. As he alluded to previously, Workman believes the success of Kubernetes is closely tied with the surge in popularity of public cloud. According to RightScale data from before the coronavirus pandemic, the average business now runs 38% of workloads in the public cloud and spending on public cloud services is increasing three times faster than on private cloud.

“As an orchestration tool, Kubernetes helps take little tiny containers and effectively allows you to scale them up

ISSUE 18

47

IT SERVICES

The more people who adopted, and the more people who contributed to that open-source project, the more it improved.

Community members were filling in the gaps they had found”

and give you a hyperscale capability.

And in lockstep, cloud was the platform that allowed you to do it, public cloud in particular,” says Workman.

But the Kainos veteran is adamant the huge community behind this opensource project has been the biggest influence over Kubernetes becoming such a critical tool.

He traces the story back to the very beginning of Kubernetes’ short life so far, when it was unveiled as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) looking as he describes “rough around the edges”.

48

DIGITAL BULLETIN

“It was very much an MVP back then.

But it showed the art of what was possible,” he explains. “What happened was that, over time - and it was the same with public cloud - the more people who adopted, and the more people who contributed to that open-source project, the more it improved. Community members were filling in the gaps they had found.

“When something is driven by lots of individuals, that’s where adoption comes from. When it’s pushed by a vendor or provider, it doesn’t guarantee adoption. It’s the fact that people

K AINOS

are actually using this and feeling passionate that they’ve contributed to this open-source project, that’s what’s really driving it forward.

“Then I think the final validation was all of the large cloud providers saying this was the answer to doing orchestration pieces. They were not going to create their own way of doing it - yes they tailor it to their own platform, but there’s a uniformity of engagement and usage of the product. That was the final validation that this is the one platform that is going to be invested in heavily.”

The concept of cloud-native software is now evolving into Kubernetes-native software as deployments continue to escalate. Kubernetes-first approaches are now viable, especially for developers demanding portability in hybrid environments across both public and private clouds.

Workman thinks this is a trend that will continue - and at an even faster rate given the impact of the coronavirus and the efficiencies that Kubernetes can deliver, both in terms of deployment speed and cost. Kainos has seen this value first-hand in the work it has done with NHSX (the digital unit of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service) and NHS Digital, helping them to deliver new healthcare solutions in response to COVID-19.

“I actually think the situation we find ourselves in now is going to drive that even faster,” Workman states. “Kubernetes provides that robust way to develop applications really quickly to get them out to end users. The pace at which you can develop on this platform is actually going to drive forward the Kubernetes-first software development piece, in my opinion.

“The other thing is that people are very cost-conscious, and even more so now.

Kubernetes gives you just-in-time provisioning. User demand equals consumpISSUE 18

49

IT SERVICES

I think the final validation was all of the large cloud providers saying this was the answer to doing orchestration pieces�

50

DIGITAL BULLETIN

K AINOS

tion cost, and that’s a very difficult thing, even at the IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) level, to get right. Kubernetes is a very lean thing to build and run.”

Kelsey Hightower, one of the earliest published authors on Kubernetes and co-chair of KubeCon, the de facto Kubernetes user and developer conference, said in an interview with the All Hands on Tech podcast in January that 2020 was to be “the year of Kubenetes”.

While the pandemic has thrown up obvious challenges across all industries, what other possible hurdles does Workman believe might stop Kubernetes in his tracks? He brings up potential trickiness around legacy systems and the common issue of skills.

“Native things are straightforward to build, it’s taking the old and adapting it to run on this type of platform, I think that’s going to be the next challenge for Kubernetes,” Workman says.

“It’s about taking older monoliths and even microservices to break them down further - to give that light-run cost, along with true scalability, flexibility and portability.

“Skills are definitely an issue but less so in the building of the service, I think the biggest gap is the running and maintenance going forward. I think it is the same you see with the cloud providers, when they talk about cloud adoption

frameworks. It’s almost like: what is the Kubernetes adoption framework?”

One drawback for the technology has been its complexity. The intricacies of Kubernetes have stumped many developers, especially those without an infrastructure speciality.

Workman believes that there is a gap in the market for Kubernetes migration tools - and that a simplification of the adoption process will be needed to achieve true ubiquity in a world where digital transformation has been hastened because of the effects of a pandemic.

“We’re going through faster change than ever - and the pace of change could in some ways prohibit and slow things down,” he concludes. “A lot of people have made a massive shift out from their data centre to running as IaaS on a public cloud platform. So for me I think the biggest challenge is going to be that step.

“It might not be the product itself, but there will be extensions around it. In the same way that cloud providers have migration tools, I think there will be tools to help guide and steer how you take something from legacy into a containerised world. There will be a lot around making the path to adoption a lot more straightforward for enterprise.”

ISSUE 18

51

DEBATE

SECURING ENTERPRISE IN UNPRECEDENTED TIMES Each month, Digital Bulletin picks the brains of experts in a particular sector of the technology world. This month, we ask: What is the biggest gap in enterprise security infrastructure and what can be done to plug it?

52

DIGITAL BULLETIN

SECURITY

“ Cyber defences must be able to stand up to a second wave” Cary Wright, VP of Product Management, Endace

In the time of COVID-19, pivoting to remote working has not been an easy transition for many SecOps teams. The problem has been three-fold: firstly, during the pandemic, the ‘attack surface’ has increased rapidly with cyber attackers looking to exploit vulnerabilities introduced with the mass move to remote working.

Secondly, many companies have security infrastructure that didn’t cope with the massive shift to remote working. It’s been extremely challenging to acquire and quickly deploy additional security hardware, especially with onsite access to data centres and offices being significantly restricted. As a result massive blind spots developed in security posture.

Finally, organisations are facing up to the challenge of maintaining visibility across networks they don’t own. Pre COVID-19, if you identified a machine that was compromised, you isolated it, got it off the network, re-imaged it and re-created it from scratch. But without

access to machines or ownership of the home networks they run on, companies can’t do that.

All three points have brought about the realisation that there is work to be done to adequately prepare for future catastrophic scenarios, including possible further impact from COVID-19.

This has been a powerful reminder of the need to adopt flexible infrastructure that can be extended, reconfigured, upgraded and maintained both remotely and rapidly. That’s difficult when it comes to dealing with a security infrastructure that includes lots of proprietary hardware appliances.

How can companies prepare? They can start by putting in place network

ISSUE 18

53

DEBATE

Pre COVID-19, if you identified a machine that was compromised, you isolated it, got it off the network, re-imaged it and re-created it from scratch. But without access to machines or ownership of the home networks they run on, companies can’t do that� taps and packet brokers to provide on demand monitoring access to any part of the network. This solves part of the problem by providing dynamic access to any part of the network as organisation behaviors change and traffic patterns shift.

This leaves the problem of flexible and rapid deployment of new security capabilities to be solved. Companies should adopt a flexible open platform that can capture important network packet data and host a variety of commercial or open source security tools as virtual instances.

Virtualising security tools in this way allows multiple single-function hardware solutions to be consolidated onto a common, multi-functional hardware platform that can host commercial, open source or custom-built network analytics solutions.

This gives organisations the freedom to choose the analytics solutions that 54

DIGITAL BULLETIN

best suit their changing security needs.

And by deploying in conjunction with a comprehensive tapping and packet broker infrastructure, this capability can be applied to secure any part of the infrastructure on demand.

Whether we’re facing further waves of COVID-19 or other unprecedented events that threaten business continuity and network visibility, the lesson to be learned here is clear: organisations need to make architecture changes now that let them deploy, access, manage and configure their network security and monitoring tools rapidly and fully remotely.

Consolidating these tools onto a common hardware platform is a way to deliver this capability. The end result is that SecOps, IT, NetOps and DevOps teams will have the visibility and agility they need to protect, secure and run infrastructure in the face of disruption.

SECURITY

“ In-network threats have to be addressed earlier” Carolyn Crandall, Chief Deception Officer, Attivo Networks

Keeping systems under regular review is a standard enterprise policy.

It ensures products and services stay relevant to constant changes in market forces and customer demand. However, should those changes occur rapidly, for example, when organisations add technologies such as cloud, IoT, OT, and ICS devices to the mix, the rate of progress can outpace the security controls designed to protect them.

Occasionally the change can be wholesale and unexpected. The current pandemic is a good example of this. In the rush to avoid business disruption, many organisations could not check security precautions as thoroughly as they would wish. By contrast, cybercriminals will not hesitate to use the automated, artificial intelligence capabilities in the latest attack tools to exploit any gaps in traditional security measures quickly.

Once inside the network, the average dwell time of a threat actor varies but tends to average around 60 days. Cur-

rent circumstances have made it harder than ever for traditional defences to spot intruders, which, unfortunately, creates a situation where organisations may emerge from lockdown thinking they managed to stay safe only to find attackers have compromised them after all.

We fully expect to start seeing COVID-period data breach discoveries soon where attackers have successfully exfiltrated the information they wanted or have established a commanding foothold in the network. Such attacks are likely to be very disruptive and can be costly in terms of ransomware demands.

Effectively dealing with this requires a change of mindset. It is no longer enough to respond to incidents after an exploit has happened. Security teams

ISSUE 18

55

DEBATE

Current circumstances have made it harder than ever for traditional defences to spot intruders, which, unfortunately, creates a situation where organisations may emerge from lockdown thinking they managed to stay safe only to find attackers have compromised them after all”

must have the necessary capabilities to detect in-network threats early and possess tools that can divert a threat actor’s attention away from valuable production assets and company data.

Endpoint protection is essential, as is the capacity to recognise how attackers might break out from a device to move laterally across the network and connected cloud applications.

To plug the gap, enterprises need endpoint security tools that go beyond merely detecting known signatures or attack patterns. Many of the latest attack techniques can evade such traditional prevention methods.

56

DIGITAL BULLETIN

Security teams also need in-network threat detection capabilities. These are the surest ways to pick up suspicious activities like lateral movement, credentials theft, and privilege escalation. Traditional tools simply cannot accurately catch these attack activities.

Organisations can also gain early insight into attacker activity and intent by setting up Active Directory protection.

This approach can detect unauthorised queries and feed fake information back to the attacker that subtly leads them into a deception environment that can study, record their movements and derail their efforts.”

SECURITY

“ The WFH threat is not being addressed” David Higgins, EMEA Technical Director, CyberArk

The large majority of the UK’s workforce continues to work from home as a result of the pandemic. Throughout the lockdown period, the risks associated with remote users accessing critical systems have been exponentially increasing, to the point where security infrastructures are now highly vulnerable to cyber attacks. This is due to a lack of

appropriate security frameworks.

Targeted attacks against remote workers are significantly rising according to figures from numerous security experts, highlighting why it’s critical security frameworks evolve and match the dynamic threat landscape. The National Cyber Security Centre has already advised of the growing use of COVID-19-related themes by malicious cyber actors, while various other vendors have highlighted the sharp increase in volume of attacks during the lockdown period.

However, according to our recent remote work study, IT teams are not reacting adequately to this increased threat. While the majority (91%) of UK IT professionals are confident in securing the new remote workforce, almost half (49%) have not increased security protocols to protect against these sources of potential new attacks.

As employees access sensitive company systems from outside the physical perimeter of the office, organisations must either adopt or maintain strict security protocols to properly mitigate the elevated risk that this entails.

When it comes to operational teams, like IT administrators, it is especially important that processes are in place to ensure these remote workers do not have open, persistent access to the entire network. This is due to risk factors ISSUE 18

57

DEBATE

Targeted attacks against remote workers are significantly rising according to figures from numerous security experts, highlighting why it’s critical security frameworks evolve and match the dynamic threat landscape”

58

DIGITAL BULLETIN

such as, accessing networks from personal devices that lack enterprise-grade security, or from home networks that could be easily compromised.

Advances in technology mean the challenges of traditional technologies – like VPNs – to secure remote workers can now be overcome. Security approaches such as biometric authentication, zero Trust and just-in-time provisioning can and should be employed to reliably authenticate and control remote user access to the most sensitive parts of the corporate network.

In the current environment, where endpoint devices have disparate levels of security and will be connecting to openWiFi networks in alternative office environments such as home offices, cyber security needs to match the flexibility of modern working.

We can no longer ensure the security of these endpoints. In fact, we should assume endpoint devices are already compromised, or soon will be. This position is important because it mandates that we adopt the critical premise of Zero Trust, by enforcing isolation to prevent such devices ever directly accessing critical assets. Once combined with a just-intime provisioning of access process, this can dramatically reduce the likelihood of an attacker using a remote worker’s identity to infiltrate a business.

SECURITY

“ Companies in healthcare have to insulate themselves from future crises” Philipp Pointner, Chief Product Officer, Jumio

Global COVID-19 lockdown measures have instigated significant shifts in the way we conduct daily activities. The healthcare space is one area in which we’ve seen real technological evolution.

Forrester estimates that the adoption of telemedicine has shifted into hyper-drive, with virtual healthcare interactions on pace to top 1,000,000,000 by year’s end.

While this has allowed many to continue to receive the medical advice and services they need, we must be aware of the associated risks. For example, there have been many data breaches in the healthcare space — around 2,550 over the last decade.

This means that more personal medical data is now being bought and sold on the dark web. Because these medical records often contain a lot of personally identifiable information (PII), they’re worth more to a fraudster — around 10 times more than the average credit card record. But fraudsters are willing to pay the $1,000/record because they are armed with more PII to perpetrate different kinds of fraud.

ISSUE 18

59

DEBATE

The benefits of telemedicine far outweigh the potential risks, but healthcare organisations need to adapt. This means leveraging fraud prevention and biometric-based authentication tools that provide better fraud detection, but also reduce perceived friction for patients.

Therefore, it is crucial that all healthcare institutions establish a reliable, secure and accurate Know Your Patient (KYP) process. This type of identity proofing ensures that a patient is who they say they are when they create new online accounts, engage in telemedicine consultations or are issued online pre60

DIGITAL BULLETIN

scriptions. The consequences of getting this wrong could result in insurance and prescription fraud.

KYP starts with the patient capturing a picture of their government-issued ID (e.g., a passport) via their smartphone or webcam, then taking a corroborating selfie. During the selfie-taking process, a 3D face map is created to ensure the person behind the ID is the person creating the account. The identity verification solution ensures that the ID document is authentic and that the patient pictured in the selfie matches the picture on the ID.

SECURITY

Forrester estimates that the adoption of telemedicine has shifted into hyper-drive, with virtual healthcare interactions on pace to top 1,000,000,000 by year’s end�

=Healthcare providers can also use fraud detection analytics to determine whether fraudulent activity has taken place to minimise downstream risk and loss. Based on this information and patient intel, hospitals, GPs, healthcare apps and more can approve or deny new online accounts. =Moving forward, telemedicine organisations can continue to verify a patient’s identity when they collect online prescriptions and treatments using biometric-based authentication. This is done by capturing a new 3D face map of the patient and comparing it to the one

captured at enrolment to ensure that the patient requesting the consultation or prescription is the actual subscriber.

The expedited modernisation of the healthcare industry and the dramatic shift to telemedicine has supported millions of patients who may not have been able to be treated otherwise. But to continue to reap the benefits, implementing a KYP strategy is the only way to reliably establish trust between a telemedicine provider and an online patient to avoid cybercriminals taking advantage of this new opportunity.

ISSUE 18

61

FUTURE

MULTIEXPERIENCE - TECH’S NEXT BIG THING AUTHOR: James Henderson

U

ntil around a decade ago, the jobs of technologists plotting and designing customer journeys were fairly straight forward, taking place exclusively on the web. The emergence of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems changed things by introducing a viable second journey option, and were the catalyst for an explosion of mobile apps.

Until a couple of years ago, that status quo remained. But a proliferation of new technologies including wearables, smart speakers and VR/AR have changed the game, significantly increasing the number of potential routes for customer journeys and modes of interaction.

62

DIGITAL BULLETIN

The proliferation of new technology genres such as voice, gesture and AR is changing how we make online journeys. Gartner’s Jason Wong tells Digital Bulletin why the enterprise should be planning its multiexperience strategies now

Think of ordering a takeaway through your Alexa or tracking your exercise through your smartwatch - experiences that we take for granted now but would have been the thing of science fiction just five years ago.

This modern phenomenon is known as multiexperience, moving across many touch points to create a more immersive process. Garner named it the number two technology trend to watch in 2020, and made the following prediction: “By 2021, at least one-third of enterprises will have deployed a multiexperience development platform to support mobile, web, conversational and augmented reality development.”

GARTNER

ISSUE 18

63

FUTURE

I had led the mobile app development quadrant at Gartner for a number of years and we noticed a trend that clients were looking at the convergence of web and mobile development” Jason Wong

64

DIGITAL BULLETIN

Jason Wong, VP Research Advisory at Gartner and one of the tech industry’s leading minds on multiexperience, tells Digital Bulletin about the genesis of the term: “I had led the mobile app development quadrant at Gartner for a number of years and we noticed a trend that clients were looking at the convergence of web and mobile development.

“At the same time, vendors were also looking at the capabilities and the platform to bring together the activities around mobile app development, web development and increasingly adding conversational, immersive and AR. This is what we call multiexperience; first and foremost it is a higher level concept of the convergence of various digital experience technologies.”

Fundamentally, multiexperience is about being in the digital touch points and channels where your customers are, whether that’s in Facebook Messenger, WeChat or Alexa. Wong picks out Domino’s Pizza as a multiexperience blueprint for others to take inspiration from.

“Domino’s has a home-grown platform called the ‘Anyware’, that has up to 20 digital touch points depending on where you’re based. It all started from a website and mobile app, which grew to two mobile apps with ‘Zero Click’ which allows users to place the same order over and over again -

GARTNER

there are more customers that do that than you’d expect.

“It also has a chatbot called Dom which sits in the app, which they’ve taken and used in Alexa Slack, so you have all of these developers coding away and they can use the Slackbot to order a pizza for the team, so it is building on the same foundation. The idea from a development platform perspective is how do you reuse this and target more touch points by leveraging the modalities.”

Domino’s is, by any measure, a big business, turning over in excess of $3

billion last year. It invests huge funds into its technology, leading some observers to suggest it has actually morphed into a technology company that happens to sell pizza. But not every company has a war chest to custom build such an extensive multiexperience platform, which is why Multiexperience Development Platforms (MXDP) are beginning to come into their own.

An MXDP is a product or suite of products that offers professional developers an integrated set of front-end development tools and back-end services that

ISSUE 18

65

FUTURE

enable scalable development of fit-forpurpose apps across the ever-growing range of digital touchpoints.

“The MXDP platform is about unifying, coalescing and accelerating multiexperience,” says Wong. “Take banking and financial services as an example where multiexperience is really taking off. it has gone digital really quickly and is competing at the digital level in terms of experience and connecting their employees.

“Not everybody can be a Netflix, LinkedIn, Walmart or a large financial institution. Large, multinational banks can afford to hire lots of development teams, your secondary tier banks can’t do that and that’s why they invest in an MXDP, 66

DIGITAL BULLETIN

that’s why [banking software company] Temenos bought [digital banking SaaS company] Kony last year.

“These platform technologies are important for breaking through and catching up with the leaders who are doing these custom, multiexperience development with pure development teams.”

Multiexperience and MXDP is also helping to bridge the gap between customer experience (CX) and the experience of their employees. This disparity, he says, is the reason many companies are not progressing when it comes to multiexperience.

“It’s really important to stress that multiexperience is not just for the customer, it is also for employees, par-

GARTNER

ticularly the frontline employees who are interacting with customers either in-person or remotely, in real-time or asynchronously. There are many digital interactions that benefit from making the transactions, data and content more convenient and effortless.

“CX has been around a long time but now we have employee experience and there should be the same level of discipline and practice applied. When it comes to design and usability we have focussed on the customers but shortchanged the employees and COVID-19 has exposed this.

“Companies need to address interaction points where the employees overlap with the customer. This is the interconnectedness of multiexperience and user experience, as well as customer experience and employee experience, and collectively we are calling this ‘MUCE’.

It is an integrated strategy that companies need to think of, not one-off channels for customers. That is the important part of multiexperience, to connect all of these experiences.”

Currently, progressive web applications and mobile apps are the main driver for investments in MXDP, but the rapid development of new technologies that will become far more widely used in the next three years will also begin to move the needle, according to Wong.

“Conversational and AR are the two I would pick out,” he comments. “Conversational is fast becoming really important and it is not just about building the ultimate version of a chatbot. There are various levels of conversational, 90% of conversational experiences are chatbots that can carry out simple FAQs, or the status of ‘x’, these are simple conversational tasks that can be enabled through an MXDP. “There is also growth with conversational because it supports all of these non-business-owned touchpoints, so it can be integrated into the likes of Facebook Messenger, Alexa, Teams and Slack. COVID-19 has shown how

ISSUE 18

67

FUTURE

Companies say they need mobile apps, web apps, conversational apps and then they start thinking about integration - the approach to design will become more holistic�

68

DIGITAL BULLETIN

GARTNER

important conversational is, customers don’t want to be on hold to talk to an agent or wait for an email response.

They can use something virtual to get a response really quickly.”

There is no doubt that the pandemic has been the catalyst for companies to embark on digital transformations or pause to take stock of their progress todate. Enterprise has been backed into a corner and has rolled out large-scale technology initiatives in a matter of weeks that previously would have been piloted for months, even years.

Wong believes that the crisis has also helped to accelerate the momentum of multiexperience and MXDPs, with many companies using the downtime to track the progress of their tech transformation programmes.

“Businesses are looking back and seeing that they haven’t impacted the digital experience that much. They’ve modernised a few things, gone to the cloud but from an experience perspective, they can see that they haven’t done that much to transform customer self service, to provide mobile capabilities, to really elevate the customer/employee experience.

“I spoke with a customer recently who said the management team have recognised that their digital transformation, the digital properties, the web and even

mobile properties are really antiquated, they have just incrementally improved it and it has taken COVID-19 for them to see how far behind they’ve fallen.

“There are a lot of factors that are contributing to the elevation of multiexperience and it’s not just platform developers that are taking an interest and seeing its potential, its heads of contact centres, content platforms, CRM and ERP technology providers as well.”

As mentioned earlier, Gartner is bullish about the prospects for multiexperience and the development platforms that will enable many companies to bring together their customer and employee journeys across multiple touch points. Concluding, Wong believes that multiexperience will become far more important when it comes to longer-term design planning.

“A lot of what is happening with multiexperience is serendipitous,” Wong concludes. “Companies say they need mobile apps, web apps, conversational apps and then they start thinking about integration - the approach to design will become more holistic. We think that in the next two to three years it will become more strategic, companies will think in a far more advanced way about multiexperience.”

ISSUE 18

69

PEOPLE

THE CHANGING FACE OF GRC MetricStream’s COO, Gaurav Kapoor, tells Digital Bulletin which technologies are driving standards in governance, risk management and compliance, why the pandemic has made it more important and how remote working is changing priorities

70

DIGITAL BULLETIN

METRICSTREAM

H

i Gaurav, thanks for speaking with us – can you begin by telling us a bit about MetricStream?

MetricStream is a global provider of software solutions and enterprise cloud applications for governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) and quality management. We use cutting-edge technology to improve business performance by strengthening risk management, corporate governance, regulatory compliance, audit management, vendor governance, and quality management for organisations across industries.

What technologies do you consider to be really moving the needle when it comes to GRC? In my conversations with customers and industry analysts, some key aspects of technology are coming into focus. For example, in the current pandemic situation, organisations are seeing the need now more than ever to manage high velocity risks, which means they need to deploy technologies that have the capabilities for continuous risk monitoring and auditing.

Customers are also increasingly telling us that risk quantification is becoming a ‘must have’ in managing the risk posture of a business.

Another key area of focus is risk awareness – how do we improve our

ability to have peripheral vision into risks emerging on the horizon? Technology needs to create a console of risk intelligence that brings in data from numerous internal and external sources to offer organisations a 360-degree real-time picture of the risk environment.

And by risk awareness, I mean across the organisation – enabling the frontline to be an integral part of the business.

AI chatbots will be increasingly relied upon to carry out a simple, natural conversation that can automatically capture frontline observations on risks and issues, and in doing so significantly improve risk awareness across the organisation.

Organisations will need to be agile and responsive and automation of controls will be relied on to reduce human intervention and error. AI will help in reviewing new legislations and their impact on business processes and assets across regions, keeping the business compliant with regulatory requirements.

Has the impact of COVID-19 in rapidly increasing WFH and remote working set any GRC trends in motion?

COVID-19 has changed the way GRC is being perceived with increased pressure on GRC teams and processes. The sudden onset of the coronavirus outbreak ISSUE 18

71

PEOPLE

has led to a huge transition in the way we live and work across the world. This has led to a renewed focus on GRC processes to keep a handle on all exposure to risk which could lead to unfortunate pitfalls. GRC is now being recognised as a core, essential function to keep an organisation compliant, resilient and delivering on its performance goals.

Organisations are looking to their GRC programmes to provide a clearer view into the interconnectedness of risk – as the lockdown has not only severely impacted people’s daily routines, but has disrupted supply chains and business operations, and exposed vulnerabilities to cyberattacks and fraud.

72

DIGITAL BULLETIN

Organisations that have an integrated view of risks can make informed business decisions. Common risk taxonomies, common risk data repositories, and collaboration will all make a difference in producing powerful risk insights to drive the business forward.

The pandemic is prompting organisations to rethink their approaches to business continuity planning and resilience. We are likely to see new models of operational resilience emerge based on new ways of working, new business models, and new risk paradigms.

Priorities across the lines of defence are being realigned. The need for dynamic and real-time risk assessments

METRICSTREAM

has blurred the barriers between each line of defence. No longer is it important to have compartmentalised roles and responsibilities for each line. The more important question is whether or not all of them are working together to catalyse business performance. Are they combining their collective strengths to drive business growth? And are they doing all this fast enough?

Has the pandemic brought GRC to the fore for companies in a way you’ve not seen before?

Yes, in some ways this global pandemic has been an eye-opener into what can happen when organisations aren’t prepared for new, emerging risks. Going forward, leadership teams and boards will rely even more on their governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) functions to help them effectively manage the risks and opportunities ahead.

Organisations will emerge from the crisis in different ways. Some will be unsure about the future. Others will focus on building their resilience i.e., the ability to withstand future shocks. Ultimately, it’s about being prepared. We can’t always predict every single risk, but we can be ready to ride it out.

The pandemic has also compelled our organisations to adapt quickly, to pivot, to innovate, and to build our agility

The lockdown has not only severely impacted people’s daily routines, but has disrupted supply chains and business operations, and exposed vulnerabilities to cyberattacks and fraud” Gaurav Kapoor

ISSUE 18

73

PEOPLE

The notion that AI is impartial probably stems from the fact that traditionally programmed machines indeed are unbiased. What makes machine learning different, however, is that it learns from data�

and resilience like never before. We’ve gained new insights to transform our businesses for better performance. And that’s the silver lining.

Is there evidence that companies are struggling to maintain operations because of dispersed workforces?

Depending on their preparedness, industry and customer and employee profiles, organisations are going through different scenarios. Companies operating more in the digital world like technology, ecommerce, financial services have been less impacted compared to 74

DIGITAL BULLETIN

organisations that deal with more of the physical world like retail, both in terms of employees and customers.

How is technology changing the recruitment process and what risks do companies need to take into account?

Organisations are undergoing transformations in the recruiting process. For example, due to the openness of working from home, the location of candidates has expanded vastly.

The two significant risks, the first of which is the inability to interact face

METRICSTREAM

to face during the recruitment process leading to possible errors for both the companies and candidates, and secondly the onboarding process where new employees have a latency in terms of understanding their co-workers.

Is the technology available to ensure that recruitment processes and decisions can be taken to ensure companies are as diverse and unprejudiced as possible?

Yes, recruitment processes have been leveraging technology for quite some time and technology with more ‘learn-

ing’ is getting more unbiased. However, it would be extremely important to ensure that precision of what is needed for the role, as well as data bias, continues to be watched very carefully.

Can the likes of AI and machine learning ever be truly impartial given they are being developed by humans?

The notion that AI is impartial probably stems from the fact that traditionally programmed machines indeed are unbiased.

What makes machine learning different, however, is that it learns from data. Since some data is a direct product of human ISSUE 18

75

PEOPLE

effort, and since humans cannot be completely unbiased, AI taught on such data also cannot be unbiased.

However, the benefits that AI delivers to businesses is growing and needs to have constant checks and balances.

Data scientists need to be cognizant of such potential biases and prepare datasets for training with the right balance and representations, periodic monitoring of models to ensure no data drift is introduced. It’s important to choose interpretable and explainable models vs complex and opaque models. Developers also need to consider potential ethical and societal implications of the AI system being built. Technologies like Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are being looked at as options for checks-and-balances for AI. It is equally crucial to map your expectations from such technological

76

DIGITAL BULLETIN

assets to your business objectives. To cite a few examples in which business functions are leveraging analytics; many ďŹ nancial organisations utilise algorithmic trading to sell or buy commodities as the system shows clients which are more likely to trade at given data points based on historical behaviour; immediately identify a suspicious financial transaction, predict when a machine might fail to get the maintenance done to avoid any downtime. However, there are cases where the in-built algorithms might not be what was needed, and that is one of the challenges for organisations to focus on.

What risks are companies without robust GRC planning taking when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff?

The most important thing in our view is that integrity is increasingly driving per-

METRICSTREAM

We’re likely to see a sea-change in business models post COVID-19. Some companies may shift to a permanent remote working model, while others may replace physical customer interactions with virtual or self-service options” formance of brands. Integrity includes ethics, purpose, inclusion, resilience, and the right controls driving the right behaviours. With an increasingly younger workforce and buying power shifting to Millennials and Gen Zs, companies with integrity will have a substantial positive impact on their performance.

GRC technology helps keep the various aspects of Integrity managed and in turn drives performance.

Which trends do you think will shape GRC over the next three to five years?

Risk management will play a key role in driving and guiding business performance in the future. Decision-making processes will integrate a rigorous assessment of risks. Risk findings and metrics will be aligned much more closely to resilience and strategic objectives, so that when the next global crisis comes—because it will—organisations will be better prepared to respond and pivot quickly.

We’re likely to see a sea-change in business models post COVID-19. Some

companies may shift to a permanent remote working model, while others may replace physical customer interactions with virtual or self-service options. Most will accelerate digital transformation, investing in AI, automation, and analytics to drive their business forward.

Going forward, organisations will focus on the investments that will truly generate value in both the short and long term. Among those investments is digital.

More organisations will accelerate digital transformation and innovation even in GRC. Robotic process automation, AI, machine learning, and other digital tools will increasingly be deployed to strengthen resilience and agility against future disruptions. Many of the businesses that rode out the pandemic were those that used the full potential of the cloud, mobility, and automation.

Underlying it all is the awareness that to succeed in a post-COVID-19 era, we will need to stay one step ahead of risks.

COVID-19 may have been a novel disruption, but it certainly won’t be the last.

ISSUE 18

77

CONNECTIVITY

REAWAKENING OUR CITIES Technology and smart city initiatives hold the key to creating the optimum post-pandemic urban environments, as Dassault Systèmes’ Jonathan Bailey explains to Digital Bulletin

AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer

78

DIGITAL BULLETIN

DASSAULT SYSTÈMES

O

ver recent months, the world’s great metropolises have had their souls well and truly stripped away.

The coronavirus pandemic has driven us from our cities, with strict stay-athome instructions leaving our streets and offices deserted and forcing retail and hospitality businesses to put up the shutters. Previously our centres of economic and cultural prosperity, they have more recently resembled ghost-towns akin to those seen in dystopian movies.

At the time of publication, life is finally beginning to return to some form of

normality. In the United Kingdom, cinemas, theatres, restaurants and pubs, for so long laid dormant, are now ready to re-open. Soon footfall will increase, the buzz will return - our cities will be back.

But the route to a “normal” state of affairs is by no means straightforward. Our urban environments are a complex web of infrastructure, transport networks and rapidly-growing populations. We will have to take incremental steps to reintegrate with our cities, while also embracing new and permanent ways of navigating people-dense areas. Unsurprisingly, technology will make a critical contribution.

ISSUE 18

79

CONNECTIVITY

“What the pandemic has done, in my opinion, is bring into sharp focus the need to go about the design of our urban environments in a smart way,” says Jonathan Bailey, who is involved in the Construction, Cities & Territories division of Dassault Systèmes through his role as Director of Business Transformation.

The technology-enabled urban area is by no means a radical idea; you will be very familiar with the concept of “smart cities”. One thing the pandemic has done, however, is highlight those city authorities who were proactive in their implementation of technology - and exposed those who were slow to adopt.

“The pandemic has definitely forced the issue. More globally, there are organisations, cities and municipalities that have undertaken this step and they will be in much better shape,” adds Bailey, who then outlines how technology should be utilised with a post-pandemic citizen in mind.

“We’re transitioning into an age where we need to streamline the movements of people more and more. We must consider the way that citizens move around cities, and the way that we’re now having to control our normal practices where we move more freely in open spaces, especially in passenger and commuter environments.

“There are capabilities out there that give you the ability to flow the human 80

DIGITAL BULLETIN

DASSAULT SYSTÈMES

traffic in a more controlled way. By using modelling and simulation for example, you can ask things like ‘what happens if I need to maintain a one-metre distance rather than two-metre?’ Once you’ve done those kinds of assessments, you can then also use that same technology to design a walkway which is going to be flowing in one direction if you’re entering and one direction if you’re leaving.”

Modelling and simulation are core capabilities for Dassault Systèmes, a long-established software company which

specialises in providing virtual environments that help clients - whether they’re involved in smart city projects or anything else - plot sustainable innovations.

The organisation, which has more than 250,000 enterprise customers in 140 countries globally, has been the vanguard for developments in 3D design technology. It claims to have created the first “digital twin” alongside Boeing in 1989. Today, through a single platform, it offers a multitude of services to industries such as energy, mobility and life sciences.

ISSUE 18

81

CONNECTIVITY

We can model in a scientific way.

We can basically represent whatever that particular product is in absolute finite detail, whether that be an entire city or a single car”

82

DIGITAL BULLETIN

Dassault Systèmes’ smart city efforts are funnelled through its 3DEXPERIENCity project, which harnesses the 3DEXPERIENCE platform’s modelling and simulation tools to enable urban planners to study and test ideas around digital.

“With modelling, we can effectively create and visualise products,” explains Bailey, who has worked across the software industry for more than 20 years. “We can model in a scientific way. We can basically represent whatever that particular product is in absolute finite detail, whether that be an entire city or a single car.

“In simulation, we take the product that we’ve modelled and put it into its real-world context. And that’s key when we talk about smart cities. It’s one thing to be able to 3D model a static item, but actually what we’re interested in doing is taking that model and putting it into its environment, so we understand what will happen.”

With the World Health Organization projecting that 70% of the population will reside in urban areas by 2050, Dassault Systèmes is doubling down on its work in the smart city space. Aligning its expertise in areas like construction, transport and waste management, Dassault Systèmes is able to work with major metropolitan centres on building

DASSAULT SYSTÈMES

sustainability and intelligence into their urban environments of the future.

Recently, it collaborated on Wuhan’s Leishenshan Hospital, famously constructed over a two-week period to deal with an onrush of COVID-19 cases. Dassault Systèmes simulated part of the build around air movement and how the hospital could control and reduce contamination.

Bailey goes on to quote two other larger-scale examples - and relates each case back to the pandemic and how laying a smart city foundation has enabled these cities to be one step ahead.

“Since 2015 Dassault Systèmes has been working with Singapore to create ‘Virtual Singapore’ and now they have

a massive head start,” he states. “They already have a digital 3D map, with all of the different public agencies’ data in there - they’ve got geometrics, they’ve got geospatial, they’ve got topology, they’ve got legacy data that shows them things like climates, they’ve got the demographics of the population. A Singapore smart city is in a fantastic position to make better decisions, especially during and after a pandemic.

“The same applies to Rennes [in north-west France]. They’re very quickly able to start making plans, particularly when it comes to an emergency plan.

“Sometimes we think about smart cities being something we do because we want to design a citizen-centric enISSUE 18

83

CONNECTIVITY

vironment and it’s going to be a really great experience to live there, but the pandemic has put another lens on it.

What happens when something that we don’t want to happen does happen, and therefore we need to make quick and accurate decisions? The answer is that you need to have a smart city approach where you bring this data together. It’s absolutely critical.”

In fact, Bailey believes the challenges that come with smart city initiatives are much the same now as they were before the pandemic struck.

He says city authorities have always struggled to get a handle on data, which is why Dassault Systèmes has made information intelligence and

84

DIGITAL BULLETIN

analytics a central pillar of the support services it delivers to clients.

“We’re a scientific company and we base everything in maths. All of the data that we capture and harness in the modelling and simulation, we need to do something with it. You need to understand it, leverage it,” he adds. “In some ways, I think that the challenge that exists now for smart cities is the same as the one that existed before, which is bringing together all of the organisations that are required to design a citizen-centric urban environment.

They don’t do that particularly well.

“You need to have this cohesion of data, you need to be able to bring together all of the parties, to be able to

DASSAULT SYSTÈMES

In some ways, I think that the challenge that exists now for smart cities is the same as the one that existed before, which is bringing together all of the organisations that are required to design a citizen-centric urban environment. They don’t do that particularly well” make those decisions quickly and correctly.”

In February, the International Data Corporation’s Worldwide Semiannual Smart Cities Spending Guide projected global expenditures on smart cities in 2020 would rise by 18.9% compared to 2019. While the ultimate effect of the pandemic is impossible to predict, it is expected that this figure will still be realised.

Yet while the growth of smart cities looks set to continue at a rate, there are now more concerns than ever around security and privacy. More connected devices means more avenues for cyber attackers, while the explosion of data carries obvious vulnerabilities for citizens and businesses who engage in urban digitalisation.

ABI Research indicates there will be approximately 1.3 billion wide-area network smart city connections by 2024 - with half of those connections

unable to handle the increased number of threats present in a smart city environment.

It is a barrier that Bailey admits is a concern but he only sees a relentless increase in technology initiatives after being asked what the future of our cities holds in store.

“Without doubt we are going to see fewer vehicles moving around in the city; we’re going to see more cycling, we’re going to see more walking.

I think we will see a greener approach in the buildings we design too - they’ll need to become more self-sufficient,” he concludes.

“We’re also moving vehicles to electrification. More and more, we’ll see requirements there that are going to drive changes in our urban environments. I think we can see more planning happening around making that a possibility.”

ISSUE 18

85

A LIFE IN TECH

A LIFE IN TECH

David Cleevely CBE FREng - Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Committee, which oversees its Enterprise Hub. With over 30 years’ experience in engineering and enterprise, Cleevely has invested in over 30 leading enterprises in the UK and had many successful exits. He co-founded the UK-leading investor network Cambridge Angels, which provides equity capital for early-stage technology businesses and is Chair of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the charitable British enterprise behind the world’s most affordable computer. Here, he tells Digital Bulletin his life lessons

86

DIGITAL BULLETIN

Image: Tom Thornley

DAVID CLEEVELY CBE

I

about what he might do in a situation I’m faced with.

I used to forecast the future. I worked at Post Office Telecommunications (now BT) Long Range Studies Division looking ahead 20-30 years. We looked at mad ideas such as having computers on your desk which could send messages to each other and phones without wires that you could carry with you wherever you went.

Government understands something of the importance of technology but often doesn’t really grasp what possibilities it opens up. The problem is compounded by there being little understanding of engineering.

t was Dr Who that first attracted me to working in technology, particularly the Cybermen. I was fascinated by robots, control systems and computers. It was only later I got hooked on telecoms.

The most formative thing happened when I forecast how fast semiconductor prices would fall. I got thrown out of a working group planning the future of UK digital communications, because they could not believe how cheap processing and memory were going to get. That taught me a lot about how difficult it is for many people to understand change and how dangerous it is to rely on ‘experts’ who are actually stuck in the past.

The list of people who have influenced me is very long, I’ve met so many brilliant people. My PhD supervisor, Geoff Walsham, who taught by example about ethics and values, and was surprisingly patient. I still think

The happiest moment of my career was receiving a CBE at Buckingham Palace for contributions to innovation and technology, and lunch with family afterwards.

In other countries such as Singapore many of the top civil servants and politicians are engineers, and there is a better understanding of practical implementation.

If we had a system that valued technology and engineering and understood that successful implementation depends on skill and expertise, we’d be a lot better off.

I remember giving a presentation to a group of directors from fast moving consumer goods companies in 1997, telling them about the web and the way cookies would be used to target advertising and sell goods. It was nigh on impossible to convey how big a disruption was coming. But the trouble is once something has happened I’m not sure people remember what life was like before.

ISSUE 18

87

A LIFE IN TECH

It surprises me how much is taken for granted that 20 or 30 years ago was thought to be science fiction just look at Apple’s video on this from 1987. A lot of the technology is ‘under the hood’ - the convenience and new possibilities it brings for devices to be more useful and responsive will be quickly taken for granted.

We won’t get autonomous vehicles without 5G but in 30 years autonomous vehicles will be taken as normal and few will make the link between the underlying technology and the new opportunities and convenience.

Never underestimate the capacity for human beings to think of new ways to use technology. In general, good has won out – more people have better quality lives now than at any time in our history. And we have had regulations – national and international – that have helped.

I worry about two things, both of which have their roots in how technology builds on itself. Firstly, as Brian Arthur points out, technology advances by combining technologies to make new ones, and we are creating new tech at a faster and faster rate.

88

DIGITAL BULLETIN

We are creating technologies such as AI and CRISPR and we don’t know what these will be combined with and with what results. Secondly, we use technology to create complex interdependent systems. We don’t know how these might fail and we could be in for a nasty surprise.

There’s got to be a reason why we haven’t met aliens yet despite the maths saying there should be many civilisations in our galaxy that we could communicate with. It may be that no one else managed to solve the problem of regulating technology.

The work Cambridge Angels has done with Raspberry Pi gives me immense satisfaction – though strictly this wasn’t an investment, but loans made by some of the Cambridge Angels members (and

DAVID CLEEVELY CBE

our governance structures are going to come under greater strain.

The one piece of advice I’d give to aspiring technologists at the beginning of their careers is to be interested in other people, find out about them. Good things will happen.

for some of them loans which turned into gifts). Helping Raspberry Pi get off the ground represents an important part of what Cambridge Angels stands for: helping new tech companies achieve success.

I’m not sure how technology will have changed the world in 10 years’ time.

You’d need to ask someone under 25 that question - anyone much older than that probably has too much baggage.

But for what it’s worth I’d say mitigating some of the worst effects of climate change, new drugs and other significant improvements in health management using machine learning and AI. There’s also going to be an unpredictable effect on our society and politics.

Systems for presenting information and measuring our responses will become more sophisticated and complex and

The impact of COVID-19 has not been as bad as I’d feared in the short-term but we have a long way to go. Companies and organisations I am involved in saw it coming long before the government and prepared for the lockdown, and I’ve been hugely impressed with how fast they changed the way they work to accommodate the new reality.

In my career, I’ve come close to folding a couple of times so this isn’t as bad as that for me personally, but for the wider economy and society things are going to get much tougher – we haven’t seen a shock as big as this for decades.

The one thing I would tell myself if I was starting all over again would be: Don’t waste your time.

In a world dominated by technology, I like to switch off by spending time with my grandkids. Not seeing them has been the worst part of lockdown.

ISSUE 18

89

EVENTS

DIGITAL

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...

ASIA BLOCKCHAIN SUMMIT 2020 JULY 15–19, 2020 Asia Blockchain Alliance presents the 1st Virtual Summit, which is also the 3rd annual Asia Blockchain Summit, on July 15-19, 2020. Professionals from leading industry startups, investment firms, financial services giants, global brands, academic institutions, international media and policy groups will gather virtually to discuss the evolving real-world applications of blockchain technology at ABS2020. The event will feature five 90

DIGITAL BULLETIN

days of online presentations, discussions, and networking regarding the most important commercial developments, technical innovations, and public policy issues. It will feature 500+ speakers and 1,000,000+ attendees who are building the foundations of the growing blockchain ecosystem.

TC EARLY STAGE 2020 JULY 21–22, 2020 TechCrunch covers a lot of bases in the tech startup world, but none is more important than supporting founders, es-

JULY – OCTOBER

pecially early stage founders. TC Early Stage is a brand-new event series that offers founders an unrivalled opportunity to learn from top experts how best to move ahead in the startup game. At this all-day event, you can take part in several highly interactive, small group breakout sessions with top investors and ecosystem experts, in fields ranging from fundraising and law, to growth and recruiting, among others—plus get inspiration from TechCrunch interviews

with top founders and investors telling their stories of success (and failure).

BLACK HAT USA 2020 AUGUST 01–06, 2020 Now in its 23rd year, Black Hat USA is the world’s leading information security event, providing attendees with the very latest security research, development and trendsBlack Hat USA virtual will

ISSUE 18

91

EVENTS

offer a robust lineup of content including nearly 80 Trainings, 90 Briefings, community and sponsored programming, a virtual Business Hall, Arsenal program, PWNIE Awards, CISO Summit, and networking opportunities. With the shift to an all-virtual event, information security professionals can participate in the same high-quality experience they have come to expect from a Black Hat event.

INTERNET OF THINGS WORLD AUGUST 11–13, 2020 IoT World Virtual is a new, online platform bringing together the global IoT community to transform business in the new digital world. As industries and businesses develop towards a new normal, there is no longer a question of if to digitally transform, but how quickly can it happen. IoT provides the foundations for transformation, by utilising next generation networks to collect data from mass connected devices and drive actionable business insights, operational efficiencies and data driven product offerings through AI. IoT World Virtual showcases organisations leading the way in IoT adoption, enabling them to propel into a new world of business quicker, with 92

DIGITAL BULLETIN

more accurate data, ensuring their business can thrive through new technology adoptions.

KUBECON + CLOUDNATIVECON EUROPE 2020 AUGUST 17–20, 2020 The Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s flagship conference gathers adopters and technologists from leading open source and cloud native communities virtually in August. Join Kubernetes, Prometheus, Envoy, CoreDNS, containerd, Fluentd, Jaeger, Vitess, TUF, OpenTracing, gRPC, CNI, Notary, NATS, Linkerd, Helm, Rook, Harbor, etcd, Open Policy

JULY – OCTOBER

Agent, CRI-O, TiKV, CloudEvents, Falco, Argo & Dragonfly as the community gathers for four days to further the education and advancement of cloud native computing. You will have the ability to network with other attendees, attend presentations with live Q&A, interact with sponsors real-time, and much more.

INTELLIGENT HEALTH 2020 SEPTEMBER 10–11, 2020 Intelligent Health is the only large-scale, global summit series focused purely on AI in healthcare! Our CPD accredited summits bring the global AI and health

community together to advance discussions on how to apply AI and drive technological collaboration in healthcare.

Participants are invited to join industry-leading speakers for an in-depth look at AI within the health market, how it can be used to prevent and solve some of the world’s greatest healthcare problems, improve the health of the human race and set the AI agenda in healthcare for 2020 and beyond. Networking including 1:2:1 chat roulette, live video meetings, CPD accredited content (live and available on demand post show), so that you can plan around the clock in any time zone and play sessions at a time that suits you.

VMWORLD SEPT 28–OCT 01, 2020 As a digital event the week of Sept. 28, VMworld 2020 will enable remote participation and collaboration from anywhere in the world. VMware is committed to ensuring that the digital event reflects the VMworld experience that so many in the industry have come to know and love. In this new format, attendees can still hear about innovative new technology solutions, perspectives from VMware executives, dive into educational and technical content, and engage with experts across the industry ecosystem.

ISSUE 18

93

THE CLOSING BULLETIN

THE CLOSING BULLETIN

Writing exclusively for Digital Bulletin, Dr Iain Brown, Head of Data Science for SAS UK & Ireland, says the dawn of AI is making humans more important than ever

2

020 has been a wake-up call for humanity. As healthcare teams fight to keep the virus at bay, for industries the vulnerability of the human workforce has come to the fore.

Yet technology can deliver powerful resources in the fight against COVID-19.

For example, visual text analytics applications that use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have been rapidly searching tens of thousands of research articles on the virus and delivering potentially lifesaving answers to these scientists.

This is just one example of an AI use case. For the past few years, AI 94

DIGITAL BULLETIN

has increasingly found its way into workplaces, home life and leisure.

Self-learning machines are embedded in services or devices used by three-quarters of global consumers and algorithms choose the news we’re shown or the entertainment suggested to us. In many ways, humans are already giving in to AI. But what do AI-users really think?

Despite science fiction’s warnings of rivalry between humans and their robot creations, in reality there is huge value to be gained from these new technologies. I had the chance to speak with AI-users in a series of

DR IAIN BROWN

Despite science fiction’s warnings of rivalry between humans and their robot creations, in reality there is huge value to be gained from these new technologies” focus groups recently. Our objective was to discover the thoughts and feelings of those for whom this technology is not futuristic but a day-today reality.

From students to academics, C-suite businesspeople to data scientists, opinions were varied across the board, even within the groups themselves.

Their hopes and fears for this technology are fascinating, and a true insight into how AI will shape our world in the years to come.

Humans won’t be in competition with robots for jobs One topic was pervasive: job losses due to AI-driven automation. With recent

headlines suggesting that multinational organisations are to “replace workers with robots”, widespread AI-induced unemployment was dismissed by those who actually work alongside the technology. While it’s positive that most participants believed AI would create more jobs than it replaced, there was little agreement on the duration, severity or consequences of job losses resulting from AI in the short term.

In particular, younger participants tended to be more pessimistic about their future prospects, anticipating a significant rise in AI-enabled inequality and a breakdown of social cohesion. Some feared the powerful technology being placed in the hands of a few could drive ISSUE 18

95

THE CLOSING BULLETIN

a much greater divide between those with power, wealth and influence and those without.

Yet, while there was some trepidation from this current and future workforce, the message from the boardroom was loud and clear: workers have little to fear from AI. The reason for this was simple – even in an AI-driven future, humans would remain a valuable commodity worth investing in. They would continue to deliver value that machines do not.

As several of the professors and data scientists informed us, we are still a long way from the ‘general intelligence’ so often portrayed in science fiction. Despite the hype, most AIs are designed to be very good at solving a specific problem and under very particular parameters. Introduce a variable and the system breaks down or a new model needs to be created.

Humans must review decisions made by AI Time and time again, the respondents reminded us that human creativity, insight and contextual awareness were key to making AI work. Technical executives in the C-suite told us how they ensured any autonomous processes were closely monitored and supervised by human employees. AI solutions with 96

DIGITAL BULLETIN

Like any piece of software, the quality of AI insight depends on the quality of the data you feed into it, and it takes a human to know and judge what is good for it”

hidden internal workings weren’t worth the risk, due to a lack of transparency and explainability.

These sorts of validation roles have started to emerge only recently. With time, however, more transparent processes where employees review, understand and resolve the decisions made by AI systems will be a massive source of employment. Like any piece of software, the quality of AI insight depends on the quality of the data you feed into it, and it takes a human to know and judge what is good for it.

DR IAIN BROWN

Computers didn’t replace us, neither will AI Think for a moment about how many Uber drives you knew 10 years ago. How about social media managers or app developers? The world of work is changing at an exponential rate, as technology leads the way towards capabilities the previous generation would never have considered possible. Each generation, new technologies replace manual work in a new way; AI is the latest technology to take on that role. As such, AI won’t replace us. It will introduce a new working

world in which our job roles are changed for the better.

The future will be defined by humans working hand-in-hand with AI – not as enemies. The methodical approach intelligent machines take to tasks will increase efficiency without imitating or replacing humanity; we are far too creative, unpredictable and valuable for that. What it will do is encourage and empower humans to reach that elusive goal every business desires – our true potential.

ISSUE 18

97

CONTACT US COMMERCIAL ENQUIRIES

BUSINESS@DIGITALBULLETIN.COM BUSINESS@DIGITALBULLET.IN

EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES

EDITORIAL@DIGITALBULLET.IN