Technology Magazine - November 2021

NOV 2021 | technologymagazine.com

WIPRO/IBM/INTEL: Stronger together in a 5G Edge ecosystem SAMBANOVA: Driving AI in the Energy Industry

The End of Legacy.

SingleStore CEO Raj Verma on challenging the fragmented cloud database market with modern database architecture

LARGEST DATA CENTRES

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE: Vision of the future MOLA TV: Transforming CX through Tech

In Association With:

SHAPING THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

2022 February 23rd-24th

STREAMED & IN PERSON TOBACCO DOCK LONDON

REGISTER NOW

Confirmed Speakers Include:

Ben Clifford

Sarah Chapman

Global Health, Safety & Sustainability Associate Director

Global Chief Sustainability Officer

Fidelity International

Manulife Financial Corporation

Roy Cheung

Mary-Jane Morifi

Global Head, Sustainability Solutions, Engineering Plastics

Chief Corporate and Sustainability Officer

Covestro

Tiger Brands Limited

Øistein Jensen

Sandeep Chandna

Chief Sustainability Officer

Chief Sustainability Officer Tech Mahindra

Odfjell SE

Never miss an issue!

+ Discover the latest news and insights about Global Technology...

JOIN THE COMMUNITY

The Technology Team SENIOR EDITOR

ALEX TUCK EDITOR

CATHERINE GRAY EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

SCOTT BIRCH

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ PRODUCTION MANAGERS

OWEN MARTIN PHILLINE VICENTE JACK THOMPSON JANE ARNETA

PRODUCTION EDITOR

JANET BRICE CREATIVE TEAM

OSCAR HATHAWAY SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL HECTOR PENROSE SAM HUBBARD MIMI GUNN JUSTIN SMITH REBEKAH BIRLESON DUKE WEATHERILL JORDAN WOOD VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER

KIERAN WAITE SAM KEMP

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

MARKETING MANAGER

EVELYN HUANG HABBIE AMOS JACK NICHOLLS MARTA EUGENIO ERNEST DE NEVE

SAJANA SAMARASINGHE

MOTION DESIGNER

JOE MARRITT JASON WESTGATE JAMES WHITE

TYLER LIVINGSTONE PROJECT DIRECTORS

KRIS PALMER MIKE SADR BEN MALTBY TOM VENTURO RYAN HALL VITOMIL BULC TRTNIK SUJANTHAN JESURAJA

MARKETING DIRECTOR

ROSS GARRIGAN

MEDIA SALES DIRECTOR

MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

STACY NORMAN CEO

GLEN WHITE

FOREWORD

The trend of convergence

“Brand equity will largely depend on critical areas such as meeting ESG targets”

I

t’s easy to get lulled into the ‘next big thing’ when it comes to technology. From the plethora of ‘smart’ applications in the Internet of Things, the vast automating of operations by AI, the machine learning that feeds increasingly immersive, individualised augmented realities, and integration of Multi-Access Edge Computing, the cloud and 5G mobile infrastructure.

It’s dizzying stuff as data swells to exabyte levels, but as the customer experience improves, brand equity will largely depend on critical areas such as meeting ESG targets, the successful management of the virtual workforce and data integrity and democratisation.

It’s important that businesses have a strong vision and the freedom to think and operate independently, but if the community is to overcome the challenges ahead – and facilitate the necessary pace of change required to stem environmental catastrophe – a collective effort is a must.

ALEX TUCK TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY

alex.tuck@bizclikmedia.com

© 2021 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

technologymagazine.com

5

CONTENTS

Our Regular Upfront Section: 12 Big Picture 14 The Brief 16 Timeline:

Apple Inc. 18 Legend:

Eric Yuan 20 Five Minutes With:

Greg Jackson

24

Single Store Single is best when choosing a database partner

38

Digital Transformation

Innovation labs: critical for business or innovation theatre?

48

Marsh

Digital transformation of the insurance industry

70

TPG Telecom

TPG Telecom is building a smarter, modern 5G network

62

Cloud & Cyber

Edge computIng’s market growth to revolutionise IT

92

Enterprise IT

Enterprise software: The build or buy-in debate

100

SambaNova

Drives AI into new computing era for the energy industry

110

AI, Data & Analytics

When AI & data analytics meets data and business intelligence

118

132 Top 10

The world’s largest data centres

Mola

Transforming customer experience through technology

144 LiUNA!

Cloud transition drives LiUNA affiliate and national growth

158

Epic Cyprus

Leading the way in mobile networks

174

Department of the Air Force A vision of the future

188

Digital Reality The future of interconnection in APAC

202 EXL

Transforming data-led businesses through collaboration

230

216

Red Diamond Coffee & Tea Blending family values with innovation

244

Sussex Community NHS Foundation

Community care: Digital transformation and healthcare’s future

258

IBM, Intel & Wipro

Hitachi Vantara

Stronger together in a 5G Edge ecosystem

Custom persona-based Industrial IoT

270

282

R-Systems

Intelligent Automation: Everything you need to care for your customers, your employees, and your business

300

Temenos

Banking for the digital age is all about collaboration and the cloud

Orange Marina

High seas,high tech and high levels of sustainability

314

University of Witwatersrand The digital journey

326

TM Forum

Driving diversity and inclusion

340

North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Inside the digital transformation of an ambulance service

354

City of Kalamazoo

Dedicated to serving its residents

366

CM Group

We talk the role of procurement with CM Group's Karen Hodson

392 378

North Clackamas Schools District

Masterclass in sustainable education

Microsoft Israel

Global action, local results

408

420

Progressing well with 5Mtpa CIP plant construction

Harness cloud and IoT to better serve customers

RG Gold

WaterNSW

BIG PICTURE

Credit: Hansen Zhong nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03434-7

12

November 2021

A Quantum Leap Hefei, China

Anything you can do, we can do better. This is China’s response to Google in the subatomic realm of quantum computing.

Zuchongzhi - developed by China University of Science and Technology - is claimed to have taken just over an hour to crack a calculation that would take the world’s fastest supercomputer eight years.

technologymagazine.com

13

THE BRIEF “Our university has always been progressive.

In 2018, I presented a digital proposal for smart classrooms at Wits university” Stanley Mpofu

Chief Information Officer, The University of the Witwatersrand  READ MORE

BY THE NUMBERS

How much does it currently cost for civilians to go into space?

For a trip on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origin's New Shepard, seats typically cost:

$250,000 to $500,000* *According to NASA

“Together with our partners, we believe we can collaborate on a differentiated and winning approach to deliver innovative solutions and services”

EDITOR'S CHOICE At-Bay partners with Microsoft to improve SMB security: Microsoft and At-Bay’s partnership will

strengthen the cyber security posture of its customers in a time when cyber attacks are becoming more common.

Saurbh Mittal

Vice President and Digital Transformation leader, EXL  READ MORE

“We must ensure we’re able to bring the platform to neighbouring countries and the rest of the world” CP Lee

Chief Technology Officer, Mola TV  READ MORE

14

November 2021

READ MORE

FrontDesk’s comprehensive platform for queue management: Leaders in queue and appointment management, FrontDesk, has been supporting countries with people flow management during the COVID-19 vaccination rollout.

READ MORE

Ivanti: A Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant: Ivanti has announced that it has once again been positioned as a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Service Management for the second consecutive year.

READ MORE

Oh Carolina!

It’s an augmented mascot It’s not untypical to go big in the NFL, which is exactly what the Carolina Panthers did at the dawn of the 2021 season.

How did they do it?

They enlisted The Famous Group, whose clients include WWE, Nike and AT&T, and the Unreal Engine, using an animation of the panther mascot and rendering it within a live feed of the real world.

To give the panther things to interact with, some invisible virtual modelling was needed, and camera operators had to track the animal like they would an actual living one.

Will it catch on?

Apple CEO Tim Cook is a big fan, and Riot Games have also pulled off some dazzling mixed reality showpieces for League of Legends events, but mainstream adoption seems to elude the technology for the time being, with the CGI appearance still too unrealistic.

 VOLKSWAGEN As the European Union’s 27 member states phase out combustion engines by 2035, Volkswagen has seen electrified car registrations triple from 2019 to 2020. Small combustion suppliers, some 10,000 around Europe, face a bleak future.  ESA & ROSCOSMOS The ESA will boldly drill deeper than anyone has drilled before, as its ExoMars rover hunts for signs of life on Mars in 2022.

The drill will surpass the previous depths of 7cm by going down to 2 metres.  TIKTOK The video-sharing giant is being investigated by Ireland’s Data Protection Commision over user data transferral to China and fears over child safety.

The Trump administration previously described TikTok as a potential risk to national security.  EXTINCTION Extinction could become a thing of the past if tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm and Harvard geneticist George Church succeed with Colossal, a project aiming to re-wild the Arctic with mammoths within 6 years.

U P NOV 2021

D O W N

technologymagazine.com

15

TIMELINE APPLE INC.

A

fter Apple was recently named the world’s most valuable company, we take a look at the technology giant’s growth from its founding.

It is the world's largest technology company by revenue and, since January 2021, the world's most valuable company. Apple is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, along with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.

1970s1980s FOUNDING AND EARLY WORK Apple Computers, Inc, was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The company’s first product was the Apple I personal computer. In the following year, it released the Apple II. Nine years after its founding, Jobs left the company after a long power struggle with the company's board and its thenCEO John Sculley.

16

November 2021

WELCOMING JOBS AND PUSHING MORE TECHNOLOGY January 2000 saw Jobs become permanent CEO. One year later the company released iTunes and the iPod MP3 player.

In 2006, the company rolled out its first Intel-based computers, the iMac and the MacBook Pro. In 2008 Apple launched the MacBook Air 2008— the company’s thinnest notebook ever — and it also launched the App Store.

The 1990s

THE INTRODUCTION OF MORE APPLE PRODUCTS In October 1990, Apple introduced three lower-cost models, the Macintosh Classic, Macintosh LC, and Macintosh IIsi. All of these products saw significant sales due to pent-up demand.

At the end of 1996, Apple bought Jobs’ company NeXI Software. The following year, in the wake of corporate shake ups and a sales slump, Apple welcomed Jobs back as interim CEO.

Th 200

he 00s

The 2010s

THE RELEASE OF NEW AND IMPROVED PRODUCTS Mid 2011 saw the launch of iCloud, an online media storage system and in 2013, iTunes reached a milestone of 25 billion songs sold.

Pushing the boundaries of mobile phone technology, Apple unveiled the iPhone X in 2017. with facial recognition, no home button, a 3D camera and wireless charging.

The 2020s

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 To support the fight against coronavirus, Apple teamed up with Google to contact trace COVID-19 in 2020.

It was also in this year that Apple's share price briefly topped $467.77, making Apple the first US company with a market capitalisation of $2 trillion.

technologymagazine.com

17

TRAILBLAZER

Zoom pioneer’s journey to success Name: Eric Yuan Job Title: Founder and CEO Company: Zoom

18

November 2021

B

orn in China’s Shandong province in 1970, Yuan studied applied mathematics in his undergraduate degree at the Shandong University of Science and Technology.

During his undergraduate degree, which he started in 1987, Yuan was inspired to develop videotelephony software as he took 10-hour train rides to visit his girlfriend. Keen to reduce the amount of time he spent travelling, Yuan wanted to look for a different way to ‘visit’ her.

later Yuan pitched a new smartphone friendly video conferencing system to Cisco management.

The company rejected Yuan’s idea so the entrepreneur left to establish his own company, Zoom Video Communications in 2011. Originally called Saasbee, Inc, Yuan founded the company with a team of 40 engineers and launched its first software in 2013.

The growth of Zoom After years of development, Zoom became one of the most widely used web-conferencing products in the world. Over 40 million had used the platform and the company had gained more than 2,500 academic customers since 2015.

In 2019, Zoom became a public company via an initial public offering, at which time Yuan became a billionaire.

Taking inspiration from Gates After completing his undergraduate degree, Yuan embarked on a master’s degree in geology engineering from China University of Mining and Technology in Beijing.

He continued to live in Beijing following his master’s degree and attended training sessions in Japan for four months.

It was in Japan, where Yuan saw Bill Gates speak at a conference in 1995, when he became inspired to join the tech boom in the US. Although his visa application was denied eight times before he was allowed to move to California, 27-year-old Yuan moved to the States in 1997 to work at WebEx, a web conferencing startup. He was one of the first 20 people to be hired.

Starting out in the States WebEx was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007 and at the same time, Yuan became vice president of engineering. Just four years

Yuan’s estimated net worth in (USD)

13.7bn

The impact of COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic saw more and more people and businesses turn to Zoom for business meetings or to catch up with family and friends during isolation.

This acceleration saw Yuan’s wealth increase and as of September 2020, his estimated net worth was around US$16.4bn, a figure 360% higher than his net worth at the beginning of the year.

During the same year, Yuan was named 2020 Time Businessperson of the Year and was included in the Time 100 Most Influential People of 2020.

Yuan transferred $6bn of Zoom shares to Grantor Retained Annuity Trust, for which Yuan is a trustee, in March 2021. technologymagazine.com

19

FIVE MINUTES WITH...

Greg Jackson

CEO of Octopus Energy

Q. CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT YOUR ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES?

» I'm the chief executive and the

founder of Octopus Energy and we've got an astonishing team here.

I'm kind of the guardian of culture.

Our business has got deep values and is on a mission we're proud of. Most of that is about how we make green energy cheap through technology.

Q. WHAT IS OCTOPUS ENERGY’S PLATFORM, THE KRAKEN, HOW DOES IT SUPPORT YOUR CUSTOMERS?

» What's really special about the

Kraken is it replaces all of the outdated software that many companies use to run themselves.

“Our business has got deep values and is on a mission we're proud of. Most of that is about how we make green energy cheap through technology”

20

November 2021

Kraken also help to bring a cheaper, renewable world faster. The secret to renewables is, renewable electricity is cheaper than fossil fuels. You just have to use it right. That means when the wind's blowing, the sun's shining, we charge cars and we heat homes more cheaply and Kraken makes that possible at scale. It's like Uber for electrons.

Q. KRAKEN IS BEING LICENSED GLOBALLY NOW, ARE THERE BARRIERS IN TERMS OF ROLLING OUT THE TECH IN NEW MARKETS?

» Energy transition is something we need to do globally. We've got very little time to reduce the impact of catastrophic

“ What's really special about the Kraken is it kind of replaces all of the outdated software that many companies use to run themselves” climate change on our planet and our species. Broadly speaking, the move to renewables involves solving the same problem in many countries.

So actually I think the existence of a global platform for decarbonisation helps take whatever you learn in one country, any algorithms, and immediately deploy it everywhere. So rather than thinking of it as having problems in global deployment, it's a colossal opportunity.

Q. IN WHAT OTHER WAYS DO YOU THINK TECHNOLOGY WILL SUPPORT OCTOPUS ENERGY IN THE FUTURE?

» I think the biggest thing we have to

do now is start turning electricity grids into an internet for electricity. So that if you go to the control room of any grid operated like the national grid, it looks like a minicab office and we need to turn into Uber. So the huge opportunity of Octopus Energy, but really for the energy system, is to digitise not just the kind of customer experience and some of the data generation, but the entire system, so that at any moment in time we are using these astonishing green electrons as efficiently as possible. technologymagazine.com Magazine.com

21

Meet the Top 100 Leaders in Technology

OUT NOW A BizClik Media Group Brand

techno

logym

agazine

.com

TOP LEAD ERS 2021

NOMINATE

SHARE

CELEBRATE

Creating Digital Communities

24

November 2021

SINGLESTORE

SINGLE IS BEST WHEN CHOOSING A DATABASE PARTNER WRITTEN BY: SIMON HOWSON-GREEN PRODUCED BY: CRAIG KILLINGBACK

technologymagazine.com

25

SINGLESTORE

SingleStore is challenging the fragmented cloud database market in what its CEO, Raj Verma calls The Modern Database Era. Here’s his vision for a business that touches all our lives

R

Executive Team Standing with Nasdaq Billboard in Times Square

26

November 2021

aj Verma has lived his whole adult life exploring and navigating the landscape of data and data storage. His education focused on computer science engineering and maths. When studying for his degree he toyed with the idea of making his university thesis all about artificial intelligence and robotics. He’s a data junkie.

He sees the industry in which he works as nothing new and likes to tell you data database technology and the world of data storage has been around far longer than he has: “Fifty years, maybe even longer,” he says.

“It’s not that this industry is anything new.

It's just the way data has been processed and the way computers and storage have tangled together, which has changed.”

Untangling that past and streamlining the way the company stores and processes data in the future is Raj Verma’s mission as CEO at SingleStore.

It’s not that he is a man ahead of his time. He is a man of his time… and he is on a mission to explain – which he does with great clarity. Why? Because data storage is no longer the preserve of the few. It is now a global requirement of us all. Raj says data storage is something which touches all our lives, even though many of us may not realise it. We cannot function without it.

SINGLESTORE

technologymagazine.com

27

SINGLESTORE

The Vision Behind SingleStore’s Shake-up of The Database Market

Raj Verma likes to take highly complex concepts and explain them in a way so we can all grasp them.

“Twenty years ago, data was a certain type of data. We were very used to it.

The volume, variety and velocity of data was very well understood and had been understood for about a couple of decades.”

“Yes, I know the Internet has made some difference to it and we thought “oh my goodness, because of the Internet, data is exploding.”

“But not fundamentally. The velocity and the volume did not increase that dramatically... and then this happened, right around 2008.” As he says this Verma waves his smartphone in the air… and the point is made.

Verma cites the birth of social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook as the turning point. Add to that the way internet delivery speeds ramped up at 28

November 2021

“ The last 18 months has fundamentally made a huge paradigm shift as to how companies use data” RAJ VERMA

CEO, SINGLESTORE

the end of the last decade and you have all the criteria for a perfect storm which changed the face of the data landscape.

This is what Raj Verma refers to as ‘Modern Data’.

“There was this explosion of data that happened. And this modern data had a very different volume and a very different velocity.”

SINGLESTORE

EXECUTIVE BIO RAJ VERMA TITLE: CEO LOCATION: SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA Raj Verma is CEO at SingleStore.

He brings more than 25 years of global experience in enterprise software and operating at scale. Raj was instrumental in the growth of TIBCO software to over $1 billion in revenue, serving as CMO, EVP Global Sales, and COO. He was also formerly COO and CRO at Aptus Software and COO at Hortonworks. Raj earned his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from BMS College of Engineering in Bangalore, India.

technologymagazine.com

29

SINGLESTORE

30

November 2021

SINGLESTORE

Verma uses the example of taking a holiday to Italy in the pre–Modern Data era. Take a picture, come home, develop it and send it to a few friends. “Now you pick up your mobile, take a lot of pictures and BOOM! You send it to forty thousand people – some of whom you have never met and will never meet.”

“Just imagine. Multiply this amount of data from one person by millions and then by more millions. This is what is now being thrown at enterprises.”

Back in 2011 as CMO of Tibco Software, Raj Verma gave a speech where he said the volume of data was doubling every eighteen months. When I said that I remember people were saying “Holy hell. Data is doubling every eighteen months, how are we going to

“IBM, Oracle and SAP have had a lock on the database market for decades and now people are paying the full price for this” RAJ VERMA

CEO, SINGLESTORE

manage that?” And now I’m reading that data is doubling every month and some people are claiming it’s every week.

So, that kind of deluge of data being thrown at all of us is something which the old technologies and databases, like the Oracles and the IBMs and the SAPs of the world, just weren’t built to manage.”

And in that statement, we get to see the real driving force behind Raj Verma and his mission at SingleStore. He is in this business to shake it up, force it to evolve and ensure SingleStore’s technology is sitting right in the eye of this storm. technologymagazine.com

31

SINGLESTORE

But Verma makes another of his intentions very clear. This seismic change in the way we need to manage and analyse and process data is also about collaboration between older legacy systems and the new kids on the block.

“I'm not here to beat up a competitor. I’m just saying they were used to handling the non-modern data, the pre-2008 data.”

Removing the barriers Verma says it was impossible for those nonmodern data enterprises to predict what was going to happen back then. He says when they began managing data with computer power it didn’t come with a warning that forty years on, data would start to engulf them. But he also says those that survived did so because they were nimble enough to react to the changes.

Nimble, yes. But, according to Verma this reactive approach was ultimately short sighted. He calls this the ‘Swim Lane’ mentality which companies adopted to ride out the tsunami of data.

“All this data came at these enterprises so they started buying Oracle or IBM’s DB2, Mongo or Couchbase or X, Y or Z technology – all in the hope these ‘Swim lane’ solutions would bridge the gap between modern data reality and the data architecture of the past.”

Verma says this has been going on for some time and there are at least three hundred of these ‘Swim lane’ databases to choose from. But, he says, this is ultimately a counterproductive strategy. This is where SingleStore comes in. From the outset, just under a decade ago, the SingleStore approach was not to pick a swim lane but remove the barriers.

“Databases take a long time to build,” says Rama. “It’s been eight years from inception to our first release and now we are in the perfect position to take on the modern data era and provide companies with a single solution, 32

November 2021

so they no longer have to run multiple databases with all the complications which go with them.”

Verma describes how he sees the rapidly expanding service economy where everything is a service, everything is on 24/7, the competition is a click away and the user experience is everything.

“User experience and low latency are connected,” he says. “If I was to ask you if you want to stay on the end of the phone for one

SINGLESTORE

second or five minutes, of course, you want the response quickly – and if a service provider wants to make that happen and improve its customer’s experience it needs to change its data layer or that's not going to happen.”

“We feel SingleStore fundamentally allows you to manage the modern world of data and the service economy better.”

Ellison and the old guard So, if some of the older database companies

are dinosaurs, does that make SingleStore a raptor? Is SingleStore a predator?

Verma has a lot of respect for the old guard – especially for the founding mothers and fathers of the database business - Oracle and IBM. “I often say that if Larry Ellison (Oracle’s Founder) was to create a data database today it would look very much like SingleStore. I have the highest regard for Oracle and for Larry Ellison, Oracle is a solid product and it changed the fortunes of a lot of companies – as did IBM.

technologymagazine.com businesschief.com

33

SINGLESTORE

“ The database market is now growing at around seventeen percent (17%) a year and it is currently worth between $100 - $125bn” RAJ VERMA

CEO, SINGLESTORE

It is just a different era and I think a lot of those companies are now struggling. History is littered with them. These companies went on to dominate for fifty or sixty years and they are still a force to be reckoned with – that’s nothing short of phenomenal really.”

Phenomenal it may be, but Verma leaves us in no doubt that he believes there is now a revolution in the evolution of the database business. SingleStore has sharp teeth and the hunting instinct for survival while the old guard of Oracle and IBM are stumbling as they carry the heavy burden of outdated legacy systems.

Legacy in chains “I do believe there is a better way of handling modern data and building applications.

I also believe SingleStore is one of those companies to do this, if not the best option among the better options.”

Verma says this is down to a fundamental problem faced by the database world and those who use its technology.

“This is not about a willingness to change,” he says. ‘It is just the amount of legacy these businesses carry to make that change.

34

November 2021

SINGLESTORE

SingleStore is a modern scale-out database and the first real-time operational cloud database to support separation of storage and compute.

Of course, the legacy companies understand what they must do. But can they do it? They have so many chains around their feet in terms of tens of thousands of customers who want to stay where they are and keep their data where it is.”

Verma describes this dilemma as a tussle between the past and the future where too many businesses believe they are minimising risk by corralling their data ‘in a box’, modernising around it and then, over time, migrating to the new systems.

Verma argues that this is also an example of short term, counterproductive thinking.

He also claims the investment market has woken up to the huge potential of the SingleStore route.

He cites the recent surge in investment.

This is not just about his entrepreneurial optimism. It’s about hard business decisions.

‘Think back to 2017. For probably two decades, or two and a half decades before that, we did not have a database company go public to the best of my knowledge. Then Mongo came about and things changed.”

But, according to Verma, that change only came about after the new entrants to the market – spurred on by the Mongo IPO – embarked on an intense “mission to explain” to the public market just how important modern era database technology was going to be in the social media age.

“IBM, Oracle and SAP have had a lock on the database market for decades and now people are paying the full price for this,” says Verma.

But he adds it was new investment flooding towards the challengers to the old guard which finally gave the market the boost it needed.”

He says everything fell into place when investors began to understand that the new players were more likely in the short term to work alongside rather than displace the Oracle generation. technologymagazine.com

35

SINGLESTORE

“The point was being able to explain that the market was going to be big enough for new players to come in.”

In the last 10 months, SingleStore has raised over $160m from investors, which values the company at around a billion dollars.

Verma cites the success of MongoDB and its rivals as a sign that the market has shaken off the old guard. Post going public Mongo was valued at around three billion dollars ($3bn).

“The last time I checked, Mongo is worth ten times that initial offering at around thirtytwo billion ($32bn). Now, that's a validation that there is a change of guard in what is happening across the database market.

As we were digesting the success of MongoDB, who I think executed brilliantly, we had Snowflake hitting the open market and it is now a hundred-billion-dollar ($100bn) company.”

Raj Verma points out that this would value Snowflake at around eighty percent (80%) of IBM’s market cap.

Paradigm shift in the covid age Raj Verma talks about how the database business is not only expanding in size but more importantly, in what services database companies - especially the newer ones – can now offer customers. He also says the Covid era was partly responsible for escalating this change.

“I do think that the last 18 months has fundamentally made a huge paradigm shift as to how companies use data.

Pre-covid even some of the most avid users of data used it as ‘taillights’ to assess a company’s progress: To measure what happened, to learn and to implement new strategies based on the way they analyse their data. Data was used primarily to execute decision making.

36

November 2021

However, in the Covid era data can no longer be used as ‘taillight’. It has to be used as a ‘headlight’. It has to help you see through the fog that we are all experiencing in our business and personal lives.”

Verma says the challenges of Covid have forced us to use a database in real time. It has made us demand information based on the data we feed to help us predict the actions we take. This has been highlighted in the way we now expect to order food from our smartphones and know exactly when it will arrive, or know exactly when to walk onto the street to pick up a ride-share.

It also enables the service provider to marry up an array of conditions. In the

SINGLESTORE SingleStore provides real-time parallel ingestion from Kafka, Spark and other distributed data sources with simultaneous interactive speeds for BI tools like Looker and Tableau.

ride-share example this would include weather, traffic congestion and information about the customer.

“Only when all the factors needed to supply a service are taken into account – from the way you analyse data – can you activate the supply chain. This level of detail – in real time – and the analysis behind it – is just not possible in anything but a modern database such as SingleStore.”

Disruption is a force of good Verma argues that the database market is now growing at around seventeen percent (17%) a year and it is currently worth between $100-$125bn.

“Per annum it creates a $20bn new market, so it's probably the biggest enterprise space in software and technology or any other business. So I think there is room for a few more disruptors in this market.

MongoDB disrupted it, Snowflake disrupted it and I do believe that there is a bigger disruption to come, meaning the database market will contribute to valuations that will probably result in between two and a two and a half trillion-dollars of cumulative market cap.”

And if that happens Verma predicts there will be between five to ten eventual winners.

Which, of course, SingleStore will be one.

“So,’ he says. ‘It’s an exciting market.”

technologymagazine.com

37

INNOVATION LABS: CRITICAL FOR BUSINESS OR INNOVATION THEATRE? Many businesses use innovation labs to improve operations, we explore how critical they are to business success or if they are more a marketing tool WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY

T

he industry has seen the adoption of digital technologies accelerate following the COVID-19 pandemic.

With more and more companies realising the importance of innovation to business success, many have sought to develop innovation labs to drive ideation and the development of new ideas.

Innovation labs both challenge the existing thought processes in a company and bring together early-stage ventures

38

November 2021

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

with corporations. In doing so, it can bring about new ideas as a source of externally produced innovation.

Acting as a safe place for businesses to trial and error new ideas, innovation labs have the potential to be an incredibly successful tool for business success and development. However, there are some businesses and professionals that believe they don’t deliver on promises and could be doing more harm than good.

Some have reservations about innovation labs as they fail to align with the business. This lack of strategy is symptomatic of ‘innovation theatre’; an innovation initiative that doesn’t have any significant business impact.

Innovation labs: supporting businesses as they navigate digital transformation Despite these reservations about the effectiveness of innovation labs, Mark technologymagazine.com

39

Content Management and Process Automation Content Management and Process Automation

Making Communities Accessible, Making Communities Accessible, Transparent and Safe Transparent and Safe ICC Community Development Solutions works with local governments from Tucson, ICC Community Development Solutions works with local governments AZ to Bangor, ME to develop and implement enterprise-wide documentfrom and Tucson, records AZ to Bangor,solutions.

ME to develop and implement enterprise-wide document and records management management solutions.

ICC Community Development Solutions is a subsidiary of the International Code Council, and provides software solutions for municipalities andisbuilding safety “Our solutions make easier ICC Community Development Solutions a subsidiary ofprofessionals. the International Code Council, anditprovides to get work done faster for local governments,” said Dan professionals.

Foster, General“Our Manager, ICC Community software solutions for municipalities and building safety solutions make it easier Development Solutions, speaking from their headquarters in Rochester, New York. to get work done faster for local governments,” said Dan Foster, General Manager, ICC Community Development Solutions, speaking from their headquarters in Rochester, New York.

With Laserfiche records management ICC Community Development Solutions is helping local jurisdictions digitize documents and records, giving you the ability toSolutions search, retrieve, andlocal share With Laserfiche records management ICC Community Development is helping files internally and with the public.

And, you can automate paper-based processes to save time and jurisdictions digitize documents and records, giving you the ability to search, retrieve, and share increase efficiency. files internally and with the public. And, you can automate paper-based processes to save time and increase efficiency.

Learn how Learn how

municipal governments are using Laserfiche to transform government municipal governments are using Laserfiche to transform government

Learn how Learn how

you can use the American Rescue Plan funds to implement Laserfiche you can use the American Rescue Plan funds to implement Laserfiche

Contact Us: 855.436.2633 Contact Us: cds@icc-cds.com 855.436.2633 cds@icc-cds.com

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

“ Innovation labs are critical for helping organisations navigate each stage of the digital transformation lifecycle in an accelerated manner” MARK WILLIAMS

UK PARTNER AND IGNITION LEAD, KPMG UK

Williams, UK Partner and Ignition Lead at KPMG UK discussed the success of their innovation lab. He said: “At KPMG Ignition,we use technologies to visualise and share knowledge and insights. We co-create together face to face, virtually and in a meaningful hybrid manner.”

As an advocate for innovation labs, Williams explained: “Innovation labs are critical for helping organisations navigate each stage of the digital transformation lifecycle in an accelerated manner, increasing innovation, de-risking outcomes and reducing wasted effort.”

Williams does recognise that innovation labs need to be designed in a specific way in order to be successful. As Ignition Lead, he understands how to bring together people, insights and technology to spark innovation and deliver lasting change. technologymagazine.com

41

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

“Labs in the future need to help clients understand the signals, trends and disruption they can take advantage of, and then translate these into meaningful conclusions and options for their organisation,” Williams said.

“They can also help companies shape strategies that will make a difference and build leadership coalitions that will genuinely own and drive change,” he continued.

Significance of innovation labs post COVID-19 Noting the significance of the pandemic to the accelerated adoption of new technologies and innovation, Williams said: “COVID-19 has focused people’s minds on what highend collaboration should actually look like.”

To respond to the new ways of working brought about by the pandemic Williams suggested they should be adapted to both remote and in-house working: “When organisations bring people together, they want the experience to be very powerful, even when it is applied to a virtual space.

“Labs need to be able to support creative methods where the virtual, or hybrid, participant is at the core of the approach and not a second-class bystander,” he added.

Are innovation labs a PR tool?

Although a well thought out and executed innovation lab can lead to significant business success, Simon Hill, CEO of innovation firm

At KPMG Ignition Mark Williams leads clients through the creative process of discovery to ideation, prototyping and action planning, working on most complex engagements with his expert design and facilitation team.

42

November 2021

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

“Labs in the future need to help clients understand the signals, trends and disruption they can take advantage of” MARK WILLIAMS

UK PARTNER AND IGNITION LEAD, KPMG UK

technologymagazine.com

43

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

“ Being innovative is essential to long-term business success and growth.

Innovation labs are more about PR and theatre” SIMON HILL

CEO, INNOVATION FIRM WAZOKU

44

November 2021

Wazoku, is more reluctant to celebrate innovation labs as a key business tool.

The CEO warns against innovation theatre, concerned that any companies use labs as a PR and marketing tool masking what real strides they make in technological innovation.

Hill explained: “Being innovative is essential to long-term business success and growth. Innovation labs are more about PR and theatre.”

“To be innovative requires a different culture and a different mindset. It requires objectives and a long-term plan about how to achieve them, and an idea of what success will look like and how it will be measured,” he continued.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Can you change the game without labs?

Suggesting alternative ways to develop and incubate innovative ideas, Hill shared his insights into best practices: “This idea of open innovation is increasingly popular because even with a healthy culture,businesses will face challenges their own innovation ecosystem can’t solve.”

“Game-changing innovation actually comes from using the crowd, canvassing the thoughts of a range of stakeholders and providing them with a platform to submit, discuss and develop ideas.”

“Using this approach, firms can gradually become more innovative, much more effectively than by launching a lab,” he added.

Innovative approaches across the whole business as a driver for success Although cautious of the success and significance of innovation labs, Hill suggested it was the theatre behind some of them that has bred this cautiousness.

“Too many labs that I come across are more about telling the world how innovative a company is, rather than actually showing a genuinely innovative approach,” said Hill.

“They are as much a marketing tactic as they are innovation, aiming to convince the world of a more open style and a willingness to innovate. There’s nothing wrong with this as such, but labs should never be the entirety of an innovation portfolio. If they are, I would ask any organisation to rethink,” he continued. technologymagazine.com

45

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

$1.82bn

In April 2017, American hosting company GoDaddy acquired 123 Reg from the parent company, HEG.

#1

123 Reg is is the UK's top domain registrar.

$1.82bn

American hosting company GoDaddy acquired 123 Reg from the parent company, HEG.

46

November 2021

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

“Too many labs that I come across are more about telling the world how innovative a company is” SIMON HILL

CEO, INNOVATION FIRM WAZOKU

Wazoku placed 50th in the list and is one of the few first-year entrants to place on the Best Workplaces list.

The company also scored highly on the Great Place to Work UK criteria. 100% of employees agreed that people were treated fairly, regardless of their sexual orientation, and that special events at the company were celebrated.

Hill did note he is not opposed to these labs: “Good ones can be effective, but they are not an innovation panacea or strategy.

They are not some pathway to a nextgen organisation and to restrict ideas and innovation to a select few that work in a lab seems counterproductive.”

What Hill is keen to focus on, and what he believes other organisations should be focused on, is simply innovation itself rather than the concept of a lab.

Expanding on this point, he said: “The world (and the businesses within it) is facing major challenges, especially around sustainability. These big challenges require big solutions, and this entails a more holistic approach to innovation than setting up a lab.” technologymagazine.com

47

MARSH

Digital transformation of the insurance industry WRITTEN BY: SCOTT BIRCH

48

November 2021

PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE

MARSH

technologymagazine.com

49

MARSH

Alistair Fraser-Hawkins (Left) Adam Kemmis Betty (Right)

50

November 2021

MARSH

UK Corporate CEO Alistair Fraser-Hawkins and Digital Leader Adam Kemmis Betty of Marsh insurance brokers discuss a digital transformation built on 150 years of history

P

ossibility. A word you hear a lot in insurance circles when it comes to managing risk, but at Marsh it is far more than an empty mantra – it’s something the world’s leading insurance broker and risk advisor has lived and breathed for more than 150 years. Now, the possibility is also the digital opportunity, which means serving commercial and individual clients better and connecting Marsh’s 40,000 colleagues across 130 countries in a new hybrid workplace.

Marsh is renowned for leveraging data, technology, and analytics to help reduce clients’ total cost of risk and that move to a digital mindset has only been accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alistair Fraser-Hawkins is the Chief Executive Officer of the UK Corporate business at Marsh, which helps Middle Market clients with their risk and insurance needs.

“Marsh is the world's leading risk and insurance advisor and we work with clients across all segments of industry, all sizes of clients from the very smallest to the very largest, working with them to identify risk, understand what risk is involved in their business, and helping to design a risk management and insurance programme that satisfies their needs and allows them to transact their business,” says Fraser-Hawkins.

The company has been in business for 150 years and continues to respond to the

world’s most pressing challenges. The recent pandemic was no exception.

“2020 was a year like no other,” admits Fraser-Hawkins. “For us it brought risk to the forefront of conversations with clients at boardroom level.

“Many companies now look at not just the risks they can see but at those intangible risks that perhaps historically we would have thought are very rare and would have limited impact. We’ve also seen that risk isn't just a local issue – it could be a global issue and organisations can be affected by risks across the world.”

Fraser-Hawkins believes the global lockdowns also helped further solidify Marsh as a “global family”.

He witnessed increased interaction across the globe in terms of how Marsh helped clients through the pandemic and equally a real shift in terms of their own ability to transact in a digital and virtual sense without dropping the level of service delivered to clients.

“Interestingly, I think it actually brought us closer together as a global business,” says Fraser-Hawkins. “The collaboration we see across geographies, across business units, was accelerated despite the fact that it was challenging for all of our colleagues across all the countries we operate in. It was a very challenging but pivotal year that sets us up for the next 150 years.” technologymagazine.com

51

MARSH

Marsh: Digital transformation of the insurance industry

Putting people first Fraser-Hawkins talks at length about the people within the business. Marsh is, he says, a people business, which clients appoint for the insight and intellectual capital they bring.

He believes that they are now able to benefit from combining the best of both worlds; both video conferencing and faceto-face engagement will enable Marsh to get in front of clients in a more efficient manner.

A true hybrid solution, whereby colleagues from Marsh engage with clients face-to-face but also with the ability to bring in expertise from around the globe at a moment’s notice.

The pandemic put a strain on everyone, but Fraser-Hawkins says he is proud of how his colleagues adapted to the situation.

“Our colleagues have been phenomenal throughout the pandemic,” he says. “Seeing them work from home anduggle challenges such as homeschooling, while continuing 52

November 2021

to look after our clients was inspiring. I think the hybrid model that we're adapting going forward means we have the ability to make better work-life choices and support all our colleagues in creating powerful working environments.

“We talk about work-life choices rather than work-life balance because at times you have to make one choice over another, but the flexibility that we've embraced as part of working virtually at times means that it's a great opportunity for us to connect.

I think we've demonstrated how we continue to focus on an approach of leading with kindness. We appreciated that colleagues were dealing with challenges but we moved almost seamlessly to virtual working. I think a number of us were pleasantly surprised to hear how quickly we were operating as ‘normal’ for being in an abnormal environment.”

MARSH

Fraser-Hawkins says that Marsh’s digital transformation journey was already advanced but wouldn't have accelerated further quite as quickly as it did were it not for COVID-19 – a familiar message we hear from many large organisations who had the foresight to implement digital.

Marsh is a global business that had crisis plans in place should teams need to move to working from home. Most Marsh employees had the technology at hand already to do just that, as well as the processes and procedures for a seamless transition.

“I think it was a very positive experience,” says Fraser-Hawkins. “We've learned some brilliant things. That being said, the office is still very important to us, so the hybrid solution sets us up for a great future.”

ALISTAIR FRASER-HAWKINS TITLE: CEO OF UK CORPORATE AT MARSH INDUSTRY: FINANCIAL SERVICES LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM Alistair is Chief Executive Officer for Marsh’s UK Corporate business. In this role he is responsible for over 520 colleagues across the UK driving strategy, execution and overall growth of Marsh’s Corporate business. He is also a member of the UK Executive Committee and is a main Board Director of Marsh Limited.

He has 25 years of experience in the Insurance industry. He began his career in 1995 in the London Market with an underwriter and has spent the last 20 years in Broking.

“ New normal isn't just how you operate your business, it’s also how you lead your business” ALISTAIR FRASER-HAWKINS CEO OF UK CORPORATE, MARSH

EXECUTIVE BIO

Moving the insurance industry to digital From an industry perspective, insurance is probably, it’s fair to say, one that needs to do the most catching up when it comes to digital transformation. Fraser-Hawkins says this is imperative for servicing clients while also being better for business.

“The ability to get information to our clients quickly, in an easily digestible format, is imperative if we're going to be an agile business going forward,” says Fraser-Hawkins.

MARSH

ADAM KEMMIS BETTY TITLE: DIGITAL LEADER INDUSTRY: FINANCIAL SERVICES LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM Adam leads Digital for Marsh in the UK & Ireland and is responsible for transformation of our client and colleague digital experience, digital innovation and insurtech engagement.

Previously a strategy consultant for McKinsey and Oliver Wyman, with a focus on digital and data transformation. Adam was also previously Peru Country Director for Innovations for Poverty Action, using data analytics to combat poverty more effectively.

EXECUTIVE BIO

“I think the digital generation is a given and I think as an organisation we are embracing it both here in the UK and globally. It gives us a competitive edge when we are transacting with clients. It's vital for us that we're able to serve the smallest businesses right up to the largest, and the core of that is our digital transformation.”

Driving Digital Transformation Adam Kemmis Betty is the Digital Leader for Marsh in the UK & Ireland, responsible for developing and delivering the digital strategy, with a particular focus on client-facing technology.

MARSH

“ There's no doubt that the insurance sector as a whole is a laggard when it comes to digital and we're playing catch up” ADAM KEMMIS BETTY DIGITAL LEADER, MARSH UK & IRELAND

He tells us that Marsh’s digital transformation really started in 2018-2019 and has accelerated during the pandemic as clients have moved more activities online.

“We've got a journey to go on,” he admits.

“The great thing is that we've really got commitment from our business leadership to invest in that journey and to stay the course.

Digital transformation of Marsh really has three components to it which correspond to clients, colleagues, and insurers.

Firstly, Kemmis Betty is responsible for creating a digital experience for clients. This ranges from enabling small business clients to get insurance quotes and buy insurance in technologymagazine.com

55

MARSH

1874

Year founded

40,000+ Colleagues worldwide

130

Countries operating in

56

November 2021

MARSH

real time online through to supporting large corporate clients to get real-time access to key data and documents, as well as insights and analytics.

The second area is about transforming internal processes – something Marsh calls its operational excellence programme.

“That's not just about technology,” says Kemmis Betty. “It's got other components but obviously technology is a big part of that, and that includes modernising some of our core technology platforms. We're moving to a low code no code platform in many regions of the world and it also includes using new technology, such as robotic process automation and AI to make some of our processes more efficient.”

The third area is how Marsh interacts digitally with insurers.

Of course, with digital transformation comes digital risk, and many of Marsh’s clients have transformed their business models, which has created new areas of risk for them.

“We've seen a huge increase in interest in our cyber consultancy services helping clients to understand and manage that cyber risk, and also in purchasing cyber insurance to protect them against that risk,” adds Kemmis Betty.

“For Marsh, the key benefit from digital transformation is enhancing the client experience. The transformation of our internal processes means we're able to respond to clients’ needs much more quickly. Then the data that we’re able to gain and use through that digital transformation means that we can provide richer insights back to clients which can really help them manage their risk and structure their insurance programmes in the most informed way.” technologymagazine.com

57

MARSH

LEADERSHIP STYLE

DID YOU KNOW...

Alistair Fraser-Hawkins shares his view on a more agile leadership style required post pandemic

58

“I'm very conscious, as we come out of the pandemic, of the change in leadership style that's going to be needed in organisations.

I think leaders now have to be more agile.

I think we've seen that over the last 18 months, in terms of your ability to lead teams – they aren't just teams that you sit in front of everyday. They'll be geographically dispersed, they could be different parts of the business.

“We're working very hard with our leadership team to give them the skills that are needed to operate in the ‘new normal’ and for

November 2021

some people that would be a big shift change, but I think the ability for us and our success to lead with agility will be a defining factor for us going forward – not only in leading our clients but leading our colleagues as well.

“New normal isn't just how you operate your business, it’s also how you lead your business, and we want leaders who are able to lead in both physical and virtual environments simultaneously, which is a different skill set.

“I think that's a great opportunity for us as an organisation to really define ourselves as a continued global leader in this field by having a different style of leadership.”

MARSH

It’s not just about the benefits of course, and Kemmis Betty does highlight adapting to change as the biggest challenge when it comes to digital transformation.

He says the sheer volume of change and level of investment that Marsh is making across all these initiatives means colleagues require support to adapt to new processes and new ways of working at a time when the business is growing – plus of course managing all of that while also trying to serve clients and gauge the right pace of transformation.

“The advice I would give to any client or organisation embarking on a digital transformation is really to stay laserfocused on the end-user experience,” says Kemmis Betty. “That's how the big tech firms have created really successful applications – that ruthless focus on the user experience that's difficult to do in a large organisation where you've got many different stakeholders with different opinions. The way to do it is by adopting a truly agile approach.”

Disruptive insurance Many people would never believe they would hear the next sentence: it’s an exciting time to be working in insurance right now. That is obvious speaking with both Kemmis Betty and Fraser-Hawkins.

Previously there was a much clearer distinction between traditional tech suppliers who would provide platforms or services for the large incumbents and insurtechs who were digital attackers competing with those incumbents. Now that's evolving, particularly as many of the insurtechs have pivoted their business models to be more about partnership and collaboration with the incumbents – which opens up exciting areas of opportunity for large organisations like Marsh.

“The thing I'm hoping for most of all is increased diversification of talent within the insurance sector,” says Kemmis Betty. “I think if we're going to be successful as a business and as an industry overall in innovating and disrupting the traditional way of doing things and using new technology, that means that we've got to attract and retain new talent that we haven't traditionally been able to do.

I think if we achieve that it will go a long way to modernising the sector.”

“There's no doubt that the insurance sector as a whole is a laggard when it comes to digital and we're playing catch up. When we started, we could see that some of our competitors were moving faster than us but now, with the investments that we've made, particularly in new talent, we firmly believe that puts us ahead of the competition and really gets us on the right path of leading the insurance sector towards a more digital future.”

“It's vital for us that we're able to serve the smallest businesses right up to the largest, and the core of that is our digital transformation” ALISTAIR FRASER-HAWKINS CEO OF UK CORPORATE, MARSH

60

November 2021

MARSH

The final word has to go to Fraser-Hawkins as he looks to a brighter future in the aftermath of COVID-19. The last 18 months have been turbulent for everybody and not just from a professional perspective, but also from a personal one.

“The next 18 months will be exciting,” says Fraser-Hawkins. “I think we're already seeing industries booming. I think there will be some challenges.

“The insurance industry has a responsibility, in my opinion, to support the business community to enable them to rebuild their business and thrive.

“I think that's our real test – that we are an industry that is seen to be absolutely supporting growth in the economy and supporting customers, some of whom have completely changed their business models to make sure they've got the necessary insurance protection. This enables them to focus on what they do best, which is running their own business and let us worry about their risk and insurance needs.”

technologymagazine.com

61

CLOUD & CYBER

62

November 2021

CLOUD & CYBER

EDGE COMPUTING’S MARKET GROWTH TO REVOLUTIONISE I T Following research into the edge computing market, which has shown both its previous and expected growth, we explore the drivers behind this market surge WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY

H

ighlighting the natural progression in the evolution of the internet, edge computing enables organisations to offer services that go beyond the limitations of traditional enterprise or cloud capabilities.

Edge computing puts computing power nearer to where the user consumes data and as a result, users get a more responsive experience. By placing computing power closer to where people can access it, edge deployments enable organisations to offer more services at a lower cost to them.

Studies and research into edge computing have shown both the expected and actual market growth in the edge of the computing market. A report by Grand View Research shows the global edge computing market size was valued at USD 4.68 billion in 2020. It is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.4% from 2021 to 2028.

Research also suggests that the global edge computing market exhibited robust growth during 2015-2020.

As with many technologically enabled services and innovations, the driving force behind this growth is COVID19, and the digitalising impact it has had on many businesses and organisations.

Additionally, the levels of business complexity edge computing can bring to an organisation, putting businesses at a competitive advantage, has also been a driver for growth.

“ Edge Computing strategies with 5G were being worked on to further improve realtime processing speed” JAMES HART

CEO, BUSINESS CRITICAL SOLUTIONS

technologymagazine.com

63

CLOUD & CYBER

CONNECT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS AND MAXIMISE YOUR MARKETING TECHNOLOGY ROI

Wherever you are on your marketing automation journey, our Adobe Campaign experts can support your team to achieve its business and marketing technology goals.

CONTACT US

CLOUD & CYBER

“ Edge needs to be treated as part of the hybrid cloud infrastructure” STEPHEN NOLAN

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, TECH DATA

Edge computing supporting IoT and 5G trends Discussing this estimated growth, James Hart, CEO of Business Critical Solutions spoke about other technological trends happening between 2015 and 2020: “The Internet of Things (IoT) was the dominant trend during these years, with Gartner estimating at the time that more than eight billion connected ‘things’ were used, and in order to manage and process

the real-time data that the devices and sensors were providing, fuelled the development of the emerging edge computing and its data centre use.”

On top of the “trend” of IoT, in the five years of reported edge computing market growth, 5G was also introduced.

Hart explains: “5G wireless technologies promised high bandwidth and low latency benefits for applications where it is essential.

This was meant to be a new world in speed and processing experience focused on the cloud.”

“However, Edge Computing strategies with 5G were being worked on to further improve real-time processing speed, especially in mobile devices, autonomous cars, and self-service. 5G work is still a catalyst for this type of technology. technologymagazine.com

65

CLOUD & CYBER

“ The key to executing digital transformation successfully is process efficiency – edge computing enables this” STEPHEN NOLAN

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, TECH DATA

Technological applications that need bandwidth and low latency will require the Edge technology infrastructure support,” added Hart.

The push for businesses to become digitalised which many companies are undertaking results in them needing support from technology-enabled solutions - such as edge computing. Stephen Nolan, 66

November 2021

Senior Vice President at Tech Data spoke about the importance of edge computing to an organisations digital transformation, he said: “The key to executing digital transformation successfully is process efficiency – edge computing enables this. It breaks down data centre walls and pushes cloud capabilities outwards. Edge needs to be treated as part of the hybrid cloud infrastructure, of which technologies are already being used by employees to provide a seamless and secure user experience.”

“Managed edge services assisted companies in maintaining regulatory

CLOUD & CYBER

$250bn

A recent IDC report predicts the Edge computing market to reach over $250 billion by 2024.

44.9%

Edge speeds are so quick, that nearly half (44.9 percent) of Edge data is accessed in realtime, as if it were on-device.

compliance while pursuing better customer experiences,” he continued.

Edge computing in an era of digital transformation With all the benefits it brings to businesses, it is unsurprising that edge computing has seen such growth in the past few years, particularly in this era of technological innovation and digital transformation.

Showcasing the benefits of edge computing, Nolan explains: “Edge computing can optimise IoT applications, in particular ones that require real-time actions. Furthermore, companies can become more time and cost-efficient by doing the processing locally and minimising the amount of data that needs to be processed in a centralised or cloud-based location.”

As the market expands, edge data centres may soon be able to handle much of the

data that flows through many sectors of the economy. Outlining the many sectors where edge computing could benefit, Hart said: “There are many examples of uses and benefits from agriculture all the way through to zoology. In banking, edge data centres provide the low latency that traders and asset managers increasingly depend on. In factories and processing plants, inventory analytics at the edge can increase efficiency for robotic picking and inventory management, as well as for delivery fleet management and package tracking. In health care, robotic surgeries depend on ultra-low latency computing and uninterrupted network access, which edge data centres supply.”

“The list goes on, with IoT proliferation, low latency edge processing is key to managing the increasing volume of data as more and more IoT sensors and devices are installed in home and industrial settings,'' he continued.

The impact of COVID-19 on the edge computing market COVID-19 has accelerated the use of smart technology in numerous sectors and with this acceleration comes the increased uptake of edge computing. The pandemic “compelled companies to rapidly move their critical workload to the cloud to ensure seamless functioning of the business. As the cloud is gaining momentum, these companies technologymagazine.com

67

CLOUD & CYBER

68

November 2021

CLOUD & CYBER

“ There are many examples of uses and benefits from Agriculture to Zoology” JAMES HART

CEO, BUSINESS CRITICAL SOLUTIONS

are frantically looking for ways to optimise networks, storage and agility,” explained Hart.

He added: “Against this background, edge computing has turned out to be the perfect solution. The advantage edge has is that cloud computing is centralised, and transmitting and processing massive quantities of raw data puts a significant load on the network’s bandwidth.”

Echoing this, Nolan said: “Edge computing has particularly grown over the last year as it provides the ability to optimise and extend the capability of cloud computing by bringing computation and data storage closer to the devices where it’s being gathered. This is more secure for both the business and their customers; it gives them the reassurance of business continuity - a key technology to futureproof the new workplace environment.”

Along with other technological advances, many of which mentioned such as IoT and cloud, edge computing is becoming a core component within organisations as well as a key player in the ‘fourth industrial revolution’.

Pairing this with the transition to home working, where people tend to rely more on digital tools as they work, local computing makes businesses more agile and able operate more efficiently. technologymagazine.com

69

TPG TELECOM

70

November 2021

TPG TELECOM

TPG Telecom is building a smarter, modern 5G network

technologymagazine.com

71

TPG TELECOM

Yago Lopez General Manager, Wireless & Transmission Networks, TPG Telecom

72

November 2021

TPG TELECOM

Yago Lopez, GM of Wireless & Transmission Networks at TPG Telecom, talks mergers, COVID-19, and bringing next-generation 5G to Australia’s biggest metros.

WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

T

he 5G rollout has presented a monumental financial and logistical challenge for telecom operators around the world over the past two years. Some carriers, however, have had to contend with greater challenges than others. TPG Telecom’s 5G rollout has occurred at the same time as it executed one of the biggest mergers in the history of the Australian telecom sector, contended with the loss of Huawei as a key equipment supplier following a ban by the Australian Government - and did it all in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s been a challenging time, but when life hands you lemons you make lemonade,” says Yago Lopez, TPG Telecom’s General Manager Wireless & Transmission Networks.

“Of course, the rollout has had its challenges, chief among them being the Huawei ban, but it has given us the opportunity to end up with a legacy-free, standalone, 5G-native network.”

Now, with the merger complete, and the company on track to outperform its 5G coverage targets for the year, I sat down with Lopez to find out how a skillful integration, a diverse network of talented partners, and a refusal to succumb to the obstacles placed before it has resulted in TPG Telecom bringing a world class, state-of-the-art 5G experience to Australian consumers.

PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING A “Match Made in Heaven” TPG Telecom is the result of a merger between TPG and Vodafone Hutchison Australia, which itself is a product of the merger between Vodafone Australia and Hutchison - better known in Europe and Asia as Three.

Prior to being united, TPG was the country’s second-largest internet service provider (ISP), and was “very strong in the consumer and enterprise fixed line space” but did not have a mobile network. Vodafone, on the other hand, was a mobile network operator with limited assets in the fixed domain. “It was basically a match made in heaven,” recalls Lopez. “From an asset and market point of view, there wasn't much overlap between the two companies. As a merged company, we now have some of the most loved telco brands in Australia under one roof including Vodafone, iiNet, TPG and Lebara. This creates

“ We had to start our 5G buildout from square one” YAGO LOPEZ

GENERAL MANAGER, WIRELESS & TRANSMISSION NETWORKS, TPG TELECOM technologymagazine.com

73

TPG TELECOM

a great opportunity to cross-sell one another's products. It was two highly complementary businesses coming together to create a much better business than the sum of its parts.”

Joining the new company from the Vodafone side, Lopez remarks that “when you're going through a merger, the key thing is to understand the cultures of the companies that are coming together.”

Bringing two outlooks, cultures, and “families” together successfully, he continues, is “all about empathy”.

“One thing you absolutely cannot do when you're trying to execute a merger is to try and make one company into the other. You need to take the best elements of both, listen to both sides, and choose the right combination to ensure you get the best of both worlds.”

74

November 2021

One year later, and the integration process is nearly complete. “We needed to ensure that we become - and are seen by our customers as - one functional entity rather than two,” Lopez explains. The next step is to leverage the formidable combined capabilities of the brand new TPG Telecom in order to do something remarkable: take a bite out of the NBN. “In Australia, we have a governmentowned company called the National Broadband Network (NBN) and they're the main provider of fixed broadband services for both consumers and enterprises throughout the country,” says Lopez. “One of our key strategies at TPG Telecom is to leverage our 4G and 5G mobile network to deliver home internet services, as we try to

TPG TELECOM

YAGO LOPEZ TITLE: GENERAL MANAGER, WIRELESS & TRANSMISSION NETWORKS

“ In a 5G world, you have got to have strong partners.

And our partners have been key to finding solutions to the challenges of our 5G rollout” YAGO LOPEZ

GENERAL MANAGER, WIRELESS & TRANSMISSION NETWORKS, TPG TELECOM

EXECUTIVE BIO

COMPANY: TPG TELECOM Spanish-Australian Yago Lopez’s passion for Science led him to pursue an academic path in Physics at the University of Oviedo (North Spain) where he graduated after joining Tubingen University (Germany) for part of his studies.

He started his Telecommunications career in Vodafone Spain as an Engineer. From there, he built and international path which brought him first to Dusseldorf with Vodafone Group providing technical consultancy services to Operators around the world and then to Dublin as Vodafone Ireland Network Performance Manager.

Yago moved to Sydney in 2013, joining Vodafone Australia as Head of Radio Networks. Since then, he has held multiple leadership roles in both technical and commercial sides of the industry. He is currently leading the Wireless & Transmission Networks of TPG telecom.

Yago is a rugby fanatic and while he is not playing with Waverley RC, it’s easy to find him enjoying the beach with his young family.

A true customer-centric approach Michael Riches, CEO of Axicom, talks about how his company’s unique customer-first approach is helping them move from being a supplier to a true partner.

As Australia’s largest independent owner and operator of shared wireless infrastructure, Axicom has undergone a strategy and cultural transformation to place the customer at the heart of everything they do. Their focus to understand their customers’ critical issues, anticipate their changing needs and create innovative infrastructure solutions, continue to help them deliver long-term value to their customers.

predominant focus.

Understanding your customer and stepping into their shoes – looking from the outside in – is imperative in any market but critically important in the telecoms sector where the requirements of the customer are changing and evolving so rapidly” explains Michael Riches, CEO of Axicom.

“The principle I seek to instil in my team, and all our employees, is that creating value for our customers should be the first and

As a long-term player in the market, Axicom’s depth of IP and processes as well as their ongoing investment in digital, enables them to provide speed and transparency in delivery.

“We have a strong focus on digital transformation and automating a lot of our processes which allows us to work with our customers in a collaborative and co-ordinated way and deploy faster and more effectively across our sites.” Riches explains. “Creating meaningful customer experiences, not just good service, continues to drive the way we operate”.

It is Axicom’s customer-centric approach that has seen them develop true partnerships with their customers, including TPG Telecom.

Axicom worked in a highly collaborative and consultative way with TPG Telecom to understand their future network needs and key business objectives and provide solutions that deliver long-term value. Abandoning the traditional dynamic of supplier and vendor, working together, TPG Telecom and Axicom were able to speed up the 5G deployment

process, eliminate procurement delays, and create a better alignment of outcomes oriented towards the overall enhancement of the network.

“TPG Telecom’s 5G deployment has gone ahead at a speed that has not been seen in this market and as a key partner we’re proud to be part of that success” says Riches.

And there’s every sign that TPG Telecom and Axicom will continue to move forward together as true partners, with the recent extension of the lease term of existing network sites for an initial period of 19 years.

For more information, contact Axicom at salesaus@axicom.com.au or visit axicom.com.au

TPG TELECOM

2020

Year Founded

6,000 Number of Employees

A$4.35bn Revenue (2020)

78

November 2021

TPG TELECOM

“5G is going to be really important when it comes to letting people have a seamless, work from anywhere experience” YAGO LOPEZ

GENERAL MANAGER, WIRELESS & TRANSMISSION NETWORKS, TPG TELECOM

keep our customers within our own network rather than give up ground to the NBN.” Taking on the state-sponsored ISP is no small thing. However, Lopez is confident that Australian consumers deserve to be offered more choice and better value than a single government-run infrastructure body can provide. “At the end of the day, we are providing choice and value to Australian consumers and enterprises,” he says. “The NBN is kind of a monopoly in that a lot of Australians only have one choice when it comes to their home connectivity, and we want to change that.”

Of course, in order to offer the worldclass service that might stand a chance of holding up in direct competition with the NBN for Australia’s home internet market, a successful 5G rollout is critical.

5G, Huawei, and Making Lemonade When the Australian government announced that it would ban Chinese tech firm Huawei from its 5G buildout back in 2018, Vodafone found itself faced with a serious issue. “Before the ban, we were planning to use Huawei as the natural vendor to upgrade our 4G network to non-standalone 5G, because we'd already been working with them for a long time,” recalls Lopez. “When Huawei was banned from supplying Australia's 5G equipment, all of Vodafone's existing radio and transmission network infrastructure was Huawei, which presented a big challenge for us.” technologymagazine.com

79

Changing the Future of Network Rollouts

Through the development of the innovative Sector Assembly method, Vecta is empowering TPG Telecom’s nationwide 5G rollout.

Vecta is a specialist assembly and testing service provider for telecommunications equipment owners and operators. As a key partner of one of Australia’s leading telecom operators, TPG Telecom, Vecta has torn up the rulebook for cell site assembly, testing, and installation, delivering an innovative, proprietary new method that is set to change the process of network rollouts forever.

“Through the Sector Assembly concept, we are driving innovation in the construction of 5G networks,” says John Bonello, Executive Director of Vecta.

“Radio systems can now be assembled and tested in a factory and, for the first time in the industry’s history, system level testing is being carried out in a precision laboratory.”

The results, Bonello explains, are profound.

“We’re delivering radio sites that work first time after installation, backed by reduced cost, improved network performance, reliability, health and safety and environmental impact.”

Prefabrication of cell site equipment also allows for more effective

testing in controlled factory settings - especially with regard to detecting and eliminating passive intermodulation. “Passive intermodulation is a problem for many telecom networks. It’s an effect that basically creates self-interference, which reduces network capacity and quality of service. It’s something that you don’t want in your mobile network,” Bonello explains. By testing the cell site equipment in controlled conditions using Vecta’s fully shielded anechoic chamber, “We’re currently the only business worldwide that’s able to offer passive intermodulation, or PIM, testing for cellular products to the ISO 17025 accredited laboratory standard.”

Vecta was chosen by TPG Telecom to develop and deploy its Sector Assembly method in order to support and speed TPG Telecom’s rollout of a standalone, future-proofed 5G network, contributing to the successful delivery of 5G to 85% of Australia’s largest metros ahead of schedule.

“Vecta is adding significant value to TPG Telecom as they fast track the 5G rollout using this innovative process,” Bonello says. “In modern networks, mobile operators face performance, value, safety and environmental challenges that must be overcome. In partnership with TPG Telecom, the sector assembly method was developed to help remove these obstacles, resulting in an incredibly strong solution that meets the TPG Telecom KPIs for their 5G rollout.”

He added that “Working in close collaboration with Yago’s team has resulted in a highly successful product with a level of factory assembly, testing and inspection never seen before in a network deployment.”

Learn More

TPG TELECOM

Title of the video

The majority of 5G rollouts around the world - including in 5G ‘leader’ countries like South Korea - eased the transition from 4G to 5G using non-standalone 5G networks. By piggybacking on existing 4G infrastructure, the process of rolling out a 5G network becomes more gradual, reducing costs and potential disruption. However, with 4G infrastructure built using Huawei equipment, a complete network build was required.

“Without Huawei's equipment to build on, we had to start our 5G buildout from square one,” says Lopez. “TPG Telecom is probably the only operator in the world where the move from 4G to 5G meant completely ripping apart our mobile network, because all our 4G infrastructure was built by Huawei. Instead of being an incremental expense, building from nonstandalone 5G and slowly rolling it out across the network, we needed to build the entire network from the ground up.” It’s a testament to the dedication and skill of TPG 82

November 2021

TPG TELECOM

“ One thing you absolutely cannot do when you're trying to execute on a merger is to try and make one company into the other” YAGO LOPEZ

GENERAL MANAGER, WIRELESS & TRANSMISSION NETWORKS, TPG TELECOM

PARTNERING FOR SUCCESS “In a 5G world, you have got to have strong partners. And our partners have been key to finding solutions to the challenges of our 5G rollout,” explains Lopez.

“TPG Telecom has partnered with Nokia for our radio access and mobile transmission networks and Ericsson for our standalone core. For the optical components on the fixed side we've partnered with Ciena, and we've also been collaborating with Samsung on emerging technologies like V_RAN and Axicom - which is a tower company. We've been working with all of them to help support a 5G rollout with a ‘no legacy’ mentality.”

He adds that TPG Telecom has also “relied heavily on a partnership with steel fabricators Site Pro 1 and radio frequency experts Vecta Labs to assemble our new 5G sites in controlled warehouse environments, which is safer, more reliable, and faster – and an Australian first.”

Lopez reflects that, in the 5G era, “partner relationships are also changing.

You can't just have one-to-one conversations anymore; we want all our partners to be able to collaborate with one another to really create this ecosystem where ideas and skills are shared without TPG Telecom necessarily having to be at the centre of every conversation.”

To that end, TPG Telecom recently opened its new Innovation Lab in Sydney.

“Together with our partners, the lab allows us to test innovations in 5G network technologies. The lab is driving innovation in our 5G network and allows us to develop and showcase use cases that will enable the digitisation of more industries across Australia,” says Lopez.

technologymagazine.com

83

Reäl end-to-end.

Delivering Endto-End Expertise

the build, deployment, and planning, all the way through to optimisation, engineering, and operation. We’re also offering our services across the fibre and fixed wireless network sector, as well as cloud and cybersecurity.”

umlaut continues a decade-long partnership with TPG Telecom, offering specialised, in-depth expertise to support TPG’s 5G rollout.

In Australia, umlaut has been a core partner of TPG Telecom for more than a decade. “Prior to the Vodafone-TPG merger, we were a longstanding partner of Vodafone at a group level where we worked with them on numerous projects over the years,” Ekmen explains. “We had a strong history with Vodafone Hutchison Australia, working with them on infrastructure and security projects, as well as 5G.”

.dne-ot-dne läeR

umlaut is a globally recognised, technologydriven and future-oriented company providing end-to-end consulting, engineering, and testing services to companies across the automotive, aviation, energy, rail, telecommunications industries and beyond. Founded 24 years ago in Germany, umlaut has grown into a multinational, globally active company - recently acquired by consultancy giant Accenture - with more than 4,500 employees delivering specialised consulting, engineering, and network testing services to the world’s largest enterprises.

“We are defined by the added value we create for our clients, their companies, products, and their end customers as well,” says Hakan Ekmen, global CEO for umlaut’s telecommunication unit.

“Our credo is to always add something on top, like the umlaut from which we get our name.”

In the telecommunications industry - where Ekmen has been overseeing umlaut’s operations for the past 14 years - umlaut delivers “services and expertise from end-to-end, starting with

“As the telecom sector continues to innovate and develop new technologies and services, we’re going to see 5G deliver real-time connectivity and faster data speeds. And we’ve been closely engaged with TPG on their own deployment of 5G, as well as the development of new products and services to capitalise on this next generation of telecommunications technology,” says Ekmen.

“With our specialised set of skills and in-depth, detailed knowledge of the verticals where TPG is focusing its efforts, I think we can continue to strengthen our partnership, help them adopt and capitalise on new technologies, and drive winwin outcomes for both umlaut and TPG for many years to come.”

Learn more

TPG TELECOM

Telecom’s network engineering department that the company has managed to not only build and spin up an entirely new standalone 5G network in such a short space of time, but this success will also build towards future wins for TPG Telecom.

“Every piece of equipment we're putting into our network is 5G ready, and that's something that we're going to be able to continue to leverage for years to come.

We're very proud of what we've built in such a short amount of time,” Lopez says, adding that the merger between Vodafone and TPG “came at a great time, because it combined all the expertise and assets of Vodafone with some of the strategic spectrum purchases made previously by TPG - as well as their fibre and fixed assets.

When you put the capabilities of our two companies together, and remove all that legacy infrastructure from our network, you end up with something really special.”

TPG Telecom’s 5G rollout has been gathering pace. “We're exceeding our rollout targets. We originally intended to cover 85% of Australia's top six metros - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra - by the end of the year,” Lopez says. “Right now, we're on track to also hit that goal in four of the most populated regions in the country - the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, New South Wales Central Coast, and Wollongong - by the close of 2021.”

As TPG Telecom’s 5G services reach more of the Australian population, the lower latencies and higher throughput connectivity it delivers is supporting improved video streaming, gaming, and enterprise applications. “The technology is really helping us deliver the kinds of services our customers are going to be requiring in the near future. And we want to be able to offer to Australians the best of those 86

November 2021

“ It’s been a challenging time, but when life hands you lemons you make lemonade” YAGO LOPEZ

GENERAL MANAGER, WIRELESS & TRANSMISSION NETWORKS, TPG TELECOM

TPG TELECOM

possible services which 5G is already making a reality,” Lopez explains. “I'm not talking about distant advancements like driverless cars; cloud native, 5G-driven applications for 5G are here already.”

Particularly in light of the COVID19 pandemic’s effect on the growth of remote work, cloud migrations, and the consumption of digital services, Lopez argues that “5G is going to be really important when it comes to letting people have a seamless, work from anywhere

experience.” “Our spectrum portfolio is the strongest it has ever been, and was boosted further with recent 5G spectrum acquisitions which will allow us to provide an excellent 5G experience for our mobile and home wireless customers.”

In order to expand upon its 5G applications, TPG Telecom is continuing to work with its key partners, including Nokia and the University of Technology Sydney.

Recently, TPG Telecom was selected by the Australian Government

technologymagazine.com

87

Unleash the full Power of 5G with Samsung networks As a long time innovation powerhouse, Samsung has been inspiring the industry and unleashing the full power of 5G. With our advanced end-to-end solutions, we keep pushing the industry forward for a better tomorrow.

Compact Macro Massive MIMO Radio/Radio Link Cell for roadsides

for rooftops and towers

for indoors

Samsung and TPG: Building the Network of Tomorrow Samsung is enabling TPG Telecom to transcend the limits of conventional mobile connectivity.

As the society transitions into the New Normal era after COVID-19, digital technology will continue to play an essential role in our homes, workplaces and beyond. The pandemic highlighted the importance of connectivity and it will become more prominent in our daily lives. The increasing reliance on and usage of digital technology will bring forward a dynamic transformation, reshaping businesses and industries – unleashing new use cases and services. With the emergence of more complex and diverse use cases, network infrastructure will also become more sophisticated. This means that conventional hardware-based network architecture needs to evolve into a more agile and flexible network to support these use cases swiftly and effectively.

Samsung believes virtualisation and openness will be fundamental to this network transformation.

These next-generation networks will be equipped to power new services with more efficiency and flexibility, while also ensuring network reliability and quality.

“The network of tomorrow will be a platform going beyond the limits of conventional mobile connectivity for future use cases, such as smart factories, smart offices, and smart cities,” says Jonathan Ang, Head of Networks for Samsung

Australia. The key to this era of more flexible, powerful, versatile networks, Ang explains, is network virtualisation. Samsung’s cloud native, fully virtualised Radio Access Network (vRAN) solutions effectively liberate network operators from the static, hardware-bound networks that defined telecom infrastructure in the past. “By using Samsung’s vRAN solutions, operators are able to flexibly allocate network resources based on service patterns, and manage networks more effectively by bringing automated operation one step closer, making the entire network life cycle much easier from design and deployment to operation and optimisation,” he adds.

Samsung has been working closely with TPG Telecom to bring virtualisation in Australia.

According to Ang, “the virtualisation of TPG’s 5G network is a key step on TPG’s journey towards creating the network of tomorrow.”

As TPG Telecom’s 5G network continues to grow and evolve, Samsung’s vRAN will support and enhance that network expansion. “Together with TPG, Samsung looks forward to bringing immersive mobile experiences for users in Australia and to reshape the value of 5G for enterprises,” says Ang. “We are ready. TPG is ready. Let’s virtualise the network today.”

Learn more

TPG TELECOM

“When you're going through a merger, the key thing is to understand the cultures of the companies that are coming together” YAGO LOPEZ

GENERAL MANAGER, WIRELESS & TRANSMISSION NETWORKS, TPG TELECOM

to use its 5G technology in order to develop a better method of counting sheep - a labour-intensive, mission critical job for farmers throughout the country’s massive agricultural sector.

As 2021 draws to a close and companies turn their sights towards 2022 and beyond, Lopez is excited for the next phase in TPG Telecom’s 5G journey. “We're focusing on those top 10 most-populated cities and

regions first, and then plan to move forward with our 5G rollout across other areas of the country in the years to come,” he says.

“We’ll continue focusing on our key priorities including going hard on 5G home wireless and other products to migrate customers from the NBN.”

technologymagazine.com

91

ENTERPRISE SOF T WARE: ENTERPRISE IT

THE BUILD OR BUY-IN DEBATE

Enterprise software is popular for many businesses, but is it a case of buying in a package or building your own?

Technology Magazine tries to find out WRITTEN BY: LAURA BERRILL

92

November 2021

O

ver the last decade the buy/ build equation for enterprises has fluctuated back and forth. This is because making the decision over which to choose has been heavily driven by both the accessibility and ease of each approach.

Organisations naturally lean towards the method which is the most accessible at the time.

The latest survey by end-to-end multi cloud technology solutions firm, RackSpace, has revealed the changing trends and sheds light on the shifting application of the ‘build versus buy’ approach and surmises that the ratio of building versus buying application has not actually changed, but the way that customers assess whether to build or buy has.

There have been three main findings from the survey, which focus on making strategic decisions, if choosing to build, the adoption of low-code/no-code solutions for businesses will increase and in the case where they decide to buy, SaaS adoption will increase.

Jeff Deverter, the RackSpace’s CTO, summarised the findings: “When it comes to the build vs buy dilemma, rather than

ENTERPRISE IT

technologymagazine.com

93

Genesys DX, the future of Digital Customer Engagement Personalise experiences at scale with a 360-degree view of all customer touchpoints and AI-powered insights. You stay a step ahead, taking action in real time to address customers’ needs and guide them towards resolution.

Download now

ENTERPRISE IT

“OUR RESEARCH AND EXPERIENCE TELLS US THAT BOTH METHODS HAVE IMMENSE VALUE IF IMPLEMENTED FOR THE RIGHT REASONS” JEFF DEVERTER one dominating the other, our research and experience tells us that both methods have immense value if implemented for the right reasons.”

Strategic approaches The research revealed tech decision makers don’t plan to move strictly away from build towards buy, or vice versa, but rather there is a shift in strategically choosing when to build, and when to buy. For example, 72% respondents prioritise building customised applications for customer-facing purposes, because it creates differentiation. With hiring and training skilled workers among the greatest business challenges today, it is

essential that valuable developer hours be used to build applications that customers will notice and that will eventually impact revenue. In fact, 67% of those surveyed agreed that digital transformation and the need for differentiation is actually driving the need to build applications in-house.

Low-code/no-code solutions Organisations choosing to build will increase their adoption of these such solutions and will also continue the trend of ‘working smarter’, democratising application development and allowing organisations to leverage user-friendly build tools to bridge the gap in developer skill sets. 72% of participants said their organisations use lowcode/no-code platforms for this purpose and a massive 86% said they are satisfied, or even extremely satisfied with the low-code/ no-code developments.

Increased adoption of SaaS in buying option SaaS products are rising in favour as they continue to become more robust in their capabilities, highly customisable and also technologymagazine.com

95

ENTERPRISE IT

DID YOU KNOW? In 2021, IT spending on enterprise software is expected to amount to around 599 billion U.S. dollars worldwide, a growth of 13.2 percent from the previous year. Like nearly all subsegments of the IT services industry, the enterprise software market has experienced high levels of growth in recent years, with market revenues more than doubling in the decade between 2009 and 2019. However, due to the negative economic impact brought about by coronavirus (COVID-19), global IT spending decreased in 2020. In 2021, growth in global spending is anticipated to return in all sectors of the IT industry.

With year-on-year growth frequently exceeding 10 percent, the enterprise software market is the fastest growing segment in the overarching IT industry.

Enterprise software aims at responding to the needs of organisations, often specifically addressing the efficiency of their core business processes. Many enterprise software sub-segments, such as business process management (BPM) software, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, and customer relationship management (CRM) software, have grown into massive markets in their own right.

96

November 2021

easier to implement. RackSpace’s research has indicated a rise in SaaS as the preferred option when buying applications, to enhance crucial, but non-differentiating areas of business. The survey showed 62% of people think ease of use and implementation as the main reason for buying software and 65% thought that with today’s SaaS advancements, it is possible to create differentiation in a pure SaaS world.

“It is clear right now that the trend is to reserve developers and their build time for the highest impact work, while filling in the gaps with purchased technology,” concludes Deverter.

Pros and Cons James Percy, founder and MD at software developers, Verasseti, says in their experience, plenty of businesses are commissioning or building their own software, rather than opting for a package. He adds it’s rare that despite the range of software available increasing, that something matches exactly what most businesses require.

“Indeed, independent software development is absolutely alive and well,” he says. “Figures suggest the UK software development industry grew 5.3% per year on average between 2016 and 2021 and is now worth around £34.4bn.”

“INDEPENDENT SOFTWARE IS ABSOLUTELY ALIVE AND WELL. FIGURES SUGGEST THE UK SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT INDUSTRY GREW 5.3% BETWEEN 2016 AND 2021” JAMES PERCY technologymagazine.com

97

ENTERPRISE IT

Percy listed the pros of building your own as organisations are getting exactly what they need, giving them a competitive advantage, minimal ongoing costs, simpler integration with existing systems and the option of selling their software to other companies to recover the cost. He added the cons can be high costs, expensive and sometimes not possible customisation and being beholden to suppliers who may not be around, say, five years in the future.

Varying viewpoints However Rob Hodgson, Warehouse Management System and e-commerce fulfillment expert at retail software firm, Mintsoft, said investing in an alreadyestablished software solution, rather than building your own, has several benefits.

“If you are looking to implement the technology quickly, investing in a solution that is already there means you’ll be able to get to work faster. Another benefit is that more often than not, you’ll be supported by a team of onboarding experts as well and part of a community of other users, so having relationships with like-minded industry experts is an added bonus,” he says.

Hodgson added onboarding existing software was also often more inexpensive, with flexible and transparent pricing options usually offered, meaning costs can be spread and can be up and downscaled as needed.

“Ongoing enhancement is another benefit to consider,” he adds, “Established solutions will have a dedicated team who constantly review and enhance the platform and launch new releases on a regular basis, creating innovative solutions so you don’t have to spend the time and money doing it.”

Digital consultancy Samepage’s founder and principal consultant, Aidan Dunphy, 98

November 2021

“AS ANY SOFTWARE AUTHOR WILL CONFIRM, UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS ACCURATELY AND SUSTAINABLY IS A NEVER-ENDING CHALLENGE” AIDAN DUNPHY

said he thought the downside to using packaged products has always been that they cannot precisely meet the needs of every customer, requiring a level of compromise and workarounds to adapt the solution to any specific business context.

He added they tend to have many features that aren’t required by every customer

and therefore can be cumbersome to use.

This, he says, is a frustration and can cause businesses to resent generic solutions and their true costs and risks should not be underestimated, he warns.

“As any software author will confirm, understanding business requirements accurately and sustainably is a never-ending

challenge. By locking your business into using software that is designed for exactly one organisation, opportunities to learn from best practice can be missed. However, in general, I would recommend using packaged software for any activities that aren’t mission-critical, or represent significant competitive differentiation.” technologymagazine.com

99

SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

DRIVES AI INTO NEW COMPUTING ERA FOR THE ENERGY INDUSTRY

WRITTEN BY: DOMINIC ELLIS PRODUCED BY: MARK CAWSTON

technologymagazine.com

101

SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

Marshall Choy, VP Product, and Director Vijay Tatkar outline SambaNova’s sharp growth, Dataflowas-a-service offering and broad range of industry AI opportunities

102

November 2021

I

t’s been quite a journey for SambaNova Systems since it was founded by a group of industry luminaries and tech experts in Palo Alto, California, in November 2017.

From humble beginnings at Stanford University, the company has grown to employ over 400 staff worldwide, which should increase by another 100 by the end of this year.

SambaNova secured $678 million in Series D funding, led by Softbank Group’s Vision Fund 2, in April, and has already picked up several prestigious awards, including recognition as a Gartner “Cool Vendor,” “Best AI Product for Next Generation Infrastructure” from CogX, and the VentureBeat “AI Innovation for Edge AI” award, among others.

Marshall Choy and Vijay Tatkar – respectively Vice President of Product and Director, Product and Partner Engagements– talk through the company’s meteoric rise and broad potential of industry opportunities.

Choy explains how two of its co-founders, Professor Kunle Olukotun and Chris Ré, were serving at EE and CS departments, working on AI and ML algorithms and techniques, domain-specific languages, compilers and run-time technologies.

“They were specifically preparing for this transition of computing we’re going through right now – some refer to it as ‘Software 2.0’, and transition from the old world of transactional processing to AI computing, from ERP to deterministic written software,” said Choy, who worked previously at Sun Microsystems and Oracle, together with Tatkar.

“It became clear there was a need for a different type of infrastructure

SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

“Our goals are to extend our leadership position with AI and ML, and to continue putting a great deal of investment and resource toward growing our presence globally, beyond North America” MARSHALL CHOY

VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT, SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

technologymagazine.com

103

“We are at the cusp of the biggest computing transition that we’ve seen in decades”

that provided “Our goals are to greater flexibility extend our leadership and performance, position with AI and and so SambaNova ML, and to continue purpose-built a full putting a great deal stack of hardware of investment and and software, to run resource toward AI and ML workloads growing our presence more effectively than globally, beyond North conventional solutions.”

America.” Choy said.

It took a couple of “As well as expanding MARSHALL CHOY years to develop and our customer base, VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT, prioritize the advanced and efforts around SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS research and implement market awareness, it into an industrialised, enterprise-ready we continue to invest heavily in growing solution. Today, it has been in market our R&D capabilities to deliver worldfor around a year, with product shipping class products.” to revenue customers across multiple Tatkar believes the AI domain is now industries and continents. SambaNova bigger than the internet in terms of recently accelerated its go-to-market revenue and cultural aspects. “I dabbled in and category creation strategy with the AI before, in the 80s and I’m super excited appointment of its first Chief Marketing to get back – it now has an unstoppable Officer, Amy D. Love. momentum,” he said.

104

November 2021

SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

MARSHALL CHOY TITLE: VP OF PRODUCT INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY; AI LOCATION: SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

EXECUTIVE BIO

“I came in with a developers’ tools background and have seen architectural inflection points – how the industry changed from CISC to RISC and from single core to multi-core, and now I believe we are at a new point, from general purpose architectures to DSAs, and compilers lead the way in terms of architecture and how the applications are going to be seen. I believe in ‘own the developer, own the market’; this breakthrough is also because of developers researching and developing incredible models.”

In the often-complex world of AI, SambaNova’s model is built on simplicity. “The world around us is innovating like crazy, and our job is to ensure that there is easy adoption to enable acceleration while breaking existing barriers,” added Tatkar.

SambaNova’s flagship Dataflowas-a-Service offering, an extensible AI services platform, enabling organisations to jump-start AI initiatives overnight by augmenting existing capabilities and staffing, revolutionising accessibility and empowering organisations in every industry to unleash AI’s vast potential with a simple subscription.

The platform is powered by DataScale, an integrated software and hardware platform delivering unrivaled performance and accuracy, scale, and ease of use built on SambaNova’s Reconfigurable Dataflow Architecture (RDA).

Choy said the market is fairly well bifurcated between leading edge innovators, fast followers, and even laggards – one of the real differences are levels of resource.

Leading innovators in the Fortune 20 companies, who have a great deal of financial backing and tend to be design

Marshall Choy is the Vice President of Product and has overseen the go-to-market of dozens of industry-leading enterprise hardware and software products.

Previously he was Vice President of Systems Product Management and Solutions Development at Oracle.

technologymagazine.com

105

SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

VIJAY TATKAR TITLE: DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY; AI

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Vijay Tatkar is the Director of Product and Partner Engagements and has more than 30 years’ industry experience, producing leading edge products like Systems Management and Security Monitoring Cloud. Tatkar’s background also includes Developer Cloud Services, Performance and Code Security Analyzers, Compilers with World Record performance and ISV engineering services.

shops in and of themselves; then everybody else is really looking towards more complete solutions.

“As a result, we’ve come out with a set of different products and services,” added Choy.

“For the Fortune 20s, we have DataScale, which is a complete platform for innovation.

The interface point for that system, at a developer level around writing python code, and integrating into open source ML frameworks, enables people to experiment with their own models. That’s a great starting point, because it allows them to focus on their own domains of expertise, rather than spending resources on optimising for a hardware platform “But there’s a broader set of folks who don’t have 3,000 data scientists – they have three, and may grow to six. So for them, we raise the level of abstraction of the stack to the highest levels at the application layer, so that their interface and our technology stack is merely making API

SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

NOTHING BEATS A PARTNER’S VALIDATION Tatkar said as a start-up, it’s all about partnerships, and at the beginning the line between partners and customers is very blurred. It started with companies providing technology to build their own platform, including key established storage partners as well as new nimble entrants.

calls from their application, and abstracting all the complexities of model development – everything else becomes seamless and invisible to the user, and they simply interact with SambaNova as an ML services provider.”

He said it has to satisfy the needs of different types of customers so they can deploy it at enterprise scale.

“The market is very mature on the enterprise side, but it’s still developing on the AI side, and that’s the exciting

VIJAY TATKAR

DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT, SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

DID YOU KNOW...

“ The world around us is innovating like crazy, and our job is to ensure there is easy adoption, and to enable acceleration while breaking existing barriers”

“We have partners who are technology and storage providers, and we are also working with partners who can take it to the next level, such as value added resellers (VAR), and system integrators (SI),” he said.

“With some of our early customers, like the Department of Energy (DoE), their delight at using our platform is extremely infectious, so when they talk about what gains they’re getting, that has a much larger effect on bringing others into the ecosystem – there’s nothing like a validation from a partner.”

technologymagazine.com

107

“ The energy industry is facing extreme pressure to modernize and become more operationally efficient – and that’s going to require transformational technologies, not incremental ones” MARSHALL CHOY

VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT, SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

108

November 2021

SAMBANOVA SYSTEMS

AWARDS FOR INNOVATION AND THE WORKPLACE

DID YOU KNOW...

What has been most heartening has been the steady stream of awards from a number of respected third party sources. Gartner named SambaNova in its Cool Vendors in AI Semiconductors report and has included the company in 7 “Hype Cycle” reports that track technology maturity and impact. SambaNova was also awarded Best AI Product in NextGeneration Infrastructure by CogX, included in CRN’s 10 Hottest AI Chip Makers in 2021, adjudged one of CRN’s 20 Coolest Tech Startups Of 2020, and the cherry on top was that it became Great Place to Work certified in 2021.

“It’s a great reflection from the industry,” said Choy. “It’s particularly satisfying to get the ones around innovation, such as ‘Great Place to Work’, which certifies businesses on an annual basis. Similarly while semi-conductors are part of our overall solution, we don’t actually sell them, and that recognition is hard earned and well received.”

part, growing that ecosystem to all our customers,” said Choy, who added it will be focusing on a number of industry verticals, from manufacturing and life sciences to energy, oil and gas, financial services, and the public sector.

“The energy industry is facing extreme pressure to modernise and become more operationally efficient – and that’s going to require transformational technologies, not incremental, so AI absolutely brings that potential into the lens for the energy sector.

“We have a lot of work in oil, gas and the renewables sectors,” Choy said. “There are a number of great opportunities across the sector. If you look at the energy sector, there is a forward-thinking mindset, and some of the facilities are among the most advanced IoT facilities in the world, so there is a strong fit with AI.” “We have noticed a lot of operators wanting something that’s more specific to the assets they own,” Choy continues.

“They have this conundrum of wanting to be efficient but often ‘doing it themselves’ – there is an appetite for more operatorspecific solutions. However, we’re in the early days of AI, and adoption depends on the digital maturity of organizations.”

Choy sees that the longer term view is that this technology transition in AI computing will be just as big, if not bigger, than the internet transition was a couple of decades ago. AI will be the main change agent for business and technology. He believes this is just the beginning, the likes of which we haven’t seen before, and the impact will be profound. “We are at the cusp of the biggest computing transition that we’ve seen in decades,” he says.

technologymagazine.com

109

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

WHEN A I & DATA ANALYTICS MEETS DATA AND BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Rising from data analytics & AI, data and business intelligence is gaining popularity, so why is it important to today’s growth in data volumes?

WRITTEN BY: LAURA BERRILL 110

November 2021

A

lot has been said about the value-creation opportunities an organisation can achieve from data analytics to unlock new insights into customer experience, increasing operational efficiencies, and unleashing new products and services, based on greater understanding of trends and untapped revenue. But, is this really the case?

We understand that data is driving new opportunities to transform business as a renewable resource, but more work still

“ Many organisations mistakenly think AI is a ‘plug and play’ technology that delivers returns straight out of the box” CHRIS STEPHENSON

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, SAGACITY technologymagazine.com

111

Scan AI Solutions The Scan AI ecosystem has been created so you have a trusted partner at every stage of the AI journey.

Our in-house AI experts are able to offer optimised solutions that solve your AI challenges.

Scan AI solutions can be hosted at Verne Global Find out more >

Contact us to start your AI journey

scan.co.uk/ai • 01204 47 47 47

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

“ The idea that AI solutions can be bought, plugged in and left to their own devices is, frankly, science fiction” ZHIWEI JIANG

CEO OF INSIGHTS AND DATA, CAPGEMINI

needs to be done. The fact is data is growing.

Figures released by IDC indicate that by 2025, the amount of data will double every 12 hours. This growth is set to continue with new forms of collection, such as natural language processing (NLP) which is beginning to have tangible effects.

Structural importance However, a growing slice of the data pie is currently ‘unstructured’ and non contextual.

Consequently, this type of data has to be processed through a human brain. But now artificial intelligence and machine learning are gathering pace and becoming even more capable of analysing unstructured information.

Chris Stephenson, technical director at Sagacity explains: “AI and machine learning have great potential for driving use of data analytics across a business, for example, identifying your most valuable customers, as well as those who are vulnerable and could require assistance.”

However, he warns that you can’t hit the ground running straight away. “Before a business can successfully use AI for data analytics, it must first understand what data it has within the organisation and to which situations the data can be applied. Many

technologymagazine.com

113

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

“ Data scientists will continue to play a key role for businesses with the data management expertise they boast” ZANDRA MOORE

CEO, PANINTELLIGENCE

114

November 2021

organisations mistakenly think AI is a ‘plug and play’ technology that delivers returns straight out of the box, but you have to put a lot of work in before you see the results. AI and machine learning needs to be given reliable labelled training data before it can perform data analytics and draw valuable insights.”

So, in this respect, where does data intelligence come in and where does that leave the traditional data scientist, is it a death knell?

According to the CEO of Insights and Data at Capgemini, Zhiwei Jiang, AI data solutions being left to their own devices is ‘science fiction’. He says: “It’s an interesting question: Could data scientists be overthrown by

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

new robots? The idea that AI solutions can be bought, plugged in and left to run on their own devices is, frankly, science fiction. AI and machine learning are doing more of the heavy lifting with regards to data science and analytics, but a deep affinity with algorithms and mathematical logic, even when the technology evolves into new areas (like deep learning and reinforcement learning), is vital. Data masters need to understand what lies beneath the surface if they’re going to make informed decisions about approaches and tools for the problems at hand.”

He advises that it will always be possible to explain data in human terms. “A data team which can clearly comprehend the

complex metrics, maths and logic involved in any AI system is a no-brainer. Cold hard data means nothing if it can’t be clearly articulated. Emotional intelligence creates empathy, conversational capabilities and the ability to balance the objectives of being data-powered and being human,” he adds.

And Zandra Moore, CEO at Panintelligence, adds: “There will always be the need for people with the skills to analyse complex data and manage evolving data modelling requirements. As technology evolves, the volume of data and its complexity will continue to grow, so data scientists will continue to play a key role for businesses with the data management expertise they boast.” technologymagazine.com

115

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

116

November 2021

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

“ To get the edge, hire great data scientists and arm them with the best data and business intelligence solution” RICH PUGH

CHIEF DATA SCIENTIST, MANGO

With these developments we enter the realm of what we call ‘data intelligence’ With the exponential rise in data volumes across all industries, managed by both AI, machine learning and data scientists as described, data intelligence is the real fuel needed to accelerate past the competition in this field and create value. No company gets credit for simply being the best data collector around. It’s actually a risk and a liability if data is not curated and used responsibly.

So, what’s the secret? The best data-driven organisations have basically learned how to build the best data refineries. And that means increasing data intelligence for knowledge workers through self-service data analytics, rather than being stuck, or mired in the tar of unusable data lakes. These organisations have several things in common; they’ve taken all that raw data, curated it to understand what’s useful within their data lakes, catalogued it to make it fit for purpose and then democratised the data across the organisation to enable analytic insights from data intelligence. In essence, they’ve focused their data stewards on unleashing data intelligence to achieve actionable results based on metadatadriven insights.

Supercharged interest Rich Pugh, Chief Data Scientist at Mango Solutions, has more than 20 years’

experience working with data. For him, data and business intelligence will be driven to data AI solutions in its quest to keep step with market competitors.

“In recent years, the need to become a more intelligent, relevant and efficient organisation has given rise to significant investment in both data and advanced analytics,” he says.

“We understand that, if data is the new raw ingredient, we need to dynamically turn this insight and wisdom to support decision makers. This has supercharged interest in data science and AI and led to an increase in organisations looking to create data strategies that deliver (and sometimes define) their forward-looking business objectives. The broadening of the remit of data and analytics is also driving growth in data science teams. As a data scientist myself I can build the best model in the world, but if I can’t get someone in the business to change their behaviours to use the insight I’m generating, or if there are technical challenges that mean I can’t deploy my model in a repeatable way, then it stays as a beautifully crafted piece of code on a laptop.”

He went on: “The need to deploy data and analytic outputs has seen significant increase in the need for data engineering teams who can build scalable and repeatable data pipelines and use DevOps approaches to put insight into the hands of the right decision makers at the right time. For businesses to get the edge, hire great data scientists and arm them with the best data and business intelligence solution you can find for your market.” technologymagazine.com

117

TRANSFORMING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE THROUGH TECHNOLOGY WRITTEN BY: ALEX TUCK PRODUCED BY: KRIS PALMER

118

November 2021

MOLA

technologymagazine.com

119

MOLA

120

November 2021

MOLA

Mola attributes its success in Indonesia to putting the customer first. We look at how they work with technology partners to drive progress

M

ola achieved a breakthrough in Indonesia in June of this year, as it became the first broadcaster to provide 4K matches during its live streaming of the European Championships.

A football-mad part of the world, Indonesia has proven an ideal place to provide over-the-top (OTT) services. With speed and quality frequently an issue for football lovers across the country, in a land frequently whose infrastructure is regularly impacted by natural disasters, it isn’t the easiest environment for a broadcaster.

Despite this, Mola is the fastest growing entertainment network in Indonesia.

CP Lee, Chief Technology Officer for Mola, discussed how the Jakarta-based video on-demand and over-the-top streaming service saw an opportunity: “The OTT market is a very, very competitive environment right now, with all the big studios providing their own direct to consumers platform. It presents an opportunity for Mola, so we can compliment areas the studios are unable to.” technologymagazine.com

121

MOLA

Transforming customer experience through technology

Raising the bar through technology As Chief Technology Officer, Lee was given the significant task of rebuilding Mola’s technologies gradually from the ground up over the last 6 months.

“In terms of quality, especially from the OTT platform, it is multifaceted.

Right from the incoming source, to the encoding process, as well as distribution.

This three part process has to be looked not just as separate parts, but also as one interconnected pipeline.”

Lee states that three components are necessary for in this pipeline: • Incoming source • Encoding process • Quality distribution to end user He adds: “So what Mola is trying to do is to look into all these three angles, to make sure that we have the best technology in place for it”.

122

November 2021

“ The ecosystem is three tier. The provider, the technology partners and the end users.

It’s a feedback loop” CP LEE CTO, MOLA

The drive to raise standards in Indonesia is a collective effort, as Lee explains: “The ecosystem is always three tier. From a provider, the technology partners, as well as the end users, all comes back as a feedback loop. The more that we can actually work with all our partnerships, together with supporting the end users, will then make the platform stronger and they can stay with us consistently.”

MOLA

Tackling latency through key partners As Mola operates many of its services live, this brings added expectation of high quality and increases the chances of things going wrong. As a big football fan himself, Lee explains that these reasons, such as

CP LEE TITLE: CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER LOCATION: SINGAPORE

EXECUTIVE BIO

The English Premier League (EPL) has been a cornerstone of Mola’s success, right from the start: “Historically, Mola has provided EPL matches not only directly, but also through our partners as well.

We want to serve what we call the ‘football friends’ community in Indonesia, so we introduced the 4K EPL matches on a weekly basis. This comes back to the story of us really wanting to provide the best experience for our users and our subscribers.” said Lee. The expansion into 4K has involved tight collaborations with the television platforms.

Lee continued: “Samsung Tizen, upcoming Apple TVs, LG, webOS, and Android TVs. These are all part and parcel of the plan to engage our end users, as wide as possible.”

CP Lee joins Mola as its CTO in 2021, spearheading the Technological Division to drive innovative technological advancement into its video platform, as it bid for success in the competitive landscape. Coming from a series of dynamic multi-faucet roles in various Multi-National Corporations, including Apple and the media house HBO, Lee is our perfect candidate to drive this ambition forward.

technologymagazine.com

123

MOLA

ADVERT PAGE Connecting the GOLD Digital World

Our SwiftFederation enables network service providers to combine their existing service offering with our proprietary cloud-based services to enrich the user experience of its customers.

Leveraging on our federated platform brings the benefits of having both a private network and being part of a deep global distribution network, extending coverage and at the same time ensuring performance

MOLA

a delay to the stream that may cause a key moment in a match to be missed, has led Mola to prioritise speed: “latencies are critical in terms of the video feed reaching the end users. Speed is critical in today's market. On the OTT side, it’s about getting the content up to the users as fast as we can.”

A key partner for Mola in this regard has been French-based software company Broadpeak. Lee continued: “We started working with Broadpeak so we can bring the best quality, the fastest, as well as the lowest latency stream to the end user in Indonesia. This is a very tight integration partner between Mola and Broadpeak.”

The comprehensive Content Delivery Network (CDN) solution from Broadpeak optimises the delivery of ABR live sports streaming content (including English Premier League football matches). With the CDN, BkM100 video delivery manager and BkS400 HTTP video cache servers, Mola can provide a superior quality of experience (QoE) for fans while reducing the video streaming costs.

Broadpeak Headquartered in Cesson Sevigne, France, Broadpeak designs and manufactures video delivery components for Content Providers and Network Service Providers deploying IPTV, Cable, Satellite, OTT and mobile services, helping operators increase market share and improve subscriber loyalty through quality of experience. technologymagazine.com

125

MOLA

126

November 2021

MOLA

“Mola has become a hub for EPL matches and other live sports streaming content, and as our video streaming service grows, we need a scalable video delivery network solution for all screens,” said Lee. “Broadpeak provides us with a scalable, flexible CDN solution that sets a path for seamless OTT growth in the future. With Broadpeak’s CDN, we achieve low latency and reduced buffering, which is critical for live sports,” he added.

The 4K delivery is based on ATEME technology, a leader in video delivery solutions, due to its high quality and low latency from source, as well as playout partner Harmonic, which powers the encoding and the vault too. Harmonic's

“BroadPeak’s hybrid private CDN solution brings a high quality, faster and lower latency stream for the end user” CP LEE CTO, MOLA

VOS®360 cloud streaming SaaS introduced live UHD HDR streaming, ensuring the highest level of service reliability and realtime scaling for Mola’s streaming service, simplifying the live streaming workflow from source to screen.

Another hidden secret behind Mola’s success is how it’s content works with Tizen, behind the multifaceted offering of the Samsung Smart TV from Samsung Electronics.

Tizen is a Linux-based, open-source web operating system (OS) that supports a range of devices including TVs, mobile devices, home appliances and even signage. technologymagazine.com

127

MOLA

WE MAKE LIVE VIDEO

STREAMING SIMPLE

THE WORLD’S MOST ADVANCED LIVE STREAMING PLATFORM Deliver live sports with exceptional quality and services that will keep your viewers coming back for more!

Discover why thousands of channels use Harmonic’s VOS®360 Live Streaming Platform.

Visit www.harmonicinc.com © 2021 Harmonic Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

MOLA

These technologies, Lee explained, have been vital for Mola to introduce 4K to its EPL rights: “We are looking at 4K source so that we can get that high quality bitrate, HDR at the colour contrast to the end users, beyond what they are used to from the HD environment.”

Prioritising the customer experience As is typical in the world of subscriptionbased on-demand services, content recommendation plays a significant role in the viewer’s experience. As Lee describes: “Data is important from a platform perspective. We are trying to understand what the user wants, so we provide a superior offering through better content recommendations. And this is not just about content recommendation, it's about acquiring new content.”

He continues: “Data has always been an important part in any organisation. Not just today, but in the past as well. But with the advancement of technologies, data is much easier to collect and faster to analyse. We want to understand our users better. The more we understand what our users love, the better we can give them what they really want.”

In addition to the live rights, Mola creates original content – which it labels intoxicatedly as ‘Home Brew’ content – around football, up-and-coming musicians, and even live music shows, providing spots on the platform to showcase new talents.

“Another direction for the company going forward is to embrace content creation, to increase our offering from a general entertainment perspective.” technologymagazine.com

129

MOLA

Protecting rights holders and thinking long term Given the importance of rights to broadcasters like Mola – as proven with Euro 2022 and the EPL – there is an added responsibility to protect the principle rights holder too.

The importance of cyber security cannot be overlooked, according to Lee: “We treat security very seriously. One of the partners that we are working with is Verimatrix, who allow us to protect all our live streams, as well as our video on-demand assets. So that the content that we acquire is adequately protected. This gives assurance to our end users, as well as our providers, that we are in this game in the long run. To me, this is an important message to the potential broadcast rights holders we want to work with.

We Deliver the Future of Television We empower video service providers so that they can stream the content people love with a compelling experience

GET IN TOUCH !

Twitter

130

Linkedin

November 2021

MOLA

We don’t just come in, deliver and disappear.

We’re building long lasting relationships with everyone.”

Describing the partner ecosystem, Lee says: “We are not a single cell. We work with all partners in one body. These partnerships drive Mola forward. With their technology roadmap, we'll be able to deliver more. It allows us to increase accessibility to more people in our key domestic market of Indonesia and to expand at speed into new markets – it’s an exciting time for the company.”

Despite the recent success with 4K, its improved artificial intelligence (AI) platform and the ever-expanding rights deals, Lee is not resting on his laurels when it comes to new frontiers and technology partners: “I think one of the key messages for Mola moving forward is providing a better quality experience, through technology, to enhance overall usage on the platform. That is what we are targeting, to serve our customers, the end users, better and faster.”

“ We can compliment areas the big studios are unable to” CP LEE CTO, MOLA

As Mola continues to raise the bar in it’s own backyard, Lee has big ambitions for the future. Named after a gigantic sunfish commonly found in temperate, tropical oceans around the world, Lee says the company’s vision is to boldly travel into new, more unfamiliar waters: “First and foremost, we must deliver a better experience to our end users and to our subscribers. But secondary is to look at the expansion plan. We must make sure that we are able to bring the platform beyond the shores of Indonesia, into the neighbouring countries as well as the rest of the world.”

technologymagazine.com

131

TOP 10

132

November 2021

TOP 10

The world’s top 10 largest data centres As businesses digitalise data centres are growing in importance we take a look at the world’s 10 largest data centres and the services they provide WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY

C

olocation through data centres, where equipment, space, and bandwidth are available for rental to retail customers, can be an effective strategy to remove the costly elements of server management and maintenance. Businesses that have opted to store their servers in a professionally managed data centre have been able to free up budget to invest in growth. More and more businesses are opting to use data centres as a way to boost their strategies as we emerge from the pandemic.

There are data centres all over the globe and we take a look at the biggest ones to see how they support businesses as they digitalise.

technologymagazine.com

133

TOP 10

10

Yotta NM1 Yotta NM1 is a Tier IV Data centre located in Panvel, Maharashtra.

With 820,000 square feet of data centre space, it’s fitted with topnotch facilities. India’s largest data centre, it is a subsidiary of Hiranandani Group and includes 7,200 Racks, 1.4 Design PUE and 1.4 Design PUE.

“ With 820,000 square feet of data centre space, it’s fitted with top-notch facilities”

134

November 2021

09

QTS: Atlanta Metro Located in Atlanta, Georgia, QTS: Atlanta Metro has its own on-site Georgia Power substation and direct fibre access to a wide variety of carrier alternatives. The site is currently in the third phase of a multi-year expansion that will more than double its original 200,000 square feet of raised floor space. Currency, QTS: Atlanta Metro has 990,000 square feet of data centre space.

TOP 10

08

Utah Data Centre Code-named Bumblehive, the Utah Data Centre is the first Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (IC CNCI) data centre designed to support the Intelligence Community’s efforts to monitor, strengthen and protect the nation. It’s designed to cope with vast increases in digital data that have accompanied the rise of the global network and has 1 million square feet of data centre space. Its huge twenty building complex also includes water treatment facilities, chiller plants, electric substation, fire pump house, warehouse, vehicle inspection facility, visitor control centre, and sixty diesel-fueled emergency standby generators and fuel facility for a 3-day 100% power backup capability.

07 CWL1

Located near Cardiff in Wales, CWL offers small and large businesses a range of benefits from being “out-of-town”: a campus that is at scale and offers high security, low environmental risk, easy access and leading economics. It’s one of the largest data centres in Europe providing cloud hosting, private data Halls and colocation solutions to enterprise clients. CWL1 offers 270 MW+ of upgradeable power availability, Tier III standards, and is future-proof through modular construction mode. With 1.4 million square feet of data centre space, it has incredible growth potential, and its flexible approach allows it to offer Enterprise Colocation Hosting at competitive pricing. technologymagazine.com

135

Enabling educators.

Empowering students.

Explore how we accelerate student discovery, learning and innovation with our Digital Education 3D Experience.

EXPLORE THE 3D EXPERIENCE

TOP 10

05

Switch SuperNAP

06 DuPont Fabros Technology With 1.6 million square feet of data centre space, DuPont Fabros Technology offers a wide range of cabinet layouts as well as power densities in the 28 computer rooms at the facility.

It was acquired by Digital Realty in 2017 and has several carrierneutral data centres and provides colocation and peering services.

Each room is about 8,500 sq. ft. and provides from 1 megawatt to 2 megawatts of critical power. One room can hold about 380 server cabinets. The company's largest customers included Microsoft, Facebook, Rackspace, and Yahoo!.

SuperNAP is developed and operated by the Las Vegas-based company, Switch and has 3.5 million square feet of data centre space. Providing colocation, telecommunications, cloud services, and content ecosystems, Switch innovates to sustainably progress the digital foundation of the connected world. It focuses on enterprise-class and emerging hybrid cloud technology solutions.

The SuperNAP data centre is claimed to be the world’s only Tier 5 Platinum hyper-scale data centre ecosystem. Its prime campuses are located in Las Vegas and Tahoe Reno, Nevada; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Atlanta, Georgia.

technologymagazine.com

137

TOP 10

04

Range International Information Group Located in Langfang, China, the Range International Information Group is a next-generation cloud computing data centre with an area of 6.3 million square feet.

Collaborating with IBM, Range runs the data centres to provide services to private enterprises and Chinese government agencies. As part of the collaboration, IBM provides design services, technology, training, solutions and business applications. The facility promotes economic growth and serves as an IT hub for the region to service the increasing demand for cloud computing and mobile devices.

138

November 2021

03

The Citadel Campus The Citadel Campus at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Centre (TRIC) is spread over 1,000 acres and has up to 7.2 million square feet of data centre space designed to exceed Tier IV standards. Based in Tahoe Reno, Nevada it is the world’s largest data and most advanced centre campus. The opening of the superscale TAHOE RENO 1 data centre in 2017 at the campus marked the creation of the world’s largest technology ecosystem. It is powered by 100% renewable energy.

02

TOP 10

China Mobile Also based in Hong Kong, China Mobile International Limited (CMI) data centre is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Mobile. The data centre is mainly responsible for the operation of China Mobile’s international business.

China Mobile established CMI to provide better services to meet the growing demand in the international telecommunications market. Currently, the company has more than 70 terrestrials as well as submarine cable resources worldwide. With 7.7 million square feet of data centre space, the company has a total international transmission bandwidth of over 90T and a total of 180 POPs. Since its establishment in 2010, CMI has expanded its footprint in 37 countries and regions.

technologymagazine.com

139

Meet the Top 100 Leaders in Technology

OUT NOW A BizClik Media Group Brand

techno

logym

agazine

.com

TOP LEAD ERS 2021

NOMINATE

SHARE

CELEBRATE

Creating Digital Communities

TOP 10

China Telelcom's Tier III+ Internet Data Centre, located in Tseung Kwan O!

142

November 2021

TOP 10

“ Leveraging its vast network resources of 47 submarine cables with 74T in intercontinental capacity and 223 Points-of-Presence (PoPs) around the world”

China Telecom Based in Hong Kong, China Telecom is one of the largest data centre providers in the world with an area of 10.7 million square feet. Offering a complete, endto-end suite of custom-built IT network solutions, China Telecom can provide its customers with network architectures, managed cloud and data centre services, security, content delivery, unified communications and mobility solutions.

In 2000 the company established its first overseas office; now the company serves 41 countries and regions.

Leveraging its vast network resources of 47 submarine cables with 74T in intercontinental capacity and 223 Pointsof-Presence (PoPs) around the world, China Telecom offers a high-performing global network for international carriers, multinational enterprises and overseas Chinese customers.

technologymagazine.com

143

CLOUD TRANSITION DRIVES LIUNA AFFILIATE AND NATIONAL GROWTH 144

November 2021

LIUNA

WRITTEN BY: DOMINIC ELLIS PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR

technologymagazine.com

145

LiUNA

Matthew Richard, Chief Information Officer at Laborers’ International Union of North America, reflects on the US Bipartisan Infrastructure deal and transition to the cloud

M

ost of us wouldn’t enjoy the idea of being accountable to 500,000 people, but Matthew Richard, Chief Information Officer at Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), looks relaxed as he reflects on its cloud transition changes and prospects of driving digital benefits to its large membership base across the United States and Canada.

With US construction on the up and incoming President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure deal in the offing, LiUNA finds itself in a sweet spot. The Union pushed hard to vote Biden in, and has a close ally in new Secretary of Labour, Marty Walsh, who happens to be a LiUNA member.

“If the deal makes its way through Congress, that’s a lot of work for us, and puts money into the benefit plans of our members,” said Richard. “We could be talking multiple decades’ worth of work.”

A strong believer in infrastructure – both parents worked in the natural gas industry – he has wanted to see construction investment prioritised for some time, and even though nothing is sure in politics, he senses the country is on the cusp of change.

“It’s fair to be sceptical, but I think the Democrats have alternative options, and we’re confident something will get done.”

Another key reason for the optimism is the structural changes which have

146

November 2021

LiUNA

technologymagazine.com

147

E

XPERIENCE. XPERTISE. XCELLENCE.

Experts at Groundswell Consulting Group have the power to establish, configure, and integrate the Appian platform with other technologies to kick-start your ROI

“Our expertise in the Appian space gives us the competitive edge,” said Blake Templeman, Co-Founder and CEO of Groundswell Consulting Group.

Appian solutions “One of the best parts about the Appian platform is that it isn't a platform built for one specific use case like CRM or ITSM.

“One of the most important things when leveraging the Appian platform is doing things the right way, creating the proper foundation,” said Templeman from his USoffice in Virginia.

This allows customers to build exactly what they need. The software is low code, so customers build applications much faster than other platforms in the market. This allows us to provide the exact solution that meets their needs and the fastest possible ROI.”, comments Templeman.

Groundswell Consulting Group is a technology consulting firm that specializes in digital transformation and modernization leveraging the Appian platform. They work with customers, both in the private and public sector, to modernize and automate their business and lead to large return on investment (ROI) and enhanced experiences across the board.

Their implementation processes and powerful solutions focus on four key principles: • Innovate • Deliver • Accelerate • Advise Groundswell Consulting Group was founded four years ago by a group of executives from Appian. “Our customer satisfaction scores have consistently been higher than any other Appian partner’. We take a lot of pride in working with our customers and building great solutions for them,” said Templeman who has worked in the Appian space for more than 10 years.

Partnership with LiUNA Groundswell Consulting Group has worked with LiUNA for many years. “We support LiUNA across all of their Appian applications.

We make sure they're making the right decisions in a timely manner.

One of the things that we specialize in is taking an application that hasn't lived up to expectations and turning that application around into a massive success. “ We are leveraging the Appian platform and its ability to integrate with other technologies to provide the best overall solution, and also the most secure solution for LiUNA,” said Templeman.

Learn More

info@groundswellcg.com

Solutions

LiUNA

Cloud transition drives LiUNA affiliate and national growth

“ It’s that wind in our backs which gives me confidence over the next few years – that the standardisation and modernisation we’ve done internationally, we can do at affiliate level” MATTHEW RICHARD

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, LiUNA

150

November 2021

accelerated during the pandemic – notably the emphasis on energy, sustainability, and digital transformation. “There is plenty of work in the renewables and green energy sector. From a technology standpoint, I support that, and try to put the tools in place where we can show why these policies are important to our members,” he said.

For all its membership size and geographic spread across nine regional offices, LiUNA’s remit is refreshingly steadfast: to advocate good paid jobs for members in safe working environments that help support families.

“My job is to look at all the technology initiatives, set the strategy, and set standards for our affiliates to use. We don’t mandate, they have autonomy, but we set some standards on data collection,” he says. “So when the pandemic started, we were able to get our employees to pick up their laptops and work from home. We had training kits which didn’t need too much provision.

Google Meet was a big part of keeping the

LiUNA

‘face to face’ and Zoom for some of the more advanced features. I don’t feel as an organisation we really missed a beat.”

In terms of its overall digital transformation, Richard says he is happy where we’re at. “I have a strong team of world-class developers – we only have five developers, and that’s why we rely on partners heavily, and we have a support team which manages all the day-to-day tasks – and that’s only four people.”

LiUNA was able to retire over 40 legacy applications and build everything into Appian, where it now processes all membership data which connects with 300-plus local affiliates and 40-plus district council affiliates. “That’s empowered our team to build these powerful applications quickly.

“Converting the infrastructure to cloudbased AWS was crucial in helping us prepare for the pandemic. There were two stubborn legacy servers – one was moved to a SaaS provider and the other went to hosted infrastructure.

“We’ve been moving to a cloud-based modern infrastructure and software platform over the last nine years and finished migrating our last application this year,” he said. “For us, the biggest benefits of the cloud are the adaptability – the ability to modify ‘on the fly’ quickly when information comes

557,999

Number of members (2013)

350+

Number of employees

TITLE: CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER INDUSTRY: CONSTRUCTION LOCATION: VIRGINIA, USA

EXECUTIVE BIO

1903

Company founded

MATTHEW RICHARD

Matt Richard is the Chief Information Officer at the Laborers' International Union of North America (LiUNA), a non-profit Labour Union headquartered in Washington, DC that serves approximately 500,000 members across the United States and Canada. He joined LiUNA after nine years working as a project manager and technology consultant for a number of management consulting firms in the Washington, DC area. During his four year tenure at LiUNA, he has led the effort to modernise legacy systems, reduce infrastructure spending, and standardise the IT resources of the Washington, DC Headquarters and nine regional offices.

Mr. Richard received his Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and Management Information Systems from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also received his Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Maryland, College Park and a Master's of Science in Project Management from Boston University.

technologymagazine.com

151

LiUNA

ADVERT PAGE GOLD Your Guide Forward Cherry Bekaert’s Digital Advisory Practice provides strategic and tactical support to businesses, positioning them for long-term growth. We transform business models by improving financial and operational performance - leveraging technology and data as a core competitive advantage.

cbh.com

LiUNA

LiUNA STAFF GO BACK TO OFFICE Interestingly, now that the focus is on how and when staff return after the pandemic, LiUNA has been decisive.

It wants everyone back at their desks after the Labor Day holiday.

DID YOU KNOW...

“What we’ve been doing since the start of the summer is allowing those who are vaccinated back in – to give employees the chance to return to routine,” he says.

“There will be some challenges on November 7, we’ve changed some of the equipment and docking stations, and video conferencing equipment, and so people will need to get used to the new set-ups. But, overall, it won’t be that difficult – what I would say, subjectively, is it will be a bit of a shock to the system on a human level – whether staff have to deal with childcare, or any other issues.”

“ Our approach is ‘if you’re going to build an application, you’d better build it in Appian unless you have a good reason not to’. That keeps us all on one ecoystem as much as we can” MATTHEW RICHARD

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, LiUNA

available, and that enables us, constantly, to lower our costs and take advantage of new offerings, and we’re using Snowflake for most of our back end. We’re working remotely all the time, and made secure access easier everywhere.”

His focus is primarily international. “We put platforms in place that can handle the ramp-up of thousands of users if needs be, and easily and securely integrate with our international systems,” he adds. “It’s all about better data collection, easier processes for our affiliates, and faster processing times.

We’ve brought the timeframes down from months to weeks to hours, and I see it continuing to evolve.”

The transition is likely to be a multiyear effort, requiring ‘buy in’ from affiliates at grass roots. “They’re happy sharing information – it’s more a comfort level, demonstrating that we’re here to help and working through technology issues,” he said. technologymagazine.com

153

LiUNA

KEY PARTNERS DRIVE DATA EFFICIENCIES LiUNA has partnered with Cherry Bekaert, the public accounting firm, for many years.

“They’ve helped us access data in a visual and easily digestible way, not only in terms of making these migrations possible, but also showing our different departments how powerful this data can be,” he says.

DID YOU KNOW...

“Softchoice has been an advocate for us, in what products we should use, guiding us on what options there are to migrate safely to cloud-based infrastructure. They’ve been hugely helpful.

154

“On the software application side, Groundswell Consulting Group is our partner which really allows us to get enough out of the platform. They clean up projects and rapidly turn them around, and we’re processing tens of millions of benefits through this system.”

Another key partner is Teknion in Dallas, which helped build its data warehouse. “I can’t speak highly enough of Geoff Whitney and his team – we wouldn’t have been able to migrate from the legacy systems without their assistance.”

November 2021

“We’re going to continue down this path of expanding our data practice, tracking, and seeing what sources are there – we’re just dipping our toes in OCR and Machine Learning. Our system has decades-worth of documents, and we’re seeing how we can leverage that, and give our departments more insights.

“We’ve all worked together on projects.

It results in better products and tools, and better cross-department collaboration.

Our approach is ‘if you’re going to build an application, you’d better build it in Appian unless you have a good reason not to’. That keeps us all on one ecoystem as much as we can. It’s been a good journey so far, and I suspect there will be more projects with these groups in the next couple of years.”

It has also used tools like Alteryx and Tableau, migrating the data to making it accesible, and providing affiliates with the answers they need.

LiUNA

“ If the Bipartisan Infrastructure deal makes its way through Congress, that’s a lot of work for us, and puts money into the benefit plans of our members. We could be talking multiple decades’ worth of work” MATTHEW RICHARD

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, LiUNA

He stresses the integral importance of its General President, General SecretaryTreasurer, & General Executive Board, who are huge champions for embracing this technology change and setting the tone that we’re going to collect better data and make processes easier.

“It’s that wind in our backs which gives me confidence over the next few years – that the standardisation and modernisation we’ve done internationally, we can do at affiliate level. None of this would be possible without the General President, General Secretary-Treasurer, and General Executive technologymagazine.com

155

LiUNA

“I hope we can find some pilot affiliates and see if we can enhance that connectivity between local and international – that could bear a lot of fruit” MATTHEW RICHARD

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, LiUNA

156

November 2021

LiUNA

Board – they have been hugely supportive of technology. It’s their advocacy which makes what we do possible.”

In terms of next steps, he foresess further integration, oriented around mobile technology.

“People live and work on their phones, so if we’re not making it mobile accessible, we’re failing them,” he says. “I would like to see an app that can show your status,

your pension, and other key personal information – that could be within five years. I hope we can find some pilot affiliates and see if we can enhance that connectivity between local and international – that could bear a lot of fruit.”

technologymagazine.com

157

EPIC CYPRUS

Leading the way

in mobile networks in

Cyprus,

while building a new

state of the art fibre-tothe-home network

158

November 2021

WRITTEN BY: JOHN O'HANLON PRODUCED BY: CRAIG KILLINGBACK

EPIC CYPRUS

technologymagazine.com

159

EPIC CYPRUS

Yiannis Michaelides Chief Technical and Information Officer, Epic Cyprus

160

November 2021

EPIC CYPRUS

Epic is already the No 1 network for mobile in Cyprus, while has recently started building a state of the art FTTH network for Cyprus and transforming its IT: we speak to Epic's CTIO Yiannis Michaelides

I

f anyone still thinks of Cyprus as a remote island, tucked away in the eastern Mediterranean and with little going other than its ancient monuments, they should ask themselves why those monuments are there. Every civilisation in Europe and Asia Minor has wanted to grab Cyprus: the lesson of history is that its location has made it of key strategic importance, and that's why it has been something of a political football right up to 1960 when it gained its independence from Britain, and later joining the European Union in 2004.

Since these events it has grown to become a favoured location for business, thanks to a high per-capita income and low tax regime, making it attractive to investors looking to take advantage of its growing service economy.

The rise of Epic mobile But it's not just the increasing demand from business and domestic subscribers that has boosted the growth of the telecoms industry in Cyprus. It's geographic position close to the major economies of the Middle East, southern Europe and northern Africa make it a natural hub, connected to all these markets by undersea communication. Areeba, the predecessor to Epic, was founded in 2003.

It was acquired by South Africa's MTN in 2007 and in 2018 by Monaco Telecom, a part of the NJJ Group it was rebranded as Epic Cyprus (Epic).

Since 2004, Yiannis Michaelides has been a key player in the company's development, and since 2017 he has been Epic's Chief technologymagazine.com

161

EPIC CYPRUS

Technical and Information Officer, building on its achievements prior to that date and its new direction thereafter. He is responsible for both IT and the Networks and has 100+ skilled engineers and technicians in his team.

“We used to be predominantly a mobile operator, and were the first to introduce 3G, 3.5G, 4G and VoLTE in Cyprus. In 2020 we were ranked for Cyprus as “Best Mobile Network in Test” by umlaut, and “Fastest Mobile Network” by Ookla.”

Michaelides and his team started around three years ago the journey to become the #1 mobile network in Cyprus. They called it “The preferred network project,” a name allowing no misinterpretation about what this project was all about. This journey begun by putting a plan in place, to tackle all the weak points of the network, starting from excelling first in voice, through improvements in coverage

“ This is not just about transforming our IT systems, but about transforming the way we do our business. This is going to enable us to manage interactions with customers, at all touchpoints, flexibly, quickly and how they really should be during this digital age” YIANNIS MICHAELIDES

CHIEF TECHNICAL AND INFORMATION OFFICER, EPIC CYPRUS

162

November 2021

with Umts900, the rollout of several new sites and the activation of HDvoice and VoLTE. Then, they planned how to become faster in data speeds, by improvements in the 4G indoor coverage, the use of lower spectrum bands, the reframing of more and more spectrum towards 4G and the addition of several 4G bands that would allow the extensive use of carrier aggregation in the network.

“In parallel, we needed a reliable and independent way to continuously monitor the results, to benchmark ourselves, against our previous performance and against our competitors. As such, we selected umlaut to measure our performance using its proven methodology, and monitoring how the network was changing week by week.

It's a fantastic “tool” to measure our results, our progress and how we compare against

EPIC CYPRUS

the competition, and it's evolving as the networks and technology evolves, reflecting the real customer experience through ever changing methodology.”

As a result of this plan, Epic has seen continual improvement in coverage, voice, speeds and latencies. Call drops on the network have reduced by nearly 25%, and most on-net voice calls are now being served over HDvoice and VoLTE. And that's not all: “We are now serving almost all our data traffic over 4G/5G and the speeds in the network are more than 4 times faster than before. These great results, demonstrated through the industry proven and independent benchmark of umlaut, fulfill our expectations and outperform the performance of our competitors, allowing us to claim the undisputable no.1 position among the mobile networks of Cyprus.”

YIANNIS MICHAELIDES TITLE: CHIEF TECHNICAL AND INFORMATION OFFICER COMPANY: EPIC CYPRUS

EXECUTIVE BIO

Yiannis Michaelides is Chief Technical and Information Officer at Epic Cyprus, one of the largest telecommunications providers in its market. He manages the technology division of Epic, formerly MTN Cyprus, where he is responsible for both the Network and IT teams, comprising over 100 skilled professionals.

Bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.

People have always imagined what the future will be like.

With imagination, we can see the future.

But with technology, we can get there.

Together, let’s march ahead towards an intelligent world.

Learn more

EPIC CYPRUS

No idle boast – the resilience From school to homes and of the system was tested over 18 businesses most people turned months by the pandemic, during to MS Teams, Zoom, WebEx which time the need for reliable and the like to provide them networks suddenly sprang to with reliable interfaces for the fore, and the demand for the multitude of applications Year Founded data grew like never before. “Our that have emerged and been network was put to the ultimate established due to the pandemic, test. We faced a big challenge, as says Michaelides. “We at Epic Industry did every telecoms company in stood by the side of citizens. the world. We had a responsibility Making timely investments, based to respond effectively to the on our long-term strategic plan Number of Employees enormously increased needs of for a network that can withstand our customers. We had to step even the most difficult conditions, up for the good of the people we continued to offer seamless and the good of the country. We managed communication during a time when public to very quickly mobilise all our colleagues to health became a top priority.” The technical work from home, as an emergency measure teams worked tirelessly to meet these against the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. increased needs and it's significant that During this time, we proved that we can work under these unprecedented and challenging efficiently from home and so, have decided conditions Epic's network achieved the top to keep this option going forward for our rating from not one but two independent and people. Microsoft Teams has become our globally recognised network performance new most used application.” measurement organisations.

2003

Telecoms 330

technologymagazine.com

165

EPIC CYPRUS

EPIC'S ROUTE TO NO1 MOBILE OPERATOR The plan • 2018: the preferred network project to become the #1 mobile network in Cyprus starts by putting a plan in place, to tackle with priorities all the weak points of the network, starting from excelling first in voice, through improvements in coverage with Umts900, through the rollout of several new sites and through the activation of HDvoice and VoLTE. • Then we planned how to increase data speeds, by improvements in the 4G indoor coverage, the use of lower spectrum bands, the 'reframing' of more spectrum towards 4G and the addition of several 4G bands that allow the extensive use of carrier aggregation in the network.

• In parallel, we wanted to put solid foundations for the future 5G network. We acquired the maximum spectrum possible in both the c-band and the 700mhz band.

• A good plan is just a wish if there is not equally good execution! Our team, through their efforts and commitment, work in parallel with our strong partner Huawei.

What did we achieve?

• We have upgraded base stations (antenna systems) all over Cyprus, from urban centres to remote rural areas, utilising all the investments in frequency bands that Epic has made so far and especially the low frequency bands that offer wide coverage in both 4G as well as 3G. • At the same time we prepared the network for the transition to 5G, by upgrading antenna systems.

• We have rolled out new base stations, in various areas of the island, with the aim of

166

November 2021

maximising network coverage, for seamless access to 4G and 5G services.

• We implemented over 500km fibre optic links to route the increased data traffic from every corner of Cyprus to the Epic backbone network in Nicosia.

• We invested in a new international capacity, beyond 800Gbps, to the international network of our new Group in France and from there to the major European internet centres.

This capacity will serve the growing needs of 4G and 5G networks, as well as our new FTTH network and our corporate customers.

• We completely upgraded the core network, aiming not only to offer extremely fast speeds, but also high definition voice and VoLTE calls, with very much faster calls and simultaneous use of voice and data during a call.

• We improved the management of our network, transferring it to the network operations centre (NOC) of our Group in France, where the management of the other networks of our Group is done, thus taking full advantage of the wide know-how available within our Group.

• We needed a reliable and independent way to continuously monitor the results, to benchmark ourselves, against our previous performance and against our competitors.

As such, we selected umlaut to measure our performance using its proven methodology, monitoring how the network was changing week by week.

• We have migrated our pre-paid/pay-asyou-go customers to our new in-house developed CRM system, transforming the way we interact with the customers at all touch-points.

EPIC CYPRUS

“ We acquired the maximum spectrum possible in both the c-band and the 700mhz band. At the same time, through the upgrade of the antenna systems, we prepared the network for the transition to 5G” YIANNIS MICHAELIDES

CHIEF TECHNICAL AND INFORMATION OFFICER, EPIC CYPRUS

Fibre to the home Till recently the fixed networks in Cyprus remained largely dependent in DSL and Hybrid Fibre/Coaxial infrastructure. In contrast to mobile, the country has lagged, scoring 82nd on the Ookla Global Index.

“We can't go on like that!” says Yiannis Michaelides. “We need to be up in the global top 10, as we are for mobile, and we believe that our FTTH project will be a key driver in reaching this target, just as with our mobile network modernisation.”

It's an ambitious project, conceived in 2018, designed and tested in trials during 2020 and for the last 12 months in full execution mode. FTTH rollout is an expensive and technically as well as regulatory demanding process, but it is the future-proof solution for global telecoms and countries are racing to roll it out.

technologymagazine.com

167

EPIC CYPRUS

Get the most out of your technology We architect, deliver, manage and optimize technology projects to provide businesses with a path to success in the digital age

Learn more today

LINKEDIN FACEBOOK YOUTUBE 168

November 2021

EPIC CYPRUS

Title of the video

“To rollout fibre so extensively we needed to optimsze the ducting colocation framework in Cyprus, as the infrastructure belongs predominantly to another operator.

The framework was mostly appropriate for small rollouts, mainly for point-to-point fibre links to the network nodes and individual businesses, whereas we want to rollout massively to every home in the country. We are working very closely with our regulatory team and the country’s responsible authorities to improve this.”

Before setting out its project Epic's fibre network was limited to business customers: by rolling it out across the country Epic will lead most of its EU peers. How has it been made possible and how can Cyprus afford it? Well, as part of the Monaco Telecom family and the NJJ Group, Epic now has all the expertise it needs at its disposal. As for funding, in March 2021 the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced an investment of €19m for the installation of

1,600km of fibre network as part of Epic's Very High Capacity broadband network rollout in Cyprus. This will allow access to gigabit digital services and connect both towns and rural areas. As Epic's CEO Thanos Chronopoulos said at the time: “We see ourselves as catalysts for change and growth, our FTTH project is set to radically reshape the digital experience of the Cypriot households and enterprises and accelerate economic growth by providing new opportunities for innovation and productivity.”

It will also be a huge and exciting challenge for Michaelides and his colleagues.

“Our priorities are a fast rollout, robust design, with enough capacity for the future, using explicitly fibre connections up to the living rooms of households, without any compromising fallback to a copper or coaxial connection, perfect indoor coverage by providing the right customerpremises equipment (CPE) and finally quick and personalised customer support from technicians in the field, and agents in the technologymagazine.com

169

EPIC CYPRUS

call centre. The equipment at the premises is as equally important as the network, it's no good providing a gigabit connection to a cheap modem with poor Wi-Fi capabilities that gives to the customer - just 50 Mbit/s – customers will feel cheated!”

Quite an agenda for Epic, but it will make a massive difference to the people of Cyprus and its economy, well expressed

by EIB Vice President Lilyana Pavlova. “The EIB recognises the importance of Epic’s long term investment for Cyprus as a knowledge economy, to strengthen business connectivity and competitiveness, and to allow households to benefit from next generation broadband services.”

5G for the future With all the foregoing to manage you might think Yiannis Michaelides had enough on his plate, but yes, there is more. Monaco was one of the first countries in Europe to deploy a 5G network and all the work done to secure the speed and reliability of the mobile network was done with an eye on building solid foundations for the future 5G network.

“We acquired the maximum spectrum possible in both the c-band and the 700mhz band. At the same time, through the upgrade of the antenna systems, we prepared the network for the transition to 5G. We have invested in new international capacity, almost 1Tbit/s, to the international network of our new Group in France and from there to the major European internet centres. This capacity intends to serve the growing needs of 4G and 5G networks, as well as our new FTTH network and our corporate customers.”

In December 2020 Epic received its licence from the Cypriot government to build a 5G network, and officially launched that network on July this year. We did a lot of work on the sites and the network 170

November 2021

“ We prefer to build long-term relationships with our partners” YIANNIS MICHAELIDES

CHIEF TECHNICAL AND INFORMATION OFFICER, EPIC CYPRUS

EPIC CYPRUS

to prepare for this, in collaboration with our major hardware supplier Huawei. We already have a lot of 4G bands (something that is key for a good 5G network) and we have reduced the spectrum we were wasting on 2G and 3G, and in the last years we have installed more than 500km of fibre optic links just to connect the network nodes and the more remote radio sites, so we don't rely so much on microwave

links, which is expensive and vulnerable to weather conditions. That was good but we needed to know just how well we measured against the competition and our past performance, and that was a big part of the reason we selected umlaut. We have found it very customer-centric, not just about who has the highest speeds but the consistency of speeds and HD voice, in other words, customer experience. Now even though technologymagazine.com

171

EPIC CYPRUS

“ We are very satisfied with what we have achieved together with Huawei, and I know they are also very proud and happy with our recent awards from umlaut and Ookla” YIANNIS MICHAELIDES

CHIEF TECHNICAL AND INFORMATION OFFICER, EPIC CYPRUS

Performance.

Beyond words.

Commitment to customer satisfaction.

Design

Country-wide coverage.

Custom Edge Solutions for mission-critical applications.

Learn more Facebook

172

linkedin

youtube

November 2021

Delivered

EPIC CYPRUS

we're at the top, we are still improving and optimising.” Huawei, has been an important partner since 2009, since when they have been Epic's preferred vendor in many areas of the network. “We are very satisfied with what we have achieved together with Huawei, and I know they are also very proud and happy with our recent awards from umlaut and Ookla.”

BSS Transformation Michaelides and his team are now implementing a broad modernisation plan for Epic’s business support system (BSS), migrating from legacy IT systems into a new CRM system that is being developed in-house and within NJJ. “This is not just about transforming our IT systems, but about transforming the way we do our business. This is going to enable us to manage interactions with customers, at all touchpoints, flexibly, quickly and how they really should be during this digital age” he says.

Partners for progress Epic Cyprus, Michaelides is the first to admit, would have had no chance of achieving its leadership position in the market without support from partners large and small. Monaco Telecom and its family of companies within the NJJ Group between them provide a valuable resource of technical expertise and investment. And as we have seen long-term partners like Huawei and umlaut have been vital in building and maintaining the infrastructure and assessing performance respectively: but Epic works with a plethora of technical companies on specific requirements. “We prefer to build long-term relationships with our partners.

For example, Bluesun Automation, a local supplier with tremendous experience in power and data centres, works with us to build and maintain our data centres. In addition, we have together fully upgraded the power infrastructure of our datacentres and mobile sites, critical to the availability of the network. We are also indebted to GCC (another local partner) and Juniper for revamping completely our IP backbone network, in preparation for the load that will come from the extensive rollout of FTTH, as well as the increasing base and subscriber needs in mobile and 5G.” Naturally he is keen to retain skills internally as well, and develop his teams and as far as possible to be an independent operator, but this has to be balanced, he says, against the need to change quickly and scale up Epic Cyprus' operations for the digital age. Having steered the technical evolution of the company for more than a decade, he's well placed to lead that transformation.

technologymagazine.com

173

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE:

A VISION OF THE FUTURE WRITTEN BY: PADDY SMITH

174

November 2021

PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

technologymagazine.com

175

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

176

November 2021

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

Innovating at the speed of relevance is easy to say, harder to do. The people getting it done at the US Department of the Air Force explain how

I

f there was a word to describe the mechanics of government work, it would be ‘complex’. And complex, in software terms, is never a good thing.

No one likes to work with dirty code.

Yet government’s the world over have spent decades implementing diverse solutions with scant regard for their interoperability or leanness. Now, in the age of data, the importance of having forward-thinking software strategies means a rethink is due.

For that, the US Department of the Air Force enlisted Preston Dunlap, its founding chief architect officer. Dunlap’s past – a blend of fast-paced startup world and public sector experience – makes him the ideal candidate to overhaul legacy technologies and cultural behaviour without making the same mistakes all over again.

“You’ve got to have the vision to try to move that system into a world where you think it ought to be able to operate more nimbly, accelerating change and being able to have new effects,” Dunlap explains. “Then be able to create those pipelines for fresh ideas and new technology and capabilities, and people who are able to make a difference.”

End state Dunlap couches everything in terms of the ‘end state’, a theoretical finishing line that government and commercial leaders want to cross. But the route to the destination technologymagazine.com

177

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

Department of the Air Force: a vision of the future

is fraught with danger. “Like anything else, it takes that drive, expertise, know-how and relationships to make true difference happen and to happen at the speed that’s relevant because you can make change, but it can feel like molasses if you don’t navigate it effectively and appropriately.”

People are at the very heart of Dunlap's transformational aims. “You’re looking for the people who know where you need to go or get excited about moving quickly. They have the tenacity to be able to make a difference, the technical wherewithal and operational sense to work with customers.”

But the move-fast-and-break-things ethos doesn’t always sit well in the halls of government. Dunlap describes it as like working off an idea on the back of a napkin with a twist: “the napkin sits in the bar for two and a half years before you can do anything with it.” That creates a problem for small companies who would like to partner with government agencies but can’t afford to wait 178

November 2021

that long. It means the government misses opportunities to work with the best minds and technologies.

Vision of the future So how does it all come together? “You’ve got to have a compelling and creative vision of the future,” Dunlap says. “That’s everyone’s job. It’s certainly the job of our secretary of defence and our senior leaders in each of the departments. But one of the things that makes it stick is whether people are excited about it. The next level down is creating the space and the opportunities and the protection to be able to try those new things the leaders talk about. Turning speech to reality is so difficult.”

That’s a mantra Dunlap saw in the startup world as well. “It doesn’t always work. You learn something from that and you try something different. You keep going. Every entrepreneur has got that same experience in their back pocket. You can’t fold and

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

“ It takes drive, expertise, know-how and relationships to make true difference happen and happen at the speed that’s relevant”

PRESTON C. DUNLAP TITLE: CHIEF ARCHITECT INDUSTRY: MILITARY LOCATION: UNITED STATES Mr. Preston C. Dunlap is the Chief Architect of the Department of the Air Force. First to hold this position, Mr. Dunlap is charged with working across the Air and Space Force, and in partnership with the Department of the Navy and Army, to transform technology development and acquisition so the Air Force not only designs, develops, and buys the right mix of future capability but does so more rapidly and with the power of interoperability. Key family of systems initiatives include Multi-domain Operations, Advanced Battle Management System, and Next Generation Air Dominance.

PRESTON C. DUNLAP

CHIEF ARCHITECT, DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

Critical data Vidrine is unequivocal. “The appreciation of, and value of data has grown exponentially, especially over the past year or so. Part of the culture change is not about how we operationalise data, but think about how our customers need to operationalise the data. When we look at areas like mission enablement all of thoee data sets are really critical to inform key mission areas. I like to say that the mission is the nucleus of the atom and all the spheres of that atom are the mission enablers, and we need

EXECUTIVE BIO

wither. You need to be able to explain to the stakeholders and the board of directors that it’s actually good to fail and learn from an experiment that costs a few dollars instead of waiting seven years and finding out something’s not working billions of dollars later.”

This DevOps approach is a holistic dream, and in many respects Dunlap – as chief architect officer – takes an overarching view of how both development and operations overlap. But his software is populated by data like the atoms making up the universe.

Presiding over this strata of the technology is chief data officer Eileen Vidrine. Has data become more important to government work?

The power to do great things.

Strengthening networks and empowering users We’re modernizing missions through integrated IT and innovative sustainment practices. Our secure, user-centric Enterprise IT solutions help transform your organization’s ideas into action. Let us provide you the power to perform at your best.

leidos.com/modernize

How man exists in the modern age of digital transformation As the Vice President and Air Force Strategic Account Executive at Leidos, General Boera discusses technology and integration Major General (retired) Michael R. Boera joined Leidos after a career that spanned more than 30 years with the United States Air Force (USAF).

General Boera was the Director of Air Force Programs within the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans and Programs for the USAF when he retired.

With more than 200 combat missions to his name, Boera also led the development and integration of the Air Force Program across the Future Years Defense Plan and managed the Air Force Corporate Structure Process.

His expertise in how to integrate advanced technology to enable Air Force missions make him the perfect leader for growing Leidos' working relationships with the service Today, trusted artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies developed by Leidos help drive that digital transformation, Boera said.

“The combination of methodologies and technologies of the Leidos way of Trusted AI/ ML shows great promise to the warfighter. By using a rheostat running from analysis to full automation of trusted

artificial intelligence and machine learning, we have offered a process by which confidence and efficiency can be gained by the services at large. That's not to say there is no need for a human decision maker along the way.

The warfighter will want to maintain a level of human intervention at the right time and place of the observer, decide, and act cycle. That is where exercising and training comes into play to understand where the warfighter does need a human in the loop versus on the loop.”

“Realistically, I suspect potentially 75 percent of the processes to get the right effect on the right target at the right time and place can be automated, but that doesn’t relieve the warfighter of having a man in the loop at key decision points along the way. We don’t want a situation where the machine is making all of the decisions for the warfighter. But today, it seems we try to include a human in the loop in everything that we do. They need to turn the switch, make the comms connection, and make the final decision in most situations, but with AI and ML providing more and more efficiencies, and the threat requiring speed of action, we have to evolve as technology allows.

Every aspect of warfighting is evolving under the umbrella of digital transformation, and the need for speed certainly makes this an imperative for the warfighter today.”

LEARN MORE

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

all of it to really optimise decision making and drive insights. The change we’ve really been driving over the last year has a holistic enterprise focus that is driving meaningful change, which is really exciting.”

Data, Vidrine says regarding the key to smart working. “Is there still, as the saying used to go, no such thing as too much data?

“There are some datasets that have higher opportunities for return on investment,” she counters. “There are some datasets that we use in the majority of use cases. So getting those datasets into visible, accessible, actionable, and really high quality data is really the starting point. And one of the other big efforts we’re making is focused on visible data analytics.”

Indeed, visible and accessible data forms a central platform of the Department of Defence’s combined data strategy. Other strands of that strategy include data that is understandable, linked, trustworthy, interoperable and secure. The last word is close to Vidrine’s heart. “It’s all about zero trust, but it’s also about partnerships. Secure data is something we have to get right.”

182

November 2021

Data management Data management is changing, not least because machine learning can do so much of the heavy lifting when it comes to data mining and analysis. The Department of the Air Force has an AI accelerator based at MIT, where researchers work alongside airmen and guardians to refine and develop the AI required to process data at mission speed.

“Having that data at the point of the decision making opportunity is critical,” Vidrine explains. “I don’t think that’s about one technology or the other – you have to have the right capability for the right purpose at the right time.”

None of this – the overarching software architecture, the data capture and analysis – is done in isolation. A web of partnerships must be coordinated to deliver the tools that will enable the digital transformation of the Department of the Air Force. As well as ‘defence prime’ (the top tier of defence contractors, including names such as Raytheon and Lockheed), there is a vast array of smaller, equally vital, partners. For Dunlap, this forms a triangle between the primes, the wider

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

“ In the future, we won’t be talking about data because data will be part of who we are every day” EILEEN VIDRINE

CHIEF DATA OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

AFWERX: THE STRUCTURE ADWerx is the US Department of the Air Force’s talent and technology incubator. Here’s how the innovative unit is structured

SPARK CELLS Spark Cells are a grassroots innovation network that leverages the ingenuity of Air Force intrapreneurs at the base level and non-traditional partners to create unique opportunities for the military’s operational experts to collaborate with the top problem solvers in industry, academia, and the government.

CHALLENGES AFWerx Challenge is the combination of the defence, academic, startup, private sector and small business worlds to collaborate through challenges and live events.

SPARK TANK Spark Tank is an annual event where Airmen pitch innovative ideas to top Air Force leadership and a panel of industry experts. Hosted each year at the Air Force Association’s Warfare Symposium, thousands of attendees watch the innovation pitches to senior leaders.

AFVENTURES AFVentures harnesses the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to enable the Air Force to develop and adopt commercially viable innovations as integrated program components or operationally effective commercial off-the-shelf solutions while providing a competitive edge to the U.S. entrepreneur and technology ecosystem.

technologymagazine.com

183

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

EILEEN VIDRINE TITLE: CHIEF DATA OFFICER INDUSTRY: MILITARY LOCATION: UNITED STATES Eileen M. Vidrine is the Air Force Chief Data Officer, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, Arlington, Virginia. She develops and implements strategies for enterprise data management, analytics and digital transformation to optimise performance and drive out innovation in and across all missions and operations.

Ms. Vidrine began her government career in 1986 as an enlisted member of the U.S. Army and was commissioned in 1987 through the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School Program as a U.S. Army Transportation Officer. Later in her Army career, she was selected and integrated into the U.S. Army Acquisition Corps.

She began her civilian career as a senior faculty member at the Joint Military Intelligence College and led the college’s technology transformation as the first Director for the Center for Educational Technologies.

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

ecosystem and the open architecture that allows it all to “snap together like Lego blocks.”

Enabling partnerships “The list of commercial innovation partners is not endless, but it’s growing,” he says, alluding to AFWerx, the incubator for new partners and their work with DAF. Dunlap calls it “the front door to be able to make it easier for small businesses to integrate into the sphere.”

Those smaller companies hold the keys to a more nimble future in defence procurement. “They’ve got a passion not just to serve commercial companies but to really work for the national security community,” Dunlap says. “That’s from the perspective of a public and global good. Roughly 80 per cent of the companies working in this transformative digital technology space would be companies that have never done a contract with the government before, or if they did it was very minor. Two years ago that would have been 10 per cent.”

That’s an impressive motion, which begs the question: what does the future look like for the Department of the Air Force? Dunlap turns to an aeronautic phrase. “We’ve got a lot of runway left. There’s an opportunity to get mission, operational and business data in a way that has tremendous impact. We’ve got the right relationships to compress the timelines that even the commercial greats in these areas have done, because we can learn from them. There’s a wave of digital transformation that’s at our doorstep. If we walk into it, it is going to have ripple effects so that no individual capability – your tank, your bomb or your satellite – is going to be good enough in the future. If that hypothesis of the future is true then that digital structure and foundation is just so important. technologymagazine.com

185

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

“Roughly 80 per cent of the companies working in this transformative digital technology space would be companies that have never done a contract with the government before. Two years ago that would have been 10 per cent” PRESTON C. DUNLAP

CHIEF ARCHITECT, DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

186

November 2021

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

“I think we’re going to see tremendous acceleration of technology and it’s on our shoulders to be able to actually ride that wave.”

Beyond that foundational piece is a wealth of technology waiting to reach maturity – in AI, virtual, augmented and mixed reality – that will bolster the snowballing technological revolution.

“I think those are some of the most powerful capabilities in the digital sphere and they’re going to make a big difference,” Dunlap observes. “And it’s up to us to adopt and integrate or we’ll fall behind.”

For Vidrine, the future is about making data part of the human experience. “The Department of the Air Force is driving to build data acumen for every airman and guardian,” she explains. “We are driving to make data part of every airman and guardian’s core DNA. In the future, we won’t be talking about data because data will be part of who we are every day. It will be part of our ecosystem and our DNA to optimise performance and drive decisional advantage.”

technologymagazine.com

187

NRT10 Narita, Japan

188

November 2021

DIGITAL REALTY

THE FUTURE OF INTERCONNECTION IN APAC

WRITTEN BY: HARRY MENEAR

PRODUCED BY: CRAIG KILLINGBACK technologymagazine.com

189

DIGITAL REALTY

Robert Davidson of Digital Realty talks interconnection, the fabric of fabrics, ubiquitous data centre experiences, and Digital Realty’s strategy in APAC.

T

HKG11 Hong Kong

190

November 2021

he global data centre industry is entering a new evolutionary phase.

Driven by a generational shift in the ways in which data centre networks are designed, mass cloud adoption, exponential data growth, a shifting regulatory landscape, and changing approaches to interconnection, the sector is poised for revolutionary change.

“What we’re seeing is a mosaic of services coalescing around the data centre in ways that haven’t happened before,” explains Robert Davidson, Director of Network Services, APAC for global data centre operator Digital Realty. “All these different points of entry are converging at the same time in a way that's allowing us to create an environment where the ecosystem surrounding the data centre is combining connectivity, data storage, application service providers, data service providers, and the interconnectivity to move all that data back and forth between locations.”

With more than 290 data centres, ranging in size from traditional colocation facilities to massive hyperscale campuses, Digital Realty is in an unparalleled position to adapt, react, capitalise on, and drive this monumental transformation throughout the digital space.

From his home in Hong Kong, Davidson sat down with us to dig deeper into Digital Realty’s strategy for success in APAC - the world’s fastest-growing data centre region.

DIGITAL REALTY

technologymagazine.com

191

Staggered Evolution and a Cloud Revolution From a regulatory perspective, the process of freeing up markets and reducing barriers to entry started in the US about 25 years ago when the company deregulated in a way that meant data centres were no longer the sole province of telecom operators. A decade later, Europe did the same. “Five years ago, that same process started happening in Asia,” Davidson explains. “What you're seeing now is that the tier one markets - Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia - are already open. Then you have the tier two markets like South Korea, India, and Taiwan which are starting to follow suit. There are still a number of tier three markets in Asia that haven't really opened up yet but will probably start to do so over the next few years.”

Intersecting with the deregulation of APAC’s data centre industry is a dramatic increase in cloud adoption throughout the region. It’s this entry of overseas firms (as well as diversification and growth from domestic players), twinned with widespread 192

November 2021

“ What we’re seeing is

a mosaic of services coalescing around the data centre in ways that haven’t happened before” ROBERT DAVIDSON

DIRECTOR OF NETWORK SERVICES APAC, DIGITAL REALITY

digital transformation, that’s driving the “mosaic of services” that Davidson describes.

As a result, he explains, things are getting a lot more complicated. “If we were talking 10 years ago, we'd be talking quite generally about a ‘data centre’; now, we can't have that same simplified conversation,” he says.

Traditionally, data centres were - as Davidson

DIGITAL REALTY KIX Campus Osaka, Japan

Five Nines

explains - just ‘data centres’: enterprise colocation facilities that resided within a city’s central business district, resulting in market interconnectivity characterised by “many-tomany” connections.

Now, things are very different. “We're seeing large hyperscale campuses located maybe 40-60km outside the network core being used for data warehousing, and then smaller edge locations close to the end user.

It's a fundamental evolution in the way that data centres are architected and scaled.

People are now looking for a mixture of large hyperscale campuses, edge transit campuses, colocation edge locations, and even micro-edge facilities which people are looking to use to lower their latencies as much as possible,” says Davidson.

“Digital Realty is building out metro ring facilities. We're building out our own interconnect infrastructure to make sure that we can get in and out of our buildings with fully diverse, tier grade access to the points of presence that our customers need to be connected to.

In the US, for example, you can get a 1+1 redundant circuit and that's going to give you five nines of availability. To get the same level of availability in a place like Jakarta or India, you're probably going to need five routes because of the level of structure in those markets.

Customers don't really want 1+1 redundancy; they want five nines of availability. So, whatever we need to do in any one market to produce that result the customer wants is what we do, rather than just building to a standard that was established for a completely different market context.”

technologymagazine.com

193

DIGITAL REALTY

EXECUTIVE BIO ROBERT DAVIDSON TITLE: DIRECTOR OF NETWORK SERVICES APAC LOCATION: HONG KONG Digital Realty supports the world's leading enterprises and service providers by delivering the full spectrum of data centre, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company's global data centre platform, provides customers a trusted foundation and proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture PDx™ solution methodology for scaling digital business and efficiently managing data gravity challenges. Digital Realty's global data centre footprint gives customers access to the connected communities that matter to them with 291 facilities in 47 metros across 24 countries on six continents.

194

November 2021

DIGITAL REALTY

“It's requiring people to think very differently about the data centre market, as well as how facilities are going to be interconnected into the greater fabric of a given market.”

This bifurcation of the data centre industry into centralised hyperscale and a rapidly expanding edge has radically changed the ways in which data centres approach interconnection. Davidson – an 18 year veteran of CenturyLink – explains that around a decade ago, he started to witness the beginnings of this fundamental change. “Some of the most profitable routes that we had in Asia from a connectivity standpoint – where we were seeing the highest yields – were those express routes linking data centre to data centre,” he recalls.

This was a far cry from the many-to-many

“ There are still a number of tier three markets in Asia that haven't really opened up yet but will probably start to do so over the next few years” ROBERT DAVIDSON

DIRECTOR OF NETWORK SERVICES APAC, DIGITAL REALITY

interconnection which had been the norm for the preceding decades.

“Over the last five to seven years, there's been a dynamic shift where network connectivity – largely driven by hyperscale densities – has shifted towards the centralised data centre,” he says.

Partnering for Success Power, cooling, and intelligent, efficient design are all vital parts of a data centre.

However, an industry-leading PUE and hyperdense server racks mean nothing without rich interconnection with the surrounding network.

As it executes a sweeping rollout across APAC, Digital Realty is increasingly turning to interconnection specialist Ciena in order to deliver their ubiquitous, world-class customer experience, no matter the challenges posed by local interconnection infrastructure.

and I've always maintained that they're the best partner in the space from a total cost of ownership perspective,” says Davidson. “Ciena's products give you the uptime, they give you the availability; everything just works. That's very valuable, especially in a market like Asia where you can't always rely on the level of the skill of the technician you're going to get.”

“We work very closely with Ciena to ensure that, while the approach might need to vary from market to market, at the end of the day our customers aren't stuck in our data centres. I've worked extensively with Ciena for the past 20 years. They were the main provider when I was at Qwest and CenturyLink, technologymagazine.com

195

Networks are Evolving.

Are You Ready for the Change?

Get the latest on next-gen metro and edge from Ciena and truly own the edge to deliver amazing user experiences.

Learn more

Interconnecting Digital Realty’s APAC expansion John Garrett of Ciena discusses collaborating with Digital Realty on a sweeping greenfield data centre footprint expansion throughout APAC.

“If you don’t work in the service provider industry, you may not be familiar with Ciena.

But, we are probably the coolest company in our sector. We drive the bits and bytes of the Internet,” says John Garrett, Senior Director of Sales in APJ for Ciena.

Founded in 1992, Ciena is a networking systems, services, and software company that underpins critical digital infrastructure across the world, serving more than 1,700 customers in the service provider, OTT, enterprise network, and hyperscale data centre industries.

Ciena was chosen by Digital Realty as a key technology and interconnections solution provider to support the data centre leader’s sweeping expansion throughout the APAC market, balancing a strong commercial proposition that keeps Digital Realty’s costper-bit low, while still leveraging cutting edge technology to create a world class experience for their customers.

Ciena has provided the necessary optical infrastructure to connect these new facilities, starting in Singapore, where the partnership completed a deployment earlier this year.

“We then expanded out to Hong Kong, Osaka, and Tokyo Narita, which are all scheduled to come online in the next few weeks. Then, later in the year, we’ll also be helping them connect and bring online another facility in Sydney as well,” he says. “It’s been a very exciting collaboration, and we’re excited to see these sites start to come online as part of PlatformDIGITAL.” “There’s a level of safety and comfort to Digital Realty’s choice of Ciena. They know us and know that they can trust us to deliver the right solutions to meet their needs and, by extension, their customers’ needs as well,” he adds.

Looking to the future, Digital Realty’s APAC expansion is continuing at both speed and scale. “They have some significant expansion plans for Asia,” says Garrett. “Our collaboration so far has centred on data centres that they already had up and running that we interconnected, but I know that they have other builds underway in other countries.

And we’re excited about working with them on some of those future projects.”

Learn more TWITTER

FACEBOOK

INSTAGRAM

YOUTUBE

Digital Realty: building the digital future

Thanks to increasing deregulation, data centre operators found themselves increasingly able to capitalise on this trend. “What those data centre operators found was that they could build those express networks between core campuses themselves, offering them at discounted rates, and eating into one of the few remaining golden goose revenue streams left to the telcos on the networking side,” Davidson says. The reason for data centre operators’ dominance over telcos in the interconnection space, he continues, is because “they were able to do it a little bit better because they didn't have to view that connectivity as a revenue source, and instead could treat it as a value-add.”

198

November 2021

This approach isn’t ubiquitous across the data centre sector, Davidson admits, but for Digital Realty, it’s become a cornerstone of how the company grows and attracts new customers into its user base. “When you look at how Digital Realty operates, that datacentre-to-data-centre connectivity really isn't a product: it's a feature, an add-on you see being used in order to attract people into the ecosystem,” he says. “It's not something you're looking to maximise your margin on; it's something that you're looking to sell as much of as possible in order to enable people to use your site effectively.” This ultra-open approach to the interconnection infrastructure surrounding and connecting Digital Realty’s facilities is, Davidson stresses several times

DIGITAL REALTY

throughout our interview, a key differentiator for the firm. This is a particularly exciting prospect, he continues, when you consider the scale of Digital Realty’s global platform, and their ongoing plans to grow its reach in APAC. “We're taking the idea of interconnectivity as a value-added feature a step further,” he shares. “When you're a company that has more than 290 data centres globally, that can start to be a very interesting ecosystem play, especially given the fact that we're totally open and neutral.”

“People are now looking for a mixture of large hyperscale campuses, edge transit campuses, colocation edge locations, and even micro-edge facilities” ROBERT DAVIDSON

DIRECTOR OF NETWORK SERVICES APAC, DIGITAL REALITY

New Horizons, New Markets 2021 and 2022 are going to be bumper years for Digital Realty. In APAC alone, they’re planning to bring six new data centres online in the next nine months. “We're going to be in this rapid expansion phase as we open up data centres, and we're already working on the next set of new markets now,” Davidson explains.

When it comes to breaking into a new market, Digital Realty goes where the demand is strongest, not necessarily for data centres (there are often plenty of data centres in the countries they enter) but for Digital Realty itself. “We're being driven by the customers who want us to be in these new markets because they know that with Digital Realty they're going to get the same technologymagazine.com

199

DIGITAL REALTY

experience no matter whether they're in Jakarta or Amsterdam,” Davidson explains.

“Right now, you can go into a lot of tier two and tier three markets and buy space in a data centre. The supply exists. However, if you do that, you're going to be managing different philosophies, operational styles, and customer experiences.” Rather than manage dozens of relationships with different data centre operators operating within dozens of different regulatory frameworks with different ways of doing business and different levels of technical sophistication, “the advantage of Digital Realty is that you can choose between 290 different sites around the world and be sure that you get the same experience in just about every single one of them,” Davidson says. “They're going to have the same portal, the same command structure, the same user experience that allows you to scale as fast as possible. It's that unified, ubiquitous experience that our 20-30 key customers value from us because, for them, a data centre is just a vehicle to help them achieve their business goals; they don't want to be managing data centres.”

This demand for ubiquitous data centre experiences from a core customer base is the thing that’s driving Digital Realty’s massive expansion throughout APAC. “We're pushing to create this unified environment in as many new markets as possible. That's what's driving our strategy, whether it's in Australia, Hong Kong, India, or Japan,” Davidson explains.

Of course, creating a totally uniform, ubiquitous solution that delivers the speed and convenience of a tier one market like Northern Virginia in a country with a very different regulatory, infrastructural, and cultural landscape, like India (where Digital Realty is currently expanding through its multi-billion dollar joint venture with Brookfield Infrastructure) is no mean feat.

200

November 2021

SIN12, Singapore

Ubiquitous Experiences in Diverse Markets “Each market is different,” explains Davidson. “Part of what I do is put together the regulatory and business framework to ensure that, no matter how different things may look when you part the kimono, so to speak, the market feels exactly the same as any other to our customers.”

The first part of entering a new market revolves around creating the right governmental and regulatory strategy to support Digital Realty’s plans for the country. APAC’s deregulation that we mention earlier may be progressing quickly, but the region’s markets are still broken up into three tiers.

DIGITAL REALTY

“Over the last five to seven years, there's been a dynamic shift where network connectivity has shifted towards the centralised data centre” ROBERT DAVIDSON

DIRECTOR OF NETWORK SERVICES APAC, DIGITAL REALITY

There are four tier one markets – Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia – which, Davidson explains, “are fairly open. You can build, operate, and own everything from facilities to networks and interconnection infrastructure; you're a facilities-based operator.” Then, in the tier two markets like South Korea, an operator has to approach things on more of a service basis. “You can do most things but you can't always own it all, which means you need to make some concessions or work with a partner,” Davidson says. “And then the third category is pretty much a closed market where you really can't do much of anything without a local partner, like Vietnam.”

“Digital Realty is already in all the type one markets. We're in Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.

What we need to be able to do when we look at entering a type two or type three market is figure out how we can create an environment where, while we may not be in a type one market, we can make it look like a type one market to our customers,” and the approach to each new market is different. “What we did in Seoul is very different to what we're doing in India today, and is very different to what we're going to have to do when we start considering a move into say the Philippines,” Davidson explains.

technologymagazine.com

201

TR ANSFORMING

DATA-LED BUSINESSES

THROUGH COLLABORATION WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO

202

November 2021

EXL

technologymagazine.com

203

EXL

Saurabh Mittal, VP of, EXL

204

November 2021

EXL

EXL supports its clients as they digitally transform their operations and as new technologies emerge, we explore how the company has adapted

A

s a digital partner, EXL is to scale up the use of artificial intelligence dedicated to continuous (AI), help redesign operating models to be collaboration with clients. fit for the future and drive faster business Understanding the rapidly decisions through the use of technology. changing nature of the “Our expertise in the domain, digital technology industry, transformation, data science, and change EXL constantly builds capabilities and management helps make our client’s leverages new technologies as they business more efficient and effective, support customers. improve customer relationships and Saurabh Mittal, enhance revenue Vice President growth,” Mittal and Digital explained.

Transformation He continued: leader for EXL “Instead of focusing Digital discussed on multi-year, the company and resource and explained: “At EXL, time-intensive we are very platform designs passionate about or migrations, we making sense look deeper at the SAURABH MITTAL VICE PRESIDENT, EXL of data and driving entire business our client’s value chain and use business forward.” our deep industry To ensure all of its clients receive expertise to deliver the right transformation suitable support, based on what they solutions that help our clients outperform need, Mittal said: “EXL tailor the solutions the competition.” that make most of the data for the client.

By looking through the entire business We then show how the data enables them value chain, EXL is focused on the outcomes to make business decisions and drive in order to drive businesses forward. To more intelligence into their increasingly do this effectively, Mittal explained how digitised operations.” the company urges its clients to “share With expertise in numerous industries, their goals with EXL” so together they can EXL can support organisations as they look leverage the data effectively.

“EXL tailor the solutions that make most of the data for the client”

technologymagazine.com

205

EXL

Transforming data-led businesses through collaboration

“EXL caters to the unique challenges and opportunities of the industries in which we work” SAURABH MITTAL

VICE PRESIDENT, EXL

Driving businesses forward with a range of personalised services Founded on the core values of innovation, collaboration, excellence, integrity and respect, EXL ensures these values are present with every client they work with. By aligning themselves with the values the company was founded on, Mittal explained they are able to successfully “work together with clients to improve business outcomes, operations, and customer experience.”

206

November 2021

The company offers a range of services to drive its clients business forward. With EXL’s deep domain expertise led operations management, Mittal said, “EXL caters to the unique challenges and opportunities of the industries in which we work.”

These industries can be anything from insurance and healthcare to utilities, banking and travel and logistics.

With its extensive work in data and analytics, it comes as no surprise that EXL understands how data can be an integral part of business growth. Mittal explained: “Data is the lynchpin of better business performance and we can provide end to end data extraction, organisation, and analytics services.”

EXL

SAURABH MITTAL TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT COMPANY: EXL INDUSTRY: GLOBAL ANALYTICS AND

“Whether you are migrating to cloudbased systems or implementing digital technologies, we help businesses modernise their information architecture and navigate immense amounts of data in complex systems, with a focus on doing advanced analytics to generate insights for business outcomes,” he added.

Along with its deep domain and data expertise, EXL also supports its customers as they look to adopt AI solutions into their business models. By infusing AI and digital solutions across customer journeys, EXL is becoming a digital transformation partner of choice for its clients.

Adding to this, Mittal said: “We look and go deeper to create a personalised set of solutions to increase speed to value with digital operations at scale.”

EXECUTIVE BIO

DIGITAL SOLUTIONS Saurabh Mittal is a global digital transformation leader, responsible for building and scaling framework for innovation and technology led transformation and help businesses achieve their strategic objectives and customer experience outcomes.

Currently, he is responsible to scale AI led solutions to transform delivery models for data-driven enterprises. Over the last 16 years, Saurabh has worked with multiple large corporates in areas of enterprise innovation, business consulting, operational transformation, customer experience management, service designing and business analytics.

Saurabh is a certified six sigma professional and has done his MBA in International Business after a Bachelors in Technology.

EXL

Achieving hyperautomation with EXL To adapt to new concepts and technologies, particularly in the AI space, EXL has developed a hyperautomation approach to accelerate its clients’ digital adoption. Its enterprisewide intelligent automation strategy helps its clients scale their existing automation programme to make it even smarter.

Discussing the approach, Mittal said: “EXL’s Hyperautomation focuses on shifting business from people-intensive legacy OS to a future-ready, thin human-AI Operating System (AI:OS). Our approach combines the power of automation, AI and analytics, and orchestrates these levers on the cloud to accelerate digital transformation. It is a cohesive automation suite that marries different digital transformation tools with highly modular, cloud-enabled, prebuilt accelerators and solutions. It helps organisations execute with speed for optimum business and customer outcomes.”

There are numerous benefits to the adoption of EXL’s hyperautomation approach, this includes: • AI-infused streamline of end-to-end data flows and business processes • The ability to orchestrate multiple technologies to design and deliver end-toend business solutions • Delivery of 50%-100% higher returns when compared to traditional automation • The shift from infused-based commercial models to ROI-led modes • Enables clients to achieve scale and flexibility rather than relying on a single technology for automation purposes • Hyperautomation equips employees to focus on more value-added tasks • It improves collaboration through better access to data and seamless communication 208

November 2021

“We go deeper to create a personalised set of solutions to increase speed to value with digital operations at scale” SAURABH MITTAL

VICE PRESIDENT, EXL

EXL

Ultimately for its clients, EXL’s hyperautomation approach delivers significantly higher business outcomes. It shows a 20-30% higher year on year impact; a 3-4 times higher return on investment; provides 10-20 times more data available for advanced analytics and shows a 30-40% benefit on operations spent in a steady state.

Collaborating to effectively meet the needs of EXL’s clients Digital transformation and the introduction of new technologies is happening at a rapid pace. To ensure the company is meeting its

clients’ needs effectively, EXL introduced its Connected Intelligence Partner Program.

The program ensures specialised expertise, deep industry knowledge and leadingedge technology is harnessed and integrated seamlessly to push forward business transformation.

Discussing the program, Mittal said: “We join forces with industry leaders and innovators to bring the best solutions and expertise needed EXL has 54 global to solve our client’s most complex delivery centres and supports challenges.”

25+ languages.

Expanding on the different ways innovators have supported EXL in its mission to digitally transform EXL has over businesses, Mittal explained: “Our 720 clients.

54

720

technologymagazine.com

209

Accelerating Digital Transformation with EXL

As competition intensifies and customer demands for a digital experience grow, finding new ways to deliver a seamless, connected insurance experience is critical.

Video Jake Sloan of Appian explains their new partnership with EXL and how they help insurers deliver digital, connected insurance fast.

Appian is dedicated to helping insurance companies

In addition, both companies place a strong emphasis

around the world modernize and accelerate their

on supporting their clients with hyperautomation,

digital transformation initiatives. Whether by enabling

which is all about automation at speed and

more connected underwriting, streamlining agent and

combining automation technologies (e.g., robotic

broker processes, or accelerating claims management,

process automation, AI, machine learning) with other

Appian helps insurers extend their legacy systems

technologies that speed application development

and delight their customers with a more connected

(e.g., low-code). Sloan went on to note that “the

value chain. Jake Sloan, Appian Global Industry

EXL/Appian partnership enables organizations to

Manager for Insurance, explains how the 22-year-old

scale their digital transformation and cloud adoption

company helps insurance organizations build apps

journey driving digital transformation with future fit

and workflows rapidly, using a low-code platform.

redesigned processes.”

“We help insurers combine people, technologies, and

He continued, “Appian has a strong delivery team and

data in a single workflow so they can maximize their

ecosystem of trusted delivery partners like EXL. We

resources and improve business results, all while

also provide EXL with expert architecture guidance,

reducing the technical debt often incurred by legacy

training courses, and center of enablement experience

and core systems,” said Sloan.

to maximize Appian platform adoption and business and IT delivery.”

Together with EXL, Appian is helping insurance firms accelerate their digitalization journeys and

“Our partnership with EXL accelerates the pace of

move at the speed today’s world demands. With its

cloud adoption, leveraging our deep experience in

Low-Code Platform, Sloan explained, “Appian gives

claims, collections, and AI solutions. It enables insurers

insurers unprecedented agility to rapidly transform the

to be successful and drive market differentiation. It

customer experience and seize new opportunities to

gives them ready-built solutions that they can deploy

grow revenue.”

rapidly and see results in a matter of weeks, not months or years. We’re very excited to continue to

With these aligned goals and values, Sloan

leverage this partnership.”

says Appian is a natural partner that will further complement EXL’s offerings. Since EXL is an expert in insurance, enabling carriers to tap into the power of digital, it seemed like a logical next step for the two to join forces.

Learn more

EXL

“ Together with our partners, we believe we can collaborate on a differentiated and winning approach to deliver innovative solutions and services” SAURABH MITTAL

VICE PRESIDENT, EXL

collaboration with AWS (Amazon Web Services) is helping us operationalise and scale AI, analytics and automation within enterprise business processes to achieve the promise of the data-driven enterprise.”

“Similarly, our joint partnership with Amelia, an IPsoft company, is helping infuse 212

November 2021

AI into every customer interaction at scale. Our conversational AI-led CX can be deployed across industries, hence building resiliency and solving customer problems while maintaining a human-like interaction experience,” he added.

EXL is currently looking to build faster and more reliable methods to drive forward business growth and increase value. To do this, the company is leveraging Appian’s enterprise software to build

EXL

enterprise apps and workflows ten times faster than traditional methods. This is to ensure seamless dataflows which will, in turn, improve customer experience and operational excellence.

Mittal expanded: “With Appian, we’re building enterprise-grade apps and workflows using process re-design by code approach.

We’re combining our domain experts, data and technology to build scalable cloud receiving centres that are fundamentally changing the operating model for our clients.

From building a global common backbone for streamlining data flows from unstructured

data sources to creating custom utilities for data-driven processing, Appian is helping EXL in transforming delivery even with legacy client infrastructure.

“For one example, EXL is designing an AI-powered cloud “receiving centre” for a leading title insurance company to de-risk its technology transformation.

EXL simultaneously took on the dual responsibility of running the operation as well which enabled our client’s operations to respond to their customers faster with a more cost-efficient and scalable operating model,” he added. technologymagazine.com

213

EXL

This work with Appian and other partners aligns with the company’s core value of collaboration and Mittal believes this is the driving force behind EXL’s success.

He said: “Together with our partners, we believe we can collaborate on a differentiated and winning approach to deliver innovative solutions and services that outperform our clients’ expectations, beat the competition and transform the marketplace.”

214

November 2021

Bold moves for the future As with the companies EXL supports with their digital transformation, the company also has had to adapt to the ever-changing technology environment. Discussing this, Mittal said: “It’s already been seen that different technologies are changing the way we operate ourselves.

The biggest change we’re seeing is with the newer generation that we employ, who are quite apt in using this technology themselves and have a good appreciation of them too.”

EXL

“Collaboration between a human and a piece of technology is going to be a key game-changer in the future” SAURABH MITTAL

VICE PRESIDENT, EXL

“Essentially, what’s happening is that this technology proficiency has elevated their role and customer outcomes. This is the biggest change that I’m seeing, as previously the majority of effort would have been on the bottom of the pyramid, low-value transactions. Today, by leveraging these technologies, my team is able to get a lot of proactive insights and do more complex work at an astonishing speed that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.”

Mittal explained the company, despite being a driver for technological expansion, is keen to keep the human element when it comes to digitally transforming a business.

He explained: “The key thing is that it is not just technology that plays a part. We always top that with the human element to bring emotional acumen and spatial experience to drive subjective decision making, thus keeping customer experience at the centre of focus since everything cannot be rule based. This is because the company feels that collaboration between a human and a piece of technology is going to be a key game-changer in the future.”

Looking at the company’s goals for the future, Mittal shared what can be expected from EXL in the coming years, saying: “We’re on an exciting journey and looking forward to playing a significant role in this decade of digital. You can expect us to be making bold moves in outcome delivery by leveraging our expertise in data analytics, AI and digital technologies coupled with human ingenuity.”

technologymagazine.com

215

RED DIAMOND

BLENDING

FAMILY VALUES WITH

INNOVATION WRITTEN BY: ALEX TUCK

216

November 2021

PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR

RED DIAMOND

technologymagazine.com

217

RED DIAMOND

RED DIAMOND

Rolf van Rijn, SVP of IT, reveals how the coffee and tea business combines the family traditions with leading edge technologies

R

ed Diamond is one of those companies that think in a modern way, yet stick to the traditions of its founders when it comes to the product. The company manufactures its own high quality coffee and tea, roasting the coffee products and grinding and blending them; and it's all done in-house on a small campus in Moody, Alabama.

But the key to Red Diamond’s success, alongside its high quality product benchmarks, are its distribution tactics and ability to integrate new technologies, which have made them industry leaders.

Red Diamond knew they needed someone who could meet its grand ambitions and also fit in with the company’s culture of a family-run business. This led to the appointment of Rolf van Rijn, SVP of Information Technology and Red Diamond Inc., who now manages the IT department including all the infrastructure and software development.

Rolf van Rijn, SVP of IT

Making a difference from the ground upwards Since he joined in January 2011, Van Rijn has helped spearhead the digital transformation of the business. As part of the IT group, Van Rijn took up the position of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Developer/Analyst, helping to implement Microsoft’s AX2009 while focusing on the interfacing of multiple 3rd party add-ons, including a custom Italian roasting and grinding system. technologymagazine.com

219

RED DIAMOND

RED DIAMOND: Blending family values with innovation

This custom roasting system used by Red Diamond is from the Milan-based Scolari Engineering. Scolari’s technological expertise in plant design and development of new products along with their ability to integrate ERP systems has helped Red Diamond to benefit from predictive maintenance.

Predictive maintenance determines the condition of in-service equipment in order to estimate when maintenance should be performed. This approach promises cost savings over routine or time-based preventive maintenance, because tasks are performed only when warranted.

According to Scolari themselves, the company is “able to detect and flag over 1000 machine faults, frequently before anyone is aware that a problem exists.”

But it wasn’t the first project Van Rijn was tasked with when he came through the door, as he explains: “When I first joined, the team 220

November 2021

was in the middle of an ERP upgrade. I came on board as a developer and was thrown into the mix. It was hands-on for a long time, and so we went from one homegrown ERP system to Microsoft Dynamics.

“Red Diamond implemented a reporting system to move employees away from manual spreadsheets to full automation,” he continued.

As well as supporting some significant changes such as the introduction of software solutions, Van Rijn explained how the business has “integrated every aspect of the business into the company’s ERP system, so they can report on data and make educated business decisions.”

A project that really piqued Van Rijn’s interest was the development of a custom robotics program that could interface with the warehouse robots that stack the products.

RED DIAMOND

ROLF VAN RIJN TITLE: SVP INDUSTRY: FOOD & BEVERAGES LOCATION: UNITED STATES

ROLF VAN RIJN SVP, RED DIAMOND

“That was one of my favourite projects here, it was fun. I had to be on the floor to deal with the robots and the software. It was great,” he added.

EXECUTIVE BIO

“ OUR CORE MESSAGE FROM THE IT DEPARTMENT IS TO STREAMLINE AS MANY BUSINESS PROCESSES AS POSSIBLE”

Down to earth IT leader with extensive experience in developing complex solutions, with a diverse background in software development and infrastructure solutions.

Accomplished in business intelligence & analytics, enterprise resource planning, customer relations management, cost management, budgeting, warehouse management, disaster recovery, cyber security measures, virtual infrastructure and robotic process automation.

Sana Commerce: Data integration unlocks customer relations Sana Commerce’s native ERP integration offers convenience, reliability, and evolution to foster lasting relationships in the B2B space Prioritise relationships, not just transactions, is the message from Sana Commerce who have built a solution to allow the B2B space to be customer-centric, efficient and profitable.

This is possible as Sana Commerce’s native ERP integration unlocks convenience, reliability, and evolution for fostering lasting relationships. “Our approach to ERP integration is unique,” said Tim Beyer, Global COO, President and CEO of Americas.

“It’s a native integration and our e-commerce software is installed partially inside of the ERP, which means there’s no need for middleware or connector technology to facilitate that integration.

We are the only business doing integration this way specifically for the B2B use case.

Our approach unlocks three key benefits for our customers.”

Three key benefits The three benefits of making SAP, Microsoft Dynamics and E-commerce work include: 1. Total customer convenience This allows organisations to empower their customers with personalised selfservice, complete transparency, and always-accurate real-time data, straight from the ERP.

2. Reliability without compromise No order errors, no hurdles in the buyer journey, and no returns: as you can rely on the accuracy of your web store data.

3. Constant evolution Sana’s scalable and agile platform allows businesses to quickly and adapt to change, and to meet and exceed their customers’ expectations.

The concept of enabling a customer’s ERP system and e-commerce to work as one was conceived over a slice of pizza in Rotterdam back in 2007. “Pizza slice in hand, they made the decision to address the issue and set out to create a B2B e-commerce platform unlike any other - Sana Commerce was born.”

“It’s available for organizations that run their business using Microsoft Dynamics or SAP ERP systems — both in the cloud and on-premise,” commented Beyer.

Partnership with Red Diamond Coffee & Tea Sana Commerce has been a partner of Red Diamond Coffee & Tea since 2013. “We began our partnership as a way to provide Red Diamond with an online B2B solution that would seamlessly integrate with their Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP system and meet the complex needs of B2B buyers, without adding to the organisation’s data or web store maintenance workload.

Learn more

RED DIAMOND

The rise of Van Rijn has been rapid at Red Diamond, moving to a director position before Vice President and eventually Senior Vice President, but his humble nature keeps him as grounded as the coffee beans he dedicates so much time to.

“I still see myself as the little guy, I do whatever is required. To get us moving into the right direction, I will still answer calls to solve any troubleshooting issues.

It can be an employee issue with excel or an executive project, I will take care of it,” he said.

The push for sustainability One of the primary goals within IT environments is to achieve greater sustainability. As important 224

November 2021

“ ALL OUR CUSTOMERS KNOW THAT WHEN THEY PURCHASE OUR PRODUCTS, THEY'RE SUPPORTING A COMPANY WITH HIGH ETHICAL STANDARDS” ROLF VAN RIJN SVP, RED DIAMOND

RED DIAMOND

as it is that the sourcing of Red Diamond’s ingredients follows strict ethical guidelines, then the same applies to its infrastructure too.

As Van Rijn explains: “As an IT department, we create a lot of electronic waste. We recycle as we should, but we also incorporate other initiatives. For instance, in our manufacturing facility, we use a lot of corrugated cardboard and typically after those have been used, they would be thrown away. We've invested in the materials and equipment to convert that corrugated material to a packaging material.

So instead of throwing it away, we're using it to package our products.”

Coffee and tea, as natural products, rely on a healthy environment from the initial source all the way through to their eventual disposal. With expectation increasingly

among customers that the brands they buy are green, eco-friendly and sustainable, it’s something Red Diamond is wholly committed to at its Alabama campus.

“We signed our first sustainability commitment in 2013, so we have worked to reduce fertilizer usage on the company grounds. We have 73 acres and we've reduced our water usage by 20 million gallons a year by using sustainable technologies,” continued Van Rijn.

“We went from fuel based equipment to electric equipment. We also have strong relationships with our growers and we support communities economically through consistent and reliable purchases,” he said.

An area that you may not expect a drinks company to branch out into is social sustainability. Van Rijn insisted this was a key part of the company’s strategy: “One example is our ongoing support of Grounds for Health, which is an organisation that focuses on providing critical cervical cancer prevention services in our coffee origin countries.”

Last year’s pandemic presented another opportunity to reaffirm Red Diamond’s dedication to its local community in Birmingham, Alabama, with The Great Grocery Giveback - a program established to provide a full week’s worth of groceries every week to those who have been laid off or furloughed as a result of COVID-19. “The people of Birmingham have always been a huge part of the Red Diamond family,” says Emily Wood Bowron, VP Strategic Marketing.

Ethics play a key role in the brand’s identity, according to Van Rijn: “We always look for ways to improve like this. We want all of our customers to know that when they purchase our products, they're supporting a company with high ethical standards and vision for a sustainable future.” technologymagazine.com

225

RED DIAMOND

“ONE EXAMPLE IS OUR ONGOING SUPPORT OF GROUNDS FOR HEALTH, WHICH IS AN ORGANISATION THAT FOCUSES ON PROVIDING CRITICAL CERVICAL CANCER PREVENTION SERVICES IN OUR COFFEE ORIGIN COUNTRIES” ROLF VAN RIJN SVP, RED DIAMOND

226

November 2021

RED DIAMOND

Quality products fromquality relationships As is often the case with coffee, Van Rijn goes on to explain that, “we deal with countries all over the world; so to consistently source the highest quality beans, we must work very closely with our growers and importing partners.”

Freshness is often the currency in this trade. We prefer the beans that have been recently cultivated, to get our products out as fresh as possible,” said Van Rijn.

Long-term relationships matter in Red Diamond’s world, as Van Rijn explains:

“We have employees who have worked here for decades. Partnerships with our importers and suppliers that have lasted for generations.”

Reputation goes a long way for Van Rijn when choosing who to do business with too: “Our partner relationships are built on trust. When we build a relationship, we look for the most competent vendors and suppliers possible to get the finest product available. This includes our IT infrastructure vendors as well. That is all part of our core guiding principles.” technologymagazine.com

227

RED DIAMOND

228

November 2021

RED DIAMOND

“ WE'VE INTEGRATED EVERY ASPECT OF THE BUSINESS INTO OUR ERP SYSTEM” ROLF VAN RIJN SVP, RED DIAMOND

The future is automated When pressed on what lies ahead for Red Diamond, it’s fairly clear from Van Rijn’s perspective: “We’re currently streamlining all our current business processes and implementing smaller projects to prepare for a major upgrade of our ERP system, as well as other software suites”.

Unsurprisingly, given the success of his automation projects, the Senior Vice President of Information Technology says he “would like to automate as many processes as possible - to mitigate the risk of error.

The recent advances in artificial intelligence will help a long way in streamlining these processes.”

2022 will be a busy time for Van Rijn and his team. He added: “Our core message from the IT department is to streamline as many business processes as possible in order to help the company operate as efficiently and effectively as we can. All of this is done to better serve our customers.

After all, the cornerstone of Red Diamond has and will always be our commitment to unparalleled quality, innovation, and customer service”.

technologymagazine.com

229

COMMUNITY CARE: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND HEALTHCARE’S FUTURE WRITTEN BY: LAURA BERRILL PRODUCED BY: JAMES BERRY

230

November 2021

COMPANY NAME

technologymagazine.com

231

A new take on care in the community: how digital transformation and technology is changing the healthcare landscape

W

hen I started this job I didn't fully understand what an NHS community trust was, but let’s just say I’ve learned a lot and have become more and more enamoured with the NHS,” Diarmaid Crean starts off with when we start talking about his role at the Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, what it does and its journey towards digital transformation.

Crean’s background is extremely varied.

He has worked in the fields of travel, finance, banking and e-commerce in the private sector before commencing a career in the public sector after working as a civil servant before joining the Trust.

“Most people, when you think about the NHS in general think about an acute hospital, or a GP, when the reality is the majority of care happens outside of both of these settings. Think of all the elderly patients receiving visits every day, maybe they are being supported for dementia or getting an insulin injection, maybe they’re in a care home. As a community trust, one of our biggest services is community nursing, or what was previously called district nursing.”

232

November 2021

Diarmaid Crean Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust

SUSSEX COMMUNITY NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

technologymagazine.com

233

SUSSEX COMMUNITY NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

Community healthcare and technology digital transformation

“I WOULDN’T SAY THERE WAS SOME FANTASTIC DESIGN BEHIND MY CAREER, IT HAS PROBABLY BEEN JUST A FORTUITOUS OPPORTUNITY” DIARMAID CREAN

CHIEF DIGITAL AND TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, SUSSEX COMMUNITY NHS FOUNDATION

Crean says he learned a great deal ‘on the job’ because in his role he was fortunately allowed to accompany nurses on their community rounds to get a feel for the frontline work, adding that Sussex community nursing is always managing particularly high demand because the county has an ageing population.

234

November 2021

“We have about 800 nurses across the county who do up to 9,000 visits a day. These nurses may visit as many as 20 different people in one day. We go into homes to see people who may have just come out of an acute hospital or our community hospitals and help them to live independent lives, so there is a large complex support function running day in day out across Sussex,” he says.

Sussex has 13 community hospitals where people coming out of acute hospitals are looked after and helped with their physical rehabilitation, be that something like speech and language therapy after a stroke.

DIARMAID CREAN TITLE: CHIEF DIGITAL AND TECHNOLOGY OFFICER INDUSTRY: HEALTHCARE LOCATION: UK

Among all this volume and variety, where does the digital transformation come in?

Championing digital health professionals Crean sees his role as a standard bearer for digital transformation, which has been recently helped and accelerated via the NHSx funding system which supports the Trust in this. He says the funding helps with

EXECUTIVE BIO

SCFT runs 84 different services dispersed and spread across the whole county out of 122 buildings, ranging from wheelchair support, our immunization programme and children’s development centres with specialisms in areas such as autism and others.

An international digital leader and innovator in organisational transformation, product development, digital communications, marketing, branding and e-commerce. 26 years’ experience delivering change across both the public and private sectors.

A passionate practitioner of service design. Currently obsessed with the new opportunity of advancing a part of the NHS using the power of digital, technology and data. Since joining SCFT in 2019, Diarmaid has been leading the Digital team working with all the Trust's services to help them maximise their use of the huge array of available technology and improve digital maturity of the Trust. SCFT are the 1st community NHS digital aspirant Trust.

The future of healthcare is digital

“Right now, we have a golden opportunity to shape the future of healthcare. While I don’t underestimate the challenges of the recovery phase, I’m convinced that a smarter, connected, more coordinated and universal use of technology can help. It’s key to getting healthcare on a firmer, more future-ready footing.”

Explore the Connected Health Journal EXPLORE

Professor Shafi Ahmed

We’re here to help. If you have any questions about Vodafone and connected health or would like to arrange a meeting, please contact us.

CONTACT US

Connecting community health - the glue of the NHS Vodafone is working with Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust to ensure patients have connectivity to virtual healthcare Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust recognises that connectivity is key when it comes to the future of community health, for both patients and staff, which is why they are working with Vodafone.

Hospital at home The trust runs a service called Hospital at Home which offers remote monitoring devices which Crean describes as a “wraparound service” like a hospital setting.

The trust, which is the main provider of community health for patients from Brighton and Hove to West Sussex, employs more than 6,000 workers, clocking up 9,000 home visits per day.

“During the pandemic our clinicians were unable to go into their homes, so we deployed remote monitoring technology and managed large cohorts of patients by monitoring their vitals and carrying out video consultations. It’s a very clever piece of technology and efficient in terms of reducing our carbon footprint.

“The majority of care in the NHS happens outside of an acute hospital or GP surgery,” said Diarmaid Crean who is Chief Digital and Technology Officer of the trust. “I see us as the glue of the NHS. As we are seeing more patients being treated at home we need to ensure these patients can connect which is why we have partnered with Vodafone.

“People get better at home, not in hospital,” said Crean.

Mobile device manager In order to manage the amount of laptops and smartphones used by staff, the trust partnered with Vodafone for the secure Mobile Device Manager.

“This helps us manage tens of thousands of devices. The Mobile Device Manager allows us to manage all of that equipment and enables us to allow our staff to keep working.

This new way of working allows the trust to drive efficiencies, said Crean. “I would see our relationship with Vodafone as being pivotal in us realising that opportunity.

“The ambition with Vodafone is for the relationship to deepen and strengthen as we are such a mobile workforce.”

Read The Connected Health Journal CLICK HERE

SUSSEX COMMUNITY NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

STATS The number of repeat prescription requests made via the NHS app increased by 4905% — from 45,931 in January 2020 to 2,253,141 in December 2020, and the number of patient record views rose by 3,329% — from 258,404 in January 2020 to 8,603,392 in December 2020.

DID YOU KNOW...

Microsoft Teams was made available to NHS organisations for free in March 2020 (for a limited time period) to counter the increased risks associated with coronavirus.

238

NHS Digital finished rolling out the messaging tool to all NHSmail users between March 23rd and December 31st, it has been used to send 118 million chat messages and to host 26 million meetings.

The busiest day in 2020 was Wednesday, December 16th when there were 237,997 active users and 1.02 million chat messages – compared with 60,937 active users and 0.35 million chat messages earlier in the year on March 31st.

November 2021

buying in new and updated technology, remote working, remote patient monitoring devices, and laptops that can run new powerful applications, but the main part of his role is about having conversations about myriad of opportunities that digitalisation can bring with his colleagues and all the staff at the Trust.

“We’re all learning. I have learned massively over the past two years since being in the job, so now what we’re trying to do is champion the concept of digital nurses, or digital health professionals and digital

“The process continues like that, it’s a constant task of encouraging people to be more autonomous with their use of technology, particularly the adoption and use of remote monitoring and video consultations, for example, or whatever works for their particular service,” explains Crean.

And he said, “Although there has been a degree of nervousness on behalf of some staff who want to be more hands-on, for instance, where they have to physically touch the patient or deal with the assessments of children with complex neurological conditions, there has been satisfaction with using technology.

The ease of use of remote and virtual technologies for numerous services has seen them take to it ‘like a duck to water’ throughout the pandemic.”

Then he added “we have seen large cost savings, with for example less spend on petrol for travel, these savings can be put back into the Trust’s work and it’s good for the environment as well”.

clinicians. It’s not about a ‘techie’ person like me coming along and saying ‘I can make your work easier, or increase the efficiency of what you do,’ it’s about our clinicians having conversations along the lines of ‘have you thought about using this technology to help improve the care for our patients’?”

The Trust, he says, runs six or seven parallel projects at any one time, working with each of the services over a 6 to 12 period, asking which technology they could adapt and then training then accordingly and supporting the adoption.

Brand new services as a result of technology The Trust runs a service called Hospital at Home which is for patients who have come out of hospitals they can be treated using various technologies in the comfort of their own homes, which increases the likelihood of recovery.

“This means some of our clinical staff have become quite expert in being able to manage patients simultaneously because they can watch the data and see trends and patterns in, say, heart rate. It gives them more power to deal with a lot more patients via a call or video call.

technologymagazine.com

239

We are also looking at a digital doctors’ bag which we will give to the care homes we support so that the staff there can actively monitor patients’ stats with an array of Bluetooth devices. This will allow our travelling nursing staff and the local GPs to remotely view the patient’s data and actively support these elderly people more closely. ” Crean explains.

The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) journey Crean explains that the Trust is currently embarking on an RPA journey. There are countless areas where our staff spend their time doing repetitive simple tasks that could easily be automated. They are assessing a few potential solutions and working with various parts of the organisation where the Digital team thinks there are the greatest opportunities for the technology to make a positive impact. He believes that they should start with corporate services such as HR and finance, where there are some repetitive tasks such as working in spreadsheets, which can then, if automated, help save time for work in clinical departments.

But he added that the Trust was still learning.

“At the moment we are working out the projects we want to start with, and we have an RPA team on it looking at piloting some, but so far we are learning from other parts of the NHS itself that are further down the RPA road. However, we are very keen to get a baseline and evaluate how the technology can demonstrate the benefits and we can see other Trusts have saved many 1000s of hours, reduced costs, increased time with patients and lifted staff away from those bits of drudgery in their jobs.,” he says.

Working in partnership with As with the nature of an NHS Trust and the variety of services and locations involved with it as mentioned, there are obviously many different types of partners, however, 240

November 2021

Crean says the technical suppliers are obviously a big part of the Trust’s operations.

For electronic patient records, the Trust uses TPP, which is a global provider of healthcare technology which also works alongside governments to improve health outcomes, tackle inequalities in care, reduce costs and improve the experience for both patients and clinicians.

Along with this, Vodafone is the Trust’s major telephony supplier. Crean says: “With an organisation as remote and distributed as ours, Vodafone’s support works very well in keeping everybody connected to our systems.”

SUSSEX COMMUNITY NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

Crean gives an example of one older lady who had an operation at a hospital outside of Sussex and when she got home the Sussex NHS didn’t know she had had the operation.

“The woman needed help with things like standing, getting in and out of bed and cooking, so we made an urgent visit to her house and because our community nurse had her laptop and connectivity she could explain to her children (who had dialed in) that she was digitally referring their mother to various services which could assist her every day at home straight away.

When I asked the community nurse what would have been the case prior to having the technology and she said the process would have taken four to five days. You can imagine the distress of the individual and her family in that situation. But now the technology is at our fingertips and the kind of connectivity Vodafone provides makes this speed of care possible,” he explains.

Another important partner for the Trust is tech long-term player, Cisco. The Trust has been using one of their systems to run seven call centres across the Trust. One of these is called ECHO and this service is used in technologymagazine.com

241

“I LOVE THE FACT THAT THE NHS RIGHT NOW IS TRYING TO FIND OUT HOW IT CAN EMPOWER PATIENTS WITH TECHNOLOGY.” DIARMAID CREAN

CHIEF DIGITAL AND TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, SUSSEX COMMUNITY NHS FOUNDATION

palliative care for patients either in hospices or being cared for intensively at home where possible. Crean explains it is a support service whereby nurses are on call day and night to support patients and their families.

Crean says because all staff are provided with laptops and smartphones, they can stay connected on MS Teams and are also able to join the virtual call centre from any location.

All of this demonstrates that this connectivity is vital.

“Alongside giving staff flexibility in the way they are able to work, the benefits of all of this is the reduction of costs on office space and travel, for example, so things are much more effective and efficient and we can evaluate things like how many more patients can be seen in the course of a day as compared to previously when everything was physical.

The main aims of digital transformation Crean says he has never seen digital transformation accelerate as fast as it has in the NHS over the last two years.

“I have seen nothing quite like it and Covid was the catalyst which made digital transformation even faster. NHS staff are supermotivated to care for their patients. I feel very fortunate to be involved in the NHS with my background and help the organisation make this leap and I don’t think we will go back.”

242

November 2021

March 2016 Year Founded

Circa 6-7,000 Number of Employees

Circa £250m Revenue

SUSSEX COMMUNITY NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

And he speaks of the conundrum of home working and returning to offices, which is a talking point at the moment within many different industries.

“I think the minute one organisation says come back to the office five days a week, the one down the road which doesn’t expect that will likely steal their employees. But it's the patients as well as they have become used to interacting with the NHS in different ways now and this hopefully also means people will become more individually proactive with their own health. And this ties in with the self-monitoring tech we have talked about,” says Crean.

But he does add a hint of caution, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence where bias and/or errors can sometimes negatively impact usage. Whereas the private sector embraces change more because they obviously make money from it, in the NHS there is more concern over patient care and safety.

“The challenge for me when it comes to AI is the data. Computing technology has been around for a while. It works brilliantly when you have really good data, but so far, the NHS hasn’t got a full grip on this. This is because data is residing in multiple repositories owned by different organisations which data hard to grapple with.”

He added: “So there’s a question mark around the data but at the same time there is aspiration and what the NHS is trying to move towards while at the same time grappling with privacy and ethical questions.

It’s a complicated multi-year challenge.

“But, as a technologist I would say it’s a no-brainer that this technology will do amazing things.”

technologymagazine.com

243

IBM, INTEL AND WIPRO: STRONGER TOGETHER IN A 5G EDGE ECOSYSTEM WRITTEN BY: SCOTT BIRCH

244

November 2021

PRODUCED BY: CRAIG KILLINGBACK

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

technologymagazine.com

245

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

Digital transformations built on powerful partner ecosystems are helping IBM, Intel and Wipro deliver future success for their customers at the 5G Edge

M

ore organisations across multiple industries are understanding the importance of collaboration when it comes to technology. These digital ecosystems are naturally stronger than their individual parts, and you can take that to a whole new level when those partners include the likes of Wipro, Intel and IBM. However, with 75% of enterprise workloads still not migrated to the cloud, and executives expecting a 20% increase in the prioritisation of cloud and AI technology in the next two years, a hybrid cloud approach is required. This represents a US$1 trillion market opportunity for IBM, its partners and their customers.

This is a time of enormous change and opportunity for 5G and edge computing, with exciting applications across everything from healthcare to retail, from driverless cars to autonomous mining. IBM, Intel and Wipro have joined forces to offer telcos and enterprise clients new revenue streams that simply did not previously exist.

“In an ecosystem that is somewhat fragmented and complicated, we rely on partners such as Wipro to deliver solutions and software to end customers utilising Intel technologies and also IBM hybrid cloud,” says Eric Levander, GM, Global Solutions & Scale, Network & Communications Sales, Intel.

“We provide components, building blocks.

Very few end users can extract the value from a piece of silicon. It is when we work with

246

November 2021

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

technologymagazine.com

247

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

IBM, Intel and Wipro: Stronger together Intel ofecosystem the video video (Intel) in a 5GTitle Edge

“The broad ecosystem always wins over time and that is the best investment protection for enterprise today”

the ecosystem that it He also says that 5G Edge comes to life. Without is a new way of delivering the ecosystem, our network-as-a-service products just generate for multiple industrial heat. That's why it is so applications. crucial for us to drive the “How those come digital transformation together is an ecosystem for customers, to of ecosystems,” says enable them to scale Levander. “With 5G and innovate through in place, you need to partnerships that bring together these combine the best ecosystems and ensure -in-class technology that the solutions ERIC LEVANDER and deep industry are commercially GM, GLOBAL SOLUTIONS & SCALE, experience.” consumable, and that NETWORK & COMMUNICATIONS SALES, INTEL Levander, who has takes a bit of time, been with Intel for but we were seeing more than 23 years, says Intel and IBM tremendous traction, especially in those deliver new capabilities to run workloads mission-critical areas.” in any environment on any cloud. This Dr Evaristus Mainsah is GM, IBM Hybrid broad ecosystem provides end users with Cloud & Edge Ecosystem, and his team’s innovation and freedom of choice – building core focus is helping clients on their solutions on open platforms such as Wipro. journey to digital transformation. In 248

November 2021

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

Proving 5G’s value Thomas Muller is CTO, Wipro Engineering Services. Wipro joined the IBM Edge Ecosystem in 2020 when it launched its 5G edge services solutions suite, designed to offer Wipro customers better data control,

ERIC LEVANDER TITLE: GM, GLOBAL SOLUTIONS & SCALE, NETWORK & COMMUNICATIONS SALES COMPANY: INTEL

EXECUTIVE BIO

particular they focus on systems integrators looking to build solutions around IBM’s technology and ecosystem partners for cloud and telecommunications which includes edge computing.

“The ecosystem is core to IBM's growth strategy, so when our partners succeed, so do customers, and so do we,” says Mainsah.

“When it comes to telco and edge, the need for the ecosystem based around a common platform is greater because of the intrinsic heterogeneous nature of those environments – often a plethora of different devices or the IT hardware software and services provided by different partners.

“IBM works with our partners providing resources including expertise to help them get to market faster and grow their businesses with our technology. Together we are creating shared value for customers and a shared vision for the future of hybrid cloud and AI, including use cases that take advantage of the opportunities provided by 5G and edge computing. So partners like Wipro and Intel – with their own technology and skills and expertise – are key to that ecosystem and the value that it creates for businesses.”

Mainsah says businesses are striving to become more and more digital, more data driven, moving more online, more contactless, and becoming more automated.

This shift was well underway prior to the pandemic but has been accelerated leading to investments in data management and analytics, machine learning, and AI to enable better visibility and improve decision making.

Based in Intel’s HQ in Santa Clara California, Eric leads the newly formed global Solution and Scale Organisation hosted in the Data Center Sales group. The organisation works together with some of Intel’s most trusted hardware-, software- and system integrator partners to ramp and scale commercial solutions in the networking and communications markets. The organisation is global and consists of Program-, Sales development-, Solution architecture- and marketing functions.

Prior to this Eric headed up Intel’s global Strategy and Business Development organisation focused on the same market. In this role he and his staff plotted the long- and medium-term strategic direction, made investment recommendations, and drove implementation and follow up Eric has held a variety of international positions within Intel’s Sales and Marketing Group. He was the Director of telecom in EMEA and General Manager for Intel Sweden and led Intels engagements with the Network and handset equipment vendors as Global Sales Director for the Ericsson, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Alcatel Lucent account graduate school of business.

technologymagazine.com

249

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

THOMAS MULLER TITLE: CTO

Thomas is a senior technology leader with over 30 years of experience in various diverse roles. He is responsible for the development and execution of Wipro’s Engineering Innovation Services, which includes Software Defined Vehicle, Autonomous Services and 5G. Prior to Wipro, he was founder, CTO of visionapp, a cloud automation pioneer. After Visionapp, he has held corporate leadership roles as VP, CTO at Deutsche Telekom, VP Digital (Chief Digital Officer) at Weltbilt (NYSE: WBT) and Bank of Ireland.

Thomas has extensive Digital Innovation, Transformation and product development experience across multiple industry verticals. He had led multiple industry-first innovations including spearheading ASP & WLL in Europe, Digital Workplace and Cloud Service platforms.

250

November 2021

EXECUTIVE BIO

COMPANY: WIPRO ENGINEERING SERVICES

reduced costs, faster insights and actions, and more automated, secured operations.“We are creating practically anything, from chip to cloud,” says Muller. “We build one of the latest generation chips for many of the main brands in the semi computer industry, including TSMC. “We then have our software practices who create the embedded software for those systems to actually come to life. We create the application and product software on top of it, and then we take it to our respective customers across industries.”

One of the largest industries served by Wipro is networking and connectivity, with some of the latest products in 5G supported, created and designed by Wipro engineers for the leading brands.

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

IBM, Intel and Wipro: Stronger together Wipro video (Wipro) in a 5G Edge ecosystem

“We are creating practically anything, from chip to cloud”

When it comes to fancy things, in reality, high tech, Wipro can none of those use cases also partnerships with that were brought to the likes of Google, me actually exhibited Microsoft, the characteristics that and Facebook. could not have been When Muller took done with existing responsibility for 5G technologies if someone THOMAS MULLER technologies in the really wanted to,” CTO, WIPRO engineering space at he recalls. “We were ENGINEERING SERVICES Wipro, the first challenge basically at the point he set for his teams where the technology was to provide a use case that only 5G can is searching for a problem, which would be deliver. And that turned out to be quite an unfair to 5G. To really show its strengths, we exercise, because it was hard to find. needed to look hard and find use cases that “While we talked about a lot of things like would actually leverage those capabilities no latency, and VR, and AR and all kinds of under certain circumstances.” technologymagazine.com

251

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

IBM, Intel and Wipro: Stronger together Ibmecosystem video in a 5G Edge (IBM)

“ The ecosystem is core to IBM's growth strategy, so when our partners succeed, so do customers, and so do we” DR EVARISTUS MAINSAH GM, HYBRID CLOUD & EDGE ECOSYSTEM, IBM

Muller and his teams had to turn to the pinnacle of technological engineering – Formula One – to find a challenge stiff enough to test 5G’s capabilities and prove 252

November 2021

its business case. As he says, if there is no business case, even if the technology is super smart, there is no point in doing it. He also believes strongly that the importance of the ecosystem has grown significantly in the last few years.

“We have our own ecosystem initiative anchored at leadership level in Wipro,” says Muller. “We call it Ecosystem Next, where we work with strategic partners such as Intel and IBM, and a few more of the major cloud hyperscalers.

“Intel is a key partner to enable us to drive 5G adoption worldwide with communication service providers. Intel technology is at the heart of disaggregated 5G solutions, and Intel has done a tremendous job with their technologies, not just the processors, but also their accelerator technologies. The

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

DR EVARISTUS MAINSAH TITLE: GM, HYBRID CLOUD & EDGE ECOSYSTEM COMPANY: IBM INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY

1911

IMB: Year founded

$73bn IBM: Company Revenue (USD)

300K+

whole software ecosystem for disaggregated 4G and 5G software would not exist without Intel having started their innovation leadership in their investments in this space.

“IBM, as a partner, is tremendously important for us to drive the softwarisation of digital products. IBM has, in partnership with Red Hat, a tremendous set of open sourcebased technologies that help us disaggregate previously monolithically integrated black box solutions. That can be networking products, that can be medical devices, that can be automotive product technologies.

“Technologies that IBM makes available to us, be it the Red Hat platforms, looking at OpenShift, they allow us to create a manageable software ecosystem that we can roll out from very tiny platforms, from Raspberry Pi-sized computers, IoT-size

EXECUTIVE BIO

IMB: Number of employees

Evaristus Mainsah is General Manager, Hybrid Cloud & Edge Ecosystem, leading the IBM ecosystem team working with Global Systems Integrators and other technology ecosystem partners to enable them to deliver value to their clients through IBM’s hybrid Cloud and AI platform.

He also served as General Manager, Global Asset Recovery Services, responsible for optimising the financial recovery of IBM’s leased asset portfolio and IBM’s excess inventory worldwide and as worldwide General Manager, Client Financing, providing financing for clients to help them acquire technology solutions.

Before that he was General Auditor of IBM also served as IBM Assistant Treasurer as well as other senior finance, operations, and sales roles across Europe and worldwide.

Evaristus holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School, a Ph.D. in Engineering, an M.Sc. in Manufacturing Technology and a B.Sc in Computer Science & Electronic Engineering all from the University of Birmingham, UK.

technologymagazine.com

253

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

IBM, Intel and Wipro: Stronger together video in aPartnership 5G Edge ecosystem

1945

Wipro: Year founded

$8.13bn Wipro: Company Revenue (USD)

221,365 Wipro: Number of employees

254

November 2021

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

computers, all the way across to very scalable hyper converged infrastructures in edge and central implementations. And that's where IBM's key value for us comes in – as an infrastructure partner with Red Hat.” Mulller also adds how Wipro is using IBM software tools across its engineering organisations – IBM's lifecycle management tools help Wipro drive efficiencies in software engineering factories, using model-based design approaches and quality assurance.

5G’s bright future The COVID-19 pandemic has made many organisations rethink their strategy – building for increased resilience and sustainability.

Nagaraju Cheemalamarri, General Manager and Business Leader, 5G and Emerging networks, has been at Wipro since 1994, and believes the pandemic has transformed how

organisations operate – opening a huge opportunity for 5G and edge computing.

“Edge computing is a crucial element in terms of developing the next generation of digital services,” says Cheemalamarri, “and it's also not new – it has been prevalent in various forms already.

“5G actually opened up a new range of opportunities and possibilities from the edge perspective. Enterprise 5G and also the edge compute and MEC market will be a growth engine for us in the next two to three years, and the main drivers here will be the simplification and also automation of all these deployments. We are also making very aggressive investments into cloud.”

We created ready to service pre-integrated reference stacks like BoundaryLess Universal Edge (BLUE) and 5G Edge Services Solution Suite so that customer needs are addressed providing time to market advantage.

Our BLUE framework offering has ready to service, pre-integrated IBM stack components such as IBM Edge Application Manager, IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation, Data platform and Watson AIOps which is included in our offerings.

We leverage Intel on the software front using OpenNESS which is their open network, edge services software platform.

And on the hardware front, we use varied Intel hardware, such as integrated GPUs, core and Intel Atom. We are integrating our Edge lifecycle management platform with Intel Smart Edge software stack, which can provide integrated and intelligent connectivity edge offerings.

Intel’s Eric Levander says when it comes to future-proofing, companies have to ensure their investment is sustainable and they don’t “build themselves into a corner”.

“Going forward, open solutions with broad ecosystem support is the high-level answer technologymagazine.com

255

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

NAGARAJU CHEEMALAMARRI TITLE: GENERAL MANAGER AND BUSINESS LEADER, 5G AND EMERGING NETWORKS

Nagaraju Cheemalamarri (Nagu) is the Global Business head for 5G and Emerging networks practice in Wipro. Over his 27 years of rich industry experience in telecommunication services, Nagu has assumed several technical and business leadership roles globally.

Nagu’s current charter is to build strong System Integration solutions and nurture ecosystem partnerships to grow the 5G/Telecom/Edge networks business in Wipro across various industry segments: Communication Service Providers, Enterprises, Network equipment vendors, and the Hyperscalers.

Nagu holds a Bachelor's Engineering degree in Computer Science and MBA in Software Enterprise Management. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

256

November 2021

EXECUTIVE BIO

COMPANY: WIPRO

“ Our enterprise customers are constantly seeking the 5G and Edge applications & use cases that will actually monetise their investment” NAGARAJU CHEEMALAMARRI,

GENERAL MANAGER AND BUSINESS LEADER, 5G AND EMERGING NETWORKS, WIPRO

to aim for,” he says. “The broad ecosystem always wins over time and that is the best investment protection for enterprise today.”

IBM - INTEL - WIPRO

Levander also points out that when it comes to precious data, it is all extracted from or touches Intel architecture at some stage, so it’s incredibly important that Intel builds in security features on silicon, on the platforms that are supported by the ecosystem.

“I don't think we can underestimate the impact of the data and the data revolution that is happening for us and for our customers,” says Levander. “Our job is to enable other ecosystems and new business models as part of the data revolution.”

IBM’s Evaristus Mainsah concurs and concludes that ecosystems fuel platforms.

IBM Cloud for Telecommunications is built on an open architecture, so a large ecosystem of partners can enhance it with their own solutions in addition to providing services for it.

“The combined strength of IBM, and our partners, will create a large hybrid cloud ecosystem that can help operators meet three strategic industry imperatives: attracting and retaining subscribers; increasing investment effectiveness while driving down operational costs; and creating new, monetisable digital services,” says Mainsah.

Welcome to the ecosystem era.

technologymagazine.com

257

Custom Persona-Based Industrial IoT 258

November 2021

HITACHI VANTARA

WRITTEN BY: GEORGIA WILSON PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR technologymagazine.com

259

HITACHI VANTARA

Hitachi Vantara’s Siddharth Verma and Andrew Mudford discuss the company’s IIoT journey and the benefits of custom, persona-based solutions

W

ith experience spanning more than 20 years each, both Siddharth Verma, General Manager Manufacturing Division and Andrew Mudford, Account Director at Hitachi Vantara both began their careers in 2000.

Specialising in manufacturing, mining, and technology, these two executives reflect on Hitachi Vantara and its journey since they joined the company.

“Hitachi Vantara is a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd,” begins Verma, “with over 110 years of industrial expertise, and 60 years of IT experience.”

“Hitachi is a world leader in areas from manufacturing to automotive to power grids and more, but a lot of how we deliver value is through IT and helping our customers digitally transform their operations for data-driven outcomes,” adds Mudford. “Our particular division is tasked with solutions across the IT spectrum, and a big part of that is trying to empower Hitachi's vision around social innovation and the digital connection of our physical world.

260

November 2021

HITACHI VANTARA

HITACHI VANTARA

“Like many companies, we continue to evolve as a business and the key thing for us is that we have strong leadership driving our agenda around the modern connections of people, places and things to discover new insights that drive innovation. We are focused on the core tenets of data, and how you leverage that data to provide insights and value to customers, whether that’s at the underlying IT infrastructure level or targeted insight for specific industries or verticals such as manufacturing or mining.”

Hitachi Vantara’s Industrial IoT Journey “Industrial IoT (IIoT) means lots of different things to different people. At its most core for us, IIoT is about understanding the information and data that customers have access to, and how they can get insights from the data?” explains Mudford.

262

November 2021

“ Like many companies, we continue to evolve as a business and the key thing for us is that we have strong leadership driving our agenda around the modern connection of people, places and things to discover new insights that drive innovation” ANDREW MUDFORD

HEAD OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, INDUSTRY SOLUTION PRACTICE, HITACHI VANTARA

“The biggest thing we've found is that customers - depending on what particular part of manufacturing they are operating in - are all at a different stage when it comes

HITACHI VANTARA

Improving manufacturing and mining operations with Industrial IoT “Industrial IoT applications can help manufacturers across almost all of their domains. We can create a rich amount of contextual data from what each process is actually doing. What is the process

SIDDHARTH VERMA TITLE: GENERAL MANAGER MANUFACTURING DIVISION LOCATION: CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES Sid leads the IIoT and the Industrial Solutions division for Hitachi Vantara in digital transformation and Industry 4.0 operating models, supply chain control towers, asset performance management, manufacturing operations, and quality and predictive maintenance. Sid helps customers create smart, connected factories and intelligent products. He also manages the industry leading Lumada Manufacturing Insights portfolio of products on behalf of Hitachi Ltd. Previously, Sid led the practice for Siemens Advanta and Deloitte Digital IIoT with a focus on IoT-enabled growth and operation improvement in the Industrial and Energy sectors.

EXECUTIVE BIO

to digital transformation. Some of our customers are at a more basic level, meaning that they may just want to convert paper and manual processes to digital. At the other end of the spectrum, we're dealing with mature customers, for example in the automotive sector we require more advanced analytics and machine learning type techniques.

“The practices that we use have been operating in factories for a long time. Just digitising those allows customers to be a lot more progressive and that's where we start.

“We've been on this journey for a little while now, and there's still a long way to go. The industry as a whole is not that digitally mature yet and there are lots of people capable of contributing to digital progress. Some of them are going to be partners, some of them are going to be competitors, and hopefully all of them in some capacity or another are going to be our customers.”

Echoing Mudford’s comments, Verma says, “Our biggest challenge is trying to move forward with the capabilities that we have in place and in a format that the client can actually understand and appreciate. Over time options have grown. There are now too many options and vendors. A secondary challenge for us is to differentiate the competition at every step and think about what is and isn’t possible.”

technologymagazine.com

263

HITACHI VANTARA

Hitachi Vantara: Custom, Persona-Based Industrial IoT

“With IoT, our customers can start collecting quality data to help them automatically detect a lot of the defects that were previously only visible by a person or a process at a later stage. It gives them a lot more insight into how a process can be done and on a faster scale. The quality is measured at a much higher speed and a much higher level. One of the biggest use cases in this is around maintenance failures. We can use IoT technologies to reduce catastrophic failure, which means we can predict failures in advance, and the maintenance schedules can be optimised to the way items are used, which will overall reduce the cost for the manufacturer and ensure they meet their commitments,” adds Verma.

“ A lot of solutions at the moment are trying to besqueeze into a one-size-fits-all solution.

For us, with persona-based approaches, we can be very targeted when solving problems specific to those industries” ANDREW MUDFORD

HEAD OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, INDUSTRY SOLUTION PRACTICE, HITACHI VANTARA

contributing? What are people contributing?

And once we’re able to see the data across the board, we start to see potential and ask the following questions: What if I changed this product? What if I produce a few more of them? And what will happen if I change this step? What if I do these shifts? With a digital twin, we can simulate these different scenarios and actually help our customers plan their manufacturing operations,” explains Verma.

264

November 2021

HITACHI VANTARA

Commenting on the benefits of Industrial IoT, Mudford explains that it ultimately depends on the digital maturity of the customer. “However, at the most principal level, we’re talking about yield and production. We’re talking about the ability to produce units faster and at a more cost effective price for the customer..

“A lot of the hype around Industrial IoT is that our customers think that it’s a different operating model. In principle, however, I don’t think it is. What we're really doing is trying to provide insights and put them into the hands of operators - to accelerate the decision making process that they may have been unable to make before. This could include the planning of activities, the automation of assets, or even something as simple as ensuring that operators have the insights to make the right product.”

Mudford continues, “we've put the insights into the hands of operators in their core system of engagement, which from a change management perspective reduces the amount of time it takes for an operator or the business to take advantage of these activities. And if you look at the history of innovation, manufacturing has been an innovative industry for a long period of time, but engineers have been solving the problems. When these groups of engineers solve problems, they then move on to the next issue. After a period of time the gains that were made start to erode.

One of the benefits that we see from our approach to Industrial IoT is that we can basically embed all of these changes to

ensure that they become sustainable. That's the fundamental difference. As opposed to just throwing sensors or dashboards at people, it's about embedding sustainable change into the operations of a business.”

The benefits of custom solutions and developing them on a large scale “Customisation means different things to different people, but for us at Hitachi Vantara, it’s about being able to tailor a solution to the needs of our customers while using repeatable building blocks.

That’s where the productisation part of our business comes into it,” says Mudford.

“Sometimes you can have a solution bespoke to the customer's needs, but as the customer or the industry evolves, the tailored solution is too unique to evolve with them. We want to get the balance between

solutions that are targeted to a specific customer, industry, or problem that can also be scaled and productised. This is our general philosophy and where we see the greatest amount of benefit.”

Adding to Mudford’s comments, Verma explains the two extremes when it comes to technologymagazine.com

265

HITACHI VANTARA

solutions and solving problems. “The first extreme can happen when we deploy a custom solution which is built for a certain client, with their particularities and needs.

These solutions tend to require a lot of system integrations and hence, become

ANDREW MUDFORD TITLE: HEAD OF PRODUCT MGMT, INDUSTRY SOLUTION PRACTICE INDUSTRIES: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, IOT, SOCIAL INNOVATION, INFORMATION & ANALYTICS

Andrew Mudford heads Industrial Solutions at Hitachi Vantara and focuses on enabling success with digital transformation, IoT, social innovation, data management and analytics for customers within manufacturing and mining industries.

With almost 20 years’ experience, Andrew has been involved in the introduction of several world-leading solutions, including the development and implementation of image capture and facial recognition technologies, laser engraving technologies for enhancing the efficiency and security of passport issuance systems and travel documents, smart meters for utilities, and the introduction of NFC technologies for contactless and mobile payments.

266

November 2021

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: NSW, AUSTRALIA

expensive in nature, and over time, very difficult to maintain. On the other extreme, we have a cookie-cutter solution business which is pure software. The idea is the company will adjust itself to the customer needs, resulting in a much larger shift from the company.

“What we have done at Hitachi Vantara is bring in concepts that enable us to build a solution that gives us economies of scale with lots of features that can be customised at any time. We are inspired by what we call mass customisation and the concept of itemisation which allows software frameworks to be highly monetised. This allows us to leverage a lot of features, but the cost is very low due to them being mass-produced.”

Industry-specific personabased solutions and KPIs Being one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world, Hitachi is fortunate to be able to think along the same lines as the customers it serves.

“We have built the solutions and designed our technologies while thinking about what happens on the shop floor. We take into consideration everything that the quality manager, the maintenance manager and the health and safety manager does in his / her role. This is what we refer to as a persona-driven solution.

We have built this expertise outside of the beta and into a user interface that is easily understood and flexible.

“The data transforms into an insights calculation and generates KPIs which feed into the dashboards. The user interfaces allows for the health and safety officer or maintenance officer to access the KPIs or data points directly to enable them to change the way people do their jobs.”

HITACHI VANTARA

When it comes to industry-specific KPIs (key performance indicators), Verma adds that these are important to the way that the manufacturing industry works. Working on a set of KPIs, allows manufacturers to be data-driven in their work, as they know that quality work is being produced.

“So, as I was saying before, industryspecific persona and the KPIs of a particular industry or subindustry is quite important.

Generally speaking, people in the industry talk about manufacturing as one holistic industry area. But when you start breaking it down and consider industries such as mining, medtech, food and beverage, agriculture, paint and chemicals - all of these industries come under the manufacturing umbrella,

although they don't always adhere to the same KPIs. This is why industries need their own specific KPIs, and we need to adhere to these KPIs rather than reinvent them,” continues Verma.

Adding to Verma’s comments Mudford says, “This is an area we pride ourselves on. A lot of solutions are trying to squeeze

“We can use IoT technologies to reduce catastrophic failure, which means we can predict failures in advance, and the maintenance schedules can be optimised” SIDDHARTH VERMA

GENERAL MANAGER MANUFACTURING DIVISION, HITACHI VANTARA technologymagazine.com

267

268

November 2021

HITACHI VANTARA

“Our biggest challenge is trying to bring forward the capabilities that are there and in a format that the client can actually understand and appreciate” SIDDHARTH VERMA

GENERAL MANAGER MANUFACTURING DIVISION, HITACHI VANTARA

into a one-size-fits-all solution. For us, with persona-based approaches, we can be very targeted when solving problems specific to these industries; for example, from the subindustry we are able to provide a solution to a manufacturer that specifically addresses the maintenance manager's needs. With a one lens approach we’re very strong, but it becomes even more powerful when we get into the sub-industry. From this point we can be even more targeted.

“Manufacturing is a very broad term and what's appropriate to a steel manufacturer is different to an automotive manufacturer and an aerospace manufacturer. And so, for us, we pride ourselves on driving personas, not only to the maintenance manager, but the maintenance manager working in steel manufacturing. We talk in their language and about things that resonate with them. We provide value in a faster space of time which we are ultimately going to get measured on. Our customers don't have the time or energy to take on science based projects, and this allows us to demonstrate relevant proof of value.”

technologymagazine.com

269

R SYSTEMS

INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION:

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO CARE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS, YOUR EMPLOYEES, AND YOUR BUSINESS

270

November 2021

R SYSTEMS

WRITTEN BY: TOM SWALLOW PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO

technologymagazine.com

271

R SYSTEMS

Hiren Kotak R-Systems

272

November 2021

R SYSTEMS

A

Hiren Kotak, Global Head of Automation Intelligence, explains how businesses can leverage well-designed and wellexecuted process automation services

s a global digital and automation service provider, R Systems is committed to generating value for its clients through technological innovation and collaboration with leading platform providers.

Bringing advisory services and offering implementation support to industries, the company prides itself on enabling client success with a prominent focus on strong planning and execution, utilising industry best practices, and leveraging accelerators.

Founded in 1993, R Systems manages operations spanning 25 different offices and 16 delivery centres across the globe. Since its establishment, the firm has witnessed some of the key stages in the lead up to digital transformation—from the introduction of Java, Facebook, and Google mail to the beginning of the digital transformation era.

The latest business model sees the company leveraging the leading artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) platforms from world-renowned leaders, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.

“We don’t develop a new product, we work with Google, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and many other AI/ML and robotic process automation (RPA) tools and platforms and develop custom-built solutions to solve for business opportunities and problems that our customers have,” says Hiren Kotak, Vice President and Global Head of Intelligent Automation Practice.

R Systems has benefitted significantly from Kotak’s position, which primarily involves the development of full-spectrum intelligent

automation practice along with his efforts in planning the firm’s go-to-market strategy.

Kotak also works with clients to establish their goals, develop automation strategies, and design suitable solutions that “leverage the best tools in the market” while tailoring those solutions to the individual needs of its clients. Another critical part of his role at the company is to ensure the successful delivery of its advisory engagements and implementation projects and manage the firm’s global network of delivery centres and talent within them.

“We figure out which tools would provide maximum ROI for the customer through the newly constructed digital workforce,” explains Kotak. “We configure and train those digital workers using the low-code, no-code tools that mimic human actions and enable them to execute processes much faster, and without any human errors.”

Industry applications of intelligent automation While discussing the application of intelligent automation, Kotak’s passion for providing solutions and his industry experience shines through his explanation of the company’s customer-centric outlook. He also provides examples of how AI and machine learning have become more versatile in their applications, as he explains some of R Systems’ supporting roles in industry transitions to intelligent automation.

“We work in all industries but the majority of it is for the healthcare industry and financial services,” says Kotak. “In the healthcare technologymagazine.com

273

R SYSTEMS

Dr. Samiksha Mishra speaks about R Systems’ visionary AI technologies and progressive work culture Title of the video

“In the healthcare industry, a simple thing like billing has become a huge monster”

industry, a simple thing claim is submitted, it’s not like billing has become a a simple process to obtain very complex process— the payment. There are especially in the US. It often questions, denials was estimated that we and appeals. There are spend almost 10% of various things that a the overall amount of provider needs to do to healthcare dollars in the receive the payment,” administrative processes, he explains. “All of this HIREN KOTAK and the majority of involves interdependent VICE PRESIDENT AND GLOBAL HEAD OF that is associated with tasks that we have now INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION PRACTICE, the billing process, successfully automated R-SYSTEMS and related insurance for our clients.” verification and claims.”

Meanwhile, in the financial sector, He also explains that many critical the same business model applies. In any procedures—such as patient insurance regulation intensive industry, like banking, eligibility checks, advanced authorisation there is a high number of menial tasks that of treatments, identifying post-treatment consume a significant amount of time. billing codes, denial management, and claim Alleviating the manual input—or at least settlements are currently fulfilled manually most of it—can provide significant efficiency in many healthcare provider organisations. gains and cost savings.

“60 to 80% of that is done manually today Kotak says that “in the traditional with most healthcare providers. After the banking environment, the account opening 274

November 2021

R SYSTEMS

processes, account servicing processes, and many of the front-end processes, as well as the back end or back-office processes, are manual because the way the banking services are grouped—for each different product like credit cards or checking accounts and savings accounts, or investment accounts or loan accounts— there are different systems, and different operational groups. To provide a seamless customer experience, you need to integrate all of them, which becomes a tremendously difficult task.”

The solution to optimising day-to-day tasks lies in the development of AI-powered digital workers—effectively virtual employees—that manage the repetitive tasks that would otherwise be carried out by personnel. The ability to pass on these tasks to an automated digital worker creates productivity and cost savings while freeing up members of staff for other critical business activities.

“With this new technology, we can provide them with solutions where there is less of the manual work, less of the repetitive, data entry type of work. It provides more accuracy and stronger regulatory compliance for our banking customers,” he says.

TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT AND GLOBAL HEAD OF INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION PRACTICE INDUSTRY: AI & INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION LOCATION: UNITED STATES Hiren leads R Systems’ Global Intelligent Automation practice. He is a versatile leader with a proven track record of delivering substantial business value for over 25 years through information-based strategy and structured execution of technology initiatives. As a resultdriven business leader and a catalyst for change, he has delivered global-scale digital transformation for some of the Fortune 500 companies. Hiren has worked with multiple client executives to develop and implement their automation strategies and drive efficient growth in their organisations.

EXECUTIVE BIO

Strengthening the transition to autonomy The adoption of technology for business practices is becoming commonplace across many industries, however, as expected with any technology innovation, many businesses remain uncertain about implementing new tools before witnessing the benefits. After all, manual processes have been utilised since the beginning of time, making it somewhat unnerving for leaders to entrust their business practices to a digital solution, in which they possess minimal knowledge and experience. R Systems supports its clients

HIREN KOTAK

R SYSTEMS

Keep the future and your business on the same page.

Transform your business with seamless, customized turnkey solutions on Process Intelligence, Automation and Conversational AI. From creating process visualization to driving operational efficiencies, Ennuviz will give your business the edge. Be future-ready the Ennuviz way.

Learn more

Twitter

Facebook

Linkedin

R SYSTEMS

throughout the entire process – starting with education, and then identifying automation opportunities, developing strategy and roadmap, setting up governance and operating model, developing software robots, training the staff—followed by continuous analysis and improvement to further optimise the benefits of intelligent automation.

“Obviously with any new technology and any new tools that come into the market, initially there is a lot of scepticism and anxiety around data security and the risk associated

“ With any new technology and any new tools that come into the market, initially there is a lot of scepticism and anxiety around standard security and the risk associated with that” HIREN KOTAK

VICE PRESIDENT AND GLOBAL HEAD OF INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION PRACTICE, R-SYSTEMS

with that. So, we spend a lot of time explaining to our clients, especially their info security, risk management and compliance departments, talking about what the technology does, how it works, how it processes data, where the data is stored, how audit logs are created—in the on-prem solution, as well as with the cloud solution,” Kotak adds.

R Systems’ customer-centric approach ensures client satisfaction and enables repeat business. “We not only provide advisory services or consulting services, but we are also implementation partners. To deliver what we promise, and we promise, what we can deliver,” says Kotak.

“Most of our clients are long-term clients and we have been very fortunate with the kind of quality and delivery that our team has been able to provide. We continue to expand our business with existing clients, not only for maintenance and support services, but we continuously work with various departments enterprise-wide to help them automate different parts of the business,” says Kotak.

Expanding upon great technological triumphs R Systems does not attempt to ‘reinvent the wheel’. The company leverages the technology provided by the companies like AWS, Google, Salesforce, Dell, and Microsoft, as well as other industry-leading providers of process mining, conversational AI, and other low-code, no-code tools. Kotak expresses the benefits of its strong relationships with these tech giants, and how R Systems leverages its research and development capabilities to create a foundation for its offering.

“They bring tons of value. With their deep pockets and the access to the amount of information and data that they have, they’re able to do a lot of the R&D utilising great talents across many continents. In recent technologymagazine.com

277

R SYSTEMS

years, they have made tremendous progress in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning algorithms, speech-to-text and text-to-speech, OCR and computer vision, natural language processing, as well as natural language understanding and generation. These tools and these foundational pieces that they are building are instrumental to our success.”

He specifically highlights some of the benefits of working with its key strategic partners, Ennuviz—another intelligence innovator that specialises in intelligent process automation—and Covalense— certified by some of the top development companies in the industry. One of the most important messages in this discussion is that there is no single company that can provide all business solutions, and collaborative

Covalense Collaborate. Innovate. Accelerate

in Artificial Intelligence & Intelligent Automation

­ ­

278

November 2021

R SYSTEMS

Enable end-to-end automation with RPA, Process Mining and AI

“ All of this interdependent complexity requires a lot of manual effort and we have successfully automated this for our clients” HIREN KOTAK

VICE PRESIDENT AND GLOBAL HEAD OF INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION PRACTICE, R-SYSTEMS

efforts with companies like Covalense and Ennuviz open up doors to new digital transformation capabilities. In the digital world, it is very critical to have the right type of digital eco-system built around you, because you can’t do everything by yourself and you can’t be the best at doing everything by yourself,” says Kotak.

“So, in partnership with Ennuviz, we have been able to extend our services for process mining, task mining and automation opportunity discovery. They are experts in Celonis and Signavio and many other tools related to process mining, and we leverage their services often in the North American market,” Kotak explains.

The strategic partnership with Covalense has provided further technical support that has encouraged access to markets in the Asia Pacific region. “With Covelanse, again, we have leveraged their services in robotic process automation and Conversational AI, primarily in the Asian market. They have a strong presence in APAC—Australia, New Zealand, etc. So, as we expand our footprint in those areas, we are leveraging their capacity and partnering with them to meet the needs of local clients.”

The overarching aim of R Systems’ customer-centric strategy is to educate technologymagazine.com

279

R SYSTEMS

business clients on the benefits of digital transformation and encourage the adoption of automated systems.

Promoting the importance of the valuebased framework, the company can focus on automation-as-a-service and build long-term client relationships.

“We have a very robust value delivery framework that helps us identify the needs of our clients and understand their implicit and explicit needs. Through our knowledge of the clients’ industries, we help our clients stay more competitive in their respective industry by providing differentiated, value-added services to their end-users,” says Kotak.

280

November 2021

R SYSTEMS

Continued success in unprecedented circumstances The onset of the coronavirus pandemic has further emphasised the case for digital transformation and automation.

With continued demand for technology services, R Systems has sustained its growth throughout the pandemic and is targeting to maintain or even accelerate the growth post-COVID. Kotak says, “We continue to grow pretty fast. During COVID we saw a lot of need for automation services, and we have benefitted from that continuous demand. For my practice specifically, we have achieved a lot this year for setting a stronger foundation for the practice. It included kicking off our

“We have a very robust value delivery framework that helps us identify the needs of our clients and understand their implicit and explicit needs” HIREN KOTAK

VICE PRESIDENT AND GLOBAL HEAD OF INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION PRACTICE, R-SYSTEMS

automation delivery centres in Europe and Asia, establishing a stronger presence in North America, as well adding offerings like process mining, conversational AI and other cognitive automation capabilities.”

“We have seen almost eight times growth this year, compared to last year, and we are tracking exponential growth going forward,” says Kotak.

technologymagazine.com

281

HIGH SEAS,HIGH TECH AND HIGH LEVELS OF SUSTAINABILITY WRITTEN BY: JOHN PINCHING

282

November 2021

PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

ORANGE MARINE

technologymagazine.com

283

ORANGE MARINE

Orange Marine uses a fleet of sophisticated ships to install global cable networks, galvanise the future of communications and uphold sustainability as it navigates the ocean.

I

n the modern world, making a video call is becoming second nature.

But how often do we consider how ‘the magic’ actually happens – how someone in a kitchen in North London can see, and talk to, someone in a Brisbane basement? The truth is – we don’t (generally speaking).

Many would guess that it’s something ‘in the air’. In truth, almost every call, WhatsApp message and video conference relies on submarine cable installed by Orange Marine. To put it into context, this is manmade cable, laid at the very bottom of the seabed; a very real, tactile operation carried out by a crew of men and women navigating

the high seas. Amid the digitisation of our world it is a refreshing reminder that ‘actual’ things are still happening!

Didier Dillard, Orange Marine’s CEO, is a veteran of submarine telecommunications and has been in the industry – fulfilling various other roles – for several decades.

“It is important to note that, materially, submarine cable doesn't have a significant environmental footprint”

284

November 2021

DIDIER DILLARD

CEO, ORANGE MARINE

ORANGE MARINE

Consequently, the sea is in his blood and the installation of cable has become a way of life – a way of life that has been significantly altered by the era of sustainability and the myriad responsibilities that come with it. Especially in an all-encompassing international cable laying operation.

“Firstly, it is important to note that, materially, submarine cable doesn't actually have a significant environmental footprint,” reflects Didier. “These cables are designed to last at least 25 years. They are robust, efficient, don't melt and, at the end of their operational usage, we can easily recover them. So, the cable by itself is already environmentally friendly.”

technologymagazine.com

285

286

November 2021

ORANGE MARINE

DIDIER DILLARD TITLE: CEO COMPANY: ORANGE MARINE INDUSTRY: CABLE INSTALLATION & REPAIR

“ These cables are designed to last at least 25 years.

They are robust, efficient, don't melt and, at the end of their operational usage, we can easily recover them. So, the cable by itself is already environmentally friendly” DIDIER DILLARD

CEO, ORANGE MARINE

EXECUTIVE BIO

Creating a global network Although cables have impressive longevity, cable installation and cable repairs need vessels and these impressive nautical creations require fuel – for the time being, it’s an occupational reality. At Orange Marine, however, the company has a strategy to make the running of its fleet as sustainable as humanly possible.

Didier says: “We have made sure that we use low-sulphur fuel, while also

Didier Dillard is an experienced executive in the telecom industry, who spent most of his career within the Orange group, formerly known as France Telecom and several years in the wholesale team of the American operator Sprint. He started his career in France Telecom submarine cable division moving from project manager for new systems, engineer in charge of installation projects onboard cable ships and finally director of marine operations.

He held then several management positions in marketing, commercial and regulatory affairs in New York, Kansas City and Paris.

He was appointed President of FT Marine SAS (commercial name : Orange Marine) and President of Elettra Tlc on January 2018. Orange Marine and Elettra are subsidiaries of the Orange group dedicated to installation and maintenance of submarine cables through their own fleet of cable ships.

Didier Dillard graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), he holds a MS in Telecommunications Engineering and a MBA from Columbia University (New York).

ORANGE MARINE

“ We strive to be at the forefront of all regulation in relation to waste waters and oils. Ultimately, we always need to have the best equipment – that's something we are constantly aspiring to” DIDIER DILLARD

CEO, ORANGE MARINE

288

November 2021

incorporating hybrid engines, which means our fuel is used only to produce electricity.

We try to optimise the exact number of engines that are necessary at any given point.

In terms of sustainability, we strive to be at the forefront of all regulation in relation to waste waters and oils. Ultimately, we always need to have the best equipment – that's something we are constantly aspiring to.”

Orange Marines fleet of cable ships are specifically produced to do the job of installing or repairing submarine cables.

They are uniquely robust vessels capable of navigating oceans throughout the world, even in the most adverse weather conditions. The shorter maintenance vessels are constantly on call, ready to intervene in case of cable breakage, while the longer,

ORANGE MARINE

highly sophisticated installation vessels are between 100 metres and 140 metres long.

“To give an example,” enthuses Didier.

“Our ‘René Descartes’ installation vessel is capable of laying a huge network of cable in one load. It means that it can carry upto 8,000 kilometres of cable onboard in a single operation. This vessel is currently in the middle of the Pacific, laying another transpacific cable.”

The mighty installation vessels also uphold efficiency by towing sea ploughs. This is the powerful equipment that is used to meticulously bury the cable in the often rock-hard seabed.

It is a difficult job which is undertaken methodically and, if necessary, trenches are dug to depths of two or three metres in order to accommodate the cable.

technologymagazine.com

289

Colombo Dockyard PLC “An odyssey of Excellence” Colombo Dockyard PLC (CDPLC) established its operations in 1974 and at present operates as Sri Lanka’s largest engineering facility leading in the business of ship repairs, shipbuilding, heavy engineering and offshore engineering operating in joint collaboration with Onomichi Dockyard Company Ltd of Japan.

Since 1974 CDPLC has been setting the standard in modern shipbuilding.

Its formative years were spent building the company’s reputation by serving the local requirements and the needs of neighbouring countries such as Maldives and Myanmar.

CDPLC subsequently became a force in the country’s shipbuilding industry and in 1993 the company formed a collaboration with the Onomichi Dockyard Company of Japan. Chairman, Hideaki Tanaka, explains: “The partnership enabled us to emerge as the most reliable, flexible, truly world-class shipbuilder in South Asia, capable of offering Japanese quality at a competitive South Asian price.”

As the era of climate change emerged the company formed a strategy to build more complex vessels such as cable layers and eco-friendly vessels using hybrid technology (which can be classified as ‘green ships’), especially targeting the European market.

D. V. Abeysinghe, the company’s Managing Director/CEO, reflects: “The challenges of the last decade have resulted in a much greater emphasis on employee skills, engineering knowledge, design management capabilities and internal quality management systems, together with safety and environment compliance.”

Ship shape

The current landmark project with Orange Marine has witnessed the company venture once again into the cable-laying market and

will see it produce this cable ship specially designed for the maintenance of both fiber optic telecommunication and inter-array power cables used in wind farms.

With the delivery of the Orange Marine vessel, CDPLC will be a leading yard in the world having delivered two sophisticated cable laying/ repair vessels within a short span of five years.

Over the last few decades the company has also been dynamically future-proofing by continuously transferring technical and practical knowledge to the younger generation. Mr Tanaka says: “We are very optimistic about the years ahead as we target the European market.”

We have the edge over other far eastern shipyards as we are in close proximity to the European market and are well experienced in transforming European ship designs in to a reality through our master craftmanship.

It certainly is a great time for CDPLC as it ambitiously navigates the high seas into a positive, sustainable future. As Mr Abeysinghe says: “It’s a pleasure to see the brand name ‘built by Colombo Dockyard, Sri Lanka’ sailing off to traverse the world seas.”

LEARN MORE

1999

FCR became a 100% subsidiary of Orange Group

250+

Number of employees

230K+ km

of fibre optic submarine cables in all oceans

15%

of the world cable vessel fleet

7

Number of ships operated, including one dedicated to survey

670

Intercontinental- line repairs over the past 15 years including repairs at 6,000 meters deep

292

November 2021

ORANGE MARINE

“When you commission a new ship there is a full range of tests, including at sea, where you need to ensure that all the specifications are met ” DIDIER DILLARD

CEO, ORANGE MARINE

Ships shaping a sustainable future Orange Marine is currently overseeing the most ambitious ship build in its history and many of the new features being rolled out are testament to the company’s focus on low carbon output and investment in longterm sustainability across all its operations.

“When you commission a new ship there is a full range of tests, including at sea, where you need to ensure that all the specifications are met,” Didier explains. “There are not many cable vessel builders around the world, so we have selected a shipyard with vast experience.”

The partnership with the designers has been essential to the construction of a trailblazing vessel, as Didier notes: “We spent a lot of time with the shipyard trying to find the best way to optimise fuel consumption, CO2 emissions and overall performance. The ship also requires an ability to operate everywhere in the world.”

“In order to refuel effectively and efficiently we have two locations in France – one in Brest and the other on the coast of the Mediterranean. In both cases, they are equipped with shore power, which means that the vessels get electricity directly from the bases, not from their engines,” he adds. technologymagazine.com

293

ORANGE MARINE

Orange Marine: High seas, high tech and high levels of sustainability

Culture shift as industry evolves Cable laying is an old industry negotiating (quite literally) a rapidly transforming world. While system, operation and hardware upgrades have been essential, there has also been a 294

November 2021

need to change mindsets in terms of climate change.

Rebooting belief systems has fundamentally transformed companies, making every individual think differently about the environment in which they work.

Didier is convinced that there has been a very positive cultural shift at Orange Marine and throughout the industry.

“There are already protected areas in the seabeds, so, when you design a route for a new cable, you need to get permission from the local authorities. We now have constraints linked to biodiversity and marine life that were not significant 20 years ago.”

ORANGE MARINE

“We recently complied with some very strict restrictions in terms of when and where we could install cable in French Guiana and French West Indies. These regulations were in place specifically to avoid turtle nesting season, and that gives you an idea of where the industry is going.”

Beyond changing policy, Orange Marine invites onboard sea mammal observers to accompany their operations, presenting them with opportunities to witness animal behaviour across the world’s oceans. The company is also involved with the ‘Argos system’, which deploys and collects

data from the sea's temperature. It is an initiative that the company is not obliged to participate in, but does demonstrate an expansive dedication to improving the environment.

“We are happy to do it whenever we can,” insists Didier. “It’s a new and

“There are not many cable vessel builders around the world, so we have selected a shipyard with vast experience” DIDIER DILLARD

CEO, ORANGE MARINE

technologymagazine.com

295

ORANGE MARINE

“ I really like this compelling combination of new technologies and traditional onboard operations. You will always need to have seafarers capable of handling the cable, cutting it, joining it and manipulating it” DIDIER DILLARD

CEO, ORANGE MARINE

increasingly visible dimension within our activity. At Orange Marine we are always trying to find new ideas or new things that have a positive impact on society.”

Igniting communication through cable Submarine cables form the critical network that maintain personal and professional relationships – they hold families together, while enabling the international corporate infrastructure to flourish when – 25 years ago – it wouldn’t have been possible.

“You cannot use the internet now without submarines, either for professional or personal usage. It's just impossible,” Didier points out. “And it’s physical stuff. I really like this compelling combination of new technologies and traditional onboard operations. You will always need to have seafarers capable of handling the cable, cutting it, joining it and manipulating it.”

“It is the same type of skill that would have been used more than a century before. It's not only software or artificial intelligence that holds the key to sustainability. You need to have real people,” he adds.

The international pandemic has brought the role of submarine cable networks into the sharpest of focus – video conferences 296

November 2021

ORANGE MARINE

technologymagazine.com

297

ORANGE MARINE

298

November 2021

ORANGE MARINE

“It is the same type of skill that would have been used more than a century before. It's not only software or artificial intelligence that holds the key to sustainability. You need to have real people” DIDIER DILLARD

CEO, ORANGE MARINE

have become the fabric of our lives and, consequently, millions of miles of travelling have been taken out of the equation. The crisis has actually demonstrated what is possible by using remote technology.

“Most of the video meetings that have taken place globally have used submarine cable,” says Didier. “It enabled the world to continue to work, even if people stayed at home without commuting. By maintaining communications between continents; between countries and between islands, I think that we've become a pivotal part of the solution.”

In the past 18 months it has become obvious that submarine cables are a critical asset for all countries and the entire world.

Even small islands now receive their connectivity through submarine cables.

A prime example is Saint Helena – in the middle of the Atlantic – which has been connected by Orange Marine in the last couple of months.

There are several notable tech companies that also know the vital importance of submarine cables, especially when it comes to economics and rapid responses.

“Our industry has had huge investment from Google, Amazon and Facebook. It's interesting to hold discussions with these companies because they keep telling us that

they will require many more cables in the future,” says Didier.

“When you add up these big players with the wider needs of the global community and the all-encompassing appetite for telecommunications, our industry’s future is in good health.”

In many ways, Orange Marine has enabled the future to be brought forward, but it couldn’t have come to fruition without the craftsmanship and toil of human beings on the high seas. And in a world of digitisation it is satisfying to know that humanity is still taking centre stage.

technologymagazine.com

299

TEMENOS

300

November 2021

TEMENOS

BANKING FOR THE DIGITAL AGE IS ALL

ABOUT COLLABORATION -

AND THE

WRITTEN BY: SIMON HOWSON-GREEN

CLOUD PRODUCED BY: BEN MALTBY

technologymagazine.com

301

TEMENOS

Jean-Paul Mergeai of the banking software company, Temenos explains how its open cloud banking platform is levelling the playing field and creating room for the disruptor upstarts as well as the incumbent banks to digitally transform and innovate.

J

ean-Paul Mergeai and his team at the banking software business, Temenos are on a mission to re-invent the industry for the digital age. He says change is not only inevitable - it is vital.

According to JP - as he’s known at Temenos and across the industry - banking is reaching a crunch point. “I think the banking industry - all the banks - have this once in a generation opportunity to digitally transform,’ he says… and they squander it at their peril.”

JP’s official title is President of International Sales at Temenos with a brief to look after growth across most of the planet including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region.

He says the more well-established banks are in no place to be complacent. Why? Because they are riddled with legacy systems, chunks of aged software all ‘glued’ together and in danger of coming apart at the seams.

He likens - as do many at Temenos - the old ways of banking and the challenges they bring with them to a busy but somewhat disorganised and steamy restaurant kitchen.

‘Banks’ legacy systems are like layers of spaghetti on top of lasagne. This complexity is actually holding them back, they cannot continue like that. Imagine that most of these banking systems were built in the sixties and are very expensive to maintain.

302

November 2021

TEMENOS

technologymagazine.com

303

TEMENOS

Title of the video

‘So, at present, about 70% of most banks’ I.T. budgets are dedicated to maintaining their legacy systems. In other words, that’s money spent on keeping old systems running rather than innovating and providing a better experience for their customers.’

JP says this cumbersome approach means these banks struggle to compete with new entrants into the banking space such as FinTech. They are simply unable to launch and manage new products fast enough.

However, JP argues that the bigger, established banks remain extremely well placed to win in the long term as they have consumer trust on their side and the volume of customers.

JP says the key to success is being willing to embrace the challenge of ‘digital transformation’ where banks are harnessing new technologies to develop far more agile, straight through, automated processes to make significant efficiency gains and provide an enhanced experience to their customers.

304

November 2021

‘This next generation of core banking platforms - built for the cloud - can deliver complex functionalities 20 times faster and significantly reduce cost of operations to about 10% of legacy systems.’

According to JP investing in digitalisation AI and cloud technology is a no-brainer for the banking businesses who want to survive and those who want to get into the market. ‘They will all need cloud and artificial intelligence technology to succeed,’ he says.

ROOM FOR ALL So, if a battle has commenced and the challenger upstart start-ups, with their nimble agility and brand spanking new software can take the high ground, where does that leave the more cumbersome ‘dinosaurs’? Are they the doomed old guard? Are they finished? Or are they even close to extinction?

TEMENOS

Temenos believes there is room for all in the new banking landscape. This is good for Temenos as it supplies banking solutions to customers of all shapes, sizes, banks, including established tier-1 players, challengers, and fintechs.

‘I really think the challenger banks can be profitable,’ says JP. ‘They will be profitable if they have a sound business model, and they are differentiating their offering. If they are trying to do the same as brick-and-mortar banks or traditional banks, then they're not going to succeed. By using modern technology, they can scale massively and achieve hyper-efficient business models. This is also about understanding how they are going to attract loyal customers, retain them and grow.’

JP says the upside of this is a win-win for the banks and those they serve because banks can pass the benefits of their savings to customers.

He estimates in the new banking landscape the cost of servicing customers is a quarter of that it would be in the old traditional banking world.

This is what he sees as the real competitive advantage brought about by embracing AI and the cloud and all the benefits of digitalisation.

JEAN-PAUL MERGEAI

PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL SALES, TEMENOS

TITLE: PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL SALES INDUSTRY: COMPUTER SOFTWARE Dynamic leader with a proven track record of translating business objectives into bottom-line results at international level.

Consistently delivered growth and value by managing sales, marketing and professional services in a wide range of sophisticated financial services and software solutions.

Experienced in prospecting, closing business and managing key accounts in Europe, the Americas and the Middle-East. Skilled at developing and maintaining successful long lasting business relationships with C-Level Execuitves as well as at Trading, Operations, Information Technology and Legal stakeholders.

Diversified team builder with a consultative style and strong interpersonal skills.

Accomplished multi-lingual communicator with superior writing and oral skills.

EXECUTIVE BIO

“70 PERCENT OF MOST BANKS’ I.T. BUDGETS ARE DEDICATED TO MAINTAINING THEIR LEGACY SYSTEMS RATHER THAN ON INNOVATING AND PROVIDING A BETTER EXPERIENCE FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS”

JEAN-PAUL MERGEAI

TEMENOS

Digitally transform banking on your terms with a smarter cloud

Only Google Cloud gives you the flexibility to modernize and securely run your Temenos applications at scale anywhere - in your data centers, in the cloud or across multiple public clouds - all with simple, unified management.

Learn more

TEMENOS

‘Temenos serves more than seventy challenger banks all over the world: in North America and Latin America in Australia in Asia and Europe.

“The traditional banks are looking very actively at transformation and are using our technology to do so, and then the challenger banks and the digital banks have really sent a massive wake-up call to the banking industry, and I think it's for the greater good.”

JP cites the work Temenos is doing with challenger banks such as Alpian and FlowBank, two new Swiss-based services, and Virgin Money in Australia and he focuses on the Italian bank, Flowe to highlight how Temenos can provide solutions across the board.

“THE TEMENOS BANKING CLOUD PROVIDES OUR CUSTOMERS WITH INSTANT ACCESS TO COMPLETE BANKING SERVICES, A ‘SANDBOX’ TO DEVELOP AND TEST NEW APPLICATIONS AND AN ECOSYSTEM OF PRE-INTEGRATED FINTECH SOLUTIONS” JEAN-PAUL MERGEAI

PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL SALES, TEMENOS technologymagazine.com

307

TEMENOS

Flowe is the ‘greenfield’ digital bank based in Milan.

“They have built an incredible business model aimed at reaching the younger demographic so they're reaching out to younger people with a sustainable ecofriendly cluster of banking services.”

Temenos helped Flowe go live in just five months - right in the middle of the pandemic. “We have really managed to deliver this project in the most challenging of circumstances,” says JP. “Our input allowed them to scale extremely fast with our SaaS (Software as a Service) technology.” In its first six months of operations, Flowe attracted more than 600,000 customers and it's growing at twice the rate of its nearest competitors, this is a really, really, amazing success.

308

November 2021

“CUSTOMERS ARE SOPHISTICATED…THEY ARE DEMANDING MORE APPROPRIATE AND MORE PERSONALIZED SERVICES FROM THEIR BANK. THEY MAY NOT KNOW THE CONCEPT OF CUSTOMER CENTRICITY, BUT THIS IS, IN ESSENCE, WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT” JEAN-PAUL MERGEAI

PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL SALES, TEMENOS

TEMENOS

1993

Year founded

Banking Software

The first time Temenos put a banking customer on the cloud was in 2011. Since then, the company says it’s invested more than $1bn in research and development and collected feedback and information from around 700 clients who have used their SaaS offering. This gathering of data ranges from the Tier 1 banks to those seventy disruptor banks.

Industry

7,500 Number of employees

$981m 2019 revenue

JP sees one of the main drivers in this industry, which is making success possible - especially for the challenger banks is the way they can embrace the cloud and most importantly adopt software as a service.

“Most of the banks we talk to expect to make greater use of cloud technology going forward and literally every request for proposal and request for information we answer includes a big section on operating in the cloud.

“The pandemic that we've been experiencing has very, very visibly and forcibly demonstrated the power of the cloud and software as a service to better and more rapidly support people, businesses, and the economy as a whole.

For us it’s not new, we’ve built up over ten years of cloud leadership.”

HOWDIE PARTNER JP is keen to stress that although Temenos is cloud-agnostic, and its applications will run on a wide range of platforms he is also a huge advocate of partnerships.

‘Strategic relationships are essential in our industry. Take, for example, our partnership with Google Cloud. Banks have the choice of running their Temenos applications, whether it's Infinity or Transact or the Temenos Payments on Google Cloud. The focus of our work with Google Cloud is to deliver our mission-critical software across hybrid and multi-cloud environments and help financial services organizations create profitable business models, and improve and differentiate their customer experiences.’

“Our full suite of banking software and applications is available on Google Cloud, and together we help banks go to market faster, drive scalability, operational efficiency, time-to-market, and innovation.

‘But we have a cloud-agnostic approach, which allows us to run on all the major cloud providers and this enables banks to pursue a multi-cloud strategy. It’s all about flexibility but it's also all about choice when it comes to digital transformation so banks can modernize at their own pace maybe leveraging our Transact product on Google Cloud but then running our other applications through multi-cloud deployments.’ technologymagazine.com

309

TEMENOS

NUMBER OF CHALLENGER BANKS EXPECTED TO ENTER THE MARKET IN 2020/21 (According to this report the global Neo and challenger bank industry was valued at $20.4 billion in 2019, and the market size is projected to reach $471.0 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 48.1% from 2020 to 2027)

THE TEMENOS BANKING CLOUD Jean-Paul Mergeai says he is now busier than ever before with the next generation of Temenos SaaS. This is the Temenos Banking Cloud which is powered by an Explainable AI-engine and enables banks to ‘fast track’ themselves into cloud banking. JP explains: ‘The Temenos Banking Cloud consists of three elements. First, a self-service portal in which you can compose your core banking system based on modular cloud-native building blocks.

310

November 2021

Second, a sandbox environment, where you can develop and test new applications based on the APIs exposed by these building blocks, and third a marketplace of pre-integrated fintech solutions.’

With The Temenos Banking Cloud, banks now have the power to selfprovision always-on banking services and scale instantly and securely while dramatically reducing the cost of operations.

TEMENOS

“MOST OF THE BANKS WE TALK TO EXPECT TO MAKE GREATER USE OF CLOUD TECHNOLOGY GOING FORWARD AND LITERALLY EVERY REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL AND REQUEST FOR INFORMATION WE ANSWER INCLUDES A BIG SECTION ON OPERATING IN THE CLOUD” JEAN-PAUL MERGEAI

PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL SALES, TEMENOS technologymagazine.com

311

TEMENOS

312

November 2021

TEMENOS

Essentially, the Temenos Banking Cloud empower banks to digitally transform and massively scale faster than ever.

JP goes further. It’s not just about accelerating the delivery of value and the speed of access to comprehensive banking services. ‘We also feel very strongly that we are making digital banking more human and more accessible for a wider range of customers.

‘Temenos software can create even more opportunities for its clients to differentiate and fine tune their offering to potential and existing customers.’

So, what does Jean Paul Mergeai think the modern-day banking customer wants from his or her bank?

‘Customers are sophisticated,’ he says.

They are demanding more appropriate and more personalized services from their bank. They may not know the concept of customer-centricity, but this is, in essence, what customers want.

In theory - and in practice - the more information a bank can gather about its customers the better it can serve them.

‘At the very core of customer-centricity there are large amounts of data that banks hold about their customers; every transaction that they ever did, every investment they ever made, every type of merchant they did business with, and all the various types of vendor goods they have consumed.

‘But processing all these points of data would be impossible without big data analytics and artificial intelligence gathering everything in the background.

‘Customers want their banks to simplify their financial lives. They expect banks to understand their life circumstances so they can better help them.’

Four-fifths of banking executives - according to a recent Economist report - believe that the use of AI will be the differentiating factor between winning and losing. This can never be over-stressed says JP. ‘AI gives the ability to banks to crunch more data faster naturally in real-time and learn more about customer behaviour.

There is no real true personalization without it. And that ability to have that personal relationship with the customer is the future.’

technologymagazine.com

313

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND’S DIGITAL JOURNEY WRITTEN BY: CATHERINE GRAY PRODUCED BY: KRIS PALMER

314

November 2021

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

technologymagazine.com

315

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

316

November 2021

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

As The University of Witwatersrand (Wits) continues with its path to digitalisation, its CIO Dr. Stanley Mpofu discusses the obstacles he’s had to navigate to take them there

A

s with many universities across the globe, The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Braamfontein, Johannesburg has had to adapt to navigate challenges brought about by the coronavirus pandemic while simultaneously looking to push forward with its digital transformation.

Established in 1922, the university will soon be celebrating its 100th birthday and is taking the lead in reimagining trendy Braamfontein to further its contribution in delivering high-level scarce skills for the global knowledge economy.

Tasked with creating and driving the University’s digital journey is its Chief Information Officer, Dr Stanley Mpofu.

Mpofu’s knowledge of the University comes from his experiences both as staff but also as a student, now alumni. Speaking of the University, Mpofu shared some of the institution’s values: “We have five different faculties with support areas, with academics, with support people, and with students. So in such a situation, collegiality becomes very critical, but also it is a university that is quite visionary in terms of how it wants to project itself for the future.”

In his role, Mpofu looks to take the University on its digital journey and support both staff and students as they transition into the new digital world. Supported by his colleagues, Mpofu explained the vicechancellor, Zeblon Vilakazi, has views that align with his own: “It makes me very comfortable in a university where the vicetechnologymagazine.com

317

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

1922

Year Founded

Education Industry

45,000

Number of Employees

“ Our university has always been progressive. In 2018, I presented a digital proposal for smart classrooms at Wits university” DR STANLEY MPOFU

CIO, UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND

318

November 2021

chancellor looks at technology as core to what the university needs to do.

“As a top university being at the top is something that is cherished. The operations must be of a high standard in order for the throughput of students, the researchers, and the lecturers to have the comfort to produce good results that keep us competitive as an institution,” he continued.

Creating a digital proposal for success Although it goes without saying that Wits had many challenges to overcome as the world went into lockdown, as a university previously dedicated to its digital journey, Wits already had some strategies in place which supported its transition to remote learning.

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

DR STANLEY MPOFU TITLE: CIO LOCATION: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

EXECUTIVE BIO

Mpofu said concerning this: “Our university has always been progressive.

In 2018, I presented a digital proposal for smart classrooms at Wits university. It was approved at the beginning of 2018 and by 2019, we had implemented three smart classrooms in the west campus, east campus, and the management school.

Which meant that online courses had already been introduced.”

With this strategy already in place to support students who struggled to get to campus for various reasons, Wits were prepared for the unexpected transition to remote learning: “We were the first university in South Africa, if not Africa, that was able to continue with lessons as if nothing had changed,” explained Mpofu.

Dr Stanley Mpofu (an alumni of the University of the Witwatersrand) is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the University. He is a disciplined, influential, ethical, and a visionary IT executive with a proven track record of excellent delivery in his 27-year career.

Dr. Mpofu copes very well in a difficult terrain and in situations where there are challenges that need solutions. He has proven his abilities when it comes to putting structures, processes and delivery at both Eskom Enterprises as well as at Wits University.

technologymagazine.com

319

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

Title of the video

“I would say my leadership style is transformational and strategic” DR STANLEY MPOFU

CIO, UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND

“The only challenge was that we had to buy laptops very quickly. We had to make sure that the poorer students were able to get hold of laptops. And we had to make agreements with the mobile network operators [to give students access to Wi-Fi],” he added.

COVID-19 and the impact on the role of a CIO With its digital strategy in place before the pandemic broke out, Wits was equipped with 320

November 2021

the necessary tools to support its staff and students. Blended learning, and the idea that students can work both online and on-site, was already prevalent in the University prior to the students having to work from home.

Noting some changes as a result of the pandemic, Mpofu explained how his strategies had to become intertwined with the university’s on-line based learning strategy.

“With the smart classrooms and blended learning already in place, I also contributed

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

to the academic blended learning organisations and industries when strategy, everything then was it comes to digital transformation. aligned before we went into Wits is no exception and Mpofu More than lockdown,” said Mpofu. explained: “From an IT perspective, Mpofu also noted the change he it helped us to make sure that of Wits’ research saw in his own role and the change there was an acceleration in the is published in accredited in others’ attitudes surrounding digital route. Right now no one is international the role of a CIO: “People actually talking about going back to fulljournals began to realise the importance of time, face-to-face learning. It's now ICT. IT is actually a very critical component acknowledged that if meetings and learning of the academic learning process going can happen when people are not necessarily forward because the future is driven by face-to-face. We just need to innovate the technological advancements.” rest of the activities.”

Now, Mpofu is looking at innovative ways Lockdown accelerating the shift to allow for things more challenging to be towards a digitalised future digitalised, such as practical examinations Despite the challenges and hardships and experiments. Once these are digitalised most have experienced with the COVID-19 it’s not essential for students to physically pandemic, it has acted as a catalyst in many attend the university.

85%

technologymagazine.com

321

Start your digital transformation with Canvas The leading learning management platform that enables better teaching and learning experiences.

LEARN MORE

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

“ I'm very visionary.

I'm always thinking about what I should do better”

Supporting Wits’ digital future with more strategies and app development Understanding the importance of his role to the success of Wits, Mpofu, on top of his work transitioning learning online, has been putting in place other strategies to support the university’s transition to digitalisation.

Wits now has unified comms along with DR STANLEY MPOFU mobile applications that Mpofu has helped CIO, UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND develop to improve the day-to-day running of the university. These apps help staff and students to complete health and safety Harnessing cloud services questionnaires about COVID-19 to ensure that to avoid IT disaster it is safe to return to the university buildings.

Mpofu’s plan to adopt cloud technologies There is also an app for students which to support its learning management system they can use to ask for assistance, report and data storage is crucial to the university. something or find resources.

Utilising Amazon Web Services Along with his cyber security (AWS) and Microsoft Azure’s cloud strategy, all of these technologytechnology, Mpofu explained: “I had a Wits University enabled solutions Mpofu has pushed big project idea of putting the learning produces more millionaires for at Wits “are being developed to management system on the cloud than any other make sure that [the University] is by the time the semester started. university in equipped for a digital future.”

South Africa.

On one side I was dealing with the technologymagazine.com

323

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

lockdown and on the other side, I had this huge project, which I worked with alongside AWS. We were able to put everything on the cloud on time, which was very critical.”

It was essential that Mpofu adopted these cloud technologies due to electrical shortages and cutouts in South Africa which had the potential to cause big problems for Mpofu and his team.

These shortages can result in both staff and students losing files. A particular concern as the university has adopted a blended learning strategy. This risk is reduced with the introduction of cloud platforms for storing data and files.

Working with Instructure for a streamlined learning experience Highlighting the busy, ever-changing aspect of Mpofu’s role is yet another example of how technology has enabled the university to become more digitalised. Wits sought the help of software company, Instructure, which has developed the online learning management system, Canvas.

“We were working with academics to find the ideal learning management system for the future because the university had so many different models and we wanted one learning management system,” said Mpofu.

“A committee was set up and we came up with the solution that we should go for Canvas. We were able to roll out the system at the start of this year before the students started,” he continued.

Happy with the software provided, Mpofu explained that the team were always quick to respond to any issues the University had with Canvas: “With IT, it's the speed of delivery that is critical because when something is not working, it can affect quite a lot of things down the line.”

324

November 2021

“ I'm sure in the next 50 years universities are not going to be the same” DR STANLEY MPOFU

CIO, UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND

THE UNIVERSITY OF WITWATERSRAND

The transition to a completely digital university Having described his leadership style as “transformational,” “strategic” and “visionary,” it comes as no surprise that Mpofu has ambitious plans for the digitalised future of the University.

“I want my university to be a digital university. I want to get to a stage where everything is paperless and exams are done online. I want to get to a situation where students do not need to be inside the university to get things done, everything could be done online,” said Mpofu.

Expanding on his drive to become a wholly digital university, Mpofu explained he hoped that one day the university’s intake capacity would not be restricted by the capacity of the university’s buildings.

Instead, he hopes, through technological innovation, the university will be able to offer places to students regardless of their location, with the option to work completely remotely from other countries, even continents.

Shedding light on the multitude of benefits this could bring, Mpofu said: “ I also look at that as something that will bring more income. And when I think of a digital university, I'm thinking we may not even need residents as they have access from wherever they are. So I'll save costs on building and I will save costs on security to look after the students and save costs on people that have to go and clean the university residents buildings.”

What is clear, through his visionary plans and innovative thinking, Mpofu is set to and will continue to, digitally transform The University of Witwatersrand.

Mpofu himself says how different he hopes universities will become in the future: “My digital university is a totally different model from the current model and I'm sure in the next 50 years universities are not going to be the same.”

technologymagazine.com

325

TM FORUM

DRIVING DIVERSITY AND

INCLUSION WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE PRODUCED BY: STUART IRVING

326

November 2021

TM FORUM

technologymagazine.com

327

TM FORUM

The world’s first industry standard for D&I in the workplace is the aim of the TM Forum, the D&I Council including Colt, stand together to inspire change

D

Vicky Sleight (right) and Keri Gilder (left) at the Technology, AI & Cyber Live event

328

November 2021

iverse companies perform better, hire better talent, have more engaged employees, and retain workers better than companies that do not focus on diversity and inclusion.

Vicky Sleight, Global Director, Human Factor Diversity and Inclusion Council, with TM Forum, is not surprised by the findings from consultants McKinsey as she is inspiring change within the telecommunications industry alongside Keri Gilder, CEO of Colt Technology Services, who is a firm believer in the power of connectivity and the chair of the TMF Diversity & Inclusion Council.

TM Forum, one of the world’s largest industry associations representing the interests of the technology and telco sectors, is collaborating with the TM Forum D&I Council to create the first industry standard for diversity and inclusion (D&I) within the industry.

“We are working to help make the tech communications industry succeed in being the most diverse, equal, and inclusive industry in the world,” said Sleight who leads the global industry collaboration and Executive Advisory Board for Diversity and Inclusion.

TMFORUM

technologymagazine.com

329

TM FORUM

TM Forum: Driving Title ofdiversity the videoand inclusion

Keri Gilder, CEO, Colt, is leading a global collaboration project focused on making the telecommunications industry the most diverse and inclusive industry in order to help accelerate transformation of the industry and underpin its continued success in the digital economy.

“We wanted to work with the D&I Council to achieve the bold ambition of how we make real change happen,” said Sleight who pointed out they are also focusing on this goal alongside the founding members of the advisory board which includes Accenture, Accedian, Amdocs, Bain & Company, BT, Colt, Ciena, Deutsche Telekom, Nokia, Rostelecom and Verizon.

TM Forum is hoping the Inclusion and Diversity Score (IDS) will improve diversity both within technology and eventually across all industries. This work is part of ‘The Human Factor’, one of the alliance’s six key areas of focus. TM Forum is made up of 850+ global companies working together to break down 330

November 2021

“ We are working to help make the tech communications industry succeed in being the most diverse, equal and inclusive industry in the world” VICKY SLEIGHT

GLOBAL DIRECTOR TM FORUM

technology and cultural barriers between digital service providers, technology suppliers, consultancies, and systems integrators.

TM Forum’s collaboration with Colt Technology Services Gilder, who became CEO of Colt in May 2020, is not only leading the company’s Diversity Council, to ensure Colt is a business where “everyone feels they can bring their true selves to work”, but was appointed chair of TM Forum’s Diversity and Inclusion Council where she works alongside Sleight.

TM FORUM

5

VICKY SLEIGHT TITLE: GLOBAL DIRECTOR, HUMAN FACTOR, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION COMPANY: TM FORUM

EXECUTIVE BIO

Her appointment at Colt neatly coincided with her D&I role at TM Forum as she was recommended for the post via a women’s networking group. “I think this is a good example where women's networks can help as there are senior executives out there that want to make change happen,” said Gilder.

“I was aware change was not happening in the tech and telco industry when it came to D&I and we looked at how to make a real difference. That's how we started to think about the IDS. It is important we start treating D&I like we do the rest of our businesses by using benchmarks and metrics and measuring what truly matters.

“If it continues to be a moral imperative, change will never happen. What it needs to be is as a strategic initiative and central to the business which is what we’ve done at Colt.

We have ideated within the council, to develop a score that is simple, futureready, adaptable, and diverse enough to understand there are cultural nuances and different geographies around the world. We also wanted to ensure a level of adaptability to ensure the score can evolve as we start to mature as an industry,” she said.

A cultural diversity and inclusion executive with 20 years’ experience in the global tech communication’s industry, Sleight is leading, influencing and driving change at the international level in culture change, equality, diversity and inclusion.

At TM Forum, as VP, Human Factor and Diversity and Inclusion, Sleight has built and is leading the global industry collaboration and Executive Advisory Board for Diversity and Inclusion along with the Digital Organisation Transformation & Culture program – the mission to accelerate digital transformation and succeed in the digital economy through ensuring tech communications is the most diverse industry in the world.

women hold the position of CEO in the global telecommunication space

22.1

in every thousand people that have been made redundant during the pandemic have a disability, versus 13 people per thousand with a non-disability (ONS)

60/330

top management positions in telcos are held by women technologymagazine.com

331

TM FORUM

We’ve survived remotely. Now, let’s thrive with hybrid working.

Empower your people to work from anywhere with connectivity from Colt.

Find out more

TM FORUM

KERI GILDER TITLE: CEO COMPANY: COLT TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

EXECUTIVE BIO

Why the Inclusion and Diversity Score (IDS) is important Sleight and Gilder are collaborating to create the first D&I industry standard to measure if a company has an inclusive culture. “Right now, there are no universal and intersectional metrics that help us understand how we are progressing,” said Sleight who points out that while c-level executives recognise the importance of D&I only seven organisations are in the top 100 global benchmarks that are from telecoms according to both Refinitive top 100 D&I list and the FT Top 100.

“Driving the meaningful change, which we're passionate about, not only requires leadership definition and determination, but also evidence and metrics. Without those science-based targets and metric based targets, we won't get anywhere because we don't actually know where we are today.

“We're looking to create an actual industry standard in which we're not just measuring diversity but we're also measuring inclusion and the human sentiment of the employees to understand if a company really has an inclusive culture.

“That’s why we started to work with the TM Forum council members, including Bain & Company, who are one of our major consultants. The pilot's gone well, so far, and we're getting ready for the next stage,” said Sleight.

“This means a lot to TM Forum as we want to create an industry standard so we can understand where we are now and help companies progress on their D&I journey.

We will not just be giving a number back, but a fully detailed score and we will then move on to providing those interventions to help support the company and make that real change happen for them.”

Keri Gilder was appointed Chief Executive Officer at Colt in May 2020. Based in London, Gilder is responsible for executing Colt’s strategy which centres around transforming the way the world works through the power of connectivity.

Previously, Gilder was Colt’s Chief Commercial Officer, leading global teams across sales, presales and marketing, to ensure Colt delivered for its customers.

Before Colt, she held several leadership roles at Ciena; most recently as Vice President and General Manager EMEA. Gilder is passionate about Inclusion and Diversity. She leads Colt’s Diversity Council and is Chair of the TM Forum’s Diversity and Inclusion Council.

technologymagazine.com

333

TM FORUM

Sleight commented on the partnership with Colt and the strong relationship with Gilder saying: “TM Forum and Colt are equally as passionate, but we bring together different experiences. It's diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of perspective.”

D&I in practice at Colt Technology Services Gilder pointed out that having a base of 850 members at TM Forum is critical for understanding best practice and understanding the talent base within the technology and telco sector.

“For me, I can bring the real world example of how this actually is going to get implemented within an organisation.

At Colt we've been able to do this over the last couple of years. We have developed five different employee resource groups, and that's been a start within Colt because now we've moved beyond gender. We're now looking at disability, ethnicity, race and LGBQT. We've moved out into the grander world of diversity and we're starting to develop the HR data in order to provide what's required to have a holistic view.”

Gilder pointed out the first move is collating the data. “The first challenge is getting the data and making sure that what you're looking at provides the insights that are inclusive of the entire Colt community.

“Although we have it, when it comes to gender it has to be self-projected and reported for practically every other diverse metric. As we've started to develop the metric, I've been working with my HR organisation and our employee resource groups to understand how we can get people comfortable with providing the data so that we can have a realistic metric that comes out of the scoring.

334

November 2021

TM FORUM

“We have also looked at what is the easiest way to implement this into the way we measure across our organisation and we've come to the conclusion that over time it will be best incorporated into our employee engagement surveys.”

Gilder said the advantage of using the TM Forum is they are independent so the employees may feel more comfortable divulging personal information. “The TM Forum can help us to obtain the data we need for the IDS because the employee may have more psychological safety by providing that data to a non-employer so there are a lot of benefits.”

She pointed out the TM Forum also helps Colt to build the IT stack, help build

“It is important we start treating D&I like we do the rest of our businesses by using benchmarks and metrics and measuring what truly matters” KERI GILDER

CEO, COLT TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

applications, program interfaces, and APIs. “They help me think differently and more innovatively about how I'm approaching the technical side of my business.

“The TM Forum has helped us to understand how we can approach our business using the same type of methodology, standards, a baseline that is going across the industry that will enable collaboration, and drive this to a point where it is a part of our development stack, but it's the development stack of our people. It's not the development stack of our technology.” technologymagazine.com

335

TM FORUM

Spotlight on Colt Technology Services Colt comes from the original name of City of London Telecommunications when it was founded in 1992 by entrepreneur Jim Hynes.

Keri Gilder has been the Chief Executive Officer at Colt since May 2020, and is responsible for executing the company strategy which centres around transforming the way the world works through the power of connectivity.

Commenting on Colt’s work with TM Forum she said: “We do need an independent voice, which is a non-profit organisation, to help the telco industry build the Inclusion and Diversity Standard (IDS).

“But I think the other important thing is that it should not stop there. We are building the council in order to enable the advocacy of the future,” she said.

The Colt IQ Network connects more than 900+ data centres and over 29,000 on net buildings across Europe, Asia and North America’s largest business hubs.

Colt understands today’s shifting connectivity requirements and provides agile, on-demand and secure high bandwidth networking and voice solutions to ensure enterprises can thrive. Customers include data-intensive organisations spanning more than 210 cities in more than 30 countries.

336

November 2021

War for talent According to Sleight, despite the fact more women graduate each year compared to men, the technology and telco sector is losing the war on talent to more traditional industries such as pharmaceutical and health as they are now asking for the same skills set such as software developers and data scientists.

“When we talk to CEOs in telcos, they will say to us, I want to benchmark against not just my own industry and my own competitors, but I want to benchmark where I'm losing this war on talent. So the brand's not enough,” commented Sleight.

TM FORUM

“The culture has got to be right but it is not just attracting staff it is also about retaining them. You may have a diverse board, but if your employees don't feel it's an inclusive culture, then you'll not retain that diverse talent.

“The war for talent is one thing we want to win. At the centre of all this transformation is human-centred design, which is what we're focused on. The pandemic has highlighted that even more. If you take millennials, 80% see inclusion as a very important factor when choosing an employer and 39% of them will leave if it is not inclusive.”(Deloitte University & BJKLI Report – Unleashing the Power of Inclusion).

Sleight pointed out that figures from the Office of National Statistics showed disabled people suffered more during the round of redundancies during the pandemic. A total of 22.1 in every thousand people that have been made redundant have a disability, versus 13 people per thousand with a non-disability. That's a real challenge we're having to face,” commented Sleight.

“We also recognise that diversity and inclusion is a business critical and strategic imperative. It’s not just a gender issue, societal or CSR, and diversity exists beyond gender, LGBTQ+ and ethnicity. It should

technologymagazine.com

337

TM FORUM

be equal for all, including accessibility, neurodiversity and can all be a key differentiator. Many efforts focus on visible diversity, yet we believe inclusion is more important in order to attract and retain diverse talent,” she said.

Gilder pointed out there are only five women CEO’s leading 31 companies within the global telco space and only 60 of the 330 top management positions are held by women.

“What we need is to get these diverse employees in leadership positions where they own the technology direction and own a very strategic part of the business,” said Gilder, who has a 50% representation of gender on the Colt leadership team.

“We’ve seen over and over again that when we do that, we're more successful in innovation, more successful in being a resilient company and we're more profitable as a company. The reality is if we don't start paying attention to this, then we won't be able to attract the talent that we need in order to drive the innovation that's required in order to build resilience in a COVID world. We're going to lose out to other industries because they're now asking for the same skills.”

Gilder actively promotes the telco industry to youngsters. “We do work in a super cool industry which works with the likes of Apple and Google, so I usually manage to encourage two or three girls to think about telco as a profession when I finish a talk.”

Global aspirations for IDS Sleight points out that as TM Forum moves forward with the IDS they are aiming to make it more adaptable to take into account the initial challenges over data, geographical regions, languages and employment law.

338

November 2021

“ TM Forum and Colt are both equally as passionate, but we bring together different experiences. It's diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of perspective” VICKY SLEIGHT

GLOBAL DIRECTOR, TM FORUM

TM FORUM

“We've just finished the pilot and are working to make the score adaptable as we understand in some countries there's differences in terms of law on what data we can collect. One thing we have realised is that to deliver IDS and to make change happen, we've got to get sponsorship from the very top,” said Sleight, pointing out they have created a CEO Council to give this issue the focus it requires on the global stage and to move it beyond the premise of HR.

“This is not just about ticking a box to say that they're part of this, but it is for them to drive IDS through their own organisations.

This is to ensure IDS becomes a standard so that we can support the industry and stick to our mission because it is a bold ambition to transform the tech and communications industry to be the world leader in diversity, equality and inclusion.”

technologymagazine.com

339

NWAS

INSIDE THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF AN WRITTEN BY: LEILA HAWKINS

PRODUCED BY: JAMES BERRY

AMBULANCE

SERVICE

340

November 2021

NWAS

technologymagazine.com

341

NWAS

342

November 2021

NWAS

We take a look at how the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) is digitally transforming its services

"

Y

ou think of the ambulance service and you just think of ambulances, but actually, there's a lot more to the North West Ambulance Service than that." Abigail Harrison, the Chief of Digital and Innovation and CIO for the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) is describing the breadth of the services they offer.

Run by the National Health Service (NHS), NWAS operates over a large geographical area in the north west of England, and runs an emergency 999 service with three emergency control centres, is the largest provider of 111 services in England, and also has a patient transport service.

"We serve more than 7 million people across the north west and we respond to over a million emergency incidents a year.

We've also got 106 ambulance stations, so the scale of the work, the diversity of the services and the geography is an interesting challenge for us, as well as some of the digital challenges in different areas. We work in major cities, but we also work in very rural areas."

In 2019, NWAS published its digital strategy, with the goal of using digital solutions to radically improve how the trust meet the needs of patient and staff every time. This supports the overarching trust goal to achieve and become the best ambulance service in the UK by offering an integrated service to the population by acting as technologymagazine.com

343

NWAS

Inside the digital transformation of an ambulance service

a gateway to the rest of the healthcare system.

"We are the point of contact for every single provider in the healthcare system emergency departments and hospitals are the obvious ones, but we also refer to GPs, pharmacies and mental health services as well" Harrison explains.

The digital strategy recognises that technology and digital investment will be necessary for NWAS to achieve its goals. There were other drivers too, as Harrison explains: "We were worried about cybersecurity, as we hadn’t been investing into our infrastructure for a long time. For the last two years we've been systematically investing in the infrastructure, replacing critical systems, and undertaking big digital transformation pieces to enable joined up working practices across the organisation."

Jonathan Sammut, deputy CIO, expands further on the aims of the strategy: "It's providing the right care at the right time, every time. There is an element of trust, 344

November 2021

which is a big word, but there must be an absolute reliability on the service we provide."

"The other thing that's becoming more relevant, particularly in the last couple of years, is that people can control their own care digitally. I always go back to the "nan test" he says. My grandmother is quite digitally enabled and quite independent, so she'll push herself along a lot in terms of using technology like booking COVID tests and immunisations online. With anything I've ever done, in the back of my mind I run the nan test and ask, could she comfortably pick this up? It seems a bit cheesy, but I think it's important to bring patients on the journey with us, and make it simple for them to digest and easy to interact with."

An important part of this is the use of data. From a patient perspective NWAS has implemented an electronic patient record.

"This allows us to have real time access to patient records," Harrison says. "Integrated with our dispatch system it starts to give us

NWAS

technologymagazine.com

345

NWAS

Market Leading Ambulance and Integrated Care Systems.

Proven, effective, intuitive ambulance, 999 / 111 / PTS CAD integrated care systems, leveraging NHS Digital interoperability and national system interfaces.

Enhanced care pathway management for patients is now at your fingertips with the feature laden C3 TriPath.

www.mis-es.com

NWAS

“ We need to make sure that flexible working is a really accepted way to work as part of a digital team” ABIGAIL HARRISON CIO, NWAS

a start-to-end view of when a call comes in, what resource have we sent, who is that patient, and are we providing the right care for them. The next step is to start painting a better patient picture, integrating with hospital records, GP records, and linking into other data sets to start having more predictive capability."

NWAS has also implemented Power BI, Microsoft's business analytics tool. "We’re just starting out but this will really enable us to give our clinicians and managers real time access to information to make decisions, to help them make the right decisions based on data," Harrison says. "It's also enabled us

to really hone in on different groups in our population. For example, we've done a lot of work recently around mental health, pulling the data out to understand what variations, what experience our patients have with mental health issues, and how that compares to a physical health condition."

Sammut adds that while levels of data literacy and the hunger for data has grown, the aim is not to commoditise it, but use it to drive improvements, both for NWAS and for the patients. "As a nation, we've never been inundated with so much information before, and people really appreciate it because it's giving insights we'd never really thought about before."

Data is also an important component of the new dashboards they are developing, with an interactive platform that gives clinicians access to the latest communications. NWAS is also in the process of rolling out iPads to frontline staff. Part of a nationally funded piece of work from NHSX, Harrison says these will be rolled out in the next six months and for both personal use as well as accessing all of NWAS' systems.

Another product NWAS has developed is SafeCheck, a platform that enables staff to manage vital quality checks and monitor quality and safety in real time.

"We’re building on this as part of our Smart programme by using the latest technologies to reduce admin time and manage vital tasks," Harrison says.

NWAS is currently testing SafeCheck within the stock rooms of four sites, where they have automated smart lighting to enable staff to more easily find the equipment they need. "It's taking seconds out of the time it takes staff to do what they need to do," Harrison says. "All of this links back to our product safe check, which is technologymagazine.com

347

NWAS

our quality audit system that we developed in house which enables staff to carry out digital checks on vehicles. As well as check the tyres and what medicines are on board. The next step is to integrate the information with our stock management so we can automatically order something that's missing from the vehicle when we walk into the stock room, and it's already showing us exactly where it is."

SafeCheck is also improving access to data. "We use it to track things like IPC audits and regular testing," Sammut explains.

Earlier this year it gave us an instant real time view of who had been vaccinated, who had been tested and who hadn't, and allowed the organisation to put the right measures in all the right places."

"When we run infection prevention control audits, vehicle audits and medicine audits, we've got the information readily at hand. But more importantly, we've enabled the business to be able to see the information. Previously people would spend a lot of time collecting data on spreadsheets and on paper forms, but because we've now digitised the actual work involved is just so minimal. It allows people to focus their time on putting in the improvements that the organisation needs rather than on the churn element of data."

A number of partners have worked with NWAS on their new solutions, among them MIS who provide their computer aided dispatch (CAD) solution. "This is really our primary critical system for 999," Harrison explains. "The phone system and CAD are the two things that enable us to respond to the population. CAD auto dispatches ambulances, and our triage solution that enables us to manage our patients."

MIS also provides the NWAS' cloud platform, that helped to increase staffing levels during the pandemic as a result 348

November 2021

STATS • North West Ambulance Service serves more than 7 million people across 5,400 square miles in the north west of England • Operates over 1,000 emergency and non-emergency vehicles • Receives 1.3 million 999 calls each year • Makes 1.5 million non-emergency patient transport journeys to and from healthcare appointments • Handles 1.5 million NHwS 111 calls every year

of sickness and to cover the rise in call volumes. To do this they deployed the MIS' training system to train new staff in offsite locations such as schools. "It's a really important relationship for us," Harrison says.

"In the NHS we've got really good procurement processes, and one of the key scores within that is whether somebody has delivered what we needed before. Being able to demonstrate that this is a safe system that's been used before is obviously an important part of for us.

"We also work with lots of new technology partners on our Smart sites, such as Integrated System Technologies (ISTL), Cliq, Paxton, Sony and Deister technologies. We've had some great collaborations where we've been able to hone our approaches to problem solve together, as opposed to being sold something that maybe isn't quite what we need.

"Technically you have to have the right platform, procedures and processes, and provide assurance in terms of documentation checks, but the personal relationship is an important part of that as well."

NWAS

Abigail Harrison TITLE: CHIEF OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION AND CIO INDUSTRY: HEALTHCARE

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM Harrison joined NWAS in 2019, but has worked in healthcare for most of her career. She has held project manager roles at Greater Manchester and Cheshire Cancer Network, and for the UK's Department for Health, as well as senior roles at NHS Quest and Haelo, where she was ultimately promoted to Director of Innovation before joining NWAS. Of her current role, she says: "My job description is half about innovation improvement and how we work together with the directorate we sit in and all of its digital functions, but also the improvement team, the quality team safety, nursing, and clinical teams.

"Because of the past work I've done in improvement and innovation both regionally and nationally, I could really see how important technology was and how it was going to be what takes us to where we need to be but that we sometimes found it difficult in the NHS. I really came into this role to see if we can use the methodology around improvement and innovation in a way that helps us move more quickly in the digital space - that's my mission."

“ We are the point of call for every single provider in the healthcare system” ABIGAIL HARRISON CIO, NWAS

NWAS

“ There is an element of trust, which is a big word, but there must be an absolute reliability on the service we provide” JONATHAN SAMMUT DEPUTY CIO, NWAS

Jonathan Sammut TITLE: DEPUTY CIO, AND HEAD OF THE DIGITAL INTELLIGENCE FUNCTION INDUSTRY: HEALTHCARE

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM

350

November 2021

Sammut is relatively new to the NHS, having joined NWAS in December 2020, after spending 15 years in the private sector.

He has worked across healthcare, insurance, outsourcing, and finance in previous roles, which have included Business Intelligence Director at Health Management Ltd and Client Intelligence Manager at Capita.

"In terms of what I look after, it's pretty much everything from data sourcing right through to output analytics," Sammut says. "Data analytics has always been in my wheelhouse, but I've moved away from the commercial side of things more towards the actual care of people, which has been quite the transition.

That's been quite an exciting journey in the last 10 months. It's a different way of thinking.

"It really opens up a lot of opportunities, especially when you're surrounded by people with the same sort of thinking in terms of doing everything for the patient, ultimately."

NWAS

Something Harrison and Sammut are particularly proud of is the NWAS' digital design forum, which is a weekly space where people come together to support staff with solutions to their problems.

"People from information governance, cyber security, our CTO, the BI team, someone from HR, our interoperability lead, different types of technical people, our developers - the forum is there for any staff member to come with either a problem or an idea," Harrison says. "The ethos of the forum is that we always say yes, we'll try to find a way to test it. Sometimes we'll test something using the systems we've already got. Or we'll go and talk to our providers, or we might want to develop a new system, or go and look at the market to see what's out there and find a way to test it.

When asked about their next steps, Harrison says that the really exciting phase is about to begin. "We've got ourselves in a really good position in terms of cybersecurity, safety, basic infrastructure upgrades to the Wi Fi, we're just about to finish replacing all of our telephony, we've unlocked access to data, and we've developed this approach to innovation and testing. But there is so much more to do - we're almost at that point where we can really build on it and start to push the boundaries a bit more and innovate.

"We've also now got the capacity to have interoperable systems, whether internally or externally. The next phase for our digital strategy is about the people in the organisation being able to interpret and use the information that we give them, and use the technology that we're putting in place to work differently."

This could include robotic process automation (RPA) for manual, timeconsuming processes, "not to make

efficiency savings, but to release some of that time back to employees so that they can finish work on time and aren't working till 10 o'clock at night churning through these processes," Sammut says.

Further down the line they are hoping to use artificial intelligence and machine learning, to drive further value from the amount of data they have. Another idea is the use of drone technology. "This is looking at drones to respond to incidents," Sammut says, "so this might be delivering a defibrillator or a particular drug in the scenario of a heroin overdose or allergic reaction. "The other thing would be surveying unsafe scenes, like a significant chemical spill, and this is using technology to get the right care to someone quickly without someone having to be there physically. This is relatively untouched technology outside of the military and search and rescue, but we want to pioneer solutions like this."

Harrison is a very passionate advocate for women, and for advancing women in technology. "There are some fabulous women CIOs, but proportionately there's a lot less women working in technology and technologymagazine.com

351

NWAS

“Previously people would spend a lot of time collecting things on spreadsheets, but because we've digitised all that, the actual work involved is minimal” JONATHAN SAMMUT DUPUTY CIO, NWAS

352

November 2021

NWAS

progressing as quickly as men. I certainly think there's a perception that women are less technical. While I've been working in digital I've noticed this phrase that "she's not technical" and I feel that it's more likely to be said about a woman than a man. I've got a woman in my team who's worked in the IT team for 20 years, and is still perceived as "not technical". If a man had worked in an IT team for 20 years, I think everyone would assume he had the same kind of technical understanding as other people around them."

As a place of work, Harrison says NWAS is the most flexible place she has ever worked at. Flexible working is something she champions, as a crucial aspect of enabling more women to take leadership positions. "I am loud and proud about the fact that I work really flexibly," she says. "I don't work on a Monday because I look after my young kids. I really think that a lot of women would not believe that a woman could have a CIO job, and not work on a Monday.

"One of my kids is unwell a lot, and we're actually frequent callers of the ambulance service - that has an impact when I've been up all night, because maybe I can't make all my meetings the next day. But that doesn't mean that I'm not the right person for the job, if anything it gives me more resilience.

"I think that sometimes when women are in a field that mostly employs men, it can be seen as a weakness to want to work flexibly.

We need to make sure that flexible working is a really accepted way to work as part of a digital team."

technologymagazine.com

353

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

DEDICATED TO SERVING ITS RESIDENTS

354

November 2021

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

WRITTEN BY: GEORGIA WILSON PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR

technologymagazine.com

355

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

Woods lake park

356

November 2021

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

Tim Dubois, CIO for the City of Kalamazoo discusses the city’s digital transformation strategy to continuously improve and better serve its residents

T

he City of Kalamazoo started out as a small village in Southwest Michigan.

As the city began to grow following its founding in 1831, it became a city of many firsts. “ We built the first outdoor pedestrian mall in America in 1959, Checker Taxi, a dominant taxi cab company started here, and so did Gibson Guitars. We've continued to grow. Today, we have Western Michigan University, as well as Kalamazoo College and Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

We have a young population here with the university and colleges,” says Tim Dubois, CIO for the City of Kalamazoo.

Since joining the city as CIO, Dubois has seen Kalamazoo continuously evolve. “It's continued to evolve from trying to recover from a lot of the tight budgets placed on us and the running costs and maintenance of infrastructure over the past 10 years. We are currently working towards expanding further into digital transformation across the city. We’ve started some initiatives in the smart city area, going beyond just repairing people's computers and taking care of the servers, and moving more into technology and putting that technology into the hands of our departments and the rest of the city.“ Delving deeper into the city’s digital transformation, Dubois explains that Kalamazoo’s strategy has been a bit of a start-stop one. “We’ve come up against issues and problems, and when looking for a solution we intend to find a digital one that can be implemented. But our overall strategy is to move towards a digital government. technologymagazine.com

357

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

City of Kalamazoo: Dedicated to Serving its Residents

"A core issue in the city is does depend largely “I KEEP MENTIONING that poverty is a big part on our residents. If they THAT WE'VE MOVED of our community. We can’t embrace a digital realise that not everyone future then we are not SOME STUFF ONLINE. can afford to move to providing a very good WE COULDN'T DO digital services, so we government service by also have to keep our THAT WITHOUT CLOUD moving everything if our manual processes going. residents are unable to BEING AVAILABLE” We are working to bridge operate it.” the gap, helping not only Being responsible TIM DUBOIS our own transformation for the entire IT CIO, to go digital but to help infrastructure and CITY OF KALAMAZOO our residents move that projects, working with way as well. This is what we are starting to departments to implement technologyincorporate into our thinking: 'How do we based solutions, Dubois explains that the improve things so that everyone can be a city is looking at various technologies to help part of the journey and not just the people it to move online. “One of the things we've that can afford it? done is incorporate a 3-1-1 call centre. So it's “We have moved some things to online a ‘one call to city hall’ type of situation where forums already, and we are continuing to our ambassadors can help with almost move in that direction. I foresee that we everything that residents want to do from will continue in this direction until we are the perspective of the city. If you need to pay fully online in the future. This again really a utility bill, pay taxes or report a pothole, 358

November 2021

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

our ambassadors are available to help. The technology provides the capability to access all of our different systems across the city from one spot. 90% of calls to the 3-1-1 call centre can be handled without having to be sent to another department, which is a big focus. We are also updating our website and we are hoping to go live later this year, which will help us to move everything online.”

One technology that has been critical to making all this possible is the cloud. “I keep mentioning that we've moved some stuff online. We couldn't do that without the cloud being available. Currently, we are looking into moving our operations and priority infrastructure to the cloud. But as we look for solutions to interact with and serve our residents, a key component for us is to be able to put the information into the cloud and provide residents with the ability to access it.”

When it comes to the use of IoT, 5G and other advanced technologies, Dubois explains that, “I think 5G is going to be critical to us in the future. When we look at autonomous vehicles and their capabilities across AI and machine learning I foresee it will be a great benefit to us. We've not implemented this yet.

We're currently building the foundation so we can do it in the future.

TITLE: CIO INDUSTRY: GOVERNMENT AGENCY LOCATION: KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN Tim Dubois is the CIO for the City of Kalamazoo, Michigan since 2017, where he is responsible for ensuring the modernisation of IT to serve and support a 21st century local government. Prior to coming to the city, Tim has worked in IT for over 20 years with a variety of industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, and the military. Tim is a graduate of the US Coast Guard Academy, where he earned his Computer Science degree, and of Western Michigan University with his M.B.A. He has held several certifications, including MCSE, CCNA, and currently PMP.

EXECUTIVE BIO

Transforming the City of Kalamazoo into a Smart City Becoming a smart city goes back to the philosophy of serving residents and how the city can become a better government. “A smart city incorporates technology in order to improve and better itself. To become a smart city we have added the 3-1-1 call centre, and also incorporate some different technologies to allow us to improve when it comes to utilities. We’re putting out smart water metres, we're working with

TIM DUBOIS

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

the Metro bus system in Kalamazoo and the Foundation for Excellence to allow high school students to ride the buses for free with their student IDs. This reduces any barrier for them to get to after school activities, to jobs or wherever they need to get to within the city. It helps us to serve our residents a little bit better and make their lives better,” says Dubois.

The Importance of Connectivity and Cybersecurity for a Smart City With the pandemic highlighting the need for connectivity among the residents of Kalamazoo, the city has been working with the school systems, public libraries and other organisations to enable students to be connected so that they can school remotely during the lockdown.

Tomorrow’s technology solving today’s challenges End to end IT service provider focusing on all aspects of configuring MS tools such as Dynamics and Power BI

Learn more

360

November 2021

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

“ I foresee that we will continue to go digital until we are fully online in the future, but that again depends largely on our residents if they can’t do that then we are not doing a very good government service by moving to a place where they can’t operate” TIM DUBOIS

CIO, CITY OF KALAMAZOO

“We want to transfer this outside of schools, as adult learners and people with jobs may also need to work remotely.

The pandemic has accelerated our need for technology and the online world. It has highlighted how important it will be for the future. We need to support our residents and get them online. We're looking at different ways that we can do this, but the process is not as simple as it should be. If we want to move to a digital government, and a digital world, we have to bring our people along with us and help them to get them to where we want them to be,” says Dubois. technologymagazine.com

361

362

November 2021

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

Alongside connectivity, data is another programme that the city started to look at a couple of years ago. “We’ve laid the foundations down for promoting data use, reports, and analysis. So far, what we have done has enabled us to connect all of our systems on the backend to the databases so that we have one data lake. Having one spot where we have all the data helps us to analyse and find connections that we may not have noticed before. Our data strategy to make better decisions and implement policies starts here. I am hoping to reach near real time data reports in the future so that the public can see the information,” adds Dubois.

“We’ve really laid the foundations for promoting data use, reports, and analysis” TIM DUBOIS

CIO, CITY OF KALAMAZOO

Being a global hot topic, cybersecurity is an important element for Kalamazoo: “I don't think you can be a smart city and not be strong on the cybersecurity side of it.

Our strategy has really been to fill the holes that we knew were already there a couple of years ago, and for the most part, we have. So now it’s about being a little more advanced and really continuing to protect our assets, the city, and the city’s infrastructure. Again, this is all tied to what we do as a government to serve our residents. If we were to get hit by a ransomware attack or a virus, and we weren't able to serve our residents, then we're not doing our jobs. There’s so much technologymagazine.com

363

KEY PARTNERSHIPS

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

“ We really can't say enough when it comes to our partners. We can call them up and we know that they're going to give us the service that we're asking for, as well as help us find the right solution” TIM DUBOIS

CIO, CITY OF KALAMAZOO

THE CITY OF KALAMAZOO AND ITS PARTNERSHIPS Critical to the success of the city, Dubois explains that, “for us to continue to improve and continue to get where we are, Dewpoint has been a fantastic partner for us. They have really helped us with the 3-1-1 call centre, which we did fairly quickly. Dewpoint did a lot of work for us on the backend to make that happen, and they have supported our ambassadors and our system.”

Other critical partners for Kalamazoo have included Trace3 and Moss. “Both are great partners to work with on the network side.

Trace3 helped us to improve and redesign our networks so that we can be more secure, more efficient, and more reliable.

Moss has been really helpful with our local projects. The company has helped with our

364

November 2021

chambers to establish hybrid meetings for our city commission, and they have also been helping with other local projects on the network side.

“CDW-G has also been a truly reliable and critical partner for us, particularly for the more traditional stuff - licences, software and equipment. They have been a great partner to get what we need and to help us to understand what it is that we need and what we are getting.

“We really can't say enough about our partners. We can call them up and we know that they're going to give us the service that we're asking for, as well as help us find the right solution. They are just a call away, they have always been there for us since we've started partnering with them.”

CITY OF KALAMAZOO

“ The pandemic has shown the acceleration of technology and of the online world, and how important it will be for the future. So we need to help our residents get there” TIM DUBOIS

CIO, CITY OF KALAMAZOO

to its internal ones that they are already doing. “So it's just continuing to grow and evolve into a bigger programme than before.

Future plans include partnering with not only cybersecurity companies but with other local governments - which we have already started to do. There is certainly potential for partnering with local businesses and running educational classes for local residents and businesses as well as help everyone improve in the area.

“If one person gets hit somebody else is going to get hit as well. So we want to partner together and improve everybody's cybersecurity that way,” concludes Dubois.

that goes on when it comes to cybersecurity, and it's a never-ending battle that so far we've been able to do well.”

Looking to the future, Dubois explains that the city plans to add external assessments technologymagazine.com

365

We talk the role of procurement with CM Group's WRITTEN BY: JAMES CLARK PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR

366

November 2021

COMPANY CM GROUP NAME

technologymagazine.com

367

CM GROUP

CM GROUP

Karen Hodson, Chief Procurement Officer for the CM Group brings together a diverse group of email marketing platforms under a single umbrella

K

Karen Hodson Chief Procurement Officer

aren Hodson is the Chief Procurement Officer for the CM Group. The company brings together a diverse group of email marketing platforms, including Emma, Campaign Monitor, Delivra, Liveclicker, Sailthru, Selligent and Vuture under a single umbrella. She has been with the Company since its start in 2017, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.

Prior to her position with the CM Group she started off in software startups and worked her way up the procurement ladder.

“During a previous position I had done a great job on a contract and the CFO at the time said, do you like negotiating? I said yes, and his response was great you're in charge of procurement. At the time I didn’t even know what procurement was, but that’s how my career journey started,” explains Hodson.

“The start of my journey involved figuring out what procurement was and what it meant for an organisation. My next task was establishing how I could make an impact and create centralised procurement at the company I was working with at the time.

Once I had that worked out, I moved on to another company.”

Hodson joined an organisation with a longer history to again focus solely on procurement. This provided her with the opportunity to get a much better understanding of what procurement in Example of larger operation involved. Although she an image a caption technologymagazine.com

369

CM GROUP

Chief Procurement Officer CM Group talks platforms and people

learned a lot from the company, she missed having more involvement in different areas of the organisation. “I kind of missed the crazy fast paced world of tech startups and wanted to go back to it. I like getting involved in tech startups and building procurement, policies, processes and procedures. I’ve done it four times now.”

Hodson has a really hands-on approach to procurement. She likes working with all the CM Group departments and has an understanding of all those back-office sort of functions that a lot of CPOs simply do not have the time to learn. She considers procurement to be a largely customer service-related role.

“I’m customer facing in the sense that my co-workers are my customers. The employees within the CM Group come to me about a wide range of issues; everything from buying laptops and keyboards to making sure we're buying the right software and services to help us run our business. I also deal externally with all the 370

November 2021

different vendors that we engage with daily.”

“I make sure that the relationship makes sense for both parties. We have multimillion dollar contracts, so it’s important to engage with the right vendors and really understand what the organisation needs to be able to run the business effectively.”

Centralised Purchasing System She first joined the CM Group as it was being formed. “When I joined, we merged three companies together which was the beginning of the CM Group.”

Hodson immediately identified that it was necessary to establish a centralised purchasing system to avoid a situation where the marketing department buys their own software, and the sales department purchase their own software. “I wanted to avoid a situation where different departments are purchasing the same services, from the same vendors and with two contracts. That really doesn’t make sense to me. It was imperative

CM GROUP

KAREN HODSON

CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, CM GROUP

to figure out first what made sense for the company and secondly how to implement it across the entirety of the organisation.” Hodson implemented Zip to manage the purchasing request process across the CM Group.

Hodson is keen to speak further about the centralised system. “Having centralised procurement allows the organisation to get an overall broad view of what is happening on the purchasing side of the business. I facilitate different departments coming together to have a conversation. For example, sales may have a need and not realise that the marketing department has a tool in place already that the

KAREN HODSON TITLE: CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER INDUSTRY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & SERVICES LOCATION: UNITED STATES

EXECUTIVE BIO

“The start of my journey involved figuring out what procurement was and what it meant for an organisation. My next task was establishing how I could make an impact and create centralised procurement at the company I was working with at the time. Once I had that worked out, I moved on to another company”

Karen received a B.A. in Economics and Minor in Communications from Seton Hall University and her M.A. in Organisational Management from George Washington University.

Karen has over 20 years of experience in operations, procurement and real estate management. She started her procurement career at a tech startup and has gained knowledge and experience building centralised procurement at 4 other companies since. She is a skilled negotiator and has an average savings of 20% on vendor contracts.

Along with managing procurement, she also manages CM Group’s Real Estate portfolio, as well as corporate insurance and the corporate travel program.

CM GROUP

sales team can use. They may just utilise it differently, but in the long run they are after the same solution.”

“It’s my role to have these conversations and get everybody talking so that departments aren't just working in their siloed areas. This opens up the visibility on spend, and provides an understanding of what we're buying, by breaking down the silos and engaging other organisations to help us run our businesses while keeping every company involved safe.”

GDPR, California CCPA laws and Security “It is important that procurement doesn’t just save dollars. Our job is also to reduce risk for the company and understand how we're exposing ourselves when we engage with other companies.”

The world’s leading intake-to-procure solution.

Coordinate approvals across procurement, sourcing, IT, data security, legal, and other cross-functional teams.

Control spend. Assure compliance.

Reduce time spent coordinating approvals by half.

LEARN MORE

CM GROUP

purchase, then that's where it is possible for us as a company to open the CM Group up for issues from a security perspective.”

There is a lot more to the supplier ecosystem at the CM Group than simply spending money. Hodson is keen to discuss privacy compliance issues going forward and provides an evaluated vendor as an example. “I approached a new prospective vendor; it was a small organisation that didn't have the mechanisms in place to secure people's personal information that we wanted to share with them to deliver our orders. It’s not something that most of us think about when shopping on Amazon.

We had no choice but to go with another company able to secure the information and comply with all GDPR and CCPA privacy regulations.”

“And even with the right vendors and consultants we must have the correct legal paperwork in place that says that all parties are going to keep the information confidential and if for whatever reason they decide to not keep the personal information confidential they are made aware of the repercussions.”

The CM Group is dedicated to being GDPR and CCPA compliant. “We are compliant as an organisation, but we also have to be able to make sure that the vendors we engage with are compliant with personal information. We also have to speak about security and understand the risks the engagement may bring to the organisation,” Hodson confirms.

“Security is obviously a major concern for any organisation. And a question I am often asked is how secure are the online SaaS type tools that we use? I work closely with the security team to ensure that the software we purchase is not too risky for the business.

If you are not diligent with evaluating your

“It is important that procurement doesn’t just save dollars. Our job is also to reduce risk for the company by understanding how we're exposing ourselves when we engage with other companies” KAREN HODSON

CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, CM GROUP technologymagazine.com

373

CM GROUP

“Receiving notifications reminding us that a contract is up for renewal in three months and sometimes as far as six months ahead makes sure that I don’t miss something. It gives me the time to reach out and have the correct conversations internally. Auto reminders are one of those amazing tools at my fingertips that keep everything flowing in the right direction” KAREN HODSON

CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, CM GROUP

374

November 2021

CM GROUP

The Renewals Process Building new business relationships is clearly important to Hodson, but the focus doesn’t end there. She ensures that all vendors do what they agree to do and prefers to take a proactive approach rather than relying on an issue being flagged later on throughout the engagement process. “I have to rely a lot on our end users so I create relationships within each of our departments so I am aware of any issues that may arise from purchase engagement through to the renewals process.”

“One of the things I try to avoid is getting stuck in an auto renewal which is a nightmare for any procurement person.”

Having a system like Zip helps the CM Group stay on top of upcoming renewals.

“Receiving notifications reminding me that a contract is up for renewal in three months and sometimes as far as six months ahead makes sure that I don’t miss something. It gives me the time to reach out and have the correct conversations internally. Auto reminders are one of those amazing tools at my fingertips that keep everything flowing in the right direction. I rely heavily on them because it’s not always possible to remember all the details. I pride myself on remembering quite a lot, but not everything. This is where software, like Zip comes into play.”

“When it is renewal time the teams are encouraged to have discussions internally.

We'll then sit down and go through all points raised by them. It’s a great opportunity to technologymagazine.com

375

CM GROUP

376

November 2021

CM GROUP

“I’m customer facing in the sense that my co-workers are my customers. The employees within the CM Group come to me about a wide range of issues; everything from buying laptops and keyboards to making sure we're buying the right software and services to help us run our business. I also deal externally with all the different vendors that we engage with daily” KAREN HODSON

CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, CM GROUP

discuss any challenges; for example: Has the vendor been able to provide everything that they said they would provide? Has anything been lacking? And is the product still meeting our needs? A lot of factors come into play. If a vendor is unable to provide us what we are paying for then it’s a good time to consider a new business relationship.”

Hodson is keen to discuss how human interaction and software tools work hand-inhand to support the CM Group. To ensure that purchasing within the company is efficient all of the departments submit their request in Zip, CM Group also uses other SaaS tools to evaluate the purchasing landscape and complete the procure to pay process at the organisation. It’s important that each department answers standardised questions when submitting a request including how much it’s going to cost? How long are they going to require the item for? What department do they belong to? All of these questions need to be answered so the procurement team can assist with completing the purchase.

She is keen to highlight the ever-growing procurement departments popping up

within organisations. “More organisations are understanding the value that centralised procurement can bring.” She believes that procurement is more than solely a money savings office. The department offers real time value across the company. “In the past, procurement was largely about checking boxes, processing papers and making sure that correct procedures were in place. These are a very important piece of the puzzle.

But procurement brings a lot more to an organisation and people are beginning to understand the value that procurement can bring to a company by breaking down silos, reducing spend while reducing risk, increasing happiness across companies’ customers, and the employees within an organisation.”

“I think the role of procurement is definitely expanding well beyond dollar savings. It’s also about how we make our employees happy, how we reduce risks and engage with the right vendors.”

technologymagazine.com

377

MICROSOFT

378

November 2021

MICROSOFT

Microsoft Israel:

GLOBAL ACTION, LOCAL RESULTS

WRITTEN BY: RHYS THOMAS PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE

technologymagazine.com

379

MICROSOFT

Moving procurement beyond a bureaucratic function delivers true value, says Eyal Nuhamovici, Sr. Procurement Engagement Manager, Microsoft in Israel

H

armony may not be the first word that springs to mind when describing the procurement organisation of a company employing hundreds of thousands of people and operating globally. With businesses of such scale and breadth, procurement leaders often face challenges like siloed information, global versus local objectives, and a variety of other issues to overcome.

But Eyal Nuhamovici says Microsoft is different. As the Israel Procurement Engagement Manager at Microsoft, his tasks range from hyper-local to global, and often somewhere in between.

“Even though our procurement organisation is spread out across the entire globe, we act as a harmonious team,” he says. “We complement each other.”

Like many in procurement, Nuhamovici fell somewhat accidentally into his career.

Fresh from military service, a mandatory first step into adulthood and independence for Israeli citizens, he took a buying position at a local SME. But it wasn’t long before Nuhamovici says he began to understand exactly what procurement was, and the impact of being able to “connect the dots' ' between departments to help them further their goals.

“Procurement sees the organisation through a very wide angle, across HR, finance, the legal team, any manufacturing or development departments,” he says.

“And when you begin to connect the dots

380

November 2021

MICROSOFT

technologymagazine.com

381

MICROSOFT

“ Even though our procurement organization is spread out across the entire globe, we act as a harmonious team” EYAL NUHAMOVICI

SR. PROCUREMENT ENGAGEMENT MANAGER, MICROSOFT ISRAEL

382

November 2021

between departments, that’s when you can think about how to leverage procurement to bring the company to a better position.”

This perspective is echoed in the procurement culture at Microsoft. Even in a company this large, Nuhamovici says he is able to make a difference. At the fundamental level, procurement of major categories, such as software, are centralised through Microsoft’s Redmond campus and headquarters in the USA. On the other hand, sourcing local development tools, local communications

MICROSOFT

EYAL NUHAMOVICI TITLE: SR. PROCUREMENT ENGAGEMENT MANAGER

contracts and other supporting services are handled by regional procurement experts on the ground. But even here, Nuhamovici says, there is always an opportunity to benefit from global insights.

“If we are buying something for the company locally, why not benefit from the RFP and the activities we are doing to derive some more value for the wider company and the employees? You should always strive to secure global contracts, and then complement or supplement those with local services. It is a very balanced situation where

EXECUTIVE BIO

COMPANY: MICROSOFT ISRAEL Experienced procurement manager with vast experience from different organisations - large and small, local and global, large scope budgets and deals, team and matrix management.

A proactive and creative person, with excellent negotiation skills, very organised and with high work ethics.

Broad commercial perspective that exceeds the area in charge of, hence, bring managerial, economic, commercial and procedural advantages to the company.

technologymagazine.com

383

MICROSOFT

Microsoft in Israel: Global action, local results

I can be part of the activities that are led by headquarters’ procurement managers, while they might join and aid me in my activities.”

To reconcile this approach to local and global sourcing, Microsoft employs the latest digital tools - unsurprising given the company’s leading position in both enterprise and consumer technology.

“There is a huge emphasis on the topic of digital transformation in procurement at Microsoft, because we really understand the importance of innovation. We use our own technology and approach everything with a growth mindset, considering how to do things better, how to improve the dayto-day.”

The earliest objective of Microsoft procurement’s digitalisation journey was to simplify and consolidate buying channels and promote procurement as a seamless experience for stakeholders.

384

November 2021

MICROSOFT

“The innovation comes in technology, by leveraging systems, but it also has to come from new ideas” EYAL NUHAMOVICI

SR. PROCUREMENT ENGAGEMENT MANAGER, MICROSOFT ISRAEL technologymagazine.com

385

MICROSOFT

Nuhamovici recognises that procurement is often considered as a function that people must engage with, not want to engage with, and we strive to change that.

“So we minimise the pain points for shareholders, reduce the amount of buying channels and always think about how to do more with less. It’s about getting to the core of what is really needed. You also want them to spend less time on technical actions; even simple things like streamlining the process of entering a purchase order can improve the perspective of procurement in our stakeholders’ eyes.

“They just want to get the work done.

So by supporting them with the right tools, we’re accomplishing a lot. We can empower employees to do more by themselves, optimising the process for them, and fixing areas where they may encounter challenges or make mistakes.

That’s where engagement is so important.”

Better digitalisation both yields and requires more data. In analysing and leveraging that data, Nuhamovici sees the future of procurement moving from a costsaving, streamlining function into a position of predictive and anticipatory power: “To understand, according to what they did already, what they will need in the future.”

But there are issues with becoming too reliant on the facts and figures directly in front of you.

“If the information or data exists, it’s because something’s already been done, and procurement is always looking ahead at what should be done next, because otherwise there is no real impact,” Nuhamovici says. "Planning ahead is definitely one of the most important things that I spend a lot of time on, whether that’s 386

November 2021

MICROSOFT

HALO BENEFITS FOR SUPPLIERS Monetary gain isn’t the only benefit of working with a market-leader, says Nuhamovici. Suppliers stand to learn and improve their business in the long-term by working in true partnership with Microsoft.

“One of the biggest benefits suppliers gain by working with us is learning from the Microsoft culture,” says Nuhamovici. “It can help businesses to modify the way that they think about a certain product or service, and then they can provide a better and improved service, not only to us, but in the wider market.

“We really believe that we're adding an additional layer. We’re not changing every business fundamentally, of course, but if we add just one additional layer in the way that things are being done, we can help improve the way that certain businesses operate.

When you do business with Microsoft, you can learn from us. We always come with a very innovative way of solving a certain need, and when we achieve that, it can be very important for the market - not just for ourselves.”

technologymagazine.com

387

ACCESS THE BEST TECH TALENT IN THE WORLD

MatchPoint IT provides outstanding onsite and offshore talent to companies around the globe, in all areas of software and IT. For almost 20 years, the biggest names in the industry have partnered with us, working together to design and build amazing tech products. So whether you’re looking for exceptional talent to push your offering forward, or you need a highly-skilled team to bring your latest innovation to life with end-to-end design and development, MatchPoint offers the diverse range of tech experience knowledge you need to make the impact you want

LEARN MORE

MICROSOFT

understanding opportunities, looking for new directions, hearing from other peers within the organisation or externally, I’m looking around, and ahead, all the time.

“One thing that I think that is underestimated, and not a lot of people are looking at, is trends,” he adds. “They tell you a lot about what is, what was, and what the thoughts of people are at each step. It's like personalising the data, because otherwise data is just data. Looking at a trend, you can now understand what happened with a certain supplier, a certain market, a certain category, or a certain country. I'm really a believer that trends can bring you important insights about the business.

“ When you begin to connect the dots between departments, that’s when you can think about how to leverage procurement to bring the company to a better position” EYAL NUHAMOVICI

SR. PROCUREMENT ENGAGEMENT MANAGER, MICROSOFT ISRAEL

technologymagazine.com

389

MICROSOFT

“You should always strive to secure global contracts, and then complement or supplement those with local services” EYAL NUHAMOVICI

SR. PROCUREMENT ENGAGEMENT MANAGER, MICROSOFT ISRAEL

390

November 2021

MICROSOFT

“To give you an example, when it comes to engaging with a stakeholder, if you come informed by a trend, you understand their previous actions, in that way, understand what might be interesting for them in the future. If they have $100 and our procurement position can help save them $20, for example, that’s extra money that can be spent on additional services or saved. Those sorts of insights lead to more commercial value than simply handing back some money.”

This, Nuhamovici says, will be the biggest challenge for procurement in the years ahead, not just for Microsoft, but in the sector at large. “Innovation comes in technology, by leveraging systems, but it also has to come from new ideas,” Nuhamovici says.

“That comes from partnerships and pooling those ideas to pull the market ahead,” he says. “Once you sign an innovative contract with a supplier, it becomes the common practice for the supplier because they learned how to do it. Now they can copy or adjust this idea with future contracts in the market. This is a good example of how you eventually lead and develop procurement to be better positioned and create a larger impact not only on the company you work with, but on other markets as well.

“It's a challenge, and that’s a good thing, because when you're being challenged, that is how you improve your ideas. If everything goes smoothly, you never improve, and that to me is quite a beautiful thing.”

technologymagazine.com

391

MASTERCLASS IN SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR

392

November 2021

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

technologymagazine.com

393

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOLS DISTRICT

Derrick Brown Executive Director of Technology, NCSD

394

November 2021

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

North Clackamas School District focus on technology and innovation with virtual learning both now and for future generations

T

he speed at which the global pandemic hit sent shockwaves through the world and critically impacted the educational system. North Clackamas School District (NCSD) in the US-state of Oregon was not only quick to respond but is now working towards a sustainable future for its 17,000 students.

This is to ensure all students have access to a digital curriculum and online instructional resources through districtowned devices and one hotspot for students/families in need that are enrolled in the Virtual Online Program.

During the 2020-21 school year, one of the ways the technology department supported students and families in Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL) was by providing one hotspot per household to any student/family that needed internet access.

In his new role as Executive Officer of Technology at NCSD Derrick Brown is more aware than most that COVID-19 created the largest disruption of the educational system in human history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 200 countriesimpacting 94% of the world’s student population. Brown, arrived mid-pandemic to lead the technology department at NCSD in the suburb outside of Portland on the west coast. His team has partnered with

Insight Financial Services to invest US$4m in Chromebooks over the next four years.

This will create a predictable IT equipment budget, maintain a scalable environment, develop equity for all students, and improve help desk and technical support for students K-12 who attend the 31 elementary, middle, high, and charter schools which make up NCSD. “By the end of the 2021-2022 school year, the district will have replaced all outdated existing student devices with touchscreen Chromebooks. This includes a sustainability plan for all K-12 Chromebooks and I'm very excited to be part of this,” said Brown who believes all community members should have access to the internet in their home and it should be considered part of Maslow’s Hierarchy of human needs along with food and shelter.

Father-of-three Brown moved from the technology arena to K-12 education in 2006 and uses a strategy and concise way of communicating the organisation's strategic mission that aligns the vision of technology for teachers, students and parent-guardians at NCSD. NCSD is Oregon's seventh-largest school district that spans more than 40 square miles just south-east of Portland.

The school district serves Milwaukie and Happy Valley, along with other parts of technologymagazine.com

395

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

North Clackamas School District Tour

Clackamas County and works to ensure they offer more than a dozen languages to serve all communities.

From Spring Mountain Elementary to Cascade Heights Public Charter School, students and parents are encouraged to interact with NCSD's website, Facebook, and Twitter accounts to learn more and keep updated on changes triggered by the pandemic. Each NCSD school has a website and most have a social media presence.

NCSD focuses on the ‘whole child’, offering robust, culturally-competent classroom options, and is home to Oregon's largest Career and Technical program.

Foresight of investing in Chromebooks Speaking from the Portland metro area, Brown spoke about the successful roll-out of approximately 12,000 Chromebooks 396

November 2021

to students that needed one during the pandemic so students could learn from home, engage with their teachers in Google Meet sessions, access Google Classroom, digital curriculum and other online learning resources. In addition to distributing Chromebooks, NCSD provided meals and internet to families in need.

According to Brown, in the US 9 to 10 million families currently do not have internet access at home and nearly 13 million households did not have enough food in 2020.

Brown said NCSD previously invested in Chromebooks for access to online learning resources and digital curriculum.

“Therefore, when the pandemic hit in March 2020 the district was able to respond quickly to get these resources into the hands of students who needed it.”

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

NCSD distributed approximately 12,000 Chromebooks while the remaining approximately 5,000 students used a personal device while learning from home.

The district is now awaiting approval from the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Emergency Connectivity Fund for approval of 9,200 additional Chromebooks to replace the last of the ageing student devices.

“The pandemic accelerated the need to seamlessly access digital curriculum and instructional resources when it came to implementing technology within education,” he said. “The tools of technology should be ubiquitously accessible by all students including having access to the internet at home which includes WiFi so they can continue their learning.

“If we had talked two years ago about teachers teaching from home and students learning from home, it would have sounded absurd for K-12. I dreamt of this happening because it’s successful in higher education, but did not see it happening in my lifetime in K-12. But here we are navigating our way through the pandemic with parents teaching at home as well as working remotely in many cases. We did it - we can do challenging things. What we have to look at moving forward is to identify lessons

18

Number of career and technical education options; Oregon's largest

TITLE: EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY: EDUCATION LOCATION: VANCOUVER, WASHINGTON Derrick Brown is currently the Executive Director of Technology and Information Services for North Clackamas School District. He is a leader of digital transformation. With more than 26 years of experience, Brown has served in technology leadership roles and leads with compassion, democracy, and equity.

Brown has served in a few school districts with the largest being more than 100,000 students and 16,000 employees, healthcare organisations, global telecommunications providers, and government agencies.

Brown earned his MBA from Keller Graduate School of Management.

“With greater access to technology comes the shared responsibility of digital literacy and working together for the greater good.”

EXECUTIVE BIO

21.0%

High school graduation rate increase since 2011

DERRICK BROWN

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

How AI and ML will enhance a student’s learning Derrick Brown, Executive Director of Technology at NCSD said he is fascinated with Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how this can be utilised to track a student’s progress in the future.

“By using AI and ML in the future we will be able to help our students. For example, if a student did exceptionally well during the pandemic we can look at how they achieved that success and what resources and tools they chose to use on our

398

November 2021

Chromebook to leapfrog their learning.

“On the other side, we can look at the students that might've fallen through the cracks and use this technology to look at what happened.

“We always ask ourselves, what can we do to make sure that we're providing all the resources that we need to enhance a student’s learning and both AI and ML. At the end of the day, we want all of our students to graduate and will do everything that we can to support their learning.”

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

“ By the end of this school year, we will have brand new devices for all of our students with a sustainability plan in place and I'm very excited to be part of that” DERRICK BROWN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY, NCSD

learned, not regress, continue to grow, and continue providing compassion and grace for our students, teachers and parents.

“I joined during the pandemic which was interesting especially since I am a people person,” said Brown who did not physically meet many of his colleagues in-person for most of the school year. “During that

time my department’s primary goal was to provide technical support to remote students, teachers and families. We did this by meeting people where they are over the phone, scheduled video meetings and whatever it took to build a rapport.

“I think the number one challenge for me was not being able to walk into a school or classroom for direct feedback.

Our teachers were in Google Meet sessions with students and used Google Classroom, which is our platform for learning management. Also, teachers were able to strengthen engagement and communication with families. We created a Family Tech Support Hotline for our families to call or email when they had

technologymagazine.com

399

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

technical questions or needed support.

The family tech support allowed us to quickly respond to needs and create video tutorials and share information quickly via the district's instructional technology website for how-to access or use items within our digital instructional ecosystem."

Partnership with Insight Financial Services Brown singled out the initial partnership with Insight Financial Services that began with NCSD investing US$4m in 5,700 new devices to replace aged, failing, and out of compliant student Chromebooks. The district is building a sustainability refresh plan which operationalises the budget by creating a replacement lifecycle plan. He cited this sustainability program creates flexibility and options at the end of the life cycle.

PCS AND LAPTOPS TABLETS AND CHROMEBOOKS

SMART BOARDS / PROJECTION TVS NETWORKING EQUIPMENT

GET YOUR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS TECH READY FOR ALL EDUCATION POSSIBILITIES 400

November 2021

LEARN MORE

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

87%

High school graduation rate 2019 - 2020

7th

Largest district in Oregon

$11,977

Average spending per pupil (2017-18 average)

$227.1m

“ The pandemic accelerated us five to seven years into the future when it came to implementing technology within education” DERRICK BROWN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY, NCSD

“Insight Financial Services is a trusted partner financially because they help their customers create a sustainability plan.” I was fortunate to have worked with Insight in another school district, but most importantly, they had already laid some groundwork at NCSD pre-pandemic with the Chief Financial Officer and former Executive Director of Technology.

Overall budget (2019-20 adopted budget)

“We were not in a place to look at operationalising Chromebooks prepandemic as the devices that we used were in mobile carts within the classrooms and the daily demand was not as high. But the minute the pandemic hit, we began to see these devices were needed daily and unfortunately weren't robust enough in terms of running video meetings and the multiple windows opened simultaneously for students to work remotely. We needed a sustainable and affordable way to buy or lease devices for all students.

“When you spread US$4m over four years it becomes more palatable. We already had a sustainable replacement plan for our teacher’s devices, to ensure they had reliable in-warranty equipment, so we are adding on and improving existing practice to make sure that all students have the same experience.

Our school board was elated when they heard about this opportunity. technologymagazine.com

401

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOLS DISTRICT

402

November 2021

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

“If we had talked two years ago about teachers teaching from home and students learning from home, it would have sounded absurd. It never would have happened. But here we are navigating our way through the pandemic with parents becoming teachers and teachers teaching, and being parents all at the same time” DERRICK BROWN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY, NCSD

“Emergency funds from the FCC will provide us with a one-time payment for us to move this forward. But in terms of working with Insight Financial Services, they will help us work on sustainability.

So in year three, we'll begin to evaluate a replacement plan and the district's needs.

This will include looking at what new devices are available, evaluate the needs of teaching and learning and seek input from students and teachers, see the new technology available and look at our return rate for the existing equipment.

“There's a fair market value for these devices, we may want to keep some at the end of the lifecycle or offer students a purchase option at graduation - there’s a lot of flexibility for us,” said Brown.

Hotspots for virtual learning NCSD utilised its existing partnership with T-Mobile, and Project 10 Million, as well as technologymagazine.com

403

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

Snapshot of Oregon Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the western US. The Columbia River provides a natural boundary to the north with Washington, while the Snake River acts as an eastern boundary with Idaho to the south is California and Nevada. While Salem is the state capital, Portland is the largest with a population of 647,000.

Oregon is one of the most geographically diverse states in the US marked by volcanoes, dense evergreen, and mixed forests, as well as high deserts and semi-arid shrublands. Standing 3,429m is Mount Hood, a stratovolcano, which is the state's highest point.

Oregon's only national park, Crater Lake National Park, comprises the caldera surrounding Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the US. 404

November 2021

Verizon to provide hotspots to students and families that needed access to the internet.

“We use a single sign-on tool called ClassLink in order for all students and teachers to securely and seamlessly access digital curriculum and online instructional resources. It’s one of our biggest partners that helps us to provide digital resources in a single sign-on tool. And so with the click of a button, if you're a student on a Chromebook, it immediately takes you to a single pane and the student can see all of the resources that are available to them by their grade level,” commented Brown.

“Our district made it clear that if any family needed access to the internet, we would provide it. “Although we provided hotspots at the height of the pandemic thanks to T-Mobile and Verizon, they didn't work for everyone because of the cellular service in their area. Some families found that their internet service was not fast enough so they had to stagger their time online.

This period of disruption also coincided with the retirement of NCSD Superintendent Matt Utterback after three decades and the arrival of newly selected Superintendent Dr Shay James. “Previously, Dr James was the Assistant Superintendent of Education so we have a smooth transition of leadership,” said Brown.

“Matt Utterback spent his entire career here which is rare in education. He had planned to retire in 2019 but was asked by the board of education to walk us through the pandemic. He finally retired in 2021. Our internal candidate Dr Shay James became the new superintendent here at NCDS on July 1. I'm excited about our new leadership in sync with revising NCSD's strategic goals this year facilitated by Studer Education,” said Brown.

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

“ Insight Financial Services is a trusted partner financially because they help their customers create a sustainability plan” DERRICK BROWN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY, NCSD

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Commenting on the digital plans for the future, Brown predicts K-12 may focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

“Personally, I hope the future will be in coding, programming, and innovation.

We have an amazing trade program here.

We know that not all graduates will go on to a four-year university.

We promote our trades and give opportunities to students who might not have thought of going into the automotive or welding industries. I want to build an ambassador tech program within middle and high schools to provide additional student tech support. So why not have some of our students who are interested in technology be part of our team?

“We have technology support specialists in our middle and high schools, so they are able to work collaboratively with our teachers to create a program to recruit students.

“We might do the first round of interviews to bring in a class of students to train them on things like how to replace a screen, how to replace a motherboard, how to create

technologymagazine.com

405

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOLS DISTRICT

Dr Shay James Superintendent, NCSD

406

November 2021

NORTH CLACKAMAS SCHOOL DISTRICT

“At the beginning of the pandemic we would never have imagined where we are today” DERRICK BROWN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY, NCSD

a ticket, be able to access the help desk be intentional. We need to continue to do ticketing system, and respond to their peers that and utilise this technology. or provide tech support for teachers. Then “What does that future look like? That's they could be part of the next group to what we need to talk about. What worked interview incoming students. I see there are well, what is going well and how do we lots of opportunities in the future. continuously improve? What resources “Our partner Acer, who do we need to continue to provides the majority of provide? There are up to 32 SCHOOLS our Chromebooks, has a 10 million families today in DEDICATED TO programme where they the US still without internet SERVING EACH certify students to repair access. That's a tragedy.

STUDENT WHICH devices. We want to bring And some of these families INCLUDES: that programme in to work are right here in NCSD. with our technology and • 18 Elementary Schools “We have to look at how education programme to • 4 middle schools we get resources to these get it off the ground, for • 5 high schools families? How do we make our students to receive • 4 Charter Schools sure that we don't leave this certification. It might • 1 Technical-Professional anyone behind during these even be a pathway for a job Centre (2 campuses) times? I think that's critical,” attracting a livable wage said Brown who pointed out when they graduate. that although there were “At the beginning of the pandemic, we funds available it cannot be a one-time cash could never have imagined where we would injection. We need long-term sustainability be today. We have learned so much. We from the state and federal government to have developed resilience. We can do hard continue the good work and school districts things. We have learned to come together. have the funds to keep it going.

We realised that we have to reach out and ask for help when we need it. I have always been an advocate of reaching out to my peers and vendor partners. The pandemic forced us to have deeper connections. It forced us to schedule virtual meetings, and technologymagazine.com

407

RG GOLD

408

November 2021

RG GOLD

WRITTEN BY: DOMINIC ELLIS PRODUCED BY: ASHLEY KIRBY

PROGRESSING WELL WITH 5MTPA CIP PLANT CONSTRUCTION technologymagazine.com

409

RG GOLD

410

November 2021

RG GOLD

RG Gold is busy developing its new CIP Plant project and maximising its existing operation in Kazakhstan

R

G Gold, the Kazakh gold mining and production company, operates one of the largest deposits of gold in Kazakhstan and is the third largest in terms of gold resources. The deposit is in the Burabay area of Akmola region, covering an area of 67.7 sq. km that consists of two pits: North and South.

RG Processing, set up in October 2018, was created to facilitate the engineering and design of the project for the construction of a carbon-in-pulp (CIP) plant, that is expected to start processing 5 Mtpa of sulfide ore from Q3 2022. The KZT180 billion project includes building all necessary infrastructure objects such as tailings facility, new camp, water supply facilities and a new HV powerline.

Both companies’ shareholders – Kazakh private equity group Verny Capital and American group of private equity funds under common management Resource Capital Funds (RCF) – are actively involved into companies’ strategic and operational management.

Rossouw’s attention is now firmly fixed on the getting the new mine up and running. It is targeting 5 tonnes of gold per year, with 170 tonnes in resources and 99 tonnes in reserve.

The total construction cost is $425 million.

Development Bank of Kazakhstan JSC (a subsidiary of Baiterek Holding) provided a loan in the amount of up to US$300 million for nine years and the remainder will be provided by RG Processing at its own expense. technologymagazine.com

411

RG GOLD

“I’ve grown up with autocratic leaders most of my life, and I saw it was something that didn’t bear fruit, so I’m 100% the opposite” LAWRENCE ROSSOUW CEO, RG GOLD

412

November 2021

RG GOLD

LAWRENCE ROSSOUW TITLE: CEO

“We brought AAEngineering Group on board in January,” explains CEO Lawrence Rossouw. “They are the major technologyEPC provider at the moment, and they will also be responsible for commissioning services in the ramp up to full production.

It’s been challenging, especially with the COVID situation. Some items got stuck at the Chinese border for several months, and

EXECUTIVE BIO

COMPANY: RG GOLD Responsible for the Company's operational management and the new 5 MTPA CIP Plant Project execution.

Certified mining metallurgist with 25 years of operational, construction and project management experience in various parts of the world. Professional with an extensive experience in delivering successful projects associated with extreme weather conditions and logistically challenging locations.

RG GOLD

Carbon in pulp plant in numbers

5 Mtpa of sulfide ore from Q3 2022 Targeting

5tonnes of gold per year

170tonnes In resources

99tonnes In reserve

$425mn project cost

that was frustrating. We had to re-organise our construction schedule to accommodate the late delivery of these items.”

Bullion will be sent to the Kazzinc refinery.

Kazzinc operates one of the largest gold producing operation in Kazakhstan, Altyntau Kokshetau in the Akmola Region.

Alongside the new venture, RG Gold is busy maximising its 2mtpa oxide ore treatment facility which it has been operating for the last 9 years.

414

November 2021

“The aim is to keep running that plant for the next two to three years. While we’re ramping up the CIP plant, we will have this plant in production as well. So, from 202325, we will be treating 7mtpa in total across both plants,” he adds. “Drilling results looks really good. We are expecting additional oxide resources close to surface, so the potential exist to keep the Heap Leach operation running for several years, maybe even longer.”

RG GOLD

RG Gold progressing well with 5Mtpa CIP Plant construction

“We brought AAEngineering Group on board in January. They are the major technologyEPC provider at the moment, and will also be responsible for commissioning services in the ramp up to full production” LAWRENCE ROSSOUW CEO, RG GOLD

technologymagazine.com

415

RG GOLD

“In future, when we have an operating mine, we’ll use the new technology such as AI to manage the plant and monitor the processing parameters. But right now, the focus is getting the plant up and running in a very short period of time” LAWRENCE ROSSOUW CEO, RG GOLD

Currently its workforce stands at 920 across mining, geology, processing and administration, but the plan is to add another approximately 300, to operate the CIP plant, growing total manpower to around 1,250 by the middle of next year.

“We’ve been very fortunate in that COVID hasn’t impacted our business in any severe way. We obviously applied the strictest preventative measures and protocols, it was costly, but it was worth it – and we weren’t affected from a production point of view, and the project team worked remotely.”

In terms of partners, RG Gold works closely with ASPMK, which has installed a new, 75km high-voltage overhead line, which will be commissioned in October this year; CPS, which built the tailings storage facility, and should be finished by the end of the year; and Fortinet protects its IT infrastructure.

“We’ve built up a lot of connections with other mines – we collaborate with Kazzinc and Altynalmas to use their operating facilities to train our people. They have processing plants similar to ours in terms of technology and throughput. We have an unofficial agreement with these companies that from March 2022, we will send personnel to their facilities for practical training purposes.”

416

November 2021

RG GOLD

RG Gold portfolio

920 Staff

67,7sqkm

territory in North and South Raygorodok

170tons

of gold reserves

JORC-compliant resources of

6Moz

technologymagazine.com

417

RG GOLD

“We’ve been very fortunate in that COVID hasn’t impacted our business in any severe way.

We obviously applied the strictest protocols, it was costly, but it was worth it” LAWRENCE ROSSOUW CEO, RG GOLD

Mining - From design to implementation.

The activity of Mining and Ore Technologies LLP is the provision of production, technical and consulting services: surveying, drilling, blasting, excavation, transport work, outsourcing of production processes at the Ore mining Works in the field of open-pit mining.

The staff of the organization is formed of highly qualified specialists with experience in the mining industry from 3 to 25 years. The management team consists of specialists with higher education and more than 10 years of experience in the mining industry.

The fleet of mining and transport and drilling equipment is over 170 units of medium and heavy class - excavators with a bucket of 7m3 and 15 m3, dump trucks 91 tons.

Scope of works performed - more than 40 mln m3 per year Discover more

418

November 2021

RG GOLD

The company prefers to use firms in Kazakhstan – since Verny Capital is a local entity – but it does call on international assistance when needed.

“We start local, the villages around us, and that’s where the majority of our workforce come from. Training is a massive challenge. We spend a lot of time and money getting qualified people.

“We’ll use partners when the quality of service locally isn’t to international standards – AMC in Australia handle mine design and geological work, for instance.”

At a time when many firms are rapidly embracing new technologies during the digital transformation, RG Gold is taking a measured approach. Construction design was completed using 3D modelling.

“In future, when we have an operating mine, we’ll use the new technology such as AI to manage the plant and monitor the processing parameters. Those will be implemented as we go forward. But right

now, the focus is getting the plant up and running in a short period of time, as the timeframe is very aggressive.”

While the gold price may remain volatile, Rossouw is confident in the market’s future.

“At least in the next 10 years, I see a big future for gold.”

technologymagazine.com

419

WATER NSW

Harness Cloud and IoT to Better Serve Customers WRITTEN BY: GEORGIA WILSON PRODUCED BY: KRISTOFER PALMER

420

November 2021

technologymagazine.com

421

WATER NSW

422

November 2021

WATER NSW

CIO Ian Robinson, and Executive Manager System Operations Adrian Langdon, at WaterNSW, discuss the company’s business transformation agenda and customer-centric approach

F

ounded in 2015, WaterNSW is a stateowned corporation, established under the WaterNSW Act 2014. Operating the state rivers and water supply systems, WaterNSW supplies two-thirds of the water used in NSW to regional towns, irrigators, the environment, Sydney Water Corporation and local water utilities.

Working for the company since its founding, Adrian Langdon, Executive Manager System Operations reflects on his time at the company and how it has evolved: “We still supply water, this is something that hasn’t changed, but the level of customer engagement and the amount of information that we are providing to customers now, compared to before, has grown. We have also shifted from traditional paper interactions with customers to digital interactions, and it is this journey in particular that we are focusing on now, taking previously office-based work online. In the last eight months, a lot of our meetings and similar operations with people around the state are being conducted through the digital environment (Microsoft Teams, Zoom). This is an area where we are seeing some big changes since I joined the company.”

Combined, Langdon and Ian Robinson, CIO have more than 30 years of experience in water and utility services. In particular, Robinson has worked in the IT space in the utility sector, joining WaterNSW in 2018 to drive the company’s business transformation agenda. technologymagazine.com

423

WATER NSW

“ Water, being a limited resource, requires us to work with our customers to ensure that we manage it in the most efficient way possible, and we have to do that in a partnership” ADRIAN LANGDON

EXECUTIVE MANAGER SYSTEM OPERATIONS, WATER NSW

424

November 2021

“We've established a transformation agenda based on a vision of the future that describes what the workforce of the future will be doing that is different to today,” says Robinson.

“To enable that, we've built a roadmap of initiatives to get us to that point, which involves transitioning customers from paper-based transactions to digital channels, enabling our system operations team to have data at their fingertips rather than having to extract data from a myriad of different systems; and enabling our field staff to replace mundane manual tasks with automated data collection solutions using IoT and on-site mobile solutions.

These things combined will change the way we work; it will allow our people to work on

WATER NSW

ADRIAN LANGDON TITLE: EXECUTIVE MANAGER SYSTEM OPERATIONS COMPANY: WATER NSW

Harnessing Cloud and IoT at WaterNSW As part of the business transformation agenda at WaterNSW, the company

EXECUTIVE BIO

higher-value activities and enable them to focus on the needs of our customers.

“The transformation will allow us to focus on higher-value activities, such as predicting the water needs for our customers, enabling customers to see those predictions and allowing customers to make better decisions for the future based on the availability and quality of water we can supply. And those processes will enable WaterNSW to work with our ecosystem in a way that establishes us as a source of information for better decisions by other parties in the water market.”

Adrian is a strategicallyfocused management professional with over 25 years’ experience in the fields of water and waste water management, strategic planning for water supply systems, integrated water cycle management, water supply health regulation, water recycling river operations and water and wastewater treatment.

Prior to joining WaterNSW (upon its formation), Adrian managed the water operations of State Water and urban water strategic planning and policy for the NSW Department of Water and Energy. Adrian holds a degree in Applied Science from Deakin University and a Master of Environmental Management from Western Sydney University.

WATER NSW

WaterNSW Harness Cloud and IoT to Better Serve Customers

is developing an IoT gateway built on a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) cloud solution. “Field equipment such as measurement sensors are connected to a telecommunications network to provide data in real-time back to the data lake where it is provided for a myriad of consumers through a data catalogue. All of that happens in one platform and the IoT gateway effectively provides the interface to the public carrier network or the satellite system that provides a communications network from the field to the gateway to connect that data for downstream processing.”

“The consolidation of data through consolidated gateways to a single source of truth data lake stops the need for people to intervene in the process and therefore interrupt the integrity of the data. Data governance then becomes oversight of data flows and associated processes to continually adapt the processes to changing requirements or error types.

426

November 2021

WATER NSW

“ We've established a transformation agenda based on a vision of the future that describes what the workforce of the future will be doing that is different to today”

IAN ROBINSON TITLE: CIO COMPANY: WATER NSW Ian is a seasoned CIO and executive leader with 25 years’ progressively responsible experience in leadership, strategy, large program delivery and operational management.

Ian joined WaterNSW in March 2018. His passion for complex solution development and new product concepts, where engineering and commercial acumen can be combined, is helping our organisation rapidly transform into a high performing organisation supported by integrated systems, infrastructure and processes. Ian holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering from the University of Sydney.

IAN ROBINSON

EXECUTIVE BIO

CIO, WATER NSW

WATER NSW

WATERNSW AND ADASA SYSTEMS WaterNSW partnerships are critically important, including our partnership with ADASA Systems. “It's been a really strong partnership,” says Robinson. “ADASA Systems did some work, which was groundbreaking in our dam safety area. With our engineering team, we initiated a project where we took real-time data from field measurements, collected by people using a mobile device or by telemetry or SCADA systems and loaded it into the data lake. That data is analysed to provide alarms triggered by measurement thresholds within the analytics engine. Dam engineers are then able to quickly filter the huge amounts of data coming back from dam surveillance points and identify risks at dams that need to be further investigated.

ADASA is continuing to expand the capability of the analytics with AI driven thresholds on risk thresholds that refine the alarms and reduce the noise from the data. Increasingly,

428

November 2021

dam engineers are able to spend more time investigating real anomalies rather than trying to find anomalies in a mountain of data.

One of the great aspects of ADASA Systems is it brings great water knowledge.

They're a Spanish company with expertise in the Spanish water market which has similarities with the Australian climate, and they bring a rare combination of deep water knowledge combined with excellence in information technology development. This allows them to transform our use of data and to do this by showing us through MVPs and real software showcases” Adding to Robinson’s comments, Langdon says, “They have been great. I think they have challenged us, which has been really positive in terms of how we've actually approached information management. Our WaterInsights product has allowed us to create information in a way that people can understand.”

WATER NSW

“ The WaterInsights product was born from the desire of our customers to see all information, pertinent to them, in one location” ADRIAN LANGDON

EXECUTIVE MANAGER SYSTEM OPERATIONS, WATER NSW

“Adrian often talks about the need to make sure that all of our stakeholders have a standardised definition of what that data is so that their interpretation of the data is the same as ours. Often in the past, data has been misinterpreted because of the lack of an agreed business glossary, which means people can understand it to mean something different to how we intend it to be. The data lake enables us to put very clear tags on that data and make sure that the definition is included in a business glossary and allows people access to that in a standardised way.” technologymagazine.com

429

DATA ANALYTICS

CLOUD COMPUTING

REMOTE SENSING

INTERNET OF THINGS

We help water companies digitalise Adasa provides the digital transformation strategies and solutions for your critical water and customer challenges.

www.adasasystems.com

LEARN MORE >

contactus@adasasystems.com

WATER NSW

Implementing new technologies and processes do not come without challenges; for WaterNSW the primary challenge was legacy environments. “We have lots of different disparate data sources and trying to bring all those together using lots of legacy and proprietary data protocols is a significant challenge. We needed to accommodate each of those legacy proprietary technologies so that we could translate them into a standardised form. The next challenge was then to capture the business rules that have been traditionally in people's heads or those various disparate systems and codify in automated data processes. That's required us to reimagine our data flow and the rules and constraints we put around that data to make sure data is handled in a consistent way. In doing that, we've delivered a comprehensive capability across all of our data that enables consumers to trust the data and to readily fix errors that stay fixed when they are identified.”

“ The 360-degree view allows the customer service operator and the customer themselves to see all of those interactions in one place in a context for their personal customer profile” IAN ROBINSON

CIO, WATER NSW

Better Serving Customers With water being one of the most critical elements, whether it be from an agricultural point of view or from a town’s water supply, Langdon explains the relationship WaterNSW has with its customers, “it is a very important relationship because, really, water transfers in a continual motion, therefore that relationship has to be very strong and we need to be able to work very closely together with customers to optimise the use of water and to synchronise the release of water to match demand. Water, being a limited resource, requires us to work with our customers to ensure that we manage it in the most efficient way possible, and we have to do that in a partnership.”

By developing the IoT gateway, WaterNSW can allow its customers to find information at their fingertips. “This is actually giving us the technologymagazine.com

431

WATER NSW

opportunity to get accurate timely change. He pointed to data through to the customer, WaterInsights as a prime example who is making significant financial of listening to your customers business decisions in some cases, and then delivering a product to especially in the agricultural field; not only meet but exceed, their Year Founded having information in a timely expectations: manner is essential for them to “Our first step towards Industry make good business decisions. establishing this has been the Our consolidated data lake fed introduction of WaterInsights. by emerging IoT sensors is giving The WaterInsights product was Number of Employees us good quality data which our born from the desire of our customers are able to move customers to see all information, forward with and I think that’s the partnership pertinent to them, in one location. that we are trying to continuously form with WaterInsights has delivered this in a userour customers in order to meet their needs. centric format that puts the information All of this data is visualised in an industrythat our customers told us was important leading online platform called “WaterInsights”. at their fingertips. Excitingly, our next Langdon reiterated the importance release, which is due mid-2022 will see of putting customers at the heart of all us being able to push out key operational decision-making, including technological information, such as supplementary flows

2015

Utilities

500-1,000

432

November 2021

WATER NSW

and outages, to our customers without them having to search for it.

While giving our customers a tool to enable better water management decisions, we have also created the ultimate transparent web tool that provides meaningful and up to date information to support our customers, stakeholders, and communities in better understanding water management in NSW.” The product, built using agile methodologies by ADASA, reflects the way customers want to see our data. We know this through customer testing we have done, and great care was taken in listening to customer feedback and building that into a user interface that presents data in an easy-to-understand way. In working with our government policymakers, the portal also provides water access rules in

plain English for customers to understand the terminology and the reason water allocations are set and how access to the water is managed.

“But our customers don’t just require information. They also need us to act on their behalf. If they have a need for water and they want to gain a licence to access that water or order water to enable us to deliver that water to them, we've built digital channels to enable them to interact with us through a customer portal and be able to look at their account and understand how much water has been used against their total allocation for the year and as changes occur. For example, Adrian has supplementary notifications that he can advise and communicate to customers, allowing them to act on that information, bid for the water, trade water, and maximise the value of their allocation.” technologymagazine.com

433

WATER NSW

WaterNSW’s 360 Degree Customer View When asked about WaterNSW’s 360-degree view of its customers, Robinson describes it as a customer-centric view. “A customer can have a whole set of licences, each of these licences can have multiple customers associated with it, then the customer will have orders,

434

November 2021

accounts, bills and transactions that occur. The 360-degree view allows the customer service operator and the customer themselves to see all of those interactions in one place in a context for their personal customer profile. Having implemented a CRM for the first time, service operators can then, in context, understand

WATER NSW

what the customer's position is, where they are sitting with their transactions, what problems they've had in the past, and what payment schedules they've had. This allows us to have a really rich experience in interacting with the customer that allows us to prove to the customer that we know and understand them.

“Our CRM solution is not only a record of customer interactions and case management for enquiries, it is also a business process automation solution using Pega software. From a CRM perspective, it provides a web-based customer portal that captures customers’ views from social media, voice contact, chatbots or email contact. All of those different channels all funnel into one single view for the internal customer service officer. It also enables customers to take into their own hands, the process of applying for and transacting with WaterNSW, so a lot of care has been taken in the CX/UX experience for a customer trying to initiate a transaction, such that, we put it into the way a customer thinks.

Having entered the data, the information is processed through business rules to give the customer an automated, if possible, outcome. Ultimately, it’s about enabling WaterNSW to work in the way the customer needs, while also allowing for a reduction in the mundane task of entering data and, most importantly, allows us to focus on improving customer service.

Pega, at its roots, is a business process management engine that allows us to automate steps where business rules are met which results in the need for human intervention only when rules require it or where complex interactions are required.

This is what lifts the focus of our staff from low to high value work. We can move from administration to advisory, from long cycle times pushing paper to quick cycle times with customers that really understand the nature of their assessment and the reason for the outcome of the assessment.”

technologymagazine.com

435

The power to do great things.

Transforming IT and cybersecurity Our team of cyber experts have a proven track record of delivering agile, game-changing cyber solutions. These solutions and services ensure an adaptive defense strategy, offensive threat protection, and a resilient security posture.

Let us provide you the power to perform at your best.

leidos.com/cyber