Technology Magazine - April 2021

April 2021 | technologymagazine.com

Presidio: Managing Migration Risk READ NOW

Most Valuable Tech Brands FIND OUT

Tech’s Special Relationship

Matt Schwartz, IBM Global SAP Practice Leader, on how the two tech giants work together in perfect harmony READ NOW

Ethical Technology: Sustainability Driving Digital Transformation LEARN MORE

Never miss an issue!

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

JOIN THE COMMUNITY

The Technology Team EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

PADDY SMITH DEPUTY EDITOR

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ

VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER

MEDIA SALES DIRECTOR

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR

KIERAN WAITE

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

SCOTT BIRCH

OWEN MARTIN PHILLINE VICENTE JENNIFER SMITH

SAM KEMP EVELYN HUANG MATTHEW EVANS TYLER LIVINGSTONE

CREATIVE TEAM

PRODUCTION EDITOR

DIGITAL MARKETING EXECUTIVE

WILLIAM SMITH

OSCAR HATHAWAY SOPHIA FORTE SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL HECTOR PENROSE SAM HUBBARD MIMI GUNN JUSTIN SMITH

PRODUCTION MANAGERS

JANET BRICE

ANDREW STUBBINGS PROJECT DIRECTORS

KRIS PALMER MIKE SADR BEN MALTBY TOM VENTURO CRAIG KILLINGBACK

JAMES WHITE

JASON WESTGATE MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

STACY NORMAN PRESIDENT & CEO

GLEN WHITE

EDITORS LETTER

Will April be a watershed month for electric vehicles?

“From cars to paintings, there are vanishingly few places where digital transformation isn’t making inroads - expect that to continue as the world tentatively emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic”

TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY

Electric vehicles represent one of the most exciting technological frontiers, with huge ramifications for the environment. In recent times, we’ve seen digital transformation sweep through the automotive industry, with companies increasingly competing based on the technologies integrated into their cars.

Volkswagen’s unfortunately bungled premature April Fools announcement that it was renaming itself ‘Voltswagen’ could just be seen as a bit of fun, but is also indicative of the extent to which electrification is seen as the future of the industry. It’s certainly no joke for the company, which also announced it was building six battery ‘gigafactories’ across Europe.

Elsewhere, digitalisation continued at pace across a broad swathe of industries. Even the art world is experiencing its own dose of digital transformation, with the last month seeing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and their ability to prove ownership of a digital item via the blockchain exploding into mainstream view thanks in part to artists such as Grimes and Beeple.

From cars to paintings, there are vanishingly few places where digital transformation isn’t making inroads - expect that to continue as the world tentatively emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.

WILLIAM SMITH

william.smith@bizclikmedia.com

© 2021 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

technologymagazine.com

3

CONTENTS

Our Regular Upfront Section: 6

Big Picture

8

The Brief

10 Global News 12 People Moves 14 Timeline:

Electric Vehicles 16 Legend:

Susan Wojcicki 18 Five Mins With:

John P. Barden

38

Ethical Technology

Sustainabilityat the heart of digital transformation

26

IBM Global Business Services

How IBM is evolving its unique partnership with SAP

46

MTM Inc.

So Much More Than Just a Lift

62

98

Cloud & Cyber

Children’s Hospital of Orange County

70

116

Setting the tone for socially responsible data centres

How AI is taking the frustration out of chatbot interactions

Is data less secure in the modern workplace?

Ark Data Centres

Acceleration of Telemedicine for aediatrics

AI and Data Analytics

90

126

The OPEX swing

Managing MigrationRisk

IT Finance

Presidio

READ NOW

Technology Magazine is proud to launch a celebration of women in Global Technology.

Brought to you in association with:

A BizClik Media Group Brand

Creating Digital Communities in Technology

192

Comdata Group

148

The four pillars to strategic procurement and a better CX

Top Ten

Most valuable tech brands

160

SAP Cloud

Preparing businesses for change through innovation

208 SAS

Democratising artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing

176

222

Driving the digital journey for retailers

Adaptive applications from data center to edge

SAP Retail

F5 Networks

CONTENTS

274

236

RPG Group

RPG puts people first in digital transformation

CSG

An Industry Leader in Digital Acceleration

288

CGI Netherlands

Data harvesting: Key on journey to smart manufacturing

246 EPIC IO

Wireless M2M on the Edge

302

The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD Delivering patient care through innovation

260

316

Headless commerce for a new era of retail

Expanding tech tools to grow vehicle leasing sales

Flooid

Vanarama

328

NHS England & Improvement

Innovation in the NHS through COVID-19 and beyond

340 Chayora

The gateway in and out of China

352

Siemens

Integrating engineering and infrastructure to enhance urban mobility

366 UNIT4

Driving the people experience

380

Cerner Qatar

Transforming the future of digital health in Qatar

392

ChenMed

When our patients do better, we do better

404

Devoteam

Putting people at the heart of digital transformation

420

Save the Children International

An international approach to IT

BIG PICTURE

Non-fungible token artworks sells for millions Texas, US

NFTs (which some have taken to pronouncing “nifties”) have exploded onto the scene in the last month.

Simply put, NFTs are digital items backed by blockchain technology.

While being based on the same technology as cryptocurrencies, each token is unique and noninterchangeable. The appeal of the technology to art collectors is obvious, giving ephemeral digital possessions the exclusivity of real-world art objects.

The pictured example “Hashmask 15753” was released into the public domain by its owner.

10

April 2021

technologymagazine.com

11

THE BRIEF “SUSTAINABLE IT IS AN IMPERATIVE, AND THE INSIGHT GAINED FROM OVER THE LAST FEW MONTHS SHOULD SHAPE BUSINESSES’ CONTINGENCY PLANS FOR YEARS TO COME”

BY THE NUMBERS The 2021 Nasdaq tech stock wobble

Charles Cao

EMEA operations and strategy, Conga  READ MORE

“By using cloud providers, you increase the secure access of data by trusted users” Adam Kujawa

Director, Malwarebytes Labs  READ MORE

“A HAPPY CUSTOMER IS ONE WHO ISN’T LEFT WAITING ON HOLD FOR THREE HOURS FOR A SIMPLE MATTER – THAT’S EXACTLY WHERE AI SLOTS IN” Julien Rio

Senior Director, RingCentral Engage Digital  READ MORE

12

April 2021

$136.71 Mar 03

$146.65 Mar 09

Did you know? The cryptocurrency bitcoin surged in price, at one point topping $60,000 thanks in part to Elon Musk’s Tesla buying $1.5bn of bitcoin and saying it would soon accept payments via the currency.

79%

of consumers are changing their purchasing preference based on sustainability

78%

of consumers think sustainability has become the primary way to drive product innovation (Orange Business Services)

Find out more about ethical technology 

PUBLIC CLOUD CUSTOMERS consume 77% fewer servers, 84% less power, and reduce carbon emissions by 88%

READ MORE

 STRIPE Stripe became the US’s most valuable startup following a $600mn funding round which took its valuation to a high of $95mn

What is distributed cloud?

THE CLOUD IS BECOMING MORE COMPLEX AS TWO MAJOR TRENDS – HYBRID CLOUD AND ANYTHING AS A SERVICE (XAAS) – GATHER SPEED.

What is the distributed cloud?

It all comes down to location. Historically, this hasn’t mattered much. The cloud, by its very name and nature, was ‘elsewhere’. But the advent of XaaS has brought speed of service to the fore. Distributed cloud can be thought of as a combination of public cloud, hybrid cloud and edge computing.

What’s the advantage of distributed cloud?

The central advantage is one of speed (low latency). In fact, in many instances edge and distributed cloud may be conflated. But edge does not offer the same resilience as a hybrid strategy. Localising the things that need to work fast, and distributing the rest to cloud ‘substations’ offers an overall improvement in efficiency and productivity. There’s also increased compliance and a broader surface of cloud options for distinct business tasks.

 VOLKSWAGEN Announcing it would build six battery gigafactories, Volkswagen put Tesla in its sights with a comprehensive push for electric vehicles.  APPLE Apple announced a $1bn European Silicon Design Centre bolstering its German engineering and design base  UBER The company said it would treat its “drivers” as workers under UK law following a decision by the Supreme Court  TENCENT Amid fears of incoming regulation from the Chinese state, Tencent experienced a rapid fall in its share price.

G O O D T I M E S APRIL21

B A D T I M E S

technologymagazine.com

13

GLOBAL NEWS 3

UBER - UK

The gig economy: why Uber is giving UK drivers worker status Uber announced it is to grant its “drivers” worker status in the UK, entitling them to all the benefits required under UK law.

The move was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling. Uber said its UK mobility business represented 6.4% of all bookings in the fourth quarter of 2020, and while it would increase costs in the UK, it did not intend to pass those on to customers.

1

SKYDIO - CALIFORNIA

Is Apple about to join the cloud computing fray?

Redwood City, California-based drone manufacturer Skydio, which specialises in autonomous flight, raised its latest $170mn Series D led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Growth Fund. The company said it would use the funds to accelerate product development and expand globally.

14

April 2021

2

TESLA - TEXAS

Is Elon Musk planning a battery-powered utility company?

A Tesla subsidiary known as Gambit Energy Storage is plugging a giant battery into the Texas energy grid by constructing a 100-megawattplus energy storage facility in Angleton, around 40 miles south of Houston - enough to power some 20,000 homes.

4

VOLKSWAGEN - GERMANY

Volkswagen backs electric vehicles with six battery factories Volkswagen announced its intention to build six electric vehicle battery-cell manufacturing plants in Europe. The so-called gigafactories are intended to unlock synergies in Volskwagen’s supply chain and thus bring down the price of electric vehicles for consumers, with all expected to be established by the end of the decade.

5

6

RAKUTEN - JAPAN

India’s Jio tests 5G and aims to rid country of 2G networks Japanese internet giant Rakuten received investment from the likes of Tencent, which took a 3.6% stake, alongside Walmart at 0.9% and Japan Post at 8.3%, raising $2.2bn. The deal was framed as bolstering the Japanese company against competition from western leaders such as Google and Amazon.

AMAZON - SINGAPORE

Whose satellites did SpaceX launch in world record flight?

Technology giant Amazon announced it is to build a 62 megawatt solar project in the city-state of Singapore. The project, which is scheduled for completion in 2022, features movable panels to make the most of the sun, and expects to generate 80,000 megawatt hours of clean energy per year.

technologymagazine.com

15

PEOPLE MOVES TIM WU FROM: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK TO: US GOVERNMENT WAS: PROFESSOR NOW: SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR TECHNOLOGY

" Wu has previously run for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of New York, and was appointed to the Office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman" 16

April 2021

Tim Wu is a professor of law at Columbia University. He is best known for coining the phrase ‘network neutrality’ and for being a leading advocate for an antitrust lawsuit directed at the breakup of Facebook.

His books include Who Controls the Internet? Illustrations of a Borderless World; The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires; The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads and The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Golden Age. Wu has previously run for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of New York, and was appointed to the Office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. On March 5 2021 Wu confirmed he would join Biden’s National Economic Council as a special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy.

MAREN COSTA FROM: AMAZON TO: MICROSOFT WAS: UX DESIGNER NOW: PRINCIPAL LEAD DESIGNER Maren Costa first joined Amazon in 2002.

Having worked for 15 years on UX design projects in Amazon Go and Alexa Shopping, she co-founded the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice group in 2018. During Covid19, she was vocal about the conditions faced

by Amazon’s warehouse staff and was fired.

Costa said she looked forward to working with a company with a “high bar for corporate climate responsibility”. Microsoft has set a goal to become carbon negative by 2030.

TRACEY TREWIN FROM: MICROSOFT TO: MAGIC LEAP WAS: GENERAL MANAGER NOW: CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER Tracey Trewin began working at Microsoft in 1996, but has followed former colleague Peggy Johnson – who became Magic Leap CEO last August – to the augmented reality platform.

Johnson put out a statement offering her reasons for poaching Trewin for the role: ““Her expertise of harmonizing hardware and software development in partnership with enterprise customers, and their engineering teams, will be a key component in our next phase of growth.” technologymagazine.com

17

TIMELINE THE LONG ROAD TO ELECTRIC VEHICLES Electric vehicles (EVs) are coming of age, but their history stretches back a surprisingly long time. Here we chart the breakthroughs that led us to being on the cusp of driving down Electric Avenue

1827 The beginning It all starts with a Hungarian priest called Anyos Jedlik, who built the first viable electric motor in 1827. The following year he was able to power a small car with it. The mid-19th century then saw a flurry of electric car and train development, including several patents for powering the latter via the rails.

18

April 2021

1902 Studebaker By 1902, electric cars were a hotly tipped prospect, and the Studebaker Automobile Company put the first mass produced vehicles into production. By 1904, it had diversified into petrol cars as well. A good bet, as Henry Ford’s cheap production models would see electric cars all but disappear from roads for the next century.

20th CENTURY

The slump Discoveries of oil, lack of range… blame what you will but the 20th century was a blackspot for EVs with a few exceptions: many industrial vehicles, such as pallet and forklift trucks were battery powered, as well as the famous British milk float. Oh, and that golf buggy astronauts drove on the moon.

1965 1980

2020

Experimentation

Nissan Leaf

All was not lost. Much of the innovation that would be developed into modern EVs came about in the late 20th century, including semiconductors and microprocessors. There were also developments in battery management and synthetic AC currents.

More importantly, the lithium-ion battery was created, extending potential range.

Tesla had announced. Toyota and GM had made hybrids. But the introduction of the Leaf – a mass-produced all-electric hatchback – opened the floodgates for a slew of nextgeneration EVs. Governments took note and set about building the infrastructure and the car industry was primed to make like Bob Dylan and go electric.

"Much of the innovation that would be developed into modern EVs came about in the late 20th century"

technologymagazine.com

19

LEGEND

In the frame at YouTube We take a closer look at the career of tech pioneer Susan Wojcicki, and her identification of the revolutionary power of video.

C

urrently the CEO of video sharing social media platform YouTube, Susan Wojcicki has been one of the driving forces behind parent company Google’s activities since she officially joined the company in 1999, helping guide it to becoming the dominant force it is today. She plays a further part in Google lore, however, with her Garage in Menlo Park, California having been the company’s first ever headquarters after its founding in 1998.

Wojcicki was integral to the development of the company’s advertising business as SVP of Adwords and AdSense, successfully monetising Google’s groundbreaking search engine capabilities. In her joint role as head of Google’s nascent video service, she was quick to identify the potential of its chief competitor YouTube and duly headed the acquisition of the

20

April 2021

smaller company. Ascending to the role of YouTube CEO in 2014, she has led the company to milestones including users watching over a billion hours per day.

Unusually compared to her peers, Wojcicki possesses a BA in history and literature from Harvard University, later studying for an MS in economics and an MBA at different institutions after cementing her interest in technology.

7

Years as YouTube CEO

23

Years since joining Google

“Wojcicki has been one of the driving forces behind parent company Google’s activities since she officially joined the company in 1999, helping guide it to becoming the dominant force it is today”

technologymagazine.com

21

FIVE MINS WITH...

JOHN P. BARDEN YALE UNIVERSITY’S CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER RUNS US THROUGH THE INS AND OUTS OF HIS ROLE AND HOW IT HAS CHANGED IN THE FACE OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

Q. COULD YOU GIVE ME AN OVERVIEW OF YOUR POSITION AND WHAT IT ENTAILS?

» Information technology at Yale consists of approximately 450 personnel in central, and about half as many more out in distributed units. That balance reflects how we think about decision rights at Yale. Specifically, there are many aspects of technology that are shared, for example networking, telephony, administrative systems, and these are generally centralized. That co-exists with local specialization that is segmented by both mission and academic units to assure the unique needs of our vastly differing faculty and student needs are met. So, while one facet of my role is assuring the strategic direction, operational precision, and guidance of the central unit, it is equally important to manage the ongoing collaboration and governance functions holistically for the institution. In combination, these assure that we act as “One IT” in the interests of Yale’s faculty, staff, and students.

Q. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE?

» I believe a leader’s style must meet

the contextual need, but values must be unchanging. Values are the basis of trust, and if you want people to follow you, they need to be able to predict how you will behave.

My values weigh heavily toward being direct, taking informed risks, being transparent, fact-based, and valuing high integrity above all else. Every value also creates

“ A LEADER’S STYLE MUST MEET THE CONTEXTUAL NEED, BUT VALUES MUST BE UNCHANGING” 22

April 2021

“ OUR WORKFORCE HAS HARDLY MISSED A BEAT WHILE DEALING WITH AN ENTIRELY NEW WAY OF WORKING” blind spots. Being conscious of them and surrounding yourself with team members who complement those risks creates a balanced leadership team, and I have been extraordinarily fortunate in that regard.

Q. HOW HAVE YOU REACTED TO THE NEW NORMAL OF COVID-19?

» It is an understatement to say that

COVID has further amplified the University’s dependency on technology.

This event has been seismic for the higher education industry and has upended literally centuries of tradition and methods.

And while early adoption of technologies has always been a major part of research institutions, there is no doubt that the pace and criticality of broad-based adoption has never had more significant consequence to the very lifeblood of what we do. I am incredibly impressed with how faculty, staff, and students have worked through all these changes. Our workforce has hardly missed a beat while dealing with an entirely new way of working.

Q. TO WHAT EXTENT HAS THE PANDEMIC IMPACTED EXISTING PROJECTS?

» Essentially, the entire institution has

been operating under a large-scale business continuity plan since this began.

From an IT perspective, we consciously reforecast and acknowledged some delays in our planned activities, particularly those programs impacted by the limited

physical campus access in the early stages, and the redeployment of team members who have been building out the responses supporting public health, remote work, and online learning. Many of our colleagues are dealing with their own set of COVID impacts and have been willing partners in rethinking priorities in the context of the pandemic.

That said, this team is incredibly aligned to our strategic plan, and has put in a herculean amount of effort and time to keep us on track with our long-range goals.

The impact has also not been evenly distributed across the team, so many planned activities are moving along well, and I expect we will achieve the majority of what we set out to do this fiscal year.

Q. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIORITIES GOING FORWARDS?

» Having now exposed the entire faculty

and student population to online tools, how do we best align their use with our educational strategies and goals? Having exposed our workforce to working from home, how do we leverage these learnings to rethink working at Yale, and how do we envision the future culture of the institution that will be influenced by these choices? In our globally connected world, should some aspects of our public health measures stay? These are all new strategy questions for the institution that have been enabled by an urgent technology response. I don’t want the tail wagging the dog and we will make no assumptions.

Like most organizations with a 320-year history, Yale is thoughtful and deliberate in weighing these kinds of major choices.

Just because we have proven we can do something doesn’t mean we should.

Strategy first. technologymagazine.com

23

Global Virtual Event Register today for early bird access and notifications about the upcoming event...

September

14th - 16th REGISTER YOUR INTEREST

A BizClik Media Group Brand

If you like the magazine... ...you’ll love the Event Creating Digital Communities

How IBM is evolving its unique partnership with SAP Example of an image caption

26

April 2021

WRITTEN BY: PADDY SMITH PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE

IBM

technologymagazine.com

27

IBM

28

April 2021

IBM

IBM’s SAP Practice is dedicated to

the evolution of both companies and their joint strategy to drive the next generation of business processes

S

AP wasn’t always the technology giant it is today and was originally founded by five engineers who left IBM to start the company. IBM Global SAP Practice leader Matt Schwartz remembers joining SAP in 2004, when it had fewer than 10,000 people in North America. “It was a much smaller, more intimate organization,” Schwartz recalls. “I pretty much knew every SAP consultant but it is a much different situation now.”

The growth of SAP has been exponential and fueled by a number of acquisitions which has created a new level of complexity. “It was easier to sell, consume and understand what SAP was at that time,” Schwartz admits.

The company, its customer base and its product offerings have expanded. “I’d say the biggest change is that it was very easy to understand what SAP stood for 20 years ago. It was an integrated ERP system. It was one application and now it’s a multitude of applications – it’s an ecosystem. SAP calls it an Intelligent Enterprise. We believe the value now is connecting those Enterprise applications and adding intelligence to them through intelligent workflows.”

SAP rising Do smaller, nimbler companies offering cloud native software solutions pose a threat to monoliths like SAP? “Its Déjà vu all over

again, right?” Schwartz replies with a grin.

“If you look back 20 years companies were buying SAP for finance and supply chain while others purchased a combo of SAP and best of breed capabilities in Supply Chain like i2 and Manugistics, PeopleSoft for HR and Ariba for procurement. You had clients that went with best-of-the-breed solutions and had SAP for their digital core back then, and this continues to happen today even with the newer SaaS solutions in the market. SAP has reached an understanding that customers will continue to make these choices and the power is in seamlessly linking these applications through capabilities in their Business Technology Platform underpinned by the capabilities of the cloud providers.

“ Our ability to help clients understand the business case for change, the value of the transformation and how SAP can help them drive that transformation, helps SAP achieve all their goals” MATT SCHWARTZ

IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE LEADER technologymagazine.com

29

IBM

Matthew Schwartz talks about IBM's Digital Transformation

The real shift, Schwartz thinks, is in the way we think about integrating and building the next generation of SAP solutions.

Architecting intelligent workflows means leveraging improved API integration capabilities, infusing intelligence with AI and machine learning algorithms. While delivering an outcome with business process management orchestration and continuous business process improvement mining. This is a new way of thinking for both our customers and even our consultants.

It represents the way we need to move

“ Sustainability has become a key driver in commercial decision-making, and software plays its part” MATT SCHWARTZ

IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE LEADER

30

April 2021

to ensure we are building cloud enabled solutions for the future while allowing customers to fully leverage their best of breed solutions as part of their end-to-end processes. This approach with S/4HANA as the digital core provides the ability to define and deliver the business case our customers require to drive their digital transformations.

Partnership depth The IBM-SAP partnership started at the founding of SAP and remains as the longest, strongest partnership in the ecosystem.

What keeps that relationship strong?

“At the core of our partnership is our shared goal of satisfied clients,” Schwartz explains. “Satisfied clients want to buy additional applications from SAP and more implementation services from IBM. Success stories help both SAP and IBM to gain new customers and satisfied customers are also willing to speak to others about their success providing more opportunity to IBM and SAP.

IBM

Given IBM’s track record in the SAP business with over 6,700 projects delivered, SAP feels comfortable making commitments to their customers about IBM’s ability to deliver the business outcomes enabled by SAP. IBM’s ability to deliver on time, on budget with realized value for joint customers continues to fuel the strong growth of the partnership.

“From a sales perspective, our ability to partner with the SAP field has always been enabled by our support helping the C-suite, the board and the shareholders of an organization understand the value they're going to get from SAP.” When working with IBM, our joint customers understand the business case for change, the value of the transformation and how the different SAP applications can help them drive that transformation, as well as the return on investment they can expect. This helps SAP achieve their goals and this shared mission creates a level of trust in the partnership.

MATT SCHWARTZ TITLE: IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE LEADER LOCATION: CALIFORNIA Matt Schwartz is firmly from the management consulting side of the industry, starting out at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), first on the coding side, then with SAP practice in the mid-late ‘90s. He went on to work in the Price Waterhouse (now PwC) SAP practice.

With the dot-com boom in full swing, he joined a couple of start-ups before joining SAP in 2004, where he would spend almost a decade. “I figured if I was going to be in the SAP ecosystem, why not join them?”

Schwartz says. He followed SAP with a stint at IBM, then another management consultancy stint, this time at EY (again in the SAP practice). Four years ago, the call came from IBM to return to the fold.

Schwartz came back on board to run the North America SAP practice, doubling business in a short period of time, before stepping up to his global role.

1911

Year Founded

$73.6bn Revenue 2020

345,900

Number of employees

EXECUTIVE BIO

ERP sustainability What happens next in SAP’s journey?

According to Schwartz, it’s already happening.

“Sustainability has become and as policies change will continue to be a key driver in commercial decision-making and software plays a part.” The ability to properly account for carbon impact and to manufacture and

IBM

market sustainable products will take on a new level of importance for organizations.

Looking for ways to lower the carbon footprint, increase the profitability of products while having a positive impact on the environment will become front and center. IBM and SAP are working together to combine their solutions and expertise to respond to this market demand supported

by IBM’s work on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. This capability is what organizations and shareholders are looking for and as a consumer, that's also what I want. It's about organizations working with IBM Global Business Services and SAP to leverage the technology to facilitate the changes required by the environmental agenda.

Garrick Keatts took over from Schwartz at the top of America's SAP practice in 2020.

He thinks IBM’s SAP proposition is unique.

“When you look at IBM's core fundamental offerings of what we can do for clients to help guide them and what that journey

GARRICK KEATTS TITLE: IBM NORTH AMERICA SAP PRACTICE LEADER

Garrick Keatts is an IBM lifer, starting out at the firm straight from college as a supply chain consultant in the SAP practice. His work has taken him around the world in international markets (visiting 60-70 different countries), but always flying the flag for IBM and SAP’s unique partnership. He returned to the US to focus on SAP HANA before taking on the North America SAP practice leader role in May 2020. “I think what's interesting to me in that time period is what's changed and what hasn't. If I think back 16 years ago, so much of our work with our clients on the SAP front was about getting them transacting capability and allowing them to do that at scale with efficiency. Fast forward to today, so much of the priority with our clients is really more about insights and giving them a more granular level of insights at a quicker pace that they can use to make better business decisions.

What hasn't changed is the fact it's still so much of our work is around giving our clients efficient transacting in platforms to drive their business and their growth

32

April 2021

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: COLORADO

“ There's not a partner out there that has the offerings to do the strategy, work, the implementation, the run from an application and an infrastructure perspective” GARRICK KEATTS

IBM NORTH AMERICA SAP PRACTICE LEADER

IBM

Garrick Keatts talks about IBM's SAP practice in the Americas

should look like, actually implement it for them and get them to that state of utopia that they seek,” he says. “And even from a business perspective to be able to manage that both at an application and from an infrastructure perspective, we're very unique in the SAP partner ecosystem that we can do all of those things. There's not a partner out there that has the offerings to do the strategy, work, the implementation, the run from an application and an infrastructure perspective.”

Keatts is obsessed with data cleanliness, and suggests that in the past data was moved around to the extent that it was effectively massaged before reaching decision makers.

“Today, the business user is seeing that data in its raw state in an instantaneous fashion. We know getting that data into these environments in a very clean and continuously governed state is critical for business operations and program success. It’s incredibly important for

both the expectations and the outcomes the business desires, and to see successful delivery of projects.

Truth in data “There’s less appetite from business users to be held from the truth today than ever.

They want to understand where the issues are. They want to get to them quickly, and they want to be able to identify those issues before they become a major problem. They want the opportunity to fix them in flight versus having to initiate some sort of project 1, 3 or 12 months later.”

IBM was awarded the SAP North America Award for Partner Excellence for 2021. For someone who has spent his entire career in the orbit of IBM and SAP, Keatts has a granular understanding of the partnership.

He sums it up as “alignment of objectives”.

“We’re both about helping our clients be technologymagazine.com

33

IBM

“ Digital transformation hasn’t simply appeared.

It’s been evolving for a long period of time” ALLAN COULTER

CTO, IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE

Allan Coulter talks about Enterprise IT within IBM

34

April 2021

IBM

ALLAN COULTER TITLE: CTO, IBM GLOBAL SAP PRACTICE INDUSTRY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

EXECUTIVE BIO

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES Allan Coulter has been with IBM for 23 years. Having started out as an accountant (“incredibly boring”), he was given the opportunity after graduating from University to dabble in financial software programming – the company he worked for then started an SAP program….from here he joined PwC then IBM in the SAP Service Line.…”I starting off as a Finance Process Consultant then I got involved in some of the new technologies when they first came out, the likes of SAP Business Warehouse, SAP Portal and the likes…..I was always the person that was invited to check out the new stuff…. I was interested in how things worked, so I got involved in what was then called Basis…I combined all of this when certifying in Enterprise Architecture. I actually ended up with a really good balance of process skills and technical skills. I think this has ended up being crucial in the role I have now, as I get to see how technology is best applied to improve the way our customers deliver their processes….”

IBM

more successful in their business operations.

When we're both on that mission path, it creates a lot of complimentary synergies and it doesn't create much conflict. That's why the relationship has been so strong for so long and will continue to be.

“When you look at what SAP is taking to its clients, IBM has to support that with the business strategy up front around business transformation. We have the ability to execute on every migration option that’s out there for our clients from ECC to S/4 HANA. And we have the ability to run that infrastructure platform using the most proven technology that has ever run SAP on the IBM Cloud. That aligns us, and lines us up very nicely to continue to be successful together.”

Allan Coulter, CTO for the SAP Practice, has also been with IBM for over 20 years. He has 36

April 2021

witnessed the evolution of SAP from a singleERP solution to one that has evolved over time to a software stack that underpins the Digital Transformation ambitions of IBM’s customers.

“However Digital transformation hasn’t simply appeared. It’s been evolving for a long period of time. Even 10 years ago, we had clients that started to infuse automation into the way we were building out the processes….. what we are delivering today is the next iteration, what we call the Intelligent Enterprise.

For me, it’s really as simple as making SAP simpler, smarter and more connected to the rest of the application portfolio using a set of new technologies from IBM and SAP. Truly a partnership For Coulter, the relationship between IBM and SAP is “truly a partnership”. “We know the strength that each party brings to the

IBM

table. We’ve been a partner of SAP for over 40 years, but it is constantly evolving… a great example of this is the ‘Evolution Partnership’ we signed last year with SAP that is how we collaborate on taking the Intelligent Enterprise story to the market.

The partnership is really about how to accelerate that ambition level….“How do we use the new technology solutions from SAP, the likes of Data, AI, Automation, IoT combined with the core ERP system to create new outcomes for our customers.

When you combine SAP and IBM technology, you have an amazing platform foundation for creating new innovations, new ways of working, new customer and employee experiences – at the end of the day, this is what it is really about – it’s about the creation of new experiences powered by technology."

But the biggest change in Coulter’s opinion is the new integration approaches.

“Companies are moving away from this wall-to-wall ERP story – they’re adopting a balance of ERP and best of breed…so the new technologies need to reflect this change… and to shift from old fashioned integration techniques into a more APIbased approach.

As part of Evolution, we’re constantly building out end-to-end process solutions that are designed to easily integrate SAP with these new cloud-native applications… this means that we have the platform foundation to help any client realize their Digital Transformation journey irrespective of their complexity."

technologymagazine.com

37

ETHICAL TECHNOLOGY

SUSTAINABILIT Y AT THE HEART OF DIGITAL

TRANSFORMATION 38

April 2021

ETHICAL TECHNOLOGY

Cost has always been the driving factor to selling technology solutions at enterprise level. But sustainability is starting to challenge its dominance in the reps’ patter WRITTEN BY: ESAT DEDEZADE

E

nterprise Resource Planning or ERP software has traditionally been sold on the basis of decreasing costs while improving efficiency – two core pillars that make up the foundations of any profitable business.

While running supply chains, procurement, logistics and more through a single software solution is good news for a company’s bottom line, the positive impact ERP can have on sustainability is a factor that’s growing exponentially more important.

A report by Orange Business Services shows that 79% of consumers are changing their purchasing preference based on sustainability, with 78% stating that sustainability has become the primary way to drive product innovation.

An overwhelming majority of respondents also believe that becoming more sustainable can help them save costs, benefitting the planet in the process.

In a world where the environmental impact of humanity has never been more exposed and a global pandemic continues to inflict widespread disruption and challenges, sustainability has become more than a mere byproduct of ERP solutions. For many companies, it’s now a topic that’s at the forefront of their transformation.

“Cost, efficiency, and improving resilience will always be major drivers of digital transformation, but sustainability is now firmly a part of that conversation,” says Matthew Woodcock, RVP, Customer Value Management technologymagazine.com

39

ETHICAL TECHNOLOGY

Public cloud customers consume:

77%

fewer servers

84%

less power

“ Cost, efficiency, and improving resilience will always be major drivers of digital transformation, but sustainability is now firmly a part of that conversation” MATTHEW WOODCOCK RVP, CUSTOMER VALUE MANAGEMENT, COUPA

at Coupa. “We’re seeing two major trends, the first being a rise in interest from businesses driven first-and-foremost by a desire to improve sustainability. The second is the increasing adoption of tools that help improve sustainability in organisations after they’ve gone through a transformation, which may have been primarily driven by other factors.”

and reduce carbon emissions by

88% (AWS)

Beyond box-ticking The benefits of a properly executed ERP system are undebatable, but it’s all too easy for cynics to believe that these solutions are rolled out purely for profit and compliance reasons. Frances Sneddon, CTO at Simul8 states that “Sustainability still mostly tends to come up when companies are being audited on their carbon emissions and need to demonstrate that they have the tools and procedures in place to measure and document carbon output – or else face severe fines. Unfortunately, this can often make it more of a box-ticking exercise and organisations initially just want a digital tool that can easily cover this to remove the risk.”

We’re at a point now, however, where companies are realising that new and existing transformative ERP solutions can provide technologymagazine.com

41

ETHICAL TECHNOLOGY

“ Sustainability still mostly tends to come up when companies are being audited on their carbon emissions and need to demonstrate that they have the tools and procedures in place to measure and document carbon output – or else face severe fines” FRANCES SNEDDON CTO, SIMUL8

An example of ERPlead sustainability on a smaller scale can be found in Bantham Technologies' work with the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust in the UK. Having deployed an ERP solution, the trust saw noticeable increases in efficiency and cost reduction, in addition to drastically lowering its carbon emissions as a result.

By processing an average of 3,000 e-forms per month across 100 remote workers, the trust expects to use 165,600 fewer sheets of paper while reducing its annual travel by nearly 500,000 miles.

This will result in lowering CO2 emissions by over 180 tonnes over a single year, with considerable savings to boot. Those 100 remote workers will save over 11,000 hours in travel time and administration, with annual cost savings estimated to be over £200,000.

broader gains. These include benefits in areas such as carbon emission monitoring and reduction, and better overall decision making to help reduce costs while improving resource management. The end result is a more proactive, rather than passive byproduct approach when it comes to ERPlead sustainability.

One example is Simul8’s work with a Houston-based oil and gas company that was regularly transporting large amounts Built on sustainability of equipment from the US to the Middle While ERP solutions can improve logistics East. “We modelled the alternative routes and supply chains, companies should available to assess the cost versus also consider how the systems carbon implications of each option,” themselves are run, to recoup Sneddon explains. “This process extra savings. Implementing an compared journeys across sea, air ERP strategy on the public cloud, and land, the added carbon costs for example, is something that can from transfers and delays along a greatly affect overall costs and of consumers are changing route, and the number of containers impact on the environment, while their purchasing needed for transporting the cargo. negating the multiple headaches preference based on sustainability This amalgamation of data into a associated with companies running (Orange Business single model generated the evidence their own on-premise solutions Services) needed to make an informed – namely having to worry about decision on the best balance of cost and security, data redundancy, updates, sustainability, since they had the full picture and balancing resource consumption in front of them.” with demand.

79%

42

April 2021

technologymagazine.com

43

“ Sustainable IT is an imperative, and the insight gained from over the last few months should shape businesses’ contingency plans for years to come” CHARLES CAO

CAO, EMEA OPERATIONS AND STRATEGY, CONGA

44

April 2021

“When compared with private data centres or traditional hardware models, the public cloud has far greater capacity for efficiency,” says Michael Chalmers, MD EMEA at Contino. “Cloud customers consume 77% fewer servers, 84% less power, and reduce carbon emissions by 88%, according to AWS. Additionally, the scalable nature of the public cloud means that companies avoid over-purchasing and over-powering private systems.”

“Shifting to a cloud-native operating model, centred around the flexibility and scalability of the cloud, will open the door to a new world of sustainability-led business opportunities, and enable them to innovate and achieve without hurting our planet in the process.”

ETHICAL TECHNOLOGY

Is the sustainable transformation “The pandemic has forced a great trend set to continue? tide of digital transformation,” says There’s no doubt that the focus on Charles Cao, EMEA operations and sustainability will dominate more strategy at Conga. “As employees of consumers think ERP strategies in the years to come. continue to work remotely for the sustainability has The environmental benefits and their become the primary foreseeable future, businesses will way to drive product have to… eliminate silos, integrating importance to customers are too innovation (Orange important to ignore, while overall cost scattered processes and further Business Services) and efficiency improvements offer an embracing digital. But in doing so, extra, obvious motivation. companies will not only lower their carbon The pandemic has resulted in business all footprint, but realise they can operate far around the world being forced to adapt and more successfully when they embrace cloud transform, or face certain failure. With more technology and other solutions. Sustainable than a year of implementing new practices, IT is an imperative, and the insight gained many of which contribute to sustainability, a from over the last few months should shape new era of work is truly upon us. Having said that, businesses’ contingency plans for years it’s important that transformation is executed to come and lead to more sustainable correctly, for companies to reap the full benefits. business practices.”

78%

technologymagazine.com

45

MTM INC.

SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST A LIFT 46

April 2021

MTM INC.

By creating an ecosystem of collaborative partnerships fueled by innovation, MTM removes barriers and brings a whole-person approach to healthcare WRITTEN BY: LAURA V. GARCIA PRODUCED BY: JAMES BERRY

B

y focusing on doing the right things, MTM has created a beautiful thing; An ecosystem of collaborative partnerships, fuelled by innovation, all focused on the same goal— removing community barriers and bringing a whole-person approach to healthcare while doing right by our planet, and its people.

Having experienced immense growth over the last ten years, MTM now runs an estimated 20 million trips per year and is the number one private healthcare transportation provider in the USA, across 32 states. And with good reason.

By remaining unrelentingly focused on its core principles and objectives, MTM has unlocked a whole new level of value for its clients, reducing program costs while increasing satisfaction rates. As Rick Holbrook, CTO at MTM, says, what MTM has built is more like a community of likeminded business partners who are always looking at the bigger picture of improving health outcomes for members.

When you remain focused on the mission rather than a static idea on how you get there, ideas flourish, and innovation prospers. In the end, everyone wins.

Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) From The World Health Organization (WHO), “Social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, technologymagazine.com

47

MTM INC.

live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power, and resources at global, national and local levels.”

The organization further states, “The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities – the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries.”

Availability of transportation, food insecurity, and inaccessibility of nutritious food choices are examples of SDOH, which MTM hopes to help combat.

“Our real mission as a company is to remove barriers to individuals to access community and resources. But what we really want to do is accommodate people so that getting their health care is easy and cost-effective. That's why we exist.” said President and CEO Alaina Maciá.

48

April 2021

“ As the population ages and wants to age in place, we want to transport them where they need to go, but we also want to bring services to them. So we're expanding our platform to allow for meals and grocery, as well as home care coordination and home modifications” ALAINA MACIÁ

PRESIDENT AND CEO, MTM INC.

MTM INC.

The Art of Grabbing a Lift “If the technology works, people are going to adopt. We believe that, and it’s part of our strategy.”- Rick Holbrook, CTO, MTM Inc.

TAMARA CARLTON TITLE: D IRECTOR OF SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT INDUSTRY: HOSPITAL & HEALTH CARE LOCATION: ST LOUIS, MISSOURI, USA As MTM’s first Director of Social Determinants of Health and Product Development, Tamara leads the organization’s strategies for helping clients remove community health disparities among the populations they serve. Tamara joined MTM in 2016, leading the company’s Product Development team. She has more than twenty years of experience in marketing, operations, and product management for Fortune 500 companies in the healthcare, transportation, retail, and financial industries. Tamara holds a Bachelors of Science from Bradley University and an MBA from Saint Louis University.

EXECUTIVE BIO

MTM is re-imagining healthcare with a value-based business model focused on identifying and removing the SDOH that are the cause of health disparities through a holistic, whole-person approach that drives client value and promotes superior outcomes by focusing on the well-being of members. By expanding into providing services such as meals, groceries, and home modifications, MTM is hoping to further assist those who want to age in place so they can do so safely, happily, and healthily.

These services will also be extended to any individuals who require the resource, whether private pay or Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries. “People want to live a healthy life, but if they don't have access to good quality food, fruits, and vegetables, if they have trip hazards in their home, these things put them at risk and impede their ability to do so. That’s why MTM looks at the whole member experience and what we can do to address social determinants of health.”

Maciá said.

Following their commitment to taking a whole-person approach to healthcare, MTM further plans to extend its service. Maciá says, “As the population ages and wants to age in place, we want to transport them where they need to go, but we also want to bring services to them. So we're expanding our platform to allow for meals and grocery, as well as home care coordination and home modifications. Because as people age in place, they need modifications to their homes like turning a tub into a shower, et cetera. And we believe our job is to help people age in place, happy and healthy.”

ServiceNow; making the world work better people ServiceNow; making the world of of work better forfor people

digital transformation journey.

“ServiceNow is the Underpinned a people-first culture, digital transformation journey.

“ServiceNow is the Underpinned by aby people-first culture, platform or platforms for digital workflows.

And ServiceNow is making world of work better platform or platforms for digital workflows. And we we ServiceNow is making the the world of work better deliver those workflows across the organisations for people digital workflows solutionsdeliver those workflows across the organisations in in for people withwith theirtheir digital workflows solutions

the silos systems within them, creating A great workflow is the underpinning of great the silos andand systems within them, thusthus creating a a A great workflow is the underpinning of great seamless enterprise system with action that enables experiences.

ServiceNow provides digital workflows seamless enterprise system with action that enables experiences.

ServiceNow provides digital workflows great employee customer experiences that make for a smarter way to workflow, bringing great employee andand customer experiences andand that make for a smarter way to workflow, bringing unlocks productivity.

The Now platform is scaleability, safeguarding business continuity, productivity. The Now platform is the the scaleability, safeguarding business continuity, andand unlocks foundation forof allthose of those workflows across empowering productivity. foundation for all workflows across an an empowering productivity. organisation.

And we really pride ourselves in being customers serving of the organisation. And we really pride ourselves in being WithWith overover 62006200 customers andand serving 80%80% of the one platform, one data model, with one architecture.

Fortune become defining enterprise one platform, one data model, with one architecture.

Fortune 500500 has has become the the defining enterprise not only dohave we have purpose-built workflows AndAnd not only do we purpose-built workflows for for software company of the 21st century. software company of the 21st century.

IT, employees, and customers, we’re also able IT, employees, and customers, we’re also able to to integrate communicate across of systems the systems ServiceNow, putting people-first integrate andand communicate across all ofallthe ServiceNow, putting people-first of record and infrastructure that may be in place, Cathey Regional Sales Director at ServiceNow of record and infrastructure that may be in place, Jeff Jeff Cathey Regional Sales Director at ServiceNow providing our customers with a single pane of glass explains ServiceNow’s people-first culture our customers with a single pane of glass explains howhow ServiceNow’s people-first culture has has providing to get their work done. helped them there.

“ServiceNow is making helped them get get there.

“ServiceNow is making the the to get their work done. of those customers is MTM. Having expertise world of work better for people.

Our cloud-based OneOne of those customers is MTM. Having expertise world of work better for people. Our cloud-based in the healthcare industry has helped ServiceNow platform and solutions deliver digital workflows that in the healthcare industry has helped ServiceNow platform and solutions deliver digital workflows that in working to leverage its platform create great experiences unlock productivity in working withwith MTMMTM to leverage its platform andand create great experiences andand unlock productivity succeed in its goal of breaking down community for employees in the enterprise.

ServiceNow prides succeed in its goal of breaking down community for employees in the enterprise. ServiceNow prides barriers by removing streamlining workflow, on being a people-centric organisation by removing silossilos andand streamlining workflow, itselfitself on being a people-centric organisation thatthat barriers and providing them with the connectivity that’s wins as a team.

We always try to stay hungry and and providing them with the connectivity that’s wins as a team. We always try to stay hungry and required for their people, processes and systems. humble.

Diversity, inclusion and belonging are required for their people, processes and systems. humble. Diversity, inclusion and belonging are essential to who we are, to how grow, ServiceNow to support organisations essential to who we are, to how we’llwe’ll grow, andand howhow ServiceNow waswas builtbuilt to support organisations just just continue to innovate. like MTM drive meaningful outcomes. we’llwe’ll continue to innovate. like MTM drive meaningful outcomes. success is dependent on our people “Our“Our success is dependent on our people andand on on servicenow.com those people having talent those people having the the rightright talent andand the the rightright servicenow.com mentality to be able to deliver the future of work to mentality to be able to deliver the future of work to our customers. our underpinnings around our customers.

AndAnd withwith our underpinnings around culture and people first, ServiceNow has grown culture and people first, ServiceNow has grown to to $4 billion in revenue 13,000 employees overover $4 billion in revenue withwith 13,000 plusplus employees and thousands of customers around the world, and thousands of customers around the world, including MTM, that renew with us at a rate including MTM, that renew with us at a rate of of about Soof allthat of that serves mission about 99%.99%.

So all serves our our mission wellwell and helps ServiceNow become the defining and helps ServiceNow become the defining enterprise software company of 21st the 21st century.” enterprise software company of the century.”

digital journey, service TheThe digital journey, howhow service nownow cancan helphelp

Cathey, regional sales director at ServiceNow Jeff Jeff Cathey, regional sales director at ServiceNow explains how ServiceNow helps enterprises on their explains how ServiceNow helps enterprises on their

MTM INC.

MTM Technology

20mn

Scheduling trips

12mn

members nationwide

NEMT broker one of the most established in North America

7.5mn calls every year

52

April 2021

For over twenty years, MTM has collaborated with carefully chosen partners to develop innovative solutions that promote independence, remove barriers, and help connect community resources with the people that need them. By leveraging the capabilities of today’s deep tech and partnering with just the right people, MTM has been able to build a user-friendly digital platform that streamlines workflows.

Digitization also avoids the errors and limitations of manual, paper-based processes. And all while increasing the quality of life of members.

MTM has mastered the art of grabbing a lift. MTM Link mimics all the best qualities of Uber and Lyft that make for a user-friendly experience while unburdening users from

MTM INC.

the hassle of paper-based claims processes and easing scheduling for their network of transportation providers. They even send appointment reminders and monitor app usage to help clients ensure maximum adoption rates and decrease no-shows.

The ‘Where’s My Ride’ feature connects drivers with users and drops a pin to identify a more exact location than an address can provide, highly beneficial at large, multi-building medical facilities. Personal profiles, auto-fill capabilities, appointment reminders, mileage tracking, and electronic gas mileage claim submission all ease the process of arranging for a ride. Credential checks, quality monitoring, and a user rating and complaint system keep members safe, happy, and arriving at their scheduled

appointments on time, helping to increase efficiencies.

For less tech-savvy customers or even those who simply prefer human interaction,

technologymagazine.com

53

Helping Companies Reimagine CX And Turn Vision Into Reality Learn more

The Intelligent Cloud Contact Center

1-800-553-8159 www.five9.com Social icon

Circle Only use blue and/or white.

For more details check out our Brand Guidelines.

Your Contact Center is Now the Front Door to Your Business Contact center innovation is now an essential part of a company’s digital transformation strategy. After all, which department has the greatest sphere of influence on the customer experience and brand perception? Over the past year, the contact center has become the new front door of your business.

You need to be ready to deliver the exceptional experiences your customers expect.

During 2020, contact centers that migrated to the cloud were able to adapt and maintain their customer service standards with minimal disruption. Managers learned new ways to manage a remote workforce with cloud-based quality and performance management tools, gamification, and real-time analytics that ensured customer service standards were met.

Smart companies leveraged their migration to the cloud to also expand their omnichannel strategy. They quickly added intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) to automate routine conversations handled by live agents, freeing them to provide value on complex issues and empowering customers to quickly get the answers they need. Others used the migration to streamline their operations, automate workflows, and improve productivity and the overall customer experience.

Five9 has enabled thousands of organizations to quickly move their contact center to the cloud and achieve digital-first transformation.

Watch Genefa Murphy discuss the partnership between Five9 and MTM

A few Five9 successes include: • A financial services organization saved over $1 million per year by migrating to the cloud and surpassing its first call resolution goals.

• A healthcare provider used the power of AI to schedule appointments and provide vaccine updates for 80% of incoming COVID calls.

• A retailer leveraged AI and workforce optimization to coach agents and transcribe conversations in real time for greater efficiency, accuracy, and compliance.

If last year served as a catalyst for digital transformation, this year is indicating momentum towards reimagining the customer experience.

Now that the contact center is the new front door of your business, taking advantage of the power of the cloud is paramount. By partnering with Five9, your door will be wide open to provide world-class customer experiences.

Learn More

MTM INC.

Dynamic Enterprise Solutions that Redefine How Work is Done Agile | Product | Technology Cprime, a global consulting firm, helps transforming businesses get in sync.

From ideation through continuous delivery of value to the market, we help visionary business leaders like you scale and exceed business goals.

BUILD YOUR SOLUTION cprime.com

MTM INC.

MTM has fully staffed 24/7 call centers.

They have also designed a streamlined digital experience for their network of subcontracted transportation providers, so they can quickly and easily accept, deliver and claim trips.

Driving Client and Partner Success “The thing about technology is that you can't just throw technology at something and expect it to work. You could be automating a bad practice. So you have to reinvent yourself a little bit. You have to find the right technology and the right partners as well. We look for technologies that enable or open up our platform to be intuitive and easy to use,” said Holbrook.

RICK HOLBROOK CTO, MTM INC.

ALAINA MACIÁ TITLE: PRESIDENT AND CEO Named among the 2012 Most Influential Businesswomen by the St. Louis Business Journal. Alaina has taken the non-emergency transportation management business to a new level by focusing on strategic planning, proven management processes, and continued business and personal improvement.

MEET THE TEAM

“ We spend a lot of time looking for the right partners. We don’t use the ‘P’ word lightly when it comes to our technology partners.

We find ones that are flexible, that are open, that allow us to flex the system in whatever manner that makes sense so we can streamline workflows”

RICK HOLBROOK TITLE: CTO Driven entrepreneurial and innovative Chief Executive with nearly 35 years of leading healthcare industry organizations. Expertise in founding numerous inventions, emerging markets and software solutions.

technologymagazine.com

57

MTM INC.

Alaina Macia talks about how MTM is helping people

He goes on to explain, “We spend a lot of time looking for the right partners. We don’t use the ‘P’ word lightly when it comes to our technology partners. We find ones that are flexible, that are open, that allow us to flex the system in whatever manner that makes sense so we can streamline workflows and

58

April 2021

make life easier for the people who need to leverage our system and so we can deliver on our promises in the best way possible.”

The platform was carefully designed with users at heart to ensure optimal extraction of benefits for all parties, from the end-user to service partners, and is at the forefront of MTMs success.

A digital claims process eliminates the likelihood of errors and speeds up the claims process, which improves cash flow, and safeguards against fraud, waste, and abuse.

Driver complaints are investigated and validated through GPS records. MTM is also able to monitor who downloads the app and uses the information to offer assistance and help increase adoption rates.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. As all members have a personal profile and the app downloaded onto a device, they can send out targeted marketing to help clients

MTM INC.

“ At heart, MTM is a company that cares about community impact, and we feel very strongly about diversity, equity, inclusion, and climate change.

And so we take a stand on these positions” ALAINA MACIÁ

PRESIDENT AND CEO, MTM INC.

Addressing Social Determinants of Health Access to Quality Healthcare Economic Stability Neighborhood & Physical Environment Education Food Quality & Stability Community & Social Contact

technologymagazine.com

59

Top 5 reasons customers are choosing AWS Guru Gurushankar, PhD, Worldwide leader of medical devices, shares five reasons customers are choosing Amazon Web Services (AWS) Guru Gurushankar, PhD, is the worldwide leader for medical devices within AWS’s healthcare and life science practice and holds over 25 years of healthcare and medical device experience. Dr Gurushankar took a moment to share the top reasons he believes customers are choosing AWS. Agility “AWS lets customers quickly access resources as they need them, deploying hundreds or even thousands of servers in just minutes. This means customers can very quickly develop and roll out new applications, and it means teams can experiment and innovate more quickly and frequently.

If an experiment fails, you can always de-provision those resources without risk.”

Cost savings “If you look at how people end up moving to the cloud, almost always the conversation starter is around cost.

AWS allows customers to trade capital expense for variable expense, and they only pay for IT as they consume it.

And the variable expense is much lower than what customers can do for themselves because of AWS’s economies of scale.”

Elasticity “Customers used to over-provision to ensure they had the capacity to handle their business operations at peak level of activity. Now they can provision the resources that they actually need, knowing that they can instantly scale up and scale down along with the needs of their business, which reduces the cost.”

Innovation “The fourth reason is the speed of innovation. Because customers can focus their IT resources on developing applications that differentiate their business and transform their customers’ experiences, instead of spending time on the undifferentiated heavy lifting of managing their infrastructure and data services.”

Globality “AWS allows customers to deploy globally in minutes. AWS has the concepts of a region, which is a physical location around the world where we have a cluster of data centres.

AWS customers leverage around 76 availability zones across 24 geographic regions worldwide. And we are continuously adding new regions. We have had more than two, three regions announced very recently, and we don’t plan to stop there.”

One such customer is MTM, a leading non-emergency medical transportation broker based in the United States. Dr Gurushankar shares how the culture and mindset at AWS helps drive successful objectives-based customer partnerships.

“AWS customers have come to appreciate that our culture is really different. We are unusually customer-focused versus competitive focused. In fact, 90% of all the things we build are driven by what customers like MTM tell us and how they matter to them. We’re also pioneers, and we hire builders. We’re always looking at how they can reinvent flawed customer experiences. And finally, we are unusually long-term oriented. We are trying to build relationships and businesses that will outlast all of us.”

MTM INC.

get a word out. Contract protocols such as two-day notice requirements are built in to ensure compliance. And for their logistical partners, drivers are able to see open orders and route and schedule pickups. MTM also has a dispatch team to ensure lastminute requests are fulfilled and help with any issues.

For their clients, MTM provides a near real-time customizable dashboard that can monitor KPIs and provide decisionmakers with real-time data to help drive improvements.

Through their unwavering dedication to delivering the highest quality of service and their ability to develop comprehensive

“ We look for technologies that enable or open up our platform to be intuitive and easy to use” RICK HOLBROOK

provider networks, they help clients accomplish their objectives while achieving their vision of communities without barriers.

And they do it all while remaining committed to working towards sustainability and fairness for all. “At heart, MTM is a company that cares about community impact, and we feel very strongly about diversity, equity, inclusion, and climate change. And so we take a stand on these positions. We talk about it frequently, both publicly and with our employee base. And we know that our employees are aligned with our mission and our vision. And these are societal commitments to make our community better,” says Maciá.

The proof is in the pudding. MTM boasts an incredibly long list of awards and accolades, but most notably in corporate culture and wellness, aligning with their core values.

As we said in the beginning, by focusing on doing the right things, MTM really has created a beautiful thing.

CTO, MTM INC.

technologymagazine.com

61

CLOUD AND CYBER

Is Data Less Secure in the Modern Workplace?

Working from home can pose cybersecurity risks and with people sharing information back and forth, data protection is more important than ever WRITTEN BY: TILLY KENYON

62

April 2021

T

he modern workplace is an ever changing environment, and due to COVID-19 many companies have moved to remote working and are considering this as becoming a permanent move going forwards. But what impact does this have on your data security?

The growth of a remote workforce has led to an increase in the risks surrounding securing personal devices, poorly secured home Wi-Fi and weak passwords. The impact of the pandemic has made many businesses switch to the cloud, meaning outsourcing and trusting a vendor to keep your data safe. With the move to remote working many employees are using cloudbased platforms such as Office 365 and Zoom to meet their communication needs.

The Cloud Industry Forum found that the Covid-19 pandemic has forced the large majority of organisations (83%) to change their IT strategy in some way. They also found that 88% of organisations expect their adoption of cloud services to increase over the next 12 months.

CLOUD AND CYBER

technologymagazine.com

63

The Website and Magazine for Global Sustainability Executives Join now for notifications about the upcoming launch and never miss an issue...

LAUNCHES:

July 2021 JOIN THE COMMUNITY

A BizClik Media Group Brand

Creating Digital Communities in Sustainability

CLOUD AND CYBER

“By using cloud providers, you increase the secure access of data by trusted users” ADAM KUJAWA

DIRECTOR, MALWAREBYTES LABS

Cloud and multi-vendor Adam Kujawa, a director of Malwarebytes Labs, explains the importance of optimising your digital security. “Organizations that adopted cloud-based data storage likely increased their security if they were previously only using an on-prem data storage solution. By using cloud providers, you increase the secure access of data by trusted users as well as provide additional layers of encryption and/or authentication.

“The biggest concern about hosting data in the cloud is someone having access to that data, that isn’t supposed to have access. So finding a provider that really goes the distance with authentication and encryption is a good bet.”

Working from home can pose cybersecurity risks and with people sharing information back and forth, data protection is more important than ever.

If a company’s data is compromised, they will be the ones having to answer to their customers, therefore just because you are using cloud computing you cannot let your guard down.

Choosing whether a single vendor or a multi-vendor approach for your business is correct can depend on different factors such as the size of your company, budget technologymagazine.com

65

CLOUD AND CYBER

“ It’s important that all businesses pre-install staff computers and devices with security software to ensure they are protected at all times” DAVID EMM

PRINCIPAL SECURITY RESEARCHER, KASPERSKY’S GLOBAL RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS TEAM

and resources. Relying on one vendor to protect your business from all angles does have some benefits such as only having to deal with one contact, but this single vendor may not be the industry lead in 66

April 2021

all the products it is using to protect your business. A multi-layered approach that includes different product categories will provide the best protection. The more layers, the higher chance of maintaining a strong security defence.

Kujawa added: “Data security and data accessibility go hand in hand, if your security makes it difficult to achieve accessibility of the data, users may try to find ways to subvert security for the sake of convenience, for example downloading confidential and important files to a personal device for offline access, or using personal e-mail or communication tools for internal comms that you would normally do with secured accounts.”

CLOUD AND CYBER

Should businesses be taking Team (GReAT) said: “It’s important that all extra precautions? businesses pre-install staff computers and In a survey carried out by Barracuda, the devices with security software to ensure they company found that “almost half (46%) of are protected at all times, to minimise the risk global businesses have encountered at of attack. Staff should also know how to install least one cybersecurity scare since shifting or check the status of antivirus software while to a remote working model during the COVIDworking on personal, or company devices 19 lockdown.” The research conducted from home, to secure corporate information includes answers from over 1,000 and networks.” businesses in the UK, US, France Research conducted by and Germany.

Kaspersky shows that nearly a Protecting work devices that quarter (23%) of desktops and Almost half of global are no longer connected to a 17% of laptops supplied by UK businesses have secure company network is employers lack security software encountered at least one cybersecurity scare important. David Emm, principal – leaving those devices (and since shifting to a remote security researcher at Kaspersky’s therefore the business) potentially working model during Global Research and Analysis vulnerable to cyberthreats. the COVID-19 lockdown

46%

technologymagazine.com

67

CLOUD AND CYBER

68

April 2021

CLOUD AND CYBER

“The expectation of a level of protection from the office network firewall is missing; in fact, it has to be explicitly breached to allow remote working” TIM BROOKS

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, BOTPROBE

We spoke to Tim Brooks, Operations Director at Botprobe, about whether businesses should be taking extra precautions in regard to data whilst remote working.

“Absolutely. The expectation of a level of protection from the office network firewall is missing; in fact, it has to be explicitly breached to allow remote working. There is still a need for antivirus, patching, browser security. etc. that can be straightforwardly maintained on the remote work computer, but that co-existence with a plethora of unknown, unmanaged, devices on the home network provides a wealth of opportunities for the hacker to quietly and systematically look for entry points, copy and analyse data streams, etc.”

There is always an element of risk with cloud computing and trusting someone else with your data. Cloud storage is often ideal for companies as it provides the reassurance that important documents and data will not be lost if someone’s hard drive breaks, and the cloud is also accessible from anywhere that has an internet connection. Cloud providers invest heavily in their security systems and most

have multiple layers of protection, such as encryption and multifactor authentication.

With the expectation that remote working is here to stay, for many businesses it is even more imperative to reinforce security awareness. Protecting data is important for everyone, whether that be staff or customers, therefore businesses should be putting the provisions in place to ensure data cannot be misused or misdirected whilst at home.

There are certain steps businesses can take to ensure data will be protected such as making sure security software, such as firewalls and antivirus software, are up to date, setting secure passwords and ensuring all internet connections are secure. In considering how secure your data is and the different options available to businesses, the one element that must not be forgotten or neglected is the human element and therefore it is imperative for businesses to ensure that they educate and train their staff to follow the correct procedures which is key to certifying that all data they have access to is handled and stored safely. technologymagazine.com

69

ARK DATA CENTRES

SETTING THE TONE FOR SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE DATA CENTRES WRITTEN BY: DAN BRIGHTMORE

70

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

ARK DATA CENTRES

technologymagazine.com

71

ARK DATA CENTRES

72

April 2021

ARK DATA CENTRES

Empowering businesses to work from anywhere in the world with mission critical facilities fueled by 100% green energy

A

rk Data Centres specialise in the design, construction and operation of high integrity data centres which lead the market in sustainability, deliver optimum security, combined with the highest levels of availability. Ark’s objective is to industrialise the data centre market, eliminating the errors and costs associated with one-off custom-built solutions; favouring the inherent quality, improved performance and economies of a modular, manufactured solution.

The green agenda Industry leaders like Amazon, Microsoft and Google are driving uptake in the data centre market and have made categorical statements about their sustainability goals and how they will be achieved. Ark Data Centres openly share similar values and is approaching business in a different way says its CEO Huw Owen.

“There’s been too much greenwashing and not enough action,” he says. “We don't think that's good enough, because it's not addressing the actual problems in a meaningful way that effects real change.

The data centre industry is hungry on power and water so we need to develop a fit for purpose green agenda.”

The last decade has seen a huge and exponential growth in the use of data highlights Owen. “We’re seeing growth in the hundreds of percent when it comes to the amount of storage and power we’re offering. And if you actually look at the growth in power usage, it isn't matching it. Evidently, some good things

have been done to control that, but more needs to be done. And what's achieved that in large part is getting out of the old sweaty real estate data center sites into more modern and sustainable footprints.”

Ark’s goal is to create socially responsible data centres via a journey of continuous improvement towards sustainability objectives that benefit both its customers and the planet.

Net-Zero connectivity Ark has been sourcing green energy since 2015. All of its facilities are now powered by 100% renewable energy using purely natural sources. “Our customers benefit from the lowest renewable energy prices available in the UK market, while dramatically lowering their own carbon footprint,” reveals Owen.

It’s a fundamental approach that informs each stage of Ark’s design, build and operations cycle. All existing sites which have technologymagazine.com

73

www.gratte.com

Specialists in mission critical systems

Telephone 020 7837 6433

Gratte Brothers Group

Gratte Brothers: Mechanical & Electrical Precision Enabling modular and sustainable data centre solutions with resilient engineering Gratte Brothers is a third-generation family business, established in 1946 that has been offering combined M&E solutions for over 35 years; its first data centre project dates back to 1995. During the last six years the company has consistently delivered 30 megawatts of IT power to the mission critical construction market every year.

Resilient “We offer specialist knowledge when it comes to resilient engineering services” assures Gratte’s Engineering Director, Remi Suzan. “We’ve worked with DC supply chains for decades, and have good relationships with our manufacturers and specialist subcontractors.

Our contract engineers, site managers, and in-house commissioning teams don’t just understand how they work, but ‘why’ they need to work that way, and they bring that deep knowledge to every project.”

Modular Gratte Brothers has worked with Ark for over a decade; an integral part of its partner ecosystem developing modular DC solutions with low energy consumption

at their core. “ Together with Ark’s other partner contractors, we worked on developing a modular energy centre that could be associated with the prefabricated data centres that could then be deployed either as a single unit or as multiple units, depending on what Ark needed at the time,” confirms Suzan.

“The energy centres containing the UPSs and LV panels were all provided with a cooling system designed on external fresh air. It was calculated that for 98% of the year it could operate without mechanical cooling which was only required in exceptional circumstances at high-peak summer periods.”

Sustainable “Ark are way ahead of the game when it comes to sustainability,” reckons Suzan. “Their approach is more than just a green message on their website; they really mean it. Now that we can use adiabatic fresh air cooling systems for IT equipment with heat recovery in all of our air solutions, allied with the use of photovoltaic panels and LED lighting, energy efficiency has greatly improved.”

Engineering energy efficient data centres

Learn more Learn more now

ARK DATA CENTRES

historically leveraged diesel generators are in the process of being transitioned to bio-diesel.

For every new London facility Ark is committed to eliminating diesel by deploying back-up gas generators proven to run effectively on up to 30% hydrogen. “We support the UK’s ambition to incrementally increase the hydrogen mix in its utility gas network and we are pushing hard for the tests to be completed which will allow 100% usage,” adds Owen.

“Our campuses are ecologically level and feature green areas where wildlife can 76

April 2021

coexist. We have eco-toilets on our sites that save thousands of litres of water each year.

We’ve also extended our typical rainwater harvesting process to capture water from the roof but also from the run-off of the car parks which can then be filtered and stored.

It may involve a more intense filtration process but by re-using this water, we only use the mains to top up the rainwater supply as required, significantly reducing our usage.”

Water consumption is a key example where a data centre could either potentially

ARK DATA CENTRES

add to the problem or employ some innovative thinking. That’s why the team at Ark has developed a water buffering and saving mode for its cooling equipment which reduces the utility water supply requirement from 33 litres to just five litres per second (reducing its original peak water usage by a staggering 85%).

Ark’s net zero approach is the adoption of an ethos, not just a box-ticking exercise. Its waste management strategy is to become a “zero waste to landfill business” by reducing

the unnecessary use of raw materials.

Simultaneously, Ark aims to encourage re-use of materials and products, and reduce waste to landfill through recycling, composting or energy recovery, leading to a lower environmental impact and positive carbon reductions.

Modular data centre design “We’ve partnered with Bladeroom since 2011 developing our ‘data centre in a box’ concept,” explains Ark’s Director of Design, technologymagazine.com

77

Creating A More Responsible Digital Future BladeRoom are global leaders in the provision of highly energy–efficient data centres, manufacturing a sustainable and scalable solution capable of being deployed anywhere in the world.

Watch the future for sustainable data centres

Socially Responsible Data Centres For many businesses, improving sustainability now sits squarely at the top of the agenda and it’s a principle we share with the customers we serve. That’s why our data centres are designed around innovative technology that is proven to dramatically reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

A BladeRoom data centre, with its latest technological advances, uses zero mechanical cooling or refrigerants, and can operate at an annualised PUE of 1.04. This represents less than 4% of the total energy required to power the entire data centre and compared to the industry average, it is over 10 times more efficient. At the scale of a 100MW BladeRoom campus, situated in the UK, this results in annual carbon emission savings of up to 110,000 tonnes.

The real and significant reductions in carbon footprint that we are helping our clients to deliver today are the result of our 10-year commitment to innovation and continuous improvement and it is our mission to continue this journey towards a better and more responsible digital future.

Data Centres Don’t Get Any Cooler Than This BladeRoom facilities use an advanced cooling system, maximising free, filtered, ambient air with evaporative cooling. Free cooling is available for up to 100% of the time depending on the climate and supply air setpoints - saving significant cost and carbon emissions.

Rather than re-circulating and cooling the hot air from the IT as with traditional data centre cooling, a BladeRoom data centre operates like a server by drawing in highly filtered fresh air, intelligently matching air supply to IT demand and exhausting or partially recirculating warm air from the data centre as required.

Evaporative and free cooling enables the IT equipment to be cooled with supply air temperatures of between 18°C and 30 °C for more than 99% of the year in the UK without the need for mechanical cooling across a range of IT loads, still performing efficiently at 15% utilisation of racks.

Why ‘Factory-First’ Matters By manufacturing our data centres in our 110,000ft2 factory, we offer a sustainable alternative to site-based construction which in turn, provides a more resource-efficient way to create socially responsible facilities.

Our ‘Factory-first’ production approach allows deliveries to be made to the factory in bulk from local suppliers, minimising transport and heavy goods emissions. Materials are tightly controlled which dramatically reduces waste, with noise and pollution levels minimised, and site-based operational risks are transferred to a more secure environment.

Visit our website or follow us on social media to learn more about our commitment to a responsible digital future.

LEARN MORE

ARK DATA CENTRES

Construction & Operations, Andy Garvin.

“Built off-site, delivered by lorry and then re-erected on site within 14 days of leaving the manufacturing facility it was our first approach towards a volumetric solution.”

Now focused on a flat pack solution that can be built off the cladding on site, the design has been developed through various iterations over the past decade to reduce waste and cost. “We’ve developed a really efficient approach with dedicated factory space for Bladeroom to 'build-to- order' for our clients. The standardisation they’ve been able to offer has been really important.

We've worked closely with Bladeroom, particularly around the cooling technologies 80

April 2021

- we use indirect and direct air solutions.

The majority of our data centers are direct air, which allows fresh air to come in. It's conditioned, filtered and then approaches the OT space and is either exhausted or recirculated, depending on the conditions within the room.”

Ark also works alongside Bladeroom with Gratte Brothers and JCA to develop improved energy centre solutions. “Gratte Brothers and JCA are our preferred mechanical and electrical engineering partners,” confirms Garvin. Ark were also keen to modularise this process so together the partners came up with a unique solution which not only utilises

ARK DATA CENTRES

“ The data centre industry is hungry on power and water so we need to develop a fit for purpose green agenda”

HUW OWEN TITLE: CEO INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY LOCATION: WILTSHIRE, UK Huw Owen joined Ark in November 2012 as Chief Executive Officer to lead a new management team following the recapitalisation of the company. He has held key roles at a number of organisations, including BT Global Services and HP Defence & Security.

Previous roles across a diverse career include Chief Executive of the Atlas Consortium, delivering the Ministry of Defence DII (Defence Information Infrastructure) programme.

Owen also worked for the Asia Foundation, formulating and driving national reform programmes in Cambodia, as well as advising the United Nations on their efforts in Central Asia. Before this, he served with the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, latterly as a Detective Inspector.

HUW OWEN

CEO, ARK DATA CENTRES

Partnering with the UK Government The UK government utilises a disparate set of data centres of varying scales and efficiencies. Entering the fray when a tender was held in 2013, Ark subsequently won through to secure a deal to partner with the UK Cabinet Office in a joint venture to create Crown Hosting Data Centres to deliver increased efficiency, improved value, and transparency of data centre hosting utilisation across the entire UK Public Sector. Doing just that, Ark delivered £105m in savings which contributed towards over £2bn in savings for the UK government.

EXECUTIVE BIO

the data center cooling to cool the energy center, but also allows Ark to build the energy center off site - improving health and safety while reducing material waste and cost.

“Though competitors in the market, Gratte Brothers and JCA are both familyrun businesses that integrate well with Ark,” says Garvin. “They’re really adaptable and always looking to innovate. When we need to ensure speed to market, and in times of crisis like we’ve experienced during the pandemic, we rely on these partnerships to deliver safely to our customers.”

technologymagazine.com

81

BUILDING THE FUTURE Drawing on a wealth of industry experience, Sweet Projects design and construct specialist buildings for our clients across the Defence, Aerospace and Data industries with unrivalled levels of focus and service.

sweet-projects.com

LEARN MORE

SWEET PROJECTS AND ARK DATA CENTRES: CUTTING-EDGE BUILDINGS

WATCH NOW

Sweet Projects’ Robert Smart discusses the data centre construction specialist’s philosophy and its close partnership with Ark Data Centres.

worked together for over 14 years, growing and supporting Ark’s development to become one of the UK’s foremost data centre providers."

Sweet Projects are turnkey Design and Build contractors operating in the UK & Europe and provide specialised services to the Advanced Technology, Data and Commercial sectors, as Robert Smart, Executive Director at the company, explains:

Going forwards, Smart is clear that the company is poised to evolve with the latest technologies as they emerge. “Complex projects call for complex solutions and the key area of growth in the last few years has been around the use of Information Technology.

At Sweet Projects, we have a clearly defined and continually evolving Digital Strategy which allows us to invest and embrace cutting—edge advances in construction technology to continue to improve our offering — from Building Information Modelling, which allows us to coordinate from design to construction, to Geo-enabled Technologies and Biometrics which set us apart in the physical delivery of projects.” It’s thanks to this approach that Sweet Projects is confident that the partnership with Ark will continue going from strength to strength. “Through these, we can meet the ever-growing demand for security of process and certainty of outcome that our partnership with Ark is based upon. Sharing knowledge through digitised platforms, we take our collaboration to the next level — which ultimately drives future success.”

“Sweet Projects’ modus operandi is simple — provide excellent service and delivery consistent with the expectations of our key clients across the Defence, Data and Aerospace industries. Upholding those values requires being laser-focused on the needs of clients as well as workers. “Our management team consists of high-calibre people with experience across the construction industry,” says Smart. “We are passionate about ensuring safe working environments and protecting the personal health and wellbeing of our employees and supply chain.

Health and safety is always at the forefront of our operations.”

The company is a committed and long-term partner of UK data centre firm Ark Data Centres. “We are committed to working with and for Ark and to this end, with each other, to deliver for the long-term, providing a strong legacy for Ark’s customers and stakeholders.

Testament to our exceptional relationship, founded on delivery and innovation, we've

LEARN MORE

ARK DATA CENTRES

Huw Owen from Ark Data Centres talks about sustainability

“ Gratte Brothers and JCA are both familyrun businesses that integrate well with Ark. They’re really adaptable and always looking to innovate” ANDY GARVIN

DIRECTOR OF DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION & OPERATIONS, ARK DATA CENTRES

84

April 2021

“There's a joint board which sits between the government and Ark,” explains Owen.

“The framework – procurement, vetting, security and pricing – is pre-done. Instead of having to do procurement, if you take a pound of government money you can utilise that framework, save your management time, save your expense of procurement, and you can use our facilities. We’re highly flexible, you can take it for a month, you can take it for five years, take your reversion release at the end a highly compelling offer. We've been through UK government benchmarking exercises and been found to be right up in the top quartile.”

In terms of sustainability goals, Owen estimates that Ark’s involvement has taken the equivalent of 140,000 cars off the road in

ARK DATA CENTRES

CONNECTIVITY COOLED WITHOUT COMPROMISE Direct Air Cooled Data Centre – Operating free cooling 99% of the year, Ark’s Direct Air technology offers the perfect choice to lower a company’s footprint while also lowering costs. Convenient, green and efficient data centres, with world leading PUE performances.

DID YOU KNOW...

carbon savings. The joint venture, accounting for around 45% of Ark’s business. has been extended to 2023 as the UK government seeks to further transform its data centre footprint.

Trusted by governments and multinationals alike to deliver flexible and reliable data centre solutions, each new project and partnership is more than just another business transaction for Ark. “A few years back we went through a branding exercise,” recalls Owen. “Our clients were asked to be brutally honest. Their feedback?

‘They’re capable’, ‘A breath of fresh air to do business with’ and most importantly of all, ‘They care’. So, we don’t court awards and adulation, we’re discreet and listen to our customers.”

Indirect Air Cooled Data Centre – Maintaining its industry leading PUE figures, Ark’s Indirect Air Cooled facilities use high tech adiabatic coolers and specifically designed heat exchangers to let companies choose their perfect data centre cooling configuration.

Chilled Water Data Centre – Delivering the most robust physical security available, Ark’s mechanical and electrical infrastructure has been developed to compliment the enhanced physical environment while still providing signature benefits – high flexibility and reliability.

technologymagazine.com

85

a fully integrated service provider for data centre infrastructure engineering led principal contractor with a proven track record of designing, building and maintaining award-winning and energy efficient data centres

Learn More

design | build | maintain

JCA: dynamic data centre engineering

Watch JCA discuss engineering and their relationship with Ark Data Centres

Providing robust and scalable infrastructure solutions to enable the secure growth of IT systems JCA offers trusted world class engineering services to the data centre sector. Working across the design, construction, operation and maintenance of mission critical facilities for 17 years, JCA takes a holistic view with a pragmatic approach to the benefits and pitfalls of resilient engineering strategies.

Expertise “When working with clients like Ark, we appreciate what drives their business and understand their key business goals,” confirms JCA’s Managing Director Tom Absalom. “Engineering expertise we hold can be applied to support our partners’ business plans and market offering. In recent years, we’ve made great strides in terms of reduced CapEx and OpEx, albeit with increased availability and enhanced environmental credentials.”

Innovation Keeping pace with the evolutionary cycle of incremental gains, JCA ensures the products it develops and deploys are enhanced over those that have gone before. “That can only happen when you work with organisations with shared goals and strategies for the entire supply chain,” says Absalom. “We make sure everyone is aligned towards a single aim. During our time working with Ark we’ve

progressed through some revolutionary concept designs which have trickled down into the world-class products you see them operating today.”

Aspiration “Ark’s commitment to sustainability creates an aspiration for JCA to deliver,” maintains the company’s Chairman and Founder Ian Jackson. “It’s the perfect partnership for us to showcase our desire and commitment to invest in the lifecycle of a building asset through the implementation of new digital building technologies. Equally, we’re investigating and testing new disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence to improve waste management controls and also provide the strategic direction to leverage real-time information from other construction sites throughout the country.

“We’re fortunate to have customers that share our values and appreciate the advantage collaborative partnerships can bring on a long-term basis. At JCA continuous improvement is key as we strive to enhance our consistency and processes.”

Learn more Learn more now

CAMPUS DEVELOPMENT

ARK DATA CENTRES

ARK DATA CENTRES CEO, HUW OWEN LISTS SIX OF ITS FACILITIES SETTING THE TONE FOR SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE DATA CENTRES IN THE UK: Spring Park, Corsham - 30mw under live operation, 27mw under design & build “Spring Park is where the British government were going to regress in the event of nuclear war - a million square feet of underground space where they once manufactured munitions and fighter planes. Very dense in power and fibre, it’s an excellent site.”

Cody Park, Farnborough - 32mw under live operation, 17mw under design & build “When I joined the company in 2012 Cody Park was just a plot of land with two derelict buildings, a large muddy field, and a pond. We’ve come a long way…”

Meridian Park, Enfield - 7.5 mw under live operation, 8.5mw under design & build “Meridian Park features a private wire straight into a waste generation plant.

It's absolutely compelling, both on an economic basis but also on that green agenda so we can give our customers

88

April 2021

a real, total cost of ownership, which really encourages them to come in for 100% green power.”

Union Park, Hayes - 75mw under design & build, 150mva dedicated site power “We’re planning to create our biggest and most ambitious, facility to date at Union Park which promises to set the tone for socially responsible data centres in the UK. We’re optimising power options to make sure what we build together with our clients will be configured to allow them to be as energy efficient and sustainable as possible.”

Longcross Park, Chertsey - 30mw under design & build, 90mba dedicated site power “We’re creating a purpose built 385,000 square foot facility. The data centre campus is part of the Enterprise M3 zone and is the first commercial development on the 300acre Longcross Garden Village.”

Alliance Park (Park Royal), London - under planning consultation, going live 2023 “We were delighted to acquire the Alliance Park site from Renault Retail Group. Our customers have an expectation for us to be both socially responsible, as well as provide best-in-class, market leading data centres in the locations where we can have the greatest impact. The exciting acquisition of Park Royal, our third in London, not only supports Ark’s own sustainability commitments but also empowers the customers we serve by helping them to honour their own carbon reduction goals.”

ARK DATA CENTRES

“There’s a great quote from a famous speech that Theodore Roosevelt gave at the Sorbonne in 1919: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great

devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

“I like to think that at Ark, we and our partners are that man striving to instigate the change that can create a Darwinian moment for the planet.”

technologymagazine.com

89

IT FINANCE

IT FINANCE: THE OPEX SWING The unstoppable march of Anythingas-a-Service (XaaS) means balance sheets are shifting from CAPEX to OPEX. Technology looks at the pros and cons

WRITTEN BY: PADDY SMITH

IT

finance has had a shake as platforms move to the Anythingas-a-Service (XaaS) model.

Previously, implementations came with enormous costs that were budgeted as one-off expenses, amortised over the expected life of a platform. The move to XaaS has meant customers are able to budget year-on-year costs, while providers take a budget hit in their first year balance sheets.

Simon Everidge, interim managing director at Rigby Capital UK, estimates the swing from CAPEX to OPEX to be at least 10 per cent. He attributes this to the rise in the XaaS economy. “The subscription model is becoming the preferred means of funding IT investment. Resellers and their customers want to be able to keep pace with technology investments in a more flexible, cost-efficient and transparent way, ensuring optimal ROI for their businesses.

“Combine this shift with the current challenging economy and market conditions and it is easy to see why resellers and their 90

April 2021

customers are facing uncertain times when it comes to funding investments in technology solutions.”

Everidge maintains it is a win-win for providers and customers, but even if it wasn’t there is plenty of innovation in

“ Resellers and their customers want to be able to keep pace with technology investments in a more flexible, cost-efficient and transparent way, ensuring optimal ROI for their businesses.”

SIMON EVERIDGE

INTERIM MANAGING DIRECTOR, RIGBY CAPITAL UK

technologymagazine.com

91

Digital Transformation.

Made real every day.

Find out how big advances in AI have made it easier than ever to unlock the power of data, create value, insights and a new level of intelligent security. From Individuals, to small organizations, to the Global Fortune 100, AI and machine learning are improving businesses and lives everywhere.

Learn More

IT FINANCE

“ The knock-on effect of the move to an OPEX model for IT budget maintenance through cloudbased services is better, more predictable spend, and a greater ability to plan ahead for strategic investment in IT services, such as data security.”

bundle pricing to mitigate fallouts. And he thinks it might continue to drive the trend towards multi-vendor models in future.

“It’s transformational because organisations don’t require a big cash outlay that commits them longPETER BRACEY term to one technology DIRECTOR, BRACEY’S solution. They can keep their ACCOUNTANTS options open and be ready to react with agility to the constantly changing business “The budget maintenance would come and technology environment.” off the back of the cloud savings which Even if not everyone agrees the shift a company can achieve. Fewer internal towards an OPEX model is good from a maintenance costs, lower physical customer standpoint, there are benefits costs (eg in maintaining server rooms),a that can offset the long-term cost hike. guaranteed budget – business managers Peter Bracey from Bracey’s Accountants know exactly what they are going to spend says the OPEX benefits outweigh the rather than have unexpected CAPEX CAPEX model on a number of fronts. requirements pop up.”

technologymagazine.com

93

IT FINANCE

Title of the video

“ Organisations are now in a position to take a more structured approach to cloud financial management, to assess cloud spend, identify areas of improvement, and make an action plan detailing where savings can be made – FinOps.” RYAN DONOVAN

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TEAM LEAD, SOFTWAREONE

94

April 2021

In a pre-COVID world (and, indeed, in a post-COVID world), the opportunity to reduce square footage and empower employees working from home are, Bracey says, additional benefits. “At a broader level, the move to Cloud-based IT systems and services has unlocked remote working capabilities, which themselves will provoke a huge societal change in where we work and how we access skills and talent,” he explains. “No longer being constrained by geography means better access to key or specialist skills, while also not being bound by local (urban) salary bands for more generalist skill sets.

IT FINANCE

PROS AND CONS OF XAAS SOURCE: PETER STIEGLBAUER, CEO OF POLYDYNAMIC

PROS Scalable at will, anytime Usable immediately, few setup Usually, quicker precise service You can write off as expenses directly Use on every device

CONS Cloud is never to be trusted Renting is way more expensive Scaling high is very expensive Internet and conglomerate dependency XaaS is mostly closed source Mostly poor AI answers, lack of service

“The knock-on effect of the move to an OPEX model for IT budget maintenance through cloud-based services is better, more predictable spend, and a greater ability to plan ahead for strategic investment in IT services, such as data security.”

Ryan Donovan, professional services team lead at SoftwareONE, believes the pandemic has further driven the switch to XaaS. The danger, he says, is that the financial transformation, left unchecked, may spiral out of control. His solution is to treat IT finance as you would IT projects, and establish a FinOps approach.

“Organisations will have to reconsider budgets in the long term to evaluate OPEXspend. This will include putting in place the right budgetary controls to avoid overspending and unchecked consumption,” he says.

“A positive takeaway from a long-term perspective is that organisations are now in a position to take a more structured approach to cloud financial management, to assess cloud spend, identify areas of improvement, and make an action plan detailing where savings can be made – a practice known as FinOps. Though this has been a period of upheaval, it has accelerated digital technologymagazine.com

95

IT FINANCE

transformation and will help companies mature, by enabling IT teams to become services organisations in their own right, who are focused on adding value to the business with cloud technology.”

Ray Nangle, director of managed services for Exclusive Networks Ireland, agrees that the pros broadly outweigh the cons, citing flexibility, ability to scale, a lower barrier to entry and increased customer choice. But that doesn’t mean customers shouldn’t think carefully about where unexpected knock-on costs may appear in the business.

96

April 2021

“The concerns for customers really will be around the ability to align service capability around the complexity of the new digital world,” he says. “Customers having the choice to adopt and adapt new services will put pressure on resources and skills, companies will need to learn how and when to work with third party services partners to achieve success in innovations and adoption of new technology.

“The trend is not only going to continue but is going to accelerate, one just needs to look at the trends happening within the tech industry, SaaS providers (Salesforce,

IT FINANCE

Stieglbauer, CEO of PolyDynamic, argues that, like other trends in tech, this too shall pass.

“The cloud trend will have its peak soon,” he predicts. “The shift is inevitable.

Ask yourself, do you really want all your personal data like health, wealth and personal connections mandatory in the cloud, and worst case, leaked due to lack of security? The information will be on the net forever. XaaS for everything?

How much do you trust a nameless

“The future will see acceleration to market place ecosystems, not just offering products but also aligning service capabilities, marketplaces platforms will simplify and offer more choice.”

RAY NANGLE

DIRECTOR OF MANAGED SERVICES, EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS IRELAND

Marketo), cloud players (Azure, AWS, Google etc) are all growing at an exponential rate.

Traditional tech companies in our industry (Cisco, Dell, IBM etc) all are moving to subscription-as-a-service-first model.

“The future will see acceleration to market place ecosystems, not just offering products but also aligning service capabilities, marketplaces platforms will simplify and offer more choice.”

Not everyone agrees that the future is all XaaS. While recognising that undoubtedly both hardware and software approaches have migrated to cloud platforms, Peter

person on the internet? In my opinion, he who sets his strategy only in the cloud nowadays is already from yesterday. The future will be in security by open source (hybrid cloud), blockchain, decentralised encrypted storage, digital currencies and edge computing. Also, smart and secure iterations. The cloud will be a relic soon again, like mainframes became. Proof are actual technologies like miniaturisation in form of smartphones, rise of the cryptocurrencies and 5G, soon 6G. Your home with a powerful edge node will be your castle again. Thankfully. technologymagazine.com

97

ACCELERATION OF TELEMEDICINE FOR PAEDIATRICS WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR

98

April 2021

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

technologymagazine.com

99

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

100

April 2021

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

‘Wonderful world’ of telemedicine eases pressure on patients who access care through The CHOC Link at Children’s Hospital of Orange County

T

he pledge by clinicians at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) to ‘protect the magic of childhood’ could not be more apt when you discover one of their founder’s was Walt Disney.

Disney provided financial support to open the first dedicated children’s hospital in California 55 years ago. Today, it’s undergoing a digital transformation - harnessing the power of intuitive technology - which is creating a smooth experience for patients and clinicians.

Since 1964, CHOC has provided the highest quality medical care to children. Affiliated with the University of California, Irvine, the regional paediatric healthcare network includes a stateof-the-art 334-bed main hospital facility in the City of Orange and a hospital-within-a-hospital in Mission Viejo.

CHOC also offers many primary and specialty care clinics, more than 100 additional programs and services, a paediatric residency program, and four centres of excellence – The CHOC Heart, Neuroscience, Orthopaedic and Hyundai Cancer Institutes.

One side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a drop in the number of patients attending hospital appointments. This downtick has accelerated the need for healthcare providers, such as CHOC, to have a Digital Front Door (DFD) and offer telemedicine to their young patients.

technologymagazine.com

101

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

John Henderson and Adam Gold | Choc, Partners and the Future of Healthcare and Technology

The CHOC Link More than two million children across four counties are now benefiting from telemedicine as their parents’ can now access their electronic medical records (EMR), make virtual appointments and check their billing and health plans on a system called the CHOC Link.

John Henderson, Vice President & Chief Information Officer highlighted how the use of telemedicine on the CHOC Link accelerated during the pandemic.

“Prior to COVID-19 our telemedicine presence was minimal - we were only doing about 100 visits a year - but this moved very, very quickly and by mid-March we had launched a full-scale program and we were doing almost 600 visits a day and wound up doing almost 70,000 telehealth visits,” he commented.

As CHOC has focused on getting our patients coming back to in person visits, our telemedicine visits are now averaging 350 102

April 2021

“ PRIOR TO COVID-19 OUR TELEMEDICINE PRESENCE WAS MINIMAL - WE WERE ONLY DOING ABOUT 200 VISITS A YEAR - BUT THIS MOVED VERY, VERY QUICKLY AND BY MID-MARCH WE HAD LAUNCHED A FULL-SCALE PROGRAM AND WE WERE DOING ALMOST 600 VISITS A DAY AND WOUND UP DOING ALMOST 70,000 TELEHEALTH VISITS” JOHN HENDERSON,

VICE PRESIDENT & CIO, CHOC

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

a day which is about 22 per cent of CHOC’s ambulatory volume. “Initially it was a bit of a challenge to educate everyone on how to use the platform as we were moving really fast to get up and running, yet we wanted to educate as many providers as possible.

We had to do a lot of education with our providers who hadn't really been doing telemedicine visits prior to the pandemic, “ said Henderson who pointed out patient satisfaction has stayed at the 90th percentile.

The CHOC Link is a parent’s secure connection to their child’s medical information. It is a place for parents to communicate with their child’s doctors and clinics using a free and easy-to-use tool.

“We know medical bills and records can be confusing for patients so we can assist with insurance, identifying prior authorisation requirements, deductibles and helping parents obtain and understand their child’s medical records,” commented Henderson.

TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT & CIO COMPANY: CHOC INDUSTRY: HEALTHCARE LOCATION: ORANGE COUNTY

EXECUTIVE BIO

The CHOC Link offers the following: • View and print a child’s health issues, allergies and medications • Send a message to doctors or health care teams • Request an appointment • View current appointments and request to reschedule or cancel them • See a child’s laboratory results • Review and print radiology reports after reviewing with a physician • View visit summaries and discharge documents • Review and print radiology reports after reviewing with your physician • Request prescription renewals • Learn more about your child’s medications through our connected health library • Pay a bill

JOHN HENDERSON

John Henderson is steering the digital transformation at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC). As head of the Information Services Department, he has been at the forefront of telemedicine at California’s leading children’s hospital and saw its use accelerate during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CHOC Link - which is part of Henderson’s digital transformation at the hospital - is an online tool used for patients to access their electronic medical records (EMR), make appointments – both virtual or face-to-face with clinicians at the 334-bed hospital.

“Four years ago, I made the leap to Southern California and CHOC we've been on a very fast journey ever since. We have been modernising our infrastructure and moving down a path of digital transformation to build the analytics program as well as portfolio management to build what I call a service and solutionsoriented organisation.”

Tech for Good VMware streamlines the journey for healthcare organizations to become digital businesses that deliver better experiences to their patients, while empowering clinicians to do their best work. Our software spans App Modernization, Cloud, Networking & Security and Digital Workspace. Achieve connected care and drive agility, safety and trust with a digital foundation for healthcare.

LEARN MORE

VMware and CHOC: enabling better outcomes

Watch VMware talk technology in Healthcare

Rodney Davis, Staff Solutions Architect at VMware, tells us about enabling healthcare organizations to be more efficient and deliver better patient outcomes

well, so we understand that providing good natured Rodney Davis has a background in delivering care is critical for their mission and their success. technology solutions inside hospitals and The partnership comes by way of making sure that healthcare organisations. After a stint at Texas our technology is supporting that mission, from top Children’s Hospital where he was responsible to bottom” Davis explains. for providing applications, devices and technology in many different forms to care providers and As an example he cites a current project to deliver organizations to clinicians’ hands, something patients, VMware he joinedstreamlines VMware asthe partjourney of theirfor healthcare a new technology into solution architecture team, focusing specifically become digital businesses that deliver betterthat experiences to their has previously never been successful. “From on healthcare.

VMware’s perspective, patients, while empowering clinicians to do their best work. Our we’re here to make sure that is successful. Ultimately that’s leading into care Their core service is delivering any application to software spans App Modernization, Cloud, Networking & Security being more accessible to the clinicians, and maybe any device on the cloud. “That means customers Achieve connected care drive agility, moreand consistent as well. Finally, those patients get are going and to beDigital able toWorkspace. get applications and services safety with a no digital foundation healthcare. go home with better services and the clinicians into the hands ofand theirtrust customers, matter where for to can do their jobs in a more efficient manner.” they are, or what they’re doing. That’s where VMware is leading the charge in the industry.”

VMware’s portfolio is continuously expanding, and Davis explains that in the last decade they’ve They have a partnership with Children’s Hospital transitioned from being a data centre company Orange County (CHOC), helping the organization LEARN MORE to an application company, before moving into with their strategy and vision as well as execution security and networking. “All this ties into the idea plans. “The mission that CHOC has is something that we make sure our customers are connected, that’s near and dear to most professionals - we all no matter where they are” he adds. have family and most of us will have children as

Tech for Good

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

“Our digital transformation has been focused on enhancing the patient and clinician experience,” commented Henderson. “It really began with the implementation of the EMR which is really the hub of the engine from which everything sprouts from.”

CHOC’s digital transformation aims to make the patient’s visit more efficient by eliminating the paperwork - which can be filled at home or wherever it's convenient for the patient by us taking a mobile first strategy and a key element of improving the patient experience.

“We are very focused on population health and managing our populations. So we feel our digital transformation is going to help us focus on if someone's not coming in for a visit due to COVID concerns or any of the other health maintenance they are missing, we're going to know who they are and we'll be able to do the outreach with our care managers so we can make sure we keep them safe and get the care necessary to keep them healthy.”

Henderson pointed out telemedicine is particularly useful in assisting specialty clinics such as diabetes and obesity but particularly psychology which also gives a physician a glimpse into a patient’s socio economic conditions which they didn’t always have access to before the pandemic.

“We don’t always get this kind of insight during an in-patient visit and they may not be really willing to share what's happening at home. A telemedicine visit is obviously visual and from a provider perspective, the clinician has a better insight which helps them provide even better care,” said Henderson.

CHOC is currently focused on growth and expansion. “Although we serve the Orange County region, we also are focused on serving the surrounding geography as it is 106

April 2021

“ WE LOVE INTERACTING WITH THE PATIENTS AND WORKING ON THESE PROJECTS THAT WE KNOW ARE GOING TO BENEFIT THEM” ADAM GOLD

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, CHOC

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

our vision to be the leading destination for children's health regardless of geography.

We don't want to have any borders with the patients that we serve - we want to serve all pediatric patients - wherever they live,” commented Henderson.

ADAM GOLD TITLE: CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER COMPANY: CHOC INDUSTRY: HEALTHCARE LOCATION: ORANGE COUNTY

NicoBoard app – helping parents stay engaged Parents of patients in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at CHOC came up with the idea of a new app to help better understand, track and analyse data showing their baby’s progress while receiving care.

EXECUTIVE BIO

Adam Gold, Chief Technology Officer at CHOC is not only responsible for IT at the children’s hospital but has also put the fun into technology for the patients.

Gold, who started at CHOC in 2018, launched Tech Tuesday - a hands-on technology project with the young patients in CHOC’s resource centre - and is also involved with the Turtle Talks project donated by Walt Disney.

“We love interacting with the patients and working on these fun projects that we know are going to benefit the patients,” said Gold who previously worked at UC Irvine Health and was technical advisor at NeuroComp Systems.

From Cloud and Data Center, Security, Collaboration, Networking and AI to Digital Transformation, Managed and Professional Services or Financing, ePlus brings a vast perspective that helps organizations design, orchestrate and seamlessly implement versatile technology solutions. Whatever is waiting around the next corner and whatever is next on the path forward, ePlus is the right partner to give you the perspective to achieve more.

Learn more

ePlus and CHOC – driving better patient outcomes

Watch the ePlus and CHOC Partnership

Justin Mescher and Anthony Lakin tell us about working together to create better patient outcomes. ePlus is a global provider of technology solutions focused in the areas of cloud, data center, networking, security, and collaboration. Anthony Lakin, Chief Information Security Officer at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), explains that partnering with ePlus and selecting them to address CHOC’s cybersecurity concerns was easy. “I’m very deliberate about my interaction with third party vendors because they need to understand the problem I’m trying to solve and bring value add to that. That’s what I found in ePlus; I feel as though they’re a deep bench that I can leverage. The services that specifically I partner with them on are vulnerability management as a service and our 24-7 security operations set.”

“Partnerships are the lifeblood of what we do,” says Justin Mescher, VP of Cloud and Data Solutions at ePlus. “I put them into two categories: customer partnerships and technology partnerships. On the technology side, our customers trust us to identify the right technologies to meet their needs. A lot of that involves knowing those technologies inside and out, what fits where, and identifying the best solution to meet the customer’s specific requirements.”

Most of ePlus’ customers are in the process of modernizing their applications and platforms to support their digital transformation initiatives. “Our goal is to be able to continue to align with our customers, to help them be the most efficient service provider back to the business as possible,” Mescher says. “There’s going to be continued investments in cloud, security, AI/ML, and analytics.

Those are the areas that are going to maximize that value to the business.”

Lakin says that CHOC’s vision and strategy heavily depend on building strong relationships like the one they have with ePlus. “We’ve also seen that with the pandemic, having a partner like ePlus allows us to be more agile and dynamic, and that’s going to be paramount to our success.”

“The team at CHOC really stands out to me,” Mescher says. “They are very purposeful about patient outcomes. One consistent theme I’ve seen across the board interacting with the technology teams at CHOC is that the patient is always number one, and technology supports that need. It’s so exciting to work with a team like that,” he adds.

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

“ WE DON'T WANT TO HAVE ANY BORDERS WITH THE PATIENTS THAT WE SERVE - WE WANT TO SERVE ALL PAEDIATRIC PATIENTS WHEREVER THEY LIVE” JOHN HENDERSON,

VICE PRESIDENT & CIO, CHOC

DID YOU KNOW...

LEGACY OF WALT DISNEY FOR CHOC

110

Walt Disney’s legacy lives on for young in-patients at CHOC. From his early fundraising efforts before the hospital was built, to the resort’s $5 million gift toward construction of the new Bill Holmes Tower, CHOC and Disney have enjoyed a meaningful partnership.

Having a children’s hospital in the community was important to Walt Disney, who in 1960 sat on the hospital’s founding board. Early in CHOC’s history, Disneyland artist Bob Moore designed the CHOC mascot Choco Bear. Disney artists also helped create the child-friendly feel of the lobby of the new tower, which houses the interactive “Turtle Talk with Crush” show donated by Walt Disney Imagineering.

Adam Gold, Chief Technology Officer at CHOC enjoys stepping away from his desk and interacting with the patients. “It's a nice reminder as to why we're here. We love

April 2021

“This is just one example of parents working with the hospital,” said Henderson.

“Our families play an integral and active role in their child’s care plan. These tools build upon that commitment and help families stay engaged and ask important questions.”

The NicoBoard is a tablet-based app that translates a stream of numbers pulled from their baby’s EMR – data such as body temperature, weight gain and loss, feed volumes and more – into easily understood, simple sentences complemented by visual aids like graphs and charts. Coupled with curated education and research materials, this helps parents better analyse trends and track progress and enhance decision making.

interacting with the patients and working on tech projects that we know are going to benefit the patients,” said Gold.

“A few times a day we have our partners down the road at Disney interact with the kids in real time. So they get to talk to Nimo, Crush or their favourite Disney character.

The kids really enjoy that. We also do a program called Tech Tuesday where we go out and we do a tech hands-on technology project with the kids in our resource centre which is cool and that seems to have got some good traction as well.”

The Disney Team of Heroes app unlocks stories, games, and other entertainment offerings on mobile devices that can be enjoyed in the hospital. The app interacts with special Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars murals to bring their characters to life.

Disneyland Resort is CHOC’s largest corporate donor over the past 25 years.

Last year’s annual CHOC Walk in the Park at the Disneyland Resort raised more than $2.1 million.

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

Virtual environment CHOC has a number of partners including ePlus (with Cisco) VMware which is vital for its virtual environment.

“I always say you need a solid, strong foundational infrastructure otherwise you can introduce shiny, new objects and it's like you're building on quicksand. Our foundation in modernising our infrastructure was critical so VMware is a key partner in our virtual environment and how we deliver solutions through our mobile phones,” said Henderson.

“Our in-patient units use virtual desktops for speed. We want our clinicians to be as efficient as possible. So they tap in with

their best authenticate to that system, but what’s important for the patients is that his device roams with them.” Henderson points out that when a provider or clinician gets interrupted and returns five minutes later to re-engage the device will remember all their details saving the clinician time.”

Adam Gold, Chief Technology Officer, commented on how the vendors ePlus (with Cisco), VMware Palo Alto were critical in getting the hospital’s infrastructure built.

“Cisco was a great partner when it came to the server and network technologies.

VMware is the company we use to stand up our new virtual desktop environment, as technologymagazine.com

111

Healthcare IoT Security Trust every device on your network with the industry’s first turnkey IoT security solution Learn more at paloaltonetworks.com

Secure today, for a better tomorrow.

Comprehensive IoT Security for Healthcare Delivery Organizations The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices is at an inflection point.

An estimated 500 million healthcare devices will be deployed globally by 2025,1 many running legacy software and lacking encryption, posing a security risk.

Today’s security solutions lack built-in prevention, enforcement and employ outdated discovery methods.

Palo Alto Networks has introduced the IoT Security service that features the industry’s most comprehensive solution – delivering visibility, prevention, enforcement, and operational insights – all powered by clouddelivered machine learning.

1

According to the Omdia IoT Devices Intelligence Service

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

“ OUR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION HAS BEEN FOCUSED ON ENHANCING THE PATIENT AND CLINICIAN EXPERIENCE. IT REALLY BEGAN WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EMR WHICH IS REALLY THE HUB OF THE ENGINE FROM WHICH EVERYTHING SPROUTS FROM” JOHN HENDERSON,

VICE PRESIDENT & CIO, CHOC

well as our new mobile device management environment. So leveraging the VMware horizon infrastructure, which is actually running within our Amazon web services and cloud infrastructure was critical especially for our remote workforce. “ePlus was the vendor we worked with on our VAR basically to coordinate all of those efforts. The expertise they brought to the table was really the underlying understanding of our environment. But also the understanding of our culture and what we're really trying to accomplish.

They took all of that information and really made sure that the resources working on our projects were in line with what we were trying to do.

Gold, who has been CTO at the hospital for nearly three years, said the future of IT would move towards a more virtual environment.

114

April 2021

“There will also be the continued expansion into the cloud as this is going to be key for us over the next few years, which really ties into big data, analytics and machine learning. There's a lot of focus right now in leveraging that data to help make the right clinical decisions on the right business decisions,” he said.

The Bill Holmes Tower ushered in a new era for the hospital in 2013. In January 2021 CHOC was certified as a Health Information Management Service (HMIS) level, state seven organisation. This was the third time it had achieved this designation and is one of the first paediatric hospitals in the US to have this status.

CHOC was recognised in January 2021

by The Leapfrog Group who named it as the top children’s hospital in South California.

“I think one of the things that makes CHOC

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY

1964

Year founded

1.2m

Number of employees More than

2m

children across four counties access care at CHOC Conducted almost

70,000

telehealth visits in 2020 State-of-the art

334-bed hospital

unique is our fantastic quality and safety,” commented Henderson.

Augmented reality Predicting what advances in technology will shape the future of healthcare, Henderson points out that augmented reality will help to streamline information and content.

“I think it’s really going to help drive a lot of the change in healthcare. There's so much information, so much content and it's all over the place and this will make it simple for providers, clinicians and the back office workforce.”

Commenting on data analytics, Henderson said this is always going to be a strategic asset when it comes to predictions and will help to see how a hospital is performing in a real-time scenario. “Embedding those things at the point of clinical care delivery means

we’re doing a number of things with data science, such as prediction and looking at the history of re-admission or detection of potential events. I think those are the things that are going to become more prevalent.

“I think those types of technologies are what's going to really be critical for healthcare and beyond,” he said.

As CHOC accelerates its digital transformation one focus is going to be wellness from a paediatric point of view.

“We want to make sure what we're doing is providing the opportunity for not only physical wellness, but also mental health and wellness. That's the key focus for CHOC in the future. We're going to connect and continue to build upon those programs,” he said.

technologymagazine.com

115

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

HOW AI IS TAKING THE FRUSTRATION OUT OF CHATBOT INTERACTIONS Many will have experienced the pain of chatbot “assistance”, but a new generation of technologies is using AI to complement human agents WRITTEN BY: WILLIAM SMITH

116

April 2021

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

technologymagazine.com

117

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

S

o-called chatbots have been with us from the very start of the computing revolution. Take Eliza, for instance, a very early programme that interacted via language. In more recent years, chatbots have been used in the customer service space, to varying levels of success. Now, however, new AI-driven approaches are seeking to remedy those difficulties.

Research by Zendesk, for instance, demonstrates that over 55% of companies are increasing their investments in AI and machine learning to support customer experience teams.

The technologisation of customer service perhaps got off to a hesitant start.

The initial wave of chatbots, for example, didn’t leverage artificial intelligence.

Their static nature could lead to anger from customers. “These brittle processes inevitably frustrated many customers if their enquiry didn’t fit within the very narrow parameters of the process for which the bot was trained, or didn’t use the precise language to communicate it, and many concerns ended up routed to the traditional call centres,” says Faisal Abbasi, Managing Director Western & Southern Europe, MEA & LATAM, Amelia, an IPsoft

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

effective because fewer people will interact with it.”

Harnessing the benefits of technology in customer service, then, requires a keen focus on both how it is deployed and how it might interact with customers. boost.ai’s Selsås says the company has come up with a metric to determine a chatbot’s worth.

“We follow a simple equation to create value from a chatbot: multiply the number of conversations it has by the average value per conversation. We believe this is the key to getting the best results.” With that in mind, chatbots can reap rewards for both customers and companies. “With a scaleable, broad-scope solution, you increase both the quality and quantity of conversations that a chatbot can assist with.

You empower customer self-service by having the chatbot perform actions on their behalf and, in turn, free up human operators to focus their attention and expertise on inquiries that may need extra attention.”

Of course, the more human-like a chatbot is, the easier the interaction for the customer. “We’re now seeing a significant shift towards the adoption of digital customer service agents that leverage AI and natural language processing (NLP) to provide company. Lars Ropeid Selsås, founder and a more seamless service to customers,” CEO of boost.ai, adds that another issue says Abbasi. “Such solutions with chatbots can come from understand the context beyond when they are too narrowly defined: “A bank, for example, the language, enabling a more natural conversation that can have thousands of customer The Norwegian doesn’t have to follow a strict service requests per day. If it Labour and Welfare linear process and the customer implements a chatbot that can Administration chatbot to communicate the enquiry only help customers with credit was estimated to do the equivalent work of 220 card inquiries, then anyone in their own words.” Such an full-time employees approach is beneficial for both looking for assistance with their the customer, who has less home loan or pension is going opportunity to become frustrated, and the to have a bad experience. Similarly, if that company, which can much more efficiently same chatbot is hidden away on the 'credit card' section of the bank’s website, it is less deal with complaints. technologymagazine.com

119

The Website and Magazine for Global Cyber Executives Join now for notifications about the upcoming launch and never miss an issue...

LAUNCHES:

June 2021 JOIN THE COMMUNITY

A BizClik Media Group Brand

Creating Digital Communities in Cyber

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

Few are advocating for the total replacement of human customer service workers, however. As Peter Lorant, COO, EMEA at Zendesk, explains: “AI does not remove human customer service agents from the equation. It simply complements them.” That’s become even more important in the last year, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic bringing changes for both customers and agents. “In the customer experience space, this means agents working remotely, with less support and resources,” says Julien Rio, Senior Director at RingCentral Engage Digital.

“Likewise, recent change has probed consumer anxiety, and most businesses have seen an influx of requests and enquiries. AI is the link that both supports customer service teams, and keeps customers happy and connected.”

Correctly managing the interface between technology and the customer

“ A happy customer is one who isn’t left waiting on hold for three hours for a simple matter – that’s exactly where AI slots in” JULIEN RIO

SENIOR DIRECTOR AT RINGCENTRAL ENGAGE DIGITAL

technologymagazine.com

121

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

“We follow a simple equation to create value from a chatbot: multiply the number of conversations it has by the average value per conversation” LARS ROPEID SELSÅS

FOUNDER & CEO OF BOOST.AI

is key to ensuring that “happy and connected” outcome. “A happy customer is one who isn’t left waiting on hold for three hours for a simple matter – that’s exactly where AI slots in,” says Rio. “A large proportion of consumer enquiries are simple, easy-to-fix matters, which can easily be picked up by AI support. The faster consumers receive answers and solutions to problems, the higher their satisfaction, and in turn, brand loyalty.”

Even for more complex requests, there is no reason why an AI-powered chatbot cannot perform just as well as a human.

“Customers also want quality answers, delivered with empathy - and this is where AI is invaluable, says Lorant. “The power of AI means that over time, bots are also able to analyse and understand the sentiment of a customer's language. A curious customer asking for an order update has different needs to an angry customer whose order is late. In the inevitable event of a bad interaction, it’s vital that chatbots can both remedy the issue in the short term and 122

April 2021

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

According to research from Zendesk:

75%

of customers will spend more to buy from a company that offers good CX

64%

of customers started using a new customer service channel in 2020

85%

of teams reported having to make changes to their support in 2020 technologymagazine.com

123

124

April 2021

AI & DATA ANALYTICS

“Just look at the rise of digital assistants in the home and audio-only social media apps, like Clubhouse: we are moving away from the heavy reliance on text-based services” FAISAL ABBASI

MANAGING DIRECTOR WESTERN & SOUTHERN EUROPE, MEA & LATAM, AMELIA, AN IPSOFT COMPANY

learn from the experience for the future.

“Sentiment analysis can enable chatbot response to be personalised to each customer, providing them with a unique response each time and understanding when to seamlessly transition the query to a live agent,” says Lorant. “If a customer does not respond well to a bot, it will know in the future to not provide that same response again, or to escalate an enquiry sooner. However, if a customer can leave the experience happy and with their questions answered, then businesses are more likely to achieve customer loyalty and retention.”

Going forwards, a number of trends are set to dominate the ways in which we interact with companies. One major move

is the medium through which companies can be accessed, as Rio explains. “With everything going remote, there’s been a huge increase in customer demand in the digital space, with the majority of queries now going through phone, messaging apps and social media. This is where chatbots can make an impact.” Alongside those new mediums are new methods such as voice.

“Just look at the rise of digital assistants in the home and audio-only social media apps, like Clubhouse: we are moving away from the heavy reliance on textbased services that have dominated for many years,” says Abbasi. With these new approaches leading the way, the future of chatbot customer service looks a lot less headache-inducing. technologymagazine.com

125

PRESIDIO

126

April 2021

PRESIDIO

MANAGING MIGRATION RISK WRITTEN BY: JOHN O'HANLON

PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO

technologymagazine.com

127

PRESIDIO

We talk to Dave Trader, Vice President and Field Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of Presidio, a role we have seen evolve rapidly as cyber attacks have grown in number and severity

I

n the words of Gartner, “Many security teams have overinvested in a plethora of tools. As a result, they are also suffering from alert fatigue and multiple console complexity and facing the challenges in recruiting and retaining security operations analysts with the right set of skills and expertise to effectively use all those tools.”

Facing this dilemma is the stock-in-trade of Presidio, through its full life cycle model of professional, managed, and support services including strategy, consulting, implementation and design – and above all security.

The company has demonstrated its expertise in helping customers design, architect, build, migrate and manage their workloads by building close partnerships with all the major infrastructure and cloud providers - including Microsoft, Google, Palo Alto, Red Hat and IBM - and in February 2021 achieved Premier Partner status within the AWS partner network. In the last year Presidio has brought into its portfolio two companies that extend both its global reach and its full-stack capability. Coda adds software development and coding abilities the company didn't have before, while Dublin-based Arkphire brings access to wider global markets.

128

April 2021

Dave Trader Vice President and Field Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

PRESIDIO

PRESIDIO

Managing migration risk

However, alongside infrastructure delivery, Presidio has developed unique expertise around cloud, collaboration and crucially cybersecurity. The level of threat has rocketed this century as new ways of using, accessing, and storing data are adopted and vulnerabilities proliferate.

“We are able not only to help companies transition and transfer their workloads to the cloud, but also we can effectively enable them to secure those workloads,” says Dave Trader, who has been Presidio's Cybersecurity Practice Lead since the beginning of 2019, and global Field CISO since January 2021. He is one of the industry's leading security experts with 20 years' experience, including eight years with 130

April 2021

the Marines specializing in critical military security and communications, and most recently Chief Information Security Officer at GalaxE Solutions. He's also a graduate of the FBI CISO Academy, one of fewer than 200 since the program was inaugurated in 2015.

Since early 2020 the market has seen a rush to migrate to the cloud. “We are trying to get applications closer to the user, which raises issues around latency and security concerns about the right way to achieve that as the workforce moves from office to home,” says Trader. “We have moved from 'cloud first' to 'cloud right'. We start with an evaluation so that we can advise as to whether cloud is really best for this client and if so in what configuration.”

PRESIDIO

DAVE TRADER TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT AND FIELD CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER (CISO) INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY SECURITY

Intrinsic Security and vSOC Security can't be an add-on anymore.

Security baked into everything from code to the DevSecOps space right through to deployment at the edge is what Dave Trader calls intrinsic security. “AWS is a good example of that in the cloud space.

We believe that security has to be in the process every step of the way as we test the environment and look for gaps and vulnerabilities that we can exploit.” His team rigorously looks for cracks in the clients' systems, then makes sure they are all sealed.

Since his arrival Trader has made a point of highlighting certain key services. “I've really tried to double down on our virtual security operations center (vSOC) services and bring

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: NEW YORK Dave Trader holds numerous CyberSecurity certifications; including CISSP. He has received numerous endorsements from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and NSA and is a graduate of the FBI CISO Academy.

A results-driven leader, MBA graduate, and senior-level IT Executive offering years of experience, Dave creates secure network environments for large, global enterprises as a Chief Information Security Officer.

Dave has the ability to build an entire Cyber Security program from the ground up. He has created a template for a successful cybersecurity program and is constantly evaluating against that template.

Dave has an extensive networking and technology background with broad security experience and success in applying cutting-edge approaches to incoming threats by joining the tactical military strategy he obtained in the United States Marine Corps to a practical enterprise application.

Never trust, always verify Okta as the core of Zero Trust Okta is the leading independent identity provider. The Okta Identity Cloud enables organizations to securely connect the right people to the right technologies at the right time.

Learn more

Watch about the partnership between Okta and Presidio

Okta: identity for the internet Okta’s vision is a world where everyone can safely use any technology: its promise, to protect the identities of all users, while asking “what more can we make possible?”

Today IT leaders cite secure employee access as their primary focus, thanks largely to an explosion in remote working. “One of the scariest parts of the quick switch to remote work is the need to move quickly and securely,” says Brock Dooling, Partner Alliances Engineer at Okta, a trusted platform to secure every identity, from customers to workforce. More than 10,000 organizations trust Okta’s software and APIs to sign in, authorize, and manage users.

Getting identity right is really important – but complicated. Clients can use Okta to enable their users to sign in with a username/password or with their social accounts like Google or Facebook using pre-built sign-in components from Okta. “After the user has signed in, you can retrieve their user profile, secure your APIs and application backends so that only authorized users and applications can call them.

With Okta clients can use their existing stack to build sign in, protect their APIs and move on with their lives!” That message is not lost on Okta’s

partners. Recently the CTO of lifecycle managed services provider Presidio Dave Trader told us: “Okta has been a huge help in managing secure user authentication, while allowing developers to build identity controls into applications, website web services and devices.”

Password access is notoriously vulnerable, so automation of user authentication is at the top of the developers’ agenda. Okta FastPass is already delivering passwordless login using default authentication implemented through biometric capabilities, rather than only by user-specific certifications. On March 4 2021 Okta acquired a complementary authorization platform. It will continue to support and expand Auth0, with a view to eventual integration.

“Together, we will shape the future of identity on the internet,” promises Brock Dooling. “Okta and Auth0 address a broad set of identity use cases, and our identity platforms are robust and extensible enough to serve the world’s largest organizations and most innovative developers.”

Learn more

PRESIDIO

DID YOU KNOW...

THE 20 CIS SECURITY CONTROLS

134

Basic CIS Controls 1. Inventory and Control of Hardware Assets 2. Inventory and Control of Software Assets 3. Continuous Vulnerability Management 4. Controlled Use of Administrative Privileges 5. Secure Configuration for Hardware and Software on Mobile Devices, Laptops, Workstations and Servers 6. Maintenance, Monitoring and Analysis of Audit Logs Foundational CIS Controls 7. Email and Web Browser Protections 8. Malware Defenses 9. Limitation and Control of Network Ports, Protocols and Services

April 2021

10. Data Recovery Capabilities 11. Secure Configuration for Network Devices, such as Firewalls, Routers and Switches 12. Boundary Defense 13. Data Protection 14. Controlled Access Based on the Need to Know 15. Wireless Access Control 16. Account Monitoring and Control Organizational CIS Controls 17. Implement a Security Awareness and Training Program 18. Application Software Security 19. Incident Response and Management 20. Penetration Tests and Red Team Exercises

PRESIDIO

those forward.” A vSOC, he explains, is an outsourced, comprehensive, round-theclock data monitoring solution that enables a company to identify threats as they arise.

“We saw a gap in the market where we found companies building their own SOC. That can work for a while for companies but ends up enveloping their entire team as the vulnerabilities overwhelm them. They were looking for some help and we saw an opportunity to bring in our expertise and promote internal enterprise security teams so they can handle major events, while we are at hand to deal with the day-to-day events and protect their environment. We have been able to build a great practice around that.”

Traditionally, security events have been viewed through aggregating or logging programs like Palo Alto's Prisma, he explains.

“When those logs and events come in they typically go to a security center dashboard or platform, but we now see clients getting overwhelmed with a host of lower level alerts. They'd never be able to hire enough analysts to cope with the onslaught of events.

That's why our managed service component utilizes automation to the hilt to combat the problem of alert fatigue. We are doing that very successfully with the help of partners like Palo Alto and others, fighting automated attacks with our own machine learning defenses: our team here at Presidio has built a first class offering and a first class vSOC service.” technologymagazine.com

135

PRESIDIO

5-STAR MILITARY-GRADE CYBERSECURITY FOR ALL Rapid cyber incident response and early cyber threat detection.

Contact your Presidio representative today.

LEARN MORE

PRESIDIO

Another benefit for Presidio's vSOC is its portability. Clients can stay with platforms they have in place – automation enables the solution to run without the end user noticing any change. “Customers tell us they had no idea that level of automation was even possible and are really enjoying the insights and outputs they are getting through being able to leverage the automation we have baked in through APIs.” Covid opportunities and challenges In March 2020 Presidio saw a freeze on travel and has since worked mainly from home. “Generally, about 70% of people now work entirely from home,” says Trader. “That brings with it a lot of security concerns, for example shadow IT. We saw VPN licensing go through the roof. The home network may be insecure, and once it is connected to the office network, others using a shared device may be downloading malware through games or social media. Cybercriminals look for their chance, well aware of the wormholes that can open up this way.”

The secure access service edge (SASE) is made front and center of his conversations

with clients. “Latency became a problem. We had engineering companies and architects that were spending six or seven hours downloading blueprints they were working on at home, rather than the secure networks they had in the office. That placed a focus on identity access management and real-time assessment of the end user at the end-point.

That is why identity is so important: the perimeter has shifted!”

Addressing the end-point required user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA), a process of gathering insight into the network events that users generate every day. It can pick up

“ I have seen companies where up to 50% of their network is scorched earth, irrecoverable” DAVE TRADER

VICE PRESIDENT AND FIELD CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER (CISO), PRESIDIO technologymagazine.com

137

PRESIDIO

the 'impossible traveler' where a user appears to interact with the same resource from two different locations but could not possibly have made that trip in that time.

“We'd have to ask that user to add another layer of validation, and we are seeing companies adopt that, which is very encouraging,” says Trader. One of Presidio's main partners Cisco has a gold standard UEBA solution in DUO, which is scalable, easy and inexpensive to set up. “I see DUO becoming integrated with identity access planning at many enterprises and it is really working out well.”

COVID-19 has proved that a dispersed workforce can work as well as a concentrated one, so this is likely to become a permanent change. However, in most cases people are working on systems that the company does not own or control so

PRESIDIO

“ We tackle alert fatigue very successfully with the help of partners like Palo Alto and others, fighting automated attacks with our own machine learning defenses: our team here at Presidio that has built a first class offering and a first class vSOC service” DAVE TRADER

VICE PRESIDENT AND FIELD CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER (CISO), PRESIDIO

what used to be called BYOD has morphed into MDM, or mobile device management.

This enables IT departments to secure, monitor, and manage end-user mobile devices from smartphones, tablets, laptops, and even IoT devices. “Nevertheless, I'd say that 70% of companies are not doing validation on their employees' devices ahead of time, so these systems may not have antivirus and we are seeing compromised systems being allowed into enterprises,” cautions Trader. “Hacking organizations are aware of this and I have seen them purposefully seeking out these back doors to the enterprise networks. I have also seen an uptick since November 2020 of hacking organizations doubling down on ransomware in almost every vertical.”

Prevention better than cure The problem is very serious: Trader is getting around four calls a week from technologymagazine.com

139

PRESIDIO

Discover Your Security Maturity Score Is your organization on the right path as you navigate today's cybersecurity landscape?

Find out in just a few minutes by taking our Security Operaaons Maturity Assessment.

LEARN MORE

PRESIDIO

major companies under attack despite taking reasonable care. “We are helping companies recover and step through triage, getting them stabilized and moving them through into recovery. But I have also seen companies where up to 50% of their network is scorched earth, irrecoverable. A situation like that is an existential threat for a business. But I am trying to have more conversations on the proactive side so that firefighting is not needed. But even if you do everything I would prescribe as best practice it doesn't mean that a state-sponsored entity won't be able to breach your defenses with some kind of ransomware or other form of cyber-attack.”

This may seem bleak, but Presidio and its partner ecosystem have the best minds in cybersecurity focused on staying ahead in this war. “In 2021,” he says, “ransomware will pick up, so our trusted advisor position will become even more relevant.

Many more companies are hiring CISOs, and their conversations are going direct to the board. I have been doing presentations at the board level to give them a perspective on cyber threats and best practice solutions. My

“ I see monumental opportunities in what our security practice can accomplish in 2021” DAVE TRADER

VICE PRESIDENT AND FIELD CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER (CISO), PRESIDIO

message is that this mountain is not insurmountable. If you get the fundamentals right and follow best practice you can prevent the majority of the issues that are happening all around the world. We are continually

investing in additional capabilities to provide cybersecurity consulting, advisory services and vSOC/MDR+ services our customers are consuming”

PRESIDIO

Partnership, and cooperation In the war against cyber attackers, alliances become vital. “I rely heavily on what our partners bring to the table,” insists Dave Trader. “We work with tremendous partners, depending on their specific specialty. Palo Alto and Cisco are always our number one and two partners across the board. They do a great job full stack, and they have solutions around everything we have talked about today.”

142

April 2021

Cisco is working on SecureX, an open, cloud-native platform that connects Cisco's integrated security portfolio with those of customers for a simpler, more consistent experience across endpoints, cloud, network, and applications. “SecureX will be the hub joining the spokes of all Cisco's security products and that is really working out well. We engage well with them because so many customers leverage the full portfolio of services they have.”

PRESIDIO

“I'd say that 70% of companies are not doing validation on their employees' devices ahead of time, so these systems may not have EDR and we are seeing compromised systems being allowed into enterprises” DAVE TRADER

VICE PRESIDENT AND FIELD CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER (CISO), PRESIDIO

INDUSTRY Technology security

3,000

Number of employees

For the rest, he is guided by his customer.

“When we go into a customer's environment and ask them to lay out the controls they have in place to protect themselves, I am actively listening for over a dozen key areas.” Basically, he follows the NIST-CSF governance controls, and as he goes through those domains, customers tell him which solutions they prefer and have adopted. “I routinely find they have covered most of the best practice controls, but I introduce some partners they may not have considered.”

He always starts with the data. “With the edge dissolving if you don't have a good handle on who is accessing your data, when, where and how, you can quickly lose your grip on it. Varonis is a good example because they really understand how the data is encrypted, how it lives and breathes and traverses the network.” If we start with the data, we know what we’re protecting. If we secure the data properly and absolutely, we have less risk when an intruder does get into the network. Varonis provides outstanding visibility to that data and helps us understand the level of security needed. technologymagazine.com

143

PRESIDIO

Data Security Platform The most powerful way to find, monitor, and protect sensitive data on premises and in the cloud

Data Protection

Privacy & Compliance

Threat Detection & Response

Get a free data risk assessment.

GET STARTED

Trusted by thousands of the world's most secure organizations.

www.varonis.com

PRESIDIO

To address incident response issues, a partner he might suggest would be CyberDefenses. “I have done multiple engagements with this team. They bring rigor to the security response, bringing in forensics, knowing how to run triage then move on through stabilization to recovery. They can find out not only how the target was compromised but what was taken and what this event looks like from a governance risk and compliance perspective. Presidio works really well with CD throughout the incident performing remediation steps including professional services and additional consulting to recover the business operation.”

Many attacks get through because the alert was missed or not actioned. He has found Arctic Wolf a dependable ally for its (SIEM) offering. “From a concierge perspective my customers feel that Arctic Wolf has a handle on everything they do.”

Though at first glance some of these services may seem to compete with Presidio's in-house portfolio, partners are essential in delivering successful outcomes.. “Where I can I always lead with Presidio's services, but there are situations where we need to bring in partners.”

One problem facing the end user may be different dashboards that complicate authentication. To overcome this, he has found Okta a big help in managing technologymagazine.com

145

PRESIDIO

PRESIDIO

“ SecureX will be the hub joining the spokes of all Cisco's security products and that is really working out well” DAVE TRADER

VICE PRESIDENT AND FIELD CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER (CISO), PRESIDIO

secure user authentication, while allowing developers to build identity controls into applications, website web services and devices. “In practice I may have different options to suggest. I feel that IAM (Identity Access Management) is a cornerstone for so many broader security methodologies like Zero Trust, SASE, and others. Okta does a great job helping with IAM at every level from CASB through MFA. I have many larger enterprise companies that utilize Okta as their primary identity partner and they are incredibly happy with the versatility.”

These partners and many others are bringing in new applications and services all the time, so here Presidio's strength is knowing exactly what is in development. This work will continue, he promises. “My team is going to continue to grow: we are hiring across the country and across the world and we are going to continue to be able to support our customers in every region. I see monumental opportunities in what our security practice can accomplish in 2021.”

technologymagazine.com

147

TOP TEN

MOST VALUABLE TECH BRANDS We take a closer look at the world’s most valuable tech brands in 2021, based on brand value data from Statista.

148

April 2021

TOP TEN

T

he tech world is full of companies that have gone from nothing to household names in the span of just a few decades (and often much less than that). That kind of name recognition is invaluable for companies to possess, and represents another field of competition aside from their valuations. That’s why we’ve decided to take a closer look at the world’s most valuable tech brands to get a better idea of who is most capturing the public imagination.

WRITTEN BY: WILLIAM SMITH

technologymagazine.com

149

TOP TEN

10 Huawei

Brand Value:

$55.4bn

Having risen from relative obscurity to become a heavy technological across the globe, Huawei’s name recognition ensures it retains a top 10 position despite its recent travails related to Western suspicions about its closeness to the Chinese government - which led to it being banned from involvement in many 5G networks. The company continues to innovate, however, with everything from homegrown operating systems to pig farming.

“The company continues to innovate [...] with everything from homegrown operating systems to pig farming” 150

April 2021

09 Tencent

Brand Value:

$56.43bn

Chinese holding company Tencent is, through its subsidiaries and associates, active in a wealth of industries with a focus on technology.

Those range from instant messaging services, video game publishing and web portals. Led by one of China’s most prominent business magnates in the form of “Pony” Ma Huateng, the company is headquartered in Shenzhen, in twin skyscrapers known as the Tencent Seafront Towers.

TOP TEN

“[WeChat] is perhaps the quintessential example of the Asian phenomenon of the “super app”

08 WeChat

Brand Value:

$67.9bn

WeChat is owned by Tencent, the prior entry on this list, and is perhaps the quintessential example of the Asian phenomenon of the “super app”, integrating a wide variety of functions into one programme.

These include messaging, social media and payment functions, as well as games and other services.

Its popularity in China is not matched elsewhere, where it has run into conflict - including attempts to ban it in the US and India.

07 Verizon

Brand Value:

$68.89bn

One of the so-called “Baby Bells” spun off from the monopolous AT&T in 1983, telecommunications firm Verizon was originally known as Bell Atlantic. In 1996, the company underwent a merger with NYNEX, a fellow Baby Bell covering the north-eastern United States, moving its headquarters to New York at the same time. Its current name was gained in the merger with GTE, which was historically the largest telephone provider outside of the Bell System.

technologymagazine.com

151

Listen Now

TOP TEN

“ Hardware has become an increasing focus of [Facebook’s] efforts with the likes of VR Oculus headsets”

05

Samsung

Brand Value:

$102.62bn

06

Facebook Brand Value:

$81.48bn

Mark Zuckerberg’s college project has spawned a social media empire, incorporating not only the eponymous social networking site but also Instagram and WhatsApp. In more recent times, hardware has become an increasing focus of the company’s efforts with the likes of VR Oculus headsets and smart Portal displays, but its sprawling reach has led to regulatory disapproval, recently coming to a head in Australia over news content.

The only South Korean entrant on this list, Samsung is an example of the South Korean phenomenon of the chaebol, or a family run conglomerate.

Active across a broad swath of electronics products from fridges to washing machines, Samsung also possesses heavy industry and theme park divisions. Its brand value is built on the runaway success of its mobile phone offering, which are among the most popular utilising the Android operating system.

TOP TEN

04

Microsoft

Brand Value:

$140.44bn

Technology company Microsoft is a giant in all the technological areas in which it competes.

Alongside its competitors, it shares an ever-increasing focus on cloud services, which it offers under the Microsoft Azure banner. Microsoft is also a leader in the video gaming market, and the only representative of the industry’s big three (itself, Sony and Nintendo) on this list.

The company’s CEO is Satya Nadella, who has led Microsoft since 2014.

“Microsoft is a giant in all the technological areas in which it competes” 154

April 2021

03 Google

Brand Value:

$191.22bn

Google is the world’s most prominent search engine, as evidenced by the fact its name is synonymous for the practice. It has divested into many other areas, however, whether its Android operating system for phones or its Google Cloud business. Alphabet is the holding company which most prominently contains Google, along with other promising technology companies such as machine learning specialists DeepMind and autonomous driving firm Waymo, both of which are driving innovation in their respective sectors.

02

TOP TEN

Amazon

Brand Value:

$254.19bn

Founded by CEO Jeff Bezos as an online book retailer, the company has since expanded to a huge variety of sectors, from smart assistants to audio books and, of course, an ecommerce empire. Bezos has recently announced his intention to step down, however, to devote more time to other projects including space firm Blue Origin. It lags behind our number one entrant by only a few billion dollars, while handily beating Google to second place.

“Bezos has recently announced his intention to step down to devote more time to other projects including space firm Blue Origin” technologymagazine.com

155

Global Virtual Event Register today for early bird access and notifications about the upcoming event...

September

14th - 16th REGISTER YOUR INTEREST

A BizClik Media Group Brand

If you like the magazine... ...you’ll love the Event Creating Digital Communities

TOP TEN

Apple event in 51 seconds

158

April 2021

©Jo rge L áscar

TOP TEN

Apple

Brand Value:

$263.38bn

It was somewhat of an inevitability that Apple clinched the title of most valuable tech brand in the world. After all, Apple has helped define the modern way of life with its release of the iPhone smartphone in 2007. It has more recently pivoted to services, as with its streaming platform AppleTV+ and gaming service Apple Arcade. 2020 was a record year for the company, which weathered the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to release the latest range of iPhones.

“Apple has helped define the modern way of life with its release of the iPhone smartphone in 2007” technologymagazine.com

159

SAP CLOUD

Preparing businesses for change through innovation WRITTEN BY: WILL GIRLING

160

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: BEN MALTBY

SAP CLOUD

technologymagazine.com

161

SAP CLOUD

I

Nis Boy Naeve, VP of Platform Adoption Enablement, describes how SAP has continued to deliver customers the services they need in a rapidly evolving market

f 2020 proved anything it’s that everything can change, fast. As businesses attempt to settle into the ‘new normal’, or at least equip themselves to weather further disruption in a more manageable way, many will be looking to tech leaders to demonstrate the way forward.

German multinational software company SAP has continually proven itself to be an essential enterprise partner and always one step ahead of the curve throughout its almost 50 years in operation. To find out how it has been maintaining its trademark brand of customer-focused innovation during one of the most difficult periods in recent history, we spoke to Nis Boy Naeve, Vice President of Platform Adoption Enablement and former Chief Product Owner, SAP User Interfaces.

Describing the role of his team as “helping SAP’s customers adopt our Business Technology Platform in a very specific environment,” Naeve is able to offer a very informed opinion on the topic of change.

A trained physicist, he joined SAP over 25 years ago as a Developer and steadily gained experience from a range of projects, such as those relating to HR, “understanding how you can help run a business with programmes and digitalisation.” Eventually, Naeve began to learn more about the “other side”, namely how people actually interact with technologies themselves (user experience and user interface or UX and UI). “In my current role, we actually connect 162

April 2021

business technology platform services and other technical services and create business value out of that. In physics you learn how the world runs. With SAP you help the world run better,” he states.

The amount of change that SAP itself has undergone in the time since Naeve joined in 1995 seems emblematic of broader sector trends. For one thing, the company’s staff count has increased from around 6,000 employees to over 100,000 worldwide.

For another, its digital transformation has unfolded before his eyes: from large ‘classical’ PCs with tube monitors that took up entire desks to smartphones and most recently the cloud. Alongside all of this tech transformation has been a culture shift that emphasises Experience, “[which] has become absolutely key. One of the things I’m most proud of is that SAP has been working out this business user experience strategy in collaboration with our customers.

We get access to the end users and really

“ In physics you learn how the world runs.

With SAP you help the world run better” NIS BOY NAEVE

CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER AND VP, SAP

SAP CLOUD

Nis Boy Naeve

technologymagazine.com

163

Better agility.

Greater resilience.

To get the most out of your SAP-driven business transformation you need a partner that doesn’t just do SAP right, but does it better.

HCL Technologies is an SAP Global Strategic Services Partner and the partner-of-choice for modern SAP consulting, with 25+ years’ experience in scaling outcome-oriented transformation. Our 10,000+ specialists mobilize an ecosystem of next-gen technology offerings to deliver better business and data architectures, better integration, better DevOps and better experiences to reimagine the enterprise and maximize your return on transformation.

SAP, done better. #SAPbyHCL

Learn more www.hcltech.com

A Platform for Innovation, Done Better Enable, Extend and Innovate using SAP’s Business Technology Platform In an era of uncertainty, businesses need to respond and re-invent themselves, quickly.

In our experience, an enterprise architecture with a platform approach that provides ready to use services, integration to your core applications and low code development tools makes all the difference. For SAP-centric organizations, the following customer use cases show why SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) should be the platform of choice to deliver innovative solutions to your business challenges.

When a leading automotive coatings manufacturer had challenges tracking its mobile paint delivery containers through the entire supply chain, HCL’s Smart Logistics Accelerator based on BTP was the answer.

Paint containers were equipped with GPS tracking devices and a valve position sensor.

Location and valve event messages connected via a BTP IoT solution and integrated into S/4HANA to trigger supply chain planning and billing processes. The solution provided full supply chain visibility of all paint inventory and status, improved planning accuracy, and eliminated time delays in the billing process, leading to improved revenue recognition.

A leading city transport authority turned needed a fleet management solution for a

large mixed fleet of vehicles. HCL developed a fleet management app using BTP to provide a user- friendly, multi-device app for the fleet management team and fleet users. It integrates data from disparate systems, SAP ERP plant maintenance processes and usage data, GPS vehicle tracking, insurance and tax management and vehicle diagnostic integration for automated maintenance scheduling. Native integration into SAP ERP greatly reduced solution complexity, while BTP’s rapid development capabilities and HCL’s user-centric design approach let us deliver functionality usually associated with specialist fleet applications with minimal end user training.

A platform approach that provides effective development tools, integration into your core ERP processes and modular services such as IoT, predictive analytics, low code multioperating system app development tools, will ensure your organization can respond to change fast with innovative solutions – enabling your business to drive business value and improve customer experience.

HCL - SAP, done better.

Learn more

SAP CLOUD

NIS BOY NAEVE TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT PLATFORM ADOPTION ENABLEMENT INDUSTRY: COMPUTER SOFTWARE LOCATION: STUTTGART

1. A European food delivery service started up as an entirely digital business. “It could accomplish that because it was using SAP’s Business Technology Platform,” he says. “That company is now able to provide a unique experience to their customers that isn’t uniform, which also gives them a market advantage.”

EXECUTIVE BIO

when we had to go to a store, regardless of the format. What really changed things was the ability to buy music online.” He adds that a comparative evolution also happened within SAP: long, complicated and manually-driven HR systems were replaced with fast, streamlined, and integrated digital processes instead.

With old business paradigms made unworkable by COVID-19 conditions, businesses had to get creative in order to stay alive and harnessing digital platforms has become a core asset. In turn, the pandemic has presented SAP with many opportunities to prove the value of well-designed UX/UI. Naeve gives two particular examples:

Nis Boy is currently working on offering the best end to end experience for SAP’s Business Technology Platform. He and his team help customers and partners explore the business value of the platform and to quickly to realize their projects.​ In his 25 year career at SAP Nis Boy held various positions from development, project & program management to chief product ownership and product management.

He played an essential part in driving the UX and technology direction. He is also a patent-holder and published author on user experience and interface design.​ Nis Boy was and is always focused on making customers and partnerships successful.

SAP CLOUD

Nis Boy Naeve from SAP talks about SAP Business Technology Platform

“ We get access to the end users and really understand what it is that they need, and there’s often a big difference between what people ‘want’ and what they need” NIS BOY NAEVE

CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER AND VP, SAP

understand what it is that they need, and there’s often a big difference between what people ‘want’ and what they need.” As innovation cycles get shorter and shorter, having the expertise to discern novelties from genuine essentials will be imperative.

Because of SAP’s global presence, Naeve claims, the company was largely able to avoid the operational disruption experienced elsewhere, having already established international teams connected by video 166

April 2021

conferencing solutions. However, the big question at the start of the pandemic was ‘how will SAP’s interactions with customers and partners fare?’ Once again, Naeve states that the answer is a highly positive one: “In a way, our customers were already wellprepared because by running SAP they had a very solid basis for a transformation. I think what the pandemic showed is the need for speed in a way that doesn’t also cause disruption.” The customer/user experience is everything, and to illustrate his point Naeve compares the evolution of music from vinyl to CDs and finally streaming services, “The business model was still the same

Fast digital Innovations

Simplicity and Intelligence are key to drive business outcomes Since sovanta AG’s founding in 2009 we make the use of SAP more simple, more intelligent and more efficient.

With the means of User Experience we make people way more productive: Based on artificial intelligence we automate business processes and rise efficiency to a completely new level. We served hundreds of customers; millions of people especially in HR, Sales and Commerce are working with our solutions more productively every day saving time and money.

Right now there’s a need to take action The Covid-19 pandemic forced us to change the perspective. It dramatically accelerated the digital transformation – an evolution that was still there but now it’s obvious how necessary it is. Along with that it becomes obvious: Digitalization brings the need to change the way we work together and thanks to smart technologies like Artificial Intelligence, it was never easier to do that than today. To upgrade their business, companies must find the right platform, the best technologies and the most trustful partner to realize solutions which can unleash a tremendous potential for their business.

The good message: There are a lot of small levers that generate quick wins – you just have to know how.

“Companies now have a strong need for fast innovations with a short-time ROI.” Time is money Especially in these times companies expect fast innovations with a short-time ROI. SAP’s Business Technology Platform is the place to make it happen: It brings together all needed technologies as well as the speed, flexibility, and scalability of the cloud.

Tools like Design Thinking or the UX Score by sovanta bring the possibility to be fast: The UX Score for example identifies and measures improvement-potentials based on a scientific approach and proofs the business’ value. That’s the path to small projects with short realization-time but added business value.

Get your results fast Companies already have to face a lot of challenges: an increased volume of work in customer-, employeeor IT-service. They need more efficiency, more satisfaction, more automation to stay productive and to grow.

We already mastered those challenges together with our customers.

Michael Kern, COO, sovanta AG

In Cooperation with Peras GmbH we implemented several self-services for Fiducia & GAD IT GmbH. With small but effective solutions, we achieved a positive impact on productivity and satisfaction of the employees.

Together with Endress+Hauser AG we re-engineered their ordering process of very complex products. Customers now need 60% less clicks in configuring their product – they save time, they’re more satisfied, they buy more.

There’s even more added value: The results from the process are fed back into the company‘s strategic planning. Customers are generating more precise data, so Endress+Hauser can learn much more about the actual preferences of them.

The time to start is today Don’t wait! Everything you need to push your business to the next level is available right now. So get in touch with us and make your SAP systems more simple, more intelligent and more efficient.

START NOW

SAP CLOUD

2. At the height of the initial pandemic, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs contacted our Business Technology Platform department and requested help in bringing back German citizens stranded internationally. “We were requested to create an app so that people could register and then have a flight organised to pick up and return them. SAP accomplished that within 24 hours over the weekend.” The importance of digital agility is, perhaps, best exemplified by the importance and fast turnaround of this impressive feat.

Accomplishing this level of transformation en masse requires a powerful product, which SAP suitably delivers through its Business Technology Platform. The more familiar ‘SAP Cloud Platform’ name was recently rebranded and expanded in scope, Naeve explains that this is to reflect a deliberate reemphasis on what SAP prioritises, “Business is what it’s all about. We want to give our customers the technology to improve their business.” Placing particular focus on the Platform’s integration and extension capabilities, he adds that SAP’s

NIS BOY NAEVE

CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER AND VP, SAP

DID YOU KNOW...

“ In a way, our customers were already wellprepared because by running SAP they had a very solid basis for a transformation”

SAP: ON A MISSION “Very often our customers like to see and understand how other customers accomplished their transformation, learn from them, and understand how it fits into their specific landscape,” explains Naeve.

Therefore, SAP maintains an archive of ‘missions’ (ready-to-run projects) housed in its Discovery Center and accessible free-of-charge. Containing tools, content in the form of stepby-step guidance and customisable options, and often even a ‘coach’ to provide additional support.

technologymagazine.com

169

SAP CLOUD

ultimate aim is to also empower those with “little or no development skills” to configure their specific applications with added flexibility and speed, as well as reduced risk.

Close collaboration with the client helps further this aim; SAP asks a rigorous set of questions to determine what will constitute ‘success’: • What challenge is the business facing?

• What does the customer need to achieve?

• Which area of their business process needs to be adjusted?

• What is the business value of the proposed solution?

“When I look at the way customers work, I see two types of people, or two ways for how they work with innovation,” he says.

“The first type comes with a very specific 170

April 2021

problem in mind and tweaks SAP’s solution to their specific needs. The second type I call ‘LEGO brick builders’: those are people

“ Being in the tech space is always a bit of a risk [...] As such, SAP tends to look at what we can build with newly available tools and technologies very early” NIS BOY NAEVE

CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER AND VP, SAP

DID YOU KNOW...

SAP CLOUD

REGARDING SAP’S PARTNERS, NAEVE HAD THE FOLLOWING TO SAY: “SAP has a wide and diverse network of partners. These partners help our customers in so many ways. For example, they help with development and implementation or build apps on SAP BTP to realise specific use cases. 13 of them currently offer AppHaus and over 30 have already provided ‘missions’ for the Discovery Center. I’m confident that both sets will continue to grow.”

SAP started to build what we call ‘AppHaus’, offering customers a creative space to apply design thinking methodology and help humanise business software.

“Demand was high, so we started building up a partner network.” Partners like ConvergentIS and Sovanta are both part of SAP’s AppHaus Network.

Founded in 2009 and currently working with 100 customers and with 300 projects completed, Sovanta creates powerful solutions by combining SAP’s technology with ‘unbeaten user experience.’ Elsewhere, ConvergentIS has been an SAP partner since 2002. Based in Calgary, Canada, the company specialises in designing, building,

selling and servicing enterprise applications for North American clients who want enhanced UX, reduced complexity, greater productivity, and ultimately a significant competitive advantage.

“These partners follow a framework of requirements, such as design thinking coupled with a solid design and development skill set, a dedicated creative space for customer collaboration, and much more.”

Other partners like HCL Technologies and again Sovanta - offer specific missions and direct support via the SAP Discovery Center. “Through these missions, partners help customers to realise specific and relevant use cases and adopt them to very specific needs.”

HCL Technologies is a next-gen, global tech company that’s helping businesses adapt for the digital age. With an exceptional 40-year heritage and a rostrum of clients that includes 250 of the Fortune 500, HCL has proven to be a knowledgeable and valuable partnership for SAP.

technologymagazine.com

171

SAP CLOUD

SAP CLOUD

“ The worst thing that could happen for me would be a team of people who all think and act like I do, because then we would miss out on so much” NIS BOY NAEVE

CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER AND VP, SAP

who actually look at the technical path, the technical capabilities and what they can build themselves.” When considering innovation more broadly, Naeve considers it to be a distinctly two-way street: its customers can only innovate when SAP itself can. Therefore it has become an ingrained cultural quality throughout the company. “Being in the tech space is always a bit of a risk, because many of those innovation steps are bound to specific technologies. As such, SAP tends to look at what we can build with newly available tools and technologies very early.”

It is apparent, then, that SAP’s mindset and operating philosophy - ‘thinking technologymagazine.com

173

SAP CLOUD

SAP Business Technology Platform, The Platform for the Intelligent Enterprise

174

April 2021

SAP CLOUD

before acting’ - is its primary competitive advantage in the industry. The company’s method of operating combines three primary elements: discovery, design, and delivery, but there is another that Naeve considers to hold critical importance within a team: diversity. “The worst thing that could happen for me would be a team of people who all think and act like I do, because then we would miss out on so much.” The pandemic has illustrated to him how devastating this lack of original thought could be during such a tumultuous socio-economic period. That

being said, however, industry changes can happen quickly and at any time; businesses need to be agile and open to change if they are to survive. “The right business technology platform enables customers to act quickly and stay secure without disrupting their growth,” concludes Naeve. “This goal is embedded in SAP’s Business Technology Platform and will help our customers run an intelligent enterprise.”

technologymagazine.com

175

SAP RETAIL

Driving the digital journey for retailers WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE

176

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: BEN MALTBY

SAP RETAIL

technologymagazine.com

177

SAP RETAIL

Dr Christoph Schroeder, Global Vice President of Retail Industry Business Unit, SAP

178

April 2021

SAP RETAIL

SAP’s integrated platform is leading the digital drive for retailers to create customer-centric, intelligent enterprises to leverage profitability in a sustainable way

S

taying one step ahead of the game is how retailers thrive. Today, brickand-mortar stores are turning their backs on the high street and embarking on a digital transformation to join the online marketplace to leverage sales.

If we push the boundaries even further, the day will come when consumers will order a file from their preferred online sports store - instead of a physical pair of sneakers and print the trainers in the comfort of their own homes with the use of a 3D printer.

This fascinating glimpse into how digital technology is going to shape the future of our online shopping habits was provided

by Dr Christoph Schroeder, Global Vice President of Retail Industry Business Unit at SAP, which marks its golden year as a global brand.

“As technology evolves, I could see a time when we could use a 3D printer for shoes or clothes in the same way we are used to doing this for spare parts in a factory,” commented Schroeder, who has worked at SAP for 15 years.

This snapshot of tomorrow’s online retail landscape was presented by Schroeder as he discussed how SAP is today working with retailers to navigate the new post-pandemic climate to optimise their online presence to survive this new landscape.

SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their

best. 77 per cent of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies to help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP’s end-to-end suite of applications and services enables their customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference.

“I believe one thing became very clear in the last year: digital transformation that would previously have been taken two years is now possible within a matter of weeks. Due to the pressure of economic environments, retailers don't have the time for organisational resistance,” said Schroeder, who has taken his dedication and focus as a top sportsman into his leadership role.

“ As technology evolves I could see a time when we could use a 3D printer for shoes or clothes in the same way we are now doing for spare parts in a factory” DR CHRISTOPH SCHROEDER

GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT OF RETAIL INDUSTRY BUSINESS UNIT, SAP technologymagazine.com

179

SAP RETAIL

Dr. Christoph Schroeder from SAP Retail talks about marketing strategy in retail

“Part of my role at SAP is to create a roadmap for retailers with our integrated platform to help them overcome challenges and to avoid pitfalls and prepare for the unknown,” said Schroeder, whose clients also include PVH, Luxottica, and adidas creating the popular customer experience.

“We work with retailers on the one hand getting the short-term things fixed and then help them create an experience, as it’s no longer enough to just have a good product.

It’s important you spend time with your consumer; if they spend time with you, they don't spend time with your competitor,” said Schroeder.

Digital soul creates customer centricity Reflecting on how retail has changed during the past five years, Schroeder points out there has been a move from being productcentric to customer-centric.

“When we look back at retail a couple of years ago, it was all physical. When you 180

April 2021

look at stores, for example, they are still managed like in the pre-internet world not much has happened since. But with the help of digitalisation, they are able to bring together data to understand the customer and really bring this kind of customer-centric philosophy to life.

“ Everyone wants to become an ‘Intelligent Enterprise’ and the idea is to not only to provide the technology and the tools but also the solutions to help our customers” DR CHRISTOPH SCHROEDER

GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT OF RETAIL INDUSTRY BUSINESS UNIT, SAP

SAP RETAIL

“Retail has been a product centric, siloed operation with data and inventory segregated. But real-time inventory visibility allows retailers to create a consistent experience on every touchpoint. This is the ultimate goal where technology can help make that happen.

“You also need to have organisations following up on this - but how do you destroy kingdoms within organisations? Today, you might have one guy who is responsible for the retail chain, one guy who is responsible for online - but they need to work together because no matter where the sale happens it's a sale of the retailer.

“I believe this has been the biggest roadblock in the last five years to how digitisation and connectivity can be leveraged to its full extent. That leads us on to how retailers connect to the IoT and from a technology perspective, how do they bring it on one platform? From a historic perspective, retailers most likely started with bricks and mortar until they said, ‘let's create an online channel.’ So they created another silo. But eventually they need to bring that together in order to have a soullike digital platform, as that is the soul of the whole enterprise.

Revenue in 2020

50

Years since SAP was founded

200m+

Subscribers in SAP’s cloud-based user base

TITLE: GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT OF RETAIL INDUSTRY BUSINESS UNIT INDUSTRY: COMPUTER SOFTWARE LOCATION: GERMANY

EXECUTIVE BIO

€27.34bn

CHRISTOPH SCHROEDER

"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen." [Michael Jordan]. According to Dr Christoph Schroeder this quote sums up his approach to the role as Global Vice President, Retail Industry Business Unit at SAP. The former sportsman, who represented Germany in table tennis, has been with SAP for 15 years and is responsible for the strategy of SAP’s solutions, developing the roadmap, fostering executive level relationships with customers and partners.

“A key focus of my work is consulting and the conceptual design of IT strategies and process optimisation,” said Schroeder, who is also the Chief Solution Owner for Fashion, and is based in the Walldorf office of SAP SE. Schroeder has held a number of positions with SAP from being the Co-Founder of SAP Fashion Council to Chief Solution Owner & GMT Officer Fashion.

innovate to transform

Innovate to Transform Services that transform businesses by unlocking the value of SAP through best-in-class delivery.

Innovative Products that integrate to SAP to accelerate digital transformation and improve business results.

Applexus: Innovate to transform

Watch Nittu Thomas | SAP Partnership and Digital Transformation

Driven by a passion for innovation, Applexus delivers on its promise of an intelligent enterprise through transformative SAP solutions and services Innovate to transform is what global technology leader Applexus offers its customers in the retail, fashion, life sciences, consumer goods and manufacturing industries.

Applexus provides advisory, implementation and management of SAP solutions to help its customers navigate the ‘new normal’.

“We are really excited to deliver digital transformation around the SAP landscape in a rapidly evolving world,” said Nittu Thomas, Chief Operating Officer, from the company’s headquarters in Seattle. “Along with SAP, we have the right industry expertise, people, IP assets and technology toolset to deliver this transformation,” he said.

“We help our customers modernise their technology landscape with SAP S/4HANA, and analytics,” said Thomas. Bringing industry specific IP assets, methodology and add-on products to SAP Programs sets them apart from competition and helps their customers: • Deliver a superior user experience • Infuse actionable insights through analytics embedded within SAP • Automate processes to drive up productivity

AI-powered digital solutions Applexus enables customers to scale up their businesses with AI-powered digital solutions which include InSITE for automated accounts payable processing, nEXIM for global trade

management and SimpleRetail for digital store enablement.

SimpleRetail is integrated with SAP and offers: 1.

Consumer apps for curbside pick-up, delivery or touchless in-store purchasing.

It also enables headless commerce by connecting with any shopping or delivery platform used by the retailer.

2.

A powerful in-store module that enables efficient store operations, pick-pack and delivery of digital orders, and real-time visibility of inventory.

3.

Unified pricing and promotions across channels leveraging AI to manage the overall consumer experience.

SAP Gold-level partner Applexus is an SAP Gold-level partner. “Our partnership with SAP is deep and covers many areas that help us serve our joint customers better,” said Chris Couch, VP of SAP Solutions.

“We are also excited to be partnering with SAP on their Retail Industry Cloud to help deliver a composable retail solution landscape,” said Couch.

CLICK HERE TO TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS

SAP RETAIL

“At SAP we call this the digital core, because that gives the companies an opportunity to leverage that from a solid foundation,” pointed out Schroeder, who says that retailers implementing these changes have now “started to eat” and have an advantage especially during the pandemic.

up the clutter and prepare for how they want to operate today and into the future.

RISE provides a blueprint that companies can implement at their own pace with the advantage of one contract, one responsible party for service level agreements, operations and issue handling.

RISE with SAP RISE with SAP is a completely new way for customers of all sizes, at any stage of their digital transformation, to move to the cloud and redesign and improve processes without high up-front investments. It will allow retailers to clean

The offering itself includes three elements:

184

April 2021

• A business model redesign based on SAP’s business process expertise • A technical migration leveraging SAP’s tools, services, and extensive ecosystem • An Intelligent Enterprise “starter pack”

SAP RETAIL

“I would say there's a big pull towards the cloud with all the advantages as retailers can consume innovation much faster and don't have to implement it in their data center and wait. It offers much more agility and flexibility.”

100+

Innovation and development centres

+400,000 Customers in more than 180 countries

21,000+

SAP partner companies globally

The Intelligent Enterprise starter pack comprises the SAP Business Technology Platform, which provides a single semantic layer across an enterprise.

The pack also includes SAP S/4HANA Cloud, an ERP system with built-in intelligent technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and advanced analytics. This enables businesses to transform their processes with intelligent automation.

“Everyone wants to become an ‘Intelligent Enterprise’ and the idea is to not only provide the technology and the tools but also the solutions to help our customers,” said Schroeder.

Power of technology in retail Schroeder is a believer that technology should be used as a tool to help solve problems. “I'm a strong believer and advocate of saying, first of all, we need to have a problem. And then let's find out what we can use to solve that problem, whether it be 5G, blockchain, AI, or machine learning.

“Blockchain is a good example, for creating transparency throughout the supply chain. But when we talk about the cost of a blockchain you could also argue by not creating a data pool where every player of the supply chain puts in their data, so that’s fine. But when you look at counterfeiting pharmaceuticals or luxury items, blockchain might become more interesting because this is really where it's about trust.”

FIVE KEY ENABLERS FOR RETAILERS Schroeder outlined the five enablers to help retailers on their digital transformation.“In retail we look at five priorities.

1. Customer-centricity “Put the customer at the centre of everything you do. If it's not helping the customer, you should seriously ask yourself, why did you do that as a retailer?”

2. Connect with your customer as a segment-of-one “Connect with your consumer on a oneon-one basis. When we look at marketing segmentation, for example, did you divide technologymagazine.com

185

SAP RETAIL

“ All software vendors use the term standard software but when we say standard software at SAP, we mean the industryleading software” DR CHRISTOPH SCHROEDER

GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT OF RETAIL INDUSTRY BUSINESS UNIT, SAP

that by age, by gender, or by geography?

But within those buckets, you always have different preferences but that’s still not enough today. You want a one-to-one relationship understanding such as what someone bought in the past. This is how we get a personalisation point of view.”

3. Digital supply chain “Those companies which had the ability to be responsive to maybe leapfrog one or the other supply chains to get things delivered to where they were needed, they were really at a big advantage.

4. Redefined Store Experience “Looking at the squat topic - as we call it meaning a redefined store that will remain.

There should always be something new from an experience perspective for the consumer, because the question is always, why should you go there? It's all about the experience.

And that's why I believe the stores are an asset if they are used in the right way.”

5. New business models “This is where you would try out new revenue streams, whether it is small or more purposedriven retail, having services attached and having other offers that ideally increase your

The Intelligent Enterprise for the Retail Industry

186

April 2021

SAP RETAIL

TOP 3 QUICK FIRE QUESTIONS:

DID YOU KNOW...

Questions answered by Dr Dr Christoph Schroeder, Global Vice President of Retail Business Unit at SAP: What do you think our shopping experience will look like in three years?

“Fast fashion brands such as H&M will have less articles in store but generate more revenue due to the bigger basket size. Stores will become more of an experience in the future and more fun as you will be able to enter the store from your couch with the use of Virtual Reality on your smartphone.”

What technology trends will take off this year?

“I could see a time when we could use a 3D printer for shoes or clothes. I would argue that it's not entirely hip anymore to own stuff. So why not subscribe or rent which

would fuel sustainability. That is something that I like to see happening.”

Top 3 tips for online retailers in 2021?

“The first is to target your customer.

Retailers need to be in front of their customers because if they’re not, others will be.

“The second is, a retailer has to know their value proposition and they must keep that promise. What is your unique selling proposition? What is so great about your product and is it really trustworthy?

Brands get fueled by promises which need to be kept.

“Finally, I would say classical business administration - know your market needs and design your products accordingly. Do not assume just because you have a great product it will meet current demands.”

technologymagazine.com

187

SAP RETAIL

SAP RETAIL

‘share of shelf time’. If you spend time with me you potentially automatically also spend money with me, and that's where I believe these new business models become quite important.

Competitive edge SAP prides itself on being customercentric, which is just one factor that gives it a competitive edge along with industry-leading software and an integrated platform.

“All software vendors use the term ‘standard software’, but when we say standard software at SAP we mean the industry-leading software.

So when we build a solution, for example, in fashion we work together with the leading global brands to get their requirements in. I believe this gives us the competitive edge,” commented Schroeder.

He also pointed out that SAP’s integrated platform allows customers to have a retail, wholesale, manufacturing and e-commerce business all on the same platform.

THE PASSIONATES According to SAP, 88 per cent of consumers known as “the passionates” a growing consumer group who make their decisions based on their principles - want their fashion brands to be more environmentally friendly.

technologymagazine.com

189

DID YOU KNOW...

SAP RETAIL

190

50 YEARS OF SAP SAP was founded 50 years ago in 1972 when Woolworth’s ruled the UK High Street, Ralph Lauren opened his first store on Rodeo Drive and Pong was the first successful video game.

Despite these early days of retail and technology, five entrepreneurs in Germany (Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner, Hans-Werner Hector, Klaus Tschira, and Claus Wellenreuther) had a vision for the business potential of technology.

They started the company Systemanalyse Programmentwicklung (System Analysis and Program Development), now simply known around the world as SAP. Their idea was to create standard enterprise software that integrated all business processes and enabled data processing in real time.

Fast-forward, nearly 50 years to a world battling a pandemic, forcing the closure of many iconic high street stores and other retailers turning to on-line platforms to survive - with SAP leading the digital transformation.

April 2021

“ There should always be something new from an experience perspective for the consumer” DR CHRISTOPH SCHROEDER

GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT OF RETAIL INDUSTRY BUSINESS UNIT, SAP

“This is also something that gives us a competitive advantage because we built one integrated platform with the help of our customers to make that happen. This is a big advantage today because if a CEO from a retail company decides to go into manufacturing you can more easily plug in or turn on the required functionality.

“In former times, you would have to implement an additional and often separate software. As a prerequisite, we put our customers at the center and we only build software together with our customers.

Value of ecosystem to SAP SAP operates an open partner strategy that involves working in a global ecosystem without preferred partners. Some of its important partners in retail and fashion include Applexus Technologies, Attune Consulting, Sovanta, Wipro and many others.

A seamless shopping experience built to engage consumers across all channels, this is what Applexus Technologies does for the retail industry. Its new technology, SimpleRetail, is powered by AI and includes features that optimise and support store operations.

Attune Consulting is a team of businesstechnology advisors who not only have deep solution knowledge but also understand the fashion industry extensively; enabling

SAP RETAIL

clients to derive benefits from technology investments faster.

Sovanta AG is regarded as an expert in creating a better user experience in the SAP environment. The company provides customers with end-to-end support – from the initial requirements to the operation of the innovative solution – and ensures that they can get everything “from a single source”. The customers benefit from a unique combination of in-depth SAP knowledge and extensive

experience in the area of user experience for business applications.

“There are many niche areas where we have a lot of well-experienced partners to really fill in the spaces to make sure we have a consistent portfolio. They have a lot of innovation going on to help out our customers,” concluded Schroeder.

technologymagazine.com

191

THE FOUR PILLARS TO STRATEGIC PROCUREMENT AND A BETTER CX WRITTEN BY: LAURA V. GARCIA

192

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: THOMAS LIVERMORE

COMDATA

technologymagazine.com

193

COMDATA

1987 Year founded

€950mn Company revenue

50,000+ Number of employees in workforce

194

April 2021

COMDATA

Javier Baranda, Group Chief Procurement Officer at Comdata, shares his strategy on driving customer value through strategic procurement

C

JAVIER BARANDA TITLE: GROUP CPO COMPANY: COMDATA INDUSTRY: CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT BPO

EXECUTIVE BIO

omdata is a leading player in the customer journey, customer attention, and BPO services market with over thirty years in the industry. In the last five years, Comdata has experienced rapid growth through acquisitions in Europe, Latin America, and Africa. It now holds a presence in 21 countries across three different continents, with about 500 customers globally, 600 million customer interactions per year, and more than 50,000 employees.

Last year, for the first time, Comdata was included in the Gartner Quadrants as one of the top players in BPO services. I sat down with their Group Chief Procurement Officer, Javier Baranda, to discuss Comdata’s procurement transformation journey and how they drive customer value through strategic procurement.

“I started at Comdata about two years ago, after receiving an attractive project challenge. The CEO had a clear vision of how they wanted to leverage procurement to better support the business. And that, honestly, was music to my ears. I have seen in business units, companies, different organisations, different mindsets that believe procurement is purely an administrative function. After 20 years in procurement, I am convinced that procurement has much more to add than just placing orders.”

Javier Baranda leads Comdata’s procurement transformation since 2019 with the goal of implementing a strategic sourcing model globally that helps Comdata’s operations maximise the value obtained from its supply chain.

Prior to Comdata, Baranda spent 21 years at Telefonica, eight of them in international assignments across Asia and Europe, where he held various management roles covering all angles of the procurement function, from Category Management to Operations to Strategic Alliances. During his career, Baranda has focused strongly on value generation and stakeholder engagement, positioning Procurement as a strategic partner for the business.

Baranda holds a Master Degree in Business Administration from Instituto de Empresa Business School and a MSc in Telcommunications Engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

COMDATA

The shift; from transactional to strategic procurement “This project allowed me to offer a model that could help combat costly transactional procurement habits and to leverage the strategic procurement concept. In the beginning, I saw that each region had a strong focus on administrative tasks. It was blended with facility services, but in the end, probably 80% of the time was dedicated to facilities and only maybe 20% to procurement. And at least 30%, the vast majority of which was spent placing orders, resolving incidents with suppliers, etcetera. There was, generally speaking, very little focus on the generation of efficiencies for the company.

“It was a very standard policy. You get three proposals, you choose the best one out of the three, and that's it. I wanted to 196

April 2021

implement a much more strategic ‘out of the box’ model in which procurement was leading innovation, heading discussions with stakeholders to present alternatives solutions, questioning things, and ensuring the right decisions were being made for the company and its customers.

“I also wanted to insert more knowledge about how to negotiate more strategically with our vendors. We started with our most critical contracts to see what we could do differently, such as aggregating and anticipating needs, improved planning and negotiation requirements. As soon as we were able to deliver tangible results with tangible savings, which is the most visible of procurement outcomes, the organisation realised that procurement could be a partner in not only executing

COMDATA

purchases but optimising the budget.

In the end, my objective was not to buy cheaper but to buy better and maximise the value of the business.”

The Four Pillars of Procurement The journey Baranda is implementing is based on four pillars. “The first pillar is the procurement role itself and how we demonstrate that we can contribute much more than simply placing orders. That means also gaining a seat at the table of key decisions, being very close to the executive committee and presenting

and even championing viable alternatives that can drive cost efficiencies. This redefinition of the role needs to be sustained on a new organisational model, including a talent upgrade “WE HOLD GREAT to become a reference for the business in the different PRIDE IN THE categories of spend.”

FACT THAT WE The second pillar is ARE HELPING TO governance. In order to BUILD A COMPANY effect change, people must understand when and how THAT EVERY YEAR to engage with procurement.

BRINGS INCREASED Setting clear policies and VALUE TO ITS procedures helps facilitate, CUSTOMERS” in the first instance, the communication with Procurement and, as a JAVIER BARANDA consequence, enables the GROUP CPO AT COMDATA technologymagazine.com

197

DESIGNING YOUR FUTURE In a world where everything is connected, where logic meets intuition, we generate great ideas to power the progress.

NETCOM GROUP/COMDATA: 12 YEARS OF INNOVATIVE COLLABORATION

Watch: NetCom Group and Comdata Report

Founded in 2006 by a group of engineers with specialties in the telecommunications and ICT sectors, NetCom Group over the last 15 years has grown significantly. Reaching international levels by having an innovative impact through its research and development (R&D) of automation systems.

Speaking with Founder and CEO of NetCom Group, Domenico Lanzo explains that “NetCom Group has always had the vocation for applied engineering, and in particular, automation systems. Our strong presence in strategic markets has called for a complete offer that included the improvement of remote technical support to our Customers. The acquisition of Core Informatica completed our previous Offer by providing technical support.”

Explaining that NetCom Group is a service and product company, Lanzo says: “we design and develop solutions for the players in the engineering and ICT fields, where embedded software is written to digitally control automation systems.”

NetCom Group’s Partnership with Comdata Beginning their collaborative relationship in 2009, Lanzo reflects that “the historical presence of Core Informatica among the major suppliers of Comdata gives us the honor of considering ourselves a partner rather than a supplier. Our knowledge of the needs of Comdata, during all these years, has made it possible to build, through loyalty policies, our work group which, due to their speed of response to requests, is able to offer quick access to instant technical support.”

Over the years Core Informatica and Comdata’s collaborative partnership has gone from strength to strength. “From the remote and on-site helpdesk services provided from 14 offices, it has now moved on to managing 25 offices in 2020. NetCom Group helps Comdata in managing not only workstations and user services, but also provides support in managing new orders, selling ICT devices, provisioning of licenses, as well as in Data Loss Prevention and Virtual Patching.”

DESIGN YOUR FUTURE

COMDATA

21

No. of countries served

3

No. of continents served

30+

Years of experience in the market

200

April 2021

COMDATA

“AFTER 20 YEARS IN PROCUREMENT, I WAS CONVINCED THAT PROCUREMENT HAD MUCH MORE TO ADD THAN JUST PLACING ORDERS” JAVIER BARANDA

GROUP CPO AT COMDATA

mindset change of the organisation towards cost efficiency and, generally speaking, “value for money”. This helps increase “spend under management, and thus the opportunities to generate value for the company, and the decision-making process.”

“Systems are paramount for an effective governance, providing visibility in the spend, transparency and traceability of the procurement management, but also an additional efficiency to the end to end process.”

Akin to internal PR, the third pillar is the alignment with the business and its goals, ensuring internal stakeholders see procurement as a true partner. They can effectively and easily engage with procurement beyond policy requirements.

“It’s important to avoid the perception that procurement will bog down the process or that it’s simply a box-ticking exercise.

Stakeholders shouldn’t feel they need to convince or mobilise procurement to get what they need. Procurement needs to be a willing, proactive partner who will help them in terms of agility and innovation. We will bring ideas from new suppliers, and we will optimise outcomes. My objective is not to lead their business but to help them run their business better. “ The fourth pillar is monitoring and reporting. “When I started in this project, technologymagazine.com

201

COMDATA

“THE CUSTOMER’S VOICE HAS BEEN AMPLIFIED, PRESENTING BOTH AN OPPORTUNITY AND A RISK. IF YOU PERFORM POORLY WITH A CUSTOMER, IT NO LONGER STAYS BETWEEN YOU JAVIER BARANDA AND THE CUSTOMER” GROUP CPO AT COMDATA

we weren’t yet monitoring savings or spend by supplier or category. So we are building that framework on how we report spend and performance. That also allows us to benchmark across different regions, see, for instance, who is investing more in IT versus services and identify potential opportunities.”

These four pillars, role, governance, alignment with the business and monitoring and reporting, are the foundation of Comdata’s procurement transformation.

Leveraging AI for a better CX “Today, one of the main challenges of any industry is customer loyalty. Society has evolved in how we interact with companies or suppliers, especially in industries like retail banking, telcos, insurance. All these companies are facing a situation in which their customers have access to social networks where they share their opinions and experiences.

The customer’s voice has been amplified, presenting both an opportunity and a risk.

If you perform poorly with a customer, it no longer stays between you and the customer.”

Baranda says cost also remains a constant challenge. With increased competition comes increased pressures to reduce costs, and so Comdata must assist their clients in finding efficiencies and improving internal processes. “We need to help our customers 202

April 2021

COMDATA

Javier Baranda from Comdata Group talks about cyber security

technologymagazine.com

203

COMDATA

Unlock the best of cloud Whether on-premises, in the cloud or anywhere in between, no one integrates, secures and connects storage like we do.

Optimize your cloud >

204

April 2021

COMDATA

“AS SOON AS WE WERE ABLE TO DELIVER TANGIBLE RESULTS WITH TANGIBLE SAVINGS, WHICH IS THE MOST VISIBLE OF PROCUREMENT OUTCOMES, THE ORGANISATION REALISED THAT PROCUREMENT COULD BE A PARTNER IN NOT ONLY EXECUTING PURCHASES BUT OPTIMISING THE BUDGET” JAVIER BARANDA

GROUP CPO AT COMDATA

enhance customer interactions, as well as improve the efficiency and cost. Comdata aims to achieve excellence in helping our customers to impart company values and improve customer retention. With the evolution of customer interactions through different channels, more and more, we are able to better serve our customers.”

AI is one of the technologies that Comdata is leveraging in this area, developing analytics to better understand the needs of customers and better manage perceptions.

“When a customer calls you, how is this customer feeling? How can I make them feel better? How can I help them better understand the situation? What previous interactions have we had with this customer, and how were those experiences? What technologymagazine.com

205

COMDATA

“WE HAVE SOME INITIATIVES WHERE WE CONTRIBUTE TO THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, AND WE SHARE AND CELEBRATE

THESE THINGS.”

JAVIER BARANDA

GROUP CPO AT COMDATA

600mn Customer interactions managed every year

500+ Number of customers globally

206

April 2021

COMDATA

are the customer’s interests? It’s that sort of analysis and modelling that AI can provide that is extremely helpful in ensuring our customers feel they are listened to and understood. We need to make our interactions more relevant, more efficient, more effective, and for that, artificial intelligence is massively important.”

A deeply embedded culture It may sound cliche, but Comdata’s values are excellence, a strong customer focus, and innovation. In truth, however, it is much more than a cliche and is deeply embedded in the way they work and is evident at every level of the organisation.

“We push ourselves not to take things for granted, to revisit old processes for potential improvement opportunities, to challenge mindsets and drive innovation.

Our CEO has a very entrepreneurial mindset and is always challenging us to bring innovation. We want to be bigger, but we want to be bigger together, and with the participation of everyone.”

“We also have some initiatives where we contribute to the social environment in different countries, and we share and celebrate these things. It's a culture that brings people together and creates a sense of belonging and a sense of pride for what we do. We hold great pride in the fact that we are helping to build a company that every year brings increased value to its customers. And I love that approach, and I am personally very aligned with working collaboratively, seeking excellence, listening to others and remaining focused on our ultimate goal of always finding better ways to service our customers, together.”

technologymagazine.com

207

SAS

208

April 2021

SAS

Democratising artificial intelligence (AI) WRITTEN BY: LEILA HAWKINS

PRODUCED BY: KARL GREEN

technologymagazine.com

209

SAS

SAS

Executive perspective by Keld Zornig, Vice President Nordics, Executive Sponsor EMEA Manufacturing at SAS

M

Keld Zornig

anufacturing leaders of today are boldly pioneering new efficient methods to modernise the business. Digital transformation in manufacturing has accelerated recently, one of the reasons being the need to respond to the changes caused by the pandemic. Companies are keen on experimenting with AI and analytics to turn the huge amounts of data available into insights that can help minimise risks, cut costs and drive new revenue.

AI and analytics need to deliver on their promises. If you invest in IoT and data analytics, it’s obvious you should expect to see results, soon. It is time to get into action, move forward from testing and scale-up analytical models to industrial processes.

We at SAS think the way to go is what is called democratising AI. It means making the technology widely available in the organisation and incorporating it into daily operational processes. This is possible with an integrated analytics platform on which people with different roles work together.

Our mission is to empower and inspire with the most trusted analytics. I hope you enjoy reading Adriaan Van Horenbeek sharing his insights on how analytics delivers value to your business. technologymagazine.com

211

SAS

Adriaan Van Horenbeek, Manufacturing Lead Advisory Western Europe at SAS, gives us the facts on the importance of digital transformation and analytics in the manufacturing industry

S

AS is the leader in advanced and predictive analytics. Since 1976, SAS has empowered and inspired customers with the most trusted analytics, innovative software, and services. From machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, and natural language processing (NLP) to forecasting and optimization, their AI and IoT technologies support diverse environments and scale to meet changing business needs.

Adriaan Van Horenbeek, Manufacturing Lead Advisory Western Europe at SAS, believes that in the manufacturing industry advanced analytics is now essential for businesses to thrive. "Most companies are now aware that digital transformation is here to stay. One of the key pillars of digital transformation involves making smarter use of data, leading to better decision-making.

To do that you need advanced analytics."

Digital transformation is driven by people, processes, and technology. "People will start using the new technology, so they need to develop new skills and we need to guide them. Their roles might shift a little.

If you look at operators for example in the production plant, their role will become a bit more strategic as execution becomes automated by algorithms."

When it comes to the process, the key is how to derive long-term value from advanced analytics with AI and machine 212

April 2021

learning. "This means finding out how to scale within the organisation, and for that, you need a clear process in place," he says.

"We typically have a four-step-approach to work with the customer. The first one is to identify the business potential, to see where the largest opportunities are in terms of using analytics. The second one is to create lighthouse projects in a few weeks because this will show the organisation what the possibilities and value of using analytics are for them. The third step is to industrialise which means integrating advanced analytics in the day-to-day processes. The fourth step is scaling, which means accelerating digital transformation by expanding to other business units or their business clients."

“ One of the key pillars of digital transformation is about making smarter use of data, leading to better decision-making. To do that you need advanced analytics” ADRIAAN VAN HORENBEEK

MANUFACTURING LEAD ADVISORY WESTERN EUROPE, SAS

SAS

Adriaan Van Horenbeek technologymagazine.com

213

SAS

The power of people, process, and technology in data analytics | Adriaan Van Horenbeek | SAS

Then it’s time to make sure the right technology is in place to support the people and the process. "We talk about the analytics lifecycle getting the data, cleaning the data, then going into the analytics and modelling capabilities.

The final part is deployment, translating the insights that come out of an algorithm into day-to-day decisions. It's only here that you actually capture the value."

“Covering the entire analytics lifecycle is important”, Van Horenbeek says, “because sometimes we see that technology only covers certain parts and is a patchwork of different technologies which makes user adoption more difficult. We can support our clients to cover the entire analytics lifecycle.”

214

April 2021

“ We speak the language of our customers and we guide them through the entire journey” ADRIAAN VAN HORENBEEK

MANUFACTURING LEAD ADVISORY WESTERN EUROPE, SAS

We speak the language of the clients we're supporting because for example in my team we come from an industry background, not purely with a data science background.

It helps us guide our clients through the entire journey.

SAS

SAS Corporate Headquarters

Every journey starts with the right data Manufacturing organisations typically capture large amounts of data, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is the right data or there could be gaps. This is where IoT comes in, for example, you can easily place wireless sensors on a production line to capture additional data and store it in a cloud environment.

"However, while IoT data capture is very nice, this doesn't bring you value. It only brings you value once you apply analytics and start analysing this data and making smarter decisions,'' Van Horenbeek adds.

A specific area this can benefit is R&D. "We analyse data to identify new products faster, decreasing the go-to-market time.

Another example is the smarter use of data in the supply chain. You can look at demand forecasting, using AI and machine learning techniques to better predict the demand, and inventory optimisation – all are related to smarter scheduling of production.

"In the production plant, we use AI or machine learning to perform process optimisation in terms of yield and the quality of the product – we can identify the key drivers of variability in the quality of the product that we are producing."

It’s also possible to find sustainable ways of working, like using data to reduce the energy consumption of production lines. "For example, using less raw materials to produce the same end product,” Van Horenbeek says. technologymagazine.com

215

1976 Company Founded

$3bn+ Revenue

14,000 Number of Employees

216

April 2021

SAS

SPG Dry Cooling | Advanced Analytics Applied | SAS Customers

“ In addition to our core technology, we've built solutions for dedicated business problems to give our clients a headstart in using advanced analytics according to their business context” ADRIAAN VAN HORENBEEK

MANUFACTURING LEAD ADVISORY WESTERN EUROPE, SAS

technologymagazine.com

217

SAS

Quality Engineers Hit Production Quality Targets With SAS Production Quality Analytics

218

April 2021

SAS

“ Our aim is the democratisation of AI, and we provide visual interfaces throughout the entire analytics lifecycle, so there is no need to be an expert in coding to use it”

ADRIAAN VAN HORENBEEK TITLE: MANUFACTURING LEAD, CUSTOMER ADVISORY WESTERN EUROPE INDUSTRY: ANALYTICS SOFTWARE LOCATION: BELGIUM

ADRIAAN VAN HORENBEEK

Advanced analytics is also a valuable tool to serve customers in a better way. "In terms of pricing optimisation and customer intelligence, it can capture customers’ requirements and feed back into the R&D process to develop products that are aligned with the real customer needs."

SAS supports clients with several Industry 4.0 solutions specific to the particular business problems in their industry. "In addition to our core technology, we've built solutions for dedicated business problems to give our clients a headstart in using advanced analytics according to their business context. In manufacturing, we have specific solutions like SAS® Analytics for IoT, SAS® Production Quality Analytics, and SAS® Asset Performance Analytics which is more targeted towards predictive maintenance.

We also have SAS® Field Quality Analytics, targeted to analysing the data of a product during its lifetime."

SAS® Viya® platform is built to capture raw data from a variety of different sources and provide dashboarding, statistical analysis,

EXECUTIVE BIO

MANUFACTURING LEAD ADVISORY WESTERN EUROPE, SAS

Adriaan holds master's degrees in electromechanical engineering and industrial management and received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of Leuven for research on predictive maintenance in cooperation with several industrial companies like Bekaert and Atlas Copco.

He worked two years as an industry asset management consultant for Stork where he performed reliability engineering projects at for example Umicore, BASF, and VPK. Today, at SAS he holds the position of manufacturing analytics expert and generates value through analytics within the process and manufacturing industry. His background of engineering skills, management skills, and data analytics skills, makes him an ideal partner to his clients to develop and embed analytics within their manufacturing processes.

SAS

“ Manufacturing businesses need to move from testing new technologies to using them at scale within their organisations” ADRIAAN VAN HORENBEEK

MANUFACTURING LEAD ADVISORY WESTERN EUROPE, SAS

data mining, machine learning, and AI. "Our aim is the democratisation of AI, and we provide visual interfaces throughout the entire analytics lifecycle, so you do not need to be an expert in coding to use it."

"In digital transformation, we talk about open ecosystems and partnerships. Our technology is also built with that in mind. The SAS® Viya® platform is completely open, so you can integrate open source applications 220

April 2021

like Python. We want to integrate with the existing ecosystem of the customer that is already in place.

SAS partners with organisations that are leaders in key areas – for instance for cloud technology we partner with Microsoft, to enable our clients to define their cloud strategy. With Ericsson, we are leveraging IoT and 5G capabilities.

We also partner with startups to ensure

SAS

“ IoT data capture is very nice, but this doesn't bring you value. It only brings you value if you start analysing this data and making smarter decisions”

we are continuously harnessing innovation.

One example is BlueChem, an incubator in the chemical industry based in Belgium; another is Aerospace Valley in France.

"We are looking at how we support these companies with our technology in the first phase of their journey going from a startup to a scaleup. Having these dedicated partnerships also enables us to provide end-to-end solutions to our clients."

“In the next few years”, Van Horenbeek says, “manufacturing businesses need to move from testing new technologies to using them at scale within their organisations. To transform their way of working and putting analytics and AI in action is key. It will give them a significant competitive advantage.

"There is a discrepancy today between companies using data effectively compared to companies that haven't started yet, and this will only get bigger. I strongly believe that the companies that are not adopting digital transformation and analytics will decline and may even go out of business in the coming years. It's a matter of survival. We saw this with COVID-19, when many companies were not digitally transformed or making use of data, got hit much harder than others.

COVID-19 was a bit of a stress test in that respect, clearly showing that companies need to invest more in these technologies."

AI and machine learning are not new technologies, but today experiments often remain a proof of concept. “The time for experimenting with AI is over. It is time to democratize AI, make the technology widely available on an integrated platform and incorporate techniques into day-to-day operational processes for value.”

ADRIAAN VAN HORENBEEK

MANUFACTURING LEAD ADVISORY WESTERN EUROPE, SAS technologymagazine.com

221

ADAPTIVE APPLICATIONS FROM DATA CENTER TO EDGE WRITTEN BY: JOHN O'HANLON

222

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: RYAN HALL

F5

technologymagazine.com

223

F5

224

April 2021

F5

F5 has become the key partner to customers looking to transform into digital businesses, a process that the pandemic has accelerated exponentially.

We talk to F5 EVP and CTO Geng Lin.

W

hen F5 started in 1996, it was primarily focused on shaping the online environment for the gaming industry. As a pioneer in loadbalancing, it quickly found a horizontal niche in helping its clients target applications to scale. Businesses could now grow at the pace of users without redesigning applications and redeploying their infrastructures. F5 focused on helping enterprises to scale data center workloads mainly composed of traditional three-tier web architectures. Leveraging the load balancer’s position in the data path of the target applications, F5 also expanded its products into the area of application security with capabilities such as application access management and firewalls.

As businesses started to virtualize their environments, F5 evolved to help its clients navigate the new reality. Moving to

a public cloud environment introduced further challenges for enterprises. F5's virtualized application delivery controller made it possible to detach application load-balancing and application security functions from the hardware environment, enabling customers' workloads to move into a public cloud environment. This solution appealed to the CIO community as it preserved its operational procedures, configuration, and integration points with the tools and applications already in place.

The brave new world of adaptive applications Since 2018, business has been swiftly moving into a world of microservices. F5's “sweet spot” in helping organizations scale and protect their applications has extended to enabling better developer-oriented technologymagazine.com

225

F5

“ POINT SOLUTIONS WERE YESTERDAY'S STATE-OF-THE-ART FOR THE SECURITY BATTLEGROUND. NOW THE ATTACKERS ARE ON A DIFFERENT LEVEL.” GENG LIN

EVP AND CTO, F5

tools. In May 2019, F5 acquired NGINX, the creator of a widely adopted open source platform for microservices and distributed web applications globally. NGINX open source powers more than one-third of the world’s web applications across all types of environments. F5's CEO François Locoh-Donou stated: “We believe that with our combined F5-NGINX solutions, our customers – from the app developer to the 226

April 2021

network engineer to the security specialist – will for the first time benefit from the agility and flexibility enabled by modern technologies without compromising on the time-tested fundamentals of security, manageability, and reliability. F5 is 100% committed to the continued innovation and increasing investment in the NGINX open source project.”

In the meantime, security, too, took on new levels of importance as attackers began to exploit automation and a growing cadre of connected devices. Infrastructure and application attacks grew to unprecedented

F5

GENG LIN TITLE: EVP AND CTO

levels, threatening providers of services such as payment processing. F5’s expertise in scaling security capabilities became a key component in businesses’ strategy to thwart attacks.

The appointment of Geng Lin as EVP and CTO at F5 closely followed the NGINX acquisition. With broad leadership experiences at Cisco, Dell, Google, and most recently JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lin is a recognized technology expert in cloud services, distributed systems, and modern applications – precisely F5's competency.

He has co-authored two books on cloud and data-intensive computing and holds nine patents. At Cisco, he served as the CTO of the Cisco-IBM Alliance. At Dell, he was the CTO of Networking Group and a Dell Fellow. In addition to his technology expertise, his experience at Google as CTO of Corporate Networks and Head of Service Engineering of Next Billion Users and at

EXECUTIVE BIO

COMPANY: F5 Geng Lin is Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at F5. He is responsible for leading technology strategy, product evolution, and critical innovations for the company.

Lin joined F5 in 2019 from JPMorgan Chase & Co., where he was Managing Director, Chief Development Officer and Head of Engineering for Consumer and Community Banking. Prior to JPMorgan Chase, Lin worked at Google as CTO of Corporate Networks and later as Head of Service Engineering for Next Billion Users. Previously, he served as CTO of Networking Group at Dell and CTO of the Cisco-IBM Alliance at Cisco Systems.

He was also an appointed Fellow at Dell and Distinguished Engineer at JPMorgan Chase.

Lin is an industry-leading expert in distributed systems, software-defined infrastructure, and cloud services. He is a contributing author of two books on cloud and data-intensive computing.

He has published many technical papers and holds nine U.S. patents.

Lin received B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer science from Peking University and a Ph.D. degree in computer science from The University of British Columbia.

F5

1996

Year founded

6,000

Number of employees

$2.35bn Revenue USD

228

April 2021

F5

JP Morgan Chase as Chief Development Officer and Head of Engineering for Consumer and Community Banking offered him a unique vantage point to understand the evolution of digital businesses.

In recent years, businesses in every industry sector have embarked on the digital transformation journey. Lin says: “Take banking as an example: transactional systems such as ATM networks, credit cards, bank accounts, etc. have been in place for years, but digital transformation and mobile banking have made it possible to link previously siloed transaction systems together to deliver a seamless digital user experience. Today, you don’t need to go to a bank branch to open a new account.

“THE CHALLENGE FOR DIGITIZATION IS TWOFOLD – TO DIGITIZE THE ENTERPRISE BUSINESS FLOWS AND TO DIGITIZE THE USER EXPERIENCES.” GENG LIN

EVP AND CTO, F5

You can open a bank account using your mobile phone in 10 minutes without ever interacting with a bank representative.”

Such seamless digital user experiences require that the complete user journey – often accomplished by multiple applications distributed across multi-cloud environments at a global scale – is optimized and protected.

Security is difficult in such an end-to-end user journey across distributed environments.

Security protects the individual points — or the “cracks” attackers could find between the elements that went into building the system and exploit them. technologymagazine.com

229

Title of the video

230

April 2021

F5

" LEADERSHIP DEMANDS THAT WE EXPAND OUR OWN QUALITIES THROUGHOUT OUR TEAMS" GENG LIN

EVP AND CTO, F5

Yet that was yesterday's state-of-theart for the security battleground, according to Lin. “Now the attackers are on a different level,” he says. “Even assuming all the building blocks fit nicely together without any cracks, attackers can still penetrate the systems. How? By means of massive automation and computing power to gain the necessary credentials and assume a legitimate identity to mimic a real user. Not

only do you need to detect vulnerabilities in the system, but you need to use telemetry information, analytics, and AI techniques to analyze attacker behaviors to distinguish bots from real, legitimate users.”

That need led to the acquisition of Shape

by F5 in January 2020. Shape products use data analytics and machine learning technologies to defend against automated bot attacks and fraudulent transactions.

Shape products are used by three of the top four banks in the U.S. Today, F5 is integrating Shape products with the rest of F5’s security offerings to prevent application-layer attacks on its customers, saving them billions of dollars and consolidating its position as a global leader in multi-cloud application security services.

COVID has accelerated the trend towards distributed digital businesses The effectiveness of F5's application delivery and security technologies to scale and protect application workloads depends heavily on location. “Meeting where the workloads actually reside is a key factor to effectively and efficiently scaling and protecting the target workloads,” Lin says. “There are three locations to place the workloads: at the data center, in the public cloud, and at the edge where the vast majority of users actually experience digital services.”

These first two locations traditionally have been the major deployment environments for application workloads – and are amply addressed by the core F5 technologies we have looked at already. technologymagazine.com

231

F5

“ APPLICATIONS ARE THE BACKBONE OF A FUTURE DIGITAL ECONOMY.” GENG LIN

EVP AND CTO, F5

The last one, edge, is an ever-evolving challenge to enterprise businesses and hence an opportunity for F5. How can the user experience be made consistent and secure wherever the application or the digital service is being accessed?

Lin is well placed to answer this having led Google's engineering and service team as it set out to solve the last-mile challenge within its own ecosystem. Other early movers such as Amazon and Facebook have taken the same route to build their own in-house solutions, but not all enterprises have the same level of resources and technical 232

April 2021

expertise to do so. And as many enterprises retain their traditional applications while integrating modern applications built on microservices and cloud-native architectures, their environments are becoming more complex, leading to inconsistent application performance and new security vulnerabilities.

While the edge posed a challenge to business enterprises aspiring to evolve digitally before COVID, the pandemic has significantly amplified this challenge.

“COVID has accelerated digitization and application delivery to the edge at a pace we have never seen before,” says Lin. “The

F5

pandemic has compelled CIOs to speed up their digitization process. You could say businesses, and society generally, have become distributed systems.”

“Distributed” is a key theme for F5 and has led to the conclusion that edge computing will be important to nearly every business.

“We believe that digital businesses in every industry sector will need a new platform to deliver applications and to process and analyze data,” Lin says. “That platform is Edge 2.0, and we envision it will be an essential component of the user experience of every digital service.”

F5 AT A GLANCE Operations 76 locations in 43 countries Customers F5 solutions are deployed in: • 48 of the Fortune 50 companies • All 15 executive departments of the U.S. cabinet • The top 10 global telecoms operators • The top 15 U.S. commercial banks

technologymagazine.com

233

F5

This was the catalyst for F5 to accelerate its multi-cloud and edge strategy during 2020, culminating in the acquisition of Volterra in January 2021. “Volterra is the first universal edge-as-a-service platform and is key to executing on our Edge 2.0 vision,” Lin says. “For example, a U.S. bank wanting to roll out merchant payment services globally may face difficulty building its own edge services in diverse places such as Scandinavia, Australia, and Thailand. Volterra enables the bank to give its customers a uniform 234

April 2021

digital experience wherever they are. The bank can preserve its security policies and user experience service level agreements.

Digital experience is now a big competitive differentiator for businesses.”

A model for partnership Traditionally, F5 was seen as the perfect partner to major infrastructure technology vendors that can facilitate the best networking up to layer 3 but have no visibility at the level of application workload and distributed

F5

applications at layers 4-7. That simple, layered OSI model has changed, Lin comments. “The stack has become blurred in this converged world. We need to look at partnerships from a customer-driven lens.” He offers the example of the long-standing partnership between F5 and VMware, companies that overlap in some respects but which define areas in which they complement one another to serve the needs of common customers. This kind of relationship, he says, will increasingly define future partnerships.

Where gaps show up in the company’s capabilities and which it must move fast to fill, F5 has been quick to acquire. “Our acquisition strategy is clear,” Lin says.

“NGINX addresses developer needs, the Shape acquisition strengthens our analytics capabilities, and Volterra gives us the edge presence and addresses multi-cloud operational challenges. These are capabilities we couldn't have developed in-house, at least not fast enough to meet the circumstances in which we found ourselves.”

Over the last years, many enterprises have come to realize that – unlike bornin-the-cloud digital businesses such as Google, Amazon, and Uber – they have not yet fully digitized the processes by which they interact with their customers.

Enabling digital experiences takes globalscale application delivery, security, and rich data processing.

“Such a Google-like in-house environment wouldn't be replicated even in Tier One enterprises,” says Lin. “The demand for a common application-oriented distribution layer that marries enterprises’ global users and distributed workloads across multicloud environments is huge. I came to F5 because CEO François' vision is to transform F5 into the leader for this application-oriented distribution layer, a vision we call adaptive applications. I wanted to help F5 reach the vision.”

This exciting vision played a big part in attracting Geng Lin to F5, where he is now able to influence a huge global technology endeavor.

technologymagazine.com

235

CSG

James Kirby Head of EMEA Business

236

April 2021

CSG

AN INDUSTRY LEADER IN DIGITAL ACCELERATION James Kirby, Head of EMEA Business at CSG, explains how CSG helps companies future-proof their digital offerings with the power of a diverse portfolio WRITTEN BY: LEILA HAWKINS

C

SG, an industry leader in providing revenue management and customer engagement solutions, has helped businesses acquire, monetise, engage, and retain customers for over 35 years. James Kirby, CSG’s Head of EMEA, believes that at its core, the company’s mission is to help solve their customers’ toughest business problems. Further, he considers CSG’s commitment to its mission to be integral to its success. “Solving our customers’ problems allows us to grow and provide returns to our stakeholders,” James explains. “This provides us with the growth needed to continuously innovate, feeding back further benefits to our customers as we continuously develop and evolve our solutions.”

While CSG maintains a diverse client roster, from leading communications service providers to governments to media and

PRODUCED BY: BEN MALTBY entertainment providers, James believes that two common needs transcend industries: effective revenue management and the ability to provide a superior customer experience. CSG has solutions tailored for success in these crucial areas.

A significant number of CSG’s customers operate in the telecommunications and logistics industries, two sectors that have experienced considerable demand increases throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

As end customers used more data and communicated more online, CSG was wellpositioned to seamlessly scale solutions to meet demand. The pandemic made it abundantly clear that businesses need to transform into digital organisations, with the ability to do so quickly.

James believes that CSG can speak with authority to the process because the technologymagazine.com

237

CSG

CSG – An Industry Leader in Digital Acceleration

“ TODAY’S WORLD IS DRIVEN BY ECOSYSTEMS. LONG GONE ARE THE DAYS WHEN A TELECOM FIRM PROVIDED ONLY A TELEPHONE SERVICE. TODAY, THEY TYPICALLY OFFER BUNDLES AND COMPLEMENTARY PRODUCTS, AND THAT ECOSYSTEM IS SET TO GROW EXPONENTIALLY AS BUSINESSES MOVE ONLINE” JAMES KIRBY

HEAD OF EMEA, CSG

238

April 2021

company has undergone a transformation themselves. “We find ourselves in a very fortunate position because we have been developing innovative solutions for a long time. Over the last few years, we have moved to the cloud, implemented digital front ends, and streamlined applications. As a result, we are uniquely positioned to help our customers react quickly to a constantly changing landscape. As the pandemic has unfolded, we have been able to offer capabilities that our customers can quickly adopt and integrate.”

Take, for example, a large global shipping company that has experienced a staggering increase in shipments processed, creating massive amounts of data. According to James, “data is key to almost any business, and the current increase in data generation means it is more important than ever to merge that data from multiple sources and place it in repositories for analytics and business intelligence.”

CSG

JAMES KIRBY TITLE: SVP & HEAD OF EMEA BUSINESS INDUSTRY: COMPUTER SOFTWARE LOCATION: LONDON, ENGLAND

CSG’s Digital Mediation platform was developed to help businesses manage their data streams more efficiently. “It allows us to take any type of data from any source, process that data, analyse it and then distribute it to other systems,” James explains.

CSG operates on the premise that technology is ever evolving, and that it is vital to always stay one step ahead. As a result of this approach, they can meet the everchanging needs of their customers. CSG has a unique take on digital transformation, which James describes below.

EXECUTIVE BIO

James Kirby is Senior Vice President and Head of EMEA at CSG, where he is responsible for the go-to-market strategy and business development across the region. His international experience helps him craft service offerings that improve customer experience. With 20 years’ experience at CSG, Kirby puts customer excellence and continuous improvement at the centre of his strategy. He has previously held product management, business development and services roles within CSG.

CSG

$990.5M Revenue (2020)

1982

Year Founded

4,800+

Number of employees (2020)

“Many organisations have gone through transformation, especially large-scale IT projects, that can take years. They think there is a finish line to reach or a definite endpoint to digital transformations. But that era has come to an end. The pace at which technology changes and evolves requires a perpetual transformation. We have adapted to this new reality through continuous development and integration and by implementing agile methodologies in the way we develop and deploy our solutions.”

Companies across a variety of industries have been able to digitally transform their 240

April 2021

business operations by deploying CSG’s innovative suite of services. Inmarsat, a United Kingdom-based satellite provider for the aviation and maritime sectors, has benefited from enhanced efficiency in data processing and invoicing after implementing CSG’s solutions.

In Africa, a key growth market for the company, “CSG is providing MTC Namibia with a future-proof digital technology stack to help personalise their customers’ experience across devices and channels. During the last 12 months, MTC has undergone a massive digital transformation that

CSG

“FORGING PARTNERSHIPS WITH LARGE INTERNATIONAL BRANDS IS VITALLY IMPORTANT. IN OUR CURRENT DIGITAL ERA, A LOT OF OUR CUSTOMERS ARE ADOPTING CLOUD TECHNOLOGY AS PART OF THEIR CORE IT STRATEGY, AND WE SEE THESE RELATIONSHIPS AS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF HOW WE GO TO MARKET” JAMES KIRBY

HEAD OF EMEA, CSG technologymagazine.com

241

CSG

“ WE ARE HAVING TRULY EXCITING CONVERSATIONS WITH CLIENTS ABOUT WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS, AND WE EXPECT THIS TO INVOLVE FURTHER GROWTH OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS” JAMES KIRBY

HEAD OF EMEA, CSG

included transforming a collection of legacy systems and integrating them into the CSG ecosystem. This accelerated MTC’s go-tomarket plans and allows them to better serve their customers,” James explains.

In addition to Africa, the Middle East is a major growth market. “CSG recently expanded its work with Mobily, one of the fastest-growing mobile operators in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian market is rapidly changing from a very oil-centric market to a truly digital economy,” James says. “It is very important for businesses in the region to provide a much more digital experience for their customers, who are becoming more demanding. By partnering with Mobily and deploying CSG products, they can accelerate their growth and significantly improve their customer experience.”

James views the present as a very exciting time for the organisation, in large part because of its ecosystem of partners. CSG has a significant competitive advantage, as they can pull from experience and expertise 242

April 2021

CSG

Meet CSG

from a variety of different markets and industries to benefit their customers.

“Today’s world is driven by ecosystems.

Long gone are the days when a telecom firm provided only a telephone service. Today, they typically offer bundles and complementary products, and that ecosystem is set to grow exponentially as businesses move online—this is where we can really leverage our expertise,” James says.

CSG believes that customer relationships and partnerships are based on more than just a single transaction—they are enduring and continuously evolving. The company applies this knowledge when building its products and solutions, keeping the customer in mind throughout the process.

The methodologies and processes they have adopted allow them to work more effectively with customers and partners.

A robust partnership framework and an unwavering commitment to success have

led to strong relationships and even some awards. Last year, CSG was named Microsoft’s 2020 Media and Communications Partner of the Year for their work with Azure. “Forging partnerships with large international brands is vitally important. In our current digital era, a lot of our customers are adopting cloud technology as part of their core IT strategy, and we see these relationships as an essential part of how we go to market.”

In February this year, CSG recognised Microsoft as their 2020 Strategic Partner of the Year, awarding the company for its go-to-market partnering efforts together with CSG to launch solutions, drive market awareness, and support engagement with CSG customers worldwide.

Before approaching a customer with a solution, CSG conducts comprehensive pre-work with their partner vendors to ensure they are compatible, meet necessary standards, and can add value. technologymagazine.com

243

CSG

“ IF WE THINK THERE IS A BETTER WAY OF SOLVING A PROBLEM, WE ARE ABSOLUTELY OPEN WITH OUR CUSTOMERS. IT MAY BE EASIER TO OFFER EXACTLY WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANTS, BUT THAT MIGHT RESULT IN WASTED TIME AND RESOURCES. BUILDING A TRANSPARENT, COMMUNICATIVE RELATIONSHIP WITH CUSTOMERS SETS US APART” JAMES KIRBY

HEAD OF EMEA, CSG

244

April 2021

CSG

The company has enjoyed tremendous success through these win-win partnerships.

At the heart of these winning partnerships and customer relationships is a culture of openness—even if it means offering a different viewpoint. “If we think there is a better way of solving a problem, we are absolutely open with our customers,” James says. “It may be easier to offer exactly what the customer wants, but that might result in wasted time and resources.

Building a transparent, communicative relationship with customers sets us apart.”

Last year was CSG’s best yet in EMEA, and James anticipates that trend continuing. “We have a robust roadmap moving forward, and we are fortunate to be in a cashflow positive situation. There is tremendous potential for us to make acquisitions that will complement our existing offerings,” he explains.

CSG’s investments in digital transformation have paid off, and their cloud-first approach positions them well moving forward. “We are having truly exciting conversations with clients about what the future holds, and we expect this to involve further growth over the next few years.”

technologymagazine.com

245

EPIC IO

WIRELESS

M2M ON

THE EDGE WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO

246

April 2021

EPIC IO

technologymagazine.com

247

EPIC IO

Epic IO's dynamic founder and CEO talks technology, AI, and smart communities as the company launches new projects for 2021

K

en Mills happily describes himself as "a big nerd." The technology whizz-turnedentrepreneur is the CEO of Epic IO, the parent company of Broad Sky Networks – a machine-to-machine (M2M) platform providing wireless connectivity to mobile and fixed devices, and IntelliSite.

IntelliSite is an artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-based management solution within an IoT platform that carries out heuristic-based monitoring, smart community as a service (SCaaS), with remote monitoring and management.

As well as providing a range of services directly to business customers, Epic IO has a partnership with Dell, playing a key role in the company's strategic offerings of dynamic, cuttingedge technology.

But Mills hasn't always been so entrenched in the world of IT. Initially, he opted for a career in physics. Following a stint in the U.S. Navy where he specialized in nuclear engineering, Mills moved into the computer industry and has never looked back.

"I love all things technology and I love to learn about interesting things," he says, describing the journey that saw him gain a prestigious college scholarship but quickly failed to excite him, thus leading him to the U.S. military. Mills qualified for the U.S. naval nuclear program —then had another epiphany.

"At some point, I realized that most people wouldn't want me to be the person running the nuclear reactor, so I got into computer technology instead," he laughs.

248

April 2021

Ken Mills, CEO

EPIC IO

technologymagazine.com

249

EPIC IO

Solving customer challenges with Edge Computing, IoT, AI, and Connectivity | Ken Mills | Epic IO

Following a stint at a technology sales company, he joined Cisco, and then Dell, where his grasp of technological trends enabled his quick rise to become the company’s CTO. During this period, Mills launched several successful technology startups — and it was just a matter of time before he branched out with his own vision.

Epic IO acquired Broad Sky and IntelliSite in 2020. Since then, the company has moved from strength to strength, as Mill's vision of the future of technology has firmly steered the company on the roadmap to success.

AI and M2M services One of IntelliSite’s specialties is machine-tomachine (M2M) solutions. This service gathers data, analyses it, and then performs actions based on the information it processes. This ensures operations run smoothly across a wide range of industries. Mills uses the example of shops and customer behaviors following the pandemic. The whole dynamic has changed, 250

April 2021

EPIC IO

he says, around something as simple as grocery shopping and current data is not accurately reflecting current behaviors.

"You know these kinds of dynamics are interesting because we’ve entered a whole new world. There is no data reporting how long a customer is willing to wait now. There is no data on how long a queue line is. No data revealing what the optimal utilization or capacity is in your conference room or how your break room is being used, or your office space. The previous data is outdated. It no longer applies.

"Being able to use AI to understand the heuristics of the environment, to provide real actionable data back to managers, customers, cities, and campuses to show how their facilities and assets are currently being utilized is super valuable right now," Mills explains.

KEN MILLS TITLE: CEO INDUSTRY: IOT + AI TECHNOLOGY

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: UNITED STATES Ken serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Epic IO, IntelliSite & Broad Sky Networks.

Ken has an early background in nuclear physics and reactor engineering, and over 20 years of business-to-business technology and information security expertise.

Prior to joining IntelliSite, Ken was the General Manager & Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Dell Technologies Safety & Security, IoT, and Computer Vision business unit.

During his tenure, he was recognized as one of Dell Technologies top security and public safety experts who were instrumental in

“ There's this concept around the ‘digital divide’ that reminds us how important it is to make sure that those without the economic means can still get access to all these different services” KEN MILLS CEO, EPIC IO

establishing and growing Dell Technologies Safety and Security solutions.

Ken holds a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Business Management from the University of Phoenix and a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Clemson University. He is a member of the Security Industry Association (SIA) and serves on the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee for the University of South Florida Muma College of Business, an Advisory Board Member for the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security, and a member of the Forbes Technology Council.

INTELLIGENT SAFETY AND SECURITY FROM EDGE TO CORE TO CLOUD

LEARN MORE Delltechnologies.com/SafetyandSecurity

THE DELL TECHNOLOGIES ADVANTAGE Whether it’s gaining customer behavioral insights in a retail store, predicting failures in manufacturing plants or managing traveler flow in an airport, data driven organizations across the globe are capitalizing on the immense power of deep learning techniques on video and digital images.

At Dell Technologies, we’re committed to providing you with fully integrated safety and security | computer vision solutions ranging from physical security, situational awareness, to digital forensics. We help turn your data into actionable intelligence enabling you to protect people, property, and your business.

Our advisory, design, build, integration, and lab validation services help deliver the right edge to core to cloud safety and security system to meet your needs today and tomorrow.

Dell Technologies addresses your unique requirements with a comprehensive strategy that brings together a full range of components where every part of the ecosystem is represented by a combination of our infrastructure, services, and industry leading, validated partner solutions.

“Dell Technologies Safety and Security | Computer Vision solutions portfolio and subject matter expertise help reduce risk, cost, and complexity by leveraging a comprehensive solution to fit your specific industry requirements.”

William Reed — Dell Technologies General Manager Safety & Security Computer Vision

LEARN MORE

EPIC IO

"We do that in our own conference room.

Right now, I'm measuring how often my conference rooms are being used and by how many people. We can check to see if they are maintaining safe social distances and if they are wearing masks."

The collected data is analyzed, and insights are produced that can be acted upon, even in real-time scenarios. But just as often, companies need such information to create long-term strategies.

BROAD SKY NETWORKS

254

April 2021

DID YOU KNOW...

Founded in 2003, Broad Sky Networks provides worldleading internet services. The company specializes in 4G LTE wireless Machineto-Machine (M2M) and IoT equipment and services. Currently serving the U.S. and Canada, Broad Sky provides bundled solutions that include low CapEx packages which allow customers to easily deploy primary or business continuity services to meet any budget.

Broad Sky's M2M platform simplifies the management of remote devices, reduces costs, and provides the availability of mission-critical applications. The company was acquired in 2020 by Epic IO.

Mills explains: "Take the new health and wellness expectations that employees and customers have as they enter a facility.

Contactless entry is now a requirement because people no longer want to touch a handle or surface when they walk through a door or use the buttons on an access pin panel — or even press their thumb to a sensor as a form of ID." A growing number of use cases The amount of use cases that M2M and AI — as part of an IoT installation — can leverage is, according to Mills, essentially endless, starting with the simplest situation.

"A great example of applying machineto-machine services is making sure that ultra-cold storage freezers are working, so vaccines don't spoil. That sensor could have 5G or 4G connectivity with an application

EPIC IO

“ At some point I realized that most people wouldn't want me to be the person running the nuclear reactor, so I got into computer technology instead” KEN MILLS CEO, EPIC IO

that is able to send alerts, saying 'Hey! This set of freezers across these multiple sets of manufacturers need to be fixed because they are not going to maintain the necessary temperature to provide proper storage levels for the vaccine."

The demand for such services is closely related to the growth of edge computing, says Mills, who believes that cloud and edge computing is becoming a much more integrated service, rather than one technology outperforming another.

"The use of edge computing is growing because a lot of compute processing is being driven to the edge of campuses and cities and towns and communities.

"Most of the time you need a high level of connectivity to deliver that data fast and accurately. Cellular connectivity is an exceptionally reliable and affordable way to do that."

With smart communities on the rise, along with more automated or “smart manufacturing” in industry and transportation, Epic IO is seeing a massive demand for its services.

"We are now seeing edge technology at traffic intersections being used to improve pedestrian safety and traffic analysis. We can put edge sensors with computational power at an intersection and then wirelessly send that data back to analyze and get results from hundreds or thousands of intersections to understand what's going on,” says Mills.

"We can find out how many nearaccidents there are, what kind of vehicles are passing through, if there are more bikes now than recorded before. When we are armed with that granular level of information, we can adjust to the changing traffic dynamics in the city. Because the ongoing pandemic has changed everyone’s behavior. So, traffic patterns have changed too." technologymagazine.com

255

EPIC IO

“ Our ethos is rooted in helping to make the world a smarter, safer, more connected place. Ultimately, that is what we are focused on” KEN MILLS CEO, EPIC IO

The end goal of this data collection, processing, and analytics, much of it in real-time, is, says Mills, to understand what's really happening.

"When you're armed with that information, you can work on reducing pedestrian fatalities to zero — which is a huge deal — by tapping into AI and M2M solutions."

Mills continues, "From a business point of view, connectivity and sensors allow us to build that whole picture for our customers. We use Broad Sky Technology to send that data where it needs to go."

Transformative technology Epic IO's unique combination of services does not only facilitate the needs of businesses.

Mills is passionate about empowering smart communities and fostering the potential to improve living conditions, the environment, and education, through the power of connectivity. This is one of the company's major initiatives for 2021.

"I don't like the term 'smart cities' because it's not accurate," Mills says. "Smart technology can be applied to all types of communities — from villages in India to university campuses — anywhere where people gather around the world. The term ‘city’ implies that only metropolitan areas would benefit from such connectivity. That is not true."

256

April 2021

The work Epic IO is carrying out with IntelliSite is focused on this cause, he says, which will change people's lives for the better.

"How do you register for a vaccine on a web page if you don't have a computer at home?” he asks. “How do students participate in remote learning? The returning awareness of the digital divide has become particularly important. Widespread adoption of iPhones has masked the problem. Equal access to internet bandwidth remains an issue for households that don't have the economic means to purchase different services.

"Epic IO has solutions that are going to be very important in 2021 where we can deploy wireless connectivity to parks and buses and other places where people lacking access to that connectivity can obtain high quality, highly secure services."

EPIC IO

INTELLISITE

2020

Year founded

IoT + AI Technology Industry

200+

Employees

$40M/Year The capability doesn't just involve internet access for education. "At the same time, we can deploy IoT wireless gateways in those locations, enabling cities to run things like smart parking meters, which generate new sources of revenue for the city. Sensors can also be used for air quality, or leak detection in the water system.

"All kinds of different examples can be cited.

For the same investment and that provides wireless connectivity for those who are less fortunate, we can provide additional services to

DID YOU KNOW...

Revenue

Formed in 2001, IntelliSite® provides the industry's most complete IoT and AI-enabled Edge Computing solution powered by their IntelliCore platform. IntelliSite’s applied solutions of Heuristic-Based Monitoring (hBM) - one of the most complete thermal monitoring solutions for elevated body temperature, occupancy management, and people counting - and Smart Communities as-a-Service (SCaaS) - providing solutions that address public safety, intelligent transportation, and healthy living - are utilized by mid-market and enterprise-class customers, partners, and federal, state, and local governments worldwide. IntelliSite is focused on bringing the world together through technology and powering positive change by delivering complete, outcome-based solutions for businesses, governments, and communities worldwide.

technologymagazine.com

257

EPIC IO

“ A great example of applying machine-to-machine services, is making sure the freezer is working, so the vaccine doesn't spoil” KEN MILLS CEO, EPIC IO

258

April 2021

EPIC IO

every citizen, improving the digitization of the city or the town or the community."

“In some way, we spent 2020 just trying to figure out the best application of this platform for 2021. Now, cities, towns, campuses are going to the next phase to provide high-quality services and resources to their citizens. And our technology, we hope, will play a big part in that."

Epic IO strategy Mills is the first to admit that Epic IO has undergone some radical developments over the past twelve months and that 2021 is looking similarly busy. He laughs and shrugs as he talks about the company's progress.

"Yeah. We acquired three companies, launched a new ERP, launched a new CRM and we built three new products that didn't exist before now. So, 2020 was crazy.

"In 2021, we're launching our new enterprise AI platform. I believe it’s the first enterprise approach to delivering computer vision for customers across many different use cases and across cities, towns, and communities," Mills says proudly.

"You know, our ethos is rooted in helping to make the world a smarter, safer, more connected place. Ultimately, that is what we are focused on."

Mills says big tech providers like Cisco and Dell are committed to creating a better world through technology. "Even though we are much smaller than them, I believe we also have a responsibility and an opportunity to accomplish that with our technology, too. We are very interested in building solutions with integrated software and hardware technologies that are used for good and applied in the right way to drive a better, safer, smarter, more connected world."

technologymagazine.com

259

FLOOID

260

April 2021

FLOOID

HEADLESS COMMERCE FOR A NEW ERA OF RETAIL

WRITTEN BY: PADDY SMITH PRODUCED BY: BEN MALTBY

technologymagazine.com

261

FLOOID

262

April 2021

FLOOID

Flooid’s unified commerce solutions concentrate on the heavy lifting of basket management and pricing, leaving retailers free to concentrate on their customers

A

year ago, give or take, PCMS rebranded as Flooid. But the decision to change the name of the company was far from a whim. A slew of vendors in the point-of-sale market had initial-based names, and PCMS wanted to break free from being clubbed in with POSonly providers. As Flooid was born out of PCMS’ ashes, the board was intent on getting the message out that while POS was part of it’s offering, it wasn’t the whole package.

“We felt doing a rebrand would create a bit of noise in the market,” explains Flooid CEO EMEA Martyn Osborne. “Point of sale is just one of the things we provide to retailers, but we’ve always provided a slightly different mix of capabilities beyond just POS. We were able to amplify some of the other things we do.”

Osborne, who’s been with the business for 24 years, took the helm at the time of the rebrand. His roles in product development and operations mean he’s been heavily invested in the operational side of the business.

Customer experience is at the heart of Flooid’s selfcheckout technology.

Essential retail It hasn’t necessarily all been a smooth ride.

Many of Flooid’s customers are essential retailers: grocers, FMCG, health and beauty/ pharmacy, all to some extent protected from the worst retail fallout from Covid19 restrictions on opening. Another vertical for the company is fast fashion, which has technologymagazine.com

263

FLOOID

“ The rebrand gave us an opportunity to amplify some of the other things we do” MARTYN OSBORNE CEO, FLOOID

been hit harder by the global pandemic.

Fortunately for Flooid, because the company serves all retail verticals the work with essential retailers has helped balance the challenges seen in other retail sectors.

“We knew that some of our clients would be hit harder than others,” Osborne admits, “and this situation has certainly presented challenges.” On the plus side, convenience and supermarket operators “have fared better and they’ve innovated their way through it.”

One benefit to Flooid has been an uptick 264

April 2021

in its customers’ decision making. Even customers who have a tendency to “dibble around a bit” have sharpened their courses.

“We’ve seen a big acceleration of things like self-service and mobile payments within the supermarket area. We’ve seen some really quick decision making that would normally take months, and it’s been done in weeks.”

Build the platform, not the product One of Flooid’s strengths is that despite a broad portfolio that takes in pricing management, promotions, loyalty schemes

FLOOID

MARTYN OSBORNE TITLE: CEO COMPANY: FLOOID INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY LOCATION: WEST MIDLANDS, UK

and basket management on and offline, it doesn’t offer consumer apps. “We provide all the heavy lifting,” Osborne explains, “and the key thing is pricing consistency. If you think about consumer applications, it’s very different to building industrial apps. And we’ve decided not to build the consumer applications because we don’t do enough of it to be good at it consistently, every day. We work with a couple of partners and we’ve also extended the platform capabilities so that the retailer themselves can build their own assets. And this is key

EXECUTIVE BIO

Martyn Osborne is EMEA Chief Executive Officer, Group co-CEO and Group CPO of Flooid whose unified commerce platform technology is transforming the in-store experience and helping some of the biggest retail brands create frictionless customer journeys regardless of where a consumer decides to begin their shopping experience – whether it is online, in a store, or on a mobile app.

Flooid and Intel: Enhancing the retail experience Flooid and Intel are enhancing the retail experience with a unified commerce edge-to-cloud solution that provides retailers with the ability to seamlessly follow the customer through the shopping journey. Flooid is also proud to be a member of Intel’s Open Retail Initiative (ORI); a collaborative effort to accelerate iteration, flexibility and innovation at scale. With Intel and Flooid every touchpoint can be a transaction and every customer experience a discovery.

LEARN MORE

The future you’re building starts here

For retailers, being open for business means being open to innovation.

Innovation that redefines what’s possible in store and inspires shopper loyalty across every channel.

“Surprise and delight” is all about timing. Having the right AI and analytics at the edge means your touchpoints are smart enough to know when the time is right. And what messages will turn your customers’ shopping experience into a truly remarkable one.

Let’s make retail remarkable.

Visit intel.com/retail © Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries.

LEARN MORE

FLOOID

“ It’s no longer just how we’ll build the tool. It’s how can we build solutions that we can bring partners into the ecosystem that add value” MARTYN OSBORNE CEO, FLOOID

– in retail, we find that retailers want to build some of this capability in house rather than relying on a vendor to produce it.

“It’s changed how we think about the product investment and how we think about the solution. It’s no longer just how we’ll build the tool. It’s how can we build solutions that we can bring partners into the ecosystem that add value. How can 268

April 2021

we bring solutions to market that enable retailers to build some of their own assets on top of that platform?”

Headless commerce Flooid calls this approach the headless commerce platform. This architecture allows retailers the flexibility to separate the front and back end solutions and

FLOOID

Flooid dashboard reporting provides deep insight.

provides the flexibility to enrich the customer experience. Effectively it’s a set of tools that runs centrally in the cloud, allowing retailers to run POS, basket management and pricing. That means the customer can alter pricing in tandem in physical retail and on its ecommerce platform, and everything is run in a secure, centralised location.

“Whether you’re going into a store with an app on your phone, or you’re going to the checkout, or the self-checkout, if you come out of there with the same basket of goods, whether you bought it using a selfcheckout or POS or on your phone, the receipt will look the same. The items on the receipt will be the same and, crucially, the price and promotion calculation will be identical. That’s actually quite hard to pull off because getting consistency between different systems such as a POS and consumer mobile, which operate differently, isn’t that easy – invariably

Flooid: headless commerce for a new era of retail

technologymagazine.com

269

you’ll get inconsistencies with how things are done if it's not done properly.

“We’ve used many of the same technology assets in the headless commerce solution of what they’ve got running in a POS. They’re making changes to it quite frequently and they don’t want to rely on a vendor like us adding shopping lists and changing the graphics. We sell them the API, we sell them the engine and we charge it on a transaction basis, so there’s very little upfront cost to that.”

Flooid solutions The headless commerce solution is the 270

April 2021

manifestation of the rebrand – pulling sharp focus on software that seamlessly works across the retail spectrum, while offering customers the option to build the bit that’s seen by the people they know best: their customers.

Osborne feels the solution also fits with a world in which companies no longer want to be locked into a single monolithic vendor, which supplies every facet of their technology set-up. “I really feel the days of the single vendor coming in as a one-stop shop are, if not ended, then limited. Retailers are savvy, and they’ve got some really smart people in house as well that can do some of this. I

FLOOID

Flooid exhibits at an industry event.

think providing basket management – heavy lifting – is still in the vendor space, but the experiential side of it – apps and things – are quite personal and need to be tied into the brand offering.”

Small change Not all of Flooid’s customers are huge supermarkets. Osborne talks about customers which have between 400 to 1,000 shops. “They’re more inclined to take something that’s more turnkey. They generally don’t take as long as some of the big guys to make a decision, but they are still in the best of breed area, and they will

choose the best ecomm platform, they’ll choose the best POS. They might not have the propensity to build stuff themselves, but they still have the propensity to go out and get the best solution – best for the job, not just buy it all from one place. So actually, the strategy is working for us.

“And it helps with entry points, too.

So even if a customer is talking about replacing their point of sale, that might be a nine-month job and in essence we’re going to sell you a newer, shiny version of something you already have.

We can say ‘why don’t we start the project somewhere else? What can’t you do with your current platform?’ You might not be able to do mobile, or some of the omnichannel journeys. Why don’t we start with those and do the POS piece at the end?

So you deliver some really early value in the lifecycle chain. Our sales approach and strategy approach plays really well for what the market wants. And we get told that it’s refreshing that we’re not trying to land-grab everything. We’re trying to be really good at what we do, but we know where our boundaries are.”

As retail adjusts with its customers – to online, to self-checkout, to click-andcollect and to whatever is added to the basket of shopping requirements in future – it’s the platform that has to remain robust, and that’s what Flooid’s platform is delivering.

Security in aisle nine Speaking of robust, there is of course an element of security. Federico ‘Fred’ Vezzani is Head of Site Reliability Engineering at Flooid. For him, the key is to keep pace with the constantly changing threat landscape. “There are three major steps,” he says. “You need to monitor technologymagazine.com

271

FLOOID

everything, then you need to verify everything, then you need to encrypt everything.

“You need to have cyber defence solutions, for sure. In order to verify everything, you need to understand who is actually using the system, so you need digital identities and then to encrypt everything.

You need data protection systems. The technologies are changing really fast and that requires constant adaptation.”

What adaptation? “The biggest transformation is from old-school IT teams to Site Reliability Engineering and DevOps. It’s all about breaking down barriers and automating routine work. Our engineers should work 50 per cent on manual work, and 50 per cent to remove that work.”

Digital transformation in retail Covid-19 has sped the journey of retail bricks and mortar towards a hybrid future where shoppers are online and in the store, potentially at the same time. Attitudes to payments are changing, led by the increased use of contactless payments and, owing to their higher payment ceilings, mobile.

Osborne sees the change in payment habits becoming permanent. “These big accelerations we’ve seen due to Covid are not going to go away,” he predicts. “Once you’ve got the ability to go into M&S to buy a sandwich for your lunch on your phone, and you can get in and out very quickly, why are you ever going to stand in a queue again? And we’ve definitely seen those things as part of the digital transformation having a big impact within the store. They’d started anyway, but Covid has accelerated things like contactless payments. Those things have a big impact within the digital space within the store.”

272

April 2021

Flooid powers many self-service capabilities including FlooidPay a simple, safe contactless payment option.

FLOOID

technologymagazine.com

273

RPG GROUP

RPG PUTS PEOPLE FIRST IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WRITTEN BY: PADDY SMITH

274

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: JAMES BERRY

RPG GROUP

technologymagazine.com

275

RPG GROUP

RPG is a global diversified conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, India. Samip Mutha, Vice President – Digital and Innovation, talks about how people are the key to a successful digital transformation

E

nabling digital transformation in a manufacturing business is no simple task. The manufacturing industry is exceptionally analogue by nature and has been working on multiple improvement frameworks like ISO, Six Sigma, TPM, WCM, Demings, TRIZ, etc, to name a few.

The success of Digital in manufacturing depends on your ability to take people along and raise its quotient across the employees in different functions, front line as well as backend.

For the shop floor, digital challenges are enormous. For legacy businesses with old plants, the need to embrace digital arises, especially with old assets and systems which obviously can’t retire overnight given the large capex involved. Digital in manufacturing is akin to performing surgery on a person, it needs to be highly customised, leave breathing space for recovery and have an airbag for side-effects.

To want to embrace Digital in its entirety and build future-ready factories without any stoppage or impacting business, the need to balance the approach of Plant-Wide building for future, the so-called Smart Factories vis-à-vis machine (critical), as well as the process-level tactic is a given. When the question of building a strong Digital core in large global and distributed manufacturing operations arises, it strongly resonates as more of a “when” as opposed to a “why” with Mr. Mutha.

276

April 2021

100% culture The 3 Ms of manufacturing, namely Machine, Method and Materials, are important, as are smaller concerns compared to the 4th M Man (Culture) according to Mr. Mutha.

“The digital success stories are 100% culture,” he says. “We are still a generation of people who are driving digital projects with an analogue mind, then blaming the technology, without realising our weaknesses. Every digital project requires an acceptance of the new normal. It merits believing unseen possibilities.

The letting go of age-old habits seems more arduous in comparison to embracing new and future-friendly practices. The operator who, so far, has been regulating the machineries in and out, is likely to face a mental challenge

“I’M NOT A FAN OF DIGITAL STRATEGY. WE HAVE A BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE DIGITAL NEEDS TO EMBRACE THAT TO TRANSFORM OR BUILD NEW BUSINESSES” SAMIP MUTHA,

VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG

Samip Mutha, Vice president - Head of Digital and Innovation, RPG technologymagazine.com

277

RPG GROUP

RPG group CORPORATE FILM #hellohappiness​

Samip Mutha has four key characteristics for effective leadership:

ETHICS AND INTEGRITY HUMILITY COMMUNICATION ABILITY TO TAKE RISKS

278

April 2021

in adopting a whole new way of thinking, let alone accepting new possibilities that stand to enable, elevate, and boost the lives of people.

Business KPIs haven’t changed drastically, and will continue to remain constant. It was about 15 years ago that I started my career in Manufacturing Consulting, and OEE was good back then, just like it is today, and I am fairly certain that it will continue to remain so tomorrow. That said, what changes is your ability to command trust, bring transparency and give rise to transformation in terms of the ways in which the business has been running.

“So, in the said culture, believing in possibilities is imperative. It won’t happen overnight, irrespective of one’s credibility.

Digital is a journey, one has to live it, a journey of opening the mind to creative courses of action, establishing and showcasing success stories while also then scaling it up rapidly, making it a way of life. It tends to come more naturally if you start from the POV of business benefit and associated ROI for investors. If

RPG GROUP

"THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN DIGITAL IS ANALOG MINDS AND HENCE WORKING ON PEOPLE IS THE MOST CRITICAL LEVER FOR SUCCESSFUL ADOPTION"

SAMIP MUTHA TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION COMPANY: RPG GROUP

SAMIP MUTHA,

VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG

The Digital Academy It was early on in our journey that we realised the importance of aligning as many RPGians to Digital as possible. In order to facilitate the agenda, RPG launched an in-house Digital Academy in 2016. “We identified seven or eight pillars in the universe of Digital, such as its use in marketing, manufacturing, and different key areas of our diversified businesses. Our people in every function had to go through it to understand the impact

EXECUTIVE BIO

you begin with the source of value for every stakeholder, then the chances of obtaining money run high. But more importantly, the adoption of new ways latch on too.

“CFOs or CEOs have always envisaged the outcomes of a business rather than the tech processes involved. Hence, for me, success doesn’t reach fruition simply upon the approval of a project. It’s the start of a new chapter in my professional book, the beginning of another journey.

Mr. Mutha has 17+ years of experience in Management Consulting, Digital Transformation and Innovation in various industries across the geographies. He is currently working with RPG Group as Vice President and Head of Digital and Innovation with focus on Smart Factories, Connected Customers, Digital at workplace and Smart Products across diversified businesses of RPG from rubber and tyres to life sciences, EPC and IT. Samip is on the Panel of Future of Technology, IET since 2018 whose focus is to develop the platform that will benefit stakeholders from student to government to SME in accelerating the Digital growth of India.

He is a renowned speaker in various forums including, CII, NASSCOM, IET, IOT Congress and many more along with leading B-schools on topics like IOT, Digital Transformation, Customer Experience, Industry 4.0 and Business Innovation.

During his Journey with RPG, the group has won prestigious awards including EY Mint Digital award for AI project, Golden Peacock Innovation award and most recent Best Innovation Company 2020 by Economic Times.

We connect what’s now to what’s next.

Leverage a combination of business excellence methodologies (e.g., Lean, TPM, TQM) and technological enhancements (e.g., IoT, Predictive / Prescriptive analytics) to better address challenges of ‘waste’, ‘variability’ and ‘inflexibility’ across 4M (Man, Machine, Material & Method) dimensions and achieve next level of operational excellence across SQPCDM (Safety, Quality, Productivity, Cost, Delivery & Morale) aspects.

Hitachi Vantara: making intelligent manufacturing happen

Hitachi Vantara’s head of global manufacturing consulting explains the approach of the company to intelligent manufacturing Hitachi Vantara is, in the words of Dev Ramchandani, Senior Director and Head of Global Manufacturing Consulting, “a global technology leader and a catalyst for sustainable societal change. We respond to global dynamic changes with insight and agility. Our unique approach helps deliver sustainable measurable business results and a better consulting experience.”

Ramchandani insists that while Industry 4.0 has been a buzzword, there are now material successes to point to. He breaks down the Hitachi Vantara view into three key areas. One: “We need to start with a business outcome or a business driven approach, not a technology driven approach. So we need to have the business objective in mind and then go ahead and identify the relevant technologies, which will help us achieve that.” Two: “We need to reimagine operations. We need to keep thinking of the technical limit in our minds, because that is what we are headed to. We need to figure out how we can disrupt the current cycle and reach there.”

And three: “People. This calls for a different skill set and we need to nurture people.”

In what he calls the “five-box model” – process, mindsets, capabilities, technology, data – Ramchandani sets out his blueprint for the company’s approach to “sustainable behavioural change”, leading to sustainable impact.

Hitachi Vantara is one of RPG’s most important partnerships, and Ramchandani calls the experience of working with the manufacturing group a “pleasure”.

“We at Hitachi have a very keen focus on harmony, sincerity and pioneering spirit, and these three elements are ingrained in RPG as well. Given the values were aligned, it has been an excellent journey working together.”

Two other key ingredients in the relationship are a win-win mentality and open and trust based communication.

That journey has been marked by a focus on ‘intelligent manufacturing’ leveraging a combination of business excellence methodologies, such as Lean, TPM and TQM, and technological enhancements like IoT, predictive and prescriptive analytics to better address the challenges of waste, variability and inflexibility across four key dimensions Ramchandani collectively refers to as “4M” (man, machine, material and method).

“I would say intelligent manufacturing for us is to find the next S-curve of operational excellence across the dimensions of SQPCDM (safety, quality, productivity, costs, delivery and morale). We go about doing that by addressing waste variability and flexibility. These are the core challenges, so we address waste variability and inflexibility across all the 4M dimensions. Each of these has some inherent waste variability and flexibility, so we try to address that in order to achieve the next S-curve of operational excellence.” hitachivantara.com

RPG GROUP

30,000 +

Number of Employees

$4bn+ Revenue

1820

Year Founded

282

April 2021

RPG GROUP

“DIGITAL PROJECTS ARE LIKE LEGO BLOCK ASSEMBLY, YOU NEED PEOPLE WHO CAN THINK OF EXPONENTIAL APPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGY TO BUSINESS” SAMIP MUTHA,

VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG

and the change Digital can bring to their function or areas.

Mr. Mutha built on the Digital Academy to identify the torch bearers who would expand the Digital agenda and work with early evangelists to identify new opportunities.“There can not be better success for Digital Officers than other people talking about your project,” he says proudly.

What is digital strategy?

One of the challenges Mr. Mutha faces with the diversity of RPG’s portfolio is that there are more than 6 companies, with revenues ranging from ₹400 crore to ₹12,000 crore+ ($60m-$1.6bn), holding different positions in the industry in which they play, with varying financial muscles and appetite.

“I’m personally not a big fan of digital strategy,” he explains. "I think businesses already spend a lot of time thinking about three-to-five-year strategies and plans. The digital – and everything else – exists because the business exists. So, we have a business strategy, and the digital needs to wrap itself around it to evangelise and transform the way business is done. ”In addition, Mr. Mutha believes the pursuit of success is a core driver to making digital change. “If I take an analogy of, let’s say, the military, what motivates people is success. If you told people they were going to war to die, nobody would join.

What motivates them are success stories.

You need to celebrate success at every level.

It creates a pull factor within the organisation and acts as a booster shot in the cultural change as required.”

Changing business is changing humanity It’s a lot of change, Mr. Mutha admits, not least the shift from capex to opex as products become more service orientated. technologymagazine.com

283

RPG GROUP

“WHAT MOTIVATES PEOPLE IS SUCCESS. IF YOU TOLD PEOPLE THEY WERE GOING TO WAR TO DIE, NOBODY WOULD JOIN” SAMIP MUTHA,

VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG

284

April 2021

RPG GROUP

A Recipe for Happiness | RPG Group Hello Happiness | 30 sec

technologymagazine.com

285

RPG GROUP

DID YOU KNOW...

SAMIP MUTHA ON PARTNERSHIPS...

286

“I want to work with partners who understand the significance of the journey and have the flexibility to deal with the diverse layers of complexity. I always tell my vendors that the project will go beyond scope, timeline, maybe even the budget. I don’t condone negotiations. In digital, hard negotiation will give you instant gratification, but in the longer scheme of things, it will take away the mental mobility vital to such a project. After six or seven years, I still refuse to write a specific contract for digital. It’s easy to draw up contractual obligations and just “do my job” in theory, but that doesn’t help my inner purpose. We still have those unseen possibilities, and I see them every day. To that end, a partner who has the commitment to pull you through and make a successful journey out of the ingredients is what we all need.

April 2021

But the bigger transformation will be in the workforce. “One thing I see is that the rise in humanity will be a basis for the kind of work that is being done. People will break free from doing jobs that are unsafe, mundane, predictable, or overtaxing. It’s going to encourage a safer and healthier way of life, which is a win for humanity at large, a role that Digital is going to play. A massive democratisation of talent is going to take over, changing businesses fundamentally, and it’s important to understand those underlying changes happening in every industry that you play in.

RPG GROUP

“THERE CAN NOT BE BETTER SUCCESS FOR DIGITAL OFFICERS THAN OTHER PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT YOUR PROJECT”

“AI and analytics are going to be at the focal points of digital,” Mr. Mutha notes. Yet, he is certain that despite the said aspects being nothing short of vital requirements of motion in digital transformation, they need to be more intrinsic to it rather than separate strains. After all, nobody mentions programming languages when they talk about software. Why would they mention data and artificial intelligence? It’s the bottom line of any technology project.”

SAMIP MUTHA,

VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG technologymagazine.com

287

CGI NETHERLANDS

DATA HARVESTING: Key on journey to smart manufacturing Smart manufacturing is achieved by harvesting data, says Coen Huesmann, CGI VP, Consulting Services Manufacturing Center of Excellence WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE

O

ne isolated glitch in a manufacturing process could be the difference between life and death as pharmaceutical giants race against the clock to produce vaccines to fight COVID-19.

CGI is leading the way in consulting global manufacturers – from chemical plants to dairy companies to discrete manufacturers – on how to take the next step on the digital journey towards Industry 4.0 – a move which would also ease production problems. CGI’s IT and business consultants help enterprises harvest data to create agile, resilient supply chains which are responsive enough to identify and quickly correct operating issues.

Coen Huesmann, Vice President Manufacturing of CGI Nederland agrees the pandemic is putting a strain on companies and highlights the need for manufacturers to start moving away from a silo approach to an integrated end-to-end process.

288

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: KARL GREEN “Many customers have manufacturing sites that have been operating since the 70s or 80s and it's about bringing these in line with Industry 4.0 – lifetime of data in a manufacturing company cannot be ignored,” said Huesmann.

“This month we heard that vaccines in the Netherlands are delayed because one of the big pharmaceutical companies had an issue in their factory. And now everybody wants to know, why did this problem occur? But it's not easy to get these answers as a factory operates in a big ecosystem. Aside from the fact that vaccines contain living organisms.

You have a lot of different machines, and any of these machines can lead to an error. And all that information is sitting in silos and it is information without context,” he said.

Huesmann leads a team at CGI which helps manufacturing companies optimise operations and build agile supply

CGI NETHERLANDS

CGI NETHERLANDS

Coen Huesmann - key on journey to smart manufacturing

chains using a strong methodology called Manufacturing Atlas, providing innovative solutions to address new market realities and meet customer needs.

Bridging the gap between OT and IT “Harvesting information from all systems is key to providing all the answers that are necessary to run a factory and is vital in helping them achieve their end-goals and strategic vision,” points out Huesmann.

“Many older factories still have a lot of labour-intensive processes in place. We help our clients to identify their next steps and support them in their journey to automate processes from order to production to quality control to delivery. Taking in processes across the end-to-end value chain including logistics, quality control and production steps, while also maintaining the equipment in a factory. Together with our clients we increasingly focus on safety and sustainability.

290

April 2021

“For these as well as for their efficiency and productivity goals, they need to make decisions based on facts. Manufacturers want to use their data to make better decisions. Factories are the biggest generator of data, and it is hard for manufacturers to make sense of it. First you must collect it and then context it so you can unlock its value.”

Huesmann explains more about the automation of Operational processes and how CGI is bridging the gap between

“ We secure devices in different ways so we can dig the gold without exposing it to the external world” COEN HUESMANN

VICE PRESIDENT MANUFACTURING, CGI

CGI NETHERLANDS

COEN HUESMANN TITLE: V ICE PRESIDENT MANUFACTURING

45th

Anniversary of CGI

INDUSTRY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LOCATION: UTRECHT, NETHERLANDS

400

Locations worldwide

EXECUTIVE BIO

operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT).

“We have a strong methodology for helping our manufacturing clients on their journey of becoming more mature in their processes and automation in their factories,” he said.

“An example of this is one of our chemical customers where we have built a fully integrated plant. Orders coming in from their SAP system trigger production in the plants. Every production step is executed in an automated way up until the truck that is steered in its navigation system to the right silo to pick up the finished product and deliver it to customers.”

“For this client we have programmed the programmable logic controllers (PLC’s) on the shop floor that drive pumps and valves and vessels, right through their decision control systems in the control room and in the manufacturing execution systems (MES).

We are able to track and trace, weigh and dispense, learn how to improve efficiency and more. At this moment we are working to connect this to the outside world by integrating the factory with logistics.”

“That is how many manufacturing operations can improve, but only processby-process or machine-by-machine. We try to really understand where the value of this process is from an end customer's

Coen leads the Manufacturing competence centre of CGI based in the Netherlands. Together we realise safe and sustainable solutions and improvements in the core of our manufacturing clients. Our customers percieve us as the trusted partner and expert of choice for realising their strategic manufacturing goals. As team we work together with COO's, site managers, production managers, IT and OT managers, continuous improvement managers and with the shop floor to improve manufacturing operations together. We are a one stop shop for • Manufacturing Consulting and analytics • MES implementation, transformation, service and support • Manufacturing Automation • OT security consulting and services

technologymagazine.com

291

Achieve Operational Excellence with j5 IndustraForm® Templates Digitalize your processes and create data-centric workflows to empower front-line operators and enable enterprise scalability In many modern facilities, it is still surprisingly common to see siloed processes documented and managed on paper or forms. When both operators and management are struggling with scattered records to manage and follow complex procedures, meeting efficiency goals can feel like an impossible challenge. j5 IndustraForm Templates allow companies to consolidate their paper and electronic forms into a single, configurable enterprise system. Operators can easily view approved workflows, and managers can ensure critical information is always recorded and that concerning events are acted upon quickly.

Hexagon’s PPM division are specialists in asset lifecycle management and operations management, laying the foundation for successful digital transformation. To learn more about Hexagon and how we can help your business achieve operational excellence, contact us today.

Visit hexagonppm.com/emia/golden Email info.europe.ppm@hexagon.com

©2021 Hexagon AB and/or its subsidiaries and affiliates. All rights reserved.

Attain the Golden Batch with Digitalized Workflows In today’s marketplace achieving more with less, known as Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), has become increasingly important. Despite this, in the food and beverage industry alone nearly 90% of wasted food is lost within the supply chain - and batches that fall outside quality specifications become a loss that costs many companies up to six figures a year.

When each stakeholder is demanding an increase in resource efficiency and sustainability, the onus is on companies to reduce losses and strive for the golden batch in every production.

Accomplishing that golden batch requires a production where everything goes smoothly to create the maximum yield of the greatest quality. It is not an easy feat in practice where operations are dynamic and constantly changing.

Batch manufacturing industries have invested heavily in their quest towards this perfect production – using advanced data-driven approaches such as multivariate data analysis (MVDA) coupled with data historians and optimization simulations. However, human procedures are often an area that is not fully digitalized, preventing the best possible understanding of what really makes a golden batch.

Most operators still follow paper-based procedures, but where there are multiple products - each following a very similar structure - reducing batchto-batch variation itself is a challenge, let alone achieving the golden batch.

Hexagon’s PPM division is working with CGI to connect human input into manufacturing procedures, enabling the customization of MES (manufacturing execution systems). Working with CGI, and other partners, Hexagon has helped companies optimize their batch processes by digitalizing their workflows – allowing for a more

controlled, consistent work process. Connecting human processes to a data historian platform enables operators to know the full history of batches in production.

Neil Singh, Industry Consultant, Hexagon’s PPM Division, explains: “Digitalizing batch production and including the operator’s input gives companies the ability to truly understand the real consistency of their operations, and make the best use of their human sensor-generated information. This is very important for businesses where dozens of different batches are produced each day in flexible production environments.

“By digitally optimizing the production operations for each individual recipe, the process can be automated to alert the operator on the basics.

These include items such as changes to process profile, to more insightful elements such as lessons learned during setup, all the way to understanding patterns in operator responses, to help produce that golden batch each time. The goal is to increase safety, efficiency and agility - and ultimately enable sustainable production.”

Through providing digitally tailored and fit for purpose instructions to operators, they can better anticipate to batch-to-batch variances and ensure that production meets specifications each and every time.

To find out how Hexagon can help your business to optimize your production, visit hexagonppm.com/ emia/golden.

The goal is to increase safety, efficiency and agility - and ultimately enable sustainable production.

CGI NETHERLANDS

perspective. We can really save huge amounts of money for our customers, and improve the quality of the process at the same time. If you automate processes, you automatically improve the safety.”

Manufacturing Execution Systems But how do you go about harvesting old data over multiple sites within wellestablished manufacturing operations dating back 50 years?

“Factories are being renewed at a completely different speed compared to IT systems. So, we are building platforms that can connect all the data sources in a factory to a platform regardless of age and technology. These then enable

“ Many customers have manufacturing sites that have been operating since the 70s or 80s and it's about bringing these in line with Industry 4.0 – a lifetime of data in a manufacturing company cannot be ignored” COEN HUESMANN

VICE PRESIDENT MANUFACTURING, CGI

our customers to make well informed decisions,” explained Huesmann.

“Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and these data platforms combined are enabling our customers to not only harvest traditional information that was already connected, but also access and harvest information from pumps and vessels and all things in the factory that were previously never connected.”

294

April 2021

CGI NETHERLANDS

1976

Year Founded

76,000 Number of Employees

$3.02bn

Q1-F2021 performance highlights revenue

technologymagazine.com

295

CGI NETHERLANDS

DID YOU KNOW...

WHAT IS THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION?

296

Industry 4.0 refers to the transformation in the way goods are produced and delivered – moving on from industrial automation and the flexible factory towards fully connected factories, based on the application of new technologies.

To have a competitive edge, manufacturers have recognised they must leverage digital technologies post-covid-19.

New technologies are developed at an increasing speed; Enabling ways of working that were not possible before. Technologies also enable each other: self-service analytics, IOT, AI, cloud, mobile, quantum computing, 5G, combined with a strong vision and process will enable and enforce manufacturers to become more agile and more responsive.

As an example, a secure wireless connectivity in connection with affordable sensors enables it to retrieve data from manufacturing segments that were never

April 2021

measured before. Feeding back the information to PLC’s, empowers factory automation, making industrial automation possible on a much larger scale which will in turn increase productivity and performance.

With the computation power of the cloud, AI algorithms can analyse vast amounts of data and create learning from these data in an automated way. This learning can be used to optimise processes in factories in a way that was not possible up until several years ago.

Huge gains await industries that go digital – in manufacturing, it enables flexible production by allowing smart factories to rapidly changeover production lines to shorten lead times and quickly identify glitches.

To accelerate smart manufacturing, digital twins of machines and operations will be a necessity for safe simulation and intelligent optimisation, as will factory automation and real-time control of equipment and tasks.

CGI NETHERLANDS

“ Harvesting information from all machines is key to providing all the answers that are necessary to run a factory and is vital in helping them achieve their end-goals and strategic vision” COEN HUESMANN

VICE PRESIDENT MANUFACTURING, CGI

“Then we add sensors to equipment, for example for heat exchange and to measure the vibrations or flow. So, factories are never just old technology. They're always a mix of old and new technology and they communicate in various ways. We make the connections to get data, but then we also bring context to the data.”

CGI regularly checks-in with customers on their digital experience and their MES experience via their MES survey. “This autumn, we will launch a new MES survey that will enable us to explore and present the latest trends,” said Huesmann.

Key partnerships on the journey to Industry 4.0 CGI’s partnership with SAS is an important one for both parties.

Huesmann said: “The MES systems are providing core information about factories to help our clients improve manufacturing processes. SAS is a platform for analytics that is uniquely positioned. They have a process of continuously harvesting data, analysing data and improving processes through our platform.”

“AI is an integral part of their platform.

When implemented in the right way this is where the real data from manufacturing

technologymagazine.com

297

CGI NETHERLANDS

TODAY’S WORLD: ENGINEERING. TOMORROW’S WORLD: ENGINEERING DRIVEN BY ANALYTICS. Our hands-on immersive workshop will give you the knowledge and skills to begin transforming your organization with AI, IoT and data analytics. Start your journey now.

Smart Factory in a Box. Watch the movie!

CGI NETHERLANDS

CGI Manufacturing

“ Factories are never only old technology. They're always a mix of old and new technology and they communicate in various ways. We make the connections to get data, but then we also bring context to the data” COEN HUESMANN

VICE PRESIDENT MANUFACTURING, CGI

is harvested. The time to play around and proof concepts with AI is behind us. We see organisations are scaling AI and for that you need a strong platform partner like SAS. What we add as CGI is our technical knowledge and business knowledge to provide the right context and create value.”

CGI also partners with Hexagon, Aveva and Trendminer. “Hexagon is one of our partners in the automation of manual processes. For example for one of our manufacturing clients, we are jointly supporting the automation of the formulation of their products. With this solution our customer is able to bring new recipes to production in a standardised and automated way, making production and product change over safer and much more efficient.”

“With Aveva we have designed and built standardised MES platforms that support technologymagazine.com

299

CGI NETHERLANDS

INSIGHTS YOU CAN ACT ON In the year CGI marks its 45th anniversary, with new tagline, Insights you can act on, Huesmann gives his predictions for 2021.

DID YOU KNOW...

What is your top insight for 2021?

“Interaction between people and meeting on the shop floor will come back but not 24/7. Manufacturing is still key with new manufacturing operations built in each region.”

300

What new technology do you think will have the most impact on manufacturing?

“I see the perfect storm for a range of new technologies to take off at this moment. This was confirmed last year just before the pandemic during a web summit attended by opinion makers, scientists, students, start-ups and politicians like Tony Blair and top CEOs and entrepreneurs. AI has been around for years but it is now being brought to a whole different level, enabled by other maturing technologies such as cloud and IOT. Quantum computing is not that big yet, but the amount of investment is huge and this will have an even greater effect on AI. We are about to see some very exciting things enabled by all of these technologies.”

April 2021

standardisation of processes across factories.

AI is part of this platform for more mature plants to optimise quality, efficiency and safety.”

“Trendminer is indeed one of our key partners. Self-service analytics platforms like Trendminer are designed to combine data sources in a standardised way, once data is contextualised, they provide the insights to enable breakthrough improvements. Where SAS contain more advanced options for AI and deeper analysis, self-service tools like Trendminer are for more pragmatic use close to manufacturing.”

CGI NETHERLANDS

Cyber security in manufacturing protects the gold It is vital manufacturers not only plan for Industry 4.0 but also keep data safe, as they make the digital transition. Data is gold, so how does data remain secure during this data harvest?

“This is arguably one of the biggest themes we are active in. With our MES and analytics propositions we help clients to unlock the data from manufacturing operations. These platforms are generally well secured according to the latest standards.”

“The vulnerability resides more in the OT environment. In modern factories, almost

every new piece of equipment is nowadays connected but older devices are not always secured in line with the latest IT security standards.”

“Therefore, we try to ring-fence this kind of equipment. But protecting assets may never come at the expense of usage. We have OT security specialists that help our clients with hardening of equipment. We secure devices in different ways so we can dig the gold without exposing it to the external world,” said Huesmann.

technologymagazine.com

301

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

302

April 2021

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

DELIVERING PATIENT CARE THROUGH INNOVATION DELIVERING PATIENT CARE THROUGH INNOVATION WRITTEN BY: LEILA HAWKINS

PRODUCED BY: JAMES BERRY

technologymagazine.com

303

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

304

April 2021

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

Wayne Young, CEO of The Harris Center for Mental Health and Intellectual and Developmental Disability (IDD), tells us how they’re using the latest technology to deliver patient care on the streets of Houston.

T

Wayne Young

he biggest thing that drives us is our mission, which is to transform the lives of people with behavioral health and IDD needs" Young says. "Everything comes back to that – how we’re trying to meet the needs of our community, the individuals that are receiving our services, and in some cases, those individuals that need our services, but haven't found their way to us yet.”

Technology, and going through a digital change, seemed like a clear way to achieve this goal. “The concept of transformation exists throughout our organization, and digital happens to be a part of it. It seemed intuitive to us that if we're radically rethinking how we meet the needs of our community, that we lend a fair amount of consideration to technology and digital approaches to meet those needs.”

“As a fairly traditional public mental health system, it's been a bit of a journey, but we’ve made significant inroads. Our CORE program is one of these efforts.”

“CORE is the Clinician and Officer Remote Evaluation program we implemented in collaboration with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. At its most basic element, the program uses a HIPAA-compliant technology platform to connect law enforcement officers with a crisis mental health clinician at the time of a 911 dispatch technologymagazine.com

305

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

Closing the technology gap in healthcare | Wayne Young | The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD

to a call with a mental health component to it.Our crisis clinicians provide support, clinical assessment and recommendations on appropriate call resolution.”

To do this the Harris Center equipped law enforcement partners with tablets,and launched the program as a year-long pilot in 2018. “We've had some really tremendous outcomes” Young says. Law enforcement partners have noted decreased utilization of emergency rooms, improved decision making, reduced time on calls, and identification of alternative resources as just of a few of the benefits of the program.

“When officers are dispatched they may or may not have any idea that there’s a mental health component influencing what's happening with that 911 call. With a tablet they literally have to click one or two icons to connect to our crisis clinicians via a telehealth system.”

This enables clinicians to carry out a crisis assessment in real time with the individual 306

April 2021

involved, helping both them and law enforcement decide what the next step is, and whether it’s necessary to send further community based support such as a mobile crisis team, or if a hospital visit is required.

CORE has been tremendously successful – less than 1% of the individuals involved in response calls in the pilot ended up going to jail. “We were able to find alternative responses, and what initially looked like a 911 police call turned into an opportunity to provide the person with support and services.”

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

“The biggest thing that drives us is our mission, which is to transform the lives of people with behavioral health and IDD needs”

WAYNE YOUNG TITLE: CEO INDUSTRY: HOSPITAL & HEALTH CARE LOCATION: TEXAS Wayne Young is the Chief Executive Officer of The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD, the state-designated Local Mental Health Authority and Local Intellectual and Developmental Disability Authority for Harris County, Texas. As the CEO of one of the largest behavioral health organizations in the nation, Wayne is passionate about the planning and delivery of large-scale behavioral health and intellectual and developmental disabilities services to a population who rely upon safety net systems of care.

Wayne previously served as the chair of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission Behavioral Health Advisory Council and was recently appointed to the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health. In 2019, Wayne was honored to have been named to Modern Healthcare’s list of Top 25 Innovators and to have received the Charley H. Shannon Advocate for Justice Award from NAMI Texas.

WAYNE YOUNG

The next phase is to expand the program so that around 200 tablets are made available to Harris County’s law enforcement officers and first responders. Young explains why this next phase is important: “Law enforcement want to do a good job and they understand the mental health implications, but they sign up to be police officers, not mental health counsellors. How we leverage our expertise, and make that expertise available to them, is critical.”

“Sometimes there's a safety component – there are times when law enforcement responds to mental health calls and there are outcomes that are less than desirable.

One quarter of police-involved shootings are linked to mental illness, half of which occur in the person’s own home. So it’s thinking about how we provide them with the tools to deal with these situations and have a safe outcome for both the officer and the individual that's the subject of the call.

Ultimately we want to get them care and support, as opposed to an arrest or being put in jail.”

The program’s elements are HIPAAcompliant, and they’ve leveraged the

EXECUTIVE BIO

CEO, THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY

Verizon Frontline is honored to support the Harris County Center and the Harris County Sheriff Department in enabling their communities to allow law enforcement and mental health professionals improve the lives and experiences of people with mental illness.

Verizon: Transforming communication at the Harris Center Jason Taylor, Verizon, and Wayne Young, the Harris Center, discuss how their organizations’ collaboration has enabled a new approach to healthcare comms.

“Verizon might primarily be known for its network, but we prefer to say that we’re a technology company that brings solutions to customers,” states Jason Taylor, Executive Lead for the Public Sector.

Wayne Young, CEO of the Harris Center, reflects that, when deciding how best to implement remote evaluation capabilities for clinicians and police officers, the company was intent on only collaborating with well-established partners. “At its core, what we’re trying to do is utilize technology to make law enforcement more efficient and improve the lives of people with mental illness. To achieve this task, we needed a reliable partner whom we could trust.” The answer was Verizon.

“Verizon’s focus was to make sure that citizens or patients that needed to engage with the Harris Center could do so while retaining that personal touch,” Taylor explains. This proved to be a complex task requiring rigorous planning that went beyond simply supplying technology, “We looked at getting the right connectivity, making sure we provided the correct devices, and then securing everything to protect the flow of communication.”

The Harris Center’s innovative approach also makes it an ideological match for Verizon, positioning itself to always focus on the future, which in turn makes for a highly collaborative partnership. “We’re both focused on making a positive impact and as we move into the world of 5G, I believe that solutions and benefits will open up for communities that we haven’t even imagined yet.”

Young praises Verizon for always providing a solid, ‘behind-the-scenes’ service that’s seamless, scalable, reliable. “We needed a partner who could think flexibly and be agile with us as we solve problems in new and innovative ways,” he concludes. “Working with Verizon, I think the future is looking bright.”

Click to learn more

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

capabilities of Verizon and Lifesize to facilitate it. “When we first set out to start CORE it was a concept at best. We had questions about connectivity, about whether the tablets would work, whether we’d be able to see people at night or if we would be able to hear people next to busy roads.”

Young explains.

“We wanted to build on our learnings, so in those early phases we would literally reach out to Verizon and say, ‘we had a call in this area and the signal wasn't very strong, how do we boost that, and can you help?’

They were always responsive. The interface needed to be simple for an officer to use out on the road, and we needed to be able to do a crisis assessment in the middle of a shopping center for instance. It can’t be complicated.”

“Our partners were willing to come alongside us when the concept of a real time mental health crisis response in partnership with law enforcement was unproven and unconventional. They've been tremendous – collaborative, responsive, and scalable.”

Young explains the medium of telehealth is well suited to behavioral health care.

“It requires significantly less physical evaluations than other forms of healthcare.

Talk and interactions are critical and the assessment process relies more on communication than traditional physical assessments. Our usage of telehealth as a platform for service delivery has gone up exponentially since the pandemic began.

We operate a lot of community-facing emergency crisis services that still have to be in-person, but we pivoted a large number of people to work remotely very quickly.

“We’ve developed some best practices around how to do this well, because we want to keep a close eye on people who are not receiving home visits any more 310

April 2021

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

“It seemed intuitive to us that if we're radically rethinking how we meet the needs of our community, that we lend a fair amount of consideration to technology and digital approaches to meet those needs” WAYNE YOUNG

CEO, THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY

technologymagazine.com

311

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

“Law enforcement partners have noted decreased utilization of emergency rooms, improved decision making, reduced time on calls, and identification of alternative resources as just of a few of the benefits of the program” WAYNE YOUNG

CEO, THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY

312

April 2021

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

Meet Stephen: Harris County Mental Health Jail Diversion Program

due to the pandemic. For those we are currently serving, people have maintained a pretty healthy trajectory and we're not seeing dramatic increases in needs for crisis services than usual. However, we have seen a sharp (15%) rise in the mental health utilization across Houston due to the impact of the pandemic. We have relied upon telehealth to increase our capacity so that we could serve more people during this challenging time.”

Delivering consultations virtually is also enabling them to reach more people. “It's more accessible for some people, and makes outreach easier,” Young says. “But there are also some challenges, for instance not everyone has broadband access, and

many of the people we serve have pre-paid cell plans which makes it a challenge for them to use a significant amount of minutes on telehealth services. We’re having to think about how we work with strategic partners to improve access so we can continue delivering this type of care.”

They are also considering the long-term impact of the pandemic, in terms of social isolation and the lack of connectedness most people are experiencing. “To support our community during these difficult times, we operate a statewide COVID-19 support line for Texas Health and Human Services Commission. We get calls every day from people that maybe aren't in crisis, but need to talk to someone. We're technologymagazine.com

313

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

“It won't be long before most people want to receive care, particularly behavioral health care, delivered through their cell phone, and we need to respond to that demand” WAYNE YOUNG

CEO, THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY

314

April 2021

THE HARRIS CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND IDD

seeing that impact across our communities – individuals who may not have previously had a mental health concern, but are being impacted by the environment we're in. I think we're all impacted by it to some degree, it just depends how connected we are to support in our communities and how effective that support is in helping us manage this really challenging time.”

In the next few years, one of their strategic priorities is to deliver "care anywhere". "It won't be long before most people want to receive care, particularly behavioral health care, delivered through their cell phone, and we need to respond to that demand.

There is a reason that behavioral healthcare has more no shows than other types of healthcare. People often disengage from treatment and one factor is about convenience and responsiveness. We've got to turn this on its head and be responsive. We've now proven we can be agile and we can get really creative about it – my vision is for us to provide care in a variety of different formats and locations to meet people's needs in the way they want us to. Technology and digital health will support that vision."

technologymagazine.com

315

VANARAMA

EXPANDS TECH TOOLS TO GROW VEHICLE LEASING SALES WRITTEN BY: DOMINIC ELLIS PRODUCED BY: KRIS PALMER

316

April 2021

VANARAMA

VANARAMA

Vanarama Founder and CEO Andy Alderson charts the company’s growth from an online leasing broker into a fully fledged e-commerce retailer

A

ndy Alderson’s online journey started back in 2003, when he spotted an opportunity to sell a stock of Citroen C5s at half price.

By quickly setting up a domain, freephone number and taking out advertising, he managed to sell the entire stock in six weeks. Almost exclusively, he didn’t see a single customer – and that was when he realised his future lay in online sales.

Fast forward 18 years, and the Founder and CEO of Vanarama is firmly in the digital driving seat.

“We started as an online leasing broker in 2007, then became a fintech business – and in the last two years, we’ve become more of an automotive e-tailer,” he said. He expects to sell 25,000-30,000 vehicles online this year, fully e-commerce, and is targeting 100,000 within three years.

That optimism looks at odds with the unending challenges facing the automotive industry, what with the transition to electric, digital transformation and decline in car ownership. He says dealers need to inherently re-examine their businesses and not simply repackage themselves for the digital age.

“Click and collect isn’t digital retailing – we were doing that in 2003,” he said. “If solutions were good enough across the board, online would make up 50 percent of sales, but there’s not enough instances where they are good enough. Up to 50 percent of dealerships could go as part of the transformation by 2025, he predicts.

318

April 2021

Andy Alderson, Vanarama

VANARAMA

technologymagazine.com businesschief.eu

319

VANARAMA

Andy Alderson from Vanarama talks about online car leasing

“ The challenge for dealers is if they just use a website to do more of what they currently do, and see it as a sales channel or lead generation, they will make the same mistake as Blockbusters did” ANDY ALDERSON FOUNDER & CEO, VANARAMA

320

April 2021

AutoTrader, Car Gurus, and Whatcar? are already reporting that up to 60% of customers would consider buying online today, if solutions were good enough.

“The example I use is the BlockbustersNetflix moment. They were in the same business, renting DVDs online, but Netflix could see the move towards streaming. The challenge for dealers is if they just use a website to do more of what they currently do, and see it as a sales channel or lead generation, they will make the same mistake as Blockbusters did. They’ve got to look at everything digital first – removing friction, being transparent with pricing – and if they do that, they’ll get more offline too.”

The warnings stem from his approach to managing risk. One of his favourite books is Only The Paranoid Survive, by Andy Grove, the former Intel President and CEO. “You have to imagine the worst all the time, even when

VANARAMA

ANDY ALDERSON TITLE: FOUNDER & CEO INDUSTRY: AUTOMOTIVE E-COMMERCE

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM Since joining the motor trade in 1992, Andy Alderson has seen some radical changes in how the industry operates. The most important change has been the rise of the internet and its evolution into a place customer can not only find vehicles deals, but carry out detailed research on the vehicles themselves. Now, Andy believes the industry is facing new challenges, including the transition to electric cars & commercial vehicles, the ongoing digital transformation, financial challenges such as Benefit-in-Kind (BIK) taxes which hit

company car users hard, and the move to usership rather than ownership.

We used to consider ourselves a ‘clicks and bricks’ business, but the reality now is you can retail from clicks alone, but you can’t retail from bricks alone.

DESIGN DEVELOP DELIVER.

S E D EV DE

BEST-IN-CLASS DIGITAL EXPERIENCES “From the very start WM Reply have been more than just an agency. They’ve created an invaluable partnership with us that continues to drive us toward achieving our vision.”

Alex Black Lead Product Owner - easyJet holidays

We design and deliver digital experiences for some of the world’s biggest brands. With services including UX Research, UI & Creative Design, Bespoke Development, and Project Delivery, we combine insight, creativity, and technical expertise to deliver tailored digital solutions.

Most importantly, we believe in results. Our job is to ensure not only the success of your project but your continued success after the initial delivery. We work with you as partners in knowledge sharing and common goals, providing the resources, processes, tools, and mindset to achieve and exceed your expectations.

As a part of Reply, a global network of specialised technology companies working together, WM Reply can provide instant access to over 10,000 specialist consultants, engineers, and

designers covering everything from Security and Solution Architecture to AI and Machine Learning from a single supplier.

Whatever your need, working with WM Reply is both flexible and scalable. We can deliver managed projects, specialist resource, consultancy, or team expansion on or off-site.

Being a part of Reply means we have the capability of ramping up and adjusting any team to the required scale to meet your delivery timelines as needed. We’re a team with a foundation of experience in working together, ready to be an integrated part of your team.

Alex Reekie Head of UX, UI & Product - WM Reply a.reekie@reply.com

N G I P S ELO V VER I L E ux research & design

ui design & development

motion graphics & video

bespoke development

sitecore

graphic design & print

quality assurance control

managed project delivery

modern workplaces & O365

HOW CAN WE HELP YOU? visit our site

watch our promo video

VANARAMA

things are going well. One of our core values is ‘even if it’s brilliant, make it better’,” he said.

As with most businesses, the 95 percent revenue drop in the first lockdown was akin to a “flock of black swans” although his outlook meant he was better prepared than most.

“What we saw with COVID was the acceleration of pre-existing trends – people already wanted to buy online, they were dissatisfied with the current process of buying a vehicle and didn’t want the grind of trawling 324

April 2021

“ By the time customers pick up the phone to enquire or order from us, they know more about the vehicle than we do” ANDY ALDERSON FOUNDER & CEO, VANARAMA

VANARAMA

around showrooms,” he said. “95% of our customers have never driven the vehicle they buy from us until the day we deliver it to them” “We sat down three days into lockdown and realised we had a golden opportunity to use the time to move forward, and we were in the final year of three-year digital transformation into a full e-commerce business. So we launched full e-commerce nine months earlier than planned, and started to develop more automation, AI and ML.”

DID YOU KNOW...

RISING EV LEASING OPPORTUNITIES The leasing model gives consumers a chance keep pace with change more easily, he believes, and even if drivers are on a PCP, 90 percent swap it for a new model within three years, which mirrors leasing behaviour.

“People are much more interested in user-ship rather than ownership,” he says. “When we talk to consumers now in context of EV, they will be happy to upgrade their vehicle every few years as technology and charging infrastructure improves.”

He expects more manufacturers to follow Volvo’s recent move and start selling EVs completely online by 2030.

“I don’t think it will be the death of the showroom as you’ll need service centers and delivery outlets, but we may see dealerships become distribution hubs and manufacturers do more internet-only franchises.”

Most website searches are for SUVs and 90 percent search under budget.

He says popular models include Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Tesla, Ford, Vauxhall, Renault and Nissan.

technologymagazine.com

325

VANARAMA

AD TECH AND E-COMMERCE PARTNERS

326

April 2021

DID YOU KNOW...

Vanarama has three key partners which are driving its market and e-commerce profiles. Flashtalking is an independent ad serving, measuring and technology company, and Reply, a leader in e-commerce and omnichannel solutions.

“Flashtalking has helped us target audience and whatever asset you want to deploy, on any platform, while Reply enabled us to bring in new techniques for the delivery of e-commerce solutions,” he says.

Mina Energy shows customers how much electric they are consuming when charging and it sits on top of your normal energy supplier, and rates can be combined under one bill. Customers receive three months free EV home charging when they take up a subscription alongside the Vanarama lease.

Vanarama uses atomic web design, which means it can design in code, and allows you to see various components of the UX to work and interact with each other, before you actually build the site, and calls on the services of dev-ops engineers globally.

He says at some time in the next six months, it will launch a voicebot, and integrate it with Alexa.

“We’re just deploying the first version of it now, that’s the core technology that underpins the omnichannel solution. Integrating marketing and sales data is key, so you know not only who you’re targeting but how you will reach that audience, and then we find the best price through our smart panel of lenders.

“The technology means we’re getting more customers to the site, we’re converting more, and talking to them in different channels and giving them a better experience. Customers can choose to interact or deal with a person,

VANARAMA

“You have to imagine the worst all the time, even when things are going well. One of our core values is ‘even if it’s brilliant, make it better” ANDY ALDERSON

FOUNDER & CEO, VANARAMA

but we find most are happy to integrate with a bot if it means getting a quicker response. If you want to add insurance, for example, the voicebot will be able to do it for you.”

The ingrained nature of digital is best illustrated when he says they sold 1,200 vehicles through Facebook Messenger alone, completely end-to-end.

“By the time customers pick up the phone to enquire or order from us, they know more about the vehicle than we do,” he says. “People are watching videos, talking to peers, getting recommendations and reading reviews, and are much better informed and comfortable online, because they’re spending an average

of 14 hours researching the vehicle online. But because of the amount of data we have, and capability to identify consumers we want to market to, we know what kind of customers will buy a certain type of vehicle.”

He foresees three camps emerging as the digital transformation accelerates. “The people who don’t want to change and don’t think they need to; those that know they have to change but don’t have the investment or ability; and those that know what they need to do and get on with it.”

technologymagazine.com

327

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

INNOVATION in the NHS Through Covid-19 and BEYOND WRITTEN BY: LEILA HAWKINS PRODUCED BY: JAMES BERRY

328

April 2021

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

technologymagazine.com

329

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

Daniel Hallen, Regional Head of Digital Technology, Digital Urgent & Emergency Care Lead (North West), tells us about innovation in the NHS

D

aniel Hallen, Regional Head of Digital Technology, Digital Urgent & Emergency Care Lead (North West), has one of the most complex jobs in UK healthcare. As the NHS faces huge demand under unprecedented conditions, Hallen has overseen the development of a capsule digital-first strategy covering the North West of England, which the NHS is now rolling out nationally.

Working with an interconnected team linking neighbouring regions in the North West, the system provides a conduit for a major digital transformation programme, tailored to differing local needs.

Each area presents different challenges for the same systems – what’s appropriate in low-density rural Cumbria won't work in high demand city centre hospitals with specialist wards in Manchester or Liverpool.

Hallen says he's proud of the legacy the North West has in terms of digital advances.

Recently they launched the 111-First service, which aims to cut down A&E visits by improving patient access to referrals. The service encourages patients with an urgent medical need to contact NHS 111 either online or via telephone before attending A&E. It’s been highly successful - Hallen states that between 70 and 80 per cent of patients who contact 111 first are finding that speaking to a doctor or pharmacist is more appropriate than attending A&E.

330

April 2021

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

technologymagazine.com

331

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS “Covid 19 will always beIMPROVEMENT the most defining memory of 2020, but it’s the impact of Covid 19 that will determine our future” Re-imagining how you work comes with its own risks and challenges and effective cyber security is critical to its success, safeguarding digital trust, driving innovation and empowering progress.

We help organisations turn cyber security into a competitive advantage, to fully realise business change, not just process automation.

Find out how we’re helping transform healthcare for the good of all.

Click here to join one of our Cylera Technology overviews.

© Core to Cloud 2021

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

The NHS is "a really wide family", Hallen says. "There's public and private working together in a really good, collective way.

Our medicines and our machines from suppliers, we source our technology from suppliers with expertise according to what we need. Core to Cloud is one of the suppliers that has worked really closely with us on cybersecurity, and on developing security approaches and capabilities across our hospitals and sites. Together we’ve developed a blueprint over the last two years that we've rolled out across the country."

The average hospital will have hundreds of different IT systems for different clinical specialties, and as well as ensuring they are secure, Hallen states it is important that these systems are able to talk to each other. "When you take into account the complexity of the many systems or devices that a clinician might use, ranging from laptops to MRI scanners and ECG monitors, you've got to make sure those devices are really stable and secure, but also easy to access - you can't lock them away in a room. We worked with both Core to Cloud and Imprivata colleagues to develop applications that help us both secure and detect our systems."

DANIEL HALLEN,

REGIONAL HEAD OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, DIGITAL URGENT & EMERGENCY CARE LEAD (NORTH WEST)

TITLE: REGIONAL HEAD OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, DIGITAL URGENT & EMERGENCY CARE LEAD

EXECUTIVE BIO

“ The NHS is a really wide family. There's public and private working together in a really good, collective way”

DANIEL HALLEN

Daniel Hallen has had a varied career to date, with roles in both the private and public sector, but always revolving around transformation.

He studied law originally, but had an interest in technology, data and people, and what the three can achieve together.

"For most of my career I've been looking at transformation, and how we can improve things. I'm very passionate about creating a healthcare system that really works for our patients and clinical staff" he says.

As a leader he says his approach aligns with his core values of compassion, honesty, consensus, and openness.

"Sometimes my position is to set the vision and lead, but other times my role is to harness that vision, let others be creative and help them make that happen."

Rather than use the phrase "managing people" he sees this as working together, with compassion and understanding.

He sees these two elements as especially important, "particularly over the last 12 months. I think we've grown closer as a community with a really big understanding of how things actually work." Consensus is also crucial.

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

1948 Year founded

1.2m

Number of employees

334

April 2021

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

“ We've learned how to protect data in a better way, protect vulnerabilities and ensure it is kept safe and secure, but still accessible" DANIEL HALLEN,

REGIONAL HEAD OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, DIGITAL URGENT & EMERGENCY CARE LEAD (NORTH WEST)

technologymagazine.com

335

The Importance of Digital Identity in Today’s Healthcare Environment Wes Wright, CTO at Imprivata, offers insight into the Imprivata Digital Identity Framework as a holistic approach to identity and access management, tailored to healthcare.

“41% of all security breaches in 2019 occurred in the healthcare industry, and due to the mass mobilisation of healthcare thanks to COVID, it’s only getting worse”, says Wright. “What can healthcare organisations do? Answer — make digital identity the new control plane through which all access to clinical and patient data systems is managed.”

Most healthcare organisations already use identity and access management tools, yet few integrate them into a holistic digital identity strategy. Navigating through this complex IT environment requires an easy to manage yet robust approach to Identity Access Management (IAM). To help healthcare providers assess how they approach this challenge, Imprivata has designed a Digital Identity Framework for healthcare encompassing

Watch the video now ⊲ governance and administration, identity management, authorisation, and authentication access. Using a maturity model, it helps organisations to manage digital identity and develop a strategic roadmap to address critical areas of security and efficiency gaps.

The success of digital identity management can be seen at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust. The team implemented Imprivata Identity Governance to improve the processes for managing access to systems and data for staff joiners, movers, and leavers. Now it takes line managers minutes instead of weeks to onboard a new employee.

Contact Andy Wilcox, Senior Product Marketing Manager, International at Imprivata: awilcox@imprivata.com to book a session to review the Digital Identity Framework and maturity model.

LEARN MORE

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

One of the most critical components of the NHS' digital transformation is ensuring patient data is kept secure. "Cyber security will only take us so far" Hallen says. "Our ever growing reliance on digital systems means that we've got to understand who and what you want this information for. Being able to verify that a nurse, a paramedic, a doctor or a healthcare professional are the people that need to have access to that information is really important. A Digital Identity is one of the tools that is a really critical part of that, especially now that we're not in the same physical environment.

“Our national organisations have seen more than a few cybersecurity attacks over the years” he adds, “but with each one we've learned how to protect data in a better way, protect vulnerabilities and ensure it is kept safe and secure, but still accessible."

“ We must make sure our healthcare system is accessible to all, not just to those that have the access to this technology” DANIEL HALLEN,

REGIONAL HEAD OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, DIGITAL URGENT & EMERGENCY CARE LEAD (NORTH WEST)

When asked about the pandemic, Hallen says "it has changed many things about life, technology and the broader world. I pay tribute to every single NHS employee, in clinical, digital care, cleaning, catering, technologymagazine.com

337

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

Delivering patient-based systems | Daniel Hallen | NHS England & Improvement

every single person who has worked utterly tirelessly for the last 12 months. We're not at the end of that journey yet, but what is clear is how closely and well people work together.

"If anything, our strategic aims and intentions have expanded to include COVID-19 specific responses to handle the circumstances. But it's really shone a light on the capability of what digital can do in healthcare, and can continue to do in a space where pandemic distancing rules have changed again."

The adoption of telehealth and remote monitoring have hugely increased in the 338

April 2021

last 12 months, demonstrating the benefits of this technology. “I have a device in my chest that previously would have involved three or four trips every year to the hospital for check-ups” Hallen says. “The results were downloaded from the system, I’d sit and chat with clinicians and there’s the time spent getting there and back.

Now this is remotely downloaded every night from a device by the side of my bed that's about the size of the box that you might get a smartphone in. It analyses data automatically and alerts the clinicians if there are unusual issues.

NHS ENGLAND AND NHS IMPROVEMENT

“This saves travel, saves fuel emissions and saves time. In terms of ecological sustainability it comes down to the shared social contract that we all have.”

While the acceleration of digital tools has enabled them to "see exactly what we can do with it to revolutionise healthcare” he adds a note of caution, “We must make sure our healthcare system is accessible to all, not just to those that have the access to this technology. We don't want to start to increasing health inequalities by assuming everything can be digital. Digital must be accessible for all, not just to those with economic means.

"I think the pandemic has, from a strategic point of view, made us kinder to each other. We're all working long hours to deliver the care that we need to our colleagues, friends and patients, and that really does have an impact on the individual. We interact in different ways and we have a different insight into people's lives, and that has changed us as an organisation - but our digital strategy continues to be very ambitious."

technologymagazine.com

339

CHAYORA

The Gateway In and Out of China WRITTEN BY: WILLIAM SMITH PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

340

April 2021

CHAYORA

technologymagazine.com

341

CHAYORA

342

April 2021

CHAYORA

Chayora’s Oliver Jones, Jonathan Berney and Tiger Zhao run through the data centre platform’s proposition, growth, and response to COVID-19

C

Chayora launched live operations in Data Centre TJ1 on its ‘ChinaScale’ Campus serving Greater Beijing on 29 October 2020.

hayora was founded 10 years ago by China Chairman Steven Cao, CEO Oliver Jones and COO Jonathan Berney in order to be able to deliver on the vision of becoming a “digital infrastructure partner” trusted by their customers in China, one of the most exciting, fastest-growing and yet most difficult markets in which to compete. They knew they had to build a business that would fulfil the aim of being world-class in all aspects. Chayora worked in partnership initially with Standard Chartered Bank as its Series B, first institutional investor and then subsequently with Actis, the UK-based private equity fund who acquired the SCB interest and then extended their investment in Chayora’s Series C round in China. With this backing, the Chayora Founders set out to build each aspect of the business to ensure that each element of its Digital Infrastructure: the Data Centre Campus; the corporate structure; the design; the construction standards; the data centre operations and security; the government support, grants and tax incentives; the network connectivity; the power availability; and of course the world-class leadership team were carefully assembled to deliver.

The first phase of Data Centre Tianjin 1 (TJ1), the first of 9 planned Data Centres on Chayora’s 160MW IT load Tianjin Campus (serving Beijing and

technologymagazine.com

343

CHAYORA

“ Within five years, China will have greater data center capacity than any other market in the world” OLIVER JONES CEO, CHAYORA

344

April 2021

the surrounding area with a population of more than 152 million people) was completed and commenced operations in October 2020. The first customer moved in during December 2020 and now with evident building demand and a pipeline growing as this ambition has become a reality, both for the Chayora Founders and for their customers. The expansion of this first facility to full design capacity and the planning for TJ2 as the second major Data Centre on site are already underway and a new hyperscale Campus serving Shanghai will commence this year as well.

CHAYORA

OLIVER JONES TITLE: CEO

9

Data Centres on Chayora’s 160MW IT load Tianjin Campus was completed and commenced operations in

October 2020

It will serve Beijing and the surrounding area with a population of more than

152 million

EXECUTIVE BIO

The first phase of Data Centre Tianjin 1 (TJ1), the first of

Oliver Jones is the co-founder and Chief Executive of Chayora.

Oliver originally qualified as a chartered surveyor after graduating from Kingston in 1983 and after completing his MBA at London Business School in the late 1980s, specialised in corporate finance and the fast-growing management areas of property and business services outsourcing.

Oliver specifically focuses on complex outsourcing transactions and property operating related investment deals. His experience in public partnerships has its roots in the UK in the 1990s when market testing and PFI models were developed.

During this time, Oliver advised the UK Government’s Cabinet Office through his role on the UK PFI Panel Property Group and various industry professional bodies.

He has worked extensively in real estate and service operator businesses internationally and has a particular insight into the Middle East and Asia through past business interests specifically the UAE, where he was a founder director of Emrill when with Carillion; Hong Kong and China with Citex and EC Harris; and Australia with Symonds.

CHAYORA

“ Increasing private market investment in data centers is going to be critical”

JONATHAN BERNEY TITLE: COO

346

April 2021

JONATHAN BERNEY COO, CHAYORA

EXECUTIVE BIO

With over 25 years of international business, property development and construction experience, Jonathan before joining Chayora was Regional Managing Partner for EC Harris in Asia where he spent three years leading and successfully growing the company’s Asian business through a number of significant property and real estate deals.

Jonathan has worked in Asia for more than 20 years and has very strong relationships with the corporate occupier market, particularly in financial services, having previously led EC Harris’s global Corporate Real Estate and Critical Systems team. Prior to moving to Asia, he led a number of development and asset organisations through significant transformations in order to maximise their development and operational performance.

These included BAA, Land Securities, London and Continental Railways, Rail Procurement Agency and the Grosvenor Estate.

CHAYORA

Jonathan Berney and Oliver Jones from Chayora talk about their Data Centre Campuses in China

The ambitious plans and their execution could easily have been stalled or stopped all together by the Covid-19 pandemic, but this was merely another challenge to be overcome by the Chayora team. The mechanical and electrical fit-out of the first phase was completed in ten weeks.

This was only achieved by having built a China-based world-class leadership team and supply partners all of whom shared Chayora’s ambition and values. The “Chayora Way” as the core values of the business, are now codified and at the heart of this central management capability which has emerged from addressing and overcoming the impact of the pandemic.

Assembling a team consisting of Technical Director AC Lee; Programme Director Mark Froelich; Operations Director Tiger Zhao; and EVP of Network and Strategy Yali Liu meant that Chayora’s GM Kevin Sun had an incredible talent pool to be able to deliver, all with a common set of values. The Chayora technologymagazine.com

347

CHAYORA

“ We have regular meetings [...] where we synchronise and talk about how the technology is evolving and how we as a facility provider can support it” TIGER ZHAO

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, CHAYORA

Way commitments of ‘DOING WHAT YOU PROMISE’ and ‘ACTING WITH PASSION’ were everything to this team. Combined with support from Vertiv, Cummins, Qian and CEFOC as primary and general contractors alongside H3C as designers, Bohan as Project Managers, and Turner and Townsend as Commercial Managers, the team were able to deliver what at first appeared an impossible task. With very active guidance from the Founders, often through Zoom from multiple locations the team delivered! What’s more, the same team has now raised its ambitions further and has a much larger and more complex programme of work ahead and due to be delivered with over US$900m of capital expenditure planned over the next 24 months leveraging an ever more experienced team and platform.

The complexities of growing a Data Centre platform in China are extensive. Whether regulatory compliance, buying land, getting government support, creating an execution and operations platform, negotiating power and network agreements, and much more all serve to make China one of the most challenging global markets. Chayora was set up to be an expert enabling and operating organisation and where others have used local partners, Chayora decided that it needed to understand and to be able to execute each and every intricate detail.

From negotiating investment and supply 348

April 2021

agreements to buying land in government auctions, to securing the more than 100 permits necessary for the progress to date, merely constructing a Data Centre now seems ‘easy’ and yet ensuring that it delivers authentically to the design standards set out has meant that attention to detail from everyone has been essential: from the board directors to construction site labourers and critical facilities managers. No aspect has

CHAYORA

TIGER ZHAO

been left to chance and this has resulted in a ‘China first’ of the Chayora TJ1 becoming the first OCP Ready accredited Data Centre in the country and also the first in Northern China to receive both Uptime Tier III Design and Construction certification, all of which will be repeated in Chayora’s future plans.

The platform of the Tianjin campus has now been used to progress Chayora’s second campus, serving Shanghai.

EXECUTIVE BIO

TITLE: OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Tiger has multiple years of working experience in lead technical roles for Amazon Web Services China. Fluent in English and Mandarin, he has over 5 years’ experience managing capacity delivery and infrastructure operations at AWS datacentres, having built new data centres in Ningxia and Hong Kong as well as scaling existing data centres in Beijing, Ningxia and Hong Kong.

Tiger has a proven record working in other multinational companies including Microsoft and Cisco.

Tiger graduated in Electronic Engineering and holds qualifications in ITIL and PMP certification.

CHAYORA

Chayora’s tested Tianjin platform means that the necessary regional and provincial differences can be readily incorporated particularly with respect to land purchase, power agreements and the development of high quality communication with the provincial government. Local nuance has also been pre-emptively incorporated into the development plan and Investment Agreement.

Data Centre Operations are critical to achieving Chayora’s Vision. Keeping the Data Centre operational is only part of the story.

Tiger Zhao, Operations Director, says “My focus is on Total Cost of Operation (TCO) and the customer experience. The starting point is our class-leading design with a 350

April 2021

“ Making sure that you can add value to the customer, to the environments that are around you is hugely important” OLIVER JONES CEO, CHAYORA

PUE of 1.19, proven in testing of the actual facility, but my aim is to make that a baseline from which to improve.” Tiger says, “We use

CHAYORA

a Data Centre Information Management (DCIM) system integrated with our Building Management System (BMS) and combined with our customised programming to exactly match our design and use characteristics.

We are consequently able to manage the performance of the Data Centre with ambitious technology driven plans for further improvement.”

Customers are everything to Chayora and ensuring that all customers have a worldclass experience with the Chayora team is critical to our operational approach.

“All our customers and their teams have an experience that makes them want to come back to us, whether it is our ability to meet their scalability, scale and performance

needs or their TCO requirements, security needs or customisation.” says Tiger, “For our visitors, we also have hotel-style concierge services to make working in a Chayora Data Centre a memorable experience.

Based on the success to date the Chayora team and Jones specifically has ambitious plans for the future with further expansion and an expectation of six facilities being live within 24 months matched by an expanded customer base and significantly increased investment. The years ahead will be exciting.

technologymagazine.com

351

SIEMENS

INTEGRATING

ENGINEERING AND INFRASTRUCTURE

TO ENHANCE URBAN MOBILITY WRITTEN BY: DAN BRIGHTMORE PRODUCED BY: KARL GREEN

352

April 2021

SIEMENS

technologymagazine.com

353

SIEMENS

Kunal Chandra Vice President, Shared Autonomous Mobility at Siemens Mobility

354

April 2021

SIEMENS

How Siemens is developing a digital twin vehicle model for smart cities to help enable a safe and accessible future for autonomous transport.

H

ow will the hard-fought vision of autonomous mobility finally be realised? Siemens has brought together two of its global businesses to achieve a goal that will pave the way for safer, greener more efficient modes of travel in our cities. Siemens Digital Industries Software is working with OEMs to guide the development of the hardware and software required for safe, highly autonomous vehicles. Allied to this, Siemens Mobility’s efforts to deliver the compute requirements and communication capabilities needed for the smart city infrastructure will allow vehicles to apply the information received and make intelligent decisions.

A challenge met through collaboration “Ours is a multi-pronged approach,” explains David Fritz, Senior Director, Autonomous and ADAS at Siemens Digital Industries Software (DISW). “At Siemens, we’re engineeringcentric and, with automotive, need to help our partners understand how to make the journey from the mechanical to the digital.

It's a big leap and the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio of integrated software and services is helping us make that jump, by providing our partners with the ability to transition many disparate parts into a cohesive system. This includes not only engineering level simulation, but also requirements tracking and traceability from concept all the way through to the production of the vehicle itself.” technologymagazine.com

355

SIEMENS

DAVID FRITZ TITLE: SENIOR DIRECTOR, AUTONOMOUS AND ADAS AT SIEMENS DIGITAL INDUSTRIES SOFTWARE (DISW) David Fritz joined Siemens with the acquisition of Mentor Graphics and is currently the Senior Director for Autonomous and ADAS systems at Siemens Digital Industries. David is focused on the modelling of autonomous vehicles and addressing the complexities that the automotive industry and its suppliers are encountering. Before joining Mentor Graphics, Fritz was Senior Director of Technical Program Management at Qualcomm. Previously Fritz worked for NVIDIA as a Tegra chip manager.

KUNAL CHANDRA

MEET THE TEAM

TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT, SHARED AUTONOMOUS MOBILITY AT SIEMENS MOBILITY

356

Kunal Chandra is currently the VicePresident for Shared Autonomous Mobility in Siemens Mobility. In his role Kunal leads the development of autonomous mobility solutions for cities and public transport operators. Prior to this Kunal led the New Energy Businesses for Siemens energy where he was responsible for diversification of its portfolio into new energy value chains. In this role Kunal developed the hydrogen and Powerto-X portfolio. Kunal holds a Bachelor in Technology degree from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and an MBA (Hons.) from IMD Business School, Switzerland.

April 2021

Siemens Mobility is working to prove the concept of smart cities with governmental bodies and municipalities to deliver the future of mobility, particularly in urban environments. “Technology works best when it’s in the background,” maintains Kunal Chandra, Vice President, Shared Autonomous Mobility at Siemens Mobility.

“The purpose that a technology serves should be the driving factor. If you apply autonomous vehicles to public transport you can achieve much higher decongestion

SIEMENS

of cities. Right now, cities are designed around accommodating vehicles. Frankly, it's bizarre that we have so many journeys of two kilometers where a 75-kilo person is transported in a two-ton car. It’s a problem we’re aiming to solve while making that solution cost-efficient, safe, demand responsive, accessible, and convenient.”

Safety, Security & Reliability “If you're going to entrust your well-being to a computer, you want to make sure it’s

safe to do so,” reasons Fritz. “A big part of the problem is how you can actually show that the vehicle making decisions for you is making them with the appropriate amount of caution. We’re working with governments and regulatory bodies on solutions that make engineering and practical sense.”

Fritz explains his team’s approach is based around scenario level testing for safety. This is combined with security that goes beyond software, starting at the chipset level with integrated circuit design implementation. technologymagazine.com

357

SIEMENS

PAVE360

Architect, design, devlop, test and validate your next-generation vehicle years before SOP. Shift software left and improve quality, safety, security and reliability with Siemens’ comprehensive PAVE360 environment.

Learn more > 358

April 2021

SIEMENS

“We’re working with governments and regulatory bodies on solutions for safety, reliability and security that make engineering and statistical sense” DAVID FRITZ

SENIOR DIRECTOR, AUTONOMOUS AND ADAS, SIEMENS DIGITAL INDUSTRIES SOFTWARE (DISW)

Reliability is key, because, he reasons, it’s no good having a safe and secure vehicle you can’t rely on to get you from A to B. “There are many standards emerging to address the key issues at various levels.

Therefore, getting involved in their creation and promoting those initiatives is key.

However, the big issue remains: How do you show safe, secure, and reliable? Today, everyone is aware of the likes of Tesla and GM, but it's going to take a fleet of hundreds of cars, decades, if not centuries, to drive enough unique miles and encounter enough unique situations to statistically show they're safer than a human driver.”

That approach is, of course, totally impractical and not the one preferred by engineers like Fritz and Chandra. “We’re leveraging the formalism and determinism of digital twins of the vehicle,” explains Fritz.

“It can then be shown to behave just like the physical vehicle it models, and it can be driven in a virtual world with all of its practical and complex scenarios validated.”

Digital Twin Using a digital twin enables Siemens to simulate thousands of scenarios to develop the learning that will ultimately support intelligent and safe decisions. In the virtual technologymagazine.com

359

Copyright by Hamburger Hochbahn

world there are no boundaries to the scenarios the vehicle can learn from. “I can guarantee you that no autonomous vehicle is sitting at the base of a bridge in San Francisco waiting for an earthquake so it can drive across that bridge to ensure it behaves properly,” reasons Fritz.

“Yet, if you're in San Francisco and want to buy an autonomous vehicle, that's an important consideration.”

Region-specific scenarios like this may not happen very often but, when they do, the implications are potentially serious and 360

April 2021

need to be validated. Many of these are too unsafe or just too difficult to do in a physical vehicle, which is what makes the use of a digital twin so vital.

“Driving students are taught to watch out for pedestrians crossing the road between cars, we’ve all been through that standard process,” reasons Fritz. “If we take that process and identify 50 things you’ve got to learn, we can begin to set up the scenarios for autonomous vehicles that can deliver timeless learnings applicable in all regional settings. Sure, there

SIEMENS

“The purpose that a technology serves should be the driving factor. If we apply autonomous vehicles to public transport we can achieve much higher decongestion of cities” KUNAL CHANDRA

VICE PRESIDENT, SHARED AUTONOMOUS MOBILITY SIEMENS MOBILITY technologymagazine.com

361

SIEMENS

“ The vision for this technology is to make our cities less passive. Cities need to become smarter and ready to interact with citizens, however they choose to travel.”

KUNAL CHANDRA

VICE PRESIDENT, SHARED AUTONOMOUS MOBILITY SIEMENS MOBILITY

362

April 2021

are many thousands of potential variants of scenarios, but a new driver does not need to experience them all before getting a learner’s permit. What we are saying is that there should be a reasonable set of unsafe and practical scenarios that must be navigated virtually for an autonomous vehicle to earn its learner’s permit.”

Smart Cities Outside of the Middle East - Neom in Saudia Arabia and Masdar in the UAE being recent examples - there are very few cities that can be built smart from the ground up. In most cities across the globe it’s a case of brownfield development notes Chandra.

SIEMENS

“It’s important to accurately diagnose the current status of the system before you can implement change. You might want to deploy autonomous shuttles across Paris, but without understanding the overall impact it will have on the city, we might end up creating many unpriced externalities. Therefore, it is crucial to create a digital twin of the city before you implement any large-scale changes to be able to properly evaluate the overall system impact of the changes. Paris is already on track with this approach, and countries like Singapore are building on the work already done with analogue twins.

The synergy between the digital twin of the autonomous vehicle and the smart city it will operate within needs to be nurtured. “By interfacing with a digital version of the smart city infrastructure we can show that when these vehicles are produced in reality will behave properly in thousands of important scenarios,” adds Fritz.

The ability to communicate across that environment will be supported by cloudbased data handling that allows vehicles to understand, recover and re-use information.

Chandra highlights that fast data requirements will rely on low latency communications, which the advent of 5G will further enhance.

“The next step would be to take a vehicle into a real urban environment for testing,” continues Fritz. “In effect, the vehicle would have earned its learner’s permit in the virtual world before it is tested to ensure the physical vehicle behaves as the digital twin predicted it would. This requires the application of a practical methodology based on engineering principles to deliver a safe vehicle.”

To gain traction, Siemens is working with major metropolitan municipalities to develop this synergy and put together a certification process to provide a pathway for autonomous vehicles to get their learner’s permit. “It’s the same process your smartphone has to go

Siemens – Driving the future of mobility

technologymagazine.com

363

SIEMENS

“ By interfacing with a digital version of the smart city infrastructure we can show that when these vehicles are produced in reality they will behave properly in thousands of important scenarios” DAVID FRITZ SENIOR DIRECTOR, AUTONOMOUS AND ADAS, SIEMENS DIGITAL INDUSTRIES, SOFTWARE (DISW)

364

April 2021

SIEMENS

1847

Year Founded.

293,000

Number of Employees.

€57bn Revenue.

through before it can be placed on a network,” says Fritz. “There are environments used to show correct operation before you could take that device to market and connect up to a carrier’s network. Obviously, vehicles require many more checks and balances, which is where the digital twin can help us demonstrate correct interoperability with the smart city infrastructure that will support safe operation.”

A new vision for mobility Siemens aims to deploy solutions that give back more space to people in cities so they can actually use it to live. “In the long-term, we need to tackle the peak hour problem,” maintains Chandra. “There are certain hours of the day when the demand placed on the entire city infrastructure is high. Yet, as this demand starts to plateau, much of this peak hour infrastructure is sitting there without being utilized.”

Chandra believes it’s vital to make it extremely easy for people to move from one place to another, without having to find a parking spot, or match their schedule with this peak hour problem. “We have to make things demand-responsive,” he says.

“The vision for this technology is to make our cities less passive. They need to become smart and ready to interact with their citizens, however they choose to travel.

With the development of fast, low latency communications, we can actually make our cities talk. And with sensors everywhere to monitor the quality of life, to monitor all aspects of mobility, this information would enhance the driving experience and ultimately lower accident rates. Cities can tell us so much, we just need to embrace the opportunity to listen.”

technologymagazine.com

365

UNIT 4

DRIVING THE PEOPLE EXPERIENCE WRITTEN BY: LAURA V. GARCIA PRODUCED BY: BEN MALTBY

366

April 2021

UNIT 4

technologymagazine.com

367

UNIT 4

368

April 2021

UNIT 4

Unit4 PSA Smart Cloud Collaboration platform for better workflow, faster decision making, and an agile workforce empowered to focus on what matters

U

Manav Singh General Manager and Scaleup Leader

nit4 PSA’s ecosystem of powerful teams and partnerships are perfectly aligned to make for an exceptional people experience that drives customer success for Professional Services, so you can offer a better way to work that makes for a better place to work.

From Magneto quotes to the value of authenticity, speaking to Manav Singh, General Manager and Scaleup Leader for Unit4 PSA, is anything but boring. The man has an intense passion for what he does, and it’s apparent from the moment you meet him and is reflected in everything he does.

It’s what fuses and fuels Professional Services Automation (PSA), bringing their people and their partners together, empowered and focused on a collective goal, a cohesive ecosystem designed to optimise success.

Built on Microsoft's Power Platform, Unit4 PSA focuses on the operation front end of professional practices, enabling them to optimize operations, innovate business models and win more business.

The secret to Unit4 PSA’s success is that Singh himself remains married to a winning framework rooted in the belief in his people and the strategic alignment of business partners. It’s old-school thoughts done in a new age way, with heart, passion, and conviction. And his customers are better for it. technologymagazine.com

369

UNIT 4

MANAV SINGH TITLE: GENERAL MANAGER AND SCALEUP LEADER INDUSTRY: SOFTWARE LOCATION: NETHERLANDS I am a scale-up leader embarked on a current mission to create a globally leading business, enabling professional services organizations to optimize their project and peopledriven business by deliverin a leading practice management suite supporting the end to end proces from opportunities to cash. I am energized to bring an innovative technology to market enabling professional services organization to execute their business flawlessly.

EXECUTIVE BIO

“ Bring me your unfiltered self because you cannot unleash your true self or your true potential if you’re expending your energies on hiding your innate inner traits” MANAV SINGH

GENERAL MANAGER AND SCALEUP LEADER, UNIT4 PSA

UNIT 4

UNIT 4 | Know Your Customer

Redefining PSA to help practices Pivot, Strengthen, and Amplify To achieve operational excellence, you must address the following four key areas: Executing profitable projects, optimising resource utilisation, billing with precision, and winning more business. Unit4 PSA gets you there, despite our ever-changing world.

Practices built for the future create an environment that allows their people to focus on what matters most – delivering customer value. By leveraging technology, companies can remove non-valueadd administrative tasks and streamline workflows, and empower their people, providing all the information employees need to be successful at their fingertips.

Remote-work and a global pandemic pose epic challenges, but Singh and his “team of teams” are up to the task.

Engineered for flawless execution and customer success, Singh sticks to old principles, but like vinyl records, and hipster

trends, he has made the old new again by understanding and leveraging their true value.

A unified platform focused on optimising front-end operations with automated setups, seamless data flow and integrations, and built-in intelligence ensures that practices are focused on delivering value to customers timely and profitably. With a clear view of current operations, practices plan for the future by making sure they have the right resources and strategic customers. All this within a simplified IT landscape.

Built on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Power platform, Unit4’s PSA Practice Management is a full end-to-end solution built for professional services to standardise work, from sales, automation to onboarding your customer, project management, expenses, invoicing, financial transactions, and human competence management.

Singh explains, “We help practices manage their end-to-end process from the technologymagazine.com

371

UNIT 4

point an opportunity presents itself until the point that they invoice the end customer.

We cover everything from managing an opportunity, creating projects, staffing people, measuring utilisation, booking time, managing expenses, approvals, and so forth, all the way until invoicing the end customer.

“All of that in a single solution that is built on Microsoft technology which has its own advantage of making sure that we don't have any legacy technology. Being ERP independent 372

April 2021

also has the added benefit of delivering faster time to value. That is, essentially, what we offer. But, in actuality, we’re in the business of pivot, strengthen, and amplify. We help your business pivot. We will strengthen what you already have, and we will help you amplify your business as you've never seen before.”

Team of Teams “The magic is in the combination of a clear goal, energised and empowered people,

UNIT 4

SOFTWARE Industry

20

We operate in 20 countries

Tailor-made

For Accountancies, Consultancies, IT services and Engineering practices

GLOBAL PARTNER NETWORK

and creating a safe space where it's okay to make mistakes. I think that’s what fuels a productive and effective organisation.

And from there, you amplify and scale,” says Singh.

“When it comes to decision-making, a traditional team gums itself up, creating a choke point. And at the pace at which the world moves today, what you need is a ‘team of teams’, a segregated autonomous unit. You give these teams the autonomy

to make decisions and execute on visions.

If you do that right, then the only factor you need to bind these teams together is a common goal.”

Unit4 PSA enables practices to realise the power of this construct. With its Smart Cloud Collaboration, Unit4 PSA delivers a single solution leveraging Microsoft Power Platform with seamless integration to O365, Power BI and Azure toolsets – making information and intelligence available to all fringes of a practice and empowering individuals to make the right decisions at the right time.

As Singh says, “There needs to be a common-sense of consciousness. Everyone needs to understand what the aim is so that day-to-day, they can make the right decisions and ultimately get you to your goal. This engrains a sense of agility, and an ability to pivot and react to changing conditions dynamically, and delivering a resilience that a traditional way of working does not give you.”

ITK: In The Know Solutions Group With customer in over 20 countries, Unit4 PSA's success is supported with a robust ecosystem of strategic global partners. ITK stands as a shining example of the close collaborations that make up Unit4’s rich global partner ecosystem.

“Our partners are very important to us, and ITK is a great example of a very successful partnership that we highly value. They are very true to their name and bring a bounty of industry practice that make them not just a technology partner but a trusted advisor.

That’s really where their experience shines.

“We have a very close collaboration with our partners, ITK being one of our key ones, and we are always on the same page in terms of how we are addressing the market, what can we do for them, and how we can make them more successful. technologymagazine.com

373

UNIT 4

SAVE 30% ON SERVICES FOR A LIMITED TIME

TECHNOLOGY THAT INSTANTLY TELLS YOU WHO ON YOUR CONSULTING TEAM IS WORKING WHERE AND TILL WHEN. NO GUESSING REQUIRED. We’re different than most software partners. We’re not just an IT Consulting firm, we actually use Unit4 PSA Suite (Professional Services Automation) software ourselves. We’ve been in your shoes.

We know how to leverage tech to transform (and improve) how you work. It’s helped us win more business, optimize resource utlization, bill with precision and have more profitable projects. www.itksolutionsgroup.com

CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR DISCOUNT

UNIT 4

“So that relationship really works very, very closely. The interesting thing is that all our partners are not just software partners; they’re users. ITK is an IP services firm, and they use PSA to manage their practice. So they’re not only advocates for us but can showcase the value that PSA brings. They can speak to some of the challenges that they faced and how we helped them to manoeuvre them.”

When it comes to selecting partners and ensuring mutually beneficial relationships, Singh prefers quality over quantity.

“Otherwise, you spread yourself out too thin, and you’re able to provide them with the right level of focus and attention that they need, and it really doesn’t help you to mutually grow. So our philosophy is to focus on the right partners.

“This means that we're going to have fewer partners, but the partners that we

“ We’re in the business of pivot, strengthen, and amplify. We help your business pivot.

We will strengthen what you already have, and we will help you amplify your business as you've never seen before” MANAV SINGH

GENERAL MANAGER AND SCALEUP LEADER, UNIT4 PSA

are going to have will be equally invested in our vision as we are. This allows us to throw all of our weight behind those select partners and make sure they are successful, and together, we’ll drive market penetration and make them the face of the region.

“You have 120% of our support, and we will make you successful. In return, all we ask is that you be as equally invested as we technologymagazine.com

375

UNIT 4

are in delivering on the vision we have for the business and the product.” It’s a nice, intimate circle of partners, backed by the right people, empowered for success.

Hunger. Persistence. Authenticity.

Unit4 PSA has created a team that is passionate and aligned towards a common goal – enabling next-generation practices to thrive in the new business reality. But it’s not done yet. Unit4 holds fast to the belief that improvements are never done, and business should never remain static and continues to move at the speed in which today’s challenging business environment requires.

The other key component of a successful “team of teams” is ensuring they consist of the right people with an alignment on personal goals and expectations.

376

April 2021

“ For me, the strongest relationships are built when people want to collaborate with you rather than need to collaborate with you.

Being open, honest, and genuine have always been key pillars for me to achieve this” MANAV SINGH

GENERAL MANAGER AND SCALEUP LEADER, UNIT4 PSA

UNIT 4

In order to clearly communicate goals, Singh says his construct consists of three areas, “First, I give them a crystal clear picture of what we want the end state of the business to be. How big do we want to grow? What regions do we want to capture?

What customers do we want to target?

And how are we going to get them?” All components of a standard business plan, Singh points out, but the difference is in the clarity and execution.

With an unrelenting focus on the end goal, and teams of teams all pointing towards the bullseye, Singh then sets a schedule, prioritises, and measures the efficacy of solutions. Those that are considered to be

successful are amplified. Those that aren’t are scrapped before moving on to the next idea. It’s a systematic, quantified process that allows them to arrive at the best possible solution— A perhaps simple yet powerful concept that optimises outcomes.

“I want them to be hungry and to do things because they want to do them, not because I told them to. So, let’s mutually agree on what’s important for you and for the company, and let’s consider that the floor because there is no ceiling.

“The second thing I ask for is persistence.

Nobody comes to work to fail. Nobody will drive to their office and say, you know what, today I'm going to do a poor job and technologymagazine.com

377

UNIT 4

aim to fail at what I do. However, things will rarely work out the way you want them to. There will always be problems, either you don't have the right people, or you don't have the right budget, or you have a global pandemic. There are a gazillion things that could happen. You have to keep persisting and not let the challenges bog you down.”

“If you're using half your concentration to look normal, then you're only half paying attention to whatever else you're doing.” — Erik Lehnsherr 378

April 2021

“ I’ll show up a hundred per cent, and I want you to show up a hundred per cent with me” MANAV SINGH

GENERAL MANAGER AND SCALEUP LEADER, UNIT4 PSA

UNIT 4

Cringing at the analogy, Singh references a quote from Erik Lehnsherr, otherwise known as Magneto, from the X-Men comics. Despite its perceived “cringyness”, however, it’s perfectly apropos to his thoughts on the importance of authenticity.

“The third thing I ask from an individual is for them to be genuine. Bring me your unfiltered self because you cannot unleash your true self or your true potential if you’re expending your energies on hiding your innate inner traits. I’ll show up a

hundred per cent, and I want you to show up a hundred per cent with me,” Singh says.

“The world is not static. It’s dynamic, and as things change, you must be able to pivot. To avoid becoming extinct, your business must evolve at pace with the changes. You must redesign your business models to meet the challenges of the day, that’s what teams of teams is for, and that’s what Unit4 PSA is for.”

technologymagazine.com

379

CERNER AND PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CORPORATION

TRANSFORMING

THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL HEALTH IN QATAR WRITTEN BY LEILA HAWKINS PRODUCED BY: BEN MALTBY

380

April 2021

CERNER AND PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CORPORATION

technologymagazine.com

381

CERNER AND PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CORPORATION

382

April 2021

We look at how Cerner is streamlining Qatar’s healthcare with data analytics and artificial intelligence.

W

hen Covid-19 arrived in Qatar, the state’s Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) was well-prepared to protect the people most at risk from the virus and keep transmission rates low. Thanks to their electronic health record (EHR) system, they could quickly identify patients with underlying health conditions that would make them more vulnerable to the disease and limit their access to health centers where they could be put at risk.

Their EHR is provided by Cerner, who mark their 30th anniversary operating in the Middle East this year. Established in seven countries across the Middle East, they cover approximately 30 million unique patients, and have been voted “Best in KLAS” for Acute Care EMR (Middle East/Africa) for the last three years.

"We had a huge advantage by having data already recorded in our databases thanks to Cerner," explains Alexandra Tarazi, Executive Director of Health Information and Communication Technology at PHCC. Virtual consultations, a medication delivery service via WhatsApp, and drivethrough testing facilities were set up “at the speed of light" she says. "What usually takes months was delivered within weeks, and that's thanks to our partners, who sat down with us to design the services and find optimal solutions."

Adrian Dey, General Manager for Cerner Qatar, explains that much of their early work had been establishing a common centralized EHR across the public health system in technologymagazine.com

383

CERNER AND PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CORPORATION

ALEXANDRA TARAZI TITLE: EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY AT PHCC Tarazi has accumulated 30 years of health ICT experience having worked in Australia, USA, Asia and the Middle East. Since 2013, she holds the post of Executive Director - Health Information & Communication at Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) in Doha, Qatar.

ADRIAN DEY TITLE: GENERAL MANAGER FOR CERNER QATAR Dey joined Cerner in 2017 as the General Manager for Qatar, where he's responsible for Cerner's overall operations in the country. In his current role at Cerner, he's focused on building deeper levels of engagement and partnership with Cerner's clients and stakeholders.

VERONICA FREEMAN

MEET THE TEAM

TITLE: HEALTH CARE EXECUTIVE AT CERNER Freeman has more than 25 years' experience of working in healthcare, including as a Registered Nurse and as navy medical personnel.

Her role at Cerner sees her establishing and maintaining nursing and clinical executive relationships, and she has assisted with the implementation of Qatar's first ambulatory solution.

384

April 2021

Qatar. "Since 2011 along with HMC and PHCC we've rolled out a single EHR across 80 percent of healthcare within Qatar," he says. "We've helped integrate care across 13 hospitals and 27 primary healthcare institutions. As we continue our journey together, our attention has shifted, to drive how our systems are used by the clinical community in a more optimal manner to create the best outcomes for the individual as well as those institutions."

"There's a common understanding now that individuals no longer receive

CERNER AND PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CORPORATION

their health services and care from one institution within the community in which they live,” Dey says. “I think we will start to see a prevalence of consumerism, where individuals as consumers of health and care are going to be more informed to make better personal decisions based on performance, convenience and access. To facilitate that, you've really got to open things up, and Cerner is at the forefront of pushing for open standards and sharing data across all platforms, giving access to

that data to clinician, patients, researcher and developers.”

This is illustrated in part by the rise in health apps for both the provider and for the consumer, as people take greater control over their health and care. In turn, this is creating a wealth of additional data to make more informed decisions. “We are seeing additional data points - whether that's through wearables or devices at home, or social determinants of health – that are now forming a valuable factor

“ Virtual consultations, a medication delivery service via WhatsApp, and drive-through testing facilities were set up “at the speed of light” ALEXANDRA TARAZI, PHCC

technologymagazine.com

385

CERNER AND PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CORPORATION

WE MAKE YOUR EHR BETTER TransformativeMed is on a mission to help hospitals, doctors, nurses and patients by supporting specialty-specific user interfaces and enhancing clinical collaboration and communication. With its suite of embedded apps, TransformativeMed makes your Cerner EHR better.

LEARN MORE

CERNER AND PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CORPORATION

“ The need for e-services is enormous. We are undergoing a total digital transformation of the way we deliver administrative and certain clinical services to the public” provider for early intervention which ALEXANDRA TARAZI, PHCC

within someone’s personal health record,” Dey says.

Big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence will be key to help clinicians classify all this new information.

Veronica Freeman, Health Care Executive at Cerner explains: “If we begin with the patient accessing clinical data through the patient portal to facilitate syncing with their Apple Watch and also being able to enter glucose results, the provider is able to see that information in the medical record. This brings real time data to the

ultimately leads to better outcomes.”

The data mentioned previously can be the catalyst for conversations with the patient about smoking cessation, exercising, or other forms of preventative care before the patient arrives at the health center. “This data is also available for other providers across the continuum, of care which can be analyzed it with AI or machine learning, to look at Qatar’s patient populations. For instance, do I have a cohort of patients that might be in downtown Doha with high glucose, or with more smokers, as opposed to in a different area?” This is one benefit of having a countrywide EHR and data in a single repository.

Preventative care and managing illness at home are among the key priorities PHCC technologymagazine.com

387

CERNER AND PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CORPORATION

388

April 2021

has identified to improve the health of the Qatari population with technology. These are aligned with Qatar's National Health Strategy.

"A large area is chronic disease management from home,” Tarazi says. “We believe we can do much better using technology, mobile apps and different types of wearables to achieve better outcomes”.

"There is also a large area that sort of went to sleep during the pandemic, which is wellness; we intend to launch digital fitness services to support our wellness activities as soon as the pandemic is under control. There is a lot of work to do in smoking cessation. Young mothers can be better served better by making digital services available over mobile devices in terms of consultations and support for pregnancies and baby wellness."

During the pandemic PHCC launched a number of online services, which have had high levels of engagement from users. "Before the pandemic we had about 50,000 patients using our patient portal," Tarazi says. "This has grown to almost half a million people now. Launching e-services to the public helped us enormously to conduct dayto-day activities from home. We launched our new website - eight months ahead of time - enabling online registration, so people don't need to come to the health centers to register themselves or a new family member. They can request an appointment or change family physician and health centers remotely by submitting the right documents.”

In some respects, Covid-19 merely sped up plans they already had in place; virtual consultations were originally set to be introduced later on in 2020, and the medication delivery service was set to be rolled out through a mobile app. technologymagazine.com

389

CERNER AND PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CORPORATION

Implementation of Cerner Clinical Information System at Primary Health Care Corporation in Qatar

390

April 2021

“ We believe we can do much better using technology, mobile apps and different types of wearables to achieve better outcomes” ALEXANDRA TARAZI, PHCC

Now that Qatar’s Covid-19 vaccination programme is in progress, there are vaccination clinics at each of PHCC’s centers, along with a mass vaccination clinic at the Qatar Exhibition and Convention Centre.

Patients are able to visit the online portal, fill out a questionnaire, book an appointment and later access their results. “For patients to log in, look at their results and print out their certificates is an enormous improvement, and obviously for health information management this is a huge advantage,” Tarazi adds.

"The need for e-services is enormous now. We are undergoing a total digital transformation of the way we deliver administrative and certain clinical services to the public. Areas like physiotherapy and dermatology, and even dentistry opened their services to virtual consultations, and there's been great acceptance. Patient engagement is key, and partners like Cerner help us to make the technology more patient-friendly and capable of connecting to our main data sources in clinical information systems."

Another major project is the upcoming FIFA World Cup which will be held in Qatar next year, and PHCC is providing services at stadiums and throughout the country. "PHCC currently manages 27 health centers, we intend to open three more in the catchment areas of those facilities and launch a number of electronic services to support the World Cup in the coming months,” Tarazi says.

"Major planning operations will be deployed across the country to support FIFA, and we're working very closely with secondary care providers Hamad Corporation to design the services. We're really looking forward to this fantastic piece of work."

technologymagazine.com

391

CHENMED

When Our Patients Do Better, We Do Better WRITTEN BY: MIKE SADR

392

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: DAN BRIGHTMORE

technologymagazine.com

393

CHENMED

How nimble data and analytics solutions help doctors transform care for at-risk seniors, improving health and patient experience even during the coronavirus pandemic

W

e're looking to be proactive with technology and actually take care of patients before they get sick, not after; and improve their lives.

That's the ultimate goal at ChenMed.” ChenMed’s IT team, led by CTO Serge Perras, is aiming to transform preventive healthcare. It’s a mission based on relationships and putting the focus on the needs of patients not processes.

Patient-Focused “Our mission is to develop a company culture centered around the patient and making sure everything we do - from the clinical process to the technology deployed – improves health outcomes for our patients,” maintains Perras. He notes that, especially during the testing times of a

394

April 2021

global pandemic, reinforcing the bond and connectivity between patient and physician is of paramount importance.

The practice of medicine is very different at ChenMed, explains Perras. “First, our primary care doctors serve a maximum patient panel of 450, not the 3,000+ patients that so typical for family doctors working in fee-for-service practices. With patient panels just one-fifth the industry average our doctors are able to nurture amazing doctor/ patient relationships. They get to earn trust with every call and every appointment.”

Perras adds: “Patient trust is vital to any at-risk medical practice. Without it, patients are going to go frequent emergency rooms and urgent care facilities where doctors do not know them as well and where cost of care is dramatically higher.”

CHENMED

“ We're looking to be proactive with technology and actually take care of patients before they get sick, not after; and improve their lives. That's the ultimate goal at ChenMed”

SERGE PERRAS TITLE: CTO COMPANY: CHENMED INDUSTRY: HEALTH LOCATION: FLORIDA, USA In 25 plus years in the consulting business, Mr. Perras has experienced numerous business verticals and models. He has built extensive expertise while developing a solid engineering sense.

Over time, he became keenly aware that applying this knowledge for the greater good created better results than only chasing corporate financial rewards. He focuses on business goals that benefit the organization, its constituents, and its clients, all while optimizing human capital.

As a continuous learner, Mr. Perras seeks to produce win-win scenarios everywhere he exercises influence. His leadership emphasizes mentoring and coaching to ensure everyone is aligned to the same goal.

SERGE PERRAS CTO, CHENMED

EXECUTIVE BIO

Digital Transformation There are a number of facets to indirect and direct interaction with patients at ChenMed. Analytics is allowing Perras and his team to better understand the patterns of data provided by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) associated with key health conditions.

Serge Perras from Chenmed talks about technology for Healthcare

“By using analytics we can optimize the patient experience by providing the right care at the right time in the right amount” SERGE PERRAS CTO, CHENMED

396

April 2021

CHENMED

“By using analytics our doctors can optimize the patient experience by providing the right care at the right time in the right amount,” notes Perras. “We’re able to use algorithms to enhance medication compliance; to better manage the frequency of both telemedicine and in-person appointments; and to better predict no show appointments so we can increase patientrelevant touch points to improve diverse quality measures.”

Reacting to the challenges facing medicine in a COVID-19 world, ChenMed has broadened its video telehealth capabilities to give patients easy connects with their physician without having to leave the comfort and safety of their homes. “Yes, there’s a limit to how much a doctor can accomplish during a virtual encounter, concedes Perras. “But telehealth is considerably better than no encounter at all.

The underlying thread is to continue optimizing all touch points with our patients.”

We keep finding smart ways to use technology to reduce friction across systems. We keep making it easier for primary care providers to better meet patient needs, while investing substantially less time doing administrative work.

Infrastructure in the Cloud ChenMed formulated a multi-year plan to migrate from a monolithic, tightly coupled, on-premise solution to microservice-based cloud implementation giving it the flexibility to scale its infrastructure.

Now 100 percent Cloud-based, its last data center was closed in January 2020.

“We have the agility to pivot quickly,” adds Perras. “Our CareSuite Platform, the next generation of our EMR, was rolled out to physicians across the organization. We’ve got the capability to do the input monitoring and maintenance to make sure those technologymagazine.com

397

CHENMED

systems are up and running and available.

Reliability is key.”

Perras recalls that just four years ago, paper processes, and all of their manual inefficiencies, were still in place. Since then his team has improved the experience of physicians, front desk staff, medical assistants and care providers. Better healthcare worker experience quickly translates into better care for patients. The goal is to support mobile capabilities to provide access to changing patient data in real time.

“While supporting physicians with the ability to cross reference previous treatments on the database, we’re aiming to develop our self-service capabilities too,” says Perras. “Patients will be able to visualize their own care path and see that history from medications to interventions.”

Driving from transformation to robotic process automation Let Trexin help you “get to done”

START HERE

398

April 2021

CHENMED

“ We’re demonstrating that in-house IT teams, and the technology they serve, can be a competitive advantage while massively improving outcomes for our patients” SERGE PERRAS CTO, CHENMED

DID YOU KNOW...

A CULTURE OF POSITIVE CHANGE Perras believes the biggest culture shift for IT, especially within healthcare organizations, has been the move from being an order-taking department to a business partner. “We’re moving away from task-driven behaviours,” he says. “We’re demonstrating that in-house IT teams, and the technology they serve, can be a competitive advantage while massively improving outcomes for our patients. Alongside clinical interventions, the influence of technology is growing with the improvement of AI and NLP and the application of algorithms to help us determine approaches to care and the clinical pathways available.”

Perras and his team are providing guidance on data driven initiatives they feel are going to be beneficial. “We’re focused on quantitative ways to analyze data,” he adds. “Everything has to tie back into our core model and those three

pillars – the detection and management of high-risk disease and the reduction of hospital sick days. Autonomy is really important. It's no longer a question of ownership or accountability it’s about collaborating to drive better outcomes and make better decisions.”

The open culture Perras describes nurtures collaboration. “We’ve got a much bigger brain trust now that we’re not just leadership focused,” he notes.

“Our teams come up with great ideas that actually transform care. It’s those grassroots ideas that will future proof the organisation and help us further develop a collective understanding.

It’s also important for us to reach out to others in the industry, working with insights from the Gartners of this world and the organizations that have been there and done it. We rely on our networks as a sounding board to assess the latest trends and make sure we’re aligned.”

technologymagazine.com

399

CHENMED

450

Cap placed on patient/ physician panels

33%

Fewer ER visits and hospitalizations

10x

Time in-person for doctors & patients

100%

Board-eligible or certified doctors

400

April 2021

CHENMED

“During encounters with patients we’re seeing data as a way of adding diagnosis to provide better decision support for our physicians” SERGE PERRAS

CTO, CHENMED

Trends “The big trend is growth,” affirms Perras. “If you look at primary care as a whole, and then focus on the strong health outcomes being achieved by ChenMed and other value-based care providers, it is clear why Medicare Advantage insurance receives strong support from public policy makers.

Competition motivates us to find better ways to modernize and transform care. Historically, there was a belief in a 10-year lag between current technology and the technology that most health care organizations were utilizing. That gap has closed significantly, partly because of the influence of the value-based care model.

A limit on resources means that when we’re optimizing it’s with a focus on what’s actually going to make us more efficient and profitable, so analytics and technology are vital.”

Data science has come a long way and is now capable of delivering the right information at the right time because, as Perras rightly states: “Reports and information are useless if they're not actionable.” For ChenMed it’s the big driver for decision support, analysis around existing data and the management of unstructured data in the healthcare space to help improve patient outcomes. technologymagazine.com

401

CHENMED

Healthy Partnerships The culture of positive change at ChenMed extends to the way technology partnerships have become collaborations in pursuit of providing the best healthcare outcomes.

Trexin Consulting provides the strategic staffing services that allow ChenMed to scale and deal with spikes in capacity.

“With the rate of change we’re experiencing it’s difficult to cover every competency in-house,” concedes Perras.

“You’ve got to have a trusted partner that can service those needs and provide guidance. We’ve worked with Trexin for four years now and the quality of people they bring to the organization has been second to none. We can trust them to deliver and their flexibility and support has allowed us to take on new initiatives with confidence. They have consultants out 402

April 2021

there across the industry which feeds back great insights for ChenMed, helping us to plot our path.”

Perras notes Trexin is involved with ChenMed’s RPA initiative – an automation exercise netting hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings by automating manual processes. “They pivot quickly and keep up with our agility,” he says. “It's a real success story, because going forward, not only are we reducing costs, but we're actually allowing ourselves to scale more effectively because we're massively reducing manual processes.”

RingCentral provides ChenMed’s video conferencing services. A long-established relationship has seen the healthcare provider working with the California-based company during its product planning and beta platform development to gain valuable insights.

CHENMED

“They’re more than just a vendor to us,” explains Perras. “We get visibility on how their technology is developing and how it can help us. It’s technology like this, particularly over the past year, that has proved to be crucial. It’s been the cornerstone for our remote approach during the pandemic and something we can rely on.

They’ve helped several of our business units transition smoothly from 100% in the office to virtually 100% remote.”

Another key partner for Perras and his team is SHI International; helping ChenMed consolidate vendor handling for simplicity.

“SHI has provided us with a one-stop shop to manage vendor relationships” he confirms.

“It lends itself well to one of our guiding principles in IT; it's always easier to maintain and manage simple systems than to have to worry about complexity.”

The Future for Healthcare Gleaning better insights from data in real time requires a lot of processing time and power, but remains key to ChenMed’s aspirations for supporting physicians while achieving the best possible outcomes for patients.

“During encounters with patients, we see data as a way to enhance physician decision-making real time. “So, we’re making a big effort to restructure, better store, and better segment data across our enterprise. We’re focused on dealing with the technological implementations required to speed real time and highly relevant data sharing of best practices to consider as our amazing doctors personalize care for each patient.”

The future for Perras and his team is about streamlining and reducing friction to better achieve ChenMed’s goals. “We want to go faster but we don't want to do so by brute force or by increasing the effort. We want to go faster by reducing the resistance across the board in our development lifecycle and how fast we can get tangible and transformative products through our pipeline. We want that pipeline to be even more effective through greater automation of testing, code verification and quality controls to meet our main goal of daytime deployments on demand.”

ChenMed is going through evolution rather than revolution to ramp the maturity of its development process to realise major benefits for both patients and practitioners.

technologymagazine.com

403

PEOPLE PUTTING

@HEART THE

OF DIGITAL

TRANSFORMATION WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE

404

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: BEN MALTBY

DEVOTEAM

technologymagazine.com

405

DEVOTEAM

406

April 2021

DEVOTEAM

Digital transformation experts Devoteam put people at the centre of the digital transformation journey, bringing business and technology together.

€760.4 mn Company revenue in 2020.

8,000

professionals dedicated to ensure clients win their digital battles.

18

countries covered by Devoteam

“T

ech for people unlocks the future" is the message and purpose of digital transformation company Devoteam.

Devoteam invites its clients into a ‘technology driven world where people come first’. They work collaboratively with organisations on designing and executing their transformation journeys, creating a bridge between technology and business success.

For over 25 years Devoteam has been helping clients in 18 countries across Europe and the Middle East take their business performance to the next level and is growing at pace as we speak.

Richard Andrews, Managing Director of Devoteam UK, said: “Devoteam operates at the intersection of people, business processes and technology. We enable clients to leverage technology, not for the sake of it, but to enable our client's people which we see as key to their success.

“Our ‘Tech for People’ ethos resonates strongly with all Devoteamers. By living and breathing this, we empower clients to imagine and realise change, unlocking their potential and helping them achieve their goal of becoming a digital organisation.

That is the core of what we do.”

Today, the expertise of Devoteam’s 8,000 professionals is helping companies to reassess the technologies at their disposal.

It’s driver is to ensure that the organisations technologymagazine.com

407

DEVOTEAM

Richard Andrews from Devoteam talks about digital transformation

“ We help our clients make the right business decisions to deliver the best outcomes. In any organisation, be it B2B or B2C, we're there to deliver results for our clients that will delight them” RICHARD ANDREWS

DEVOTEAM MANAGING DIRECTOR UK

408

April 2021

they work with have the right tools, in the right hands, that will allow their businesses to accelerate.

With many organisations still navigating a path to recovery from COVID-19, this has never been more important. For Devoteam, creatively employing technology is seen as an absolute necessity if businesses are to remain competitive. It’s role - helping clients to recognise the opportunity a post-COVID 19 world presents to leverage the power of technology, not just to survive, but to thrive.

“We believe that the way to achieve success with technology is through a creative mindset. Being agile, innovative, sharing knowledge and working cross-functionally.

In our vision, technology does not only meet challenges and solve problems, it actively make changes for the better” Andrews added.

DEVOTEAM

RICHARD ANDREWS TITLE: MANAGING DIRECTOR COMPANY: DEVOTEAM LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM INDUSTRY: IT AND SERVICES “Empowering and collaborative” is how Richard Andrews, Managing Director of Devoteam UK describes his leadership style at digital transformation company, Devoteam.

Andrews was appointed Managing Director in October 2020. He now leads the digital transformation of UK organisations for Devotam who operate across the EMEA and generated an income of €764 million last year.

Prior to joining Devoteam Andrews was Managing Director of Crogdene Consulting Limited where he consulted on transformation and regulatory change initiatives.

My job is to enable the success of others within Devoteam and for our clients,” said Andrews.

Andrews reflected on how COVID-19 is forcing companies to rely on technology, as they move from ‘bricks and mortar’ to remote and flexible working. “Modern cloud-based collaboration tools have proved their necessity and effectiveness in keeping businesses running and people and ideas connected,” he said.

“We’ve adapted some of our core offerings to this “new reality”, however, the core of what we do hasn't changed.

Our focus is on creating digital strategy, understanding how businesses can best leverage tech platforms, and cybersecurity.

Through the creative use of technology we are helping organisations to adapt

EXECUTIVE BIO

HELPING ORGANISATIONS OPERATE IN THE NEW REALITY

DEVOTEAM

ACCORDING TO DEVOTEAM THE FIVE POINTS TO ADDRESS THE NEW REALITY INCLUDE: 1. COST REDUCE COST AND INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY According to Devoteam smart leaders should deliver external value by focusing internally and seeking excellence in operations. This includes platform adoption and process automation that will remove repetitive and manual tasks to drive operational transformation and empower users. Result: lower costs and higher performance.

2. REVENUE INCREASE OMNICHANNEL REVENUE Creating value is an end-to-end process in which nothing should be left to chance.

‘Facts replace luck’ by uncovering user insights, testing new ideas by prototyping and leading to digital solutions. Devoteam warns the best user experience and products will underperform if they are not supported by a clear Go To Market which is an efficient sales and marketing machine.

3. PEOPLE DEPLOY THE EXTENDED WORKPLACE Enable excellence with a reliable and scalable workplace for your people, recommends Devoteam. Strengthen the workplace with powerful collaborative tools, e-training platforms and the right cultural shift to unleash your people’s potential.

410

April 2021

4. RESILIENCE ENSURE 360° ENTERPRISE RESILIENCE Devoteam says that to operate in the new reality, a business needs to spread enterprise-wide resilience from automation of business continuity and cybersecurity.

5. ADAPTABILITY RE-SHAPE BUSINESS MODELS FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE Transforming the core of the organisation to become a true ‘digital corporation’, requires deep changes: operational, technological but also cultural.

DEVOTEAM

Devoteam at a glance

and accelerate digital journeys, while empowering the people within them to work collaboratively with the agility to drive innovation and deliver better change.”

Devoteam has created five “new reality” priorities that every firm should consider accelerating now. “We looked at our offerings and identified priorities for business continuity and more rapid adoption of digital tech and ways of working. Despite the challenges of the last year, organisations that adopt these priorities will come out stronger, more powerful and with a more people centric business model. This delivers resilience and deeper engagement with customers, staff and partners.” he said.

Looking ahead to how the pandemic will shape working practices, Andrews predicts a more ‘phygital world’ - a hybrid mix of physical and digital.

“People want positive experiences regardless of channel. All organisations must consider how they deliver seamless and remarkable omnichannel experiences in both the physical and digital worlds”.

DEFINING BUSINESS PRIORITIES Andrews highlighted some of the areas that Devoteam believes should be high on the agenda for organisations looking to build in resilience and improve their ability to gain actionable insights.

“One of the key things we're prompting clients to think about is the increased importance of cybersecurity, particularly as people are not in their offices with the comfort of closed networks. We're now accessing information through multiple devices in multiple locations, across many different types of networks”.

“Organisations need to consider how they balance risk with giving access to their technologymagazine.com

411

6 Key Offers Digital Business and Products Data Driven Intelligence Distributed Cloud Business Automation Trust and Cybersecurity Sustainability Enabled by Digital

412

April 2021

Paris HQ, Atrium Levallois

DEVOTEAM

“ Adopting innovative technologies is key to empowering your people; giving them cloud-based platforms so you can operate anytime, anywhere with the appropriate security and resilience. This really does support an organisation’s digital journey”

DEVOTEAMS’ 6 STRATEGIC DOMAINS: Digital Business and Products Making organisations be better, faster, stronger by leveraging cloudbased platforms. Devoteam assists in setting up multidisciplinary teams to shape innovative business models and create outstanding digital products enabled by tech.

Data Driven Intelligence Supporting clients in mastering the key competencies to scale insights-driven principles across the business, enabling them to turn data into actions that will give them competitive advantage and drive tangible business impact.

RICHARD ANDREWS

Distributed Cloud A full spectrum of cloud services designed to speed up innovation, drive business agility, streamline operations, and optimize costs.

employees, and their customers the ability to transact with them without hindering the user experience.”

Andrews continued: “Another aspect we’re evangelical about is how we can support organisations to access and harness data.

Businesses need data that can tell them how they’re engaging with customers and business financial performance, delivered in as close to real time as possible. Things have been changing so quickly over the last year, it's never been more important to be looking at accurate information, rather than data that might already be three or four weeks old. This way organisations can be sure that they are making the right decisions at the right moment, ensuring the best possible outcomes”

Business Automation Building end-to-end intelligent automation ecosystems driven by platforms that improve processes, connect people and make the system smarter.

DEVOTEAM MANAGING DIRECTOR UK

Trust and Cybersecurity.

Helping organisations understand their ‘threat’ landscape and manage risks by capitalizing on the innovative solutions of technology partners.

Sustainability Enabled by Digital Support organisation in becoming responsible digital companies ready to turn Sustainable Development challenges into opportunities. technologymagazine.com

413

DEVOTEAM

1995

Devoteam was co-founded

by Stanislas de Bentzmann and Godefroy de Bentzmann

Digitize your workflows, so you can do what you love ServiceNow delivers digital workflows that create great experiences and unlock productivity for employees and the enterprise.

The Now Platform is the intelligent and intuitive cloud platform for work.

Meet The Now Platform

414

April 2021

DEVOTEAM

CREATING AND REALISING THE THE CLIENTS’ VISION

What Devoteam offers may be comprehensive, but at the core of its approach is the desire to understand where clients currently are on their digital transformation journeys, and working with them collaboratively to create a vision that best supports their business objectives and ambitions.

Andrews explained: “We focus on helping clients define their digital vision, strategy and roadmap, which Devoteam supports with insights and business cases. We create a sustainable plan that's achievable for our client.”

“An intrinsic part of the strategy is to see how you can make organisations more agile and services oriented. This change allows an organisation to operate effectively, without being shackled by legacy infrastructure.

“Another important element is to create a truly digital workplace by looking at how

“ Our ‘Tech for People’ ethos resonates strongly with all Devoteamers. By living and breathing this, we empower clients to imagine and realise change, unlocking their potential and helping them achieve their goal” RICHARD ANDREWS

DEVOTEAM MANAGING DIRECTOR UK

technologymagazine.com

415

DEVOTEAM

you leverage technology and tools in order to empower your employees to be better at what they're doing.

“Adopting innovative technologies is key to empowering your people; giving them cloud-based platforms so you can operate anytime, anywhere with the appropriate security and resilience. This really does support an organisation’s digital journey.

“Digital platforms allow you to create really great and engaging experiences, so your employees are fully engaged with your goals and vision, and you can bring customers closer to your business through the amazing experiences you create for them.”

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS THAT DRIVE INNOVATION

Devoteam works with five world leading tech partners; Servicenow, Google (for whom it is a Premier Cloud Partner), Salesforce and Microsoft and AWS. All are best-in-class for Cloud and represent the market game changers for digital transformation.

“By combining Devoteam’s creativity and data insights with world leading and innovative technology platforms and cloud solutions, we enable our customers to transform their businesses and unlock the future”. Andrews said.

“We live in ecosystems; no one can do everything or go it alone. It’s the same for organisations aiming to go digital. Mutually beneficial partnerships and collaboration are critical to achieving success.”

Devoteam was recently recognised as the 2021 ServiceNow EMEA IT Workflow Partner of the Year, having been EMEA Elite Partner of the Year in 2020.

“ServiceNow is a great example of an innovative technology partner that we know can really deliver great value to our clients.

416

April 2021

DEVOTEAM

“We believe that the way to achieve success with technology is through a creative mindset. Being agile, innovative, sharing knowledge and working cross-functionally” RICHARD ANDREWS

DEVOTEAM MANAGING DIRECTOR UK technologymagazine.com

417

DEVOTEAM

2,000 certifications in 2020

300

Junior consultants entered into the Devoteam 'Knowledge Up Program' in 2020

418

April 2021

DEVOTEAM

We work collaboratively to implement that technology and provide greater operational efficiency, as well as real time data and insights which aid decision-making. It's a very powerful platform and one which is evolving all the time,” he said.

While concentrating on the technologies and partners that can add real value right now for clients, Devteam is always future facing. Looking to the future Andrews said: “We are looking increasingly at how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other cutting edge technologies can drive better processing activity, better execution and also better insights to aid decision-making at scale”.

FOCUSED ON DELIVERING THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOMES

“We help our clients make the right business decisions to deliver the best outcomes. In any organisation, be it B2B or B2C, we're there to deliver results for our clients that will delight them.”

Andrews continued “It doesn't matter whether the digital platform is connecting you with your own employees or with your end consumers, the focus should always be on how you can make that interaction as pleasurable and profitable an experience as possible.”

“The question becomes how does the client need to adjust their business processes to empower their people to be more effective in what they're doing?

So it goes way beyond technology, it's about understanding how our clients need to reshape themselves to become fully digital organisations, and how we ensure their people are at the heart of that change for the better.”

technologymagazine.com

419

SAVE THE CHILDREN

AN INTERNATIONAL APPROACH TO IT WRITTEN BY: WILLIAM SMITH

420

April 2021

PRODUCED BY: KRIS PALMER

SAVE THE CHILDREN

technologymagazine.com

421

SAVE THE CHILDREN

Gerry Waterfield, Director of IT Global Operations at Save the Children International, discusses the charity’s IT evolution and its response to COVID-19

G

erry Waterfield is Director of various systems and people would literally IT Global Operations at Save create a ticketing system for each system. the Children International, the Now what we've done is brought them into world’s leading charity focused on one tool, providing a much improved and children. In his role, Waterfield ensures the easier experience.” charity’s vital work is supported by robust A big focus has been on moving entirely to the cloud, which Waterfield accomplished IT systems. Having had a long career in the private sector, Waterfield brought a fresh in November. “We're now cloud-first set of eyes to Save the Children when he and that's been objective for some time joined five years ago. “It's - four or five years. honestly the best thing That allows us a work anywhere approach.” In I've done,” he enthuses.

“It’s almost like all my some of the areas and other experiences were situations in which the done to bring me to a charity must work, for greater purpose. We deal instance responding to with 30 to 50 million an earthquake, that’s children a year, literally particularly important. saving lives, providing “That’s why we have all our global, core services, education, all those kinds of things.” identity and network GERRY WATERFIELD DIRECTOR OF IT GLOBAL OPERATIONS, As a global infrastructure in the SAVE THE CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL organisation, creating a cloud. We still have unified IT infrastructure some infrastructure left in some countries and that's the next part of requires the consideration of many moving pieces. “Save The Children International our journey - removing the localised stuff.” was born about seven years ago from 24 The organisation must also be ready to members that were created a hundred years react 24/7, but the previous method of ago. When I joined, it was best described as achieving this had inherent problems. “One of the challenges we had were single points effectively a multi-billion dollar startup. The challenge we faced was that we had of failure all over the world,” says Waterfield.

“We literally had one person responsible for all these different solutions for the same thing, globally.” One such example is the system A, serving 17,000 people, two people recently accomplished relaunch of its in Africa for system B. If one of them went on service desk. “Five years ago, there were holiday or fell sick, everyone sweated for two

“WE'RE NOW CLOUD-FIRST AND THAT'S BEEN OBJECTIVE FOR SOME TIME”

422

April 2021

SAVE THE CHILDREN

1919 Year founded

$2bn

Save The Children's approximate revenue

GERRY WATERFIELD

17,000

TITLE: DIRECTOR OF IT GLOBAL OPERATIONS

Number of employees

COMPANY: SAVE THE CHILDREN INDUSTRY: CHARITY LOCATION: LONDON

EXECUTIVE BIO

weeks. We had to fix that.” The answer was a follow-the-sun model. “The infrastructure's all in the UK serving globally, but we've got people in Asia, people in Africa, Europe, Latin America who we started cross training to fill those gaps.”

In line with that, the organisation has set up tech hubs globally. “In my team, there’s only one or two people left in the UK, with about 200 people around the world in different countries. It’s a federated model with about 85 in my wider team and the rest run by country offices.” We already had a technology Hub in Nairobi and opened a second in Q4 2019 in the Philippines to better serve our Asia users. “We had been operating for about two months when the Philippines Government shut the country down due to Coronavirus, and they’ve been working from home ever since. So we had quite a difficult start, but the business and the members are recognising the value of doing it. And then we are also trying to expand our capability in Latin America. It’s one of our smaller operations, but time-wise, it gives us really good coverage.”

Gerry is a highly experienced Technologist who is able to adapt to technology and business trends. He is experienced in Satellite, Robotics and Semiconductor manufacturing, through to implementing large changes in the Media, BPO and NGO sectors.

Organisations he has worked for include the Daily Mail, Serco, Texas Instruments and Save the Children.

He is a problem solver with a wealth of experience in change, innovation, software development and service delivery, which has allowed him to consolidate systems, people and businesses to provide simpler, streamlined and cost effective solutions to meet the demands of the organisation.

He possesses a proven record of accomplishment delivering “digital enabled business transformation”.

technologymagazine.com

423

SAVE THE CHILDREN

Gerald Waterfield on becoming a cloud first organisation

424

April 2021

SAVE THE CHILDREN

38.7mn children

and 29.1 million adults directly supported by the Save the Children movement, working across 117 countries*

5.9mn children

and 8 million adults supported by the Save the Children movement in 130 humanitarian emergency responses across 55 countries

£307mn

raised by Save the Children UK in 2019

5,460

volunteers in the UK gave their time, energy and skills to support our cause *Annual Report 2019

“WHEN I JOINED, IT WAS BEST DESCRIBED AS A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR STARTUP” GERRY WATERFIELD DIRECTOR OF IT GLOBAL OPERATIONS, SAVE THE CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL technologymagazine.com

425

SAVE THE CHILDREN

It’s time to start your digital revolution We’ll help you maximise the value you get from technology today, no matter how you need to use it. And make sure you are ready to take on the challenges of the future.

Transform your business with Content+Cloud

426

April 2021

SAVE THE CHILDREN

“IT HAS TO BE ABOUT THE MISSION. IF YOU CAN BRING PEOPLE ON THAT JOURNEY, THEY WANT TO WORK HARDER” GERRY WATERFIELD

DIRECTOR OF IT GLOBAL OPERATIONS, SAVE THE CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL

In the NGO environment, a strong culture can go a long way, as Waterfield explains.

“In our NGO space there's very little resources, it's very underfunded, there's a 1000 things, and 10 people to do them. It has to be about the mission. If you can bring people on that journey, they want to work

harder. So it's all about a real team sense of purpose, and feeling rewarded by what you do.” That sense of purpose has had broader ramifications, with the trust the organisation places in people across the globe leading to upskilling programmes and improved retention. “It's allowed us to grow and to promote people from within into higher roles or different roles, and then fill from the bottom. That then builds a sense of empowerment and achievement for people. Whenever we advertise a vacancy now everyone's clamoring to get into these teams.”

Accomplishing its ambitions has required the support of partners such as technologymagazine.com

427

SAVE THE CHILDREN

“ WHENEVER WE ADVERTISE A VACANCY NOW EVERYONE'S CLAMORING TO GET INTO THESE TEAMS” GERRY WATERFIELD DIRECTOR OF IT GLOBAL OPERATIONS, SAVE THE CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL

428

April 2021

SAVE THE CHILDREN

Content+Cloud, which provides the Charity’s service desks in the UK. “They run those services in London, supporting users and things in the building. They do a very good deal for us as we’re an NGO. They've got some really good people - if you go out to the actual staff in the office, they just see them as part of my team, they don't realise they're part of another company.”

The work that Save the Children already had underway stood it in good stead for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “We rolled out Teams in four weeks flats at the beginning of lockdown. We were planning to do that anyway in a phased approach - It’s always hard with 17,000 users - but then COVID landed. I managed to get six people from Accenture for four weeks to help us for free, which really helped.” The changes mandated

by COVID-19 were not too dissimilar to its existing digital workplace ambitions. “ What it potentially helped us think about is how far we are on our digital workplace journey.

We're just about to do some self assessments to see where we are compared to others in the market, and I have a feeling we're quite a way along compared to others.”

Going forwards, the charity is implementing automation in its HR system and improved security while the tech hubs initiative continues at pace. “We started with one in Kenya when I first arrived and I launched another one at the end of 2019 in Asia,” says Waterfield. “The aim is to move to our hubs where we can have local people servicing the local users real time.

If you’re in Australia, you are still separated by five hours from East Africa, which is one of our current hubs. We're building those out to help people, and it also gives us an opportunity to look at wider shared IT services.”

technologymagazine.com

429

READ NOW

Technology Magazine is proud to launch a celebration of women in Global Technology.

Brought to you in association with:

A BizClik Media Group Brand

Creating Digital Communities in Technology