The 10 Best Workplaces in Technology 2018

www.insightssuccess.com December 2018

Tech Trend People Analytics: A Magical Crystal Ball for HR Fraternity

Editor’s Pick The Rise of GIG Economy Company of the Month

Jennifer Bonelli Vice President

Numerix

Harman Sandhu President

Pushing Boundaries to Create Breakthrough Technology

Editor’s Note

Ensuring Gratication to Employees

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onsidering the current corporate world, employees nowadays expect value and appreciation from their employer for the services they are rendering to an organization. They need respect and acknowledgment for their contribution. Innovation and advances in the work culture have become a significant agenda in every organization. To maintain this virtue in business, throughout its endeavor, organization needs to ensure and accommodate gratitude and satisfaction towards employees. It is earnestly stated by an acclaimed author Simon Sinek that, “Happy employees ensure happy customers. And happy customers ensure happy shareholders- in that order”.

This is just like a usual business relationship, ’Give & Take’; if employees are contented, then it becomes their sole motto to fulfill and satisfy their customer’s needs.

A person will never dwell in a place where his conscience is impounded, which will lead to melancholy. Similarly, an employee cannot be cheerful, unless and until the work culture doesn’t motivate them to devote to their own organization. The atmosphere in the organization needs to be healthy, enthusiastic and most importantly, ’a relation that communicates both ways’, as employees share the half of their day with their workplace, which at the end should invite them the next day enthusiastically with the same zest as the day before. The growing competition in the Industry has led the organizations to undertake a creative & effective work culture holding the essence to appraise their employees.

To shed light on a strong culture and mutual trust between management and staff, Insights Success has enlisted “The 10 Best Workplaces in Technology 2018”, which are building an innovative work culture in technology and facilitating the comfortable and expeditious flow of people, ideas, and emotions in the workspace.

Our cover story features Numerix, a company recognized across the industry for its many breakthroughs in quantitative research and being able to price and risk manage any derivative instrument. Its next generation technology solutions help banks to manage the complexities of the changing capital markets landscape, effectively manage risk and build a competitive edge.

Further, this edition includes akaCRm, a Salesforce Cloud Alliance Partner, providing comprehensive services for Salesforce® and Conga®; Banker’s Toolbox, a company that provides software, professional and consulting services to give financial institutions confidence in their BSA, Anti-Money Laundering and fraud detection programs; Lunarline, a company that provides the solutions and staff to secure data with its solutions called ’Solutions Built on Security’™; Peloton Group, a firm that enables its clients to drive growth and enhance business performance through digital transformation; Smart Energy Water, the leading global energy and water cloud platform for customer engagement, workforce engagement, and smart analytics to the energy and water utility sector.

Also, make sure to scroll through the articles written by our in-house editorial team and CXO standpoints of some of the leading industry experts to have a brief taste of the sector.

Let’s start reading!

Hitesh Dhamani

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Pushing Boundaries to Create Breakthrough Technology

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Tech Trend

Editor’s Pick The Rise of GIG Economy

Empowering Workplaces

People Analytics: A Magical Crystal Ball for HR Fraternity

Constituents of a Productive

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Maestros Insights

Expert's Outlook

Healthcare Technologies: Driving Successful Innovation

What a tech CEO can teach your business about digital

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SEW A Global Smart Energy & Water Cloud Platforms Provider

Company of the Month

akaCRM Delivering CRM Results, the Faster, Easier Way

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Banker’s Toolbox 28

A Revolutionary Fraud Prevention Platform

Lunarline Strengthening Cyber-security and Privacy Capabilities of Businesses

Peloton Consulting Group 44

Driving Growth and Enhancing Performance through Digital Transformation

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Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Executive Editor Assistant Editors Contributing Editors Visualiser Art & Design Director Associate Designer Co-designer

Pooja M. Bansal Anish Miller Kedar Kulkarni Jenny Fernandes Abhishaj Sajeev Sharad Chitalkar Ishan Mittal David King Amol Kamble Kushagra Gupta Sapna Shinde

Art & Picture Editors Paul Belin Jayant Khanna Senior Sales Manager Passi D. Business Development Manager Peter Collins Marketing Manager John Matthew Business Development Executives Steve, Avdhut, Alan, Vishnu Sales Executives David, Kevin, Mark, Avinash Technical Head Jacob Smile Technical Specialists Amar, Pratiksha Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza Online Marketing Strategists Alina Sege, Shubham, Vishal SME-SMO Executives Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Prasad Research Analyst Patrick James Circulation Managers Robert, Tanaji Database Management Stella Andrew Technology Consultant David Stokes sales@insightssuccess.com

December, 2018 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

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Jennifer Bonelli Vice President

Numerix

Cover Story

Pushing Boundaries to Create Breakthrough Technology

As a technology company, we understand that innovation comes through the eorts of those driven to excellence and we attempt to provide an environment that nurtures and rewards that drive.- Jennifer

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ack in 1996, Numerix was founded as a small pricing analytics shop with a handful of employees. Since then, the organization has grown and has reached new levels of maturity, and today it is a poster child for derivatives trading technology solutions.

Now with more than 20 offices, 700 plus clientage and over 90 partners across more than 26 countries, Numerix is a global force in the fintech industry. The organization is recognized across the industry for its many breakthroughs in quantitative

research and its dynamic stack of analytic capabilities, as well as technology and business services. It is proud of its reputation for being able to price and risk manage any derivative instrument—from vanillas to the most sophisticated exotic products. Numerix products and services are utilized in many forms by both the sell side and buy side, including banks, broker dealers, insurance firms, hedge funds, pension funds and asset managers.

reactive, microservices architecture that supports a stack of interoperable solutions that provide a holistic, frontto-risk view of the derivatives business.

Numerix’s intelligent front-to-risk conceptualizes the technology vision of its Oneview platform– a real-time,

Thanks to the consistent and powerful analytic foundation of Numerix, it has been able to build unique solutions that

A Groundbreaking Solution Numerix Oneview offers institutions of all sizes and complexities a single, front-to-back real-time solution that delivers unparalleled efficiency, flexibility, performance and accuracy.

Our mission is to upend existing technologies and business processes via leading-edge technology, to give clients a strategic advantage in their markets and enable them to make profitable shifts in business strategy.- Steve O'Hanlon CEO & President Numerix

Cover Story truly meet business needs and allow users to choose from a robust selection of business services applications and enabling component technologies, or develop and connect bespoke capabilities, data sources and libraries.

In addition to this, embracing market standard domain scripting languages, such as Python, the organization has also been able to provide interfaces and empower end users to interact with the analytics in very specific, bespoke ways. This has enabled users to leverage the defined user experience of Numerix Oneview alongside their customized workflow. This has been central to building out light, flexible front-end environments, to which Numerix or the client can rapidly incorporate new features and address complex requirements.

Leading the Evolution There are several examples that encapsulate the contributions Steve O’Hanlon, CEO and President, has made to Numerix over the past several years, especially during times of swiftly changing market environments.

As the leader, Steve possesses a strong sense of confidence, built upon years of leading, experimenting, taking risks, and always pushing hard for a company’s growth—whether it’s turning around a Numerix that was deeply struggling in 2003, or being the first in the industry to introduce new risk analytic offerings back in 2012 in response to the global financial crisis, or executing last year the hugely strategic acquisition of TFG Financial Systems, whose unparalleled real-time technology could leapfrog Numerix over its competitors.

Another characteristic of Steve is that he leads change in the organization. It is his breaking through a fear-ofchange mindset that has enabled Numerix to absorb and overcome changing markets, and quickly develop industry-leading products and services to meet evolving industry demands.

It is our goal to push boundaries to create breakthrough technology that digitalizes business processes and helps clients reimagine their risk.-Steve

With traditional revenue streams becoming more difficult to achieve, disruption from fintechs has threatened banks and forced them to question their very survival. Steve saw this as an opportunity for Numerix to help banks strike back against the fintech insurgency so they can seek to stay competitive and transform their technology infrastructures. In other words, Numerix wants to be a fintech that disrupts the fintechs.

Under Steve’s leadership, Numerix made the key decision to re-evaluate its core analytics solution. Numerix started the development of one of the industry’s most comprehensive risk management and pricing platforms.

The concept of Oneview was built out of Numerix taking a holistic view of its pricing and risk product stack and realizing an opportunity to offer a unified analytic application platform that could support needs related to front office pre-trade analysis as well as middle office risk.

A Ceaseless Quest for Innovation The company’s culture has also made a difference. Jennifer Bonelli, Vice President of Global Human Resources, has always emphasized building a “fintech” culture that nurtures and pushes innovation and out of the box thinking. This strategy has

created an environment where the generation and implementation of ideas flourish, where there is the constant pursuit of greater technology, and where entrepreneurial thinking is encouraged.

Numerix believes that a company can build a spirit of innovation by being one that delivers superior technological solutions—better than that of the competition and that meets client expectations. Numerix does this well.

The organization also highlights most fintech firms are innovators, but the best fintechs are those companies that build the type of innovative technology which drives disruption within their respective industries. These companies also have a demonstrated ability to lead, change and solve for industrywide challenges. Fortunately, Numerix holds all of these attributes, and it has achieved this by maintaining a climate where idea generation, risk taking, the ceaseless quest for innovation and even unconventional thinking become a part of Numerix’s DNA. What is also important, and this needs to be stressed, is that the company “opens up space” for its employees in order to give them room to innovate.

Jennifer is a strong believer that barriers and hierarchies often sap creativity. Numerix additionally

maintains its culture of innovation by hiring those that the organization believes will align with its values and who it perceives as being best suited to Numerix’s environment.

Enriching Strategies and Experiences Just like any other organization, Numerix has gone through many transformative periods, and 2017/2018 was one such period. The company made massive progress along a number of fronts, most notably its acquisition of TFG Financial Systems, a financial software and services firm. The challenge, of course, was to plan for and ensure the fluid assimilation of the new personnel. Not only did this mean integrating them into the Numerix offices, culture and ways of working, but also procuring their commitment and loyalty as quickly as possible.

Jennifer understood that an initial and important step would be to have senior Numerix leaders personally meet with each TFG employee and give them a sincere welcome to the company, discuss their new employee package, the environment they can expect to work in, and to allay any concerns or fears they may have had. The committed leaders of Numerix also communicated to them about how important they were and the great value the technology they produced brought to the company. In fact, their technology truly became a huge part of the organization’s branding and marketing efforts this year. As a result, commitment and morale remained strong.

Writing its Own Rules From a competitive standpoint, Numerix has often been a company that writes its own rules and anticipates change before anyone else. While traditional competitors maintain architectures developed for the historic legacy operating environment, Numerix has advanced by adopting and embracing fintech innovations, IT modernization and digitalization.

Working towards a microservices-

based architecture, Oneview is based on an open, flexible environment, data consistency and open-source languages.

Moving to an open architecture has enabled the fast delivery of new functionality and the ability to offer a truly scalable risk solution to clients.

This openness has also provided vital flexibility. Oneview solutions can react more efficiently and be adapted to meet changing conditions. This is how Numerix Oneview is transforming today’s technology landscape as the industry’s next generation, intelligent front-to-risk platform.

Promising Future In the long run, Numerix sees itself leading the fintech industry in its space in the capital markets arena. The company believes this can’t happen without a vibrant, dedicated and productive workforce. It is an ambitious company that wants high performers. As a technology firm, Numerix understands that innovation comes through the efforts of those driven to excellence and it attempts to provide an environment that nurtures and rewards that drive. Jennifer pushes an approach towards garnering this “environment of excellence” that is based on three pillars: Encourage professional motivation Numerix believes if employees do not feel motivated to complete the tasks at hand, the efficiency in the office may decrease. This is why the organization fosters an environment of individual empowerment and encourages employees to “own” their future. Every employee is viewed as critical to the success of Numerix, regardless of their role or function, and they are given the space to help Numerix achieve that success. This employee-focused principal has been instrumental in the rapid growth of the organization. Ÿ

Provide mental breaks and build a family atmosphere Sometimes, employees need breaks from concentrated periods of work as a Ÿ

way to reenergize. Some of the breaks Numerix provides include Lunch and Learns, ping pong tournaments, birthday celebrations, annual international food festivals, and happy hours. The company even offers Summer Half-Day Fridays, with a happy hour before they depart. It also focuses on building employee bonds through shared experiences, such as participating in softball and bowling leagues. Numerix is all about the extended family as well: for the children of employees, the company has Bring your Kids to Work Day, Breakfast with Santa, and holiday luncheons. All these activities are designed to make employees more productive and more secure in the value they bring to the company.

Reward employees who complete outstanding work As a company, Numerix recognizes employees during its monthly town halls for their excellence and encourages innovation through mini perks such as long weekends for teams that have completed major projects.

Apart from the standard annual incentives of promotions, raises and bonuses, Numerix holds an Awards Ceremony once a year that culminates in the recognition of an Employee of the Year. This prize entails a one week fully paid vacation anywhere in the world for the employee and his/her spouse or significant other. Ÿ

Numerix also places a great deal of emphasis on employee satisfaction. Its employee retention rate is nearly twice that of similar companies. The average employment stay for a Numerix employee is 7.6 years versus the average retention of 4.6 in the industry (as provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics). The organization has also exceeded the levels of ethnic and gender diversity by whole multiples.

Cover Story

We have created an environment where the generation and implementation of ideas ourish, where there is the constant pursuit of greater technology, and where entrepreneurial thinking is encouraged.- Jennifer

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Management

Brief

akaCRM akacrm.com

Brent Mellow President & CEO

akaCRM is a Salesforce Cloud Alliance Partner, providing comprehensive services for Salesforce® and Conga®.

Banker’s Toolbox bankerstoolbox.com

Wayne Roberts CEO

Banker’s Toolbox provides software, professional and consulting services to give financial institutions confidence in their BSA, Anti-Money Laundering and fraud detection programs.

KPMG US kpmg.com

Afrah Faraj Marketing & Communications Manager

KPMG is a global network of independent member firms offering audit, tax and advisory services.

Lunarline lunarline.com

Waylon Krush CEO

Lunarline provides the solutions and staff to secure data with its solutions called ‘Solutions Built on Security’™.

Numerix numerix.com

Jennifer Bonelli Vice President

Numerix is recognized across the industry for its many breakthroughs in quantitative research and being able to price and risk manage any derivative instrument.

Peloton Group pelotongroup.com

Guy F.Daniello Founder & CEO

Peloton enables its clients to drive growth and enhance business performance through digital transformation.

Push Payments pushpayments.com

Travis Dulaney CEO & CTO

PUSH Payments is an instant payments processor specializing in the immediate transfer of value between a multitude of accounts types.

RHB Bank rhbgroup.com

Norazzah Sulaiman Communications Manager

Smart Energy Water smartusys.com

Herman Sandhu President

Smart Energy water (SEW) is the #1 global energy and water cloud platform for customer engagement, workforce engagement, and smart analytics to the energy and water utility sector.

Webresults webresults.it

Giuseppe Alfonsi Product Marketing

WebResults offers cloud IT services and specializes in delivering projects tailored to support company’s sales, marketing, and customer service processes.

Company Name

The RHB Banking Group provides financial products and services through its main subsidiaries – RHB Bank Berhad, RHB Investment Bank Berhad, OSK Investment Bank Berhad etc.

Company of the Month

SEW:

A Global Smart Energy & Water Cloud Platforms Provider

eadquartered in Irvine, California and founded in the year 2012, Smart Energy Water (SEW) aims to continuously lead the industry with its innovative solutions. These solutions are easy to use and integrate seamlessly with the existing back-end systems. SEW displays its uniqueness in leading the industry with innovative solutions that are used to increase the operational efficiency while reducing IT costs by leveraging advanced technologies such as Cloud, Mobility, Analytics, AI, Machine Learning and IoT.

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agility, innovation and increased collaboration. To align employee’s day-to-day actions with strategic business objectives, provide visibility related to performance expectations, support in future planning and decisions and skill development and learning choices SEW conducts an effective performance management process. This enables team leaders and managers to evaluate and measure individual performance and optimize productivity thus augmenting and amplifying the capabilities of the employees at a large scale.

At present, SEW is well-known as the #1 global energy and water cloud platform focusing on providing digital customer and workforce engagement and smart analytics to the energy and utility sector. It harnesses the power of technology to simplify, automate and integrate various aspects of activities to create a modern workplace that is productive, secure, creative and responsive. At SEW, innovation comes from developing a collective sense of purpose by unleashing the creativity of teams throughout their organization and empowering them to act on new ideas to recognize unconventional opportunities.

The evolving workplace strategies opted by SEW enable employees to stay engaged and walk an extra mile to accept true ownership of an issue and deliver on their commitments to both internal and external stakeholders. The organization is passionate to develop a truly customer centric business by delivering innovative solutions with best services and support while addressing the social and industrial challenges. More importantly, to engage employee’s talent towards a productive culture of success, it conducts team gathering sessions like smart hangouts, knowledge and training sessions, internal campaigns and focus on work collaboration.

A Comprehensive Growth Strategy With an objective to promote and improve employee effectiveness, SEW works together as a team to plan, monitor and review an employee’s work objectives and their contribution to the organization’s vision. Empowered by the vision of the company, the leadership team connects the need for innovation to SEW’s strategic goals and corporate values.

Following the lead, the team runs internal campaigns that have been proven to be incredibly successful in generating new and meaningful ideas.

A Passionate Leader Harman Sandhu, as the President of the organization, leads the strategic growth initiatives at Smart Energy Water. He has extensively advised energy and utility companies on commodity management, regulation, smart grid, metering, and information technology projects. Prior to SEW, he worked with PwC and KPMG for over eleven years where he led the delivery of business strategy and technology consulting services to Fortune 1000 companies. He is passionate about developing technology products and scalable SaaS business models. Harman holds a BE degree in Computer Sciences and MBA.

Additionally, being a forward-thinking company, SEW focuses on creating a better employee environment to increase the level of innovation in terms of new products and services and deliver better customer experiences. SEW teams are empowered to embrace a workplace culture that necessitate a new approach including the need for greater

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Software-as-a Service Platform SEW has developed a wide range of cutting-edge products to address the challenges of utilities and customers. The primary areas include digital customer engagement, mobile

December 2018

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workforce, energy efficiency, water conservation and big data analytics. This suite leverages technologies to facilitate the modernization and digital transformation utilities. Some of the mentionable award-winning and innovative industries proven solutions are: Smart Customer Mobile (SCM®) – The Digital Customer Engagement Platform SCM® provides self-service capabilities to utility customers enabling real-time two-way communication. It is an integrated comprehensive solution with native mobile app functionality which is user friendly and delivers meaningful customer insights by providing in-built configurable modules. From usage consumption to bill payments, service requests, outage reporting, online energy/water auditing, home energy/water reports and program enrollment, SCM® provides a 360-degree view of all customer interactions on a single integrated platform. ®

Through in-built analytics, SCM also provides actionable insights on consumption patterns that help utilities manage demands, and educate their customers about controlling their usage, minimizing consumption, advice on various conservation and efficiency programs. It helps utilities offer personalized services, enable effective customer engagement, and deliver enhanced customer satisfaction. It enables citizens and communities to contribute sustainability globally by leading a sustainable living.

Smart Mobile Workforce (SMW®) – The Digital Mobile Workforce Engagement Platform December 2018

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Harman Sandhu President

We focus on delivering technology that reduces the environmental impact of the modern lifestyle.

SMW® is a single integrated mobile platform designed for the utility mobile workers and management to increase efficiency, productivity, compliance and safety by enabling real-time two-way communication between the field workers and dispatchers at the back office. With one touch intelligence and accuracy, it provides end-to-end workforce management, user-friendly interface and real time updates which allow mobile workers to continue working on wireless coverage.

Smart iQ- The Energy and Water Analytics Platform Smart iQ is an intelligent analytics platform with built-in customer and operational analytics. The platform provides real time data analysis on Peak Load Management, Leakage Analytics, Customer Segmentation, Energy Efficiency, Water Conservation and Performance Evaluation to improve the operational and workforce efficiency along with Customer Service insights. It uses leading mobile & cloud technologies in most secured environment which provides predictive analysis in artificial intelligence.

Future Expansion SEW is driven by a vision to create value for the citizens to help utilities and government addressing the global challenges of sustainability by leveraging technologies to achieve environmental efforts and contribute to environmental stewardship. The goal is to sustainably develop smart communities for citizens who work on smart, connected and integrated digital network with a common goal of conservation and efficiency. The goals set by SEW is within a SMART framework which includes open communication channels across all teams by expanding offices globally through increasing employee engagement and use of new tools and technologies.

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Maestros Insights

Healthcare Technologies

Driving Successful Innovation

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he world is changing rapidly, so is healthcare technology. In today’s accelerated technological environment, changes are occurring at a blistering pace. In the last fifteen years, we have progressed from phone books, to computers, to handheld devices. Although not as visible to the naked eye, healthcare has actually progressed at an even higher velocity than many of the technologies we are familiar with. Doctors have moved from loose paper based charting, to structured computer documentation that allows for standardized reporting and benchmarking, all the way to system assisted medicine.

This transition from paper to digital has opened the doors for technological advancement within healthcare at a pace that has never been seen before.

These advances in healthcare technology are having a profound effect on the entire healthcare ecosystem. They are allowing for cross-functional integration and collaboration amongst disparate healthcare professionals and systems. Consider this- if you received a prescription ten years ago, it was likely on a piece of paper. Today, it is transmitted electronically through a clearinghouse to the local pharmacy. This simple change alone accounts for an almost unlimited branching of technological opportunities such as drug interaction comparison, medication adherence, utilization tracking and ways to overcome the opioid crisis. Now, multiply this times 10,000 and you begin to see the speed at which healthcare technology is driving innovation.

Benedikt Brueckle

Chief Executive Officer CompuGroup Medical US

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Advancements in Healthcare technology are further accelerated and driven by companies such as CompuGroup Medical.

CompuGroup Medical is the leading company solely focused on e-health with more than one million users worldwide. It is currently in the final stages of development of the foremost cutting-edge electronic medical record, practice management, patient engagement, and provider/patient toolset platform in the industry – the MediOne platform. These types of technological advancements will continue to facilitate a better exchange of patient data, as December 2018

About the Author Benedikt Brueckle is the CEO of CompuGroup Medical US. He is the top performing management executive in e-Health and digital healthcare with expertise in building and optimizing organizational processes, measurement systems, and infrastructure to maximize business results. He also has expertise in running software operations throughout Europe, including restructuring, opening new markets, and expanding market share. Benedikt focuses on developing strategic plans into workable solutions, and benchmarking performance against key operational targets and goals. In addition, Benedikt oversees mergers and acquisitions in various countries with due diligence by negotiating contracts and post-acquisition integrations. His success is proven through his initiatives that exceed operational performance targets and yield measurable outcomes. CompuGroup Medical's CEO is a strategic leader, driven to grow and expand business organically and inorganically, explore new markets, and drive efficiency.

Will the product need a tutorial and extensive training ? Ÿ Is it intuitive enough ? Ÿ How will the User Experience be ?

well as drive additional utilization through intuitive adoption amongst both provider and patient communities.

Innovation such as this will continue to deliver a surge of better patient outcomes while improving operational and financial efficiency within the healthcare sector. This will, in turn, allow providers to deliver better care across the continuum of the patient/provider universe.

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Healthcare technology businesses, just like any other business, are based upon need, service, creativity and ultimately customer satisfaction. Competition is strong, so what is your company’s differentiator, what makes you unique?

This is the question you ask yourself as a company in this competitive technology market. For businesses, you need to move with the times and the technology. The business culture is fast paced and with a creative edge. When developing and testing a technological breakthrough, companies must ask themselves whether or not they actually innovate, and whether or not that innovation is at the expense of the user experience: Ÿ Do you just plan to reinvent the wheel ? Ÿ What will distinguish you from the competition ?

Businesses will survive and keep up with these healthcare advancements in technology by expanding on the points below: Ÿ Envision: Make sure you have a clear vision of what the supposed outcome will be. Have a clear WHY for what you’re doing. Don’t just do it for the sake of doing it or “winging it”. Ÿ Plan: This is your roadmap, your guide to how the business will function and what your end goal will be. Make sure to account for changes as well, as they will inevitably happen. Ÿ Implement: It’s all about how you implement your plan. This requires obtaining the proper personnel.

You cannot have a lackluster, lackadaisical freeloader waiting for things to drop in his or her lap.

They need the tenacity, the forward

December 2018

However, the most important question is if the product will actually enable the customer: Ÿ Will the customer be able to achieve their goals of digitalization ?

thinking, and the drive. Processes need to be put in place as guidelines for your departments to work collaboratively with an end goal in mind. Ÿ Grow: Healthcare technology is a growing business. Physicians are eager to increase their efficiency and lower administrative burdens to be able to spend more of their time with the actual patient.

Patients want excellent care, with the least amount of cost and the best return. Move with the timesmarket trends, competitive analysis, trade shows, and focus groups are just some ways your business can grow. You should be the sponge of knowledge and you should have a creative and aggressive marketing campaign.

Communicate what your business can do effectively, efficiently and creatively. Ÿ Lead and Challenge: Your business should be at the forefront of the technologies. You want to be the leader not the follower. You want to be able to push the trend and create the market saturation.

Invent and create. Be the one that comes up with the idea and implement. Make sure your business is unique in what it is offering.

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akaCRM: Delivering CRM Results, the Faster, Easier Way Brent Mellow President and CEO

akaCRM

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evolutionary products from business technology leaders like Salesforce and Conga are transforming how companies succeed in a complex and highly competitive world. However, the accelerated adoption of digital solutions in a short timeframe has left many companies floundering for adequate support.

It does not have to be that way.

Since 2009, a Salesforce Cloud Alliance partner has been providing a comprehensive range of services to allow businesses of all sizes to overcome these challenges.

Their motto is ‘Be easy to do business with’ and the company is akaCRM.

A Wide Footprint akaCRM is one of the most trusted names in the implementation and integration of Salesforce, Conga, Pardot, and related platforms. It excels at helping companies leverage the power of business technology to drive customer acquisition and retention, suppress costs, and boost revenue.

With its steady growth over the past decade, akaCRM now staffs experts in 10 states. The company’s clients are located in 45 states across the country. They come from fields as diverse as business services, education, financial services, gaming & entertainment, health, law, manufacturing, nonprofits, technology, and transportation.

In recent years, akaCRM has started to devote more resources to delivering add-in applications for its Student Success Platform and Nonprofit Success Platform. These gateways give higher education and charitable institutions the same powerful tools to maximize results as large enterprises.

Every client receives the consistently high quality of service and delivery that is always associated with the akaCRM brand.

However, the company also tailors its approach to cater to a wide range of budgets and can be adapted to varying levels of client collaboration or independence.

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December 2018

Customers which want to retain complete control and oversight can opt for just training and advisory services.

Those who prefer some collaboration can choose co-managed implementations. Other clients prefer to leave it to the experts and take the turn-key implementation alternative.

A significant factor that distinguishes akaCRM from its competitors is that the company itself uses the vast majority of products it deploys for clients. The level of familiarity and proficiency its experts possess cannot be replicated by other companies, which rely primarily on scenario-based training.

Leading from the Front Successful companies have one thing in common – committed leadership. At akaCRM, that leadership comes from its President and CEO, Brent Mellow.

Brent is not just a C-suite executive but one of the most experienced and knowledgeable Salesforce experts anywhere. His association with the platform began as a customer in 2001 and evolved into a partnership in 2003.

Today, he is a Salesforce Certified Administrator, Advanced

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We treat your company like it was our own giving you solid Salesforce advice and services to improve your results.

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December 2018

Administrator, Sales Cloud Consultant, Platform App Builder, Pardot Specialist, Pardot Consultant and Salesforce Accredited Sales Professional.

Along the way, Brent has owned and managed three separate Salesforce consultancies and contributed to innumerable Salesforce initiatives. His words have resounded at the platform’s annual conference, Dreamforce.

Over the past two decades, Brent Mellow’s incisive analysis, bold creativity, and irrepressible vigor have drawn some of the most talented minds and largest businesses to Salesforce and to akaCRM. A Unique Workplace The work culture at akaCRM is distinctly different from virtually every company, and not just in the Salesforce sphere. Company staff which are spread from the West Coast to the East Coast, have the option to work from home offices or from personal executive suites.

The versatility and agility of its distributed workforce are among akaCRM’s strongest assets. However, such a revolutionary approach to staffing does present some unique obstacles.

“Creating a sense of connectedness with a remote-based team is always a challenge,” Brent explains, “To counter it, we use technology to build bridges. Chat, video conferencing, and Chatter groups remind our staff that they are part of a single, cohesive team.”

“This is supplemented with a firstFriday all-team meeting. It keeps everyone aligned to a common vision focused on the company’s core values.”

The akaCRM workplace is an ecosystem in constant, positive flux.

Brent’s management team proactively implements strategies to improve employee work-life balance and their latest initiative is the four-day work

week. It is an option the company offers to employees during the summer months. akaCRM’s commitment to people goes well beyond simplifying attendance; the company’s continuing investment in people is the bedrock of its success.

Brent elaborates on this aspect of his company.

“One of the reasons clients select us is because of the talent here. We hire individuals who demonstrate a passion for learning and a desire to expand their skills. The network of support we offer includes paying for certification tests and personalized routes of advancement that cater to every individual’s strengths and skills.”

By cultivating this culture of mutual respect, and by nurturing and rewarding talent, akaCRM continues to attract some of the most skilled and innovative professionals in the industry.

Proven Strategies, Proven Results Brent has witnessed firsthand the unprecedented upheaval in the arena of online engagement since the turn of the millennium. Instead of slowing, the pace of change has accelerated in recent years. The latest seismic shift is the advent of Cloud technology; its proliferation continues unabated.

He reveals how akaCRM has handled these evolutions with remarkable ease.

“Our core values of Trust, Creativity, Teamwork, and Scalability keep us focused. Scalability is perhaps the most crucial of all – it is the basis on which we develop high-quality processes that can be duplicated for consistency.”

The success of this systematic approach gives Brent and his team confidence that they are on the right track. With akaCRM’s popularity as a CRM provider surging, it seems the company’s clients agree.

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Editor’s Pick

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December 2018

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s an employee, if you were given a chance to sell your skills on the global stage with a greater sense of autonomy, independence, and flexibility as compare to the traditional 9 to5 job, what would you prefer? As an employer, if you were given a chance to hire a potential candidate on-demand at your terms and conditions as compared to a permanent hire, what would you prefer? This is where Gig economy comes into picture. The days of ‘life-long’ careers within the same company, longterm stability of a signed job contract, guaranteed significance of the skills acquired in the college, and predictable work routines are long gone.

In this fast paced global economic era, there is a growing demand for independent talent who are autonomous and willing to sell their skillsets on the global market. There are multiple factors that are giving exponential rise to Gig economy than even before. Below are some of these factors that are fuelling the growth of Gig economy, which is considered as the new and burgeoning trend in the HR space.

Financial Freedom According to a survey conducted on 6,247 Gig economy workers, 57% said they chose freelance path to earn more money. On an average, a freelance worker makes $60,000 a year, according to MBO partners. When a person works as a freelancer, he is not tied to incremental salary increases, or limited to how much you can make. Depending upon the industry, sky is the limit.

And this is what fascinates most to the freelancers.

Do what you really passionate about People work because it gives them the most important resource required to live i.e. Money. But how many people do the work which they really find fascinating; that is the million dollar question, and answer might be a fraction of the total workforce. This is another reason people get attracted towards freelancing, as it gives them an opportunity to do what they really find interesting and have a passion about.

Balanced Work Life Gig workers have full control of their workload, they can pick and choose how much they can take on and where and when to work at their own convenience. One LinkedIn survey which was conducted on 10,000 workers revealed that more than 46% value working in such a fashion because it allows them to work on flexible timings. According to Forbes, more than 35% like the work life balance that Gig economy provides to its workers.

Full Control over Destiny In a permanent job, employee works for some specific job role and are bound to work in the same domain if they want a greater hike or a better position.

Whereas, gig worker have the liberty to change career track whenever they

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time to time. This is where gig workers fit into the picture more conveniently than a full time employee. When employers seek a gig worker, they often look for a specific skillset among candidates.

Since a gig worker is not a full time employee and hired to complete specific project, chances of getting work done more efficiently, effectively and in timely manner always remains high.

Speedy Hiring and Onboarding Process: Conventional onboarding process many times takes weeks or even months.

But individuals in the flexible workforce are expected to onboard much more rapidly and even seamlessly integrate their work with the team. Since companies hire gig workers for their expertise in the subject matter and there is a no commitment for a full time employment, workers do get hires from various platforms in a very speedy manner with fast onboarding process.

Past and the Future want. If a person wants to make some more money, want to try something new, or want be their own boss, then being a gig worker they can achieve these goals and have more control over what to do next. For a big dreamer who never gets satisfied with a traditional job, entering flexible workforce might be a refreshing change of pace.

Not only Employees but Employers also want Flexibility In most part of the contemporary world, employers also now gracefully accept the option of contractual manpower due to variety of advantages that contract worker bring for an organization.

Skill based Hiring: Many jobs require a specialist only when there is a dire need of it, not all the 365 days a year.

Then, why to spend extra money on a full time employee, is the burning question that arises in the mind of recruiters

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While alternative work arrangement has been in the fashion for long but its usage has grown significantly over the past decade. The fraction of contingent employees in the labor force increased from 10% to 16% between 2005 and 2015, with alternative work arrangements accounting for all of the net growth in employment over the past decade.

The increased applications of disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence, robotics and automation will shape the future of global workforce and will significantly give rise to so-called gig economy. According to one survey, an estimated 7.6 million Americans will be regularly working as providers in the on-demand economy by 2020, more than doubling the current total of 3.2 million flexible taskforce.

Gig economy is still at the nascent stage, according to research firm PwC, gig economy cover mere a 2% of the total recruitment market. But by 2020, gig economy will worth $63 billion globally.

December 2018

Banker’s Toolbox: A Revolutionary Fraud Prevention Platform

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ecognizing and adapting to risk is one of the biggest challenges financial institutions face and it is a problem that is becoming more and more complex. Banker’s Toolbox recognizes this trend and believes in having an enterprise-level view of risk is the only way to truly understand the threats to an institution. With so few institutions having the capability, much less the personnel, to address this type of strategic need, the challenge becomes how do financial institutions gather data and review it systematically to provide their executives and board of directors the intelligence needed to make strategic business decisions based on an institution’s risk. This is the problem Banker’s Toolbox is trying to help financial institutions solve.

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Wayne Roberts CEO

At Banker's Toolbox, our mission statement is displayed on our wall as a daily reminder of who we are and what we believe. We put a lot of pride into our products, employees and customers.

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December 2018

The Importance of Enterprise Risk Management: An ERM solution provides a holistic view of all the material risk a financial institution faces and is integrated with key decision-making processes across the organization. It gives executives and the board of directors an all-encompassing view of risk areas of the institution in one centralized location, streamlining a way to identify, measure, monitor and control risk. Often, risk management is siloed into various systems and executives have to piece together reports from multiple systems to attempt to see their entire risk profile. From a centralized ERM dashboard model, they can generate valuable reports so the board, who is ultimately responsible and liable, can appropriately understand the risk and thus govern effectively.

There is a greater focus on governance at an institution where the board and senior management should have a heightened awareness of the bank’s risk profile and mitigation efforts – i.e. risk governance & corporate governance.

Larger institutions, with over $750 billion in assets, are subject to higher standards in this arena. These “heightened” standards eventually make their way to community banks, especially those with complex risk profiles, often in a subdued version.

Basic steps, such as developing reports that compare and aggregate risk concentrations across business lines, industries and geographies, can provide valuable insight into a bank’s vulnerabilities to economic and market trends. Having an ERM solution is an integral part of an institution’s success.

December 2018

Mitigating Risk Across the Organization: The risk that financial institutions face encompasses more than monetary transactions. It covers all aspects of a financial institution from credit to lending to strategy and even an institution’s reputation. Knowing that, Banker’s Toolbox CEO, Wayne Roberts, a leader with more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry, set out to continue to trailblaze a path in the industry and cultivate the next generation of product innovation. Under his tutelage, Banker’s Toolbox acquired two industry-leading companies in the allowance software solutions sector in 2018, Main Street Technologies and Sageworks. Main Street Technologies (MST) is a pioneer of allowance software solutions for financial institutions and supports institutions in their most critical quarterly calculations with increasingly comprehensive and sophisticated automation. Sageworks is a leading fintech company that develops innovative solutions to make financial data easier to understand through their banking platform.

At the end of 2018, the three companies combined to become a growing leader in the enterprise risk management field. Under this new, united umbrella, the organization has set goals to create and develop software which brings an institution’s entire risk portfolio into the same dashboard. This would allow everyone from the back office to the C-Suite to the board of directors the opportunity to get a holistic perspective of their risk profile and make better-informed business decisions.

Together, Banker’s Toolbox combines the continued success of these three companies into one company, designed to bring a larger view of risk together onto one platform. Taking a strategic highgrowth plan, they aim to be the industry leader in enterprise risk management software. Not settling for just AML and allowance software, the leadership team continues to look for additional products to add to their successful portfolio and continue to lead the company on a path of stable growth.

Dedicated to Their Customers: Through all of this progress, one thing has remained steadfastly important and will continue to be a guiding principle at Banker’s Toolbox: the success of their customers. The company believes in offering “Success, not just software” and it is a motto that continues to inspire them through their mergers and acquisitions. The staff is dedicated to helping their customers succeed beyond providing the software to do so. The three companies combine to bring together above a 90% customer retention rate, not only adding to their growth but confirming their dedication to their customers.

Combining high customer retention rates, strong patterns of growth and proven leaders in the enterprise risk space positions Banker’s Toolbox on the precipice of the financial technology industry.

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Tech Trend

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he secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world” - Steve Jobs

The said quote itself explains the power of recruiting ‘right’ candidate. A right candidate has the potential to transform an organization fortune to a new level. A right candidate brings quality and effectiveness that builds a brand and develops a unique customer experience, while a ‘wrong’ candidate can lead to a lot of extra stress and issues that can hinder the development of a business. But at the core, hiring right talent is important, and this is where HR personnel struggle the most.

With the advent of an emerging technique known as “People Analytics”, hiring right candidate will get easy than ever before.

Necessity of People Analytics Competition for onboarding top talent is getting fierce, especially in industries, like IT, financial service firms, healthcare sector, and manufacturing, that are going to witness a massive transformation. Ever growing numbers of job seekers, shaken economy and neck-to-neck ruthless competition are making HR’s job even more challenging to find right talent for the right job. One technique that is seen as a solution for the said problem is “People Analytics”. It is an emerging field that is pulling everyone’s attention due to its potential to assist HR people in recruiting the right talent.

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December 2018

Understanding People Analytics People analytics or HR analytics is the application of statistics, mathematics, and modeling which collects and process worker-related data to see and predict patterns. This technique assist organizations to predict whether a particular person fit for a given job or not. Due to its ability to boost hiring and retaining the right talent, some people have gone so far that they have even started calling it as a “crystal ball for HR”.

How ‘People Analytics’ can help HR fraternity • Identifying the features or variables in jobs and employees that matter/counts most • Matching those important job variables with a pool of applicants or recruits • Predicting the likelihood of a worker to stay on the job for a long time or to “churn” • And recommending salaries and other compensation to bolster longevity Importance of Peoples Analytics There are lots of important questions that arise into the mind of management peoples like: How can we find more top performers? What do our most successful leaders do to excel at their work, and how can we replicate that across the organization? Which people are most likely to stay for long?

Which employees are likely to leave? With the right analytical tool in hand, one can get the right and accurate answers to these vital questions which plays a pivotal role in shaping company’s fortune and can assist an organization to maintain a robust workforce.

Popular HR Analytics Tools Power BI Power BI link multiple sources like SQL database with people’s data, live twitter feed, machine learning API’s and more. All these different data sources are then combined with an aggregation process to create one large database.

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The consolidated data then can be used to create pivot table to let end user get a quick insight in the key areas of the workforce. And, all these meaningful insights then the end user can see in a user-friendly manner with Power BI’s dash boarding capacity.

SPSS Dealing with analytics requires some sort of technical capability to make the most of it. But what if the end user is not a technical person but still want the same results which can be derived from the above tool. Answer to this said concern is ‘SPSS’ tool. Without having extensive statistical knowledge, an end user can do an exploratory correlation analysis or a quick regression analysis. This makes SPSS one of the most commonly used HR analytics tools in social sciences.

Rstudio It is a people analytical tool which is best suited to process huge data sets. It provides valuable insights that can help an organization to maintain robust workforce. It’s potential to let end user visualize and statistically analyze candidate data with the help of user friendly interface is the prime reason behind its popularity.

Interesting Research Finding Many recent studies even proved the effectiveness and productivity of People Analytics techniques. Recently, Deloitte’s Bersin found that organizations that use people analytics techniques at a sophisticated level reported 82 percent higher three-year average profits than corporations without properly-deployed people analytics methods.

Over the world more number of schools, colleges, and universities are opening up than ever before. There is an increased awareness for education as well. More people want to get access to quality education to raise their living standards. All these are resulting into increased number of job seekers. With business competition going intense with each passing year, recruiting right talent has become the need of hour for HR personnel. The potential benefit of People Analytics will then definitely assist HR fraternity in recruiting and maintaining a robust workforce if applied meticulously.

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December 2018

Strengthening Cyber-security and Privacy Capabilities of Businesses

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oday modern businesses face tough challenges when it comes to protecting critical or sensitive information. Hackers constantly try to attack on vital information or confidential data. There are many risks which threaten businesses that can distort business processes. Businesses are prominently threatened from malware, hackers, viruses and the most invasive cyberthreats. Malicious cyber attacks are constantly increasing.

Sometimes World Wide Web can be very overwhelming and dangerous place to be in. During the last five years, more than 9 billion data records have disappeared or were stolen. If businesses start to worry about their data security then it will eventually hamper their productivity and it won’t allow them to focus on important aspects of businesses. Therefore it is very essential to have solutions that can protect confidential information from cyber threats and attacks.

Best workplaces in technology are equipped with necessary resources to provide cyber security and privacy to essential data of customers and businesses. Lunarline is one such leading cyber security and privacy provider. It protects businesses from all kind of cyber threats and allows them to focus on important aspect of businesses. It provides secure solutions that improve the security posture of the federal government, Department of Defense, and commercial companies worldwide. It also empowers its employees to invest time in solving significant challenges and grow their

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December 2018

Solutions Built on Security Lunarline has been a full spectrum cyber security and privacy company for over 14 years. Its mission and vision is “Solutions Built on Security” and everything it does and invests in is around enhancing its customers’ ability to develop resilient people, process, and technologies.

Comprehensive Cyber Security Lunarline is a leading cyber security and privacy provider to the Federal Government, as well as private industry. Its unique approach to cyber security combined with proven products, specialized services, and certified training together act as a complete solution customized for the success of cyber mission of customers of businesses. Lunarline monitor, protect and secure all the important data of businesses. It prevents data loss with encrypted storage and virtualized recovery which eventually allows businesses to enjoy increased productivity. It helps businesses stay up, stay running and stay protected.

Solving Significant Challenges Lunarline has developed a suite of force-multiplier security and privacy tools that help to strengthen and automate its offerings to its customers.

Because of this it becomes possible for its employees to spend more time on solving the much more significant cyber and privacy challenges its customers face. The organization has started to significantly enhance its cyber and privacy automation platforms in order to work together and to strengthen its customers’ current cyber and privacy infrastructure investments. It has also updated all of its over 100 courses at the School of Cyber Security (SCS) and over 50 December 2018

Cyber Certified Expert (CCE) certifications to meet the new and rigorous requirements around every specialty and workforce area supported by the National Initiative for Cyber Education (NICE). Lunarline provides sector specific solutions that transform security programs and reduce cost.

Elite Cyber Security Experts All of Lunarline’s Management Team from the CEO to every director in the company works directly in the cyber and privacy field and its contributions span just about every area of cyber and privacy across customers and sectors.

Lunarline’s elite cyber security experts transforms security infrastructure of businesses.

Waylon Krush is Lunarline’s CoFounder, President and CEO. He’s happier out in the field helping Lunarline clients fight back against an ever more threatening cyber world.

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Solutions Built on Security – everything we do is to better the security and privacy capabilities of

Some of his notable recent projects include redesigning a major federal security operations center to combat advanced persistent threats (he even pulled few night shifts), developing systems for RF/Signal/System monitoring, and creating cyber intelligence platforms for various organizations around the world.

Waylon has more than 20 years of experience in cyber security, critical infrastructure protection (CIP), security operations, information operations (IO), signals intelligence etc.

Integrating Best Practices Lunarline fights cyber-crime by using the feed lessons learned. Best practices learned back into School of Cyber Security which helps it to constantly advance its cyber and privacy missions for its commercial and Federal customers.

Workforce Training Lunarline understands the cyber and privacy workforce is being spread very thin – so it continues to invest heavily into cyber and privacy workforce training programs and automation tools that reduce the workloads put on its teams.

Cost Efficient Cyber Programs Lunarline has developed close relationships and solutions for over 500 customers in Federal and Commercial Sectors over 14 years in business. It has created some of the most innovative tools, programs, and solutions to ensure its customers have effective and cost efficient cyber programs – so its employees can continue to have areas to grow their skills and careers in cyber and privacy.

the customers we support.

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skills and career in providing better cyber security and privacy to businesses.

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Expert's Outlook

About the Author Pam Bateson is an expert coach and mentor in business, training others to Masters level qualiďŹ cations and supervising coaches. She has worked within the healthcare, retail, hotels, construction, media, agencies, education and public sector. She specialises in Coaching, Mentoring, Employee Engagement, Change Management, Learning and Development and Organisational Design. She has worked with all levels in organisations from graduates to the CEO. She has designed change programmes that connect projects, outcomes, training and coaching. The performance outcomes have been outstanding. She is CEO and Co-Founder at Thrive Partners.

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am Bateson set up Thrive Partners, an on-demand coaching company, three years ago. In this article, she shares her point of view on how important humans are in a more digital world, what she’s learned as a tech CEO, and what this means when you’re looking to use tech in a way that’s both disruptive and works for customers.

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In October 2015, I gave up a successful career as a management consultant and coach to set up Thrive Partners. Lots of people thought I was crazy. I was approaching 50, with two children still at home. But for the decade running up to that decision, I’d been thinking about a better way to deliver coaching – supported by digital, to share more widely the coaching tools I’d used to help clients for many years.

This was the business I set out to build three years ago. Today, we’re working with 25 clients on five continents – delivering our own brand of ondemand coaching, backed with insights for the whole business. The learning curve has been steep – particularly for someone who, by their own confession, didn’t have a lot of experience in learning technology. So here, I wanted to share some of the things we’ve learned – and what it might mean for your business.

Dream big I didn’t really set out to build a business that would be considered disruptive, but my background as a lean engineer and coach did mean that we ripped up the rulebook when it came to the coaching industry. We scrapped the idea that you needed to meet face to face, and that sessions had to last an hour, or even two hours. And we made it a lot easier for people to access a coach to answer the questions they had there and then – increasing access so people could chat to an expert within an hour.

Working with my co-founder, we then rebuilt the industry by asking the biggest questions we could imaging.

What if we could make coaching available to whole organisations? What if we could get listening as valued as speaking? And what if we could help organisations learn as quickly as individuals?

I found these questions irresistible: I wanted to do for coaching what Uber had done for getting a taxi, Netflix had done for home entertainment, and

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Tinder had done for dating. It’s these big dreams that have galvanised our success in the last few years – and which has set us in the right direction for the future.

The whole-system insights we produced has helped to make sales processes smoother, improved communications and created more opportunities for people to learn.

Build for modern users Despite big dreams, we’ve also made our fair share of mistakes! A lot of them mistakes happened when we took our attention away from our end customers. It sounds obvious to see it there on the page. But it can be easy to lose sight of the customers that matter most, especially when, as a tech CEO, sometime we get preoccupied with a shiny piece of new technology.

Keep it human With suicide being the biggest killer of men under 45, loneliness sweeping through developed economies in epidemic proportions and a third of all young people suffering from anxiety, I strongly believe that we have a duty to keep talking to each other as a society.

So, what to consider first when it comes to users? The main thing to bear in mind is that they expect experiences that are easy and fast to access – a shift brought about by what we call the ‘Amazon Prime Mindset.’ In this era, clunky user experiences reduce the chances of uptake of services. In short, if your technology can’t match or exceed the quality of digital experience people get in their everyday lives, then you’ll need to go back to the drawing board.

Create wins for the many So, if users come first – who else can we harness the power of technology for?

Our answer? Everyone else in the system.

Early on in the development of our MyThrive platform, we realised that delivering digitally would enable us to do more than just scale and facilitate coaching in global organisations; it would also mean we could spot trends and patterns within communities of users, in organisations or society at large. Just as carefully listening has a powerful and transformative role in one-to-one coaching conversations, carefully listening to and analysing anonymised version of the conversations we host has a powerful and transformative role within whole organisations.

We believe that keeping the art of conversation alive in this digital age is essential; only humans can master creativity, empathy, humour and imagination in a way that’s compelling.

Information is everywhere, so we’re using technology differently – to offer real human experiences at scale, at any time of the day, whenever our clients need a conversation, for everything you can’t Google.

And what of the future? Curiously, even the structures of artificial intelligence and machine learning look set to mimic human patterns. It’s still early days, but leaders in this space talk of ‘deep learning’ with AI – by layering up different tools that connect in the same way as our brain’s neural networks.

And so, the next three years?

My recent experiences have led us to ask even bigger questions than we did to begin with – which I suspect will lead to our next irresistible set of adventures! What if we could transform learning management systems into learning ecosystems?

What if any community of learners could connect with any community of teachers? And what if a better understanding of outcomes from learning could help both individuals, organisations and society to thrive?

I for one believe there are exciting times ahead.

December 2018

Driving Growth and Enhancing Performance through Digital Transformation

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he technology sector, one of the fastest-growing segments of the economy, is also famously one of the best industries for job seekers. But there’s more to creating a great workplace than perks. The best workplaces not only walk the talk, but back it up with generous benefits, a strong culture and mutual trust between management and employees.

One such best workplace in technology is Peloton Consulting Group (“Peloton”). Peloton is a leading consultancy that helps clients drive growth and enhance performance through digital transformation.

Guy F. Daniello is CEO and Founder of Peloton Consulting Group. He understands and values the importance of teamwork and leads the firm with a passion for customer service, innovation and quality work. His leadership is reflected in all aspects of the firm. He named the company based on inspiration he derived from cycling.

A peloton is a group of cyclists working together as an integrated team.

When cyclists ride in a peloton, they ride with 40% more efficiency allowing them to go faster. Peloton’s

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team of solution and industry experts come together to help their customers achieve business goals faster.

Providing Comprehensive Services Peloton provides a full suite of services to help companies realize digital transformation. The company provides Advisory services to envision, benchmark, and assess people, process, and technology to help customers understand the value of leveraging modern best practices. These insights result in a roadmap and implementation blueprint.

Further, it provides Consulting services to ensure a successful implementation that drives change across people, process and technology leveraging a fit to modern approach. Peloton uses its proven BreakawayTM implementation methodology to deliver high quality, innovative projects and ensure adoption begins at project inception.

The company also leverages Cloud Solution Accelerators to help customers reduce manual effort, cost of ownership and increase accuracy and efficiency.

The company also provides Managed Services to help clients successfully support, enhance and ensure their transformation is successful.

A Culture of Values and Innovation At the core of Peloton’s culture are its values of Teamwork, Integrity, Innovation, Can-do-attitude, Service and Voice.

Innovation is in all aspects of its business and it invests in bringing new insights and technology to its clients.

Peloton uses the latest business process best practices when it comes to helping their clients implement the latest cloud and analytics solutions. Their Breakaway™ delivery methodology provides customers with an innovative approach to project delivery that drives business adoption.

Internally, Peloton has built its culture of innovation based on collaboration and constant learning. The company holds weekly trainings named “Vitamin I” sessions (the I stands for innovation) where employees share new ideas and strategies for solution implementations, technical design, and

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Peloton has the vision and connected capabilities to help CFOs, CIOs and business leaders to envision, implement and realize the benefits of digital transformation.

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Guy F. Daniello CEO & Founder

Peloton Consulting Group

process improvement. Peloton also facilitates “All Company Dialogues” which engage the entire organization – across the U.S. and globally. These sessions represent an open and honest discussion with the entire firm where all employees actively participate and discuss challenges and opportunities that drive innovative approaches and cutting-edge ideas. These ideas are then reviewed and prioritized to be embedded in Peloton’s go-forward business strategy.

Development of Employees Peloton values its people and works hard to strengthen its culture and learning environment. This starts with attracting and retaining people who have deep experience and love what they do.

Peloton invests in its employees by finding innovative ways to train, crosstrain and work smarter. In the past year, Peloton modernized its internal technologies by introducing more virtual collaboration tools, enhancing December 2018

its performance management processes to celebrate achievements and promote skill development, and further developing employees through technical, business and soft skills which are imperative to building a world-class team.

Additionally, in support of its Service value, its team members demonstrate their enthusiasm for helping those in the community by hosting quarterly community service events. These events give Peloton’s employees the opportunity to strengthen team connections and most importantly help improve the communities where they do business.

Benefiting Clients and Customers Clients approach Peloton looking for a lasting partnership and value the relationship they develop with them because of their commitment to honesty and innovation. Peloton leads the charge in helping clients realize the power of digital transformation by continuing to invest in building

knowledge and capabilities and partnering with best-of-breed solution providers.

“I have worked with Peloton since the inception of the firm and believe they are one of the most customer-centric firms that I have worked with. They have a tremendous corporate culture that enables them to keep very talented people to help solve business challenges and add business value,” says the Director of Global Business Intelligence & Reporting at a $5B Global Management Consulting Firm.

“There’s no other firm like Peloton out there – bar none. They come to the table with their sleeves rolled up, ready to work and not afraid to get dirty.

Their sheer knowledge, expertise and management made a past implementation of mine one of the smoothest I ever experienced. They are a class act,” adds the Director of Finance at a $16B Global Pharmaceuticals Company.

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Empowering Workplaces

Constituents of a Productive

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ou cannot mandate productivity; you must provide tools to let people become their best.” –Steve Jobs

When it comes to work culture, it is a tedious task for organizations to assume as to what kind of an environment, will the employees be most productive in. However, there are traditional methods of setting up the work culture, but with the consideration of all generations of employees, the process becomes even more complex. Moreover, there is always a dilemma of whether the employees create a productive culture or the culture makes the employees productive. But what consists of a work culture?

Apparently, it includes everything from an office space with good lighting to the organizational structure and the way communication flows. Ÿ In recent studies it was found that: Ÿ 58% of employees became managers because they were good at work and not because they were good at managing the force. Ÿ 79% of employees quit their jobs because of lack of appreciation from the management. Ÿ 50% of the paid leaves were left unused by the employees in America, reason being having the fear of being left behind in the work place, Ÿ 53% Americans are unhappy at work. Ÿ 58% employees admitted that they don’t trust their bosses and would rather trust a stranger than the former.

Evidently, the facts reflect a huge scope of improvement pertaining to work culture. The initial change towards the same is associated with the vision of the company. The employees must be well versed with the notion that drives the organization and the whole culture must have this essence imbibed within the vision. The next most vital part

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is values. The values that the company believes in must align with the value of its employees. However these are the key points which will direct the employees towards making the environment productive.

Following are the steps that will help the management create a productive place: Enabling Self-exploration Acknowledge individuals and their performances. Make them understand what they are doing rather than explaining what is to be done. This will maintain a track on their performance, growth and scope of improvement allowing them to understand the difference between their belief and the organization’s culture. These changes must be in context of the business needs.

Enhancing Perspectives Every employee has an outlook on his/her position in the organization. These outlooks, when combined, create the work environment. These beliefs may have generated before the employees were in the organizational ecosystem, but they do impact the overall approach of employees towards their work. Every little detail of how the reviews are given and how the task is operated, conditions the employees to behave accordingly. Organizations must pick the flow and reframe the perspective by formulating a routine that best describes the culture.

Devising Examples How employees perceive the organization depends on the knowledge they receive from their leaders. The values inculcated by the leaders decide how the employees will December 2018

approach towards their roles, which will ultimately design work culture. There should be a role model to make the employees grasp the mindset and values of the organization which promotes a culture that is best for the business.

Embracing Change Change is inevitable and in order to sustain, organizations need to change every now and then. However, while some employees are always ready to come on board, some are reluctant to change. In which case, the management must get into the skins of employees by knowing their zones and pushing them gently towards the change they require, keeping in mind certain limits.

restrictions, then they will not be able to perform and there will be no productivity.

Long story short, the culture that runs through the organization plays an important role in the productivity of the same. The organization must make efforts in creating an environment that promotes efficiency and it must update its processes consistently in order to sustain growth. These strategies will work both ways, for the employer and employees, making everyone satisfied. But like Steve Jobs said, “It’s not the company and the tools that we should believe, it’s the people who we should have faith in.”

What is your Story?

Every tribe has a story. These stories are a hardbound copy of the values, beliefs and culture a tribe believes in.

Similarly, an organization must have a success story which precisely defines its culture. It will keep the values right in the minds of people who work there. Moreover, the story enables a dialogue for the workers to communicate easily, which leads to productivity.

Making it Employee Driven One important thing to note is that it’s the employees that form a company. It is the people of an organization that decide its fate. So whatever the strategy is, make sure it is people friendly.

Because in the process of productivity if the workers are suffocated by the

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