The 10 Most Influential leaders in Business 2019

Volume 09 | Issue 06 | 2019

The Most

Inuential Leaders in Business 2019

Shreyans Mehta Co-founder

Ameya Talwalkar Co-founder

Making Cequence Security Synonymous with Application Security

Editor’s Desk Q Being Resolute in Purpose to Create Huge Impact

Influential leaders crossover the challenges on the way with grace, dignity, utmost composure, and by utilizing their talents, skills, abilities, and resources for glorious purposes.

uality leadership skills are most essential trait to lead an organization effectively. To be an influential leader, one has to come up with innovative ideas and implement them in a systematic manner. Innovative skills, adequate understanding of technology and its potential, ability to tap the resources, and to utilize all talents, skills, and abilities are some of the key characteristics of an influential leaders. An influential leader tries his level best to transform the available opportunities into attainable and sustainable success. Influential leaders don’t get caught up in wishful thinking. They believe in practical results. They are rational and are result oriented.

They plan their work and work their plan. They prioritize the most important activities. They become influential because they utilize time and resources in their hands wisely and calculatively. They take calculated risks. They believe in going beyond the comfort zone. They consider that being trapped in the safety zone is much more dangerous than the perception of the risk. They don’t take too much space.

Influential leaders understand the market, its needs and the potential opportunities very well. They implement their innovative ideas to create solutions to solve the needs of the customers more effectively. Influential leaders use the latest technologies to implement their ideas effectively. To be an influential leader one needs common sense, confidence, coolness, communication practice, charm and cheer, honesty, and humility. Humility attracts; pride repels.

Influential leaders even though they are hugely successful they prefer to be grounded and keep learning constantly.

They balance efficiency and compassion. They set the exemplary standards for everyone else to follow.

Influential leaders are a combination of organized as well as unorganized activities. Organized activities help them to do justice to their roles, routines, relationships, and responsibilities. And they choose some unorganized or quite new activities also so as to have some little brain-storming.

This helps to nourish their intelligence and enhance their creativity. Influential leaders somehow manage their lives in such a way that there is balance between their life and

lifestyle. They have great life as well as great lifestyle.

Influential leaders are ruthless when it comes to being efficient and competent at their businesses but at the same time they are the most cool and compassionate personalities while dealing with people beyond their businesses. Whole world is a playground for influential people. Influential leaders are the most resourceful people. They are the most trustworthy people. They deliver exceptional results for the cause of increasing the trust of their employees and customers and so as to ultimately benefit them. They lead from the front to set the benchmark for others. They are resolute in their purpose to contribute hugely to their organization and to their businesses. They crossover the challenges on the way with grace, dignity, utmost composure, and by utilizing their talents, skills, abilities, and resources for glorious purposes.

Recognizing Best performing CEOs, Insights Success has shortlisted “The 10 Most Influential Leaders in Business 2019” Featuring our Cover Story in which notable influential leaders Ameya Talwalkar & Shreyans Mehta are highlighted. Ameya Talwalkar and Shreyans Mehta are the founders of Cequence Security. They have built a disruptive application security platform, which provides detection and defense of automated bot attacks as well as application vulnerability exploits.

The platform is powered by patented AI technology and is deployed at several Fortune 500/Global 200 companies around the world. The Cequence solution secures close to a billion user accounts, preventing millions of dollars in fraud losses, saving millions of dollars in infrastructure cost and, most importantly, saving billions of dollars in brand/reputation loss from security breaches.

Also, make sure to go through the articles, written by our in-house editorial team as well as CXO standpoints of notable industry personalities to have brief insights of the sector.

Sharad Chitalkar

Cover Story

08

Making Cequence Security Synonymous with Application Security

ARTICLES 18

32

Industry Lessons

The Art of Leading

Role of Laboratory Information Management System in Manufacturing Sectors

Attributes of a Good Leader

Contents 22 16 Incentives Solutions Rethinking the Products of Today for a Better Tomorrow

Perry M. Anderson A Global Investor Who Encourages Poverty Alleviation Through Mergers & Acquisitions

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30

Tech-know Insights The Ballad of a Business Leader

34 Raymond J. Pasquale Reinventing Business Communications

Expert’s Outlook Digital Transformation is a Business Requirement: Hype or Reality?

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Executive Editor Rohit Chaturvedi

Managing Editor Anish Miller

Assistant Editors Jenny Fernandes Sourabh More

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Iresh Mathapati

Co-designer Savita Pandav

Senior Sales Manager

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Kevin, Mark, Prathmesh

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Alan, Manish

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Calvin Jones

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Database Management Stella Andrew

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com September, 2019

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COVER STORY

Shreyans Mehta Co-founder

Making Cequence Security Synonymous with Application Security

e

1

Th

Most

Influential in Business 2019

Ameya Talwalkar Co-founder

“Hard work

is a virtue.”

A

meya Talwalkar and Shreyans Mehta are the founders of Cequence Security. They have built a disruptive application security platform, which provides detection and defense of automated bot attacks as well as application vulnerability exploits. The platform is powered by patented AI technology and is deployed at several Fortune 500/Global 200 companies around the world. The Cequence solution secures close to a billion user accounts, preventing millions of dollars in fraud losses, saving millions of dollars in infrastructure cost and, most importantly, saving billions of dollars in brand/reputation loss from security breaches.

‘‘‘‘

Throughout my career I have pushed the envelope of innovation. I have now made multiple small innovative ideas into successful products of their own.

Prior to starting Cequence Security, Ameya was the engineering leader for Symantec’s entire anti-malware stack. This stack was integrated into every Symantec security product in the consumer and enterprise space and was responsible of preventing nearly 5 Billion cyber threats worldwide on a yearly basis. In early days of their career at Symantec, Shreyans and Ameya also built a disruptive network security engine which was considered a “game changer” in the industry and allowed Symantec to leapfrog ahead of the competition and win several industry reviews and awards.

Shreyans in his role as lead network security architect at Symantec led many innovative ideas based around this ground breaking technology. For example, he started the “SafeWeb” initiative, which involved rating websites for their safety based on the billions of data points gathered from Symantec’s millions of users. This allowed Symantec customers to search and surf the web safely without having to worry about being infected. He later on used Machine Learning in a very innovative way to derive infection points of large scale botnets that were creating havoc in consumer and enterprise world. These were the early days of Ransomware.

Know-How of Leadership

Believe in Yourself

According to the iconic duo, leaders should have a winning vision/mission for their company/organization and they should be able to clearly articulate that to their teams, their investors and their customers. They should be committed, accessible, trustworthy should lead by example. Moreover, they should cultivate a culture of trust, accountability, hardwork and having fun while doing it. Ameya and Shreyans also believe that, being a leader, one should continually assess progress on the vision/mission and be humble enough to make adjustments as necessary along the journey, while motivating the team to give their best every single day.

One of the greatest lessons Ameya and Shreyans have learned is summarized in three words: “Believe in yourself!” They believed that they could build an engine that stops threats at the network level, way before file-based engines have a chance to tackle these threats. They believed they could build an engine that will work in various form factors – IoT devices, Windows PCs, large appliances and Cloud-based solutions. Despite skepticism from peers and seniors, they delivered a game changing technology that enhances security in all Symantec products.

Prior to Cequence, all bot mitigation solutions relied on technique – device fingerprinting. In fact this technique, which has its root in marketing technology going back to early 2000s, is so prevalent in this space that even industry analysts started advocating this as the way to solve the problem. The reality on the other hand is very different. In the early days of Cequence, Shreyans and Ameya realized that this technique has tremendous flaws in them – including the amount of time and pain it takes to integrate this into ALL applications that need to be protected from bots.

To overcome this, Shreyans and Ameya built a solution that does not require any application integration, protects all applications at once, and has deceptive mitigation capabilities. Today, the Cequence solution solves security problems for many fortune 500 / Global 2000 companies at scale. Their approach has received many accolades, including 2018 Gartner Cool Vendor.

Delivering Differentiated Product Cequence Security’s product strategy derives from its founders’ experience in regularly shipping software to millions of customers around the world, expertise in building solutions to thwart the most sophisticated threats (even from state actors), interviewing and listening to a variety of large enterprise customers/early adopters, staying on top of industry trends, and most importantly build a team that can deliver a differentiated product to the market.

Entrepreneurial Adversities Ameya and Shreyans have faced the typical challenges that first time entrepreneurs face. Getting a venture off the

ground in an expensive place like Silicon Valley, especially in the enterprise security space is very difficult. The architectural decision made in the early days of Cequence enabled them to build a differentiated product, but it had a few challenges – it was a much more complex product to build, it took longer to build and required a very experienced team to build it.

Both Ameya and Shreyans are really grateful to Cequence Security’s committed early investors and early employees who still have the same passion and dedication as they did on day one. One other challenge Ameya and Shreyans faced early on is “rising above the noise”. But Ameya and Shreyans started to get their message across by attending smaller conferences, writing blogs, attending various meetups, doing targeted webinars, and forging partnerships.

Committed to a Vision Shreyans and Ameya are committed to building the next generation application security platform the way it should be. Their vision is to be able to protect applications from all kinds of attacks independent of where they are deployed or how they are deployed. This is a monumental task in itself and it is disrupting a large legacy market dominated for decades old technologies. While doing that they want to build a highly successful/profitable company which builds shareholder value. As Palo Alto Networks is synonymous with Network Security, they want to make Cequence Security synonymous with Application Security.

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Rethinking the Products of Today for a Better Tomorrow

Celia Pool Co-founder DAME

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September 2019

Incentives Solutions

T

he world is finally waking up to the single-use plastic crisis.

Over the last 10 years we have created more plastic than the whole of the last century combined. Half of the plastic we create is used just once, and then thrown away, taking 500 years to decompose. By 2050, the oceans are predicted to contain more plastic than fish. The plastic crisis is now too big for recycling alone to fix.

Global governments, businesses and consumers need to collaborate quickly to make impactful change before it’s too late. However, change is difficult when environmentally damaging habits have become so entrenched and often appear more financially appealing.

Technology is helping in this fight.

Reusable water bottles are now widespread, and apps that help you locate drinking water refill stations are now emerging. At the same time, reusable coffee cup technology is addressing the half a trillion disposable coffee cups discarded every year. Such items are gaining increasing social currency with consumers, who are keen to display them as markers of their environmental conscience. This revolution is encouraging, but what about the products that people aren’t so willing to talk about?

100 billion menstrual products are thrown away globally every year.

These are single-use, mostly made of plastic and cannot be recycled. You can choose not to have a coffee, you cannot choose not to have a period. Reusable options (e.g. menstrual cups, cloth pads) have been on the market for decades, yet the adoption rate has been slow. The primary barrier to entry is the fear of habit change.

So how do we bring about a revolution? The answer is keep it simple. And take time to consider consumer psychology. As humans, we abhor change. We are creatures drawn towards the comfort of the known. By

September 2019

keeping habit change to a minimum, consumers are much more likely to adopt a new idea.

This was our philosophy at DAME when we created the world’s first reusable tampon applicator. We ensured the design was familiar and intuitive, so women did not have to compromise on their convenient, established rituals. We knew that hygiene could be a significant barrier to entry, so we worked with leading micro-biologists and medical engineers and used the best medical grade, anti-microbial materials on the market.

As a result, the consumer only must rinse the applicator in cold water after use to keep it clean. Simple steps, minimal habit change.

However, it is challenging to tackle an issue that has such little awareness.

Menstruation has historically been shrouded in shame, fear and discretion.

It is not a topic openly talked about.

This is a problem with feminine care as a whole: it is frequently dismissed and the women trying to address it are critically underfunded. In 2017 female founders got 2% of the $85 billion VC investment pot. About 8% of partners at the top British VC firms are women.

According to Harvard Business Review, stereotypes about female entrepreneurs persist: women are overly cautious, shy away from growth, have insufficient resources and consequently their ventures underperform. Yet there is no performance data to support these stereotypes.

How are products used by women supposed to change in line with human and environmental needs, when they aren’t given appropriate recognition or have women involved in all stages of the process? Women need to be given more of a voice if we are to create meaningful change. The world of AI is already highlighting the need to diverse away from male, white, Western coders if we are to avoid

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unconscious bias in the robots of tomorrow. Amazon had to abandon an AI recruitment tool that was discriminating against women, instead favoring prospects who mirrored Amazon’s existing male engineer workforce. At DAME women have been involved in every stage of the journey, not as a token gesture but as an absolute necessity.

However, our overarching business strategy goes beyond issues of inclusivity to incorporate a wider mission. DAME was founded on the belief that business can be used as a force for good. We use this core value to guide every decision we make in the business, bringing great clarity to our route forward. By communicating our genuine and authentic commitment to this mission, we hope that our message will quickly be picked up by those eager to join a movement for change.

To date, we have seen this happen not only with our consumers and the press, but with employees. People are increasingly drawn to companies doing good. 75% of millennials would take a pay cut to work at a socially responsible company.

All this strengthens our resolve at DAME to continue to tackle critical problems that are not openly acknowledged, that are significantly underfunded, and that have historically been controlled by giant monopolies.

Today we are focusing on menstrual products, but our vision is to revolutionize the entire bathroom.

These are big mountains, but having strong guiding principles makes the navigation much easier.”

-Words by Celia Pool Co-founder of DAME For more information visit wearedame.co

insightssuccess.com

Role of

Laboratory Laboratory

Information Information

Management Management System System in Manufacturing Sectors

E

Outlook on LIMS

ven if an organization offers an outstanding series of creative products, it has to ensure that the quality is up to the mark. Being compassionate about quality management is quite essential for a business venture to become a promising manufacturer. Thus, quality is more likely to be a necessity rather than a want. It do plays a salient role in supply chain that has strengthened manufacturer’s belief of implicating information systems especially in laboratories for quality inspections on finished products and goods.

Utilizing to its full-potential LIMS operations customarily depend on the manufacturer and its requirements. Yet, there is a standard protocol on which the system mostly relies. It is deliberately designed to monitor and function on the various aspects of product quality management i.e. sample management. It handles the detailed records of each sample, and maintains accuracy in reducing the possibilities of the information getting mixed up in labs.

LIMS maintains the record of each and every unit, from a supplier to the researcher handling that sample. With such systems, the information tracking gets quite easier and could be fully automated, reducing the need for laboratory administration.

Similar to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) has brought a disruptive change in traditional methods of supply-chain management. This technology acts as a reporting tool which allows researchers to input and store crucial data regarding the sample, such as schedule records, test-sample tracks, and also sample’s materialistic properties. Thus, it is quite obligatory for an organization to implement an adequate information system in an attempt to overrule all quality-related issues. Also, it often utilizes barcode generation for scanning in-process goods as well as finished products in an attempt to consume less time.

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Implementing LIMS for workflow management aids a manufacturer to streamline the decision making process in the laboratory. The self-oriented system can automatically assign scientists regarding their tasks and even suggests the type of instruments required as per stated in the standard experiment module. Once the testing is completed, the system identifies and supplies

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September 2019

Industry Lessons

the sample for the further process.

Besides, many LIMS automatically cover ups various processes such as maintenance, inventory management and reporting. It is often useful for the instruments like centrifuges which generally face countless wear and tear, leading to variations in the readings. Such variations not only aect data analysis auditing but also, disrupt the calibration of the instruments. The use of LIMS system might vary from one organization to another, as the requirement of most of the industries is quite dierent.

September 2019

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insightssuccess.com

reduced costs, gamut information, technology of prescriptions and result orientation.

Equipment Calibration and Maintenance No industry can afford a failure in the quality checks.

Thus, many organizations spend loads of monetary assets over the laboratory maintenance and instruments calibration. With the LIMS system, an organization can surpass over unnecessary damages and monetary-cuts in laboratory. Apart from that, LIMS system must include maintenance records of the instruments used in testing, in an attempt to perform orderly preventive maintenance.

Workflow Management: Automate workflows have often become a trail in businesses due to its ability to maintain a steady flow between various processes without any extra human efforts. Instead of focusing more on reducing work, it saves time taken for tasking complicated tasks. Hiring or Installing LIMS aids one to codify existing methods and procedures and could delegate the decision-making to the software. Say, if installed, it can take over on assigning jobs to scientists and can also pick out instruments, as per requirement. It only requires a strong command structure through which LIMS can operate much deliberately.

Due to the regular utilization, some instruments starts to show distortion that further affect the tests results. In case of depth micrometer, the instruction follows that it may require calibration every month or after every 50 uses. A manufacturer can improvise LIMS system, by including additional calibration instruction sheet which can be utilized by maintenance department thereafter.

ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning software attains potential to manage inventory and like EHR, it is also self-processing software. Collaboration or say, integrating ERP into LIMSs is more favorable due to its high allowance in monitoring alerts over low-supplies, auto-calculation of storage capacity and location management. Through implementing LIMSs, one can surpass issues related to data transcription errors, turnaround time, WIP status, and statistical analysis and COA generation.

Brief on Functions commonly found in LIMS Reporting: Irrespective of any category, every sector requires a prompt method to process out the reports.

Report helps organizations to analyze data and make further decisions based on it. From the ‘most used instruments’ to ‘lab-processing time’, it include all the required information flow from one unit to other.

Through implementing LIMS, organizations take a follow up and process audit trails of received information from such units. Yet, the level of difficulty varies with reports, as some may require higher custom coding to run while other export on Adobe PDF and MSWord.

Aftermath of LIMS-integration in laboratories has been witnessed to be more efficient and been claimed as a reliable system by various manufacturers. Though the digital transformation has never failed to surprise the markets with its potential to bring out disruption, its many fruitful benefits are yet to be explored. One of such—mobile-friendly LIMS, is predicted to shift the traditional laboratories by delivering more compact experience to the manufacturers which sooner or later going to be trail among the lab-owners and manufacturers. Currently, it is focusing on improving environmental, petrochemical, health-care, bio-technology companies and R&D institutes.

EMR/EHR: Electronic Health Records is separate software, but some LIMSs includes EHR feature built-in mostly including patient reception queries and billing processes. Organizations mainly prefer on utilizing an all-encompassing system instead of software with singular capability. Integrating LIMS with such functions facilitate clinics with huge benefits while monitoring and maintaining a laboratory. It manages every bit of aspects such as data tracking over time, continuity in healthcare,

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September 2019

PERRY M. ANDERSON A Global Investor Who Encourages Poverty Alleviation Through Mergers & Acquisitions

I

n an interview with Insights Success, the CEO & Managing Director, of Quadra Global Capital Corp., Perry M. Anderson, sheds light on his company’s strategies which makes control and non-control investments across a broad range of asset classes including real estate, manufacturing, technology, media, restaurant/retail, construc on, security, cyber-security, energy and mining. Here he also shares the company’s core competencies and his overall journey as an influen al leader in business. Beyond Quadra, Perry believes that we are living in the most opportunis c me in history to be acquiring a business and that business acquisi on is the fastest trajectory out of poverty and towards wealth crea on. Considering these influen al and inspira onal aspects, Insights Success recognizes Perry M. Anderson as one of the most influen al business leaders in 2019.

“

“

Don't start a business… buy one!

insightssuccess.com

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Below are highlights from the interview conducted between Perry and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background as an influen al leader.

My background is in Private Equity (MBA from Oxford), but I view myself more as an entrepreneur and crea ve problem solver. I founded a Private Equity firm called Quadra Global Capital Corp in 2002 and since then

September 2019

e Th

1

we have gone on to make over 30 investments across a broad range of sectors. I have completed numerous deals/acquisi ons, had mul ple exits, helped to take 3 companies public and raised millions of dollars/pounds in the process. Aside from doing deals, I also run an experien al M&A training workshop that teaches people how to acquire companies for themselves - typically without using any of their own capital.

How do you diversify your organiza on’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

With regards to my M&A training workshop, rather than focusing on theory and academia, I prefer to provide prac cal and ‘real world’ tac cs that people - regardless if you are a seasoned finance pro or a complete beginner can immediately ac on and implement.

None of this is being taught in business schools - which can appeal to a wide audience in countries across the globe.

At its core, the workshop is designed to teach people - with perhaps limited means - how to merge and acquire companies. One transac on can have a profound impact on one’s life: personally, professionally and financially.

Describe some of the vital a ributes that every leader should possess.

Business is much more weighted towards human psychology than it is to economics. A strong leader needs to quickly and accurately ascertain the ‘WHY?’ and what is mo va ng the person on the other side of the table. You need to understand the other person’s objec ves and get to a Win -Win as quickly as possible.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

The wins in business are certainly fun, however the real lessons in life are really taught through failing - and you typically have to reach into your pocket to cover these as there is a hard cost to learning these lessons.

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle compe on in the market?

There are record levels of businesses currently for sale in the market and with the baby-boomer segment bringing more businesses to market every day.

We are providing a tangible roadmap and methodology for people to be able to go out and actually acquire them. Our differen ator is that we are not simply providing theory or giving people books to read, but rather locking arms with aspiring business owners and actually assis ng them throughout the en re deal process un l they close a deal.

People also get access to my team of M&A professionals

September 2019

Most

Influential in Business 2019

who have worked for the likes of Goldman Sachs, Rothschild, RBC, PWC, KPMG, etc in assis ng them in all facets of a transac on - both pre and post close.

We help them analyze a deal, structure an offer, raise all the capital required and get the deal over the line. I feel this was the missing link in the current marketplace – people understand the general concepts, but are really wan ng help with the implementa on. That is where we shine!

What were the primal challenges and roadblocks you faced during the ini al phase of your career as a leader?

Like most entrepreneurs, a lack of resources when star ng out is always a challenge to navigate. However, as my career and experience has evolved, it has made me take a view that we are truly living in interes ng mes. Never before that there be more access to both opportunity as well as to capital. With record levels of corporate capital si ng in treasury and seeking a home, this presents a massive opportunity to execute one’s goals.

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

I con nue to be very passionate about deal making. The next itera on of my journey is to be to be able to show others how to go out and acquire a business of their own again, typically without using any of their own capital! My personal goal is to help to democra ze wealth and let individuals, who yesterday were employees are today becoming shareholders.

About the Leader Perry M. Anderson is a global investor who encourages market access and the advancement of human progress through capital injec on and investments in a diverse range of projects.

He has led and invested in a number of acquisi ons, capital raising mandates, financings and re-structurings, startups, leverage buyouts, cross-border transac ons and other investment projects of various size and complexity.

Perry was an early stage investor in Avigilon, a Canadian based security surveillance firm that was acquired by Motorola in 2018 for $1.2B. He is also a published author and wrote the book ‘Red To Black: The Art Of Corporate Turnaround.’

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insightssuccess.com

The

Ballad Business Leader of a

Unleashing the Hero in You to Find Success

W

hen we have the courage to live the life we were meant to live, we find that we all have an inner hero waiting to guide us on the pathway to success. Mythical heroes endured great challenges before gaining treasure at their journey’s end.

As heroic business leaders, we must embark upon our own painful journeys of discovery to find treasure in our career and company.

We are all navigators of life, learning the lost art of finding our way which our ancestors embedded in myths for our modern use.

For 35 years, I have been invited into thousands of troubled corporations. I have seen that not much changes unless the leader survives a jaw dropping tragedy. He or she can then be transformed by loss into a resilient, successful, and lovable business builder.

Not much changes in a company unless such a crisis cracks the shell of the CEO, Division EVP, Department Head, or Team Manager causing him or her to insightssuccess.com

embark on his own journey into uncharted territory, where a small miracle can happen and where the leader’s True Self can emerge.

The boss’s emerging genuineness is the precursor to the team’s empowerment to reveal their own True Selves – which grants them permission to reveal the new True Company.

The Power of Myth to Help Find Success and Happiness To survive the crises of the marketplace your team must traverse the same stages that mythic heroes encountered. The stages appear different because we are in the modern times, but they are the same stages.

If you’ve studied or read about storytelling, you’ve probably heard of the hero’s journey. If not, no worry. If you’ve seen the Star Wars Trilogy, Lion King, or the Wizard of Oz you get the concept.

You already possess all you will need to find the treasure you seek. This article will help you unlock it!

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How Does the Ancient Hero Myth Apply to Our Career and Company?

Carl Jung the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst taught that myths are essential because they contain common themes, archetypes, and fears found in humans around the globe. Jung discovered that the hero’s journey is the overarching idea taught in myths throughout history.

Myths should not be read literally.

Embedded within them were roadmaps to help readers find what they were really seeking. The myth of alchemy – converting lead into gold – was cover for the spiritual happiness sought by metallurgists.

The Holy Grail sought by medieval intellectuals wasn’t Jesus’ cup, but a cover story for the real spiritual work they sought to do, but were afraid would run afoul of the Church. The roadmaps in myths lead us to tools we can use in our own lives.

Caution. Many people in our society have been taught to equate the

September 2019

Tech-know Insights

Chas Klivans

CEO’s Navigator

September 2019

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insightssuccess.com

About the Author Chas Klivans is the CEO’s Navigator; a turnaround wizard, company founder, and ex-psychotherapist.

Chas says, “I take you on the Hero’s Journey and help you unfreeze your company, career, and life.

I’m comfortable among wolves in the Board Room and Wakhan Corridor.”

Chas’s journey from an Afghanistan prison and the Amazon jungle to the board rooms of billiondollar corporations, has enabled him to be a true business pioneer.

His book The Inner and Outer Game of Business: Playing the Whole Game Will Take You Further Than You Have Ever Been, will be available soon.

For consulting and speaking opportunities contact Chas at CKlivans@InnovationTwo.US.

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hero’s journey with the phrase follow your bliss. They have been mislead.

Myths teach that only adventures to the darkest most painful parts yield the happiness you seek. To undertake the hero’s journey, prepare to do some hard work. Just as body builders increase the load on the body to build muscle, we corporate-warriors increase the stress load on our thinking to increase spiritual muscle and emotional intelligence.

Crises Can Release Our True Selves When something very difficult confronts you – a personal or business death or a promotion – you can meet the challenge by learning something painful. When you fail, your outer shell is cracked open; your true self can escape and rise like the Phoenix. There are no limits to how tall you can grow.

The Attraction of the Hero’s Journey Heroes across eras, cultures, and geographies have undertaken daring adventures. Their ancient journeys provide signposts for our road-map.

When we follow that eternal map, we can reset in alignment with the path that is ours alone to walk, serendipities increase, and doors open.

The hero’s journey in myth, in your company, or in your career leads through the same three stages.

Stage 1 – The Call to Adventure begins with the hero living a comfortable life when something – a business challenge, a personal tragedy, or a wonderful opportunity knocks you off your pedestal.

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Answering the Call. When you ask yourself for permission to take the hero’s journey, you are opening up to deep vulnerability. Your inner hero is asking to receive guidance, admitting that you need help from the universe to become fully happy.

The strong will of many business leaders has been the basis for their success. We have learned to control whatever we could in order to survive. In a crisis we try to control everything and everybody. Only when we stop and admit that we need to let go of the illusion of power over the market and other people can we move in a more positive, productive, and rewarding direction.

Stage 2 – Crossing the Threshold or Entering the Abyss is a commitment to change, a leaving behind of the old. At a central turninag point, the hero must face the death of the old self. There is an essential epiphany – to integrate our dark side and strip out the big ego. Leaving behind character defects, our inner hero pivots toward a new life based on more productive more lovable character assets.

Stage 3 – Coming Home is when we realize the whole point of the journey is not moving away from the world, but a richer more joyful participation in it.

When you come home with your shell shattered, you can lead intentionally with new character assets. To do this, the hero must embrace a new life vow. For many, this is a vow of love and service; to esteem others. This new mode of living is to show up fiercely positive and kind.

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Be the Hero in Your $7 Billion Company Let’s look at the battle of a corporate warrior who learned to surrender into full acceptance of his crisis. He used his vulnerability to enlist superior business experts who had previously solved his problem.

These industry survival guides taught his management team to have the right adventures at the right senior level to read the right environmental clues to harvest new sources of profit and happiness.

Selling to a $1.5 Billion Customer, Vulnerability Gets the Deal Done

wound inflicted on those plant leaders, which prevented them from buying more from his company.

During discussions with plant management teams, the VP used the universal shame-healing recipe of letting these plant chiefs lead him where they needed to go. His vulnerability was the antidote to their shame wound. He could feel it in a room when the envelope of trust was rebuilt, because these plant executives opened up about how the VP’s company could help them reduce operating costs and improve the technical performance of products.

The new Vice President of a $7 billion group purchasing cooperative managing $250 million in revenue was told that to meet his first year quota, he had to increase sales to an important customer by $75 million (or 20%).

This customer increased its purchasing by 20%; the VP’s team met quota with an additional $75 million in sales.

This customer was purchasing 62% of its supply chain spend offcontract. The VP talked to his predecessor, who had no clue why.

The Chairman of the customer’s Board bestowed on the VP the honor of a seat at his monthly planning table. The VP had earned the right to move from salesman and technical advisor, to trusted partner.

No longer was he “selling-in” products; he had obtained the right to “design-in” his products. This is the Holy Grail sought by every sales professional.

The VP met with each of the customer’s CEOs at their respective plant locations. He heard that his predecessor had sold them tens of millions of dollars in computers that they didn’t request or need, and sold directly to corporate headquarters, which humiliated these local chiefs, and killed pay raises and bonuses usually due for them. The VP sat side-by-side with these plant executives while they vented their pent-up resentment.

By being empathetic without showing a lick of hubris, he uncovered an unknown customer

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The VP Attains the Holy Grail and Becomes His Company’s Hero

Be a Hero in Your Career Successful leaders discover, as the new VP did, that the senior leader’s individuation – his pivot to leading with his lovable, trustworthy character assets – is the signpost for the team’s individuation, which directly paves the way for the company’s individuation.

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Surviving the Business Jungle is Like Surviving the Amazon Your team cannot think its way to a better company. As I learned traveling in the Amazon jungle, you must relinquish control and allow seasoned jungle guides to lead you until you have learned enough to lead jointly.

The mythic prototype is the same as a good company prototype. Flush hubris from the thinking that put you in this crisis, then read environmental clues that lead you to success. Learn to travel like Marco Polo before there were maps, reading and adapting to the lay of the land; because in your company, career and personal life, there are no maps.

You Will Never Find Happiness Until You Face the Truth The treasure you will find on your hero’s journey is the truth you’ve avoided, your beauty!

The journey to success starts with embracing crises as blessings.

Remember before saving the world, every hero lost everything. Business transformation begins with you.

Without new starts in nature, in companies, and in careers – no shells are cracked and no growth happens. Myths teach that you can’t think your way into a better life; you have to live your way through new adventures to better thinking to get a better company.

New starts only happen if you answer the call to adventure.

Start the adventure!

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Raymond J. Pasquale Reinventing Business Communications

I

t takes strong leadership skills to lead an organization and to disrupt and reinvent an entire market. A leader tries hard to transform potential opportunities into attainable and sustainable success. One such leader is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Unified Office, Raymond J. Pasquale. His unique ideology and methods have helped him to bring disruption to the business communications marketplace, achieving many milestones for his company in the process. He has held leadership positions in dynamic, emerging technology companies for over 20 years, now, starting with DEC—then Cascade, Sonus and now Unified Office.

“

It is only through industry specific innovations and market differentiation that you can help your customers achieve the kind of optimal performance that can have dramatic top and bottom-line results.

Founder & CEO

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“

Raymond J. Pasquale

Innovative Offerings “The ability to customize our offerings at scale for different target markets is one of the key competitive advantages at Unified Office,” Pasquale says.

Unified Office maintains a vertical market focus so it can drive innovations to help its customers adapt to a constantly changing market.

Currently, Unified Office is focused on the following verticals: Restaurants, Hospitality, Healthcare, Dental Practices, Real Estate, Automotive, Agriculture and Technology.

He also mentions that Unified Office’s services must not only demonstrate high quality and reliability but also be able to adapt simply, quickly, and easily to respond to the unique needs

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of each vertical market and customer. This enables businesses to react to changes as they occur rather than forcing them to adhere to a rigid, inflexible workflow environment.

Unified Office’s industry leading Total Connect Nowsm communications platform, with its highly reliable network and high-quality business communications services, was developed for companies who can’t afford to miss calls and want to maximize their revenues. With the flexibility of its HQRP™ network platform, the company can quickly and easily customize features for its customers that meet their specific vertical market needs. In the healthcare market, for example, it integrates with the leading practice management solutions so the company’s customers can quickly and easily access their customer/patient information all in one place.

Most

Influential in Business 2019

vertical market innovations are easily adaptable to other markets as well. “No other company offers the range of customized features and vertical market applications at scale that can be rapidly deployed for our customers,” Ray said.

Keeping Customers A Step Ahead of the Competition When it comes to competition, Unified Office does not take time to look in the rear-view mirror. Pasquale believes that one must stay true to their vision, stay close to their customers and do the things that make their customers’ lives better, in order to attain success.

Currently, Unified Office is the only company that can offer high quality, reliable VoIP communications services without the need for expensive legacy T1 or MPLS network infrastructure.

Another example of the company’s vertical market innovations are offerings that Unified Office has developed and continues to develop for the restaurant industry.

Initially developed for the restaurant market, Unified Office’s patented Visual Performance Suite™ (VPS™) offering provides a real-time view of changes in operational performance levels along with actionable intelligence for business managers and owners. This enables them to take immediate actions and apply continuous operational improvements thereby increasing customer satisfaction and in turn revenues and profits.

Into the Future of Unified Office Unified Office’s core mission is to help businesses of all types monetize their communications services and solve problems that are unique to them. Unified Office does this first by being relentless innovators and providing its customers with reliable, high quality voice communications services. The company then layers on top of that service platform simple, elegant, and easy-to-use, value-added services and applications that help them improve the effectiveness of their business operations and respond to the needs of their customers at the speed of the market.

Unified Office also developed TCNOPSTM (Total Connect Now Operations Performance SuiteTM), an Internet of Things (IoT) based operational performance suite to help Quick Serve Restaurants (QSRs) dramatically improve their operational performance, effectiveness and food safety compliance initiatives. TCNOPSTM extends beyond simple real-time basic monitoring to proactive and predictive analysis, which can help eliminate component failure before it becomes a problem.

Pasquale sees himself continuing to build what he believes to be one of the most disruptive and transformative companies in the market today. “There is no end in sight for what we can accomplish. The time has never been better for a company like Unified Office,” says Founder & CEO, Ray Pasquale.

A second example of Unified Office’s innovative vertical market approach is its Total Connect Now Dental Management SuiteSM, an advanced business communications platform for the dental market providing automated appointment reminders, confirmations and texting services.

Unified Office also developed its Virtual Communications ConsoleSM and its Visual Call Flow BuilderTM for dental offices. Virtual Communications ConsoleSM is a flexible virtual operator console that enables receptionists and other staff to work from any office or off-site location. Visual Call Flow Builder™ enables customers and resellers to build, design and manage their own call flows enabling a practice, for example, to centralize receptionist support in one office or distribute it throughout all of their offices. All of these September 2019

A Piece of Advice to Rely On Ray believes that innovation is absolutely essential to successfully leading. a company today. The world is undergoing change so fast it is dizzying; the successful CEO and by extension their company must not only adapt to market changes but also sense the market, get out in front of it and lead it. “Your customers count on you to do this for them,” he said. “All one has to do to appreciate the rate and velocity of change today is to look at Amazon and the Internet and how they have fundamentally changed our lives.”

According to Ray, every CEO must demonstrate constancy of purpose, be willing to pivot when necessary, relentlessly focus on execution, create value and be willing to listen to one’s customers and employees. It is important to seek advice, take ownership and above all, be a leader.

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The Art of Leading

Attributes of a

Good L

eadership is about using the power of a position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A leader’s task is to implement the plans that usually look good on paper, through a delegated team, in a specific time with an ongoing motion. She/he may use the traditional method or may think out of the box. It depends on the leader as how to do it; the ultimate motive is to get the job done. Although, each and every individual has a different approach on leadership, some might say it is about setting examples, some might say it is about sharing the authority; what matters is, taking the right decision when it is most needed.

Leadership varies from one organization to another. An organization is a dynamic body and

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creates new probabilities every now and then. And with new probabilities, come new challenges.

Although, it is impossible to overcome every challenge, the business environment has adopted certain leadership styles for the efficiency of business: The Participative Leader Participative Leadership is the process of sharing authority with the work force in order to get optimum efficiency. The team, after getting access to certain powers, works responsibly to accomplish the goals set by its leader. The shared leadership also helps in case of any requirement of change, as the employees adapt quickly in such environment. Incidentally, this style of leadership fits best in a scenario when there is a limitation of time.

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The Transformational Leader A transformational leader inspires the team through effective communication and an intellectual environment. However, these individuals require more detail oriented managers to successfully implement their strategies.

Transformational Leadership is considered among the most effective employees of the organization. One of the examples of this type of leadership is when a leader is assigned on a higher level for effective environment.

The Transactional leader The transactional leadership, as the name suggests, enables the leader to incentivize the team corresponding to their performance. The team gets rewarded when it attains the goals and the Leader has the power to review the results and act

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accordingly when the team fails to do the same. The goals and the strategy to attain them are decided by the leader and the team itself.

The Situational leader Situational leadership is a theory that the best leader will adapt to the required leadership style according to need of the hour. A Situational leader may adopt democratic style while discussion business with senior executive, but may switch to transactional at the time of team review. However every individual has a natural style of leadership and it may be difficult to switch roles at a certain point of time.

Qualities of a good leader There is an old proverb that says, “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime.”

So is the case with leadership. One of the basic qualities of a Leader is to pass on the leadership skills.

Integrity C.S. Lewis said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” Be it giving credit to one of the team members or be it admitting a mistake, a leader wears integrity as a badge of honor. They do what is right, no matter what. Ÿ

Ÿ

Empowerment

As mentioned earlier, Leadership is about using the power of one’s position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A good leader shares his authority with the team in order to get the job done. By doing this, he shows confidence in the team and obliged by the gesture, the team works with full enthusiasm to accomplish the goal.

Decision making There is risk in decision to making.

Great leaders take great decisions when the stake is high and it is the success of those decisions that make them great. To add up, a good leader takes right decision at the right time.

In conclusion, a good leader can be defined by the dynamics of his style in leadership, the values that he brings to the organization, the methods he uses to make the best of the resources, and the kind of decision he makes in the given situations. At the end it is about the attitude of an individual to bring the change for good. Ÿ

Following are some of the qualities of a good leader: Communication Skills Communication is the basic requirement for efficiency in a business. As the level of hierarchy elevates, the requirement of communication grows. Especially, when it comes to leadership, there is no scope for lack of communication.

A Leader who fails to develop this skill is looked up as incompetent, because it is his job to send the message loud and clear. Although, it is also important to listen as it is an integral part of communication. Ÿ

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Digital Transformation is a Business Requirement:

Hype or Reality?

Christopher James Camut

Director, President & CEO

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About the Author Christopher James Camut is the Director, President and CEO of Field Squared. Christopher has a successful track record of building high-performing sales teams, improving operational efficiency, driving customer experience, and exceeding revenue goals.

Prior to Field Squared, Christopher was President of Integra Telecom, Inc. (acquired by Zayo), where he managed 300 employees and over $250 million in annual revenue. Before Integra, Christopher was CEO of Ajubeo, a Boulder-based infrastructure-as-aservice (IaaS) provider. Previously, he was CEO of Vixxi Solutions, a SaaS e911 service provider (acquired by Bandwidth.com) and was EVP and General Manager of network consultancy Telwares among other leadership roles. Christopher holds degrees from the University of Toledo in sociology and psychology.

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September 2019

Expert’s Outlook

W

e are at an inflection point, a true paradigm shift across businesses of every size, industry and market. No business is immune to the rapid technological change brought about by the digital era. But therein belies the disruption of digital transformation: the reward vs perceived time commitment and investment. The question on everyone’s mind is, is digital transformation all hype or reality?

A Digital Bacakbone from the Ground Up The reality is digital transformation is a business imperative. Any new business started today must be built with a digital backbone and infrastructure from the ground up.

There are three crucial components that can make or break a new business today: Automate Business Processes and Workflows Almost every organization maintains several routine to complex business processes and workflows. Sometimes the process falls within a certain department, while other times it may span multiple departments and even third-party vendors or customers.

And not to overly complicate things for this example, but there often times a single process ties into another process or two, or three.

At least in the field service management space, for instance, digital transformation is slowly making its way into the fabric of organizations that have a field service or mobile workforce. The main goals are to increase operational efficiency, improve the customer experience and understand key field service metrics

September 2019

impact across the workforce and the organization as a whole. Business process automation makes it possible to reap the benefits of digital transformation by starting with small, incremental workflows and graduate to more complex processes as the business grows.

Focus on Real-Time Customer Experience You’ve probably heard it said that we are in the Age of the Customer, where every good or bad experience has the chance to appear on social in a minute and go viral. Fear of negative repercussions is not the reason to focus on the customer; rather, it’s learning opportunity to gain first-hand insight on how to improve the business or exceed expectations the next time around.

Further, real-time communication tools (i.e., chat, text, email, phone call, etc.) ensure businesses can keep in touch with customers from the moment they visit a website or make a purchase, day or night, location and time zone need not apply.

As is the case with service-based businesses—field service organizations, for instance—the ability to send real-time alerts via text are an important part of many different types of work orders.

Digital solutions provide the means to not leave a customer out of the communication loop when you can automate sending a text to notify the customer of a late arrival or a change in technician. Focusing on getting the customer experience right is reason enough alone that makes digital transformation an imperative for businesses today.

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Open to Innovation Innovation is one of the more controversial considerations of businesses on their digital transformation journey. Innovation comes in many forms, can be thought of as a harbinger of good (or evil) and oftentimes follows a change in executive management.

The common thread among businesses that are open to innovation, is the desire to move the business forward—be seen as a leader. Famed inventor and futurist Dean Kamen said it best, “Every once in a while, a new technology, an old problem and a big idea turn into an innovation.” Most business leaders can relate to simply putting up with a problem until something breaks.

Today, business leaders must be savvy when it comes to being aware of innovative solutions available to solve old problems. Keeping on the theme of field service organizations, the first problem most try to solve for is scheduling and/or routing their technicians. A simple concept, but a powerful first step nonetheless. If, however, the big picture comes into view, it’s possible to go way beyond scheduling—to come fullcircle—and instead automate business processes.

In the end, digital transformation doesn’t happen overnight, which is a good thing because it makes the concept accessible. Whatever route businesses take to improve their operations, today’s business imperative is digital transformation, before it’s too late.

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