The 10 most innovative google solution providers dec jan 2017

www.insightssuccess.com Dec-Jan 2018

The way of business solutions

Cloud Insights The

Most

Innovative

Using AI to Automatically Optimize Cloud Costs

In Opinion Solution Providers

2017

Why Should You have Multiple Payment Options in Your Business?

Tzury Bar Yochay Founder & CTO

Using the Cloud for Web Security

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Editor’s Note

The Transformation of Google into a Revolutionary Tech Giant

I

t was an open-ended vision of two students at the Stanford University, back in 1995, which translated into the global powerhouse company named Google. Working from their dorm rooms, they called the search engine back then Backrub. Their mission was simple to “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Soon, they changed the name into Google, which had an aptly hidden mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two founders, wanted to find a solution to map the number of times a web page was linked across the World Wide Web. For this, they had to download the entire internet to develop a mapping algorithm. Not to mention, they found a radically better alternative to search the internet then any of the previously existing ones. Since then, many search engines like Yahoo and Bing have emerged into the scene but none came even close to topple Google from the top of the food chain.

Today, Google along with its innovative and advanced technologies has captivated the world within its grip, to help businesses attain unrivalled profitability and success. Transforming the way the web works, from Search Engine Optimization to Shopping Carts, Google has brought-forward a revolution in the business world unlike any seen before. Enterprises are therein partnering with Google solutions to further advance their digital transformation motive and help ameliorate the business outcomes of their customers.

With statistics showcasing over one million businesses employing Google solutions, the inclination is rapidly gaining momentum over traditional means of marketing.

Enterprises are seeking its paramount expertise to jumpstart their heightened revenue generating marketing campaigning. The recent overall investment in the sector amounts to several billion dollars and the numbers are surging ahead every passing day. This growth trajectory has attracted sectors like healthcare, banking and others to resort to Google solutions, thereby proliferating them across an expansive audience base with a wider reach.

Taking into consideration the rising adoption of Google Solutions, Insights Success has critically evaluated and curated a list of “The 10 Most Innovative Google Solution Provider Companies, 2017,” which are transforming the industry landscape with its effective and adept solutions and boasts the potential to ensure enhanced returns.

Featuring in the issue as the Cover Story is Reblaze Technologies, which provides proprietary web security technologies in a single, unified platform, shielding customer web assets (sites, apps, data, and services) within private, secure cloud environments.

Also featured in the issue are A.Y. Technologies, which is a web application and mobile app development agency, providing SaaS integrations, UX Research and User Experience Design; Cloud With Me, a cloud computing platform that simplifies cloud adoption; iClick Interactive Asia Limited, which is an online marketing firm which relies on advanced data driven automated solutions which provides multi omni channels to their clients to reach Chinese users; Push, which is a digital marketing agency providing marketing techniques and processes for clients; TIE Kinetix, a company that helps in transforming the digital supply chain by providing Total Integrated E-Commerce solutions; and TOPGATE Inc., a technology specialized cloud integrator of Google and a training partner of Google Cloud Platform and Premier Service Partner.

In addition to these, don’t forget to flip through the pages of our Editorial Articles; Why should You have Multiple Payment Options in Your Business? — In Opinion; and Google Cloud Platform: The Wisest Investment Opportunity For Enterprises — Industry Perspective.

Also, expand your knowledge base and expertise through our CXO Standpoint, Using AI to Automatically Optimize Cloud Costs by Amiram Shachar — Cloud Insights.

Let’s Get Started!

Sourav Mukherjee

C O N T E N T S Cover Story

Reblaze Technologies: Using the Cloud for Web Security

08 Industry Perspective

In Opinion

Google Cloud Platform: The Wisest Investment Opportunity For Enterprises

36

Articles

22

Why should You have Multiple Payment Option in your Business?

CXO

24

Cloud Insights

Thought Leader

Using AI to Automatically Optimize Cloud Costs

What Google Learned About Teams (and what leaders can do about it)

38

A.Y. Technologies: Garnering Efď€ ciency through Simplicity and Clarity

18

Cloud With Me: Making Cloud Technology Available for all

20 iClick Interactive Asia Limited: Building a Digital Bridge to Connect the World to China

28 Push: Chasing the Digital Oasis at Lightning Speed

TIE Kinetix: Delivering Google Solutions that Maximizes Revenue Opportunities for the Channel

30

34 TOPGATE: A GCP Partner that Shares the Same Goal as You

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Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Ariana Lawrence Managing Editor Sourav Mukherjee Co-Editors Ajit Balkawade David Smith Stephenie Andrews Ujal Nair Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Alex Noel Picture Editor Tejas Kulkarni Art Editor Karan Gaikwad Business Development Manager Mike Thomas Nick Adams Marketing Manager Ken Jones Business Development Executives Andy, David, Peter, Kevin, John, Brian Research Analyst Jennifer Circulation Manager Robert Database Management Steve Technology Consultant Swapnil Patil sales@insightssuccess.com

Dec-Jan, 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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Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success. Printed and Published by Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd.

Cover Story

Cover story

Cover Story

H

acking and breaches, denial-of-service attacks, data leaks… it seems that hardly a week goes by without some major security incident being

reported.

In 2017 alone, hackers stole the private information of tens of millions of people: 143 million consumers in the Equifax breach, 57 million Uber customers, 14 million Verizon customers… the list goes on. Other high-profile events included a hack of the National Security Agency (the fifth reported breach in as many years), the WannaCry ransomware infestation with thousands of victims, the months-long “Cloudbleed” problem where Cloudflare was exposing its customers’ encrypted information, and more.

Meanwhile, DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks also got worse. According to a report from Kaspersky Lab, 33 percent of organizations experienced a DDoS attack in 2017. This is double the rate seen in 2016.

In this environment, how can organizations successfully defend themselves? Can cloud computing help with this?

We asked this question to Tzury Bar Yochay, CTO of Reblaze Technologies: a PCI DSS certified service provider, which offers comprehensive web security (including hacking and breach prevention, DoS/DDoS protection, bot mitigation, scraping prevention, and more) in a cloud-based platform.

Tzury said, “The security landscape has changed significantly over the last few years. Web-based attacks have become very common, and often, very sophisticated.

“But many organizations are still using legacy technologies such as appliances. These have many disadvantages, and traditional security strategies cannot defeat many of the attack techniques that we now see.

“The good news is that effective protection is still possible.

Modern cloud technologies give us tremendous power.

Among many other applications, we can use the cloud to get robust web security.

What new capabilities are provided by cloud computing?

“Also, because Reblaze runs in the cloud, we can manage it for our customers. Our platform does most of its work automatically, and we do the remaining administration remotely. This includes updates too. So our customers don’t need to do anything—their Reblaze deployments are fully managed, and always up-to-date.

What other benefits does the cloud provide?

He explained, “There are many. For example, there’s the ability to run an application suite in the cloud, such as our Reblaze platform. An organization that decides to use Reblaze doesn’t need to buy any hardware, or install any software—a simple DNS change is all that’s required.

“This routes incoming web traffic through Reblaze. Our platform scrubs the traffic, blocking hostile requests while allowing legitimate traffic through to the protected sites, apps, etc. And thanks to the computational power available in the cloud, we can perform very sophisticated traffic analysis and accurately detect threats with negligible latency—generally two milliseconds or less.

Tzury said, “The cloud obviously provides massive bandwidth. We use this in several ways, for example to defeat volumetric DDoS attacks. If a threat actor tries to DDoS one of our customers, the Reblaze platform has nearinfinite bandwidth at its disposal to absorb the hostile traffic and prevent it from reaching our customer’s networks.

Bandwidth and other resources scale automatically as needed. Basically, when an attacker tries to overwhelm a target with a high-volume DDoS, we have the resources of the entire global cloud at our disposal, which are deployed and load-balanced automatically.

Cover Story

What challenges has Reblaze Technologies faced in using the cloud?

Tzury said, “From the earliest days of the public cloud, we understood its potential. In fact, Reblaze was founded specifically to take advantage of the many benefits of cloud computing. But it took a few years for most industries to catch up—for most executives to understand what the cloud can do for them.

“Today, we have the opposite problem.

The cloud has become so popular, that various companies are claiming to have public cloud solutions even when they really don’t. For example, Reblaze runs on the top-tier public cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform), which have invested a combined $65 billion into their infrastructures. But almost all of our competitors use selfowned cloud infrastructure. Clearly, these self-owned clouds can’t compete with the top-tiers when it comes to reliability and performance.

Are there other factors that should be considered when comparing cloud security solutions?

Tzury said yes. “A very important issue is whether or not private clouds are provided. At Reblaze, we deploy a unique, separate cloud environment for each account. It is delivered as a selfcontained, scalable and elastic VPC (Virtual Private Cloud). Each Reblaze deployment has an entire dedicated stack (including DNS servers, load balancers, logs, database, etc.) for that customer’s use alone.

“In contrast to this, our competitors require their customers to share cloud resources. This exposes those customers to multi-tenancy vulnerabilities, and it also means any given customer can be affected by an attack on someone else. But Reblaze, by setting up each customer with a unique VPC, ensures that our clients can never be affected by attacks that hit others. And there are many other advantages to this approach besides these.

“Another important factor is technology. Reblaze is at the forefront of several technological trends, such as applying big data and machine learning to web security. Meanwhile, some of

our competitors aren’t using these at all.

Does the cloud make it easier to use these latest advancements?

Tzury answered, “Yes, in several ways.

First of all, the top-tier cloud providers have Big Data capabilities. We use these services to collect and store massive volumes of anonymized traffic data from Reblaze deployments all over the world. We receive and process over 3.5 billion traffic requests per day, and we store every single one.

“Then we use Google Cloud Machine Learning to identify global trends in web traffic. We detect and observe new attack techniques as they’re used, and

we get many other insights that are then fed back into our deployments worldwide.

“Basically, we’re harnessing the computing capacity of the global cloud and using it against hostile actors.

Even as new web threats arise, the Reblaze platform is always learning and adapting, to remain effective against them.

Speaking of Google, Reblaze Technologies is a Google Security Partner: has this relationship helped in enhancing business outcomes for its customers? Tzury said, “Our partnership with Google has gone very well. First of all, GCP (Google Cloud Platform) has a web-based Launcher where GCP users can deploy various

software packages with just one click.

We’ve set up Reblaze within Launcher so that potential customers can try our platform for a month, with no further obligation.

“So with just a single click, people can get robust protection for their websites and other online assets, and can also see all the other benefits that Reblaze provides (such as full traffic transparency, real-time traffic control, and so on), all with no cost or obligation.

“Of course, this one-month-trial-withno-obligation offer is not only for GCP users—it’s available to everybody. But Google Cloud has made it very fast and simple to get started using our platform.

“Google has also been very supportive of what Reblaze is doing in the area of web security. Over the last year or so, I’ve been invited to speak numerous times at various Google events. Our partnership has had other positive outcomes as well.

What can we expect from cloud computing in the future, especially when it comes to web security?

Tzury said, “As cloud technologies continue to advance, we’re looking forward to a great future. There’s still so much untapped potential in what the cloud could conceivably do.

“For example, the cloud makes DevOps possible, which has many advantages. So, we’ve made Reblaze into a fully DevOps-compatible platform. Most web security solutions get in the way of continuous delivery, but Reblaze supports it. Whenever a new app or service is introduced, our platform adapts and adjusts itself, and immediately starts protecting the new apps and services just as well as the existing ones. For organizations using Reblaze, web security has become integrated with DevOps, instead of hindering it.

“Here at Reblaze Technologies, we’re very excited about this and other innovations. Our continuing mission is to make robust, effective web security accessible to anybody with an Internet presence—so that the web is a safer place for everyone.”

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Company Name

Management

Brief

A.Y. Technologies aytech.ca

Amin Yazdani Director

A.Y. Technologies is a web application and mobile app development agency, providing SaaS integrations, UX Research and User Experience Design.

Cloud With Me cloudwith.me

Gilad Somjen CEO, Asaf Zamir CTO

Cloud With Me is a cloud computing platform that simplifies cloud adoption.

Finch finch.com

Bjorn Espenes Co-founder & CEO

Finch manages AdWords campaigns for advertisers with the purpose of growing revenues and optimizing for profit in a SaaS+ model.

iClick Interactive Asia Limited i-click.com

Sammy Hsieh CEO & Co-founder

iClick Interactive is an online marketing firm which relies on advanced data driven automated solutions which provides multi omni channels to their clients to reach Chinese users.

Push pushgroup.co.uk

Steven Hyde & Ricky Solanki Co-Founders

Push is a digital marketing agency providing marketing techniques and processes for clients.

Reblaze Technologies reblaze.com

Tzury Bar Yochay CTO

Reblaze Technologies provides proprietary web security technologies in a single, unified platform, shielding customer web assets (sites, apps, data, and services) within private, secure cloud environments.

Spotinst spotinst.com

Amiram Shachar Founder & CEO

Spotinst provides the optimal framework for compute provisioning and cost-effective utilization.

TIE Kinetix tiekinetix.com

Jan Sundelin CEO

TIE Kinetix helps in transforming the digital supply chain by providing Total Integrated E-Commerce solutions.

TOPGATE Inc. topgate.co.jp

Masaki Kato CEO

TOPGATE Inc. is a technology specialized cloud integrator of Google and a training partner of Google Cloud Platform and Premier Service Partner.

Veeam veeam.com

Peter McKay Co-CEO & President

Veeam thrives to deliver non-stop business continuity, digital transformation agility with multi-cloud management and migration, and analytics and visibility with actionable insights for data management, operational performance and compliance.

A.Y. Technologies Garnering Efciency through Simplicity and Clarity

L

eading a simple life means constantly being in touch with our core elements. Similarly, when a project is being approached with certain notions, protocols and standards, there is a high probability that it would get complicated with corresponding impulsive tweaks. In essence, simplicity aids efficiency, harbors close to the core essentials and hence, makes prolongation and resurgence a hassle-free deal.

Bearing this conscience in each of its projects, A.Y. Technologies has become one of the most favored software solution providers in the industry. They have helped conceptualize and consummate various software projects by assisting the developers in simplifying every concept, systematically structuring the process to get a clearer insight and consequently reducing the risk factor of the project.

Developing Apps with a Clear Sense of Expression and Purpose A.Y. Technologies has a unique approach to software development that involves a mixture of lean software development and agile processes. They build mobile apps and custom web applications for their clients while helping them with the architecture and development of a scalable backend for their applications on the cloud.

shops. It’s a SaaS based mobile app platform for building custom apps for each restaurant. The prime purpose of the app is to help the clients establish their branding, while reducing the labor costs by providing their clients’ customers with more convenience without the expenses of building a completely customized mobile app.

Another point that comes to the fore is that A.Y. Technologies showcases the same level of vigor while collaborating with a tech startup as it shows with a wellestablished or growing business enterprise.

A big portion of software development failures could be prevented by properly planning at the initial stage itself.

A.Y. Technologies has consistently proved that many of the superfluous inefficiencies and surprises could be reduced if decisions are made with a better understanding of the software development process and their impact on the project. This forms the very motto of their workshop called, “The Roadmap Workshop,” where it stands by the top executives of a project and helps them to make better decisions. Through this workshop, A. Y. Technologies aims to create efficient and maintainable software that would also be inexpensive to run and maintain.

A.Y. Technologies has earned quite a repute across the globe with its expertise in the field of mobile app development, custom web application development and scalable backend & API development.

They have also tasted success with their exclusive product for the restaurant industry. The app was primarily developed with the ‘Quick Service Restaurants’ in mind, considering the booming popularity of cafes and pizza

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Dec-Jan 2018

Enforcing the Right Approach for an Efficient and Maintainable Software Google Cloud is a platform that has a huge potential to scale software systems. This is the main reason behind A.Y. Technologies’ preferred partnership with Google. This partnership has enabled A.Y. Technologies’ customers with better cloud infrastructure options and Google’s customers with an erudite mobile app and web app solution provider.

Obviously, sky is the limit for systems that are built with A.Y. Technologies’ deep knowledge of software architecture and Google’s Infrastructure.

A.Y. Technologies organizes regional Google Cloud Platform Meetups where the focus is on creating a community around Google Cloud services in Vancouver.

These meetups are arranged on a monthly basis and this community literally acts as a mentor to all those who are involved with Google Cloud Platform.

An Entrepreneur with the Heart of a Mentor As the Director of Technology at A.Y. Technologies, Amin Yazdani shoulders quite a few responsibilities apart from taking decisions on high level software architecture and design. He invests a fair amount of time in mentoring his team and the entrepreneurs outside his team. Being the Founder of the company, he doesn’t shy away from going through every line of code that his team writes. He is deeply involved with the Roadmap workshop and makes sure that his clients get the best value that they ask for.

Amin Yazdani Director Building the Future with a Deft Feature It goes beyond doubt that to stay relevant in this fast-paced technology driven industry, every organization needs to be adroit and should adapt to the new technologies that would boost the overall efficiency. A.Y. Technologies will continue to evolve and adopt new knowledge to continue its journey

We will continue our journey in making software Development uncomplicated and help our Clients increase their chance of success Amin came to Simon Fraser University in Canada to complete his Master’s Degree in Computer Science and later on started working for a local tech startup. After gaining some valuable experiences, he attained his lifelong dream of running his own company. However, initially, when he started A.Y. Technologies by himself, the biggest obstacle that he came across was finding the right talent.

Amin spent the next two years looking for the talent that not only fit with their culture, but also with the right level of knowledge and expertise. As a proud Director, Amin happily flaunts the talent and skills of his employees and is constantly in search of more like-minded people to work with.

Dec-Jan 2018

in making software development uncomplicated and subsequently improve their client’s chances of success.

Amin plans to expand their mobile app to other industries such as Full Service Restaurants and expand their footprint in the market. Amin and his team will continue to focus on new technologies for better and more efficient ways of building software, and at the same time, pledge to keep the level of their customer service and support as high as possible.

19

Cloud With Me: Making Cloud Technology Available for all

W

hat if businesses could eliminate the complexities of internet based services to improve performance? What if it was possible for your employees to work from anywhere, at any time, from any device, and still have a single control point on proceedings? These illustrious if’s are surreally executed in the field of cloud computing.

Cloud technology delivers such services independently, and flawlessly. Servers can be deployed privately, publicly, and even in Hybrid manner. Experts believe that cloud technology has the ability to reshape the entire Information and Communication Tech industry as a revolution. For the first time in history, internet based tech giants are employing cloud technology as a major part of their offerings.

The prime focus of these companies has been to provide a plausible amount of services by utilizing a single Omnichannel. Cloud computing characteristically offers Platforms as a service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). PaaS allows customers to develop, run, and manage applications. IaaS provides virtualized computing resources over the internet, and SaaS offers software licensing and delivery model in which the software is licensed on a subscription basis.

However, the multitasking ability of many available cloud based solutions generates complexity in processes. As a result customer’s frequently face difficulties while installing and utilizing the three base services.

Budget friendly and up-to-the-minute Services As mentioned earlier, Cloud With Me offers cloud services through Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure. Popular Content Management Systems like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento are among the major add-ons that Cloud With Me offers. The installation of these extras are stress-free, and complete with just a few clicks. The company dashboard provides assistance with free access to a pre-configured email server, HTML, FTP, Analytics, and MySQL. The offered PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS accounts for its flexibility and efficiency.

Cloud With Me has earned widespread praise for its pocket friendly estimating. The price structure of services is transparent with no hidden costs. Major cost-effective features include not having to pay for web dev, and no downtime are foremost in market. The CLOUD token crypto currency with unequivocal features was released by the company in July 2017, and is being purchased promptly.

The public individuals in particular have been investing attentively. The CEO of the company states: “It’s the most beneficial way of paying for cloud services. When CLOUD tokens are added to a Cloud With Me account, your balance is automatically doubled.”

Cloud computing also deals with periodic concerns, Cloud conveyance is one of them. Many organizations hire a

Cloud With Me is the unique solution provider, enabling customers to install Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure cloud servers in minutes. It has been the primary market dominator since its inception in 2016. Cloud With Me is the first (and currently, the only) partner of Google Cloud Platform.

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Dec-Jan 2018

specialized developer in the period of transition. The company has created a well-equipped and highly secure service for uncertain times which can reduce the expenditure regarding transition.

An Ordinary Discussion That Led To Extraordinary Outcomes How often do you see business discussions in bars that make way for an innovative company?

Gilad Somjen (CEO) and Asaf Zamir (CTO) of Cloud With Me, two of the former tech industry veterans, met at a bar in Dublin, Ireland. During their discussion they hit on a serious note and discussed the complexities of deploying cloud servers. The individuals were cognizant about the need of simplified cloud adoption. Ultimately, the conversation led to an extraordinary cloud solution formation and their entrepreneurial experience in the online marketing business and innovative insights further pedaled Cloud With Me towards immense success.

Driving Growth by a Premier Partnership with Google The partnership with Google Cloud has significantly differentiated the company from its competitors. The magnanimous global network of Google reduces the threat of downtime as data can be routed to another center if one data center witnesses failure. This is made possible by the Google infrastructure, which is protected with over 700 experts working on information, application, and network security. Its time preciosity and credibility in terms of security is unmatchable for onsite servers in the market.

Asaf Zamir CTO

Gilad Somjen CEO

Initial Hurdles as a Service Based Industry The platform faced many initial hurdles as a Service-based industry, as it had farfetched demands. To cater with the qualitative solutions in cost-effective way is a tough ask.

However, Cloud With Me has made cloud adoption a cake walk through its synergy. It has successfully automated the all in one cloud service, which can be utilized with a few clicks with little expenditure. According to Gilad,

We’re condent that the future brings mass adoption to cloud services, with Cloud With Me as the main bridge As an industry leader, Google Cloud drives businesses forward with meaningful data analytics, project management tools. The collaboration creates flexibility in servicing. By simplifying the onboarding process, Cloud With Me facilitates easy access to Google Cloud’s features and benefits in matter of minutes.

Cloud computing companies around the world primarily hosts their services to the technical elite, i.e. those services are geared towards corporate use. Cloud With Me services are quite unique in their offering in this regard. Its services are also accessible for the general public and individuals.

Dec-Jan 2018

employing ambitious individuals and sustaining the quality of product was the hard-hitting task.

Ultramodern Cloud Platform Bestowing a profitable invention to its clients is the key motivation for the company. The company believes that the sky is the limit in terms of cloud adoption. It has continued to lower all barriers for cloud adoption. It aims to provide supreme cloud service with greater efficiency, cost effectiveness, and productivity.

21

Why should You have

Multiple Payment Options in Your

Business?

22

Dec-Jan 2018

In Opinion

A

s per a recent study, more than 50 percent of customer cancels their purchase if their preferred payment method is unavailable. Additionally, more than 40 percent of shoppers feel comfortable if an online merchant offers multiple payment options. As eCommerce websites started to gain popularity, the need for multiple alternative payment channels increased so much that it overtook card payment method recently. With all these reasons, there’s a host of other reasons why a retailer should offer their customers multiple payment methods. So, let’s have a look at the reasons below.

Providing a customer, a Brilliant Experience is one of the main targets of all business houses. As payment methods come at the time of checkout, it can impact a customer’s feeling about the overall experience so, POS systems that accept multiple payment methods are a very important tool in order to provide customers a better experience. With the whole world shifting toward electronic payment methods, there’s a huge number of people who are still sticking with a cheque as their payment method.

So, to accommodate their need a retailer should start using electronic cheque processing equipment, which will eventually satisfy those customers who are still unwilling to let their cheque-book go. On the other hand, recently, payment methods have seen a tremendous shift as customers are turning towards the internet for their needs. With most of the purchase happening in mobile, devices need quick payment systems for better user experience. In addition to all these, social payments platforms that include Twitter and Snapchat are quickly gaining a lot of popularity and interest which needs to be addressed quickly. Brands like Samsung, Google and Apple have brought their payment systems and these are gaining popularity very fast.

Some of the payment getaways only work in few specific countries. Having different payment options always increase Global Reach and helps to deal with different currencies. Multiple payment options help to increase customer base across different countries and even across continents.

Most of the merchant know, how an online transaction can be frustrating. Failed transactions are one of the main reasons that lead to loss of sales and wasted time for both customers and the merchant. Not offering the preferred mode of transaction leads to abandoning of the shopping cart. According to statistics, providing newer and faster mode of transaction leads to Customer Retention, that can result to 95 percent of increased profit.

A merchant should include payment options with Modern Appeal. More than 90 percent of the consumers have expressed their concern about using outdated payment methods and technology and they also would consider moving to any other business with better and modern payment methods.

Offering multiple payment options also helps a store look professional and more reliable. Consumers always want to feel secure as he/she is spending hard earned money. So, with a Safe and Secured Merchant customers feel more secure while purchasing.

So, adding multiple payment methods is a bold step for any organization, with all other advantages of its own, it also helps to make your relationship with our customers even better. However, integrating multiple payment channels comes with its own number of challenges, sometimes it makes difficult to calculate key metrics and track business growth. Still, by adding multiple payment options most of the business houses have seen a surge of sales and profits.

Dec-Jan 2018

23

Using

AI to

Automatically Optimize

Cloud costs T

he Birth of Cloud Computing

Back in the early days of cloud computing, if we would tell you that every business and consumer would eventually be running their entire compute and storage infrastructure digitally, we would sound crazy. But just 17 years later, it seems inevitable that the old world of data centers and on-premise servers will go the way of the physical newspaper and radio.

Indeed, even Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, didn’t envision this future back in 2000. At the time, Amazon was simply struggling to scale despite hiring a lot of new developers. Jassy, who was Amazon’s Chief of Staff at the time, dove into the problem to discover that the hardware and infrastructural needs simply were not being met fast enough. Jassy set out to speed up this process internally, allowing the internal R&D team to access a pool of common compute and storage resources, making it easier for each to launch their own projects without needing to deal with the underlying infrastructure. Eventually, at a team summit in 2003, they realized this was a need for every other company on the planet, and so AWS was born.

24

The birth of Spotinst: Rising cloud costs Today, there is a similar revolution beginning in the world of cloud computing. One still in its early stages, but seemingly destined to grow just as quickly as AWS. “Spotinst aims to be the largest provider of cloud infrastructure without running any servers,” says Amiram Shachar, CEO & Founder of Spotinst. The statement is bold on its own, but when you dive a bit deeper, not much bolder a claim than had you asked Andy Jassy the same back in 2003.

Just as Jassy found an internal struggle today, Spotinst began with Shachar’s identification of a problem at his company, then Lycos Global Group. As Director of DevOps, Shachar was pressed with the task of migrating all Lycos’ servers to the cloud, but costs quickly jumped.

“Within a couple of months of moving to the cloud, our costs had actually risen dramatically, way beyond any calculator that we used to predict it” continued Shachar.

“To the point where we were actually planning to move everything back to on-premise.”

Just around that time, Shachar encountered the relatively unused offering at AWS, called Spot Instances. Spot Dec-Jan 2018

Cloud Insights

Amiram Shachar Chief Executive OfďŹ cer

About the CEO Amiram Shachar is the CEO & Founder of Spotinst, which leverages excess cloud capacity to help customers save ~80% on cloud costs. Before Spotinst, he was Director of DevOps at Ybrant Media and led the Israeli Defense Forces migration to the cloud.

Dec-Jan 2018

25

Instances were spare server capacity at AWS, cleverly packaged to enable monetization of these servers. AWS offered these idle servers for massive 90% discounts with one major caveat - they’ll kick you off once a customer wants to pay full price for those servers.

Shachar smelled opportunity. “By building algorithms that could predict the spare capacity terminations in advance, we could then migrate to another spare server beforehand, saving us 80% on our cloud costs.” After a few months, Shachar and his team were running nearly 75% of their compute power on AWS spare capacity. Just like Jassy back in 2003, the lightbulb eventually went off - there was a far larger opportunity at hand here.

The virtual cloud: run code without dealing with cloud providers “All companies running on cloud struggle to keep costs down,” Shachar says. “But with a long list of priorities including security and maintaining site reliability, DevOps teams often don’t have the time to do all of the work required to optimize cost.” But while Spotinst’s first product was aimed at helping companies reliably leverage spare capacity to reduce costs, Shachar and his co-founders, Liran Polak and Aharon Twizer, had a bigger vision.

Today, managing cloud infrastructure has become just as complex as running on-premises. With a plethora of new AWS, Google, and Azure offerings launching every month, along with an increasingly vast list of companies that build off these offerings, figuring out the balance between cost and performance is a major challenge. But, Shachar envisions a world where you don’t have to.

ensure that your applications are always running on the most cost-effective servers, given your performance requirements. Instead of exploring the long list of alternatives within and across the different cloud providers, Spotinst will take care of it all under the hood.

Today, their platform recognizes any workload that could be run on a cheaper server. Just put those workloads under Spotinst’s control and their algorithms will take care of the rest - those workloads will forever run on the cheapest servers available. All without compromising performance or availability.

Using a new Serverless offering, where developers can simply write code without dealing with any of the underlying infrastructure, Spotinst aims to deliver on this promise in a major way. “All you should ever have to do is write code,” says Shachar. “Our algorithms will make sure it is always running on the most cost-effective infrastructure, across all cloud providers, for your performance and availability needs.” In other words, just write the code, and Spotinst will make sure it always runs at the lowest cost possible for your performance needs.

As Shachar says, “in 10 years, just as everyone is making the shift to cloud today, they will be making the shift to Serverless computing. Only with Spotinst, they’ll be able to also ensure they are paying the best possible price, all without doing anything.” The promise of companies all running a perfectly optimized cloud without ever dealing with the infrastructure seems bold.

But as we learned from Jassy and AWS, in another 10-15 years, it may just be an inevitability.

The promise of the virtual cloud The promise of Shachar’s vision is simple at heart - a virtual cloud. Spotinst will leverage machine learning to

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Dec-Jan 2018

iClick Interactive Asia Limited: Building a Digital Bridge to Connect the World to China

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hina is often referred to as the manufacturing hub of the world. Some people also believe that it is next superpower in making. However, there is a lot more to China then what meets the eye. For example, China is also home to a billion consumers who are becoming increasingly wealthy; making the country a super attractive market for multinational companies. However, there are some hurdles along the way too. The Chinese online commerce is led by Chinese companies. Chinese citizen use their own version of Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc., making it difficult for multinational companies to plan and execute a single digital marketing strategy across the board.

Additionally, many Chinese citizens do not speak English.

Hence entering the Chinese market through on ground investments is still a difficult task. Thus, it is imperative for multinational companies to find allies in China to enter the market and navigate the challenging and rewarding reality in the upcoming future.

One company which has helped several national and multinational companies to draw big paychecks in China is iClick Interactive Asia Limited. The company is an independent online marketing technology platform that connects worldwide marketers with audiences in China. iClick provides several options to marketers including native ads, video marketing, social ads, campaigns, etc. The value of reaching the Chinese audience on a personal level is important and more and more companies are starting to see the value in it. For example, iClick recently collaborated with several multinationals to help them meet the right audience online and consequently, boost their sales.

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A Brief Introduction iClick was established in 2009 and is currently headquartered in Hong Kong. After its successful start, the company has expanded operations across eight locations in Asia as well as in London. iClick prides itself in building cutting-edge technologies, which deliver omni-channel marketing capabilities. These technologies are in line with the best marketing practices in China as they help fulfill various marketing objectives in a data-driven and automated manner.

One unique and advanced access solution developed by iClick is iAudience. This solution allows marketers to search, identify, and customize to meet the right end user.

The application of this solution allows marketers to harvest the power of the most important search tool used in China.

Companies can reach their core audience using appropriate keywords in the relevant context. iClick also uses another advanced tool named ‘iAccess,’ which allows marketers to identify target audience based on their gender, age, income levels, geographic locations, interest, device, and device

Dec-Jan 2018

operating system. By using analytic tools to identify right keywords and relying on complete information of the audience, iClick provides unimaginable power to the marketers.

Delivering Results to the Giants iClick recently worked with Audi and Huawei to help them achieve a greater share of the Chinese market. While working with Audi, iClick was expected to provide a grand opening for the new A6L in the hearts of younger, techsavvy crowd. This audience is not the usual Audi target market which often relies on high-end customers to boost its sales. In response, iClick helped Audi identify their core audience through data driven solutions. After identifying the core audience, iClick campaign delivered a mix of Open Splash and In-Feeds ad formats to enhance user engagement. As a result of this campaign, Audi was able to reach over 43 million unique mobile users in just 14 days.

The campaign was a huge success as it reached 70% core auto spending consumers on a personal level. iClick with their video engagement for Audi was able to hold the attention of over 43% of users through their feed for the entire duration of the video. Similarly, when the company worked with Land Rover on a marketing campaign, they were able to convince more than 2500 consumers to opt for a test drive.

Sammy Hsieh CEO & Co-founder bachelor’s degree in economics from the prestigious University of California, Los Angeles. Sammy continues to take the company to greater heights with a vision that is original and meaningful to iClick’s clients. Under his leadership, iClick has dug deep into online channels covering millions of mobile apps and websites to help marketers, especially multinational marketers, navigate

We can help you reach +720 million Chinese internet users today. Are you ready?

The Footprints of a Great Leadership Sammy Hsieh is the CEO and one of the co-founders of iClick. He founded the company with a vision to redefine the digital marketplace with data, insights, and innovation.

Prior to founding iClick, Sammy held top positions at several large technology companies. Sammy was the director of Search Marketing at Yahoo Hong Kong during 2000 to 2008, during which he oversaw its business operations, including sales, marketing, business development, and product management. He received his Dec-Jan 2018

through the fragmented landscapes of the Chinese digital arena. Sammy believes that the future of iClick is extremely bright as its marketing platform is built on highly scalable and reliable cloud-based infrastructure. Such infrastructure allows the company to serve far more clients than their competitors and offers the client with complex marketing solutions which are the need of the hour in the digital world.

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Chasing the Digital Oasis at Lightning Speed

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oogle and the digital medium has become a central hub for connecting with other people and forming real bonds, contrary to the traditional mainstream media. In 2016 itself, Google reported advertising revenues totaling more than $79 billion and is now the second most valued brand in the world, ahead of Coca-Cola and just behind Apple. Companies who find a way to break out of the online maze can rule the virtual world, which offers new opportunities every day. Hence, advertisers online are only faced with one option: Chase down their consumers at lightning speed.

One company who helps advertisers achieve this goal is, Push. The company is a leading digital marketing agency based across UK, Romania, and Denmark. The field of digital marketing allows many to compete as the field is still wide open for unique opportunities. However, the act of keeping up with new trends and aligning your company with the best ones is what sets Push apart from its competitors. Push adopted Google Adwords back in 2007, recommending an easy way for the marketers to reach clients online, with an extremely cost-effective solution.

Currently, the company is a member of the elite club of agencies that work closely with Google as a Premier Partner. Push has recently won the Google Global & EMEA award for mobile innovation and was named amongst the Top Three partners for two other awards – Growing Businesses Online and Shopping Innovation.

Services to dive in mysterious waters As mentioned earlier, digital medium is new, and offers exciting opportunities for advertisers. However, it is also a channel which has not been fully explored yet. There is a

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lot to learn for everyone and the medium keeps changing forms to become more complex every day. For example, Orkut was really popular among teenagers a few years ago and the platform just vanished all of a sudden. Hence, it is important for marketers to understand how to dive in these mysterious digital waters with their client’s reputation and large costs at stake. Push distinguishes itself with some topof-the line services that guarantee success for the clients.

These services include paid search, paid social campaigns, conversion, analytics, etc. These services help companies access the cream of the crop digital platforms like Google and Facebook, to make the most out of their advertising dollars. For example, working with Google through paid search can give a company instant visibility in rankings unlike anything else. On the other hand, Push is also working with Facebook to help its clients reach more than a billion people on a personal level. It is important for companies to use these two platforms as they are driving the real conversion online. Additionally, Push also offers services to increase direct conversions through website.

Recognition worth Striving For Push has established itself in a solid manner by offering innovative and effective marketing services. The company has also been rewarded with top honors for its contribution to their clients as well as to giant online platforms like Google. It was awarded the ‘Highest Customer Satisfaction’ award by Google recently. Their expertise is not only best showcased by awards but extends to their clients reaching new customers and accessing new markets. Their passion has resulted in several high pay-outs for their customers.

Some such examples include a cottage company, which Dec-Jan 2018

expanded their operation from 50 cottages to 500 cottages and was later purchased by a bigger company for an attractive price. Their clients also include a hair clinic, which started out with a single branch local operation. The clinic now is a global franchise with over 38 locations worldwide.

Strategies and Leadership The leadership at Push has always believed in “Staying Ahead” of the digital race. The digital race is changing rapidly and even web giants cannot put a stop to these evolving innovations that constantly disrupt online platforms. Hence, it is only knowledge and innovation that helps digital marketing companies to survive and excel.

Additionally, leadership at Push also believes in some fundamentals that help their clients shine on the online platform in a unique manner.

These fundamentals include offering lightning quick speed for websites to maximize response and retentions.

Consumers online are increasingly accessing websites through their smartphones which makes them more impatient about accessing a specific website. Hence, consistent online studies reveal that it is important to offer great speeds for websites to appeal to users.

Push also believes in the climate of testing, hiring young people who are in constant touch with technology and depth of knowledge ahead of breadth. These fundamental principles applied at Push makes them stand out and work

Steven Hyde & Ricky Solanki Co-Founders

Push Collects The Global Award For Mobile Innovation from Google’s Worldwide MD

The Future in the Making The future is one of the most mysterious and exciting prospect of the digital medium. The future of digital marketing agencies could be life changing for the business world as we know it. There are exciting inventions built every day to connect our physical world to the virtual world. Leaders at Push realize that it is an exciting as well as a challenging world for them to be a part of. Push is helping businesses harvest the power of strategic thinking

Push is a great Mobile-rst company, who use great tech, great people and innovation to do the right and ethical thing for the customer.

- Helene Ambiana, Head of Google Partners EMEA

side by side with successful brands like Google. Ricky Solanki and Steven Hyde, the two Founders of Push have instilled constant learning as a virtue at Push. They hold learning sessions every Friday to keep employees updated about latest trends and find new ways to push their team into the future.

Dec-Jan 2018

to make better business decisions. This is in line with the latest Artificial Intelligence trends that are sweeping traditional businesses and forcing everyone to adapt in tough conditions. Push would continue to reinvent itself with emphasis on mobile platforms which has seen explosive growth in recent years.

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TIE Kinetix: Delivering Google Solutions that Maximizes Revenue Opportunities for the Channel

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IE Kinetix, founded in 1987, has been transforming the digital supply chain for 30 years by providing solutions to automate business processes for sales, marketing and fulfillment. These days a lot of companies still struggle in optimizing their business processes internally, with their different IT systems or different organizations across the globe. Externally, and especially with their business partners, if these are suppliers or channel partners, these challenges are even greater with new and evolving technologies and a 24/7 business dynamic. All their experience and solutions have been combined through a variety of different modules in one centralized platform for customers to control their indirect business processes: FLOW Partner Automation. The FLOW platform was launched back in March 2016, and since then various new modules and capabilities have been added monthly.

A Leader with Unmatched Industry Knowledge Jan Sundelin, CEO of TIE Kinetix, has been leading the innovative team of 140 since 2008. With offices across the globe, he brings over 15 years of executive management with him. With the vast knowledge of management, software, and implementation under his belt, he has provided TIE Kinetix with the support it needs.

Covering the Complete Google Portfolio As a multi-level Google Partner with partnerships for Google AdWords, Google Cloud, Google Analytics 360 Suite and Google for Work, they are not just a Google partner or an agency but cover the complete Google portfolio.

variety of vendor-partner companies. We started as partners to resell and implement their Search solutions, but we have developed into partnerships where we do jointdevelopments to become more successful and add value to our customers business together. About 2 years ago, we started talking with the Google AdWords team for the indirect channel,” asserts Jan Sundelin.

Google AdWords for Channel: A Unique Solution for Channel Partners TIE Kinetix’s Google AdWords for Channel solution is a unique solution for channel partners looking to use Google AdWords as a digital marketing tool at a local level.

Enabling manufacturers/vendors to run Google AdWords together with their channel partners in a centralized, local and automated way. With Google AdWords for Channel, AdWords campaigns and landing pages are personalized per partner and analytics can be seen for a group of partners and at individual partner level, while all being automated.

Google’s Role in Creating Google AdWords for Channel “As you all know, Google’s goal via search is to provide the most relevant search results, both organic and paid.

Currently, there is an overwhelming growth in search with mobile, creating a need for more locally relevant searches.

Those using search on their mobile are often looking for “near me” searches, creating a challenge for Google to

“We have been working with Google for many years now.

As a multi-level Google Partner we can provide help to a

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Dec-Jan 2018

provide the most relevant item. However, most of the time, the search is often relevant for a SME company, but only a small amount of SME companies are using Google AdWords. The lack of SME’s using Google AdWords as a marketing solution is often due to the lack of knowledge, people, time, and budget these particular companies have when it comes to using Google AdWords. There is often a lack of visibility of the customer journey and insight is often difficult to gain, even though 75% of goods are delivered to partners. Scalable tech will help bring SME companies onboard with Google AdWords.”

Role of TIE Kinetix To understand how TIE Kinetix fits in here, it’s important to understand that TIE Kinetix has been enabling manufacturers/vendors to run campaigns with their channel (partner) community for almost 20 years. This is called through-partner marketing automation.

Jan Sundelin “Manufacturers/vendors enable their channel partners by providing various tactics like email campaigns, promotions, landing pages, micro sites, social media messaging, online events, assets, marketing collateral and sales collateral.

These tools generate demand for the channel partners and the manufacturers/vendors get control over their brand.

Over the last couple of years, getting control over search results, especially in the indirect channel, has become more important. The Google AdWords for Channel module gives the vendor the ability to automate AdWords campaigns and to use analytics that allow the vendor to see the customer

CEO expand FLOW Partner Automation platform, while adapting Google AdWords for Channel to the constant changing vendor-partner relationship. “We recently started working with agencies to help them onboard SME companies and to support them through the creation of Google AdWords campaigns and strategies. By working with agencies, we are able to help a wide range of vendorpartner focused companies have the capabilities to run a

We enable manufacturers/vendors to run Google AdWords together with channel partners in a centralized, local, and automated way journey, making business easier for both vendors and partners. With a centralized tech solution, vendors and partners will no longer compete against each other for ad placement on Google. Google AdWords for Channel removes the risk of bid inflation and expensive keywords.

We allow strategy alignment with no hassle to either the vendor or partner,” adds Sundelin.

centralized AdWords campaign, while reaching the partner’s customers at a local level, providing a full followthrough of the sales funnel.”

Insights into the Future As a tech partner of Google, TIE Kinetix will continue to Dec-Jan 2018

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Industry Perspective

Google

Cloud

Platform: E

arly in 1999, the founders of Google were looking for investors in their idea. Google, like many other great companies, was an idea incepting from humble beginnings. Google search engine was invented by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a dorm room, and they had invested their own cash by maxing out their credit cards.

Hence, when they ran out of funds to support their venture, they decided to sell their idea to Excite. They met with then Excite CEO, George Bell, and made an offer of $1 million.

The price was further reduced to $750,000 but Bell rejected the proposal. A few years later, when Google IPO took place, Google was valued at a staggering $23 billion. Today, the company is one of the biggest conglomerates in the world and prides itself as an innovative and creative enterprise. This short history of Google has a lesson for us all. Perhaps, there is a great opportunity knocking on the door of every investor today; perhaps it is the next big thing in the business world.

Just like Google, search engine took the world by storm and made instant millionaires in no time; similarly Google cloud platform offers a wise and sound investment opportunity for businesses all across the world. Cloud services and their business functions are on the rise. Many companies simply cannot afford to keep up with the physical data storage facilities and invest in safe storage solutions to keep their data secure. On the other hand, cloud services offer new and rich opportunities for businesses.

Using cloud solutions, companies can invest in analyzing data to understand their system objectively. Additionally, companies can provide access to employees at any given time and at any location. This helps companies provide freedom to employees, cut down on capital costs and increase productivity as well. Hence, investing in cloud

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solutions is essential for companies. Moreover, investing in Google cloud platform would be the wisest decision of all when we take the following points into consideration.

The Costs that are Easy to Forget Currently, there is a fierce competition in the cloud space between many giant technology companies. Recently, Google announced a price cut of 20% on its standard cloud storage solution. Its competitor Amazon, responded with a 25% discount which seemed to be a tough fight back for a while. However, Google made it clear that their steep discount was a sign that the company was in the race for years to come. Google further increased the odds by announcing a 10% discount for customers. Google is simply one of the most cost-effective cloud solution providers today. For example, businesses can purchase a terabyte of data per month for as low as $10.

Dec-Jan 2018

The Wisest Investment Opportunity for Enterprises A Really Wide Range of Services Cloud service solutions are growing fast, and the competition to provide cheaper, more reliable and more value laden solutions is getting more intense. This is good news for the customers and Google cloud platform is definitely making a case for itself as the top contender on this front. Google provides Google Cloud Hosting as well as App Engine, storage, DNS, CDN and many more. Google also stores data on several physical servers as well as virtual data centers around the world.

Additionally, customers can choose a different data center for their webpages and other requirements.

Safe and Reliable Solution Many enterprises are looking for a safe and secure solution for storing their sensitive business information. Google cloud platform and other competitors are all well reputed in the business and hence their solutions should not pose a major concern for anyone.

Dec-Jan 2018

However, Google has been favored by global conglomerates as the go-to-solution for their needs. Some of the most well-known brands in the world like Spotify, HSBC, Home Depot, Snapchat, HTC, Best Buy, Philips, Coca Cola, Domino’s, Feedly, ShareThis, Sony Music, and Ubisoft work with Google Cloud Platform on an everyday basis. Their relationship with Google may not provide clear guidance to others, however coupled with cost-effective solutions Google Cloud Platform makes a strong case for itself for enterprises of all size.

The Power of Google Google is a global tech giant. From networks to mobile hardware, Google has tried its hands in several technical ventures very successfully. For example, in order to provide cloud storage solutions, it is important for a company to have experience in storing large amounts of data costeffectively and in a secure manner. Google already owns YouTube, which saw an upload of around 1 PB of data per day in 2015 itself and its demand for more storage is growing exponentially. Additionally, what separates Google apart from its competitors is also its top of the line network.

Google cloud hosting apart from other advantages, is backed by one of the biggest networks in the world. In 2016, Google had announced their investment in the FASTER Cable System, which has allowed Google to send and receive data at 10Tbps.

It is not hard to understand and appreciate why cloud solutions are considered by many to be the next big technology revolution. Google Cloud Platform promises to be the wisest opportunity for enterprises that are looking to fall in line with the next big thing on the horizon.

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Thought Leader

What G oogle Learned About Teams Google (and what leaders can do about it)

By Pa y McManus

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eam members at Google are challenged in much the same way as nearly everyone else in corporate life.

To get things done, they need to come together fast and tackle complex tasks that have no easy solutions. But Google loves to take on huge challenges (driverless car, anyone?) and a team of Google researchers recently set out to find the workplace equivalent of The Holy Grail: a perfect team.

Google called the effort Project Aristotle and the researchers’ primary focus was to use data to uncover meaningful patterns for what makes a great team. Project Aristotle is a fascinating undertaking that was detailed recently in The New York Times.

Ironically, the Project Aristotle team got nowhere fast. They hit one brick wall after another as their hypotheses kept proving wrong, despite robust team observations, surveys, and analysis. Just because a team was made up of high IQs, big achievers, or nice guys didn’t mean they could come together to produce good work. Even the classic suspects structure, roles, and goals - proved necessary but insufficient to predict the highest levels of success.

But they knew something was there and they kept digging until they uncovered one factor that stood out above all others, despite numerous other variations - a culture characterized by psychological safety as a key determinant of the most effective teams. Psychological safety, according to Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, is “the shared belief that a team is safe for personal risk-taking…that the team

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will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up.”

The researchers at Google describe two factors that seem to make the biggest difference in creating psychologically safe environments for collaboration: 1. Relatively equivalent air time among all team members in their discussions 2. A high overall level of social sensitivity Translation: Everybody on a highly performing team could expect that they would be heard if they had something to say and that their concerns, positive or otherwise, would be attended to by the team. These findings were borne out consistently despite variables such as a team’s goals, process, or even the style of its leader.

Safety Starts with Leaders In a recent blog post, I explored the approach that animation giant Pixar takes to creating a safe environment for break-through story telling. In his 2014 book Creativity Inc, Pixar’s CEO Ed Catmull demonstrates his belief that a big part of his job is fostering that condition.

In one telling example, Catmull describes a deal he made with his co-founder Steve Jobs: Catmull would commit to stay at Pixar if Jobs would agree to forego attending the meetings where unfettered truth-telling was essential to the success of their films. Despite his brilliance, Jobs was known as the last leader on earth you’d look to for creating a safe environment. Catmull knew he had to protect against the risk of Jobs’ larger-than-life style overwhelming people’s need to speak the hard truths.

While Catmull didn’t use the term, he was describing psychological safety as an essential ingredient of success for Pixar’s film makers. If you’re a leader like Catmull looking to adopt the same practice for your teams, special care and attention are required.

Here are three essentials for leadership that make a difference: Dec-Jan 2018

Develop clear goals and ground rules.

People in teams need enough common focus to feel competent to do the work at hand-hard to find in a world that is always shifting under their feet.

Whether it’s stated outcomes for a lastminute meeting, short-term milestones on a project path, or high level objectives in a charter, effective teams share a common view of what they are trying to accomplish. Period.

Psychological safety cannot exist in an on-going state of ambiguity. While they may not know what the future will look like in a month or a year, they can be clear about the nature and scope of what they are working on right now. If it needs to change, so

be it and that requires a discussion, some decision-making, and a collective reset.

Setting the team up with ground rules, as clearly stated norms, goes a long way to creating mindfulness about individual actions. Despite our best intentions, not everyone is naturally inclined to set aside their positions to hear what others are thinking. Pressure, timelines, and politics just compound the challenge. Getting a team’s agreement on simple ground rules, such as “Equal access to the air waves” or “Listen before you give an opinion” can shift team members’ inclinations.

Keep ground rules spare and specific, revisit them often. And, most especially as the leader: Hold the line when someone crosses it.

subtle or even blatant barriers to people’s experience of safety on a team. The most common: Members getting shut down without a hearing on a controversial opinion, or being marginalized because of stylistic differences. These and other issues like them need to be noticed, named, and resolved as soon as they appear-and if the leader doesn’t start, who will?

But it doesn’t stop there for leaders. In her research on teams, Stanford Professor Maggie Neale (2) has demonstrated the potential of diversity when and if a team can take advantage of each member’s perspective. Neale emphasizes the importance of actually managing diversity so that the team creates an inclusive culture that enables healthy dynamics and solid results.

About Patty McManus

Senior Consultant Patty McManus develops leaders who are equipped to embrace both the responsibilities and the potential of their roles. She works at the levels of values, skill development, and motivation to support leaders’ and organizations’ success.

Patty is a frequent blogger and podcaster on interactionassociates.com and author of the popular ebook, “The Little Book of Big Change”.

She is also a sought-after presenter, speaking most recently at the American Library Association’s National Conference.

Actively commit to creating psychological safety.

Google is hardly packed with touchyfeely types who expect to be talking about emotions at work. However, one leader described the value of having actual data that demonstrated the importance of paying attention to the Dec-Jan 2018

Even if no one else does, leaders need to keep the importance of psychological safety front and center, especially about their own actions. If a team has ground rules about equal access to air time, yet the leader repeatedly does most of the talking or lets the two high status members take

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over, the team faces not only a loss of safety but the cynicism that results when a leader says one thing and does another. Which brings me to the third essential for team leaders…

If you talk to a few people who aren’t afraid to tell you the truth, you'll probably start to hear a theme or two. Then take on one change and one change only—and make it concrete and specific. “Be a better listener” is way too vague. Try something as specific as “asking two questions before

Take a hard look in a good mirror.

Having the ability to see their impact on others is the place to start. A leader may truly believe in the power of collaboration, understand the importance of psychological safety on a team, AND continue to act in ways that create the opposite effect. I am continually astounded by how hard it can be for well-intentioned people to change their habits and patterns.

giving my opinion” or “looking around to see who hasn’t had a chance to weigh in.”

One of my favorite insights in the last year came from a book entitled Immunity to Change by Kegan and Lahey (2009). The authors describe many of the barriers to change that reside in both organizations and individuals. Given the

As the Project Aristotle findings began making their way into the popular press, the world around Google-up, down, and around Silicon Valley-seemed to let out a collective “duh!” Or maybe it was a sigh of relief. So many of us have known the agony of being on a team that not only felt unsafe but couldn’t deliver on its promise. The hard part is knowing what to do about it. Fortunately, even though leaders can’t create psychological safety on their own, small but intentional shifts in their mindset and actions can set the tone for better things.

complex psychological challenges when taking on even the most obvious changes, they recommend that individuals focus on one area, and start by asking a few individuals the following question: “What is one big thing I could do to improve…?”

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Dec-Jan 2018

TOPGATE: A GCP Partner that Shares the Same Goal as You

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oogle—the biggest giant in the world of internet, from its humble commencement with Google App Engine back in 2008—has grown its Google Cloud Platform into one of the premier cloud computing platforms in the global market today. Google, while still following its top rivals, AWS and Microsoft Azure, has continued making investments in Google Cloud Platform that makes the product more attractive to big customers.

As a training partner, TOPGATE has conducted GCP training for more than 1000 people across Japan from October to December 2016. Additionally, in March 2017, TOPGATE was selected as a training partner of five premiers worldwide, from Google’s home country.

As the name implies, Google Cloud Platform is a cloud computing platform that provides infrastructure services and tools for users to build on top of. It is regarded as the third biggest cloud provider in terms of revenue behind Amazon Web Services in the first place and Microsoft Azure in second. Any organization in need of cloud computing considers Google Cloud Platform for their needs—especially SMBs, which the platform was initially inclined towards.

While cloud technology demand is rising, there is surging need for cloud technicians. We are in an era where large companies and freelance engineers are demanding more technology and knowledge. TOPGATE recognizes the same. At TOPGATE, as an official training partner of GCP, a level engineer is enrolled as a lecturer. The company uses that knowledge and know-how for development and consulting. It also provides its customers with system integration and consulting with Google technology.

A Japanese training partner of Google Cloud Platform and Premier Service Partner, TOPGATE is one such leading technology group that performs consulting and development in the core technology of Google. Boasting experience, confidence and high technology to the highest pride in Japan, TOPGATE supports companies that want to take advantage of the technology of Google. TOPGATE not only offers system development, but also seminars and consulting, and engineering education.

TOPGATE believes it can offer solutions by presenting the correct Google Cloud Platform design methods to its

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Using Knowledge and Know-how for Development and Consulting

Dec-Jan 2018

customers. The firm can also propose correctly for customer’s request about machine learning as well. With overwhelming technical capabilities with which the company works in the industry, customers with a widerange of jobs in various industries come to TOPGATE. Thanks to its extensive support services, Payment on behalf of dollar conversion is a fee-free payment. TOPGATE also offers consulting services through communication tools to overcome technical concerns and doubts.

A Companion with Similar Objectives Going beyond the conventional thinking, TOPGATE respects freedom, considers itself as a companion that has the same goal awareness, objectives, contributes to clients and the world, and grows together. In addition to spending time together, the firm believes, as a team, they share the thoughts with each other.

Masaki Kato With a management philosophy that says, “Always keep growing and challenging, raising the level of consciousness, contributing to society and people,” TOPGATE visions to continue creating a new social infrastructure and supports people who wish to attain the same. TOPGATE is on a mission to create companions of the specialized type of engineering group in Japan, grow together, and provide valuable services to the world.

CEO increase the size of the company to meet the needs of many customers. Thus, he will continue to work as a CEO and strive to do justice to the position he shoulders.

GCP, according to Masaki is of low profile. And thus, he and the team had difficulty in many activities such as sales activities and advertisements on the web. But eventually he

We are not selling products forcibly, but we can offer what customers are really looking for

Many users, especially users of other company clouds, are building systems with IaaS. The correct way to use Google Cloud Platform (#1) is to build a system with PaaS.

reached the conclusion as he got the familiarity of GCP itself and made a community. It is a community called GCP User Group (GCPUG). This community is spreading in other Asian countries such as Singapore and Vietnam.

Meet the Maestro Masaki Kato is the CEO of TOPGATE. However, since Masaki is an engineer, he considers himself to be in a position to provide optimal solutions to customers based on experience at that time. Masaki believes it is about time that the recognition of GCP also increases and we have to Dec-Jan 2018

“We will continue to develop many innovations to companies by offering solutions by GCP to many customers in the future. Especially machine learning is an important element for future companies, so we will provide solutions to many companies,” concludes Masaki.

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