The Next Generation Tech Disruptors

www.insightssuccess.com December 2018

The

N Generation Disruptors

Chalk-Talk Yes, Internet of Things is Reshaping the World

Revenue Tips Saas Can Create Business Developments with Different Revenue streams

Ken Ehrhart Founder & CEO

Bringing Better Realities into the Business World

Editor’s Note

Building the Next Generation

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e are living in an era of innovation where technology is creating several opportunities to disrupt the established system. The evolving disruptive companies are delivering tremendous acceleration to associated businesses with the help of technology. With the conuence of many innovative and disruptive technologies, organizations are bringing about a tsunami of a change into various industry verticals. They are creating a new economic shift by transforming economic structures, status quos of the business world, consumer behavior, and employment.

Disruption is a phenomenon that is adding enormous value in shaping the world of the next generation. By practicing meaningful disruption, businesses are setting benchmarks within the current environment and breaking the new grounds. They are stepping back and recreating the value to stay ahead of the disruption curve.

Through disruptive technologies, businesses are unfolding the developing environment of the fourth industrial revolution. The pace at which organizations are evolving, the next era of technological miracles/marvels isn’t too far. The new businesses are stepping in the respective market segments with an intention of creating disruption and are thriving in a vibrant and innovative startup ecosystem.

In order to emphasize the innovative and disruptive trends of global technology, Insights Success has curated a list of “The Next Generation Tech Disruptors”, which are taking a leap to create the next generation business models.

Our cover story features Paracosma Inc., a Virtual Reality company focused on content creation, technology innovation, systems integration. It creates its own content in the gaming, entertainment, tourism, enterprise and education/training spaces. It also has proprietary technology for producing, viewing, managing and distributing 360-degree photo and video content.

Further, this edition also includes companies such as Automated Insights Inc., which enhances business intelligence dashboards and internal performance reports to targeted content on an unprecedented scale; DigiPlex , which designs, builds and operates sustainable data centers in the Nordic region; PrivacyCheq, whose innovations power the new wave of privacy transparency by dramatically erasing the technical burden of user interaction compliance, delivering users an optimal user privacy management experience, building “digital trust”; Vivial Inc., a groundbreaking marketing technology company that offers a full range of customer engagement tools to help businesses enhance the way they connect with customers; and ZOME Energy Networks Inc., the world’s first DERMS platform implementing blockchain technology.

Also, featuring as company of the month is ComplianceQuest Inc., a highly flexible 100% cloud based EQMS built using the Salesforce platform. The company significantly improves an organization's culture, collaboration, competency, efficiency, performance and innovation through the digital transformation of quality and compliance delivered via the modern cloud.

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

Let’s start reading!

Hitesh Dhamani

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

Pooja M. Bansal Anish Miller Hitesh Dhamani Jenny Fernandes Abhishaj Sajeev Shubham Khampariya Sharad Chitalkar David King Amol Kamble Tejas Kulkarni Mayur Koli

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

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Cover Story

Bringing Better Realities into the Business World

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Working with enterprise companies, one quickly discovers the many areas in which their processes and procedures can literally be augmented with AR technology.

The

N Generation

Disruptors

Ken Ehrhart Founder & CEO Paracosma Inc.

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The future of AR/VR is virtually limitless because the opportunities within

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these virtual worlds are as broad as the opportunities within the real world.

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here’s no denying that technology has evolved with huge advancements and is continuing to do the same. Simulating vision with a virtual experience has now become possible due to the evolving concepts of Augmented and Virtual Realities (AR/VR). Through these realities, businesses are simplifying the processes of various industries and taking them to a new level. In 2016, 88% of companies were using or planned to use AR/VR. But, 63% of them did not have in-house resources to develop AR/VR projects and 55% of them planned to outsource AR/VR development. With a mission of making better realities, an AR/VR based company, Paracosma Inc. stepped into the market to provide outsourced solutions, skills, and its own in-house products to both small and large customers.

Headquartered in California, Paracosma Inc is a Delaware Corporation with its additional sales and technology office in Tokyo and its primary research and development center in Kathmandu, Nepal. Its services include content creation, application development, and project implementation across the broad range of AR & VR platforms. Additionally, the company creates its own content in the gaming, entertainment, tourism, enterprise and education/training spaces. It also has proprietary technology for producing, viewing, managing and distributing 360-degree photo and video content.

Comprehensive Set of Offerings Paracosma has a broad range of offerings across AR and VR. It has developed an enterprise AR platform that is being used for machine maintenance and training for large global manufacturing and food processing companies along with product assembly and quality assurance for a leading electronics capital equipment manufacturer. The company has worked on AR to demonstrate advanced features and inhome viewing of products for an international durable goods manufacturer. It also produces video holograms, 3D objects, characters, animations and AR effects, for various clients including a leading home goods retailer, a consumer facing AR application, and a national telecommunications company.

Paracosma has developed its own open-ended sandbox VR game, called Unnamed VR, launching for Christmas 2018. The setting is a large house in which all objects are interactive and each room offers opportunities for exploration and playing mini-games.

These include an adventure room with trampolines, zip lines, climbing walls; shooting galleries; graffiti spray painting room; and many more. Each of these interactions also can serve as

the basis for enterprise training and simulation scenarios.

Paracosma has created VR demos of a smart city command center. The company provides photogrammetry reconstructions of major settings such as the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu. It has also developed a VR copresence application that allows multi-user remote collaboration in shared environments for enterprise customers. Apart from these, it also offers a full range of 360-degree photo and video services including its own in-house production, filming and postproduction services, and white-label online and app-based distribution platform for 360 photos and videos.

The Bleeding Edge The ingenious mind behind the inception of Paracosma is its Founder and CEO, Ken Ehrhart. He has been in technology research for 22 years, a partner in Venture Capital for 18 years and has focused on international market expansion for over 8 years.

Thus, he brings a wealth of experience in growing early stage companies on a global basis. Paracosma has been built from the start as an international company serving the two largest enterprise markets in the world, the US and Japan. With the strong belief in the inevitable ubiquity of AR and VR accessible virtually free through smartphones, but understanding the difficulty of timing breakthrough market expansion, the Founder’s goal has been to build a company with a long-term horizon and broad and deep technical capability, so that it would be positioned for ongoing success as the markets matured.

A One-stop-shopping Platform According to Paracosma, the AR and VR sectors are proving to be remarkable for a vast array of startup companies. But, due to high capital requirements of traditional technology centers such as Silicon Valley and San

Francisco, most AR/VR startups focus on a very narrow segment of the industry and have just a small number of engineers supporting that segment.

Due to its low-cost, high-quality offshore development team, Paracosma has been building a larger team focused across more segments. Thus, it can offer clients a full range of services that would not typically be available from a single service provider. The company is a one-stop-shopping platform for AR/VR services at industry leading pricing.

The AR/VR sectors are evolving very rapidly with new platforms and innovations coming very fast. This makes it challenging for small in-house teams to keep up with the advancements. With a rapidly expanding team, Paracosma can focus on all major AR and VR platforms instead of focusing on just one or two.

It also has the potential to establish new R&D in multiple promising areas.

With low-costs, this breadth of focus enables it to work with clients who have visions for what the technology will enable in the future and to build a long-term partnership that takes advantage of new capabilities as they evolve. Many competitors are forced to take a narrower, short-term view and miss the opportunity to grow in partnership with their clients as technology catches up to their visions.

Currently, AR/VR are terribly hard to develop, to distribute and to access.

Paracosma is focused on the future in which those barriers begin to fade and is seeking the solutions to simplify AR/VR. Providing an Affordable Access Point It has been fascinating to watch the early evolution of the AR/VR marketplace. According to Paracosma, a couple of years ago, most companies realized that they should care about AR/VR. But, they had little conception of what the technology could actually do and how difficult and expensive it

Moving towards Sustainable Growth Considering the future of AR/VR, Paracosma believes that it is virtually

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AR and VR adoption are inevitable. Whether their ubiquity comes in the long-term or shortterm will depend on how quickly we make what is now diff icult

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could be to implement their vision.

From those early days of generic inquiries, clients have matured to a much clearer understanding of the technology and the technology itself is evolving very quickly to catch up to some of those early visions. Providing a low-cost partnership for exploring AR and VR has enabled clients to easily test the technology and experiment and explore the potential for their businesses. Research has shown that once companies begin trying AR/VR, all of them intend to continue investing in the technologies, while those that have not tried it are far more skeptical. Paracosma provides an affordable access point to realize that value.

technology into something that is easy, affordable and accessible.

limitless. But, the opportunities within these virtual worlds are as broad as the opportunities within the real world and that makes it very difficult to know the future. The aspects of consumers’ and business clients’ experiences that will be enhanced and augmented by the addition of virtual elements and the ones that remain a real-world focus, are difficult to pre-judge. So, AR/VR companies with a narrow focus may find it difficult to create and maintain a critical mass of business. A few will guess right and succeed and many will guess wrong, either the segment or the timing, and fail. But, companies with a broad range of skills that remain sustainable due to low costs will have the ability to service the market segments that evolve and thrive, without worrying about betting on the wrong horse.

Paracosma is focused on its continued sustainable growth. In addition to its direct client base, the company is increasingly becoming a low-cost service provider for other AR/VR companies. It is expanding ongoing supplier relationships with its clients.

One upcoming milestone will be the launch of its consumer VR game, Unnamed VR. Success for the product, will allow an expansion of Paracosma’s direct to end-user product offerings. Paracosma has also increased its footprint in Tokyo and anticipates growing revenues from Japan. A third focus will be the launch of VR copresence collaboration for enterprise clients, while focusing on the continued expansion of its enterprise AR platform.

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The

N Generation

Disruptors

Company Name

Management

Brief

Automated Insights, Inc. automatedinsights.com

Marc Zionts CEO

Automated Insights Inc., enhances business intelligence dashboards and internal performance reports to targeted content on an unprecedented scale.

Jonathan Cobb CEO

Ayla Networks is the world’s leading platform for product manufacturers, service providers, and enterprise companies to connect any device to any application and achieve digital transformation.

ComplianceQuest Inc. compliancequest.com

Prashanth Rajendran CEO

ComplianceQuest Inc., a highly flexible 100% cloud based EQMS built using the Salesforce platform. The company significantly improves an organization’s culture, collaboration, competency, efficiency, performance and innovation through the digital transformation of quality and compliance delivered via the modern cloud.

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation cypress.com

Hassane El-Khoury CEO

Cypress is the global supplier of choice for innovative companies in high-growth markets.

Digiplex digiplex.com

Gisle M. Eckhoff CEO

DigiPlex , designs, builds and operates sustainable data centers in the Nordic region.

Faye Pairman CEO

Panasas® ActiveStor® Solutions support industry and research innovation around the world, with the fastest plug-and-play parallel data storage system, optimized to accelerate workflows, simplify data management, and deploy easily as an appliance.

Paracosma Inc paracosma.com

Ken Ehrhart CEO

Paracosma Inc., a Virtual Reality company focused on content creation, technology innovation, systems integration. It creates its own content in the gaming, entertainment, tourism, enterprise and education/training spaces. It also has proprietary technology for producing, viewing, managing and distributing 360-degree photo and video content.

PrivacyCheq privacycheq.com

Roy Smith CEO

PrivacyCheq's innovations power the new wave of privacy transparency by dramatically erasing the technical burden of user interaction compliance, delivering users an optimal user privacy management experience, building “digital trust”

Vivial Inc vivial.net

Jim Continenza Chairman & CEO

Vivial Inc., a groundbreaking marketing technology company that offers a full range of customer engagement tools to help businesses enhance the way they connect with customers

ZOME Energy Networks, Inc zomepower.com

Dr. Alex Papalexopoulos CEO

ZOME Energy Networks Inc., the world’s first DERMS platform implementing blockchain technology.

Ayla Networks aylanetworks.com

Panasas panasas.com

Company of the Month

ComplianceQuest Inc.: Streamlining Workflows through Modern Cloud Platform

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Below are the highlights of the interview:

Delivering best-in-class out-of-the-box solutions, we fast-track our efficiency, safety and overall performance by combining enterprise quality and compliance with modern collaboration, communication and social media across the product value chain.

Suitable for emerging growth companies and scalable and flexible to meet the needs of medium and global enterprises, ComplianceQuest is easy to implement, validate and use.

alike by redefining what a next generate EQMS platform and solution should be. Because we are natively built on Salesforce, it leverages the entire 100% modern cloud infrastructure and all the platform benefits including security, availability, reliability, and performance at scale.

Salesforce focusing on the business applications platform allows us to drive more INNOVATION into our solutions.

What are the cutting-edge products/solutions offered by ComplianceQuest ?

ComplianceQuest provides a unified suite of applications in a single platform addressing quality management, manufacturing quality, supplier management, customer/field service quality and health & safety.

We support 12 core best practices driven solutions/processes out-of-thebox, integrated and ready to go. Unlike recently introduced cloud solutions, ComplianceQuest, not only has a comprehensive breadth and depth of integrated solutions today but we are also designed to scale to support the needs of small to global enterprises

With this unique approach, companies can adopt our highly scalable platform to accommodate their immediate needs and as the requirements grow, provide companies the ability to grow with the application suite and the platform. We can integrate our solution suite with traditional enterprise software solutions including ERP, MES, CRM and HR systems expanding its performance strength of quality and compliance aspects across the entire supply chain. In addition, we have abilities through Salesforce for communication and collaboration through Chatter, social media like and follow, Community Cloud to include exchange of data/documents from a company’s external partners, support for mobility, Artificial Intelligence through Einstein Analytics, and already come with pre-validated solutions for Life Sciences customers.

n an interview with Insights Success, Prashanth Rajendran, the CEO of ComplianceQuest Inc. unveils his insights on building a highly scalable platform that exemplifies the organization’s motto of quality, compliance, collaboration, and communication, while creating an environment of trust.

With the escalating number of technology based solution providers,

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how is ComplianceQuest driving itself to create an impact on its customers?

The industry is changing - To provide superior products and customer service, businesses are transforming the way they look at all quality and compliance facets of an operation.

Manufacturing processes and supply chain management that were once easy to handle are now much more complex. What used to be controlled and contained within the manufacturing plant is now monitored, run and maintained globally. In response to specific challenges including the inefficiency of nonharmonized, often paper based processes, disparate repositories and tools, vast amounts of data, uncertainty in that data quality, unreliable material quality and delayed detection of issues and process bottlenecks, more companies are looking to consistently cover all stages in product’s quality journey. Given this situation, building an effective quality and compliance system that conforms to management standards like ISO 9001:2015 among others, is imperative for manufacturers from all industries that want to work efficiently and win over customers.

This fundamental business need is compounded by the emergence of digitization across industrial segments.

Digitization will clearly disrupt, collapse, and transform processes, procedures, and actions.

What are the challenges faced while providing the unique tech powered solution and how is ComplianceQuest serving to tackle them?

We hit the ground running as we began marketing and selling our solution into the manufacturing and life sciences industry. The initial challenge faced was the adoption of Modern Cloud technology especially those built on a cloud business platform like | December 2018

Prashanth Rajendran CEO

ComplianceQuest Inc.

ComplianceQuest provides a unified suite of applications in a single platform addressing quality management, manufacturing quality, supplier management, customer/field service quality and health & safety. |17

Salesforce. However, the Salesforce approach for a 100% modern cloud infrastructure and all its business platform benefits (trusted security, reliability, scalability, integration ease to other natively built Salesforce applications) made it easy for us to focus solely on our own solution innovation to create a platform with the breadth and depth of functionality manufacturing companies need today.

In addition, recent years have seen rapid advancement in connectivity, mobility, analytics, scalability and big data – what we call the fourth Industrial revolution or Industry 4.0.

This digital transformation in manufacturing has put an increased focus for manufacturing and quality leaders on solutions like quality management at an enterprise-level to improve both revenue and bottom line efficiency. For companies like ours that made the initial decision to adopt modern cloud architecture platform such as Salesforce allows us to take

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advantage of the latest and future technology advancement such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Smart Connectivity and Collaboration throughout the entire product value chain.

Lastly as a growing company in a modern cloud world, gaining visibility and creating customer value is necessary to aid in the company growth. By leveraging the Salesforce ecosystem, we have built relationships with other critical application vendors, such as ERP, and channel partners to create a global network delivering comprehensive capabilities and a differentiated value in the market.

Where does ComplianceQuest see itself in the long run and what are its future goals?

ComplianceQuest’s journey is steadfast in its belief of Salesforce platform and ecosystem as a strong foundation for continuing to develop and deliver future innovative solutions and seeing

rapid growth globally. Salesforce itself is also becoming a more standard platform within many companies and hence IT is looking at other Salesforce apps available to extend the value of their investment and reduce overall IT footprint. This modern cloud experience means a reduction in management of modular licenses and versions and simplifies IT issues surrounding software management.

Using the cloud, customers will always have the most updated version of the software platform. In addition, since the business application platform is continuously innovated and managed

by Salesforce, it allows us to drive more innovation into our own solutions. Because of the ease of development, we can quickly create fully working prototypes, new features or customer specific capabilities to address new market or customer requirements and turn them into final production solutions.

With continued passion and dedication on this journey, we are well on our way

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to become a market and competitive disruption.

Testimonials from ComplianceQuest’s Clienteles: “Our experience with implementing Compliance Quest @ Flipkart has been nothing short of a wonder.

As the company project lead, I have had the privilege and hands on experience in Designing the System Architecture, Configure and Deploy it across the organization and the entire experience has been nothing short of GREAT… While wearing the hat of System Admin, the most significant feature that I have experienced is the platform’s capability to design, configure/customize and deploy any workflow / module from the front end itself i.e. NO CODING REQUIRED at all.

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The tool is so simple to use that we hardly reached out to CQ Support for any subsequent customizations and all Enhancements / Add-On’s were implemented In-House and enabled us to de-skill the System Admin role and assign it to people with good command on spreadsheet applications like MS Excel.

A true asset for the organization! 3 Cheers for team Compliance Quest.” Satish Venkataraman, Manager Quality, Flipkart

About the Company: ComplianceQuest is a highly flexible 100% cloud based EQMS built using the Salesforce platform. It streamlines quality, compliance, content and collaboration management workflows across its customers' company and globally-based supply chain networks, using the world's most proven enterprise cloud platform from Salesforce.

About the Leader: Prashanth Rajendran is the CEO of ComplianceQuest. Clients appreciate his flair for knowing and understanding customers' pain, his knack to communicate a solution, and the depth of his “real world” executive and industry experience. As CEO, Prashanth directly oversees ComplianceQuest's sales, marketing, partnerships, finance, IT, legal and overall company strategy and direction. He comes to the company with more than twenty-five years' experience in manufacturing, engineering and quality. Prashanth has repeatedly produced sustained revenue and EBITDA growth in dynamic and changing markets. He has extensive experience with process automation, which requires a deep understanding of critical business drivers in multiple industries.

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Automated Insights: Communicating Actionable Data Insights

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oday, technological innovation is at the core of all kinds of businesses around the world and impacts our society greatly. We are currently in one of the most positively disruptive periods of tech evolution. A major shift in business thinking has placed artificial intelligence at the very heart of business strategies. Automated Insights is a natural language generation (NLG) company, a subset of artificial intelligence, which provides a real-time automated written analytics solution.

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Transforming Data into Crystalclear Narratives

Wordsmith, a Disruptive NLG Platform

Headquartered in Durham, N.C., Automated Insights is the creator of the world’s first self-service natural language generation platform, Wordsmith. In 2015, the company was acquired by Vista Equity Partners, a $30B+ private equity firm, making it the first NLG company acquired within the industry.

Natural language generation is an emerging field of artificial intelligence focused on taking data, deriving what’s important, and communicating those insights using natural language. Wordsmith turns structured data into written analytics to drive faster and better decisionmaking. It adds a contextual layer for every viewer of a dashboard by providing descriptive, diagnostic, and tailored prescriptive analytics based on who the viewer is, their level of data expertise, and what they need to know.

Considering the escalating number of technology-based solution providers, Automated Insights is creating more of an impact on its customers by going beyond the market standard of describing data, and taking it a step further by driving better data understanding and action around analytic insights.

Whether you're a busy executive, non-data expert employee, customer, or vendor, Wordsmith gives you personally relevant insight and KPI's in the easiest medium to understand—the written word.

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With the mission to make the world’s data understandable, Automated Insights is empowering organizations across over 50 industries to transform their data into clear, human-sounding narratives using their powerful NLG platform, Wordsmith.

Wordsmith clearly describes key data points and tells a powerful story across all data visualizations and dashboards. It reveals underlying trends and describes why they’re happening, teaches users about how to understand data on their own, and delivers advice on what the data means with specific actions to take.

Wordsmith solves data literacy issues by authoring personalized, prescriptive written analysis that is indistinguishable from reports written by a human analyst with deep understanding of the subject.

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The

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Disruptors

The most essential factor behind Automated Insights’ comprehensive excellence is its ability to automatically communicate actionable data insights clearly and empower an entire organization to make actionable, data-driven decisions instantly.

An Exemplary Leader As the CEO of the leading NLG company, Marc Zionts, is responsible for the strategic direction and execution of the company to accomplish short-term goals while constantly working towards longterm objectives necessary for driving the team to new heights.

Zionts is a technology executive and entrepreneur whose passion is working with emerging technology, introducing it to the market, and maximizing businesses commercially to drive value and encourage innovation. With the fundamental goal to uplift Automated Insights and help team members thrive in their roles, his leadership is an essential component to unlock exponential growth and deeper innovation for the company.

Current Challenges and Future Roadmap Automated Insights is a leader at the forefront of NLG technology, and seeing as it’s a new industry, there’s little historical market insight to use as a foundation for research and development. One of the biggest challenges of the industry is facing is

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a lack of knowledge around NLG due to the fact that NLG is an emerging field of artificial intelligence. A major part of Automated Insights’ job is to educate the market on what NLG is and why it is essential in their business intelligence strategy, in addition to tackling common misconceptions.

As a company, it is constantly evolving, progressing, and learning to find answers to the driving questions of who, what, why, and how. Automated Insights is always discovering new information on where it fits best into the market and how it can improve its services.

Automated Insights sees itself as an enduring lead provider of NLG whose goal is to make NLG essential in business intelligence and analytics through growing product development, fostering existing partnerships, and establishing new and enduring partnerships. Whether generating concise summaries of internal and operational business data, personalizing and publishing content at scale or the company’s key insights around competitive sales analysis, there are countless opportunities in which written analysis aids in understanding and decision-making across an enterprise that Automated Insights is tapping into.

Marc Zionts CEO

“When we look at the analytics, we see a huge spike in engagement after we run the [Wordsmith] narratives.

We can say with confidence that narratives are very valuable to our end users and that they really appreciate the information. The numbers don’t lie.” - Chris Gutierrez, Director of Product Innovation, GreatCall “Wordsmith is shifting behaviors and conversations from ‘I think’ to ‘I know.’ Instead of asking ’What is happening,’ we’ve evolved to “What are we going to do about it? The speed of Wordsmith is phenomenal, and the information is always right.”

– Sasha Teska, Business Intelligence Manager, Arterra Wines Canada

Reflections of Excellence

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Revenue Tips

SAAS Can Create

Business Developments

with Different

Revenue Streams

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aaS or ‘Software as a Service’ is being used rigorously in current business ventures as it provides more accuracy and vision to any business project. Interestingly, with this solution, the importance of installing the hardware devices to run the data and different applications has lost its importance. It is a very selective section of cloud computing, through which the future business data collection process can be simpler than ever. SaaS is a very profitable genre in the field of futuristic business ventures, and thus a question may arise about the SaaS business, and that is what could be the revenue stream for such business enterprise, or in general words, the earning process for the SaaS business!

Unfortunately some people believe that there are no such good ways of earning revenue for Saas business and if there are some sources, those are very minor in their conducts. Interestingly, the reality and the current situation are otherwise, and there are a number of ways in which the SaaS business can earn its revenue. ‘Payment’ to get the software is not the only mode of earning, and the enterpriser of this business can earn great revenue with multiple options, without stressing out on particular section of the business venture. Here are some of the solutions: Set-up Cost and Upsell A Set-up cost is one of the common ways to earn the revenue and it gives clarity to the providers about the authenticity of the users and determines the commitment too, thus it is a great way to explore the minds of the customers and the possible future relationship with the users. On the other hand the set up earning can actually lead to the upsell market for the SaaS providers. It is one of the easiest ways to enhance the revenue through the existing customers, and it is a great business opportunity, as this way of earning lessens the dependency of the brand on the pressure of adding up new customers. To maintain the continuity with the existing customers certain facilities like offering additional storage, speed, data, bandwidth or the frequency are enlisted as 'services'. Though, this process of earning is largely dependent on the benefit of the product or the service, along with the need or requirement of the client.

Affiliate Marketing It is another great way to boost the earning for the SaaS business as, through this process, it becomes a two-way system to get business, where the users advertise or sell the product. As the process is

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earning money, and it is the best way of earning through the free version users, but not very apt for the paid customers. As the paid customers already pay a certain amount, adding advertisements can create a negative impact on them. So even if the ads are there, they must be in a way that looks less annoying for the users.

dependent on the users, it is not dependent on any other external way from the business providers' side. The SaaS providers are only responsible to pay the commission after getting the revenue. So it is definitely a win-win situation for the SaaS providers.

Customer Service and Information Charges Saas providers are on the verge of adding a new structure for great revenue, which are customer service and information charges. As with this system, the business providers offer to sale some of the researched information to the clients. It is not very difficult for the clients to value them by paying the money as they are getting a great help, and interestingly it can work for the clients to cling to the services which can create the path for more business. Basically, a great customer service is the key to earn good money and with the satisfaction of the customers; the process can be on the loop for a great revenue system.

Advertisement Advertisements are the most common sector of

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API Model This is rather a complicated but effective method of earning lucrative revenue. If the SaaS can coordinate or work with other software applications, the importance of it can rise to a whole new level. This work model can do magic for some of the users and it can have a great value or earning in the future. But this great system comes with certain risks, and the reason is, the amount of money invested to create and run it. But if the developers can be assured of its service and the demand of the customers, it can turn out to be a great moneymaking option.

Reselling When some of the SaaS is so apt that the potential customers want to avail it for their business purpose, the tie-up with the providers or the reselling of the product can be beneficial form the point of view of the revenue. This process is known as the White Label Licensing.

At the end of this discussion, the conclusion is, a better service can open up new trails for Revenue Streams for SaaS Business. SaaS is not a new concept, but the vast implication is definitely new. So there are a number of scopes yet to be explored by the developers of this new business. Thus, the future and the success of SaaS business is dependent on exploring various ways for SaaS revenue, and with more innovative ideas for the revenue, the market of SaaS business will be more strengthened to touch the zenith.

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DigiPlex: Redefining Sustainable Data Centres

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ounded in 2001, DigiPlex is the Nordic leader for innovative, secure and sustainable data centers. The company has worked tirelessly to develop its reputation as world’s most innovative and strategic data centre provider, as well as the most attractive provider in the whole of the Nordic region. Today it is the only pan-Nordic provider offering both hyperscale, wholesale and retail colocation at state-of-the-art facilities in Oslo, Norway; a campus facility in Stockholm, Sweden and an in-town centre in Copenhagen, Denmark.

DigiPlex data centres have been uniquely designed to pass on the

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maximum benefit from low regional temperatures, using advanced and inventive cooling techniques to compound efficiency. DigiPlex is a rarity in the global data centre market, as the dominant Nordic large-scale operator that runs on 100% renewable energy, all of which is fully compliant with the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) recognised standards for quality, security, safety and environmental management.

As businesses, governments and individuals around the world are becoming more aware of the major looming environmental threats presented by expanding data needs, DigiPlex has already established itself with a solid team of industry experts, deep market knowledge, and an advanced proposition that enables environmentally responsible, and costeffective growth.

DigiPlex is proud to be the first to cost-effectively adapt an already operational evaporative air-to-air cooled data centre to reclaim waste heat.

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Efficient and Eco-friendly DigiPlex helps customers build a data centre solution that evolves with their needs, while reducing their carbon footprint and environmental impact.

Continual investment in R&D has ensured its new data centres are among the most efficient and environmentally responsible in the world, with powerusage-effectiveness (PUE)

levels as low as 1.1-1.2, far below global average of 1.7-1.8.

DigiPlex has won numerous awards for its creativity and engineering excellence in seeking maximum efficiency, for example through its Airto-Air cooling system, designed perfectly for the cool, moist atmospheric conditions of the Nordics, or the Concert ControlTM algorithm developed to optimise the performance of cooling against the power drawn by servers.

An Industry Veteran Gisle M. Eckhoff is the CEO of DigiPlex. He has thirty years of experience in the IT industry (both in the Nordics and the US). Gisle has provided a renewed strategic edge as the business expanded to international customers. Since his appointment, DigiPlex has grown its customer base substantially, winning multiple industry awards, entering new markets, and positioning itself for further growth within the hyperscale, wholesale and retail client sector.

Optimizing Customer Experience DigiPlex is constantly developing and expanding its proposition to better meet the needs of its customers. Its Ulven data centre is host to the first Norwegian deployment of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect, an offering that allowed the company

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to provide their customers and their customers’ customers with easy, direct access to the cloud through AWS Direct Connect. This presented a significant upgrade to the service available to users in Norway, and bolstered DigiPlex’s position as the region’s most connected data centre operator.

Tapping New Markets DigiPlex was founded with the firm belief that the Nordics is the ultimate data centre destination for companies and organisations which recognize sustainability and energy efficiency, as business-critical issues.

Having become the best known data centre brand in both Sweden and the Nordics, the company will continue to expand its proposition to new markets, partnering with clients ranging from local and national businesses, to governments and the world’s largest and most technically demanding hyperscale brands – all of whom are poised to reap major rewards from DigiPlex’s best-in-class, energy efficient and green data centre solutions.

Earlier this year, DigiPlex announced several ambitious and pioneering heat reuse agreements in both Sweden and Norway allowing for recovery of excess heat from its data centres to warm neighbouring homes.

These efforts will present a global first where the operational Stockholm data centre with an indirect evaporative airto-air cooling solution will be retrofitted to recover excess heat for the local district heating system Stockholm Exergi, heating up 10,000 homes. In August, the company extended this with a new initiative in

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Oslo, where excess heat from Oslo data centre Ulven will be used to warm 5,000 homes though the local Fortum Oslo Varme district heating system.

Clientele Assessment “As a fast-growing, cloudbased IT platform service provider, it is essential for us to have the right data centre partner. Our partnership with DigiPlex ensures that we deliver a green, ISO certified and energy efficient cloud solution to our customers.” – Andreas Hisdal, CEO of Intility “DigiPlex and IT-Total fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. DigiPlex is enabling us to continue rapid growth, amplifying our offer through a secure, green and tailored service.”- Fredrik Franzén, Global Business Development Manager, IT-Total.

“As we developed our compliant clouds, in which companies in the financial sector have been very interested, we needed a data center provider that could meet the high standards of accessibility, security and regulatory compliance demanded by our business and customers. This was in addition to increasing requests from customers for sustainable IT services.

With its clear focus on providing climate friendly and energy efficient data center services combined with their high security and regulatory compliance, DigiPlex was chosen to be an important partner for our continued expansion,” – Johan Christenson, CEO and founder, City Network.

Gisle M. Eckhoff CEO

experience for end users across the globe, whilst using data centres that are in the best locations for delivering greener facilities. The topology, speed and bandwidth of the Telia Carrier IP Backbone means that DigiPlex can confidently provide scalable internet connectivity services to customers, as well as take advantage of other IP transport and wavelength services in the future.” Henrik Almroth, Sales Director, Telia Carrier

“DigiPlex has been able to give its customers the best of both worlds: high speed connectivity giving a great

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Cahn is Global VP of Marketing for Elemica, the leading provider of a Digital Supply Network for process manufacturers.

David Cahn Global VP of Marketing Elemica

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CHALLENGES & RISKS IN ADOPTING

DIGITAL DISRUPTION T echnological innovation is happening at a faster rate than ever before, causing digital disruptions for many businesses. A digital disruption is a transformation that is caused by emerging digital technologies and business models. These innovative new technologies and models can impact the value of existing products and services offered in the industry, actually disrupting the current market and causing businesses to reevaluate their competitive advantage.

Ignoring digital disruptions can impact businesses.

Remember Polaroid? The company led the market with its cameras that created instant pictures. Yet in 2001, the Polaroid Corporation filed for federal bankruptcy protection because the company failed to make the smooth transition from analog to digital cameras. The corporation decided to bet on their past innovations and, as a result, lost to companies who jumped on the digital bandwagon. By keeping abreast of changes in demand, businesses can follow the trends and adjust their strategies to embrace these changes, which will help them to thrive and grow profits.

Today’s digital disruptors are companies like Amazon and Uber, who use technologies to out maneuver the competition and build growth. Disruptors can be startup companies or long-established businesses. A wait-and-see attitude will not give a business sufficient time to make a comeback when the disruptor begins to dominate the industry.

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Companies must continuously reinvent their business using digital disruptive technology or watch from the sidelines while they lose market share. Yet, many businesses still struggle with acceptance, and others don't know where to start the journey.

Accepting Digital Disruption Digital disruption is fueled by next generation technology, such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, the Internet of Things and software-enabled platforms that tie all these technologies together. C-level executives understand that any industry can be profoundly affected by digital disruption and no one can afford to ignore the threat. In other words, digital disruption rewrites the rules of business.

Digital disruption begins with acceptance of digital transformation using digital technologies within operations and ecosystems. Today’s technology allows all business stakeholders to share a single network, connecting and collaborating on supply chain operations from one end of the enterprise to the other. Each trading partner has access to information generated through the network in order to gain visibility to all aspects of production, procurement, transportation and distribution. With the proper information, executives can make qualified decisions that drive improvements in the business.

Accepting digital disruptions within the enterprise means the business is no longer worried by the disruption and

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instead leverages strategic planning and technologies to drive the business. Disruption is accepted into the culture of the organization so innovation is a day-to-day experience.

Instead of concern, the business will be better able to sense and respond to changes in demand and disruptions to mitigate any risk.

technique is through some type of portal for order capture and invoicing for inter-business automation. Finally, some leading DSNs provide email as a simple onboarding method to digitize an inter-business process without requiring supply chain partners to have any integration software.

Benefits of Digital Disruptions

Often a business has to decide whether to respond to the digital disruption or not. While it is not conducive to ignore the disruption, businesses may not always have to respond.

Instead, the business can complement the disruption by adding value to it. An example would be to create technologies that augment the disruption, such as software (added value) for an iPhone (disruptor).

Beginning a Digital Transformation Journey To start the journey, management needs to design a strategy for digital transformation that involves people, processes and partners. The strategy should be broken down into process steps that contain material, information and people flow. Each employee knows that the product moves from process A to process B in a specific quantity, at a specific time, to a specific location. Because of digital technologies, people have visibility into what is happening with each step, giving them the ability to uncover bottlenecks that can cause delays or poor product quality.

Digital transformation helps customers know where their “stuff” is at all times, similar to the conveniences derived from mobile apps, where a taxi is ordered and the route visualized on the phone screen. Emerging next-gen end-toend visibility applications in concert with a network of interconnected buyers, suppliers and logistics providers are enabling companies to lower working capital and operating expenses, mitigate risk and improve customer satisfaction by breaking down silos within the organization. With digital transformation, the supply chain is now a completely integrated ecosystem accessible by all stakeholders.

With end-to-end visibility as the key driver for an effective supply chain improvement strategy, businesses must rely on building more collaborative relationships across their network of trading partners. Gaining end-to-end visibility across transportation processes can deliver 6% or more in transportation savings, remove the equivalent of 15 people from operating costs by improving productivity, and reduce the Cash-to-Cash cycle by 4 days or more.

Today’s technology allows all stakeholders to share a single network, connecting and collaborating on supply chain activities from one end of the enterprise to the other. Each trading partner has access to information generated through the network in order to gain visibility to all aspects of production, procurement, transportation and distribution.

With the proper information, executives can make qualified decisions that drive improvements in the business.

Digital systems gather data, which can be used for predictive analytics and machine learning to continually improve the organization. More informed decisions can be made by management. Disruptions from digital technologies can reshape markets and help with launching new products or services for less cost.

Digital Supply Networks (DSN) are part of a digital transformation journey, providing a technology foundation for improving inter-business processes, expanding supply chain relationships, increasing revenues and reducing operating costs. DSNs create greater opportunities by integrating suppliers, customers, and logistics service providers in various ways depending on the level of interbusiness processes that are performing.

With a digital transformation in the supply chain, silos dissolve and every part of the ecosystem has full visibility to what is happening from end-to-end. Supply and demand signals can travel through the network uninhibited, alerting the appropriate parties to low levels of raw materials or inventory, or seasonal spikes in demand. Because trading partners get this information in real time through the digital supply network, they can react accordingly. Digital disruptions from digital transformations will results into huge gains in customer satisfaction, profits and efficiencies.

One method is to connect via ERP-to-ERP integrations with high-volume suppliers and customers to streamline and automate sell-side and buy-side transactions. A second

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Editor’s Choice

The Universality of IoT Technology T

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he gratifying tool for companies to lead ahead IoT Technology” The Internet of things (IoT) is a revolutionary change for many sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, retail, electronic, energy and healthcare which are progressing towards the IoT phenomenon to connect digitally. It has placed an opportunity to build unusual results which increases a company’s compatibility. Enterprises seeking development are focusing on the use of real-time data management and IoT analysis. Many of the companies are adopting this technology to heighten their power of consumption. Companies are mainly concentrating on IoT application from “sensing” instead of “doing” to grow its competitive advantages. This element empowers organizations by allowing them to take the IoT advantage and adopt a more ‘innovative connected approach’.

Infrastructure Management – Optimization of Technology New applications are now enhancing their level of consumption. Likewise, manufacturing sector is also

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getting engrossed and achieving excellence through IoT Techniques. Applications are liable for monitoring and controlling operations for urban and rural manufactures like bridges, farms, and railway tracks. It is the key features of the applications were IoT infrastructure is also used for monitoring the construction safety and risk management system and operations. This major feature represents the mechanism of IoT application which works under infrastructure management. Benefits of IoT Technology are cost reducing, time reducing, better in quality, and increase productivity. It helps to make fast decisions and save money with real-time analysis. IoT devices help to give prominent results by monitoring and controlling operations used in all infrastructure related area.

Manufacturing Techniques are Growing with IoT Technology In the manufacturing sector, networking and controlling have been used with IoT devices. It provides information about data and operation stability. Network status and the information is collected in the system by tracking IoT device. Manufacturing control process deliver information about industry application and smart manufacturing details receiving form IoT device. IoT intelligent system enables sharing information about product demands, service management, supply chain networks, sensors and control systems together. Small industries can also be integrated with IoT technology that enables real-time optimization, measurements, production compatibility and safety management.

However, intelligent systems are determined as the significant technique that implies user experience and system security which ultimately saves costs.

which land is fertile or which one is dry and predict future fields.

IoT Technology Helps to Optimize Energy Consumption Integrated Sensing and Control system helps to optimize energy consumption. IoT devices are integrated with energy consumption systems in order to maintain balance between power generation and energy usage. IoT devices offer the opportunity to remotely gather information. It enables advance functions like remote controlling and changing light conditions. IoT Technology work for home-based energy system which provide power related information, energy consumption and energy usage at homes. IoT devices set goals to improve efficiency, reliability and sustainability of the energy system.

Monitoring Environment through IoT Technology Environment monitoring application has been involved with sensors to assist information about environment changes by identifying water quantity, atmosphere, air pressure etc. It also has focus on monitoring movements of wildlife and their habitats. Devices connected to the internet also provide statistics about earthquake or tsunami - early warning systems, and also used as an emergency system. IoT device application is used to collect geographic information and majorly instructive information. This device also uses standardized approach to bring wireless sensing technique and gather finest information.

IoT Technology Helps to Sustain Building and Home Automation

IoT Technology brings Innovative Farming Methods The Agriculture sector is one of the industry to implement IoT technology for stability and better performance. IoT technology has become a significant method of farming. It also offers durability and functionality to the whole process. The combination of wireless sensors with agricultural apps and cloud platforms benefits in gathering definite information relating to environmental conditions like, rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind speed etc. Farmers are getting competent results out of it, and are able to find real-time information easily. Linked with farmland, it improves and automates farming techniques like weather information, taking decision on quality and quantity, and minimizes risk and waste. With IoT Tech farmers can find out detailed information of farm and similarly know | December 2018

With certainty, IoT devices are used to monitor and control the mechanical, electrical and electronic systems.

IoT devices are used in various types of home automation and building automation systems. Control and sensory applications offer unified information. The integration of the internet with building creates an energy management system which will allow prominent energy efficiency.

There have been many ways for IoT technology to expand compatibility in the digital world, and it will be implemented in each sector to work as an important tool, to enhance its affinity. After all, the IoT network makes technology more unified and satisfying, with its tools and applications and IoT will be a step ahead towards numerous opportunities.

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Vivial: T

oday more than ever, businesses need marketing solutions to differentiate them from the competition and pave the way to future success. But many business owners lack the time and funds necessary to keep up with the latest marketing trends.

Businesses need to look no further than Vivial, a pioneer in the marketing technology (martech) industry.

Founded in 1910, Vivial has remained on the forefront of the industry, continually evolving its service offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of businesses.

Vivial’s mission is to convert the complex world of digital and mobile

A True Differentiator in the Marketing Technology Industry

marketing into simple, yet powerful solutions for the businesses it serves. It provides a full range of marketing solutions which includes content marketing, social media management, text messaging services, mobilefriendly websites and the latest local search products to ensure high rankings on Google and other search engines.

Vivial is dedicated to facilitating connections - connecting companies to customers and people to products. It also recognizes that digital marketing is not a one-size-fits-all experience, since each company is unique, and its marketing needs may vary across geographies and industries. As a result, Vivial matches its products and services accordingly to meet its client’s specific needs and budget.

At present, Vivial works with thousands of local, national and enterprise clients across 6,000 industries. The company employs over 1,000 “Whether it's an easy-to-use and marketing experts across 20 major U.S. cities, from affordable local marketing Dayton to Honolulu, Los technology or a custom marketing Angeles to New York City.

Additionally, Vivial has its campaign that Vivial builds mobile technology footprint in countries like United from the ground up, Kingdom, Netherlands and implements and monitors on the Greece. client's behalf, Vivial makes the complex simple.”

— Jim Continenza

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A Trailblazer An innovator in the marketing technology

industry, Jim Continenza is the Chairman and CEO of Vivial.

Responsible for the strategic vision of the company, Jim is advancing the martech industry by offering a straightforward suite of integrated online, social and mobile solutions to connect brands of all sizes with customers.

He continually strives to innovate by developing and acquiring new technologies that provide companies with a seamless experience. This helps them reach customers quickly and easily, and increase ROI with actionable consumer insights.

Jim is focused on bringing the latest technology to help businesses connect with target audiences. To do so, Jim is always on top of the latest trends and conducts research to understand the ways consumer behaviors are changing and how this impacts businesses that are trying to capture their attention. As a result, he develops and implements industry-leading product offerings for companies to adopt to remain relevant in today’s "now" society.

As a thought-leader, he is constantly offering tips and strategies to help businesses to achieve their marketing goals. Currently, Jim serves as Chairman of the Board for Eastman Kodak, Merrill Corporation, Sorenson Communications, Neff Rental and Tembec Corp. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Broadview Networks and Nextel International.

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Full-fledged Marketing Solutions Vivial is the only marketing provider in the industry to offer a robust and proprietary online, mobile and social media platform designed to connect local businesses with their target audience. It provides a suite of solutions to help SMBs attract, engage and retain customers in a highly mobilized, uber-competitive online marketplace.

The company’s marketing platform allows businesses to engage with customers through text messaging, advertise on Facebook and Instagram, request and monitor online reviews, track Google rankings and monitor online business listings all in one place. Vivial’s suite of solutions also includes responsive website development, local search optimization, online advertising and local print directories. Earlier this year, Vivial launched the Mobile Optimizer, a new text messaging service for local business. This connects businesses with new and existing customers throughout the entire buyer journey.

With this service, businesses no longer need multiple provides to manage their omni-channel marketing strategy.

In addition to the comprehensive solutions offered, on-demand support is included in every Vivial solution to ensure the highest customer satisfaction. This on-demand support team consists of an Account Coordinator to oversee the entire program, from monthly performance monitoring to project management. In addition, the business has access to an entire team of content writers and editors to craft and distribute custom content on behalf of their business.

And finally, businesses can also partner with a social media strategist to plan, develop and execute a high

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performing social media strategy, utilizing Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social platforms.

It’s like having a fullfledged marketing department on staff prepared to respond and adjust based on business needs.

Strives to be the Best Vivial aims to remain at the forefront of the marketing technology industry and will continue to lead the industry by staying on top of shifts in technology, advertising, marketing and customer behavior. Further, by understanding these shifts, Vivial will support businesses to reach customers quickly and easily, in the exact manner they choose.

Vival’s goal is to continuously identify new opportunities to add to the company’s portfolio along with enhancing the ways it helps businesses engage with their customers on a personal level. It is also identifying ways to expand its presence both domestically and internationally by building or strategically acquiring platform and technologies required to stay on the leading edge of marketing technology.

Jim Continenza Chairman and CEO

“Vivial does a great job as our SEO provider and has taken our rankings from page 17+ to page 1 and 2! They have monthly calls to show you exactly what they’re working on and openly invite you to make changes or suggestions for new keywords, etc.

Terrific company to work with!” Kimberly Dermit, Allied High Tech “Vivial is a great marketing resource for small businesses in the digital age.

First and foremost, it is affordable. The reps are knowledgeable, open and friendly, and always available. Your best bet when a full-time digital marketing department is not in your budget.” - Jim Montague, Lakeview Garden Center and Landscaping

Words of Trust

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Expert's Opinion

Ondrej Tomas CEO

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Transforming

Data based

Solutions Ondrej Tomas is the CEO of CleverAnalytics.com CleverAnalytics is Location Intelligence and Analysis platform driven by the business cases of CEOs, COOs, Network, Sales and Marketing executives. It excels in processing really large data sets and combining internal and external data into one data model.

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F

or quite a few years now Data is a new business mantra. Data is strategic asset, data is a key to unlock real business potential. Everything seems to dance around the data fire. So why would there be any need for more data, more data analytics, more tools?

Obviously the challenging part is turning the data into information and turning the information into valuable insights. I personally went through many iterations of this value chain. I was on the vendor side providing data warehouse technology and business intelligence tools as well as being on the customer side, trying to find the right tools, getting the IT environment together with the business one, fighting for the data to give answers. It is not easy!

Especially when you have a very precise idea what you want and what the outcome should look like. All that leads to some frustration and complexity issues.

However, the world of technology changes fast and a lot of frustrating tasks from the past are nowadays so easy to resolve. Why is that?

I am observing a few key trends and elements for this development. First and foremost, it is cloud computing adoption, secondly, it is machine learning and artificial intelligence principles and thirdly it is new large data sources that bring the “material” that can be and should be analyzed.

Cloud computing is the biggest democratization principle found in last decades. Cloud computing scaled down and brought up super advanced analytics to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Just a few years back only the biggest and wealthiest companies could afford to run large data centers with huge racks and server farms running all that expensive software tools from prime vendors. Today you can rent that technology for just a few moments to run your job at a fraction of a price and with the possibility to pay with your credit card. Not only can you rent infrastructure you can also rent software and you can choose from tens and hundreds of tools. When you don’t like the tool, you just stop the subscription and move to some more convenient tool. This is a true revolution. You own all the possibilities of this modern world with a single credit card in your pocket! What a massive impact this has. For example, any company in the world can decide NOT to have any IT! I mean servers, hardware, IT people... You can just run on cloud services. Without any back-office and in fact, you do not even need a physical office or company cars!

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Machine learning is closely connected with cloud computing. Without cloud there would not be machine learning in the form we know it today. Machine learning works only when you have enough data for the machine to feed. And that exactly is the role of cloud. That applies also to ML software capabilities. Few years ago there was just nothing except for some super expensive and proprietary tools. Nowadays you do a few clicks on AWS (amazon web services) and you run your first ML query! Needless to say what amazing possibilities this brings to data turning into information.

For our own technology (location intelligence platform) this meant an interesting breakthrough. All of a sudden we could provide our normal users with a simple analysis after initial data load that showed basic behavioral patterns. Just on one click. Amazing! Using computing power and know how of people that we would not be able to buy in a lifetime…

But machine learning brings more. It learns every minute, every day some more, it learns more with more data.

Thanks to this we all got used to using Siri on our phones or Alexa in our “smart” homes. All that being more capable every day due to machine learning. What a life changing technology!

My third topic was new large data sets as a raw material to be analyzed. And there are so many! We have a rising star internet of things (IoT) together with Blockchain, internet browsers related data, smartphones generated data, etc..

And sometimes you do not even need a new source of data.

Sometimes you just find a new use for the data already existing. Such as for us utilizing the location based data.

There is a location element in more than 80% of all business related data today. Almost everything can be localized. Your phone calls, your card payments, your car parking, your web browsing… All this represents large data sets that wait for exploring. The fun part is that this is only a start of a new trend. There will simply be more and more data - i.e. more possibilities for turning them into a valuable insights. Yet only 0,5% of all data is now being analyzed.

95,5% of all data are not being touched! It is like our knowledge of oceans. Yes, we know a lot and we are learning fast, yet we only know so little :-) So, exciting times are ahead thanks to all this amazing technology. And where politicians fail in their attempts to pursue democracy, it is technology that brings democracy into our lives as the most natural thing.

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ZOME Energy Networks: Creating a New Generation Energy Market

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t is certain that the energy management system represents a key element in the energy sector with an aim of reduced energy use and costs. An exceptional company with offices in Cambridge, MA and San Francisco, CA, ZOME Energy Networks is now taking dramatic steps in its bid for industry disruption and is why we have named ZOME one of our Top 10 Next Generation Disruptors.

ZOMETM is the world’s first DERMS platform implementing blockchain technology. It has also created the most advanced, microservices-based cloudarchitected software system performing energy management and optimization in the energy sector today.

DERMS, or Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems, are products that control energy consuming devices, like HVACs

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ZOME extends smart homes’ abilities to save money, earn rewards and help the planet.

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(Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) and hot water heaters, as well as renewable and technology products like rooftop solar panels and Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers.

DERMS rely on the variables in their immediate locations to determine and control energy distribution in the surrounding areas. ZOME has gone a step further than most by integrating with consumer-level IoT devices, balancing between the resources that produce energy (i.e. solar panels) and those that consume energy (i.e.

HVACs), and optimizing the devices under control.

At the top of the Game ZOME stands out from the competition with its patents and years of licensing grid orchestration algorithms from MIT and molding them to devices and environments in deployments. ZOME is winning awards and clients, a company at the top of its game.

But, the disruptive newsflash is that ZOME is licensing most of its technology into a new spinoff company that is chartered, among other things, to work with its competition. The cause for all this is Blockchain in the energy sector.

Advance Cloud Architecture An Established Leader ZOME has built and is operating an advanced cloud architecture with a broad API software gateway to talk to myriad devices in the field. It is doing this all with automations among devices, algorithms for wide-scale and optimized operation of energy usage and savings, integration with devices like smart thermostats and EV chargers, and user interfaces on smart phones and web UIs for its users. The solution set bridges two explosive market sectors, namely the proliferation of IoT devices in homes, apartments, and offices with the evolution and democratization of the energy sector. ZOME is now adding its next piece to the puzzle, cryptocurrency and Blockchain, to create a new, 21st century energy market.

Along with its cutting-edge solutions, the team at ZOME is another strong suit for the company. This team is led

by Dr. Alex Papalexopoulos, the CEO and Chairman. Alex is also the founder of ECCO, one of the top energy market designers in the world.

He is also an IEEE Fellow and has designed energy markets on four continents.

Licensing Technology World Energy Consortium, PLC was formed to create a worldwide consortium of private and quasi-public (think electric utilities) users of a viable energy industry blockchain solution and Token economic system/eco-system. Its applications include reward incentives, automated Demand Side Management programs, December 2018|

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transactive energy including machineto-machine reconciliation, P2P energy trading, energy grid balancing, and crypto-settlement services. ZOME will license its technology to World Energy Consortium so those applications that require control software or predictive analytics tied to the use of Blockchain in energy can be delivered as a full solution. Any third-party DERMS or Analytics systems can be integrated with the World Energy Consortium’s Blockchain, and indeed is encouraged, the more that leverage this Blockchain the better, according to the management team.

See below for a sub-set of the Blockchain Architecture under consideration by the Consortium as of the writing of this article, the transactive energy settlements process and marketplace: Dr. Papalexopoulos explains, “We had to step in and create a best practices and viable blockchain solution, since energy industry initiatives were all about private blockchains…we had to maintain the reasons for private— namely speed of transaction, security, utility control where needed— but at the same time take the leap to what Blockchain is all about, the public and open aspect of it.” He knows a thing or two about new energy market creation, having been involved as a lead market designer on most of the modern electric wholesale-retail markets in

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operation today, including CAISO, NYISO, ERCOT, NE-ISO, PJM, Poland, Greece, Japan, the island of Cyprus, and many others.

World Energy Consortium, and its sister company, ZOME, are creating the crypto-blockchain energy market for electric utilities, aggregators, building owners, and individual consumers (and “prosumers”) themselves.

The World Energy Consortium Blockchain solves two of the biggest issues today plaguing energy programs: high friction in post-event energy management reconciliation, and measurement and verification of energy reduction in Demand Side Management (DSM) programs. A common coin with an open distributed ledger, all running with pre-determined and agreed-to settlement rules is the simple solution to those previous perplexing issues.

It required the creation of a new entity, World Energy Consortium, to be formed– an organization dedicated to create, manage for the community, and build as a member of the community an energy-specific and open cryptocurrency, one with money-velocity, and of course one easily convertible into

Dr. Alex Papalexopoulos CEO

fiat (i.e., regular cash). Crypto coins, aka Tokens, will be issued by World Energy Consortium and facilitated under a charter as a consortium regarding governance and interdependent partnerships serving the greater whole. And World Energy Consortium can help bundle better solutions for Blockchain in energy with its license from ZOME for device control, program simulations, predictive analytics, and white-label software, including mobile apps and portal UIs.

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Yes, Internet of Things is Chalk Talk

Reshaping the World D ata—an abstract can’t be felt, can’t be touched, more likely to be understood.

A cryptic information flows omnidirectional in surrounding in the form of wave signals, transferring the data at different frequencies prevents the over-drawing. This data is secured in the cloud—large storage servers which provide a better protection to the information.

Internet of Things—the appliances used in daily life interrelated with cloud computing in-order to make toil easy. It’s been introduced while ago; its applications are seen in household commodities, and now enterprises have also started showing their keen interest in IoT’s. Certain IoT’s specially programmed for the processes in the enterprise; coordinating with such technologies will bring a boon to the enterprises as a whole, with variations in utilization the benefits also vary.

Outlook of IoT’s depending on their functioning Twining the Product Digitally Digital Twins—a mirror-like virtual representation of an original product for proper analysis is it all about. This program helps to generate a digitalized graphical image of any object at an instantaneous time, whereas, the analysis includes functioning, learning, and reasoning. Any complicated object can be regenerated and studied for its better improvement. For example, in automotive industries,

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it’s quite hard to point out a mistake or a flaw in complicated functioning objects. An engine design is pretty much intricate, so is it’s functioning, a digital twin of the engine helps to analyze the speed of the engine, compressor ratio, oil pressure, heat emitted by engines and, etc. With the help of DT, there’s the possibility of creating a connected engine instead of assembling the parts of an engine.

DT can make a change in physical assets by providing options for creating, testing, building, monitoring, and maintaining. Implementing such IoT will benefit in accelerating the product development rate and will also reduce the costs. Before any occurrences in failure predictive maintenance is always the best option. Hence, in order to prevent further calamities, it’s better to take measures accordingly.

Following Up the Blocks; More Secure Way Block chain is another way to transfer data without getting altered by other factors, the cryptography is so at its depth that making changes get tough. Block chains is a series of blocks which will pass data from one to another. This methodology is used for transaction process between two parties, considering any enterprises sharing the monetary assets digitally, and then through block chain, the transaction will be more secure. Trust is important factor required for the business, thus, this will build trust between those two parties involved in the transfer. And, as block

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chain stores the data promptly in the blocks; the details of transfer amount and related can be retrieved.

Earlier three parties were required in order to proceed for the transfer, but here, the involvement of ‘middle party’ is evoked, this reduces the time as well as efforts needed. As the transactions are done on a peer-to-peer basis, there is a reduction in contractual costs. And, reduction in cost is always been beneficiary to the company. With the absence of middle-man, the transaction process boosts up leaving out the unnecessary time required.

Delivering Various Platform for Various Processes This the age of digital disruption, in order to overcome such issues, an enterprise needs to rethink on their business agendas. There are certain IoT companies which provide solutions with the digital transformation. A trend has been followed up with innovation comes growth, considering such methods a new platform has been developed to reduce the launch timing of new digital services which includes predictive maintenance and helps to monitor assets.

Some companies provide cloud-based IoT SaaS platform for medium-sized businesses, and large companies for the distribution and managing their IoT assets and services.

Enterprises will also be able to engineer the products by gaining proper insights with advanced digital technologies; this will help to maintain position in the market. There are some platform providers which help the enterprises to develop smart IoT’s, so that the maintenance required by the enterprises work more efficiently and will definitely increase the product quality and will increase transparency in operations. Along with, as-a-services are also offered to the enterprises for the repairing and product performance related issues. Whereas, there are some IoT firms which provide assistance by monitoring, utilizing assets and tracking of vehicles. Installing such IoT will not only help industries to remotely monitor and will have a total control over the management.

Industries to Utilize Automated Vehicles Time to go RC’s (remote controlled) Many big companies have made electric-cars more available at a commercial level too. Whereas, automated vehicles have raised the level of non-liquid fuel cars; nowadays, computerized controlled cars are seen in the trend. Many companies have adapted them in order to reduce labor; these cars receive data directly from the cloud through certain commands supporting employees to | December 2018

remotely manage vehicles. AV consist of advanced GPS systems with high quality of cameras which helps the vehicle to see up to 100m of the area without any disturbance caused by nature, in hand to that, the data acquired by the sensors helps to generate 3D optimized view of surrounding of vehicles. This reduces the cost as well as the time required for the transportation.

Now, Easy to track assets A systematic implementation should be taken for the management of assets. Talking about the management, the most faced problems by the companies are the assets missplacement and miss-location. For preventing such issues, certain measures could be taken by an implementation of IoT; IoT such as tracking devices, this will monitor the location of assets and help the companies to have an outlook of their products.

Customizing the consumption with IoT Smart Metering—another way to make building maintenance easy, this allows a program to manage the consumption rate of water, natural gases, and energy entities. Installing such SM IoT will boost the comprehension of building requirements; it will maintain the level of needed supplies resulting in the reduction of over-pay for the resources. Well, it is the beneficiary method to focus on.

Coordinating IoT with CC Cognitive Computing (CC) is a way to bring human thoughts in computerized figures; it has self-learning abilities which helps it to solve problems on its own. It’s been a while in the use of CC in industries, but, with the involvement in IoT has uplifted the technological standards.

CC acquires the data from IoT devices and works accordingly, this vastly generated data are unstructured, multi-modal, and, while maintaining the use of such large detailed information some of the sensor data is thrown away. As the productivity is limited not utilized data are considered are left out which is also known as ‘dark’.

Hence, for certain products certain data is acquired.

Securing the Place in Market Due to digital disruption, it has become mandatory for the enterprises having a strong-hold understanding on upcoming new innovation. Implementing IoTs will not only help in the growth, but also be a tough competitor by increasing productivity rate. Hopefully, the saturation in the IoT is far more likely to be inevitable.

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