Tbtech September Edition

tbtech publication £9.99 tbtech.co STORIES INSPIRED

BY MODERN LIVING. SEPTEMBER 2022

Pushing ahead.

TBTECH EXPLORES THE RAPID CHANGE IN TECHNOLOGY

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The era of software-defined everything is pushing the pace of innovation and transforming market segments ranging from aerospace to industrial, defense to medical, and networking to automotive.

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August 2022

In this issue

tbtech explores the rapid change in technology.

10 EDITORIAL

Manufacturing the power

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Changing future travel trends.

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TEST, TEST, TEST.

How the technological acceleration of Payroll will be crucial during times of crisis.

Calling all 26 innovators.

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The future of touchscreens.

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August 2022

Enhancing ETL by turning to real-time data streaming.

42 62 HOW DIGITAL MANUFACTURING IS BREAKING BARRIERS TO PARTICIPATION.

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HOW CAN WE DEBIAS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

What is business process management, and why does it matter to your automation efforts?

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In this issue

How retailers can increase customer engagement by being a one-stop-shop for their financial needs.

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HOW REAL-TIME ALERTS PROVIDE A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.

82 How leading businesses use price monitoring to boost profit.

86 Critical learnings in digital transformation.

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August 2022

Solving developer challenges – serverless at the edge computing and Industry 4.0.

118 122

WHY IDENTITY DATA CAN BE THE KEY TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SUCCESS.

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How intelligent automation is transforming the asset and wealth management space.

Sharing is caring: collaboration and communication in cyber.

How finance companies can use confidential computing to stay secure.

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Augmented reality empowers more efficient construction.

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DRIVING GROWTH IN A DOWNTURN: THE DIGITAL MARKETPLACE MODEL.

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Strengthening security with MFA: how to choose the right solution.

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August 2022

Editorial

Industry 4.0.

The digital transformation.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, 4IR, or Industry 4.0, conceptualizes rapid change to technology, industries, and societal patterns and processes in the 21st century due to increasing interconnectivity and smart automation.

Industry 4.0 has been defined as a name for the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies, including cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things, cloud computing and cognitive computing and creating the smart factory”.

The goal is to enable autonomous decision-making processes, monitor assets and processes in real-time, and enable equally real-time connected value creation networks through early involvement of stakeholders, and vertical and horizontal integration.

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Industry 4.0 is a vision, policy, and concept in motion, with reference architectures, standardization and even definitions in flux.

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Meet your tbtech team.

JOE ALLEN

LUKE CONRAD

PAUL WHITTALL

Joe has vast experience and knowledge accumulated and honed as a New Business Development Manager and Relationship Manager.

Responsible for generating new business opportunities, looking after the growth of the company and strategy, sourcing new ventures and managing the company.

Luke is Digital Editor at TBTech and has history working closely with the worlds biggest tech brands to deliver campaigns. Luke is an advocate of tech across business and commercial applications.

Paul stops at nothing to innovate and create value for our customers. His mission is help those we work with to win in their markets. Passionate about delivering customer success and have had the pleasure of supporting many of the world’s leading technology brands for over 15 years.

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We have been working behind-the-scenes to elevate the readers experience.

JESSIE PETHRUS

WILLIAM MOORE

MATT ROBERTS

Driven by storytelling, Jessie’s writer-designer duo allows her to combine the power of synergy across different mediums.

She believes a strong marketing strategy begins with understanding the brands mission and audience, together with the market, in order to position yourself as a leading brand, speaking directly to your clients and customers desires.

William’s passion starts and ends with design, timeless aesthetic and creative solutions. Having worked on numerous creative campaigns ranging from car manufacturers, leading tech companies, property investors as well as local artisans, the goal is to create the ultimate brand experience between the client and the consumer.

Matt is Operations Manager at TBTech, he has spent the last 15 years working with multinational IT companies building campaigns, GTM strategies, leading both Sales and Marketing teams to achieve organisational goals.

With a love of computer science, history, and psychology he is an advocate for change, operational efficiency and automation.

Value across the business for all our customers.

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August 2022

The future of touchscreens and gesture control. A virtual typing experience.

Touchscreens are everywhere. From living rooms to malls and everywhere in between, we encounter them on a daily basis. Considering how touchscreens are literal touchpoints between the user and a service they use, the user experience with touchscreens has a bearing on their impression of a particular brand or service.

August 2022

By Olivier Plante, CEO of Fleksy by Thingthing Ltd.

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The future of touchscreens and gesture control.

WHAT DOES INDUSTRY 4.0 HAVE IN-STORE FOR TOUCHSCREENS?

Features like intuitive gesture control and autocorrection available for an impressive list of languages makes especially the Android SDK keyboard integration a compelling option for smart TV typing, often powered

by AOSP. On a broader level, completely secured privacy settings are put in place to protect users from keystroke monitoring and recording, which means that business related data and passwords are not exposed to risk while using the software.

Whether at home or outside, users’ expectations from brand interactions have been setting new standards for brands and developers to keep up with.

Keyboard integration makes technology more inclusive by making something as routine as smart TV and common screen interactions accessible to users of different ages and abilities.

With technology of this potential, keyboard developers could also ensure that dynamic gesture control is in line with touch-based surfaces, with respect to virtual keyboard layouts and naturality, thereby saving the trouble for endusers to relearn aspects they are much used to.

As we’re exploring the rapid change to technology, especially across the Software industries, there’s a strong notion that the dynamics in how people interact with touchscreens - mainly in the way we type - are shifting. Gesture Control is a key consideration that virtual keyboard developers need to be aware of as we’re stepping into Touchscreen 4.0.

IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE FUTURE OF SWIPE INPUT A closer observation of our typing habits seem to indicate that we don’t type in static movements. There is a rhythmic flow in movement and in pace. Irrespective of whether we are using a computer or a smartphone, the typing experience could make or break our overall experience with the touchscreen or typing area.

Immersive technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are no longer a thing of sci-fi, they are integrated in everyday life. With these technologies influencing more practical spheres of life, it also means that typing experiences are no longer limited to the ways we are used to. Typing on smartphones and keyboards in a way we are used to our entire lives, only to learn an entirely different way of typing in AR or VR, is easier said than done.

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As touch-based services become more interactive and even more intuitive, the gestures people make to type are shifting towards more fluid movements. On this, typing interactions with virtual keyboards are reaching new heights when it comes to, amongst others, augmented realities.

COULD THIS MEAN NO MORE PHYSICAL TOUCHSCREENS? Our interactions with touchscreens go beyond the comfort of our homes, to places we frequent, like malls, cafes and bus stations.

More often than not, we depend on them either for information or to avail services. In spite of their usefulness and versatility, apprehensions regarding touchscreens range from privacy concerns to hygiene issues.

Given that common touchscreens are shared by multiple users, undesirable elements like bacteria and germs could easily be passed from person to person.

These potential risks could discourage users from engaging with common screens. Due to this, Industry 4.0 could potentially mean more touchscreen-less, virtual, typing experiences.

This concept has started with smartphones and this concept is popularly extended to smartphones through AR apps and games, using the phone camera to track your surroundings.

TYPING EXPERIENCES IN VIRTUAL (VR) AND AUGMENTED REALITIES (AR)

It can be argued that the principles of VR offers a better case scenario for a keyboard typing experience and gesture control without breaking the virtual immersion. The glasses can represent the physical keyboard in the virtual space with the same layout. This also ticks the box for ergonomics. Typing in this case, can be further enhanced by features like next word predictions, that are available at the user’s disposition, enabling them to just pick words using their fingers on the virtual keyboard.

Fundamentally, AR uses realworld settings while VR uses completely virtual or fictional settings. VR is a completely immersive experience that transports you into an altogether different reality, virtually, replacing your surroundings. No physical touchscreen is needed to type here. Augmented Reality, on the other hand, adds or augments your surroundings instead of replacing them. AR glasses are smart glasses allowing you to see through, designed for free movement, simultaneously projecting an overlay of information including images, over whatever you choose to look at.

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SWIPE INPUT IS THE WAY TO GO IN AR Apart from being an intuitive way of typing in AR, swipe typing allows users to move around freely without having to carry around another device for text input. Most importantly, it is ergonomic and sustainable in the long run as users don’t have to learn their way through new, unfamiliar layouts but can be comfortable with their interactions- physically and cognitively.

In conclusion, Touchscreen 4.0 is expected to become a prominent reality in the near future. In this reality, we could likely find ourselves typing on a projected keyboard while on the go - with no physical touchscreen in sight.

Getting this right could take any touchscreen experience from being merely transactional to truly exceptional in Touchscreen 4.0.

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August 2022

Manufacturing and the power of prediction: an end to unjustified and reactive maintenance.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is alive and kicking. It is transforming traditional, linear production processes into dynamic interconnected systems across the manufacturing landscape.

It’s making its presence felt in production efficiencies, QA process improvements and real-time AIbased decision making. However, there is one area where it still has room to grow. That’s predictive maintenance, giving technicians the power to service networked machinery before it fails.

August 2022

By Knud Kegel, VP Product, EMnify.

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An end to unjustified and reactive maintenance.

PREVENT, CORRECT OR PREDICT?

When it comes to maintenance, there are three options available.

Preventative maintenance is performed at fixed intervals.

Whether that’s after a certain number of machine hours or at set points within the manufacturing year. It’s all about creating a schedule of repair that kicks in before machinery fails. Even if something is fully working, with no issues, preventative maintenance is still carried out.

Corrective maintenance takes the opposite approach. Machinery is repaired only when a failure has already occurred and the damaged equipment has to be overhauled. Although this strategy saves businesses from purchasing and installing new parts unnecessarily, it can also create production bottlenecks and cause major downtime issues.

But everything becomes more methodical when IIoT technologies are available to address issues, alleviate problems and improve processes. That’s when predictive

maintenance can be used to assess factory systems and pinpoint the machines that actually require repairs.

It’s an ideal balance. Maintenance is carried out before the point of failure, but not too early, when a part is still functioning correctly and delivering benefit. With predictive maintenance you’re fixing problems before they start, just as components reach the end of their serviceable lifespan.

THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE Predictive maintenance can be overlaid onto a manufacturing plant’s existing IoT installation.

All those endpoints, low latency connections and automation subroutines, deployed to streamline production. They can be paired with machine learning and predictive analytics to spot patterns in current and historical data. Whether it’s data from temperature sensors, valves, vibrations or viscosity, all this realtime operational information can predict when an asset or piece of machinery needs repairs, before

breaking down completely. You’re only a small step away from proactively identifying the warning signs of mechanical failure and taking timely action.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE There are a number of ways that sensors can be used to usher predictive maintenance into a manufacturing facility. For example, worn components often radiate more heat than they would under normal operating conditions. Using infrared cameras, equipment hot spots can be identified automatically, and flagged to maintenance crews.

As an addition, machine learning could be used to automatically order a new part once a temperature threshold is reached.

Furthermore, acoustic sensors can be used to detect gas, liquid or vacuum leaks in equipment.

The same sensors can also detect friction patterns in machinery, with acoustic characteristics changing over time due to worn or poorly lubricated bearings and housings.

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Then there’s vibration analysis, allowing plant operatives to determine whether a machine is operating under optimal conditions, based on its vibration pattern. This will often change as components wear out and vibration frequencies change.

For many manufacturers, all these predictive maintenance techniques sit harmoniously alongside existing IoT initiatives. Being able to analyse the condition of equipment on an ongoing basis and foresee potential failures, has to be one of the most natural and effective IIoT progressions.

MAKING SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION PLANS So, where do you start? And how can your business adopt these powerful maintenance procedures? Well, here are three things you need to bear in mind as you build out your predictive maintenance capabilities.

1. No more manual data collection Manual inspections have got to go. These are inefficient ways of tracking the health of equipment and machinery. Industry 4.0 is all about augmenting your teams with connected sensors and smart tools that make it possible to identify potential problems faster and more reliably. Leave the data collection and preliminary error detection to your IoT endpoint network. You should be diverting your engineers’ time into more beneficial, bigger-picture assignments.

2. It’s time to embrace Big Data You’re going to accumulate data very quickly. Lots of it.

And it’s easy for managers to get overwhelmed. But don’t try to interpret the data yourself.

There are plenty of analytics platforms out there that can process your data for you. With the right platform you can use machine learning to bridge the gap between your incoming performance metrics and the maintenance that’s required.

So, don’t worry about the data.

Once you step back and let your analytics solution do its thing, you’ll be able to focus solely on the key pieces of information that matter.

3. Put cellular into the equation IoT is built on connectivity. Get this right and everything else begins to fall into place. Get it wrong, and you’re trading seamless, actionable data communications for limited insights and cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Hard-wired or Wi-Fi connections may work in some settings, but most of the time cellular connectivity is absolutely essential.

It’s flexible, resilient, dependable and fast, outperforming the limitations of older connectivity models. When your goal is to stay IoT connected, no matter the circumstances, cloud-native cellular connectivity is your best option by far.

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AN EASIER FUTURE FOR MANUFACTURING As the IIoT continues to pervade factories across the UK, manufacturers are able to make radical improvements to traditional production processes.

When the flow of materials, components and finished products is being tracked by sensors, and autonomous machines are alleviating production line pressures, introducing predictive maintenance into the mix is a natural next step. Is your business ready to explore the financial, productivity and efficiency benefits of predictive maintenance?

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August 2022

Sales enablement is to salespeople as Google is to search.

Salespeople need to be both confident in their product knowledge and masters of the art of selling in order to be successful. Consistent success is most frequently found within organizations where sales leaders are wholly committed to driving a culture of coaching where space is created for their teams to practice outside of critical customer interactions.

Doing so creates a competitive advantage that can result in significant bottom-line results and highly efficient growth

Coaching is a fundamental component of modern leadership.

While one-off training sessions can address gaps in skills and knowledge, without the right coaching to reinforce new skills, 87% of training is forgotten within 7 days.

Whilst technology can never replace an organizational commitment to focused coaching and deliberate practice, access to the right technology alongside such a commitment will help move all sellers towards the behaviors and activities demonstrated by top performers more quickly than when supporting technology is absent. So how do you train your sales team at scale?

August 2022

By Andy Champion, VP and General Manager, EMEA at Highspot.

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Sales enablement is to salespeople as Google is to search.

TRAINING IS AN ONGOING COMMITMENT

In the current business climate, sales teams are challenged more than ever to win deals, manage their time, engage with buyers, and meet targets. A common reaction to this increased pressure is to double down on training, to add new content and focus even more on individual activity levels.

Whilst this is a tempting natural reaction, it rarely works in the mid-to-long term because it does nothing to change the behaviors of salespeople. A more effective approach to sustained changes in rep behaviour isolates effective behaviors and collates these into sales plays that help all reps understand what to know, say, show and do in given selling scenarios.

Then by creating opportunities within the working week for learning and deliberate practice of these optimal selling behaviors through activities such as scheduled role plays or facilitated reviews of call recordings behavioral changes can be driven

at scale and with consistency. After all, once salespeople understand what good looks like, it is much more likely that they will be able to model that, in those precious moments in front of the customer.

The more intentional you are with this, the greater the likelihood that your salespeople will understand precisely what to know, say, show, and do when it really matters!

Sales training should never be isolated. By integrating training, deliberate practice and coaching, growth will become the standard for your team and the impact will be felt in revenue, retention and morale.

DRIVEN BY DATA Sales is part art and part science.

The part that is art, as we have already discussed, can be improved through deliberate practice. As for science, the rise of revenue technologies and the data associated with them has transformed the way sales teams think and feel in recent years.

And whilst intuition may be in the driver’s seat, sales data has demonstrably taken the wheel.

One reason for this stems from the innate difficulty that all salespeople face when trying to pinpoint what they’re doing wrong, and in complex interactions of conversations, emails and meetings they ‘lost the deal’. By leveraging AIpowered analytics fueled by sales data, subjective commentary can be replaced with empirical evidence and the insight that results can then be used to make objective adjustments to future engagements.

Data can also highlight how and where your team is functioning most effectively and where they would most benefit from additional resources, training or support. A data-driven sales team will save your company time, energy, and money — and within a climate where growth at all costs has been rapidly displaced by efficient growth, this is no longer an option for most organizations.

Building the perfect sales recipe A sales enablement strategy’s fundamental purpose is to provide salespeople with the content, tools and coaching they need to effectively engage customers

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throughout the buying process.

Sales Enablement is a relatively new functional area for many businesses in Europe, however, the weight of evidence from North America as to the benefits of a well-executed strategy means that it is one that should be a standard business practice for anyone seeking to grow revenue, increase sales productivity and improve customer experience: it’s a cheat code that will drive efficient growth and land your company’s strategy consistently and with empathy. If you buy into the concept of ‘if you give people a recipe, they’ll know what to do’, then the first question to ask is where to go to build your recipe.

Experience suggests, just like in a commercial kitchen, that we should go to our top performers.

To those people in the team that have already figured out what ingredients to mix, and in what quantities to bake the perfect loaf. In the business world, that means looking at our top sales performers to understand what they’re doing well, to understand what they’re saying and doing to win the hearts and minds of

customers versus the competition.

Research from Techvalidate has shown that when companies commit to this approach through using Sales Plays, they experience a 19% increase in the amount of sales personnel reaching quota, and a 24% reduction in ramp times for new reps*. For many organizations, this translates into millions of dollars, pounds, or Euros and a way more efficient growth path than before.

So, it turns out that creating ‘the winning sales recipe’ really is the secret sauce that gets your salespeople to hit their annual quota consistently.

A CULTURE OF COACHING There are many advantages to leveraging technology in the pursuit of sales excellence. For example, a well-curated sales enablement solution will ensure that salespeople can access the right content, at the right time, even when at times they may not be looking for it. ‘Just in time training’ related to the content they plan to use can then be layered

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on top of this to ensure they land the content consistent with best practices identified within your winning recipe. For example, an audio or video clip showcasing perfect execution from a top performer, or a subject matter expert will allow even moderate performers to enhance their delivery and their chance of success.

In many ways, Sales enablement is to salespeople what Google is to search, and as sales leaders, we must pay close attention to this.

To foster a culture of coaching, it’s a sales leader’s duty to implement the right tools and culture to assist teams in performing at their best.

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August 2022

Changing future travel trends.

The travel sector has been one of the most volatile and unpredictable industries in recent years, unsurprisingly given the impact of the pandemic and the mounting economic pressures, but the near-future changes in consumer trends could be surprising to many. The question on everyone’s lips during and post-pandemic has been how is the travel sector going to recover, and, even more importantly, adapt to the new world? Most notably, there’s now a new controlling demographic. The younger generation have become the most influential on travel trends, despite being those with a typically lower disposable income and the rising cost of living. All hotels, hotel groups and travel services are predicting that the next generation will make up most of their future luxury bookings and are adapting their ways of working to suit.

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By Rebecca Masri, Founder of Little Emperors.

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Changing future travel trends.

At Little Emperors, we’ve seen over a 30% increase in under-40s buying LE membership and an even larger increase in number of bookings by this demographic and this is consistent with the rest of the industry.

This new controlling demographic ‘buy with their eyes’. As such, hotels and travel services are beginning to realize that visuals are king. Hotels that are better visually prepared will receive more bookings from the next generation. They want room specific information, floor plans, video walk-throughs and more.

At a hotel level, it doesn’t stop at the rooms. Features such as the view, landscape and the façade of the building (if it’s historic) all feed into impacting the booking rates. One of our partners, The Four Seasons Astir Palace, does exactly this. By displaying almost everything you could possibly want to see, it enables bookers to really know what they’re spending their money on, so they’re certain it will be worth their hard-earned cash.

The need to see activities and facilities is a multifaceted difference. Not only is it necessary to provide visuals of all on offer but there’s been a sharp trend away from booking ‘just luxury’ hotels and a move to lifestyle bookings – not only do you have to be luxurious, but you also need to offer an experience.

At Little Emperors, to continue to attract bookers, we’re now promoting experiences in hotels over the hotels themselves.

We also have specific rooms that stand out to consumers above the hotel they’re a part of.

The Keliki Valley Tent on our app is one such example, where guests have a dedicated yoga deck and can have a floating breakfast in their private pool.

The lifestyle experiential aspect of a hotel is catching most of the attention of affluent travelers. This is at least in part due to consumers wanting to make the most of their trip post-pandemic now that they’re finally able to travel.

This isn’t the only trend that can be linked directly back to Covid. Now that most countries have lifted their Covid restrictions, there’s been a surge in further afield travel and bookings. Top of the list are those that previously were the most strict on Covid: Australia, Japan and Indonesia (Bali specifically).

On our app alone, there’s been a 20% increase in reservations to these destinations. They’re finally open and travelers are looking for places further away to

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go and experience. There’s also a move towards places such as Mauritius, the Maldives & the Seychelles. These are places people can truly switch off and relax after the stressful years of the pandemic and correspond to the need to get away from city crowds and closer to nature – pure escapism now they’re able to leave their homes.

Hotels in these destinations are often also at the forefront of sustainable changing. They are locations that were previously led by their desire for tourism and now are some of the most conscious about changing to be as environmentally positive as possible. This is something that consumers are beginning to prioritize, particularly the younger controlling demographic.

In my opinion, there’s three big take aways from the changes in travel trends that the industry and hotels need to recognize and act on.

First is that Covid has had a huge impact – no one can deny this – but the travel industry has and will continue to adapt and grow. And not all post-covid changes are negative. In fact, most are positive. People are more willing to travel further, try new things, commit more expenditure than previously and there’s more differentiation between hotels as long as you offer more than just a room.

This leads me onto the second take away.

Hotels need to do more today than ever to not just survive but thrive.

Be bold. Think outside of the box.

Do you have an area that could fit a yoga deck? Build it. Do you have a rooftop that you’re not using or needs refurbing? Put a DJ and luxurious seating on it.

Could you have an onsite scuba and snorkeling facility rather than sending everyone to the one next door? Do more. It will pay off.

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Which brings me to the crux; we can use technology and data not only to read and predict current and future trends. We can use them to be proactive and influence positively. The world is growing more and more sustainable – so why not promote sustainable hotels and travel over unsustainable?

Consumers are already showing they’re more eco-conscious. We should be encouraging this positive behavior and not just viewing them as trends to be reactive to. We in the travel and tech industry have the power to influence for good, and still be business-led. So let’s think of what more we can do, and do it.

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August 2022

Test, test, test!

The business importance of stress testing operational technology.

As the scale, nature, and complexity of cyberattacks continue to evolve, businesses cannot afford to be complacent with their cyber strategy if they want to remain secure. It is not news that hackers are turning to newer more sophisticated methods to target new sources to infiltrate. And with digital transformation and Internet of Things technologies continuously ramping up, there are even more connected technologies to target, and even more opportunities for cybercriminals to strike.

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By Alex Tarter, Chief Cyber Consultant and CTO-Cyber at Thales.

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The business importance of stress testing operational technology.

For businesses that want to stay one step ahead and keep these associated risks at bay, a robust, agile, and adaptable approach is needed. We can no longer assume that having strong cybersecurity barriers in place is enough, we also need to assume and anticipate that things will go wrong. Indeed, cyberattacks have become the inevitable price we pay for doing business nowadays, and something we cannot guarantee immunity from.

AN ERA FOR RESILIENCE, NOT JUST SECURITY As we move away from the notion that strong cybersecurity is the sole defence required, cyber resilience instead takes centre stage. Cyber resilience has even become a key pillar of both the Ministry of Defence and the UK Government’s brand-new cyber strategies. In simple terms, businesses need to be realistic about the threats they face, and best prepare their cyber response for those inevitable breach attempts.

Perhaps one of the most important elements of building cyber resilience is stress testing, otherwise known as response exercising. This involves creating a simulation of a real threat scenario that could be encountered to determine the fragility of a system’s infrastructure and its ability to withstand negative impacts, such as cyberattacks.

This is an incredibly important exercise especially when it comes to businesses that utilise operational technologies. For instance, businesses involved in logistics and manufacturing typically consist of processes that are tightly coupled and have critical external dependencies – which means many parts within a system rely on other parts (some external to the organisation) to operate correctly, such as the supply chain. Therefore, while automation and emerging technologies create efficiencies and streamline production, they can also introduce considerable fragility within the system. This means as soon as one such element is disrupted the entire process or business

is compromised. As a result, businesses cannot afford to be too reliant on single points of failure, or highly efficient solutions, should they be the target of a breach.

Regularly stress testing situations – such as intentionally creating an error or simulating an attack on one of these interconnected environments – can test how prepared a business would be if the system were to face a real cyberattack. This is an extension of a well-known concept called ‘chaos engineering’, but within a security context.

We recommend that businesses take the following first steps to build critical cyber resilience within their own business’ operational technology…

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1. Assess your dependencies: Businesses must first unpick and identify each and every critical dependency and interdependency within their business model, infrastructure, and operational technology. Once they know just how reliant they are on these external factors, businesses can develop a continuity plan and alternative supplies.

2. Undergo regular exercises: Run through threat scenarios by simulating attacks on your key dependencies and systems. This does not often require much effort and can have minimal disruption to operations, depending on the scenario, but the ROI is invaluable. Doing such practices at random also most accurately replicates realistic scenarios that strike without warning, and most accurately reflects a business’ true response to them. These exercises can take the form of tabletop pre-planned events all the way up to deploying test agents (such as Chaos Monkeys) to simulate realworld effects.

As with all exercises, it is better to build your maturity first before adopting any practices that actually interfere with operations.

3. Reflect on your performance: After each exercise, you can look back at how prepared the business was for that threat scenario and how resilient the ecosystem is when specific elements are compromised or shut down completely. The critical question at these points isn’t necessarily how the compromise occurred but rather how confidently they were able to respond, and what elements still require attention.

This will ultimately empower businesses to know how to best offset the risks when they actually occur, enabling them to act quickly and confidently.

4. Adapt where you are weak or fragile: Once you know the pressure points within the system, and what elements caused unacceptable impacts when out of action, you can look to introduce additional resiliency measures and security controls where needed.

These will enable your business to both lower the risk of compromise and strengthen the system’s and cybersecurity team’s ability to effectively respond to them.

5. Think beyond yourself: Remember, no business is a selfreliant, autonomous island that operates entirely on its own. All businesses are inherently linked to wider elements such as opensource software, and are reliant upon their vendors, suppliers, and IT service providers, amongst potentially dozens of other stakeholders. This interconnected system of systems necessitates businesses to start considering the overall cyber resilience of their supply chain, as any single point failure within that chain can have a monumental knock-on effect if compromised.

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6. Promote the cultural shift to cyber resilience: The shift from cybersecurity risk management to overall cyber resilience will require an evolution in business culture and priorities. Business leaders need to accept the almost inevitable likelihood of a breach attempt. With cyber resilience, businesses concern themselves with managing the associated impact of a cyberattack, rather than just minimising the chance of the incident occurring in the first place.

There is an added bonus to this change in mindset and culture.

The most cyber resilient businesses are also often those businesses that are able to recognise change in the market and adapt, making them well placed to stay relevant and make the most of new opportunities – all while staying safe and secure.

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August 2022

How the technological acceleration of Payroll will be crucial during times of crisis.

Payroll is without a doubt fundamental for all businesses as, without it, staff simply wouldn’t get paid, which would cause the inevitable breakdown of all operations.

While it is a fundamental part of business operations, the value that the right payroll process has on organisations goes beyond monthly pay checks.

In fact, during times of crisis, payroll can help to alleviate pressures and uncertainty on the workforce – provided the right technology is being utilized.

August 2022

By Paul Bartlett, payroll expert and CEO of CloudPay.

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Payroll will be crucial during times of crisis.

TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESSION

Financial technology is certainly gaining prominence across the globe and is gradually replacing traditional financial services such as banking, payments and electronic commerce. In fact, a recent fintech market report indicates that the global financial technology remit is expected to reach a market value of approximately $324 billion by 2026, growing at an annual rate of around 25.18% over the 2022-2027 forecast period. In this market, it’s safe to say that payroll should be expected to keep pace with the rest of the fintech field. While it’s an emerging field, we are already witnessing technological evolution in payroll that will benefit businesses.

EARNED-WAGE ACCESS

PAY TO CARD

Employers have traditionally run payroll on a monthly or bi-weekly basis due to the time and cost involved. However, there are payment solutions that make it possible to turn elements of employee pay into a self-service function. This type of on-demand pay solution is known as Earned Wage Access (EWA), which runs through a web-based portal or a mobile app. Employees can log in at any time, see how much they have earned, withdraw a percentage of the wages they’ve already earned, and make an instant payment to a debit or credit card, 24/7. EWA is run through a cloud-based global payments solution accessible to employees, and it’s an easy add-on to an existing payroll system, with no additional administrative burden.

Pay to Card for payroll is a radically new money movement solution that sends payments across a credit card network instead of through the banking system. It enables individuals to be paid directly to their debit or credit card. When used with an earnedwage access app, employees can receive instant payments, 24/7, as opposed to being restricted by banking hours.

When used to make regular payroll net salary payments, this shortening of the payment process from up to 3 days through the banking system to seconds with pay to card, is a game-changer for payroll teams.

For payroll teams, this shift has led to a new thought process in how the outputs of the function are utilized by the business. Giving staff the ability to draw down a portion of their wages before the official payday, is deemed as a significant employee benefit.

But in times of crisis, the impact this has is significant.

August 2022

COST-OF-LIVING-CRISIS It’s no secret that employees across the UK are being impacted by the cost-of-living crisis. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the rate of inflation hit a 40-year- high and the Bank of England predicts that inflation will continue to soar in the months to come, so it looks as though this crisis will only worsen. In times like these, employees will need greater support, as people across the country start to feel the pinch.

While not all firms are able to offer wage increases in line with inflation spikes at the moment, there’s a real need for companies to consider what else they can do to support their staff.

As purse strings tighten, an individual’s financial stability will be impacted, particularly if unexpected events occur that require additional investment.

Repairs to vehicles, for example, can be hugely problematic for those already struggling. Those employers that offer EWA and Pay-to-Card, can really help employees manage their cashflow, which will help steer them away from loans or credit card payments which will ultimately have a negative impact on a longerterm basis.

Ultimately, how staff are paid needs to be turned on its head.

It’s now entirely feasible for businesses to give employees access to wages they’ve already earned throughout the month without the need for supplemental payroll runs or salary advances.

A simple mobile app can put the control in the hands of the individual, in a sense, allowing employees to use their earned wages as a ‘mobile ATM’ to suit their financial situation.

SUPPORT DURING A GLOBAL CRISIS Outside of the cost-of-living crisis, these technological payroll developments can play a significant role in larger scale, global issues. As a case in point, during the ongoing Ukraine crisis, Pay-to-Card has been used to help firms pay staff when banks are closed in conflict zones.

In the case of one of our clients, their Ukraine-based staff had not been paid for some time as the banking system was not functioning due to the closure of banks in Ukraine. Pay-to-Card was offered as a solution and after a 20-minute follow-up call instructing employees on how to download the CloudPay NOW app, register their debit card, and request their salary – staff were able to view the money in their bank account just moments later.

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Technology is revolutionizing our personal and professional lives, but the powerful role seemingly small changes can play in times of crisis shouldn’t be underestimated.

Routine activities such as gaining access to wages can be improved both on a day-to-day basis, and during unprecedented times when the right approach to tech is adopted.

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August 2022

Calling all innovators: it’s time Industry 4.0 revolutionized dementia care.

We are living in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Innovations including the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are being successfully rolled out en masse, aiding organizations in industries as diverse as agriculture to aviation.

August 2022

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By Daniel Berman, Director of Global Health and Disability, Challenge Works.

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August 2022

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It’s time Industry 4.0 revolutionized dementia care.

In the medical world particularly, lives are being made easier and even saved thanks to the technological innovation brought about by Industry 4.0.

With the help of state-of-theart manufacturing technology during the pandemic, safe and effective vaccines - which often take decades to develop - were unveiled in less than a year.

There are however areas in healthcare that are still yet to benefit. Dementia – a condition that devastates the lives of 50 million people worldwide by causing people to lose not just their memories, but relationships and identity too – is one of those areas.

Currently, the overwhelming focus of existing technology relating to dementia is designed for carers to monitor people – and while they are valuable tools, they have not been designed to help people living with dementia to continue to live as they had always done before their diagnosis.

These ‘technology-enabled care’ (TEC) products include telecare and remote monitoring devices (pendant alarms or sensors around the home to monitor activity), telehealth devices (to track symptoms or medication adherence) and GPS tracking devices to prevent people from getting lost when out and about.

We believe that there is a missing piece of the puzzle - a clear need for better technologies that an individual with dementia can themselves be in control of, whilst still being designed for the complex social settings that many people live in.

The Longitude Prize on Dementia – a multi-million-pound prize launched by the Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK - aims to capitalize on and tap into the best of breed innovators that Industry 4.0 has to offer, to bring continued joy and purpose to those living with dementia. Our shared ambition is that the prize will drive the creation of new easyto-use tools that people living with the early stages of dementia can use to help them retain their independence for longer and continue to do the things that make life fulfilling.

Opening for entries in September 2022, global innovators from diverse disciplines are invited to apply their expertise and develop technologies that learn about the lives and routines of people living with early-stage dementia, employing assistive technology and machine learning to adapt to their needs and help bridge the cognitive gaps that develop as their condition progresses.

August 2022

This is the second Longitude Prize delivered by Challenge Works after the Longitude Prize on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) which is incentivizing novel diagnostic tests to tackle the scourge of superbugs.

The Longitude Prize on Dementia is a £4.1m prize. It will award £3.1 million in seed funding and grants to the most promising innovators – with 20 semi-finalists receiving £80,000 Discover Awards early next year, and five finalists receiving £300,000 development grants in August 2024. Finally a £1 million prize will be awarded to one winner in early 2026.

In addition, wider support will provide successful innovators with crucial insight and expertise, facilitating what they need to bring their ideas to life. This could include access to data, collaborations with people with dementia, and dementia organizations in the UK and around the world. Innovators are encouraged to enter solutions to the prize no matter their prior experience of creating solutions for people living with dementia.

While we don’t prescribe what a winning solution might look like, we might expect to see the type of complex AI that sits behind platforms such as Spotify or Netflix applied to assistive tech. It could be used to learn about a user and then make recommendations, about what to buy from the shops, where an individual might want to go today, or who they might want to speak to and at what time.

Another example could be ML-powered facial recognition technology that learns the nonverbal communicative methods of a person, so that if speech becomes progressively impaired, it could learn the new audio clues and pair them with leant visual cues from the user to complete requests.

The Longitude Prize on Dementia is a global initiative. We look forward to welcoming innovators from around the world to get involved. In Canada we have partnered with AGE-WELL – the country’s leading technology and aging network. And in the USA, we’re supported by the AARP – an interest group of nearly

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40 million members focusing on issues affecting those over the age of fifty. We’d welcome similar, likeminded organizations to reach out and get involved.

Ultimately, challenge prizes support open innovation with a level playing field for established and previously untested innovators alike, enabling the most promising ideas to progress with funding and expert capacity building support.

It is our hope that the Longitude Prize on Dementia will harness the technological potential of the 4th Industrial Revolution to support and benefit such a significant portion of the world’s population.

We’re seeking the brightest and best to put forward their solutions that will support people with dementia to live joyful and independent lives – if you’re up for the challenge, apply to win the Longitude Prize on Dementia at www.dementia.longitudeprize.org.

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August 2022

Enhancing ETL by turning to real-time data streaming.

The role of data in today’s organizations is indisputable.

Data not only informs decisions across all areas of the business, it is also increasingly used to automate processes, as businesses ‘become software’. That said, the complexity of managing fragmented data is also rising.

A recent IDC survey found that 79% of organizations are using more than 100 data sources, and 30% use more than 1000 sources.

Many CDO admit to spending more than a third of their time tackling day-to-day management of data, as opposed to using data to drive strategy and innovation.

As Enterprises with a high level of data maturity generate 250% more business value, it has never been more important to execute data cleansing, enrichment and processing across all types of data; transactional, operational and analytical.

August 2022

By Lyndon Hedderly, Principle Business Value Consultant at Confluent.

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Enhancing ETL by turning to real-time data streaming.

Increasing data maturity requires a level of data leadership, which goes hand in hand with digital leadership. Real-time data pipelines have become a necessary standard with businesses expected to drive data-maturity as a prerequisite to using AI and ML. In other words, data transformation is critical to digital transformation. This is why data leadership is so crucial, as it will enable internal teams to address the primary challenge of fragmentation and complexity, and ultimately generate higher levels of business value.

The challenge, however, for those who want to modernise and elevate their services is linking all the data together and making it accessible, in real-time.

Traditionally a lengthy threestep process has been used to consolidate data from multiple sources - Extract, Transform and Load (ETL). But this tends to work in batch and hasn’t always delivered the required results. Some solutions have switched the process to ELT - Extract, Load and Transform the data. We are even seeing reverse ETL. Now, with the rise of setting

data in motion, we see the industry shifting towards streaming ETL with real-time stream processing.

SETTING DATA IN MOTION ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) is a three-step process used to consolidate data from multiple sources. At its core, ETL is a standard process where data is collected from various sources (extracted), converted into a desired format (transformed), then stored into its new destination (loaded).

ETL is not a new concept. In fact, it has evolved since the 1970s and ‘80s, where the process was sequential, data was more static, systems were monolithic, and reporting was needed on a weekly or monthly basis.

As customer expectations and backend operations have moved towards a more real-time world, with many business processes set in software we have seen batchprocessed ETL move to streaming ETL. With streaming ETL, data is automatically extracted and transformed, or acted upon, then

loaded to any destination, almost as soon as it’s created, which enables businesses to automate processes - removing people from the critical path - and operate with scalability, security, on an optimal infrastructure, which most likely includes the cloud.

STREAMING ETL IN PRACTICE Real-time data is a key element for both new and high performing legacy brands that rely on consistent flow and streams of data in order to respond to their customers’ continuously evolving expectations. Rather than letting data sit in a static database, the data itself can trigger an action or analysis in real-time.

In many cases, this ‘setting data in motion’ can open up new value opportunities that were not possible with static data in more traditional databases, using request-response type architecture.

Technology leaders such as Uber, Ebay, Netflix and Yelp have already adopted a real-time data streaming approach and architected themselves around data-streaming platforms.

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Real-time stream processing has also been successfully implemented across a range of more traditional industries. For example in financial services, banks continuously search for ways to become more relevant to today’s customers. Consumers can no longer imagine banking without real-time push notifications initially brought to the market by challenger banks. Traditional banks are also expected to offer additional intelligence, enabled by data, such as tracking finances and support in budget planning, based on past buying patterns and life objectives.

Or take retail. Businesses want to merge data from website interactions, mobile apps and in-store experiences, so they can offer real-time, contextualised and highly targeted offers. Moreover, with real-time data they can capture post-sale feedback and returns, or further upsell and crosssell products and services.

Ultimately, for a regular customer it’s difficult to imagine what these services would look like if they didn’t leverage the power of

real-time stream processing, but there are many more businesses that can tap into data to become digital-first.

A DATA APPROACH TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION While developing a digital transformation strategy that fully leverages the value of data isn’t easy, many businesses are realizing this necessity. Getting this right means companies can use the power of the network effect to drive further data synergies; As more parts of the business consume various data sources, they will also produce more data, which in turn results in more data consumption. And so on.

Traditionally, data was used to serve a product or solution.

For instance, with a customer relationship management platform, the data’s main purpose was to serve that platform. However, with the ability to access real-time data, we’re seeing a shift in this relationship. Products or business solutions are now creating data, which can become a product in itself. Therefore, instead of data

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only serving the solution, the solution serves the data as well.

Real-time stream processing is modernising this old way of working with data. It gives people real-time access to information, as events happen, with ever increasing levels of contextual intelligence. A data streaming platform can also react to events and carry out the task directly, bypassing the human.

Nowadays, data is at the heart of every modern business. Traditional organizations are augmenting their legacy architectures to satisfy real-time requirements and simplify operations, at scale. In order to elevate how data is being used, companies need to create new synergies in order to fully unlock the data potential. Moving from ELT to streaming ETL will enable organizations increase their data maturity and get ahead of the pack.

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August 2022

Why busineses should strive to be data custodians not owners, and the steps they can take to get there.

There’s little argument that data is a hugely valuable commodity for businesses and perhaps the single most valuable commodity in today’s market. Indeed, some of the world’s biggest companies, like Facebook and Google, are built on the billions of dollars in profit that having and selling this data creates.

August 2022

By Greg Hanson, VP of EMEA and LATAM, Informatica.

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Why businesses should strive to be data custodians not owners.

This model has rubbed off on consumer-facing companies and created a mentality of ownership towards customer data — that it is somehow theirs to be exploited and profited from. However, this is a dangerous mentality. Not only can it lead to issues with privacy, security, and compliance, but crucially, it chips away at customer confidence. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the value in their data too, and intrusive marketing with their data at the root of it will raise suspicions as to whether their data is in safe hands.

for democratizing data and building a strong culture where every employee thinks about data as a strategic asset — but also one that needs proper care and handling. That’s getting more difficult to ensure without a strategy in place. Companies now hold an overwhelming amount of data on their customers. Without a good understanding of where that is held and what they can do with it, ensuring privacy, security and compliance is much more difficult.

CHANGING MINDSETS

That’s because data sprawl is rife.

In our post-COVID world, with digital transformation initiatives in full swing, many companies have data scattered between legacy on-premises systems and multi-cloud environments. That’s resulted in the fact that only 38% of respondents to a recent survey strongly agreed that they knew where all of their customer data is stored. Such data fragmentation doesn’t just raise security and compliance issues but also leads to a disjointed customer experience. Without individual

Companies need to change their mindset and move away from the idea that they are the “owner” of their customers’ data. Instead, they need to take the approach of being a data custodian instead.

Not only that, but they need to make their customers feel sure their data is safe too, and that it will only be used in the ways that they have explicitly consented to.

This is only achievable with a comprehensive data strategy in place. Data strategy is imperative

THE IMPACT OF DATA FRAGMENTATION

customer profiles to store all a customer’s data in a single place, the opportunity to upsell or crosssell with the data at a company’s disposal may be missed — or worse, wrongly targeted. Once again, this leaves customers questioning how safe their data is, and causes frustrations in the user experience to boot. This is why tactical and responsible custodianship of customer data is the goal and can make all the difference between a business retaining its reputation and sales volume and losing its customers’ trust and business.

UNDERPINNING A CULTURE OF CUSTODIANSHIP WITH A STRONG DATA STRATEGY For too long compliance has been seen as a must-do cost center rather than a value driver. When organizations shift to a mindset of custodianship, compliance becomes a result of good data practices rather than simply a reason to do it. Developing a clear framework for how data is collected, stored, and used across the enterprise will help businesses leverage data assets, mitigate risks

August 2022

and increase customer trust.

For any business assessing its data readiness and maturity, these are the key considerations when building out a data strategy: 1) Set out your vision and business case The vision defines the broad strategic objective for building a data strategy, while the business case articulates the specific business opportunity. A vision statement should be broad, but actionable within 3-5 years.

For example, “create a better customer experience by reducing the time it takes to resolve issues, delivering relevant marketing materials, and protecting sensitive customer data,” is a solid data vision. The business case must also be actionable but will be more pragmatic and hands-on, specifying the actual people, roles, technologies, and processes involved in moving your data initiatives forward.

2) Appoint data champions to lead the way In recognizing that customers are always the owner of their personal data, organizations must protect data by ensuring that it can only be viewed by those with authority and consent to do so. This means outlining clear owners and processes within the data strategy that encourages the use of data without restricting it. The Chief Data Officer role has evolved over recent years from one focused on locking down and securing data to a business partner who stewards data in a way that it’s safe, trusted, and available to the business for drive innovation and value.

3) Nurture a culture of custodianship A good data strategy spans the full business, avoiding departmental silos. Just as each business has different aims for its data initiatives, the framework guiding the culture will vary too. However, with a culture of custodianship, the proper use of data is encouraged, and tools made available to do so in a way that brings teams and

data together to drive value for the customer and the business.

This means moving away from being purely defensive, with an approach of locking data up and restricting access and instead instilling practices and providing tools to leverage data in a more collaborative way.

4) Choose the right technology There are myriad data tools available today. When selecting the technology that will support their data strategy, organizations should consider platforms that enable them to bring data and teams together. Democratizing the use of data in this way, surfaces data across the business in a safe and trusted way, with users in different teams viewing the same data but with a different lens in line with their use case. In the context of data governance, “technology” primarily means automation. Many technology solutions and platforms exist to help automate different aspects of data governance, traditionally completed manually, and finding the right one is key. For example, AI is able to automatically identify

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customer data at risk, allowing the organization to take action and ensure proper handling of that information and staying true to the notion of custodianship.

With data initiatives always evolving, it’s important to choose a platform that delivers value today but can also adapt and evolve as requirements change.

For this reason, focus on a platform that delivers flexibility and interoperability, and consider cloud-based tech for easy scalability. Also, be sure to put intelligent automation at the forefront of considerations — this will help you get started quickly without massive and costly custom integration efforts. The importance of a well-run and managed data strategy cannot be overemphasised when it comes to the correct handling of customer data.

By combining the right people, processes and tools, a business — and moreover, its customers — can be sure that any data driving its initiatives is trustworthy, highquality, available, and accessible to only those who need it.

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August 2022

How can we debias artificial intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is already playing a huge role across the financial services sector, the medical profession, the world of recruitment and many other important areas. However, current AI only works well if the right information is used to train it. But when humans are the ones collecting that information, it opens the door to bias. So how do we ensure debiasing in AI?

August 2022

By Nigel Cannings, CTO of Intelligent Voice.

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How can we debias artificial intelligence?

UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS

ASKING THE ALL-IMPORTANT QUESTION?

AI is not yet able to think for itself, therefore human assistance is required in assembling the necessary data it needs. It’s a bit like programming any other computer in the sense we only get good results or correct decisions, from the right information, correctly organised. Get this wrong and the results can be devastating.

When using AI, legislation (and common sense) dictates that we need to look at how it might have come to a certain decision or series of answers, especially when we aren’t totally happy with the result. To this end, there’s already a growing area of research into ‘explainable AI’, whereby we can look at a set of models and unearth what decisions are based upon.

For example, training recruitment algorithms based on historical data, we had AI that favoured young, white men and exclude women and people of colour.

In short, the training data here was clearly wrong and biased.

Understanding this can help us begin the debiasing process as some models will need vast amounts of data to help them make sense of the world.

Something as simple as getting the correct associated metadata linked to demographics is vital.

Ideally, explainability is built into the model itself. But even so-called black-box models can be run in such a way that we can, through a little trickery, infer which part of the input data had the greatest impact on the classification given by the network in question.

This is important as all individuals in Europe now have the lawful right to have automated decisions explained to them, and so transparency is everything. HMRC has been under fire in recent years for a lack of transparency around how they use AI to make decisions on which people should get universal credit for example.

This may not infer bias of course, but transparency is certainly the key word here.

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TAKING STEPS NOW Why do we need to be so concerned about ensuring the process of debiasing gathers pace right now? Because AI has already become a really important tool in our ever-evolving digital world.

We need to understand how we can use this concept to get the best results for everyone concerned.

In terms of the sectors utilizing AI, the decisions made can have a huge impact on people’s lives.

What we don’t want is to nurture an age of discrimination simply through training in the wrong data.

Medics are increasingly using data-driven algorithms to reach decisions on healthcare via AI: These are informing healthcare decisions such as diagnosing cancers, heart conditions and eye diseases. There are new advanced applications on the way. But there are dangers lurking in training in the wrong data.

Using a recent American example in the field of health care, a widely adopted algorithm clearly discriminated against black individuals by linking up care with costs. The problem here was AI concluded as Caucasians spend much more money on healthcare, black people must be healthier generally. Given the current healthcare system in the United States, this assumption was dangerously wrong of course.

It’s important to note when largescale personal bias emerges, we can trigger a series of negative reactions. For people getting the right treatment, a job on their real abilities or for those looking for valuable insurance, eradicating bias in our AI approach is priceless. The bottom line is, that the wrong approach can lead to failing businesses, wrecked lives, inflated prices and all sorts of negative scenarios. We need more work carried out on debiasing information at the point of collection.

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THE CONCLUSION There’s little doubt bias, whether it be gender or racially based emanates from basic human prejudice. When it comes to using AI in decision-making, we can see that the low quality of data that this human bias generates can produce alarming results. This bias will be amplified resulting model.

We must clearly design all AI models with inclusion in mind, perform targeted testing in complex cases and train in complete and representative data.

This will all help ensure the process of debiasing continues to improve.

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August 2022

Three trends driving the future of intralogistics.

While eCommerce was growing steadily up till two years ago, the pandemic lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 accelerated the shift to online and irrevocably changed the world’s shopping habits. This unprecedented growth in online sales triggered a corresponding surge of activity in intralogistics and warehouse operations.

In addition, warehouse labor woes across various sectors have prompted many companies to look at new technologies as the way forward to optimize their warehouses or distribution centers.

They know that to stay competitive in this changing market, it’s vital to be flexible, cost-efficient, and informed on the trends shaping intralogistics. Failing to do this will put them at risk of falling behind and losing customers to competitors.

August 2022

By Gavin Harrison, UK Sales Manager, Element Logic.

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Three trends driving the future of intralogistics.

We at Element Logic believe that three current intralogistics trends will play a decisive role in how the industry evolves this year and beyond.

MICRO FULFILLMENT CENTERS Rising demands will lead to a need for increased fulfillment capacities. The rise of micro fulfillment centers (MFCs) will be a defining trend for intralogistics to improve space utilization, last mile delivery and, ultimately, the customer experience.

Today’s consumers expect sameday or next-day deliveries and click-and-collect options, most notably those in the grocery market. Speed of delivery is directly related to distance. So, to shorten delivery time, some retailers are establishing smaller warehouses or micro fulfillment centers closer to their customers to expedite last-mile deliveries or collections. Micro fulfillment centers support better inventory control and tracking, often lower transportation costs, and make product exchanges or returns faster and easier.

Micro fulfillment centers can be located inside a physical store, in an adjacent building, or inside a “dark store” where inventory and products are staged but is only accessible to employees. We believe the dark store concept combined with the regular storefront – where a dedicated space at the back functions as a micro fulfillment center – will mold the future of intralogistics.

Micro fulfillment is undoubtedly innovative, yet many companies still rely on manual labor despite the associated decline in productivity. This is because a warehouse has capacity restrictions and there is a limit on the number of products human labor can pick per hour – limitations that are even more evident in a MFC. Automating the micro fulfillment process, especially in a center with 12 or more employees, can significantly improve throughput and reduce operating costs.

Storage density is the most significant difference between a manually operated and an automated micro fulfillment

center. Holding hundreds or even thousands of products as inventory can easily overwhelm employees and make stock challenging to control. However, an automated, modular order picking solution increases storage capacity significantly.

For example, Swiss-based construction merchant Peterhans invested in an AutoStore solution (a type of robotics-based automated storage and retrieval system, or AS/RS) to improve storage capacity and increase warehouse efficiency. The company used a combination of a regular storefront and an extended micro fulfillment center in the back.

The system uses a total of 11,650 220mm bins at eight levels. The grid surface of 400m2 occupies only 10 percent of the floor space, making future expansion possible.

Orders take less than two minutes to arrive at the sales counter, making for a short customer journey. With ports next to these counters, customers visiting the store can watch the AutoStore robots processing their orders on-site, making it a unique and rewarding experience.

August 2022

eGROCERY While this had also been an emerging trend for a while, eGrocery businesses saw a massive uptick during the pandemic. Today, eGrocery is a firmly entrenched custom, with a substantial number of consumers doing their food shopping online rather than at the grocery store. As this phenomenon gains popularity, so does the need for efficient and user-friendly operations.

The challenge for retailers is to build a sustainable infrastructure that aligns with changing consumer demands, a need that emerges once companies start shipping groceries directly to the consumer. This means an intuitive online platform combined with excellent quality, competitive pricing, and fast and reliable deliveries. However, if the infrastructure from order to delivery isn’t done smartly, it can be a costly and unprofitable exercise for the grocer. Automating the warehouse can unquestionably cater to companies’ needs on this front to ensure sustainable and profitable operations.

Grocery retailers can benefit immediately, since automated intralogistics solutions that provide the required speed and inventory control to win the hearts of consumers already exist. Not relying on manual order picking can eliminate errors while massively speeding up the shipping process.

Today, most grocers only offer home delivery to customers in major cities. Still, many are trying to figure out how to distribute profitably to the smaller towns and rural areas. The answer is most likely micro fulfillment centers combined with more extensive regional warehouses.

AUTOMATION AS A SERVICE

One example of an eGrocer that has seen tremendous growth lately is Swedish eGrocer Matsmart, which sells surplus food at a discounted rate online. As one of the fastest-growing companies in the Nordics, Matsmart had maxed out its manual labor and space capacity by 2021. To resolve this dilemma, the company invested in a warehouse automation solution that offered three times more capacity while giving it even more space to grow. The 149 robots can pick an estimated 6,000 items per hour from the 88,000 storage bins.

Although warehouse automation is a worthwhile investment for most companies, not all can afford or want to invest in a solution before they’re convinced it will be profitable. Automation as a Service (AaaS) is an emerging trend that accommodates companies with this concern. This means the automation concept is sold as a service, not a product. In other words, the system integrator would build the solution according to the customer’s needs, but still owns the solution and the equipment.

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This short-term option could benefit young companies in particular, who can access automation at a much earlier stage of their development in order to facilitate rapid, sustainable growth. Such subscription-based models – where the costs are spread evenly throughout a financial year as opposed to a large, single firsttime investment – are common across many industries.

An AS/RS like AutoStore is an ideal fit for AaaS. It’s modular and flexible, which means it can fit into any space and can easily be scaled up and down when necessary. This means the solution provider can take it down quickly down and rebuild it in another warehouse if a customer ends the subscription.

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August 2022

How intelligent automation can reduce burnout in businesses.

Workplace burnout is on the rise. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen a rise in employees suffering from a constant state of both physical and emotional exhaustion. Typically related to long-term stress in one’s job, a growing number of workers feel undervalued and are often overwhelmed with tedious administrative tasks.

The return to the office is also causing stress, as employees have transformed their lives to fit revised working patterns and achieved a new work-life balance which doesn’t fit returning 2-3 days per week to London for example.

We have observed ‘bosses’ insisting on attendance and even threatening the removal of London

weighting to force return. An additional growing phenomenon in the workplace; ‘quiet quitting’, the state of working less hard at one’s job, has become a commonality in workplaces to try and cope with exhaustion.

August 2022

By Neil Parker, General Manager EMEA at Laiye.

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How intelligent automation can reduce burnout in businesses.

A survey by software firm Asana found that 70% of employees experienced burnout in the last year alone. The Great Resignation is a direct result of skyrocketing employee burnout. A shift in the power dynamics has come about from this: employees want more while businesses are unable to provide.

Fortunately, there are solutions out there for employers to consider.

Typically this would result in an increase in productivity, either at the cost of either the business (hiring more employees) or the individual employee itself.

However, there is an answer that solves both problems, one that lies in automation.

THE NEED FOR AUTOMATION

Businesses have seen the benefits of automation and embraced it as a necessary technique to keep productivity up. Although, it has many forms, the most popular of which is Robotic Process Automation (RPA). One form of RPA is that which employs software robots, commonly known as bots, to automate processes to take on tasks typically done by workers.

Employed by industries including banking, finance, and retail, it is hugely helpful in absorbing the time and effort taken to complete tedious tasks.

However, there is a step beyond that, one which businesses must be swift to adapt; Intelligent Automation (IA). This is a software term referring to the combination of RPA and artificial intelligence, resulting in an evolved form of automation which is able to take on even more admin tasks.

A simple example would be a digital ‘partner’ who performs the tedious and repetitive tasks such as invoice reconciliation and subsequent payments. This is done 5-days a week with the employee attending maybe 1-2 days to review the digital worker’s output. Then there is the possibility that the employee may have to perform the high-value parts of the tasks to complete the process.

In incorporating this technology, it frees the employee’s hands for work in which human intelligence is required.

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INTRODUCING INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION Intelligent Automation goes far beyond RPA and allows businesses to eliminate repetitive, cumbersome tasks, streamline operations and make better use of their workforces. A hefty proportion of the workload an average office employee faces is admin-related.

Paperwork and multiple systems mean that data is often siloed.

One can only look to the health sector for evidence of this. A report by the BBC recently found that IT systems in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) were outdated to the point that staff have to log into up to 5 different systems to be able to do their jobs to the best of their ability. This proves that legacy automation is no longer fit for purpose.

Businesses are seeing seismic shifts in how they operate and the need for modernisation is now more than a nice-to-have: it’s a missioncritical necessity. The result is that legacy forms of automation are quickly becoming a hindrance rather than a help.

Automation grounded in artificial intelligence reduces time wasted.

It optimises operations and better integrates systems, whilst evolving and improving through selflearning. Businesses of all sorts rely on these tools to be completed in an accurate, timely and consistent manner. But this extends beyond that, helping deliver work-life balance and raising the wellbeing level of the staff itself.

THE BENEFITS TO THE STAFF When a business successfully implements Intelligent Automation, it takes away the burden of administrative work. With processes like these to be completely automated, it allows workers to be able to better prioritise their work.

With fewer administrative tasks on their plate, it frees up workers’ mental capacity, leading to a reduction in mistakes or oversights.

Equally, with more time to focus on crucial aspects of the business, workers can undertake new tasks that help them upskill, or even devote time to training that will serve their career development.

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If employees are making fewer mistakes on a day-to-day basis as well as taking on new and different opportunities at work, they will feel a greater sense of job satisfaction. This knock-on effect carries across the board and all the way to the business bottom line. When workers are satisfied, engaged and motivated, businesses see higher levels of productivity and more importantly, employee retention and talent attraction - key advantages in the era of labour and skills shortages.

The rapid evolution of Intelligent Automation, automation grounded in AI is here. It helps businesses navigate the current and future needs of their own demands, but also that of their workers.

These remunerative benefits to the business build on the key strengths of workers, allowing for both individual and companywide growth.

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August 2022

How digital manufacturing is breaking barriers to participation.

The manufacturing industry can be traced back to as early as the 1780s when automated flour mills were built. Over the last few decades, the industry has evolved enormously and is now having its big ‘web moment’ where data and technology are becoming integrated with the manufacturing process.

We have also seen the arrival of the Internet of Production, which is bringing together product developers, engineers, designers and manufacturers in a single online platform to collaborate, design, prototype and produce their ideas.

August 2022

By Joel Tortolero, CEO of Wikifactory.

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How digital manufacturing is breaking barriers to participation.

As a country and industry develop, the role of manufacturing in the economy changes; today’s advanced economies value innovation, productivity, and trade over growth and employment.

Both business leaders and policy makers need to adjust to the changing industrial environment, and those within the manufacturing sector will need to implement a connected infrastructure that enables free circulation and globalizes innovation to allow for the local production of physical products.

Global manufacturers will have significant new opportunities as a new universal consuming group arises in developing countries and innovations ignite more demand— but in a far more unpredictable climate. Economically developed countries will solve their problems with existing models, but the emergent nations with weak health systems must be equipped and empowered, with low-cost, safe and scalable solutions to respond and build resilience against the threat that affects us all. A global community facing a global crisis, with a global technological

infrastructure at its disposal, must, and can, transcend these borders.

And we are now finally aware of our fragile dependencies and recognise the physical necessity lived by millions every single day.

With the rise of collaboration and the open source upsurge, we have seen a global community of untapped talent come to the fore to solve real problems, collaboratively and with purpose.

An example of this is Dronecoria.

Dronecoria are developing a technology that allows for industrial scale reforestation, with the potential to sow a combination of millions of trees and herbaceous plants for carbon fixation.

The company is using Wikifactory, an online platform for collaboratively designing and manufacturing physical products in both an IP-protected and Open Source manner, to build drones which will enable largescale, low-cost environmental restorations through sowing and seed enhancement. Dronecoria uses Wikifactory’s CAD Rooms, which give individuals a realtime environment that makes

collaboration around 3D files streamlined in one place. Allowing unlimited collaborators the ability to view over thirty 3D file formats by simply sharing an invite link that opens a web page, no matter where you are in the world, Wikifactory enables anyone to use Dronecoria’s designs to help restore their own communities.

Traditional methods of reforestation are costly, time consuming, labor intensive, and cannot be applied at the scale needed to help reverse damage to the climate. Therefore, Dronecoria are developing open source biotechnological tools and knowledge to increase the efficiency of restoration projects, and their drones lower the cost of reforestation by 10 times compared to traditional methods.

Reducing the time it takes, covering 10 hectares of land per hour. By sharing their technology via open source licensing, Dronecoria is empowering and enabling organizations and individuals around the world, in countries such as Brazil, Spain, and Turkey, to form a new economy of ecological restoration.

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Dronecoria encourages individuals to get involved in helping to combat the consequences of climate change in their local communities, by enabling large-scale, low-cost environmental restorations through their collaborative and open technological designs. A task that would otherwise be left up to large corporations and the government.

This highlights just how powerful and effective tech diplomacy and digitisation is as vehicles for innovation and advancement.

For both developing and developed nations, the digital economy offers tremendous prospects. When looking at manufacturing, digitisation provides a clear pathway to rising incomes and living standards.

Communities who otherwise would not have access to technologies that give individuals the power and opportunity to help restore their own environments, are now breaking through the barriers to participation by the digitisation of the manufacturing industry.

Digitisation promotes economic growth, social cohesion, and more efficient resource usage.

It also speeds up development, and in the case of Dronecoria, environmental restoration.

However, due to financial constraints, many nations find it difficult to invest in innovation and digital technologies. This is why platforms such as Wikifactory are so important in helping democratize manufacturing and boost participation in innovative initiatives. By investing in digital education, services, and infrastructure, there will be significant increase in climate change resilience, and the accomplishment of numerous UN Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved.

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Without these technological advancements made in modern manufacturing and platforms such as Wikifactory, it would not be easy to remove barriers to participation, foster innovation and create opportunities in product design and manufacturing.

By digitizing manufacturing, great ideas have a better chance of becoming a reality and can make a bigger positive impact on our world. Dronecoria is a perfect example of this.

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August 2022

What is business process management, and why does it matter to your automation efforts?

Automation is now widely deployed to save time, create a more efficient workplace and upskill talent. But with so many organisations having already deployed the technologies that constitute automation, those looking to secure a competitive edge need to think about more than just these easy wins.

August 2022

By Karli Kalpala , Head of Business & Service Design at Digital Workforce Services Ltd.

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What is business process management.

FINDING A COMPETITIVE EDGE

They really need to look beyond the immediate benefits of automating specific tasks and start thinking about how their entire end-to-end ,core process or operation can integrate automation effectively. This is not straightforward; automating entire end-to-end business process can be complex, which is why analysts predict a higher growth rate on the services side of automation.

For instance, revenues from services relating to robotic process automation are expected to reach $16 billion by 2025, almost three times the value of the software it’s helping to deploy.

This is where Business Process Management (BPM) plays an essential role in the next generation of automation. BPM is both a technology and a capability, and it is becoming a vital part of achieving increased value from business automation programmes. It enables organisations to effectively model and analyse the interactions between humans and digital workers in long-running processes.

THE DOWNSIDES OF A TACTICAL FOCUS The business automation wave originally initiated by RPA and later fuelled by artificial intelligence and machine learning has enabled organisations to automate their business, task by task, in a tremendously agile and easy manner. However, the ease with which companies can deploy automation technologies has led to less of a strategic deployment and more of an organic sprawl. The focus has been tactical, automating tasks in siloes without considering how they might all connect. This has led to organisations neglecting how different automated tasks interlink, how data moves and the role of humans in decision-making and exception-handling. Orchestrating the various digital assets via “rules”, Excel spreadsheets and SharePoint folders became the norm in the administration of automation programs.

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The result is that automation doesn’t truly deliver on its potential. With siloed approaches to both automation and its management, bottlenecks become common. Business leaders sense that automating routine tasks no longer provides enough return on investment or added value.

FROM EASY WINS TO STRATEGIC CHANGE The low-hanging fruits – highvolume, tedious and mundane tasks – can easily be inputted into the work queues of robots and run in scheduled batch runs. However, to create a truly transformative impact, automation programs must focus on the performance of business processes. The focus must be shifted to the workflows that enable the organisation to deliver its desired strategic outcomes and operational objectives.

A significant focus of these workflows is how human and digital workforces work together.

While humans can operate based on tacit knowledge and collective memory, digital workers require guidance on their part of the workflow. This is where BPM can deliver significant value: uniting human and digital workers to view the business operations and processes. BPM provides the overview and the detail to support a wide range of benefits, including the prioritisation of task automation, accuracy in reporting of efficiency and effectiveness and enabling smooth operations. It also can understand how changes in one automation or process task might affect the whole ecosystem of a workflow and its participants.

CREATING AN UTOMATED BPM HEART The orchestration that BPM can deliver acts as the heart of business workflows. It pumps data (and visibility) around the enterprise and supports business operations by facilitating the seamless coexistence of both digital and human workers.

As businesses continue shifting from task-based to end-to-end automation, the challenges they face will be less about implementing the technologies.

Instead, the focus will go on creating a workforce where humans and digital workers work hand in hand to maximise business value.

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While in the past, organisations kickstarted their automation work by cherry-picking processes that were, by nature, easy to automate using RPA, more are now shifting towards applying automation across the entire business. They are selecting programs to automate based on their importance to the company rather than their ease of automation. Those that get this right will develop a real competitive edge.

DELIVERING EV CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE TO MEET 2030 NEEDS.

Those responsible for the deployment of EV infrastructure need to understand their user’s needs, which should inform long-term roll-outs, and design procurement processes that incentivise charging point providers to deliver quality long-term deployments.

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August 2022

Why the world needs a global classroom.

Over the past two years, the education sector has had more than its fair share of challenges. A mass lockdown led to disrupted education for thousands of students across the world, and although there was an effort to shift learning online, this was difficult for students who faced accessibility issues

But digital learning doesn’t have to be disconnected and isolated, there are many ways in which collaboration can be achieved online and future digital learning should be geared towards offering this.

August 2022

By Roger James Hamilton, Founder and CEO of Genius Group.

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Why the world needs a global classroom.

Despite the collective effort of teachers and education leaders, some students are still struggling to catch up from the aftermath of multiple lockdowns, with many still falling behind on reading and mathematics targets. There is no doubt that the pandemic widened pre-existing opportunity and achievement gaps, hitting historically disadvantaged students hardest.

Considering this, it’s time for our education systems to start embracing a more Global Classroom, one which doesn’t focus on memorising information, but on fundamental skills-building, problem-solving and international collaboration.

WHAT IS A GLOBAL CLASSROOM?

A Global Classroom is one that encourages students to broaden their perspectives and mindsets.

This type of curriculum prepares students by teaching them about the problems being faced in the world, whether that’s global warming, global famine or the need for advancements in healthcare.

Instead of leaving the world’s problems to future generations, a Global Classroom would encourage students to be aware of these issues and encourage them to forge career paths that focus on solving these problems.

Additionally, this approach tears down international competition by unifying the learning experience for children around the world, ensuring all students have access to a quality education and have a collaborative – not competitive approach.

A GLOBAL CLASSROOM EMBRACES SKILLS-BASED LEARNING Many of the current educational systems are designed to test children on how well they retain information. But as we know, this is an archaic method of learning, and as we advance in society, our education systems must do so as well. We know that the skills needed for the future go way beyond the skills of memorisation and so our goal in education should be for our students to be successful and fulfilled, to reach their full potential and make a valuable contribution to society.

Society needs people who have strong interpersonal skills and creative thinking, we need people who have the ability of practical application and dispositions such as resilience and persistence these are skills that exams cannot measure.

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A Global Classroom would ensure that the learning experience isn’t solely dedicated to academia but focuses on teaching skills that is useful in everyday life. Whether it’s learning effective social skills or encouraging an entrepreneurial mindset, a Global Classroom is one that allows students to thrive by developing them as individual people, not just as academics.

With so much of the world’s business infrastructure relying on advanced technologies, students would know how these systems work, why they’re needed, as well as be able to build a specialised skill set for these areas.

ENCOURAGING DIGITAL LITERACY ON A DEEPER LEVEL

The education system should not be a one-size-fits-all approach, instead, students should have the opportunity to explore how they learn best and what subjects they’re most interested in. Of course, it’s essential that children have a well-rounded education, but what they learn and how they’re assessed should play to their strengths too.

As every aspect of our lives becomes digitised, so should the learning experience. Although students are taught basic computer skills, a Global Classroom would ensure that every child has the digital skills needed to thrive in the world of work as well as forge their own path. It would also encourage a deep understanding of the latest technological trends and advancements, whether that’s AI, coding or machine learning.

CHAMPIONING STUDENTCENTRED INTERACTIVE LEARNING

Interactive learning isn’t only more engaging for students - it also sharpens their critical thinking and analytical skills, which are essential transferable skills in the world we live in.

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CREATING CULTURAL LITERACY One of the most important aspects of a Global Classroom is that students are presented with a chance to interact with peers around the world and learn about the different cultures, societies and values. This also teaches the future leaders of our generation that collaboration is essential for advancement in our society. As our world becomes more globalised, it’s essential that we teach children to build relationships with those outside of our own ‘bubble’ which is not only beneficial for them, but the world we live in. Ultimately, the Global Classroom is an educational system that brings a more progressive, future-focussed method of learning to students to enable them to thrive in the ever-changing world in which we live. Not only to benefit them, and make their educational experience more enriching and fulfilling, but to benefit wider society. If we are to build leaders of the future, we need to start with education.

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August 2022

How retailers can increase customer engagement by being a one-stop-shop for their financial needs.

The biggest change I’ve seen in online retail in the last decade is the introduction of personalisation. Think targeted ads, personal offers and ‘we think you might like’ suggestions. This has been a huge success. I read recently that 90% of marketers say online retail personalisation has boosted their revenues. While one report by Gartner noted that businesses that invest in personalisation typically outsell competition by 30%.

The only thing surprising about those figures was how low they were.

August 2022

By Philipp Buschmann, Co-Founder and CEO of AAZZUR.

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How retailers can increase customer engagement.

I work every day with online retailers helping them to personalise their services, but we’re not helping them personalise the products their customers buy.

That’s old news. We’re helping them personalise the way they buy them and analysing what those purchases mean for their wider financial lives.

Today, almost everything we do is personalised via algorithms, from the way we watch movies to how we date. So it’s always seemed strange to me that the way we manage and spend our money is so universal. Yes, there are numerous banks and financial services providers, but once we settle on one, every customer is offered the same services and products at the same time.

Thanks to embedded finance this is no longer the case. In fact, customers don’t even need to go to a bank to access those services.

It’s online retailers themselves that are offering them.

EMBEDDED FINANCE HAS ALREADY CHANGED HOW WE SHOP

Although the term ‘embedded finance’ (meaning the embedding of financial services into digital products) may be new to many, it is not a particularly new concept.

Especially not to online retail. Ever since the e-commerce boom of the late 90s, people have been making payments via websites and platforms. It might be far from the frictionless user experience you get today, but undeniably it was still embedded finance.

Today, it’s most recognisable in the form of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) providers like Klarna. Their point of sale (POS) loans are embedded via API into the payment flows of online retailers and customers can access quick, simple loans just when they need them.

All of this has undeniably been a huge success. According to one study, across the UK, Germany and Belgium, 75% of retailers are using embedded finance to offer credit cards, ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) schemes and loyalty incentives, while 56% are planning to introduce further financial services in the near future.

THE POINT OF SALE ISN’T ALWAYS THE POINT OF NEED The primary reason for Klarna’s success, at least initially, is that customers were presented with a financial service right when they needed one. About to pay? Well before you do, here’s an easy way to pay in the future or spread those payments out.

Value-add products being offered at the point of sale or after the sale has been completed is nothing new. But pick up is famously low.

Why? Because the point of sale isn’t always the point of need and there are often multiple, nonpersonal products to choose from.

Choice paralysis can be really damaging.

August 2022

Embedded finance can change this. Online retailers can offer a huge variety of innovative financial services from the world’s best fintechs exactly when customers need them most. Specific insurance, wealth management, investments, business loans, cards, virtual accounts, cross border payments, foreign exchange and more - all at the point of need.

Purchases aren’t the only triggers either. Certain spending patterns signify certain life events and thanks to open banking, online retailers can leverage those patterns to offer highly personalised, suitable products.

There’s one problem though.

Integrating with one financial service provider is quick and cost effective. However, finding and partnering with multiple providers is not. All of these products have different APIs. Even among similar products. Luckily, that’s no longer the case.

AGGREGATORS ARE FINTECH MULTI-ADAPTERS Companies like mine, AAZZUR, spend our time partnering with the best fintechs in the world and integrating their services into our own ecosystem. These then become available to online retailers with only one integration.

A good way to think about it is how your laptop, phone, tablet, router, headphones and sound system all have entirely different charging ports. The solution? A multi-adapter.

This means online retailers from any sector can gain access to new financial products for their customers with one integration.

Online retailers can essentially become a one-stop-shop for financial services, allowing their customers to conduct all of their financial business on their site and platform. These can be products that enhance their current offering but they can also be entirely new products and revenue streams.

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If they choose, online retailers can even become banks themselves - something modern consumers have an appetite for.

Not only does offering these services create new revenue streams, it increases retention and engagement. One report found 87.5% of non-financial companies that have begun to offer financial solutions had increased engagement levels, while 85% said they’d attracted new customers.

It’s no surprise then that embedded finance is predicted to be worth $3.5tn by 2030, with retail set to make up almost half of that.

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August 2022

How real-time alerts provide a competitive advantage.

Some companies, especially those in the financial services sector, will put a lot of stock into real-time reporting and data analysis. A lot of it might look like what we’ve seen in movies - Bloomberg Terminals with real-time alerts, displaying stock price fluctuations on a momentary basis.

August 2022

By Rasa Sosnovskytė, Head of SEO and Growth Marketing at Oxylabs.

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How real-time alerts provide a competitive advantage.

Our solution for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a little simpler - a Slack channel and a dashboard. Real-time alerts are popping up, displaying changes that are happening on our own website, on those of our competitors, and on those where industry-relevant content might have appeared.

BOTHERING WITH REAL-TIME ALERTS Setting these up wasn’t a single-day job. Our team uses a multitude of tools, some proprietary, to create a monitoring system that covers a large number of websites, including that of our own. As SEO is largely reactive rather than proactive, it may seem that real-time alerts might be an optimization a step too far.

Even if you do monitor competitors and react to changes, these will have unclear value on the overall organic strategy as we can’t know beforehand how search engines will respond. Yet, real-time alerts have proven themselves incredibly valuable on all fronts.

Starting from our own website, many minor changes can go unnoticed through a manual overview. While it would be great that the entire website would belong singularly to the SEO team, in larger organizations, the stakeholders are many, each with their own ideas and goals.

As a result, many changes are being pushed through each day.

Most of them aren’t impactful to SEO, however, at times, a small change could potentially cause great issues. Real-time alerts let our team work with peace of mind as no change, no matter how minor, will pass by unnoticed.

External monitoring has been equally insightful. Wondering what competitors have done to change rankings is part of day-to-day SEO. Unfortunately, as industries get more competitive, uncovering all of the changes the websites of our peers have gone through becomes impossible.

In turn, the wonder turns into pure speculation. If there are no facts to rest one’s suppositions against, all we’re left with is guesswork that may even be harmful. Through monitoring software, however, we can backtrack any ranking fluctuations and attempt to reverse engineer the changes that may have given an advantage to our competitors.

Another avenue of monitoring, although used more sparingly, are backlinks. Whenever one of them disappears, we have several options. Primarily, we pursue the route of contacting the webmaster to find out whether the link had been changed to “nofollow”, the URL moved to “noindex”, or if the entire content had simply been deleted.

August 2022

Additionally, using Slack for reporting gives immediacy to the alert. It’s often a little too easy to shelve reports and forget about the steps that were supposed to be taken to resolve the issue they had revealed. It helps that our tool also categorizes URLs, allowing us to prioritize problematic ones faster.

Finally, I believe that SEO is no longer confined to working on your own page and pumping out decently written content.

Monitoring the business environment at large, including forums and communities (e.g., StackOverflow), with the goal of joining in discussions and providing value is another way to drive traffic and conversions to the website.

Our scraping solutions and several other tools let us monitor relevant communities through real-time alerts. All it takes is to set up the necessary keywords so that we’d be informed about important changes.

STAYING AHEAD OF EVERYONE ELSE While real-time alerts can take some time to set up, they provide a unique advantage over all competitors by delivering a backlog of data. We don’t need to react to them in real-time (at least, most of the time). But they give us a treasure trove of information when we do decide to react.

As all of the changes are logged with timestamps, any ranking reorganization that follows (if it follows) allows us to decide how impactful such actions might be. While there’s always some lag between website or content changes and ranking reordering, it’s still a lot easier to backtrack.

Additionally, sometimes these alerts give us ideas on what we might have missed on our own website. Any good idea a competitor comes up with arrives as a message, allowing us to take a couple moments out of the time of day to double check whether such improvements would be valuable to us.

There’s also the question of monitoring third party websites.

Being on top of various discussions about business-relevant processes (e.g., web scraping for us) enables us to follow trends, discover content ideas, and get involved with the community at large.

Finally, while monitoring backlinks doesn’t provide us with a direct edge against the competition, it raises overall SEO efficiency. First, there’s no need to manually review backlink status.

Some backlinks are also recovered simply by contacting webmasters.

In turn, that raises the average lifetime of every backlink and makes it easier to maintain healthy numbers. Reaching out to new websites for collaboration always takes significantly more time.

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CONCLUSION Real-time alerts may seem like something reserved for more proactive practices. SEO, however, can harness tremendous benefits from such alerts as they enable extensive data logging and second-hand ranking tracking.

Implementing these systems isn’t as hard as it used to be. A lot of SEO tools provide integrations with popular communication systems such as Slack, allowing experts to take advantage of real-time alerts.

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August 2022

How leading businesses use price monitoring to boost profit.

The internet has given consumers the tools needed to get the best prices - faster than at any other time in modern human history. As a result, online businesses are responding with strategies that enable them to set competitive prices to gain maximum market share.

There are numerous ways to obtain pricing data, including manual collection and purchased data sets. While most methods provide the information required, price monitoring architecture that leverages web scraping tops the list by providing the automation needed to collect massive data volumes at scale - in seconds.

Price monitoring helps enterprises stay agile, giving them the flexibility needed to pivot their strategy and quickly adapt to changing market conditions. In addition, pricing intelligence via web scraping catalyzes dynamic pricing strategies, fuels competition analysis, and enables companies to monitor Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policies.

August 2022

By Gediminas Rickevičius, VP of Global Partnerships at Oxylabs.

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How leading businesses use price monitoring to boost profit.

1. Digital Marketing

HOW WEB SCRAPING WORKS

Web scraping obtains information via specially-programmed scripts (also known as “bots”) that crawl ecommerce shops, marketplaces, and other online public spaces to extract data.

Besides pricing intelligence, web scraping has numerous alternative uses that include cybersecurity testing, illegal content detection, extracting information for databases, obtaining alternative financial data, and many more.

4 WAYS ONLINE BUSINESSES LEVERAGE PRICE INTELLIGENCE Pricing intelligence has been fundamental to businesses since humans began buying and selling products and services. However, unlike traditional marketplaces, web scraping amplifies the process exponentially by enabling enterprises to extract thousands of data points in seconds. Some applications of scraped data for product and pricing intelligence include:

Digital marketing comprises a set of practices designed to target your ideal customers and guide them through the buying process.

Successful strategies depend significantly on the ability to collect timely, accurate data to enhance marketing practices.

Some digital marketing applications of data include: • Profit-maximizing pricing strategies • Customer avatar creation • SEO-optimized content marketing • Email marketing • Sales funnel optimization

Public sources of product, service, sales, and marketing data include online stores, marketplaces, search engines, social media platforms, and forums.

Some types of data available to online enterprises from these sources include: • Product titles • Current and previous prices • Product descriptions

• Product IDs • Image URLs • Product IDs from URLs • Currency information • Consumer sentiment • Brand mentions

• Complete product catalogs • Inventory/stock information • Shipping policies • Anonymized reviews from competitor websites and marketplaces

Digital marketing strategies vary significantly from sector to sector, however, success greatly depends on the quality of data extracted and insights obtained.

Web scraping provides a targeted method for acquiring that information, customized for your business.

Competition analysis is essential to any ecommerce strategy.

Web scraping provides the data required to refine your product catalog, pricing, branding strategy, and email marketing to beat competitors and adapt to ever-changing market conditions.

2. Competition Analysis Competition analysis is fundamental to online sales success. Scraped data from public websites gives businesses the vital information required to pivot their marketing strategy to outperform the competition and gain a greater market share.

Web scraping can be used to obtain competitor information that includes: • Historical pricing data • Detailed product and service information

3. Dynamic pricing strategies Dynamic pricing refers to the strategy of shifting prices according to product or service demand. Most consumers are familiar with the practice from transacting with travel websites to book flights and hotel rooms.

Price monitoring via web scraping has amplified the practice via process automation. As a result, enterprises across additional sectors can leverage dynamic pricing to quickly adjust prices based on real-time supply and demand data.

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4. Minimum Advertised Price Monitoring Minimum Advertised Price (MAP), MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price), or RRP (Recommended Retail Price) refer to the lowest price allowed for a retailer to advertise a product.

MAP policies are implemented to protect a brand by preventing retailers from excessively lowering the price and reducing consumer confidence in a product. Price monitoring architecture is used to crawl the internet to collect pricing data and identify online businesses that may be violating MAP policies.

automation to collect data at scale. The process requires consistent monitoring because web scraping algorithms must be adjusted to account for numerous challenges that include: • Failure to differentiate same or similar products - even if product titles and images don’t match • Constantly changing website layouts and HTML structure • Server issues such as blocking and captchas

WEB SCRAPING CHALLENGES WHILE COLLECTING PRICING INTELLIGENCE

Price monitoring is based on an entire architecture that includes price tracking, monitoring, and analysis. The process requires four main steps that include: Step 1: Collecting target URLs The first step is to analyze competitors and identify target URLs. Following URL selection, a database containing the URLs is created either by manual collection or automated web crawling.

Web scraping is a complex process that requires expertise to select the most relevant target websites, effectively program scripts, and choose the most appropriate proxies to distribute requests and prevent server issues.

As mentioned previously, extracting large volumes of data via web scraping requires

HOW WEB SCRAPING WORKS WITHIN PRICE MONITORING ARCHITECTURE

Step 2: Web scraping Configuring the web scraper is the next part of the process, requiring three steps that include: Selecting and configuring proxies - intermediaries between the scraper and server to provide anonymity and prevent blocks.

Creating a browser “fingerprint” - configuring identification data that relays information to the server, allowing a scraper to submit requests and extract data successfully. Sending HTTP requests - the actual data requests sent to the server to scrape the desired information.

Step 3: Data parsing Data parsing transforms extracted raw HTML data into a readable format that can be analyzed for insights. Learn more about the process by listening to episode 3 of the OxyCast - Data Parsing: The Basic, the Easy, and the Difficult.

Step 4: Data cleaning and normalization Data cleaning and normalization is an optional step that refines the scraped data by removing inaccurate or corrupt records, converting currencies, and translating foreign language text.

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GET AN INSIDE LOOK AT PRICE MONITORING ARCHITECTURE This article is a valuable introduction for anyone interested in price monitoring architecture. To get a detailed explanation of how it works, download our free white paper Real-Time Price Monitoring System Architecture.

Here’s what you’ll learn: • Detailed pricing architecture concepts • More technical steps and sub steps to configure and operate price monitoring architecture • Different proxy types and how to choose them • Tips for transforming raw HTML into actionable data • Overcoming price monitoring challenges • Next steps to get started Price is the critical factor that can make or break your online business. Download RealTime Price Monitoring System Architecture to discover how to unlock the power of data for creating pricing strategies that outperform the competition.

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August 2022

Critical learnings in digital transformation.

Embarking on a digital transformation has now become a priority for most enterprises across the globe. The transition to digital technologies is often referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, otherwise known as Industry 4.0. If correctly implemented, it can bring huge improvements across multiple operational activities, giving organisations a competitive advantage.

As a long-established business with more than 100 years’ experience in innovation, our goal was to move swiftly towards Industry 4.0. We’ve learnt a lot during our digital transformation journey, and now we want to share our experiences to help other organisations confidently face the challenges of a transition to Industry 4.0.

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By Rukmini Glanard, EVP Global Sales, Service and Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

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Critical learnings in digital transformation.

SO, WHERE TO BEGIN?

At ALE, we started by creating a ‘Digital Factory’ – an overarching transformation unit with teams assigned from each department.

The purpose of a Digital Factory was to identify the ‘how’ of the change, implementing agile working practises based on the ‘Try-Fail-Improve’ model. As a result, we were able to implement solutions steadily and quickly adapt based on the lessons we learned from our initial processes.

Although the tools of a digital transformation are widely available, putting them into practice can be challenging. You need data storage and protection, a lean approach, agility, and continuous improvement. At ALE, our ambition was to transform order management, our supply chain, purchasing and industrial operations.

Any digital transformation requires a focused strategy, so we established five pillars in approaching digital transformation at ALE. We are now happy to share them and guide you through our process of reaching Industry 4.0.

1. Blueprints A blueprint for success comes from experience. Figuring out what works – and what doesn’t – and then replicating this approach across multiple departments.

Blueprints are vital to ensure success and progression through every new stage of a digital transformation.

ALE’s approach to the building of a blueprint is to first target a specific department and keep testing digital transformations until we reach a successful completion.

Then, we take this same approach, and implement it across other areas of the business.

2. Hybrid landscape For businesses today, data protection is a major priority. As a result, we are seeing increasing interest in moving data processing to the cloud. However, this shift requires careful consideration to reduce the chances of shortterm disruptions. Otherwise, the transition could negatively impact operations and customer services.

Implementing a hybrid landscape can help mitigate these risks.

Adding cloud solutions to existing on-premise services allows for more flexibility when moving from one model to another, without any major losses or failed processes.

A hybrid landscape facilitates a gradual shift to the cloud, and helps to reduce costs, all while enjoying the benefits the cloud bring.

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3. Data management Large businesses consider data storage of the utmost importance.

Those that store it correctly, know there is a significant difference between accessible and pivotal data, and data that is simply collected and of little use. The data we’ve collected along the way is something that we’ve leveraged to make all of our processes more efficient and increase customer satisfaction and sales.

We harnessed the power of IoT and AI to collect and understand data. This informed our supply chain decisions through a network of integrated planning systems with advanced analytics and smart procurement and warehouses. As the situation remains challenging, data will be key in maintaining a handle on the situation, with regular reviews of our process to ensure it is optimised to its full potential. We’ve seen huge improvements in delivery accuracy, reduced stock levels, and more secure shipments for high-volume transactions at the end of each successive quarter.

By implementing data analysis and merging our databases to move towards automation, we have successfully reached higher service contract renewal rates, more up-sales, and higher sales conversion.

Another important aspect of the test and improvement processes is agility in both implementation and in the decision-making processes.

This way, you will avoid wasting valuable opportunities to learn, implement, and improve.

4. Test and improve To ensure businesses are not at risk of making the same mistakes repeatedly as they embark on their digital transformation journeys, testing and improving frameworks is key. At ALE, our Digital Factory was at the centre of our transformation process to ensure we learned from our previous mistakes. In order to make the test and improve approach a success, collaboration must happen at every stage between transformed and pretransformation departments. This means encouraging skilled experts to transfer their expertise across different teams.

5. Company culture Finally, a fundamental pillar of digital transformation is the company’s culture. The transformation is not just digital: it is real, and requires a shift in the mindset of an organisation. It cannot be forced, so your people need to be onboard.

When the human factor is not taken into account, issues will occur, and many digital transformations fail because of a lack of an adaptive mindset. Companies should not underestimate the importance of getting their teams engaged and aware of the reasons and responsibilities around digital transformation.

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A JOURNEY WITH NO SHORTCUTS Digital transformation takes time. It comes with a great deal of benefits, but challenges will arise if not carefully planned and meticulously executed. At ALE, we believe detailed strategic planning is non-negotiable. We encourage companies to integrate these pillars as guidance through digital transformation, while also ensuring that their teams understand the goals, implementation plan and roles they will play.

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August 2022

A service-based circular economy is the key to a more sustainable business practice.

A variety of resources go into the global economy each year.

The sheer volume of these resources includes everything from metals, minerals, and fossil fuels to organic materials from plants and animals - amounting to more than 100 billion tons of materials. As we have continued to revolutionise and transform our everyday practices, the uses of these resources have tripled since 1970, and could increase by a further 70% by 2050 if companies continue to recklessly use materials at this rate.

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By Mark Wass, Strategic Sales Director, UK and North EMEA at CloudBlue.

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A service-based circular economy.

Adding to the problem, less than 9% of all such resources are recycled and used again, contributing to the global waste issues. This unsustainable rate of consumption has devastating effects on humans, wildlife, and the planet. Rising global waste is quickly becoming unmanageable, with experts believing that we would need 1.7 Earths to make our consumption sustainable at its current rate. Global garbage patches are becoming uncontrollable with many animals and plants suffering as a direct result, so companies must begin to re-evaluate their sustainable practices. Businesses need to do more to help alleviate the pressure on the environment, and the first place to start is the linear supply chain and the ‘use it once’ attitude.

SHIFTING AWAY FROM A SINGLE USE MINDSET It is more urgent than ever to shift from a “use it once then discard” mentality, to a circular economy – where waste and pollution are limited at design stages, products and materials are kept in use longer, and natural systems can regenerate.

There is not a limitless supply of materials and because of this, many businesses have begun to turn to the circular economy model to change our discard mentality.

Every year, more businesses embrace this platform and transition to a circular economy system of production to become more sustainable – and reduce long-term operating costs.

In a report entitled “Waste to Wealth”, Accenture estimated that moving to a circular economic model could add $4.5 trillion in economic output by 2030. This is between 4-5% of the projected global gross domestic product (GDP).

LINEAR TO CIRCULAR: REVOLUTIONISING THE SUPPLY CHAIN MODEL Past supply chains were built in a linear fashion, with manufacturing facilities turning raw materials in finished goods that are often disposed of after use.

Today’s supply chains are becoming circular by adding a link to create a closed-loop system.

This link encompasses returns and recycling, taking waste materials and returned goods and turning them into products which can be resold.

Reclaiming components and materials from end-of-life products to make new products is not the same as procuring virgin materials and new components for manufacturing operations.

Supply is subject to the availability of materials from waste streams, which can vary.

Establishing efficient return channels for used products is a significant challenge, especially in consumer markets. Some companies are exploring the use

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of e-commerce returns services as convenient channels for collecting end-of-life products.

IS THE PRODUCT-AS-ASERVICE CIRCULAR MODEL THE KEY TO A SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN? A circular economy also requires enterprises to rethink their business model to not only build value into producing and commissioning products, but also in decommissioning and recycling the products.

To participate in a circular economy, businesses must evaluate alternative revenue streams besides producing new products, including revenue generated from the embedded value in products. A circular business model is sustainable only if value can be economically recovered from the product. The embedded value of a product can be realised by reusing or recycling the materials.

As a result of the new Productas-a-service (PaaS) model, businesses are investing in processes to extend product life, make them easier to recycle and offer consumers incentives to return used products. Offering a product as a service is a shift away from the “buy and waste” approach.

CREATING A NEW FUTUREFOCUSED SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY While PaaS models are driving innovation, the costs of returns and recycling can also be high. Collaborative initiatives and innovative approaches are required to reduce these costs and incentivise end-of-life returns of electronics, which have already become the world’s fastest-growing waste stream. For example, each year, more than 1.5 billion mobile phones are manufactured worldwide yet just 12% of these phones are recycled globally.

Innovative and automated systems that combine hardware and software can speed up the rate of device grading, the process of grading devices so they can be resold, reused or recycles if they are a lower grade. In addition to speeding up the rate of device grading, these systems can also improve cost effectiveness and accuracy. These systems can perform highly accurate and fast cosmetic grading on returned and refurbished devices, to help prolong device lifetimes and improve the global waste issue.

Forward-looking businesses have recognised the value of a circular economy and sustainable supply chain, so it is time for all companies to adopt this approach.

With more businesses slowly moving towards increasingly sustainable processes and products within their business operations, this can help transform the current linear supply chain model and prepare industries for a sustainable future. But we cannot do this alone.

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Companies must work together with industry leaders and supply chain professionals to work towards adopting a circular economy throughout the globe, and help tackle the rising global waste issue. Companies can help to make a world of difference and these new models, coupled with new logistics technologies, can help us do it together.

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August 2022

Driving small businesses growth through the power of partnerships.

At BT, we recently launched a new Charter for our 1.2 million business and public sector customers. The Charter consists of a new set of commitments designed to provide our customers with a springboard for growth. This will be delivered through a greater focus on innovation, including world-class cyber security and a new suite of digital services, customer service improvements and purpose-driven goals.

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By Chris Sims is Managing Director, SoHo (Small Office and Home Office), at BT.

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Driving small businesses growth through the power of partnerships.

A cornerstone of the new Charter is our strategy to empower small and micro businesses. These enterprises are the lifeblood of the UK’s economy, and they play a critical role. To help these businesses achieve their potential, we have created a new partnership network. Specifically designed for micro-businesses with 0-5 employees, it gives these vital businesses access to exclusive offers across broadband, mobile, digital marketing and connected devices, plus other benefits.

In essence they are the best propositions, at market beating prices, brought to customers by organisations they trust.

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The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) was confirmed as our first partner when we launched, but we have also now welcomed Barclaycard Payments, to give an additional boost to small businesses looking to grow their operations.

While the offers will change regularly, the initial benefits include: · Barclaycard business customers getting up to £100 off the upfront cost of their EE business handset

· 2% Cashback for BT business customers who use their Barclaycard business card to pay for any BT or EE Services. That’s on top of any existing Barclaycard cashback rewards, such as 1% cashback on all business spend with the Barclaycard Select Cashback credit card* (Terms and conditions apply)

In addition to the new Barclaycard offers, our existing partnership with the FSB means BT’s smallest customers can get a 15% discount on FSB membership for 12 months, if they join before 30 September.

Membership gives them access to a wide range of vital support services, including legal and HR advice, financial products and health and wellbeing support.

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But our partnership with FSB goes even further. FSB members can now claim up to £250 towards running their own social media and digital advertising campaigns through BT’s Digital Marketing Hub. This is a new digital platform that allows businesses to quickly create, send, and measure digital marketing campaigns across social media platforms, using built in AI technology to drive the best results for their business.

As enterprises continue to brace themselves for what is an increasingly difficult trading environment, we want to give the nation’s smallest businesses the boost they may need to help them expand. We want technology, skills, and expertise to be as accessible as possible for small businesses, and the partnerships with Barclaycard and FSB will provide our customers with all the tools they need to grow. Additionally, our Skills for Tomorrow programme is another useful resource. An online and community training programme, it is designed to provide essential digital skills training for 10 million school children, families, and businesses across the UK.

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But it doesn’t end there. Over the coming weeks, we will begin to offer a broader range of benefits, cementing our commitment to the UK’s smallest businesses.

This includes forging mutually beneficialpartnerships with likeminded organisations across a range of sectors, including retail, hospitality, banking, finance, and membership bodies, to bring value-added benefits to our smallest customers.

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Why identity data can be the key to digital transformation success.

The process of digital transformation has been on the mind of nearly every organisation over the last two years.

Whilst many enterprises have made exciting plans in order to revolutionise their business models, making them a reality hasn’t been so easy.

August 2022

By Chad McDonald, CISO at Radiant Logic.

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Why identity data can be the key to digital transformation success.

Many of the difficulties organisations experience during their digital transformation projects relate back to the issue of identity management. For decades, businesses have scattered their identity data across multiple sources such as LDAP, AD, SQL, and web services, creating a siloed infrastructure which is nearon impossible to manage, and poses a serious cyber risk.

Identity management strategies can be the deciding factor between the success and failure of a digital transformation project.

Organisations need a single source of identity data, which can offer efficiency, accuracy, and security, and drive digital transformation.

HOW POOR IDENTITY MANAGEMENT CAN BE THE BARRIER TO SUCCESS

The main aim of digital transformation is to create a more efficient and flexible business model. However, the fundamental issue within many organisations is the inability to figure out who’s who within the business.

Large organisations often have multiple identities for an individual spread across different sources, which don’t necessarily work on the same application or protocol, and therefore cannot communicate with each other. This means that, you don’t know if “Joe Bloggs” in one database is the same “Joe Bloggs” as in another for IT teams it is like trying to figure out the Gordian knot.

With IT teams having no clue which identities belong to which users, organisations usually end up with redundant, unmanaged, and overprivileged accounts – the perfect concoction for threat actors. The sprawl of identity data creates huge attack surfaces, which in turn makes it harder for security teams to maintain full visibility and provides security gaps for cyber criminals to exploit.

On top of this, siloed systems that fail to remove past employees with high-level privileged access can then be exploited by threat actors, causing significant damage to an organisation’s network, while the security team is oblivious to it.

It is not only a security issue, but a usability and financial issue as well. These siloed systems cause endless frustration for employees, who have to remember multiple usernames and passwords in order to access different applications.

Research conducted by Radiant Logic showed 64% of tech executives said users are frustrated that they need different credentials to access different apps.

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In addition, an IT team somewhere around the world could be going through the painstaking process of trying to move hundreds, if not thousands, of accounts to their new digital system. However, the business could be spending both money and time on accounts which are no longer needed.

With issues like these, digital transformation projects soon turn out not to be so efficient, flexible and cost-effective. Therefore, it seems quite confusing that organisations would allow for this chaos to happen. However, it’s not as simple as it looks.

TURNING A BLIND EYE TO THE IDENTITY MANAGEMENT CRISIS Uncovering decades-worth of identity data and technical debt can be an extremely nasty shock.

For some large enterprises the task of trying to build a single source of truth for identity can be a multiyear project, and it is simply easier to bury yourself in the sand and ignore the problem.

Even organisations that have attempted to control their identity data have hit huge challenges.

67% of organisations have a modern access control and governance solution, but a lot of apps and users are left out. Many identity and access management solutions were not built to unify and synthesise identity stores on the scale of modern enterprises.

As a result, businesses tend to ignore the cracks, and will only solve the problem when the dam eventually bursts.

However, this is a common theme in the cyber world. Even from my own experience, I worked with a financial company that was still using a mainframe as its core infrastructure. They were happy to rework the interface layer and keep the legacy technology running, because they didn’t want to risk the expense and disruption caused by switching to modern technology.

However, modern cyber issues need modern cyber solutions, and we cannot allow the identity management crisis to continue.

Organisations need their own version of Alexander the Great’s sword in order to solve their modern Gordian knot.

CREATING ONE SINGLE SOURCE OF IDENTITY DATA To truly solve the identity management crisis, organisations need a single source of truth for identity data, and this can be achieved through an Identity Data Fabric approach.By unifying identity data into one resource, applications can access identity data in its preferred format and protocol, regardless of whether it’s stored on-prem or in the cloud.

Unlike most other Identity Access Management approaches, an Identity Data Fabric focuses on the data layer instead of the application layer. Through this single pane of glass, systems are able to access identity data ondemand whenever and wherever they use it.

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Identity data is updated in realtime, which means that IT and security teams can have complete control of user access and have full visibility across their entire identity space. Ultimately, this will help close existing security gaps of inconsistent identity data across organisations.

Efficiency, accuracy, and security are the three components of a successful digital transformation project An Identity Data Fabric builds a valuable foundation which can serve digital transformation projects in both the immediate and long-term.

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Digital innovations revolutionizing today’s manufacturing processes.

From food to fashion, digital innovations are revolutionizing manufacturing processes globally, making production lines more efficient and sustainable. How exactly is digitalization helping drive change? What have we achieved? And how much value can digitization create? Digitization has already had a significant impact on a myriad of industries, transforming them for the better. Avery Dennison is no exception. For us a manufacturer of labels and labeling materials supporting multiple industries, digitization plays a critical role in transforming our customer experience, our manufacturing platforms, and the solutions that we put into the market.

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By Michael Colarossi at Avery Dennison.

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Digital innovations revolutionizing today’s manufacturing processes.

I often say that the label is frequently the sole communicator of information on consumer products. As we make labels more intelligent, with the introduction of RFID and QR code technology, we unlock tremendous opportunities to create new value - from consumer engagement to supply chain transparency to sustainability.

LEVERAGING DATA TO IMPROVE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND IMPROVE MANUFACTURING EFFECTIVENESS. Digital innovations are helping manufacturers become more agile, providing brands with the ability to respond quickly to customer demands, and in some cases, predict those demands. It all starts with data. By applying artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology to historical pools of product data, companies can predict demand patterns more effectively, automate product design processes, and improve the effectiveness and sustainability of the product development processes.

Algorithms can also be created to suggest modifications that will cut waste and energy usage.

A similar approach can be extended to manufacturing.

Applying machine learning to historical production volume data will help optimize supply chain and manufacturing efficiency, ultimately ensuring the right product is being made at the right time according to demand patterns. This level of optimization within supply chains will in turn improve the level of service manufacturers provide. Furthermore, analyzing historical data will enhance the understanding of the technical performance of products once they’ve been produced. For instance, we can forecast the performance of products such as packaging and label materials, based on specific criteria that describe the environment in which they will be used. With this knowledge, we can enhance our quality inspection processes and improve our product development efforts.

The digitalization of manufacturing platforms also represents a tremendous opportunity. Investing in automation and robotics in the factory has tremendous benefits. The tendency is to focus on efficiency and cost, but that is too limited. Focusing on effectiveness and value creation will boost your customer experience, but it will also assist employees in improving their work processes, which in turn, drives speed and accuracy. In other words, effectiveness drives efficiency.

EVOLVING SOLUTIONS AND PRODUCTS ENTERING THE MARKET Today’s customers are ‘always on’. They are almost perpetually connected to the internet via their smartphones and other IoT devices, which means they have high expectations when it comes to digital experiences.

Ensuring digital technology is leveraged to help unlock new digital experiences for both your customers and the end users alike is becoming essential. The

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label is often the sole vehicle for communicating with consumers, and so at Avery Dennison, we have invested in embedding digital triggers into our product to create digital experiences.

Our own examples include ‘connecting garments’ via QR codes, RFID or NFC technology, and innovative smart packaging ranges. Using technology in this way has the power to unlock new consumer experiences, highlighting information that they may not have had the chance to engage with before. This includes product authenticity, transparency on product content and supply chain, and ways to enable sustainability and circularity by digitally communicating product information required to recycle or resell products.

PUTTING DIGITIZATION INTO PRACTICE WITH A FASHION FOCUS

highly time and demand-sensitive, so it’s vital we are able to turn around products on demand to meet clients’ essential just-in-time strategies. We’ve spent years developing innovative software platforms and hardware that allow our customers to make products in their own factories, on demand. As the trends in speed and customization continue to impact the industry, we continue to invest in solutions that reimagine the supply chain. I’m especially excited about the digital care label innovation we’ve achieved for the apparel sector. Using Avery Dennison’s Intelligent Labels - a suite of IoT-enabling technologies that authenticate product history, and provide tracking and inventory solutions - we can now communicate vast quantities of data via these digital care labels with QR codes, all of which will benefit brands, consumers, and the planet too.

At Avery Dennison, almost everything we create is personalized or customized to each customer’s requirements.

Within RBIS, much of our output is for the fashion sector, which is

Our connected world is a work in progress. In time, digital advancements like these will enable manufacturers to become even smarter, encouraging them to move beyond being reactive

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to problems when they occur, to instead predicting and preventing failures before they happen.

The gains being made from these learnings of behavior from data will prevent operational delays, boost productivity, and control energy and material waste. Once tech advances are replicated at scale across industries, fully modernized operating models will deliver great things across the supply chain, especially consumers.

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How intelligent automation is transforming the asset and wealth management space.

Traditionally, the financial services industry has been slow to implement digital operating models due to concerns over regulatory oversight and data security, with many Asset and Wealth shops left behind. According to a 2020 Retail Banking survey that surveyed 750 banks and financial companies across the world – only 7% said they deployed digital transformation initiatives at scale. However, the onset of the pandemic combined with the explosion in fintech has given the industry a renewed sense of urgency to embed digital across its operations.

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By Maureen Doyle-Spare, General Manager, Asset & Wealth Management at UST.

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How intelligent automation has transformed.

Many wealth managers, asset managers and asset servicers are turning to intelligent automation to quickly address current challenges and create a more efficient, effective, scalable, and controllable operating model.

Intelligent automation combines Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to establish end-to-end business processes that can work on their own – enabling efficiency, improving control and enabling companies to meet changing client needs.

Here are three common use cases that can benefit from intelligent automation: 1. AI for trade surveillance AI and Machine Learning (ML) are revolutionizing the process of trade surveillance – monitoring activities of a firm for market manipulation/ insider trading – by increasing the quality of alerts and the time taken to process them. To date, trade surveillance has been based on traditional rule-based systems that were designed to meet the

requirements of regulators. As a result, they would generate a high volume of false positives (surveillance alerts on suspicious behavior) which could not be feasibly monitored. Coupled with the need to carry out a manual follow-up, this meant it was difficult to identify suspicious activity.

Now, asset and wealth managers are employing ML and RPA techniques in the surveillance fight. ML is helping companies recognize anomalies in trader behavior based on historical alerts and patterns while RPA is giving companies the freedom to gather information from different trading venues and asset classes. These accurate analytics are reducing the human workload involved in investigations and enabling asset and wealth managers to focus their efforts on investigating false positives.

2. Client Lifecycle Management Next, with rising demand for providing best-in-class client experience across the lifecycle ecosystem, the extremely manual process of gathering documents and data for onboarding new

clients no longer supports growth.

Previously, analysts would gather all the necessary documentation from clients including financial/ personal data, complete credit checks, and carry out legal due diligence. According to Deloitte, this process took around 20 to 90 days with the possibility of being extended to 16 weeks. The length of this process coupled with the possibility of a human error made it unfeasible.

In comes intelligent automation which has completely reengineered this process by leveraging Optical Character Recognition (OCR) a key feature of RPA. This technology has automated operational business processes with its ability to scan documents, extract the required client data, and populate the Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) and reference system. It has yielded a range of benefits including reducing operational costs by streamlining work and allowing for tasks to be completed with far fewer human touchpoints.

Ultimately, this improves accuracy around regulation risks and overall control of the process and allows

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for savings to be felt immediately – as it only takes a fraction of the current time frame. Customers also benefit from employees directing their attention to higher value-add activities which increases client satisfaction.

3. Order Management To date, the majority of asset and wealth managers leverage vendor order management platforms (a process of managing people and processes connected to an order as it moves through the lifecycle) that are embedded into a fragmented, out-ofdate ecosystem, and do not fully adapt to changing client demands. Firms tend to have limited budgets for their operating models which means they are suffering from capacity, flexibility, performance, and reliability issues. For example, due to the lack of full integration, many firms still rely heavily on manual functions, such as spreadsheets to provide a quick offering to client requests. Although it does allow for flexibility and a bespoke element, it is accompanied by risky offline processes. Despite this fragmentation, it is a common

objective among firms to achieve operation risk reduction in their operating models.

Intelligent automation has the power to help these firms manage and reduce risk by combining RPA and Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) techniques. These techniques can improve operations by bringing additional information from other portals thus eliminating the need for a manual look-up and identifying errors based on past experiences. By digitizing and fully integrating the order processing workflows, it improves communications, fulfilment speeds, and the ability to measure efficiencies.

Ultimately, the implementation of intelligent automation has enabled asset and wealth managers to address current challenges and establish more efficient operating models. Across the board, from trade surveillance to order management platforms, they’ve reinvented critical business areas, introduced new processes, and added value to their customer experiences in previously unimaginable ways. Issues over

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regulatory involvement and limited budgets have been overruled as companies understand how these new technologies can streamline processes, allow for capacity creation, and support risk reduction.

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August 2022

Network evolution.

Over the last few decades, with every improvement, upgrade or optimisation technology has undergone, the networks that connect them have also been evolving.

With time, these and other technologies were absorbed into enterprise architecture through the consumerisation of business technology. And it’s

these staggered, iterative, rapid changes that have created the complex corporate infrastructure and networks we use today.

Lets look at how it all started

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By Song Toh, VP Global Network Services, ata Communication.

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Network evolution.

THE DATA CENTRE SHIFT

Enterprise networks began with data centre focused, wide area network (WAN) architecture. So, the network was just the office branches and the data centres which held their applications.

There was a time when some of these applications even sat in a desktop in an office, where the business users would connect to it.

But as the network got bigger, and requirements got more sophisticated, applications eventually moved into data centres. With data centres, businesses had dedicated compute capacity, security and network bandwidth. Users (employees) simply went into the office to connect to these resources, and this was considered state of the art up until around 15 – 20 years ago.

RISE OF VPNS AND THE FIRST REMOTE WORKERS By the 90s, enterprises were using virtual private networks (VPN) or MPLS networks to connect to

their data centres. As the VPN encrypted the connection and there was no direct connection to the internet at the time, it was a secure method of protecting organizations. It also meant that, without changing the overarching architecture, some users could now work from home. They would need to install VPN software on their home desktop or use a laptop with it pre-installed to have access to the business network and applications. For these remote working pioneers, the experience of working from home was usually plagued by errors, and troubleshooting with IT was troublesome.

Because connectivity requirements for remote users were not that sophisticated at the time, this worked. Essentially, if you logged into the VPN from home, you would appear to be in the office.

And everything connected to the office network was trusted, as network security was a much simpler problem. However, that would change with the emergence of cloud computing.

THE RISE OF SAAS AND THE INEFFICIENCIES OF PRIVATE WAN By the turn of the millennium, we begin to see the start of the shift away from corporate data centres, which were based on a CAPEX (capital expenditure) funding model. Vendors began offering applications ‘as a service’ from the cloud, where you pay what you consume and communicate.

As IT teams became leaner and more efficient, many realised this Software as a Service (SaaS) consumption-based model was much more flexible as well as they absolved enterprises from having to spend funds on building and maintaining on-premise data centres. However, now the process of connecting to enterprise apps wasn’t as convenient as it used to be. The data centre-architecture was now inefficient as applications were no longer being hosted on the business’ data centre, but on that of the vendors. So, network traffic was now taking much longer, and often unnecessary routes. For example, if you worked in San Francisco for a company

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that was headquartered in New York. To access your company’s CRM app, your connection would have to go from San Francisco to New York, then up into the internet to access your vendor’s data centre, which may be based in the same region as your office (San Francisco). These long roundtrips began leading to poor user experiences, with more delays and errors such as timeouts.

And with time, the bandwidth that went from office to the data centres started to get choked by increased bandwidth required by modern graphical user interface.

Businesses needed to breakout of this framework of long, inefficient network routes if they wanted to improve the working experience of their employees. And that’s exactly what they did.

THE INTERNET BREAKOUT To get around these choked networks, businesses started using local internet breakouts as a way to connect straight to the internet. With an internet connection at branches that linked

enterprise users directly to the internet, it meant shorter routes for network traffic and a better user experience when accessing cloudhosted applications.

At first, most of the traffic still went through the data centre, even if employees were using SaaS applications. That’s because at the time, only a handful of the business apps – such as CRMs or HR apps – were consumed as SaaS by enterprises. However, the turning point started when software companies decided to stop selling desktop versions of their apps altogether. An example is Microsoft which changed its product offering into Office 365, which was cloud first and viewed desktop clients secondary.

These sorts of decisions changed the scale of business’ networking needs dramatically.

Enterprises that previously only needed to manage an internet breakout from their data centre for maybe a fifth of their users were now having to do it for 80 – 100% of their users.

The current architecture simply wasn’t sustainable for this way of working. It meant businesses

had to put in more direct internet connections, increasing their complexity levels as they started needing to manage multiple connections at each branch.

More worrying however, was the fact that those branches now connected the business directly to the internet, which meant businesses had to focus more resources on cybersecurity. In the past, no one outside the organisation could access the business network unless they somehow got in through the private network, which, along with the IP address, simply wasn’t available outside the organisation.

But this had all changed and it was getting more and more complicated to secure and configure all business’ networks.

SD-WAN TO THE RESCUE With hybrid network at branches, the configuration of each branch router became a more complex task. This also meant every time there was a change in policy, the arduous work of reconfiguring them had to happen again.

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With the introduction of SD-WAN, that configuration was moved to a centralised cloud controller, so businesses had the ability to apply different configurations to routers based on an individual branch’s needs. So, say a business had hundreds of branches and 98% of them were regular internet branches, with a few data centres.

With SD-WAN, a business could apply different network profiles to its different branches to optimise the user experience of employees.

The profiles were standardised as templates, making them a lot easier and faster to reconfigure branches. And with time, secured SD-WAN solutions with firewall features were introduced in a bid to further reduce complexity.

And that’s where we were until about three years ago.

We now need to look at the network developments that took us through to the present day of en masse remote working and look at some of the networking developments the future holds like intent-based networking.

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August 2022

Solving developer challenges – serverless at the edge computing and Industry 4.0.

Serverless at the edge technology solves the latency and performance gap challenges for use cases cost-effectively.

The world’s next-gen IoT applications, including driverless cars, industrial IoT, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, robotics, and unmanned drones, must be able to leverage meshed networks of servers in near real-time, which requires a completely different architecture than what currently powers the cloud.

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By Benjamin Thomas, EDJX CEO.

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Solving developer challenges.

The key value proposition of serverless at the edge computing is that it brings compute directly to the location where it is needed, close to the end user. Serverless at the edge computing also brings movement and scale to computing, eliminating the need for data to reside in a centralized server. With edge computing, AI, IoT and 5G applications are liberated from the common computing issues of bandwidth, distance, and latency.

Serverless at the edge is laserfocused and on a computing mission to deliver information at the precise moment it is required.

Every day this paradigm of computing becomes more relevant with the unprecedented amounts of data on the horizon as IoT sensors and endpoints proliferate, to do their part in the ongoing expansion of 5G technology and Industry 4.0 – the era of connected things.

When looking at serverless at the edge, what can be seen are compute nodes located close to the action, (think driverless cars) decreasing the possibility of a network problem in an offsite location that would affect the movement of the data. In fact, with our new architecture, serverless at the edge computing locations continue to run during lapses in connectivity. Serverless at the edge is the future for IoT technology because it is nimble, cost effective and close to the action. It’s like “computing-as-aservice” where server capacity is only used when it is needed.

THE WORLD IS MOVING TOWARDS THE NEXT WAVE OF CONNECTED THINGS. One trillion devices are expected to connect to the internet by 2030 – necessitating hyper-local compute and storage to process the data generated. Simply put, the cloud can’t keep up.

Decentralized architecture that allows enterprises to quickly and efficiently deploy to the edge at lower cost and complexity is the way forward.

The key architectural difference is a peer-to-peer mesh network of edge nodes that enable rapid software deployments directly

to the edge, on a serverless platform. Mesh architecture is designed to run on the far edge, on towers, rooftops, basements, etc. This frees developers from the burden of managing the infrastructure and complex virtual machine deployments using tools that are principally designed for data center implementations.

Infrastructure needs to be smart enough to look at an event and then delegate what needs to be provisioned and where, at the software level. Technology needs to do this thinking for the developer, so the developer can focus on what they love doing: solving, building, and scaling things. The added benefit of a mesh network is that IoT sensors can be directly attached to edge nodes.

Solving the latency and performance gap challenges for use cases that require very fast compute and response is also imperative to Industry 4.0.

The evolution of 5G and faster connectivity and devices, in general, pairs with serverless edge. Serverless edge reduces latency by bringing compute

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closer to the user; 5G is reducing the latency of the communication.

Serverless computing at the edge powers 5G in several ways: Instant response: Serverless edge computing optimizes response times and makes possible the local, close to the end user processing of data. This way, the data is instantly available.

Constant availability: The next layer is its consistency and dependability of being available when needed. If an application can continue to keep processes moving during connectivity outages, it follows that the end user can be more confident in the functionality of their critical use cases. An edge data center is located near the end users it serves and therefore lowers the risk of a network outage in a remote location. Another one of the benefits of edge computing devices is they’re always on design along with their native processing functions that power their ability to operate on their own.

Security and privacy: Security and privacy are enhanced in a serverless edge environment as there is less back and forth sending sensitive information to the cloud.

Serverless at the edge computing distributes the processing, storage, and use of applications across types of devices and data centers making it a challenge to disrupt the network.

Sustainability: Sustainability is a massive benefit. Conserving– energy and conserving compute power is associated with serverless at the edge, succeeding in the face of the antiquated (and damaging) ‘take, use, dispose’ models. Moving data from an end user many miles away to a centralized cloud and then back to the end user uses a large amount of power. Local processing reduces the power consumption considerably. As we move closer to living in a world powered by the Internet of Things and connected everything – we will continue to generate massive amounts of data.

Compute should be ubiquitous – a thousand feet from connected machines and devices. Edge computing will dominate Internet

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development over the next ten years and beyond.

Serverless at the edge computing is meant to be located near its recipient end users. And the nodes that will help power smart cities must also be prolific and nearby. These nodes must be cost effective to deploy, and support data migration for automated cars, pedestrian needs, and even unmanned drones that come into range.

Computing in the era of IoT and connected things – Industry 4.0 – moves society out of the theoretical and into a world where AI and machine learning power cars, homes, and myriad personal devices. Serverless at the edge is integral to this shift, with platforms that slash costs by expanding the perimeter of the edge economy powering 5G and our lives.

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August 2022

Sharing is caring: collaboration and communication in cyber.

Those of you that work in technology, regardless of the specific area, all share the common language of security concerns.

These are even more prevalent as the world becomes more digital and more connected. Whether people are collaborating with others in the next room, or across the globe, they can now work and play together seamlessly. However, this level of collaboration does yet not exist within the security teams that protect our online world. Throughout my career I have found that security teams are siloed and rarely communicate with their peers or the wider workforce. If we are going to stay ahead of the threat landscape, it is time for this to change.

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By Richard Beck Head of Cyber Security, QA.

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Sharing is caring: collaboration and communication in cyber.

AS RISK INCREASES, COLLABORATION BECOMES MORE IMPORTANT

The cyber-security landscape is changing faster than ever, as hackers take advantage of new technologies and global events for nefarious means. The pandemic saw soaring numbers of cyberattacks around the world. This was driven by digitalisation which provided cyber criminals with new access points to the IT systems of businesses and government departments alike. We are now at a point where almost a third of UK businesses experience weekly breaches and this is only set to increase.

The reality is that cyber is an endless game; by the time we have bolstered our defences the enemy has already moved on to new attack vectors. This is why, in security, the lone ranger act will never work. Teamwork is the only way to pre-empt problems and keep pace with attacks. Sadly, cyber analysts are still not skilled in the art of collaboration and teamwork. But to make headway against cyber-villains, the good guys must band together.

THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION IN CYBER

Sharing information is a critical part of creating an effective global cyber community. Cyber team members should be communicating not only among themselves, but also with the wider company. Actively sharing challenges and solutions reduces repetition, improves productivity, and simplifies operations.

Collaboration also means team members feel less pressured, there is a noticeable reduction in burnout and time to think proactively about security strategy.

At times, information sharing needs to stretch beyond the organisation and include collaboration with other companies, regulators, and even government organisations.

When it comes to areas such as national security or protecting critical infrastructure, shared problem solving can make our online and offline lives safer.

Thankfully, governmental organisations across the globe are beginning to recognise the importance of collaboration in cyber. For example, in its new cyber strategy, the UK Government highlighted collaboration are a core pillar for strengthening the country’s cyber security. But the introduction of a more collaboration-centric mentality into cyber has long been held back by a lack of educational tools. Until now.

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DEVELOPING THE SOLUTION Communication can’t be picked up overnight or learned out of a book. The only way to truly break people out of their silos is through applied group learning.

One such technique is Integr8.

Grounded in over 56,000 hours of research, Integr8 takes a human-centred approach to teaching communication skills to cybersecurity teams and multiteam systems. Its in-depth, applied learning programme gamifies challenges, making the learning process enjoyable and accessible.

The course removes the teams from the technology they work with, and challenges them to find ways to adapt and solve problems.

It aims to help participants replace judgement with curiosity and move them to instinctively use collaboration to problem solve through a communicative, collective growth mindset.

Integr8 participants tackle a set of eight workshops split up over the course of several weeks. Each one focuses on different skills – reaching consensus, collective information gathering, multi-team strategic development – in a bid to teach methods and the importance of collaboration. The workshops encourage cyber teams to put their learnings into practice and providing real tools like team charters, goal hierarchies, and conflict resolution guidelines.

The training has also been proven to promote diversification in cyber teams. In particular, it has shown that it helps build confidence for women, which in turn helps address the gender imbalance that technology faces.

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While the training is only in its early stages, Integr8 has already proved its efficacy and is already being used by governments in Europe and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency (CISA) in the United States.

Digital technology continues to revolutionise everything from healthcare to construction and telecoms. But as security professionals, we do not have the luxury of simply being able to enjoy these advances, we must also be mindful of the risks they bring. We are entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring they arrive safely and securely, and we should use every tool available to do so – the most important being collaboration.

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August 2022

The importance of embedding security into cloud migration.

There can be no denying that the pandemic changed business and enterprise life forever. Organizations were thrust into the unknown when stay-at-home orders were put in place, leaving them to grapple with a way to continue to operate with an almost entirely remote workforce. Fortunately, technology came to their aid. Through the deployment of cloud-based services and products, these organizations implemented a way to provide staff with access to all the systems and infrastructure they need to perform their jobs remotely. Literally transforming them into virtual organizations overnight.

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By Fayaz Khaki, practice lead at Adarma.

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The importance of embedding security into cloud migration.

Digital transformation accelerated at such a pace that the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, stated he’d seen two years’ worth of development in two months. And it didn’t stop there, according to Gartner, spending on public cloud services grew 20.4% from $410.9 billion in 2021 to $494.7 billion in 2022 and it is expected to reach nearly $600 billion by 2023.

These figures highlight that cloud adoption is growing faster than anyone could have ever predicted.

However, as organizations hastily adopted the cloud with the primary objective of needing to ensure their business can maintain BAU (or as close to as possible) in a period of extreme disruption, security was quite rightly seen as a lower priority. However, as business processes were established, security needed to be a close second on the priority list.

CLOUD IN-SECURITY

As organization’s networks began to spread far beyond their traditional corporate perimeter, this widened their attack surface offering criminals new attack paths to reach sensitive data or systems.

Furthermore, these cloud deployments were often installed without the proper security policies or guardrails in place, meaning not only has the attack surface expanded but the likelihood of a poorer security posture had also grown. In fact, according to data from a recent survey commission by Adarma and carried out by Computing, which studied 150 IT leaders from a variety of sectors including education, technology, finance and the public sector, cloud misconfigurations and lack of resources both received 32% of the vote when respondents selected the issue that posed the most risk to their organization.

The study also highlighted that 58 per cent of respondents agreed that the amount of data their organization stores in

the cloud increased because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interestingly a couple of the top risks highlighted by respondents was related to the human factor, lack of cyber security awareness and a lack of appropriately skilled cyber security resources. From a technical control’s perspective, there is still a lack of visibility on whether the basics are being done, cloud misconfigurations are still one of the top risks that are a key concern.

When it comes to securing data in the cloud, the study also highlighted that 39 per cent of organizations have not extended their managed detection and response solution to the cloud, while only ten per cent strongly agree that they have the required resources to secure their growing attack surface.

Many organizations have expanded their supply chain to integrate with third-party organizations in the cloud, exposing them to additional risk as their digital interconnected eco-systems proliferate, further increasing their attack surface.

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Worryingly the survey also revealed that 13 per cent said their organization has experienced a third-party supply chain attack that went on to compromise their security. Given the increased attack surface, it is vital that organizations have a clear understanding of their attack surface and what do they need to do to be able to defend it. Having clear responses to the following questions will most certainly help: what am I protecting and why? who threatens us and how?

Am I secure and how do I know I am secure?

TAKING A THREAT-LED APPROACH Adarma advocates organizations take a threat-led approach towards improving and maintaining the defensibility of their environment. This approach encourages an organization’s cyber security SMEs to take an attacker’s perspective. Thus, ensuring an organization’s various environments are not treated as individual silos, but instead as a single attack surface that could be exploited.

Cyber threat intelligence (CTI): Having a strong CTI capability is vital to ensuring an effective threat led approach. CTI is the foundation upon which everything will be built. Activities executed within this domain area will enable you to know what you are protecting; understand why you are protecting it. CTI will also enable you to understand who threatens your organization, allows you to be aware of your threat landscape and the actions and capabilities of the threat actors.

Attack surface management (ASM): The outputs from CTI will feed directly into ASM. Key activities within ASM are to understand, monitor and assess your attack surface relative to the threats you face as an organization. Assess your defensive controls and provide a level of confidence into the effectiveness of your controls.

Detection and response (D&R) The outputs from CTI will feed directly into D&R. Key activities within D&R are to ensure detective controls are in place to detect known threat activity, identify previously unknown threat activity via threat hunting, and have a robust response and recovery plan if a breach has been detected.

Threat centric risk management: Activities in this domain area drive efficient risk reduction and informs the development of the cyber security strategy. Key metrics and reports are collected from CTI, ASM, and D&R to support evidence based cyber resiliency and reporting upwards into the business.

IMPROVING SECURITY IN CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS To fully embrace the benefits that the cloud can offer while not leaving your organization vulnerable to adversaries, a well-planned strategy for security monitoring and response strategy is essential. Not only should security monitoring tools have visibility across the entire

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cloud environment, but they should also carry out continuous discovery, monitoring, evaluation, prioritization and remediation of attack vectors.

A centralised security monitoring solution, that works across the cloud and on-prem, can help organizations identify and respond to evolving threats as they present themselves. Taking steps to ensure your cloud environment does not expand without the proper security policies in place is also key, as is mitigating blind spots and improving visibility.

Organizations’ security strategy should encompass all parties in their supply chain, as weak links can have serious consequences for the security of all those involved.

The cloud offers many benefits to organizations, but security of the expanding environment is essential. This means organizations must role out security in tandem with cloud migration, to avoid increasing their risk exposure at the same rate as their cloud footprint.

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August 2022

How finance companies can use confidential computing to stay secure.

Companies in the financial services industry deal with highly confidential customer data, and with strict regulations, data security is paramount. Confidential computing offers a new way for financial companies, such as banks and insurers, to share and make effective use of data without fear of it being accessed by unauthorized software or malicious insiders.

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By Srikrishna ‘Kris’ Sharma, Financial Services Industry Leader at Canonical

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How finance companies can use confidential computing.

Mitigating these risks is critical since the average cost of a data breach has hit $4.35 million this year, according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach report, a rise of 12.7% since the dawn of the pandemic. Confidential computing will open up new business opportunities for the finance sector, enabling it to effectively harness the flexibility of cloud technology, while protecting itself from climbing cybersecurity threats.

DATA SECURITY IN THE CLOUD – A BUSINESS IMPERATIVE Cloud computing has been transforming financial IT infrastructure into a utility allowing financial institutions (FIs) to access computing resources on-demand letting FIs offload costs and effort of setting-up and managing their own on-premises infrastructure, improving agility and time to business value. As more and more financial institutions rely on hybrid cloud services, data security in the cloud is a business imperative.

Moving financial workloads from

an on-premise setup to a public cloud infrastructure introduces a new attack surface with different risks. As the public cloud environment shares its hardware infrastructure, a flaw in the clouds’ isolation mechanisms can be detrimental to the protection of sensitive customer and financial data. The major public cloud environments tackle this by building their security following a defense-in-depth approach.

Confidential Computing is an additional layer of security in this environment to keep data private even when a flaw is found in the other defense mechanisms.

HOW CONFIDENTIAL COMPUTING WORKS

Confidential computing is a cloud computing technology that isolates sensitive data in a protected CPU enclave during processing and eliminates the remaining data security vulnerability by protecting data in use. This means that data is secured while an application runs and is also invisible to anyone, even the cloud provider.

It’s a compelling new technology for the sector because previous

cloud techniques protected data at rest (while being stored) or in transit (while moving over a network connection), but data could still be vulnerable while in use by applications. Confidential computing plugs that gap.

The Confidential Computing Consortium (a foundation dedicated to accelerating the adoption of confidential computing) defines confidential computing as, “The protection of data in use by performing computations in a hardwarebased Trusted Execution Environment (TEE).” The TEE is the secure enclave within the CPU, separated from the main operating system and protected by encryption. Only authorized software can use the data within the isolated data environment of the TEE, which can not be read even by the operating system running on the machine.

This means that private data can’t be tampered with by other applications, including malware.

KEEPING DATA SAFE FROM PRYING EYES With confidential computing, organizations in the finance sector can ensure that even if the host OS is compromised, or a rogue administrator is curious about the data, the data can’t be accessed and the code’s execution can not be altered.Confidential computing ensures both the integrity of data and the integrity of code. It offers an additional layer of security which keeps data private. This means that even if there are flaws in other pre-existing defenses, businesses can feel safer in the face of insider threats, human error and credential compromise.

For financial institutions, this offers the chance to use data in innovative ways, opening up new opportunities and helping to stamp down on problems such as fraud.

For financial services organizations, who are subject to large fines for data breaches, it offers them a new way to use data with confidence. For instance, Equifax was fined at least $575 million by the Federal Trade Commission in 2019 over a breach which exposed the data of

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more than 100 million people. By leveraging confidential computing, financial institutions can feel more secure in the knowledge that data is not being passed into bad actors’ hands and avoiding these types of fines.

WHY CONFIDENTIAL COMPUTING IS PERFECT FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES For regulated industries like banking, insurance and other financial services, Confidential Computing is the answer that fits their business needs. Confidential Computing use cases span regulatory compliance, secure and untrusted collaboration, prevention of unauthorized access and isolated or “blind” processing, ensuring that user data cannot be retrieved even by the service provider.

The security architecture of confidential computing enables a network of financial institutions to work together while keeping their own data safe and private, as well as helping them to adhere better to ever-evolving regulations.

Confidential computing is perfect

for multi-party computation (MPC). One such use case is collaboration between different banks and third parties is essential for dealing with money-laundering investigations, where money often moves rapidly between different accounts, through different banks.

To combat money laundering, businesses must be able to track the flow of money as it travels between hands.

Confidential computing allows organizations to share and process this data, without exposing their input data to anyone else.

Multiple businesses can work together without exposing any of their customers’ personal data, agreeing on which analytics to run on the data set. By processing all this data in a protected setting via confidential computing, none of the banks which work together can ‘see’ the full data set, but the results allow for the ability to track a user moving money between multiple banks.

More generally, confidential computing empowers banks and financial institutions to derive value from large data sets without compromising users’ privacy or falling foul of financial regulations.

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF CONFIDENTIAL COMPUTING? Most experts believe that confidential computing is set to boom in the coming decade.

Global research firm Everest Group predicts that confidential computing is going to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of between 90-95%, with the market for confidential computing reaching $54 billion worldwide by 2026.

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For finance industry leaders, confidential computing offers greater assurance that sensitive data is protected and confidential in the cloud, and encourages them to leverage cloud services even for use cases that rely on sensitive data and computing workloads.

Going forward, the power of confidential computing will open up vast new possibilities and exciting services for consumers, enabling a broader shift of the finance industry towards the public cloud. In a world where security is becoming ever more critical and necessary, financial services should be looking to adopt confidential computing and reap its benefits.

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August 2022

Tokenization as the driver of autonomous economy in Industry 4.0.

In the middle of all the hype around tokenization, it might be difficult to understand why moving real and digital assets to blockchain is seen as nothing short of a financial revolution or Industry 4.0, which is set to dramatically transform businesses and fuel the autonomous economy.

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By Evgen Verzun, Founder of Kaizen.Finance.

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Tokenization as the driver of autonomous economy.

In this article, we will examine the fundamentals of tokenization and how it is paving its way to mass adoption in the wake of Industry 4.0. Whether it’s in the current world, one of our many screens, or a metaverse of our choice, what we’re going to see is more avatars without people operating them, kiosks that serve us, and digital services that know more about us based on data and preferences.

The question is, how do businesses need to adapt to embrace the dynamically changing new economy? What to expect and what is unavoidable in the end?

THE DOMINANCE OF INTANGIBLE ASSETS Before delving into current technological breakthroughs, it is critical to consider the outcomes of all past industrial revolutions. The capacity to predict the implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is crucially dependent on one’s acquaintance with history. In each of the three preceding industrial revolutions, a confluence of distinct but related technical advances dramatically boosted production while drastically decreasing the

amount of resources (workforce, time, and materials) required to generate it. Not only did these innovations change the economy, but they also changed the way people thought about their daily lives.

During the past periods, the main types of assets we observed were tangible, financial, and intangible ones. Equities, bonds, property, foreign currency, and commodities are still playing a dominant role in the industry, holding the most value compared to other classes.

As for the intangible assets, we can see that, for the first time in the last several decades, they have shifted from the supporting role of the tangible ones into a key argument for investors. Now they form more than 80% of all enterprise value in the S&P 500 companies, in contrast to just 17% in the 1970’s. It mostly relates to highly technological and digitaloriented businesses.

TECHNOLOGICAL COMPONENTS OF THE AUTONOMOUS ECONOMY The advancement of civilisation is propelled by breakthroughs in technology and new ideas. The growth of widespread automation is a key factor in the technical trends that are driving the fourth industrial revolution.

So, what does this mean? The Autonomous Economy is not about the end of the human economy. However, robotics might replace manual labor and data management, AI-enabled smart contracts might replace intellectual work, and other Industry 4.0 capabilities such as digitalization and tokenization will completely transform businesses and all everyday interactions between businesses and individuals.

A human-led economy won’t go away anytime soon, but a machine-led, digitized economy is emerging alongside the traditional one. The present industrial revolution is converging on a handful of technical advances that have historical parallels, including the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI),

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and distributed ledger technology (DLT). Therefore, the economy of “Industry 4.0” is the “Autonomous Economy” concept, which is currently driven by all these technological advances.

WHAT IS TOKENIZATION AND HOW DOES IT ENABLE BUSINESSES TO GROW? Believe it or not, Industry 4.0 is already with us: the most advanced areas of business have already adopted the components of a new financial ecosystem, and in the coming years, even the most conservative organizations will be forced to either switch to the new economic principles or pass away.

So, why are the opportunities that tokenization offers so important right now? And why is Industry 4.0 driven by tokenization?

Tokenization is the process of converting the ownership of physical or digital assets to blockchain-based tokens. Fiat currencies, equities, shares, real estate, oil barrels, gold bars, and even copyrights to works of art, music, or literature are just a few examples of the assets that might be tokenized.

The idea of tokenization, or the conversion of any type of value (physical or digital) into digital assets, is growing in popularity among business owners for good reason. While tokenization serves many purposes for businesses, it may be particularly useful for those seeking alternate sources of investment and expansion.

Consider the following scenario: someone wishes to make a real estate investment and purchase a property. However, the property is prohibitively expensive. Most people may not be able to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in full or in part for a piece of real estate. Tokenization enables any individual to buy a piece of it with as much money as they can afford in order to meet their goals.

It is unimaginable how giant the gap between small and mediumsized businesses’ underfunding is. There are approximately 400 million small and medium businesses around the world that underpin almost 90% of the global economy. Over 50% of SMEs face financial challenges.

Amongst the most prominent challenges are paying operating expenses and investment for

further business development.

Despite the availability and diversity of numerous financial instruments (VCs, angels, IPOs, loans, etc.), the global problem of underfunding is still huge.

According to IFC data, the unmet financing needs of micro, small and medium enterprises in developing countries are about $5.2 trillion every year.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR INDUSTRY 4.0 Hand-in-hand, all these technological trends make tokenization the perfect factor to propel economic growth. Existing businesses should be capitalizing on this by focusing on these three key areas: Conduct an internal audit of all their assets to identify which could be potentially tokenized.

Redesign internal tech infrastructure to be ready to comply with blockchain technology and participate in the evolving digital asset market.

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Choose a reliable provider of comprehensive asset tokenization services who can ensure the full cycle of tokenization.

Businesses must be open, adaptable, and flexible to cope with all the current changes. The most important thing is to be ready to scale, embrace new technologies, and remember that accepting changes and adapting to them are the most valuable skills in the dynamically changing environment of today.

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Augmented reality empowers more efficient construction.

Construction technology is now considerably more advanced than it was a decade ago. We have seen how improvements in building methods, and the introduction of Augmented Reality (AR) is taking construction to new heights by allowing teams to build with greater accuracy and minimize mistakes. According to research by GIRI1, eliminating errors could save the construction industry £10-25 billion annually, making AR a very attractive investment. Various apps, accessible through smart devices, and digital tools, are now available to construction professionals and are being used on complex projects like data centers2 to build it right, first time.

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By David Mitchell, Founder & CEO, XYZ Reality.

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Augmented reality empowers more efficient construction.

Through extensive R&D, AR is also now available for construction in the form of specially designed hardware. AR-enabled devices have moved away from tablets and smartphones to tools specified for construction, like safety goggles and headsets with incorporated optical displays.

These innovations allow sitebased workers almost superhuman powers as they cannot only see what’s in front of them but can check their surroundings against architectural models and specifications, as well as being able to see quality control guides.

With the potential to help build faster, for lower costs, and more sustainably, this technology already has and will continue to change the face of modern construction. AR is providing refreshing solutions to persistent challenges like project and cost overruns, helping developers to avoid significant costs.

There is still progress to be made in making AR more accessible to architects, engineers, and construction workers, but the potential applications are huge, and I think its adoption will grow exponentially in years to come.

Now, let’s talk about why.

USING AR THROUGHOUT PROJECT LIFECYCLES

AR has applications from the start of construction projects right through to post-construction.

For example, it can render architectural models, created using building information modeling (BIM) through computer aided design (CAD) ahead of building to determine if there are any unexpected concerns to address. These real-world scale models, which provide a realistic experience, can be hugely beneficial in the planning stage of projects as they can help workers foresee problems, preventing a common issue in the industry – rework (redoing work where mistakes have been made).

In addition, viewing a design early on during a project can put

stakeholders’ minds at ease as they can be fully involved in the building process and gather more in-depth insights than they would off-site.

As projects progress, AR can also be used to evaluate and validate work by comparing installations against models. This means relevant adjustments can be made at any point, again helping to reduce the impacts of mistakes further down the line and instances of rework.

Let’s say a rainwater pipe is installed and there is a positional discrepancy that will affect the rest of the build. Using AR, you can spot this and fix it immediately, preventing backtracking, saving time, materials, and money.

Astonishingly, around 30%3 of all construction work is rework, often costing close to 5%4 of total project costs. This can be omitted thanks to tech support such as AR because accurate models can be viewed in real-time.

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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN CONSTRUCTION A range of complementary digital technologies can maximize the potential of AR. Using building information modeling, AR has the power to bring prefabricated designs to life, and collaborative software can help to amplify this application. Some AR tools even allow remote teams to stream directly to on-site workers and view models alongside users from anywhere in the world.

By digitizing designs, projects can be managed more holistically, as data can be shared with the wider project team, limiting misinformation and reducing costly errors. This collaborative interoperability better equips workers to ensure construction is accurate and to the quality needed. Interoperability means designs can be shared more readily with fewer alterations to accommodate different software platforms. Not all contractors use the same programs and the same technology, meaning there are no standard systems across all of construction. Therefore,

interoperable tech is a must as it can be accommodated by different groups. This is essential if we want to realize the true value of digital technologies like AR and combine these solutions into one cohesive ecosystem.

Some devices, such as our engineering-grade AR tool the Atom5, incorporate additional elements such as laser-based tracking technology to position designs to millimeter accuracy.

Using this technology, engineers can view holograms of models positioned around sites by tapping into site coordinate systems.

Integrating different solutions like this means looking beyond topline applications for technologies like AR and CAD. This kind of thinking will fuel innovation in digital construction, increasing the efficiency of construction methods.

AR WILL DRIVE SUSTAINABILITY Recent industry analysis6 found the AR market was worth just under $10 billion in 2021. This number is expected to skyrocket to $150 billion by the end of the decade. This proliferation of AR will help fuel expected growth7 in construction by providing more efficient ways of working, allowing leaders in the industry to keep up with increasing demand for projects whilst maintaining highquality builds and limiting costs.

By facilitating more effective construction methods and greater agility when managing projects, AR, alongside other digital innovations, will also help to make construction a more sustainable industry. Environmental concerns caused by the built environment, such as high carbon emissions (39%8 of global emissions), are a major focus for the industry.

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Fewer errors during operational phases and shorter project timelines thanks to AR will help to reduce both waste and the carbon footprint of construction projects. Ultimately, this will allow construction professionals to align with increasingly stringent ESG targets as businesses will consume fewer resources and limit emissions.

This powerful technology is now at workers’ fingertips. AR is the next step in the evolution of building methods, combining the flexibility of digital designs with the real world to allow construction professionals to quite literally create a world before their eyes. As further investments help AR grow, we will see a more efficient, sustainable industry bloom. It’s truly an exciting time for construction technology.

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August 2022

Personalised retail: offering customers a hybrid experience.

Hybrid retail has substantially increased in popularity in recent years, with many traditional brick and mortar stores introducing new e-commerce practices. The shift to hybrid retail was a direct result of the pandemic - consumers began demand more digital retail experiences, so businesses began to adopt omnichannel services.

August 2022

By Stefan Spendrup, VP of Sales in Northern and Western Europe at SOTI.

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Personalised retail: offering customers a hybrid experience.

Shopping via social media channels has remained the preferred destination, despite lockdowns easing and businesses reopening, and is expected to stay the preferred route too. However, customers are still wanting to explore hybrid retail options when shopping. From collect and pickup point delivery to Buying Online Picking Up In store (BOPIS), providing multiple return points in both online and physical spaces for consumers is now essential.

The growth of hybrid retail has highlighted the in-store experiences are still in demand when buying products and so the experience of returning and collecting goods must be a seamless and positive experience too. According to SOTI research, 52% say of consumers globally are more likely to shop with a retailer that offered multiple return points. Retailers will need to give consumers options like printing return labels at home to drop off at a delivery company, or simply taking their e-receipt to the counter at the brick-and-mortar store to return in-person.

Even Primark, which historically steered away from entering the e-commerce world, has now started its journey into the online world, launching a trial of a click and collect system in 25 stores. This reiterates that many popular retailers have succumbed to customer expectations and adopted e-commerce strategies.

ENHANCING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RETAILERS AND CUSTOMERS

Hybrid business models have become commonplace internationally, primarily because of the pandemic drastically changed the way in which industries operate. As our jobs go hybrid, consumers are expecting adjustments in other areas of their lives as well.

What do customers seek for from retailers when shopping via online? · A personalized experience: To achieve this a one size fits all approach must be avoided at all costs. The demand from customers to have information about their purchases at their fingertips is common. For retailers, this involves providing confirmation of purchase, checks along the way – from packaging to getting onto the truck and delivered to their house, providing information on which delivery company has their package and details on delays.

August 2022

It is crucial to keep the customer in the loop at all stages of the delivery experience. · To connect in a variety of ways: In-person, online or with a partnered company – ensure options are present and easily accessible - meet customers where they are. · Create the ideal omnichannel experience: Customers want retailers to provide convenience and options, like in-person and online shopping. For example, when SOTI asked if consumers would consider using any alternative delivery options in 2022, 63% of surveyed consumers said they would consider in-store delivery and half said they would consider delivery to a designated drop-off point.

Although customers are aware of the supply chain crisis and have experienced the ramifications, they simply do not care about the ins and the outs. They want their goods not only quickly, but they also want to be able to shop in the way that suits them best.

Enabling Mobile Accessibility to Streamline Customer Experiences When a business fails to optimize its website for mobile, tablet and desktop devices, customers become frustrated and they will make their feelings heard by taking their money and loyalty elsewhere.

In fact, 48% of customers say that when companies don’t make their websites responsive on mobile phones, it makes them feel like the companies will care less about their business.

Not only do businesses risk losing shoppers if sites are not optimized for mobile use, but Google rewards companies who make their websites mobile friendly. This is highly beneficial reputationally and improves customer satisfaction. With 83% of people doing their online shopping through mobile devices, and half of all Internet shopping traffic is done on a mobile device, retailers could be missing out on a large proportion of sales if they are not offering hybrid solutions

For in-store shopping experiences such as click and collect, retailers must fully utilize mobile technology with RFID, kiosks, scanners and tablets, so that customers can approach a store and easily receive their orders. It is key for customers to feel as their wants and needs are acknowledged by retailers and that the method they receive their orders is on par with one another, both in-store and at home.

THE FUTURE OF HYBRID RETAIL As supply chain issues wear off, retailers will no longer be able to blame the crisis for delays in deliveries and lack of stock. They will instead have to face the fact that they do not have sufficient technology, processes and systems in place to offer a robust hybrid retail model.

The hybrid retail approach allows businesses to build long-term, loyal customers from the very start of their journey with a brand. To achieve this, retailers need an Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solution in place to ensure

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devices are secure, connected and managed effectively to accommodate the ever-changing customer demands and ensure the technology sufficiently meets such expectations.

With hybrid retail becoming increasingly popular with consumers, the time to act is now. Businesses that don’t risk alienating customers who now have far less patience for inflexible delivery options. So those who do not meet new consumer demands are in danger of falling behind their competitors who give their customers what they want, when they want it.

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August 2022

Driving growth in a downturn: the digital marketplace model.

Digital transformation has completely altered how businesses operate. While this transformation was already well underway, events of recent years have only accelerated the transition, providing businesses with new opportunities for growth.

We have entirely reinvented the way in which we work, taking old manual processes and making them digital, as well as entirely rethinking our operations with the digital world in mind.

August 2022

By Steve Janssens, COO at LastBasic.

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Driving growth in a downturn: the digital marketplace model.

Take meetings with clients, for example. Not too long ago, we would spend hours scheduling physical meetings, having to consider availability, location and travel times. Now we can easily schedule meetings with clients and team members both near and far.

Remote working has completely changed the game when it comes to interactions between stakeholders.

Clearly, businesses across the globe are seeking even greater connectivity across international borders. For some businesses, remote work may suffice. But for others looking to diversify their business model, interactive digital marketplaces could be the answer.

ENTERING THE DIGITAL MARKETPLACE

The pandemic put a huge amount of strain on businesses big and small, meaning many have been entirely rethinking their business model. While traditional businesses struggled, those that have adopted a digital marketplace model, such as Amazon and Etsy, saw huge growth during the pandemic.

Many ordinary people had extra free time and so came up with innovative ways to make some extra cash through a ‘side hustle’, such as selling homemade jewelry, for example.

Importantly, digital marketplaces offer a personalized relationship with their buyer by leveraging complex AI and ML to provide a hyper personalized experience.

The ability to use data to better understand your customer and adjust promotions, pricing, and offers is priceless.

These new digital marketplaces are not limited to e-commerce.

Their scope is expanding to move beyond the exchange of goods between businesses and consumers, like the eBay model, for example. Instead, digital marketplaces are becoming increasingly centered around the exchange of services between experts and those that need them.

Switching from a traditional business model to an interactive marketplace may seem like a complex transition, but it is something that should be embraced. Businesses need to consider the transition to the digital marketplace as part of a wider digital transformation exercise, which most organizations are already implementing due to a rapid acceleration in the prevalence of hybrid working. The marketplace approach should be viewed as a shift following the rapid implementation of digital tools that mimic the old workplace.

For many organizations, the switch should not be seen as an option but a business imperative.

August 2022

STREAMLINING BUSINESS OPERATIONS There are a multitude of benefits associated with switching to the digital marketplace, all of which can be said to fall under the umbrella of streamlining. From an operations perspective, when an organization switches to the digital marketplace the organization becomes the ‘middle man’ between people sharing their services.

As a result, the business will need fewer permanent staff, saving the organization money and simplifying each interaction.

Additionally, it opens new opportunities for growth as the digital marketplace can operate in a variety of countries, as the asynchronous communication possibilities mean that time zones are no longer the barrier they used to be. Interactions with clients are transformed from meetings and complex email chains to a collaborative experience which is both easier and often more productive.

Additionally, the simplicity of interactions means that businesses operating through a digital marketplace model have the resources to tap into a pool of freelance talent all over the world. As opposed to having a team of permanent employees, organizations can offer freelancers to work on a project basis. By drawing from a pool of freelancer’s organizations can benefit from a broader pool of expertise that is not limited to the skillset found in a traditional team. In sum, this model allows organizations to drive growth, all while reaping the benefits of the latest technology.

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It is time for organizations to renew their search for opportunities for growth. The digital marketplace model offers businesses the chance to get ahead and grab a share of this lucrative market, offering a user experience that cannot be matched by traditional models. As organizations are forced to do more with less, the digital marketplace can dramatically reduce costs by simplifying business operations and removing the need for a large number of permanent staff.

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August 2022

Strengthening security with MFA: how to choose the right solution.

One of the biggest shortcomings of user ID and password logins from tech users across the globe is that details can be easily compromised, causing irreparable damage and leaving organizations significantly out of pocket as a result.

Whether through malicious malware, phishing attacks, or automated password cracking tools, perpetrators use a wide variety of methods to gain entry into your systems. And as the cyber warfare climate continues to become increasingly volatile, the risk of having one or multiple of your accounts hacked is only becoming more of a threat. That’s why multifactor authentication (MFA) is such a crucial line of defence in the security kits of organizations large and small.

August 2022

By Mike Dunleavy, client director at IT support organisation, Central.

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Strengthening security with MFA. WHAT IS MFA?

While two-factor authentication (2FA) previously formed the foundations of many online security protocols, vendors are increasingly turning to MFA to help augment their levels of protection – not least because the Cyber Essentials scheme recently made MFA mandatory on all cloud service accounts in order to pass certification.

Combining two or more independent credentials – from passwords and security tokens to biometric verification methods – MFA is a state-of-the-art security technology which uses a layered defence mechanism to protect a target.

If a user is unable to verify their identity, they will be rendered as an unauthorized personnel and refused access to the desired data or resource. Plus, if one factor is compromised or broken, the remaining elements act as a fortress to keep attackers from breaching any further barriers and gaining entry.

But with so many MFA combinations available, how can firms ensure they’re choosing the best fit for their needs on both a cultural and commercial level?

Of course, needs and requirements will differ from one firm to the next, but there are some crucial elements that will help you lay the foundations of your security strategy when it comes to MFA. Here, are some of the key considerations to factor into your decision-making…

1. Cost and ease of deployment As with any tech investment, the initial cost of implementing an MFA solution can be a barrier for many. However, the benefits that come to fruition long-term will make the return on investment (ROI) worthwhile.

For companies with a tighter budget, managed IT partners can help to spread the cost of maintenance on an ongoing basis – including server infrastructure, hardware distribution, and vendor support.

It’s also important to understand that, with the wrong solution, deployment can be a complex task with time consuming configurations needed to onboard employees – which can be even more challenging if your network environment is a hybrid of onpremise, cloud-based, and custom applications. That’s why we’d recommend getting users to selfenrol rather than putting a heavy admin task on one individual.

2. User-friendly authentication MFA should not only be easy to roll out, but it should also be simple to use. Some employees may not feel confident in approaching a security request, and others may be limited when it comes to resource access – not everyone has a smartphone, for example. Plus, without advanced warning of MFA protocols, users can feel blindsided by the process and will instinctively reach out for support and reassurance – which naturally swells workload for the IT team.

August 2022

With this in mind, it’s important for organizational leaders to ensure that cost and security are balanced with usability and understanding across the entire scope of a team to increase acceptance.

3. A variety of pre-built integrations The best MFA providers will offer pre-built integrations with a broad spectrum of popular business applications – so you can both easily authenticate your employees and better manage and protect your security network.

This doesn’t just apply to everyday productivity tools either, but those bespoke to your own firm that may not be available off the shelf.

Check whether your prospective MFA solution supports custom integrations with applications and services or more industryspecific examples.

4. Flexibility and scalability In such a mobile world, it’s important that any tech solution you implement is flexible to support employees, irrespective of location, in their time of need.

If a user is trying to access data off-site, but doesn’t have a hardware token such as a USB to hand, they should still have an option to use software tokens such as smartphone apps or push notifications, as well as biometrics such as facial recognition or fingerprint scanning, to authenticate their identity.

And, because business environments are becoming increasingly volatile, any MFA solution needs to be scalable too, so it can be deployed across your entire organization and levelled up or down as required. This means security practices should be consistent from one employee to the next, and cover all users – whether working in the office or remotely, and accessing cloud or on-premise applications.

5. Reporting and analytics Data provision should be one of the key factors you consider when comparing MFA solutions. The most value-adding MFA solutions will give you a clear oversight of your firm’s security landscape to help both improve processes and support compliance and auditing initiatives.

For example, reports that detail when are where authentication attempts are taking place can help to identify any malicious activity, so you can revoke access to unsecured devices that are compromising your security posture.

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CLOSING THOUGHTS There’s no denying that MFA is a powerful tool that can bring an abundance of benefits to organizations of varying shapes, sizes, and sectors – not least when it comes to adding that extra peace of mind to access security.

But it’s important to remember that a successful solution will be utilized by the entire team, which is why making sure it suits the needs of everyone – from apprentices and help desk support officers to C-suite executives – will play a key role in headache-free implementation.

While there’s rarely a one size fits all approach to any element of tech in the business world, these steps should help to offer a starting point to guide your MFA journey.

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