Opinion:
Barbara Rembiesa, CEO & President, IAITAM
CIO Insights:
Michael L Capone, Corporate Vice President of Product Development & CIO, ADP
View Point:
I.P. Park, EVP & CTO, HARMAN International
CIOReview The Navigator for Enterprise Solutions
DECEMBER - 2013
CIOREVIEW.COM
Asure Software:
Connecting Workforce with The Next-Gen Workspace Pat Goepel, CEO
Contents 10 16 AC4S: Hugh S. Campbell, Founder
32 KIO Networks: Sergio Rosengaus, CEO
17 Beeline: Doug Leeby, President
34 Long View: Don Bialik, Founder
18 CompuCom: Tony Doye, CEO
35 Nexus IS: Deron Pearson, CEO
22 DRS: Michael Meloy, CEO
38 Saksoft, Inc: Aditya Krishna, Managing Director & Founder
23 Forte Group: Steve Kreynin, CEO
Pat Goepel, CEO
CoverStory
39 Simeio Solutions LLC: Hemen Vimadalal, CEO
26 Homecare Homebase: April Anthony, CEO
42 Succeed to Lead: Dr. Byron Cherry, CEO
27 IntraMart: Greg Schmidt, CEO
46 Tigerspike: Luke Janssen, Group, CEO
28 Intrust IT: Tim Rettig, President & CEO
48 Tranquilmoney Inc.: Dr. Karun Philip, Chairman, CEO
30 IP Services: Scott Alldridge, CEO
52 Vidyo Inc.: Ofer Shapiro, President & CEO
31 Kii: Masanari Arai, CEO
53 Windstream: Jeff Gardner, CEO & President
CIO Insights 20
Translating Advantages of Emerging Technology into Tangible Business Strategy Michael L Capone, Corporate Vice President of Product Development & CIO, ADP
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December 2013
33
36
Managing Resources Needs Focus On Key Risks Jeff Theiler, SVP & Chief Information Security Officer, Hancock Bank
Contents CXO Viewpoint 24
3 Disruptive Trends Influencing the Innovation Pipeline of the Future I.P. Park, EVP & CTO, HARMAN International
40
Security Should Be Looked at With a Service Perspective Gary Eppinger, VP - Enterprise, Supervalu
47
50
58
Managing Trends in a Socially Responsible Way Scott Sikora, CTO, WhitePages
The Future of Video in Education Sean Brown, SVP, Sonic Foundry
Fact Driven Design: Enabling Factual and Objective Driven Development Shai Wininger, CTO, Fiverr International Limited
CeO Viewpoint 54
Managing Regulated Data in the Cloud Daniel Udoutch, CEO, Code Green Networks
56
Addressing Endpoints and Servers as a Security Blind Spot Patrick Morley, President & CEO, Bit9
From Ink to iPads: Leveraging Mobile Apps to Transform your Business James Quigley, CEO & Co-founder, Canvas
06 Opinion
CeO Spotlight 08 Data Explosion is Transforming the Industry Constantin Delivanis, Co-Founder & CEO, BDNA “Software Defined Everything” will be the key in Helping IT to Manage Growth Michael Tso, CEO & Co-founder, Cloudian Business Continuity: Getting More Significant for Business to Maintain with Time Francis D. John, President & CEO, UNSi
41
Achieving Greater Business Value with Innovation Denise A. Saiki, CIO & VP – Enterprise Business Services, Lockheed Martin
60
Barbara Rembiesa, CEO & President, IAITAM
44
DLP should Begin on Small scale and Must bring Security Awareness Joe Oranday, CISO, Frost National Bank
Revolutionary Changes across IT in the Retail Energy Business John Burke, CIO, Ambit Energy
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CIOReview
December 2013
CIOReview DECEMBER - 2013
Editorial
Editor-in-Chief
Pradeep Shankar Managing Editor
Christo Jacob Editorial Staff
Benita M Harvi Sachar Rachita Sharma Sagaya Christuraj Thomson Antony Joe Philip Sr.Visualiser
Ashok kumar
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Visit www.cioreciew.com Copyright © 2013 CIOReview, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of any text, photography or illustrations without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations. Views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the magazine and accordingly, no liability is assumed by the publisher thereof.
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CIOReview
December 2013
IT no more a Differentiator
I
T is not going to be a differentiator in business anymore, as more and more organizations have established their IT strategies and it will be ‘business as usual,” says Nicholas G. Carr, Harvard professor. This fact has been witnessed by many CXOs in the IT services industry, which disappoints many of them as they were unable to convince and rope in new clients. But I believe that it’s still a large pool if you know how to throw your net on the right side and fish around. Today the IT Services industry is undergoing immense transformation. In U.S alone, there are more than 100,000 software and information technology (IT) services companies and more than 99 percent are small and medium-sized firms (i.e., under 500 employees). This total includes software publishers, suppliers of custom computer programming services, computer systems design firms, and facilities management companies. The high priorities on infrastructure for U.S. businesses and growing interest in collaborative tools, green information technology, cloud computing and mobile applications is putting immense pressure on these IT Services companies also to stay abreast of the competition and thereby meet high quality standards at very competitive cost owing to the strong competition from global IT Services providers from Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia. As CIOs aggressively scout for innovative technology solution, there is no dearth of such solutions in the market. However, it’s a great challenge for the CIO to find the right solution providers to align them according to the organization philosophy and meet their expectations. To help CIOs navigate the IT Services space and identify the right solutions providers for their company, we present to you CIOReview's 20 Most Promising IT Services Companies. It was not an easy task to select from the hoards of companies specializing in the hot domains ranging from user centric software solutions, business analytics, and consulting. However, considering their unique business ideas as well as with the respect to their technology, adoption and market proposition, our experts have churned out the best IT Services providers. From the thousands of nominations that we received, our panels of experts have enlisted the ‘20 Most Promising IT Services companies’. We believe these companies have achieved significant momentum and will rise above the rest. Christo Jacob Managing Editor christo@cioreview.com
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CIOReview
December 2013
Opinion
Are You on
Incorporated in 2002, The International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers, Inc. (“IAITAM”) is a professional association for individuals and organizations involved in any aspect of IT Asset Management (“ITAM”), Software Asset Management (“SAM”), Hardware Asset Management, and the lifecycle processes supporting IT Asset Management in organizations of every size and industry across the globe.
Cloud 9 ? T Because There Should Only Be 1 Cloud By Barbara Rembiesa, CEO & President, IAITAM
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December 2013
he benefits and consequences of cloud computing being introduced into an organization’s environment has been an issue well debated. Once the decision has been made to introduce the cloud into the organization however, it has become a free-for-all situation where end users use the solution that is best suited for their purposes. This leads to a phenomenon known as Cloud Sprawl, where information has been “sprawled” out amongst multiple cloud platforms. This phenomenon occurs when a cloud solution has not been designated by an organization as the cloud service provider exclusively used by the organization. When that decision is not made, end users will seek out cloud solutions that best fit their needs. The problem occurs because each end user has different needs and will therefore search out different cloud solutions. With each end user or group there of using different cloud providers the information becomes sprawled out, and
departments turn into compartments retaining their respective information and making it difficult to share between business units. Cloud sprawl has a major negative impact on the flow of business information, cloud adoption into the organization, and the homogenization of data. Each of these debilitations can have serious consequences on an organization’s ability to be competitive. For these reasons, cloud sprawl needs to be mitigated swiftly and thoroughly. A common practice is to defer the cloud provider decision to the C-level employees of the organization. This leads to an executive deciding the cloud provider based on their needs and the rest of the organization may not receive the solution that best fits their business requirements.This will inhibit data
Barbara Rembiesa
transfer and productivity throughout the majority of the organization. So what is a solution that an organization can implement that will prevent cloud sprawl while also attaining the best option for the current IT environment? The solution resides within the procurement department of the organization. The practices of due diligence, environment testing, and vendor selection are similar for a cloud provider as they are for the provider of other normalized solutions such as data retention systems and software tool vendors. Organizations need to keep the fundamentals of vendor management in mind when deciding on cloud solutions. These fundamentals include: • Value-based purchasing – When choosing a cloud solution, price vs. product is a common roadblock to the decision-making process. That is why value needs to be the paramount quality considered. • Vendor support – When choosing the right vendor for the organization, the vendor should be easy to reach for support or in the case of emergencies such as data outages. The expectations of the vendor need to be outlined in the Terms and Conditions of the vendor service contract. • Versioning support and control – Cloud services are similar to other software tools. There will be updates to the software that may dramatically change the way the software is used. Sometimes these updates come at an additional cost to the organization. The plan for versioning issues should be detailed upon the acquisition of the cloud solution. • Implementation assistance – Organizations do not always have a IMAC (Install, Move, Add, Change) team capable of deploying cloud services. Vendor implementation assistance can be negotiated during the contract negotiations. Experience dictates that this can often be a benefit in lieu of volume purchase savings.
Cloud sprawl has a major negative impact on the flow of business information, cloud adoption into the organization, and the homogenization of data • Education and Training– Adding a new tool to the environment that end users are expected to use typically comes with a difficult transition period without proper training and education on that tool. Education and training for the internal trainers and managers directly from the vendor can be negotiated. This will help speed up the adoption rate and successful implementation of the cloud solution. By applying classic and well used vendor management practices along with proper vendor due diligence in choosing the provider of the cloud solution, cloud sprawl can be mitigated. Cloud computing may be a relatively new venture for many organizations but identifying the best solution for the organization falls back on the tried and true vendor management practices that have been used for years. By having that small part of familiarity in the process it provides a launching point for successful navigation of finding a cloud computing vendor. Cloud 9 sounds nice, but isolating a vendor and reducing cloud solutions to one cloud, an organization will be a lot happier.
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CIOReview
December 2013
CEO Spotlight
Data Explosion is Transforming the Industry Constantin Delivanis, Co-Founder & CEO, BDNA
Founded in 2000, BDNA provides the a comprehensive and accurate view into an organization’s IT infrastructure.The Mountain View headquartered company has raised a funding of $35.9 million from Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, Crescendo Ventures, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Newbury Ventures and Flagship Ventures.
Constantin Delivanis
A
ccording to IBM, everyday, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, so much that 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years. While the data conversation has centered around the volume and velocity aspects, the industry has failed to address the variety and variability problems associated with the increase in data. Technology companies need to focus on developing solutions designed to solve the data variety and variability challenges that enterprises will face in the next two to four years. The sheer influx of data is creating an increased demand for data driven solutions to help solve the challenges associated with the
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CIOReview
December 2013
data explosion. For example, the volume and variety of data coming from IT systems itself is drowning departments and the inability to apply market intelligence to this data is preventing them from extracting actionable insights from their investments. In order to help enterprises address these challenges, we foresee a continuation of the trends from software to software-asa-service (SaaS), to platform-as-aservice (PaaS), to the growing need to data-as-a-service (DaaS). DaaS, for example, can help to provide an industrialized approach to clean and enrich IT data to be directly leveraged across all IT processes.
Entrepreneurs Fail to Recognize the Legacy Anchor The biggest challenge that entrepreneurs face is that when they create innovative enterprise solutions to address a big market need, they usually fail to recognize the legacy anchor. Failing to do so, prohibits enterprises from becoming the pervasive companies that they need to become in order to be successful. When building companies and products today, entrepreneurs must account for the legacy anchor, be able to work with it and only (after successfully working with it) can the enterprise replace the legacy anchor.
“Software Defined Everyth key in Helping IT to Manag Michael Tso, CEO & Co-founder, Cloudian
The Intel Capital funded Foster City based Cloudian is a enterprises and service providers that want to build a p
S
torage is exploding. Traditional storage like NAS and SAN are still growing healthily, but what is happening at either end is redefining storage as we know it. At the high end, SSDs have become economical to provide RAM speeds at SAN costs, bringing all sorts of new possibilities to transaction processing and database workloads. At the other end, a new generation of software defined object storage technologies (aka cloud storage) are realizing "software defined datacenters" using nothing but software and commodity hardware, achieving incredible low costs and high densities. With this kind of savings and performance, the reality is that most of the world's data will probably end up in the cloud. Ubiquitous mobile connected devices are driving data storage to be centralized in the cloud, accessible from anywhere. The "Internet of Things" will bring even more data into the cloud. 90 percent of the world's data has been created in the last two years, and 90 percent of that is unstructured. This pace of growth is only accelerating with machine generated data. Traditional storage as we know will have to change and software defined object storage technology will be the key in helping IT with managing this storage growth. But, on a large scale, to get data under control the industry will need to collectively solve some big problems such as storing all this data economically, and getting useful information from the data, and how to determine what needs to be retained and what to not. Unstructured data means flexibility and scale are both important,
hing” will be the ge Growth
Business Continuity: Getting More Significant for Business to Maintain with Time
a provider of cloud storage software to private or public storage cloud.
Headquartered in Dallas, UNSi provides Internet, Data and Voice Services for businesses with multiple locations.
Francis D. John, President & CEO, UNSi
W
Michael Tso
but achieving both is difficult. "Software defined everything" is a promising technology trend to solve this problem. By managing replication, error correction, network partitioning, and resource allocation in software, commodity hardware can be kept simple and be produced and housed on massive scales.
Challenges for Entrepreneurs
When an industry is going through transformational changes, there are many opportunities, over many years, for entrepreneurs. The cloud is transforming multiple industries: compute, storage, networking, datacenters, management, so the opportunities are endless. And, of course, the entrepreneur's natural instinct is to think big. The challenge for cloud entrepreneurs is to get beyond the hype and focus on creating value by solving specific business problems very, very well. Focus, patience, and execution are the greatest challenges in this ocean of opportunities.
ith mobility advances, BYOD programs, allowing employees to communicate and work on multiple devices, and the increase use of social mediafor business, business professionals require full-time access to their data 24x7x365 with little tolerance for down-time. People rely on instantaneous communications and have little patience for delays. Real-time communications makes it even more crucial for businesses to have a backup redundancy plan. Both large and small businesses need to make their offices more resilient to outages, especially in light of more and more natural disasters taking place worldwide. Companies need to ensure their data is highly fault-tolerate and that they have back-up redundancy solutions in place. BYOD - Bring Your Own Device With the Millennial generation – the use of social apps is changing our landscape and we have to be prepared for more and more of the millennial generation entering the work force. No longer can a PC be relied upon. Security is a major issue with the use of personal tablets and smartphones being used in the corporate environment. The question is, how the industry is going to react when more and more employees in the years to come bring their iPhone, tablets and sit at their desk and peruse Google and blog to complete research for work while using the company’s wireless network. This can be considered a disruptive methodology. How do we integrate a generation of people that grow up using so many different tools at their
Francis D. John
disposable and will not think twice about bringing those to use in the corporate environment. It is a challenge to support the millennial generation coming to workforce that is so heavily engrained in using multiple devices from home and bring to the workforce. Security is a major issue and ensuring that IT infrastructure at the corporate environment supports multiple devices that employees may bring to their work stations. Supporting the original services which are sold to a customer when they are using your solutions in a totally different way than they had originally intended when they purchased your solution is connectivity, the need for more and more bandwidth than originally intended. This goes hand in hand with Bring Your Own Device – people bring their own devices to work from home. So many options these days that one cannot control what customers are using and running over their network infrastructure. This brings scalability of the network and security as rising issues that IT managers face.
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CIOReview
December 2013
COVER STORY
I
n today’s world, companies across the globe are making productivity a top priority in their environment. Three important aspects that are a necessary part of the equation to achieve productivity are labour cost, technology and real estate. But with globalization and mobilization on the rise, the modern workforce and work space looks nothing like the labour pool or space of the preceding decades. Gone are the days of a traditional desk with a land line, a computer terminal and a cubicle. Today’s workforce needs 24/7 access via mobile devices, tablet and laptops. There is a need for real-time information from every corner of the world to collaborate and innovate. Workers are empowered to “get on their feet and out on the street” – or at least, out of the office confines and into the world where customers and prospects are living and business is being conducted. John Lennon’s famous single, “Power to the People,” was a message urging people to get involved in what they believed in by taking action. Seeming to follow his cue in the present day, organizations regardless of size are attempting to solve this problem by employing highly mobile, transient and talented workforces. But this task requires a trustable partner who can help to adapt to the changing requirements of the industries. Many companies have found that partner in Austin based Asure Software. Asure Software, Inc. (NASDAQ-CM: ASUR) offers Cloud-based technology solutions that enable companies to better manage their most expensive costs: labor, labor administration, and real estate. “Our company was founded on the premise and the promise to give businesses the best workplace productivity and facilities management tools available. We deliver on this promise every day by equipping customers with innovative, cloud-based
time and labor management and workspace management software solutions that take integral business processes to the next level,” adds Pat Goepel, CEO of Asure Software. The company which was founded in 1985, today, helps approximately 6,000 clients worldwide to prepare their workplaces for the workforce of today and the future.
Countering the Pain Points
Asure has succeeded in keeping its clients continuously happy by addressing the pain points that the other players could not solve. The company has provided for the needs of the industry by devising two product suites, namely AsureForce and AsureSpace. On an average, 19 percent of the workforce participates in buddy-punching at least once annually, resulting in related losses of 1.5 percent to three percent of gross payroll. Hence, smart companies are seeing workforce management as a strategic business driver and not just a non-revenue generating area of any organization. Thus, Asure’s Time & Labor Management Solutions, AsureForce, is what these companies are essentially in need of. These solutions are flexible, innovative and offer a whole new way to work round the clock, in any part of the world where the workforce is housed. “Our solutions do not just track time, our innovative time and attendance software solutions improve your entire scope of workforce management. Fully automated cloud-based, solutions boost workforce productivity so your people can maximize every minute of every workday,” claims Goepel. AsureForce has helped many firms to overcome the issues they faced with the previous systems they were
Asure Software:
Connecting Workforce with
The Next-Gen Workspace By Joe Philip
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December 2013
using. A testament to these words is Air Force FCU.
“Assure”ing Peace of Mind
Air Force Federal Credit Union had been using electronic time clocks with custom designed time cards for many years. The manual process resulted in resources being wasted on verifying time totals. “It was apparent that due to the manual process, the time cards were not being calculated properly which could have resulted in benefits not being applied consistently. This resulted in the need for the HR and payroll departments to review every time card for accuracy prior to payroll processing,” said Stephanie Norwood, Human Resources Director. Mid-year 2003, the management requested an automated system be found to eliminate the bulk of time spent verifying the over 100 time cards every two weeks and their search brought them to Asure. The company’s solutions completely automated time and attendance. Employees started to record their time in the web-based application, which eliminated punching a clock or filling out paper time cards and thus streamlined the following processes. Thus, Asure met their needs and long-term expectations, and more importantly, provided peace of mind that the employees were taken care of and members benefited from the cost savings. Another client who turned towards Asure when they were in a fix is The University of Tennessee-Knoxville. When the time came for the University to upgrade its 50-year-old business school building, school officials knew they also wanted it to be the ultimate technology center for students. By the time the James A. Haslam II Business Building was complete, it had 75 offices, 34 classrooms, 35 team rooms, four conference rooms, four special event spaces, a collaboration center and an investment learning center. There were also LCD screens and high-definition video capabilities for presentation rooms — the ideal high-tech environment for a respected, competitive business school. But reserving the rooms while also ensuring student and building access security was another issue entirely. And for that, Ramsey Valentine, director of technology for the College of Business, needed something more than a database system. Valentine discovered As-
Pat Goepel, CEO
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December 2013
ureSpace™ Meeting Room Manager and was immediately attracted to its reasonable cost and its customization features. He installed the system, trying it first in the Executive Education Center where it more than satisfied the Center’s scheduling needs. The next challenge was to integrate the capabilities of Meeting Room Manager for Web and door access, and that required customization which was accomplished by Asure. The result was a “triple-play” partnership and an end-to-end room reservation system that integrated access, security and scheduling. Asure had done
it once again with its other product suite, AsureSpace which essentially provides administrators with tools to automate the entire scheduling process, and customize it to meet their organization’s unique requirements.
Cometh The Hour, Cometh Asure’s Hero The company has been so successful in its space due to its vast industry expertise which has helped it to formulate its innovative and flexible SaaS-based. The cloud technology solutions and asset optimization capabilities that turn expenses into strategic opportunities, and the ability to drive meaningful, measurable workplace and workspace productivity improvements, have all acted as catalysts in the success
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December 2013
of the company. Apart from all the differentiators, there is one more major asset that the company has had the good fortune of knowing... Pat Goepel, its CEO. Goepel is a veteran entrepreneur and has more than 20 years of experience in the human resource outsourcing industry. Before joining Asure Software, he was President and CEO of Fidelity Investment's HR Services Division; President and CEO of Advantec; and Executive Vice President at Ceridian, where he was responsible for sales, marketing, operations and business development
in the United States. Goepel is a frequent industry speaker and serves on the boards of Allover Media and SafeGuard World International. He also serves as the CEO of APPD Investments. When the company initially began its operations in 1985 it was into the video conferencing business. Around 2009 the company was just earning ten million dollars in revenue and had slowly begun to lose its lustre. Goepel along with the newly elected board of directors came to its rescue and was elected as the then new interim CEO. With his vast industry knowledge and experience, he soon understood that the company had two good products and the rest of the company was in a mess and needed to be cleaned up. He went to hire the right people who
Asure helps approximately 6,000 clients worldwide to prepare their workplaces for the workforce of today and the future truly understood the potential of the company’s offerings. That along with a squared off leadership inch by inch, Goepel started the restoration process by leveraging upon the core DNA of the company and he revamped the then Forgent Networks into today’s Asure Software. Goepel was smart and valiant to make use of the rising “cloud” and go mobile when they were in their nascent stages. He understood back then that by adapting to the early trends and with the right team, they can later on capture the market and aim at the mega trends one day. This helped him to mould Asure Software into a market leader in the Work Force and Work Space Management solutions market. Today, the client focussed company has gone global by stepping foot into Europe as a result of some big acquisitions along its timeline. Moving forward Asure plans to extend its reign in Asia and Latin America. The company plans to do so by continuing to leverage on trends such as mobilization, SaaS and Cloud and thus become a formidable player in the intuitive technology market.
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December 2013
A
s convergence becomes an important requirement, companies are under immense pressure to maximize their IT framework investments, giving rise to higher demand for dependable, reasonably-priced IT infrastructure. The onus falls on the IT Services providers to satisfy the market’s demands. Owing to this, the demand IT Services in U.S. is expected to rise 4.2 percent to $235.6 billion from the previous year. This rise in demand for IT services is also driven by rapid technological advances. The much fragmented IT Services industry in the U.S. includes segments such as consulting, integration and development, network services, product support and outsourcing. In order to cut through the clutter of a large number of service providers is not an easy task for CIOs. The technology decision makers must understand their options in the IT services market and how to work with service providers to achieve beneficial results while avoiding problems. To help CIOs and other technology leaders chose the right provider for their company’s specific requirements, CIOReview presents to you ‘CIO Services 20’, the 20 Most Promising IT Services companies. In the last few months, we have looked at hundreds of IT Services providers and shortlisted the ones that are at the forefront of tackling the real challenges. A distinguished panel comprising of CEOs, CIOs, VCs, industry analysts and the editorial board of CIOReview selected the Final 20. We believe that these companies will not only cut through to the top in the industry but will also help you make better business and technology deployments.
Company
Founders
Founded
Advanced C4 Solutions, Inc Tampa, FL ac4s.com
Hugh S. Campbell, Norman J. Abdallah, Dwight Stephens
2002
Beeline Jacksonville, FL beeline.com
Doug Leeby, President
2000
CompuCom Systems, Inc. Dallas, TX compucom.com
Tony Doye CEO
1987
DRS Youngstown, OH drsllc.net
Michael Meloy, CEO
2000
A provider of data center services and design, managed services, cloud computing services, and consulting expertise in the areas of networking, voice, virtualization, SAN, security, and connectivity
Forte Group Chicago, IL 4tegroup.com
Steve Kreynin, CEO
2000
A provider of end-to-end IT talent company: staffing, consulting , onshore & offshore development.
Homecare Homebase Dallas, TX hchb.com
April Anthony, CEO
1999
A provider of comprehensive integrated cloud-based software solution to improve the clinical, operational and financial success of homecare and hospice agencies.
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December 2013
Description A provider of Converged IP, Cyber and Mission Support Services and Solutions to commercial and Government clients Beeline Vendor Management System (VMS) helps leading enterprises manage their entire non-employee workforce through a single Software-as-a-Service solution. A provider of end-user services, service experience, and cloud technology services to Fortune 1000 companies.
Company
Founders
Founded
Description
IntraMart Scottsdale, AZ intramart.com
Greg Schmidt, CEO
1997
A provider of Business Intelligence and Custom Application Development in the US and Mexico
Intrust IT Cincinnati, OH intrustgroup.com
Tim Rettig President & CEO
1992
A provider of ongoing comprehensive support that covers many different cloud providers as well as user support all the way down to individual personal devices
IP Services Eugene, OR ipservices.com
Scott Alldridge, CEO
1996
Kii Corporation San Fransisco, CA en.kii.com
Masanari Arai, CEO Naoshi Suzuki, President
2010
Kii provides end-to-end partnerships to mobile developers who want to maximize revenue, gain global distribution, and turn their apps into global businesses.
KIO Networks Cuajimalpa, MĂŠxico kionetworks.com
Sergio Rosengaus, CEO
2002
A provider of high degree technological integration from the data center and infrastructure to the platform, software and business process as a service SaaS, globally
Long View Calgary, Alberta longviewsystems.com
Don Bialik Gord Mawhinney, CEO
1999
A provider of project based technology solutions focused on IT infrastructure, as well as end to end operational outsourcing solutions for SMB to enterprise customers
Nexus IS, Inc. Valencia, CA nexusis.com
Deron Pearson, CEO Jon Jensen, Co-Founder
2004
Saksoft, Inc New Jersey, NJ saksoft.com
Aditya Krishna, Managing Director
2000
Simeio Solutions LLC Hoboken, NJ simeiosolutions.com
Hemen Vimadalal, Managing Partner / CEO
2007
Succeed to Lead, LLC Dumfries, VA succeedtolead.com
Dr. Byron Cherry, COL, US Army Retired, CEO
2007
Tigerspike Limited New York, NY tigerspike.com
Luke Janssen Group CEO
2003
Tranquilmoney, Inc. New York, NY tranquilmoney.com
Dr. Karun Philip, PhD, Chairman & CEO
2001
Vidyo Inc. Hackensack, NJ vidyo.com
Ofer Shapiro Dr. Alex Eleftheriadis Avery Moore
2005
A provider of, high-quality video conferencing solutions for the enterprise, enabling HD, multipoint video collaboration
Windstream Corp. Little Rock, AR windstreambusiness.com
Jeff Gardner, CEO & President
2006
A provider of advanced networking, data center and cloud services to businesses of all sizes across the nation
A provider of IT Management solutions for Business Critical Systems and Applications of Enterprise and SMB companies who have business critical systems
A business provider of advanced technology solutions around enterprise networking, collaboration, data center, and cloud architectures; delivered through Nexus’ consulting, integration, and managed services offers A provider of end to end Information Management offerings which are targeted towards customers in BFSI, Telecom, Retail and Logistics and Distribution segments A provider of professional services, expert managed services and Software as a Service (SaaS) in the areas of identity and access management (IAM), role-based access controls (RBAC), and IT governance, risk and compliance (IT-GRC A provider of Consulting in Financial Management, Logistics Management, Information Technology, Cyber Security, Leadership Development and Training for many industries Tigerspike builds user centric enterprise mobility software, and licenses their Phoenix platform to companies who want to transform their businesses through mobile A provider of practice management and healthcare receivables management technology and services to the US healthcare industry
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AC4S: Pioneering the Converged IP, Cyber and Mission Support Services and Solutions Market
Hugh S. Campbell, Founder
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on 19 August 2002. Their vision was to provide world-class global customer support with the express purpose of providing joint network planners and contractor support to JCSE. Since then AC4S has grown to over 200 professionals with extensive experience in military and civilian information technology, telecommunications, mission support services and recently, cyberspace. The company provides technical support services in eighteen different states and twelve countries. It provides a wide range of services and solutions for government customers. These include three main lines of business: converged-IP services and solutions involving everything over IP; cyber services and solutions with a focus on cyber security, and; mission support services - providing mission essential and enabling life support services in austere, expeditionary and hostile environments.
The company’s single biggest client is the Department of State from a total revenue perspective. It has large groups of individuals supporting the Department of Defense in intelligence and joint, tactical communications organizations. While the whole country
"
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ampa based AC4S is a provider of converged IP, cyber and mission support services and solutions. AC4S was formed by U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force veterans with extensive tactical and commercial telecommunications experience. The three founders’ vision was to provide world-class global customer support. “We are reliable partners and extremely responsive to our customers’ needs. We do not sell Professional Services, we actually help solve our customers problems,” says Hugh S. Campbell, Founder of AC4S. The company does this by leveraging its unique knowledge and technical expertise of both military and commercial networks to "Bridge the Gap" between commercial and government networking solutions. AC4S was initially conceived by Joint Communications Support Element veterans in tents near the end of an airstrip supporting a classified JCSE mission. The three founders solidified the idea during the 2002 JCSE Reunion picnic on MacDill AFB, Florida and founded AC4S
AC4S was initially conceived by Joint Communications Support Element veterans in tents near the end of an airstrip supporting a classified JCSE mission
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was facing a recession, AC4S was still experiencing a positive growth. The company found such success because it specializes in doing the hard-to-do things for customers. After solidifying its footprint in the market the company plans to continue being the market leader. Going forward the company will continue to diversify its customer base by bringing its experience supporting large federal agencies to the commercial and international marketplace.
Beeline: Enabling Organizations to Get More Out of Their Flexible Workforce
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he Industry (Maturity) Life Cycle for the Vendor Management System market is on an accelerated curve. Research reveals that 72 percent of U.S. companies indicate they have a singular program for the management of contract labor, professional services, sourcing and procurement. This is amazing proliferation since Vendor Management Systems (VMS) have only been around for about ten years. One company that realized the powerful benefits of a VMS, and integrated it into the core of its operations was Beeline, the pioneer of Contingent Workforce Solutions. Beeline understands that everyday more organizations are relying on the use of contingent and project-based labor to complement their permanent workforce around the world. Hence the company created its award-winning VMS to help organizations get more out of their flexible staff. Beyond the temporary and professional staffing segment, organizations are also looking for control and management of consulting services and outsourced workers. Beeline VMS offers full-service procurement capabilities that help improve data transparency, mitigate risk, drive process efficiencies, and ensure quality, all within one system of record. With a track record of reliability, the Beeline technology immensely gained popularity with its easy-to-use UI and analytics capabilities. “Beeline’s UI delivers unmatched ease of use, which minimizes training requirements and makes it simple for users to get the most out of the system. Its analytics provide comprehensive insight into both what is happening with a company’s contingent talent and why. This technology is at the heart of Beeline’s VMS offering, enabling companies to improve cost control, risk mitigation, productivity and quality in the management of their contingent staff,” adds Doug Leeby, President of Beeline.
The Beeline Edge
Beeline provides powerful solutions that are at the forefront of technology and give customers an advantage in how they utilize and manage their contingent staff. Beeline Vendor Management System (VMS) is the
only platform offering a single Software-as-a-Service solution for the entire non-employee workforce, regardless of location. Its solutions include: Resource Tracking, Outsourced Workers, Contingent Staffing, and Services Procurement. Each solution leverages the powerful technology of the VMS including practical and sophisticated analytics, flexible workflow engine and system configuration, data security, and seamless integrations. Beeline SmartView® and SmartRate® data discovery tools provide instant in-depth analysis of a company’s cost, savings, operations, rate, supplier performance, and other program metrics. The embedded analytics, visualizations and dashboards allow Beeline clients to explore and understand what their data means, with industry leading technology, rather than wasting time collecting and running reports. And since almost half of Beeline’s workforce is dedicated to service, clients can be confident that Beeline will be with them every step of the way, from discovery to steady state and beyond. The company also provides many avenues for client collaboration and engagement throughout the year, giving clients direct access to industry analysts, influencers, continued learning opportunities, and more. Beeline’s team of experts work in close proximity to the operations of clients and never shy away from challenges that may arise, allowing clients and MSP partners to focus on program strategy and value, while operating at much lower cost. Beeline is a strategic business unit of Adecco Group, the world’s largest provider of HR solutions and has gained the trust of many clients such as 3M, JPMorganChase, General Motors, Microsoft, Northern Trust, Nokia amongst many others across Doug Leeby, the globe. President
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CompuCom: Helping Clients Succeed in an “End-User Driven” World
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he Consumerization of IT is blurring the lines between personal and work computing devices and transforming the way people work. Compounding and accelerating this change is a major demographic shift in the workplace, as millennials come of age and embark on their first jobs. This generation, born between 1977 and 1992, grew up with the Internet, social networks and global connectivity at their fingertips. They are confident, work collaboratively and are accustomed to solving their own technology problems. This demographic shift and changing use of technology by all employees is forcing CIOs to explore entirely new and more flexible IT service models to support evolving end user needs. CompuCom helps businesses exploit these changes by optimizing the services IT delivers to this increasingly diverse and mobile workforce. Founded in 1987, the Dallasb a s e d
Tony Doye, CEO
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company provides the full lifecycle of IT services – from the procurement of hardware and software to the configuration, deployment and management of complex IT environments. CompuCom serves all major industries, with a strong foothold in Fortune 1000 and middle-market companies. They provide IT services to six of the top ten retailers and six of the top ten financial services companies in North America; their average client has been with them for 13.5 years. CompuCom’s heritage is in technology infrastructure management, the backbone of their client’s technology estate. The company sees a major shift taking place in the market, from an ITdriven world focused on “commandand-control,” to a user-driven world. To align with this shift and address client needs, they built upon their core competencies and simplified their portfolio around three core elements: End-User Enablement, Service Experience Management and Cloud Technology Services. This approach was designed with an “end-user in” viewpoint – empowering and enhancing knowledge workers’ productivity – instead of a command-andcontrol, “data center out” approach. “This framework provides the flexibility for clients to enter into the IT lifecycle at any point and deliver measurable results to end users and the business,”
explains CompuCom CEO, Tony Doye. An essential component of this portfolio is Persona-Based Management – an advanced set of tools that CompuCom developed to help companies define employee roles and then match devices, policies, applications and security policies to empower each unique user type. This approach replaces the “one size fits all” model that the majority of companies use, which leaves end users dissatisfied with the generic service levels they receive and reduces their business productivity. To implement a Persona-Based Management system, CompuCom works collaboratively with the client’s IT departments and business units to accurately define end-user roles. That information is then built into CompuCom’s cloudbased Persona Portal to empower individual end users with a more personalized experience. The Portal also gives CIOs advanced insights and analytics so they can better manage their business. The end result is a highly efficient workforce, increased end-user satisfaction and an enhanced competitive advantage for CompuCom clients. CompuCom also offers cloud computing services that provide clients with on-demand, almost limitless computing power. This capability has become particularly important with the advent of Big Data that requires significant computing resources to run advanced analytics. These analytics enable smart companies to gain actionable insights about their markets, customers and offerings, giving them a competitive edge.
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CIO Insights
Translating Advantages of Emerging Technology into Tangible Business Strategy
Michael L Capone, Corporate Vice President of Product Development & CIO, ADP
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he market is currently being bombarded with trends namely Mobile, social, analytics and the like. At this point it is seen that consumerism has dominated the industry space and has become the prime pivot with clients expecting do to business the same way, whether it is B2B or B2C. Clients expect an enriching user experience on the device of their choice and they expect applications to exhibit predictive behavior to anticipate their needs. A great example is recruiting. A recent research by Simply Hired showed that 70 percent of candidates search for jobs on mobile devices. Only seven percent of businesses have their career sites optimized for mobile to accommodate these job-seekers. This is a huge disconnect that we are working to help companies address through advanced recruiting platforms with robust mobile/social capabilities.
Bridging the Gap Amidst Challenges
Current vendors, with their current
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Headquartered in Roseland, NJ, ADP速 (NASDAQ: ADP) is a provider of human capital management solutions for human resource, payroll, talent management, tax and benefits administration solutions from a single source. Founded in 1949, the company has a market cap of $36.43 billion.
Michael L Capone
solutions need to bridge the gap between enterprise and consumer where enterprise standards around technology, devices and security have not kept pace with the changing world. There has been notable progress over the last year or so, and is expected to continue. But until the line is completely erased, there will be some pent up frustration. Our mobile app for our clients’ employees to perform HR functions, such as viewing pay statements and benefits and entering time, has seen rapid adoption. We are closing in on 1.5 million users. This shows that the marketplace is more than ready and we need to keep delivering those kinds of solutions.
Evolving Identities
It is all about velocity. Because of the need to deliver solutions at a constant pace, CIOs have to keep up
with market demand and technology, which is a full time job. Also, CIOs today are expected to not just enable business strategy but to actually drive it. Translating the advantages of emerging technology into tangible business strategy is where time is mostly spent. In translating these advantages and also pushing for efficiency, CIOs face the daunting task of keeping up with the velocity of change, particularly as it related to the rise of consumer technologies in the workplace. Other issues like developing effective strategies around big data and analytics crawl up as well. Data is clearly the currency of the future and those who use data best are going to win. This forces new alliances within the organization like the much written about CIO/CMO partnership. Also not to mention as always, winning the war for talent to ensure the procurement of the right mix of skills and creative thinking to continue to deliver market-leading solutions is an unending task.
effective. It is also important to encourage teams to think about how something will be used which may seem counterintuitive, but it is incredibly challenging to build a product that is simple and easy to use. Particularly with the kind of platforms we develop, people will not judge based on graphics and features. They will judge our product based on how quickly they can learn to use and rely on it. We took a deliberately minimalist approach with our mobile app, and it has been a tremendous success. Apart from innovation with respect to the organization, my Fitbit is a great example of innovation. I am a big believer in healthy body and healthy mind. In the high-demand world of travel and meetings, it is good to have the little device in my pocket to ensure I do not neglect my fitness regimen.
Going against the Tides
Despite issues that CIOs face; we are not deterred in leveraging a number of different things to drive innovation within the organization. We have become huge believers in crowdsourcing and now run multiple crowdsourcing events simultaneously to drive new, innovative ideas. There is no doubt that the best ideas come from the bottom up whether it is associates or clients. Social is also an incredibly powerful tool. Our last event generated over 300 ideas. However, we never build a new technology just because we think it’s a good idea. We always request feedback from the people who will actually use the product—clients and prospective clients—to make sure what we deliver are useful and
It is estimated that the adoption of private cloud solutions will generate $69 billion by 2018. The research shows that initially private cloud adoption was spurred by customers’ need to fill gaps in public cloud solutions; however, its versatility is shifting the perception of, and ultimately demand for, private cloud by providing flexible solutions that address the requirements of maturing customers. Source:Technology Business Research
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December 2013
DRS: Navigating all your IT Needs
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n a hi-tech competitive world where information is considered the greatest power, data grows multifold with the growth of a business. The businesses today cannot afford to lose their competitive edge by giving excessive attention on managing vast amount of data rather than the core business. Technology is constantly shaping and altering the way business is done, and standing ahead in the crowd can be a tough nut to crack. For the same reason organizations are seeking help of technology solution providers like DRS for a reliable and scalable solution to takes their business a level to the fore. Michael Meloy founded NSI Group in 2000 which later became DRS. Based in Youngstown, Ohio, DRS is an all round IT consulting and services firm specializing in data center services and design, managed
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Technology is constantly shaping and altering the way business is done, and standing ahead in the crowd can be a tough nut to crack
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services, cloud computing services, and consulting expertise in the areas of networking, voice, virtualization, SAN, security, and connectivity. “We strive to deliver the customers every aspect of IT and we manage everything we deliver,” says Michael, CEO of DRS. DRS handles the physical needs of an organization’s IT infrastructure. The businesses can be at ease knowing that their core server, network and communications equipment are housed in a hardened environment that is climate controlled with a clean, constant power source, and gigabits of available bandwidth ready and waiting. It also has services like data recovery, business continuity and colocation which allows an organization to operate without any interruptions and to concentrate on the core business. The organization has worked with many well known companies in Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. DRS clientele include airports, state and local governments, hospitals, large franchises and financial institutions. DRS is partnered with vendors like CISCO, VMWARE, EMC2, HP, Microsoft, to provide services such as cloud computing, disaster recovery, help desk, managed services, virtualization and IP Voice. DRS is one of the few technology firms that specializes in all aspects of IT. It has SSAE16 SOC#3 certifications and has also won awards like CRN TECH ELITE 250, MSP mentor 100, CRN Fast Growth 100
list, CRN Tech Elite 250 and others. Talking about the roadmap ahead, “We will continue to expand our fiber reach and data center reach as well as the services. We have grown and we will continue to grow with an annual rate of 20-30 percent,” adds Michael. When it comes to taking decisions regarding the cloud service provider, the most significant thing is to find a provider who can understand individual business needs. The services of DRS meet the needs of small to large businesses that are looking for a reliable source of IT Consulting and Infrastructure Management. DRS strives to help a business running at peak performance and goes an extra mile to help the clients deal with their IT issues even before they arise.
Michael Meloy, CEO
Forte Group: Providing Flexible and Cost-Effective IT Staffing Solutions
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s the country continues its gradual economic recovery, the staffing industry has seen tremendous growth over the past year. In addition to recordhigh revenues, the staffing industry is also witnessing an increased demand for skilled, professional, and degreed labor. The global IT talent market is experiencing a lack of qualified IT labor to support the ever growing industry demands. Forte Group has understood this, has tapped into the opportunity, and has gone on to build a brand name in this market. Headquartered in Chicago, Forte Group addresses IT talent needs focusing on the cutting edge technologies in enterprise ecommerce, mobile, Windows development, and QA. “We specialize in flexible engagement models: temporary and permanent recruitment, blended on-site and offshore teams, and in-house projects. Over the years through our training and recruitment practices we have built a large technology talent pool, and as a result have access to an exclusive IT talent through our global recruitment practices and sister training company, FORTE Knowledge,” adds Steve Kreynin, CEO and founder of FORTE Group. It has recruited, trained, and placed over 3000 IT professionals since 2000. Currently, it has 150 consultants and twenty recruiters in three offices. It is working on opening two additional offices in the US in 2014.
The Origins
Forte’s approach to talent is its main differentiator. Technology evolves faster than a university system can adapt to and produce immediate talent for. Forte aptly fills this gap. This training direction has formed into a sister organization devoted to IT training and career development: Forte Knowledge (ForteKnowledge.com). Forte established offices in Eastern Europe in cities well known for their engineering talent. It has trained over 500 professionals internationally in the sought-after Java stack, including Oracle ecommerce, Android development, and Selenium Test Automation. Forte has access to some of the best talent globally that it offers to its clients via flexible and economical delivery models, where customized teams of local and global professionals serve as seamless extensions of the clients’ organizations. Forte is keen on building longlasting relationships with the talent and with the clients. Forte enjoys a high employee retention rate and most customers that hired Forte as a service provider extended contracts and/or utilized other services of the company. Forte has built its book of business mostly on referrals and word of mouth – this clearly speaks to the quality of the work.
Leveraging the Best Talent
FORTE's development centers in the US and Europe are built around
Steve Kreynin, CEO
the latest technologies, proven methodologies, and transparent delivery models. These delivery models allow FORTE to allocate resources best suited to the specific requirements of a given project. “Our success is a result of our hiring philosophies and employee retention, which far exceed the market levels,” mentions Steve. The core competencies of the company include ecommerce, IT security, custom and mobile application development, and QA. FORTE’s strength stems from leveraging the best talent and flexible delivery models for clients. Coupled with a team that prides itself with deep industry knowledge, longterm relationships with key clients, and a successful track record, this has helped the company to find and sustain success in the industry for more than a decade.
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December 2013
View Point
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Disruptive Trends Influencing the Innovation Pipeline of the Future
By I.P. Park, EVP & CTO, HARMAN International
Harman International Industries, Incorporated (NYSE:HAR) is engaged in the developing, manufacturing and marketing of audio products and electronic systems. The company has a market capital of $5.61.
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eading companies in all industries are facing significant challenges and opportunities as we make our way through a period of transition in the realm of cutting-edge technology. The key to success will be the ability to evolve the way we approach technological development and how we address the current dramatic shift of the IT & Communications technology (ICT) paradigm of our connected mobile universe. Three new major “growth” technology themes are just as important for our future technology innovation. They are Big Data, Smart Connectivity and User Experience. Today, we are in the middle of a far more dramatic transition into yet another new era of mobile computing, in which smartphone sales now surpass desktop and laptop computer sales combined. Ever-smaller devices, thirdparty applications and robust mobile networking are already launching computing to new heights, forever changing the technology paradigm as we know it. This mobility-based, connected universe will very soon have trillions of connected devices and sensors, serving billions of users, with millions of apps. Virtually everything will be connected together and the collective intelligence that results will make devices and thus each life-action smarter - hence, the coining of the term “smart connectivity.”
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This new mobile, connected, app-centric universe both consumes and generates data. Every day, 2.5 exabytes of data are created, and this number doubles each month. 90 percent of the world’s data was created in the last two years. The Big Data universe captured in massive collections of virtual servers we call “the cloud” can now be processed by intelligent analytics, allowing for communications, solutions and services that are increasingly personalized, targeted and efficient. Continued exponential growth in the data universe is a given. Tomorrow's successful innovators will be those who provide users with access to this prolific content as a perfectly unified lifestyle experience. As consumer devices increasingly break from their current physical limitations and become even more intuitive they will have the ability to anticipate user needs and proactively serve up appropriate entertainment, information, and lifestyle services.
Big Data
Big Data has generated a great deal of ‘buzz’, but given the massive, unstructured and potentially overwhelming amount of information generated, there is debate over the amount of value that can be derived. However, new technologies are emerging to help
solve the unique problems presented by Big Data, providing tools that could elicit real insight. The promise of Big Data is not centered solely on efficient computer science techniques, which are critical, but rather the tremendous insight that the analysis of Big Data can bring. Yet, while the future potential is massive, it is important to note that Big Data is still in its infancy. According to a 2013 Actuate Corporation study, only a few large companies with revenues over $1 billion are actively involved in Big Data projects. Most companies not actively pursuing Big Data projects cite the lack of expertise and anticipated costs. Nevertheless, Big Data is estimated to be big business.
of Technology-Centric Convergence and Smart Everything to maintain relevance in the increasingly connected world.
User Experience
Smart Connectivity
From personal fitness devices that follow our every movement and transmit the results to precise fitness tracking apps, to cars that notify us well before a maintenance problem occurs, we are witnessing a transformative time in electronics— the era of smart devices that connect, communicate and inform. Smart Connectivity is built upon two main principles—TechnologyCentric Convergence and Smart Everything. The first, TechnologyCentric Convergence, allows for intelligent and seamless experiences to reach across domains. Taking this a step further, Smart Everything means that devices will become increasingly intelligent and aware of their surroundings. Communications capabilities will extend to products traditionally without electronics. While Big Data is still in its infancy, Smart Connectivity is upon us now and it presents major opportunities for the re-invention of entire product categories. About one billion people currently use the mobile Internet, but soon there will be trillions of sensors around us that form a connected network of lifestyle solutions to quickly and quietly help us with our daily life. Innovators must embrace the two large product trends
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I.P.Park
User Experience (UX) is an area of design focused on the holistic interaction a user has with a product or a service. This includes the user interface (UI), but goes way beyond that, also covering the user's expectations and even emotions, as well as other intangible factors. Over the last few decades, UX design has evolved dramatically and is increasingly being made the center of the design process. UX is highly relevant for a product or service because it can become the main
The mobilitybased, connected universe will very soon have trillions of connected devices and sensors, serving billions of users
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product differentiator in otherwise mature product areas. But what are the qualities of a good UX? Intuitively, "ease of use" is often brought up as an initial criterion. However, when digging deeper, it seems that this criterion is not precise enough to provide successful UX design guidance. And by ‘digging deeper,’ I do not mean technically, but psychologically. Like
all user interface-related domains, UX has a deep root in psychology. This makes sense if one considers that a user interface is the interface between a piece of technology and a human. The best innovators understand both sides, the technological aspects and the human aspects (or human factors), to be successful in UI and UX design.
Future-Proof R&D
The three defining trends — Big Data, Smart Connectivity, and the future User Experience, require that innovation reaches beyond traditional hardware and software development. Modern R&D strategies for technology companies must holistically consider and incorporate multiple domain disciplines ranging from software technology and industrial design to human psychology and socio-cultural influences such as music, art and literature. Technology companies also need to manage and aggressively prioritize their company’s growing portfolio of technology building blocks and thirdparty applications. Open innovations with potential for reuse across the company and integration with thirdparty applications will take on an increasingly important role. Each technology building block should be evaluated not just for its merits as an incremental contribution to today's products, but also for its potential contribution to the customer experience of tomorrow. This process can help companies develop a pipeline of continuously flowing innovation to targeted divisions that hold the biggest potential impact – a process that I like to call “Future-Proof R&D.” This new way of thinking will be critical to the endurance of companies that wish to maintain relevance and a reputation for innovation in the new technology paradigm, and importantly, help companies be in a position for major profitable growth in this new era.
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Homecare Homebase: Streamlining Operations and Providing Accurate Data on Time
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ased in Dallas, Texas, Homecare Homebase is an industry-leading healthcare software provider serving the technology needs of the fast growing post-acute care industry, including homecare, hospice and private duty. The Homecare Homebase solution includes a robust, fully-comprehensive system that empowers its customers to provide the best in patient care. “We believe we are well aligned to meet the continually growing and changing needs of this industry and are uniquely positioned to provide a solution that will continue to exceed industry expectations,” says April Anthony, CEO of Homecare Homebase. Founded by industry veterans in 1999, every aspect of the Homecare Homebase system was developed to be user-friendly, flexible and customizable to specific agency needs. It enables real-time, wireless information exchange and communication between office staff, field staff and physicians; automates workflow processes; enables accurate billing through numerous integrated checks and balances; and, provides powerful management reporting via a back-office data analysis tool that ties together all agency operational information.
Housing a Powerful Technology Infrastructure Homecare Homebase was founded on the idea that a defined and dedicated process can streamline operations and provide timely, accurate data across the entire agency. The Homecare Homebase workflow engine enables agencies to achieve business goals of more effective and efficient delivery of services across all of their locations while the partnership with
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Homecare Homebase provides a true “teammate” in improving day-to-day operations. The company operates on a powerful technology infrastructure that allows agencies to become more agile, automating the entire organization and allowing agencies to operate in a real-time environment. The system enables agencies to look at their current statistics from a cuttingedge management dashboard so they can proactively manage their business. “Through our process-driven solution, we not only collect data at the point-of-care, but much more importantly, put that aggregated data to work to improve clinical outcomes, financial benchmarks and operational efficiencies,” says Anthony.
The Homecare Homebase Solution
The company’s agency automation solution is a comprehensive, end-toend solution that offers functionality for each of an agency’s operational groups. The application suite consists of six key components that work together seamlessly; The Workflow Manager provides the backbone that ties together and integrates the backoffice functionality of the Clinical Manager, Financial Manager, Report Manager and Resource Manager with the field functionality of the PointCare Manager. The system’s functionality is further enhanced with the Homecare Connections suite of products, consisting of Knowledge Link™, Referral Source Link, Provider Link, Family Link and Partner Link. These modules bring added functionality and power for agencies choosing to include them as part of their system set-up and further enhance operational effectiveness of the system by including more agency
April Anthony, CEO
teams and data sources into overall agency workflow.
The Future of Home Health
More than 70 million American’s will reach the age of 65 by the year 2030, that’s almost double the current number of aging patients treated in a “home” setting today. “In order to continue to provide exceptional care for these patients agencies will need to focus on efforts that prove their value as part of the healthcare continuum, including focusing on care transitions models that ensure that patients avoid re-hospitalization; increasing the effective use of alternative caregiver disciplines; controlling the cost per visit through improved payment models for staff and improved productivity and using technology to “touch” patients more often. Homecare Homebase takes our role in helping agencies achieve this future very seriously, empowering exceptional patient care through technology and continued innovation,” says Anthony.
IntraMart: Providing High Quality Resources at Value Pricing
Greg Schmidt, CEO
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ntraMart was initiated in October of 1997 by Greg Schmidt, a Silicon Valley consultant striving for a new way of thinking with each and every project encountered. Although it was initiated as a Data Warehousing company, IntraMart rapidly enhanced its service offerings to include Business Intelligence, data integration (ETL), eLearning and application development and maintenance. In addition, IntraMart has trained college interns as well as managed and sponsored intern programs for large corporations. IntraMart’s very first customer was General Electric. “GE embraced our vision and methodology and the company rapidly grew by leaps and bounds to an annual four million dollars in revenue in the first two years of business,” adds Schmidt. Since then IntraMart has not looked back and has expanded its service offering throughout the U.S. and Mexico. In 2003 Alberto Jimenez joined IntraMart, an account manager from a leading Mexico consulting company to run the operations in Mexico. “We are now global,” Schmidt added, “so we began offering near-shore services to our customers.” With now over 16 years of proven service experience and over 20 customers throughout US and Mexico, IntraMart has successfully been providing services for large companies like General Electric, PetSmart, Charles Schwab, Intel, IBM, Corona, Banorte – Generali,
Blood Systems and countless government entities. Helping these companies manage monumental implementations, software applications upgrades, and providing dashboards as well as tools to monitor and turn companies around on a dime. The company has partnered with companies like Microsoft, Microstrategy and Informatica, to strengthen its service base and certify its associates in these industry leading tools. “Our partners and clients are extremely impressed with how much of our budget is invested right back into our talent. After all, they are the company and must be encouraged and mentored to keep up with the changing times” says Schmidt. IntraMart works very close with universities to identify the next wave of computer scientist and data scientist to arm these graduates with skills and tools of today’s technology. These technologies support every aspect of business from gathering key performance indicators (KPIs), to the development of Business Intelligence interactive dashboards. The company’s mission is to continue to partner with customers and help find better ways to manage and monitor their data. It is achieving this by giving them the ability to measure any key data that moves in their business and anything that does not move, simply by clicking the mouse. In the near future, IntraMart has plans of expanding to more global markets in order to accommodate a more agile development life cycle. With successful trials of around-the-clock development methodology, IntraMart is imagining where North America shifts can hand-off the development around the globe using a new agile methodology, thus cutting development and delivery life cycle by as much as 50 percent without increasing cost.
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December 2013
Intrust IT: The Cloud Expert
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loud computing is creating a paradigm shift by delivering hosted services through the internet with unabated cost benefits and business innovation. Companies are embracing the technology with open arms and moving all of their critical business applications to the cloud. However, as organizations use an ever-expanding list of cloud technologies and providers the users do not really know who to contact when something does not work. Simplifying these complexities is Cincinati based Intrust IT, a provider of ongoing comprehensive support that acts as the single point of support for all of the different cloud services that could be in use in an organization. “We are in the unique position to assist small and medium sized companies quickly adopt the features, scale, and cost effectiveness of the cloud,” summarizes Tim Rettig, President and CEO, Intrust IT. Founded in 1992, Intrust IT makes cloud adoption easy and provides ongoing comprehensive support that covers many different cloud providers as well as user support all the way down to individual personal devices. The company offers a full-service helpdesk that consistently exceeds 99 percent user satisfaction and monitor and manages IT infrastructure for its clients. Irrespective of where the infrastructure is located, be it on site, in data centers, or running in the cloud, the company puts together strategic technology roadmaps for its clients and then keeps them on course.
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Intrust IT makes cloud adoption easy and provides ongoing comprehensive support that covers many different cloud providers
A Cut above the Rest
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The unique company that has won several major clients who trust them blindly has adopted a one of a kind methodology to be a notch higher than its competitors. “Our focus on the end-user as a real person sets us apart. We understand that the productivity of that real person is affected not only by the technology in use, but also the interaction with other human beings who service that technology. One of our three core values is happiness and
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Tim Rettig, President & CEO
we strive to deliver happiness to end-users through our service,” explains a proud Rettig. Courtesy their special personal approach to delivering solutions the company’s happy clientele includes several regional organizations under the verticals of Non-profits, K-12 schools, local government, financial services, HVAC services. To name a few, Best Upon Request, Business Information Solutions, Habitat for Humanity, Council on Aging, The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Perfection Group, Lakota Local School District, Miami Township, Blue Ash, Nergeco, Prolanthropy, REACH Magazine, Retirement Corporation of America, Westminster Financial, Enterprise Vending, and Wild Flavors are some of their clients.
The Road to Success
Intrust IT has made the Inc. 500|5000 list the last three years and has also been a finalist for the past three years for Cincinnati’s best place to work. The company intends to chase that award until they rightfully win it. “We have set some ambitious goals for ourselves and have an engaged staff who are working every day to make them happen,” adds Rettig. Intrust IT’s vision is for its clients to have half as many issues with their technology, and that the company will solve those issue twice as fast.
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December 2013
IP Services: Solving "unsolvable" IT Problems With Ease
Scott Alldridge, CEO
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velop a system of quality control. IP Services proactively manages clients' critical systems and applications in any datacenter. Using Total Control™, we solve 'unsolvable' IT problems; the ones that others are unable or unwilling to tackle,” says Scott Alldridge, CEO of IP Services.
The Origins
IP Services was initiated to provide the expertise in managing critical IT systems and applications, delivering high availability using the proven best practices of its crew. The companies state of the art solutions reduces costs, and allows clients to meet compliance standards while keeping their IT teams focused on the strategic directives of their companies. The crucial differentiator which sets this company apart from the rest of the competition is Total Control, which is a quality control system based on globally recognized best practices and frameworks like ITIL and VisibileOps. IP Services also prides itself on its people’s expertise and experience, its welldefined integrated processes and controls, and its ability to use technology to help its clients enjoy the benefits of a reliable and predictable Managed IT Services without the associated hurdles and costs. In addition, IP Services manages IT Systems in any datacenter, including clients’ datacenters and has the ability to manage any kind
of applications. “We do not just limit ourselves to the typically supported applications that other providers may support, we are experts in managing the real core applications that run your business!” adds Alldridge. IP Services delivers a suite of services in the following disciplines
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n the realm of Information Technology, work falls in to one of two categories. The first category is operations, which is responsible for running the IT systems already in place. The second category, is projects, often referred to by beleaguered IT pros as “the work we meant to do”. This is the work that supports the changing needs of the business. And in a dynamic and growing business, the ongoing stream of project demands should be a top priority for IT. Many organizations have already engaged in the search for a service provider to offload the operations of their critical systems, freeing up more internal resources to focus on strategic new projects that support the changing needs of the business. Not all service providers are created equal. And for a hard charging IT organization that may be considering the services of a third party to help manage critical business systems, Eugene based IP Services which is uniquely positioned in helping clients manage critical systems and applications in private, public, and hybrid clouds would be a wise choice. “Our expertise is in IT Best Practices and Processes which we use to de-
Many organizations have already engaged in the search for a service provider to offload the operations of their critical systems
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covering all aspects of IT service management for cloud management, application management, infrastructure management, security management, and business continuity. IP Services clients range from Fortune 1000 companies to smaller companies with heavy concentration in both banking and health care. The company plans to continue its good run into the future by focusing on delivering proven best practices IT Managed Services allowing clients to subscribe to IT Maturity and Best Practices in order to enjoy the benefits and reduce costs. The company will also concentrate on Management of Cloud Services in a world where Cloud Clutter and confusion abounds, bringing clarity to integrated cloud solutions that are appropriate, controlled, and secure for its clients!
Kii: Helps Developers Turn Apps into Global Businesses
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BaaS, Mobile Backendas-a-Service, has a buzz worthy name, but it may be more than just marketing fluff. More and more market watchers and participants believe MBaaS addresses a real need; one that will exist as long as developers build mobile apps. Recent research shows the MBaaS market to expand to $7.7 billion in 2017. The market is still rapidly evolving, but a few vendors have already entered the market and venture capital is flowing freely. One such vendor is
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The market is still rapidly evolving, but a few vendors have already entered the market and venture capital is flowing freely
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San Francisco based Kii. Founded by Masanari Arai, the current CEO and Naoshi Suzuki, the president, Kii not only provides a set of cloud based mobile backend technology to help mobile developers accelerate time to
market, tools to fine-tune the apps for long term success, it also provides a suite of business services that help to turn these apps into global businesses. Specifically, Kii provides: • Kii Cloud, a cloud-based mobile backend solution with features needed to accelerate mobile app development and without the headaches of server administration • Kii Analytics, an in-app analytics solution with the ability to define custom metrics • Ad network integration to start generating revenue at launch time • Global distribution partnerships to help acquire more users
also has its own ad network and gives developers the ability to directly sell and manage their own ads.” Kii is a second-generation cloud company developed by veteran technologists who combined their syncing and database skills to create a service designed from the ground up for the mobile market. With loads of new ideas in the pipeline, this international company is bound to disrupt the expanding MBaaS market. Their unique global reach will be a major factor in the company’s success as they continue to expand around the world.
The working of Kii Cloud
At the center of Kii’s offering is Kii Cloud. Kii Cloud provides SDKs for developers to plug into their apps, allowing developers to leverage Kii’s carrier-grade infrastructure with just a few lines of native code. One of the core services provided is identity management for user authentication across devices. User profiles and data storage are both JSON-based, giving developers great flexibility when designing their application and user data. Kii is also marketing its data and analytics capabilities. “It is the ease of use that is the advantage” claims Arai. He goes on to add, “Kii’s value comes from its ability to leverage the millions of users who would have access to its apps. Kii
Masanari Arai, CEO
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KIO Networks: Simplifying the Complexity of Hiring Services for the Final Customer
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he current demand for information technology services requires a series of strategic values to compete in this global environment. From the past eleven years the Mexican IT critical mission company, KIO Networks, has been providing solutions that are customer-oriented, innovative and creatively focused on achieving results. The Mexican company delivers high degree technological integration from the data center and infrastructure to platform, software and business process as a service (SaaS), within the safest, most modern and reliable data centers in Latin America “We are the most reliable, innovative, agile and consistent partner, maintaining our operational flexibility at all times. We offer tailored and personalized support to the particular needs of each and every one of our customers,” adds Sergio Rosengaus, CEO of KIO Networks. From the very beginning, KIO Networks has been expanding and specializing its range of services in multiple platforms, while aggressively advancing its international presence and integrating a group of specialized companies under its brand name. With this display KIO Networks encompasses diverse market segments and service models, thus allowing it to answer to large corporations, governments and SMEs. KIO Networks’ Cloud proposition spans from multiplatform infrastructure services to specialized business processes for the public and private sectors by means of
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a specialized business division. The company differentiates itself from the rest of the competition by offering a high degree of technological integration which is secure, available at ease and ensures continuity and confidentiality. The other important feature is that is its straightforward, easygoing nature of doing business. From the most sophisticated and complex solutions to the XaaS products, all KIO Networks services deliver business agility, flexibility, competitiveness and high quality attributes. KIO Networks differs from its competition through the quality of its services, providing its clients the best and safest TIER IV processing centers, a state-of-the art integration of outsourcing services and solutions, to on-demand service models and highly c o m p e t i t i v e costs.
Sergio Rosengaus, CEO
Meeting the Demands of Diverse Industries Its proposition covers practically all sectors and industries. In today’s globalized and competitive world, governments and businesses require constant and continuous agility, flexibility, elasticity, competitiveness, and quality in the delivery of technological services. Although KIO Networks has a solid presence in the financial Industry, it has also developed solutions for manufacturing, telecommunications, logistics and distribution. With Latin America’s dynamism and economic growth, KIO Networks visualizes great opportunities not just in these countries’ capitals, but also in several of their regions and provinces. KIO Networks continues its solid progress to expand and consolidate its regional and global leadership, while establishing its leading role in the world of on-demand services. This will be possible by providing Infrastructure horizontal solutions IaaS, the vertical specialization of software and business processes supply, “in memory” solutions big data, mobility solutions, and final users and social network support. With a cutting edge proposition and diverse solutions, applicable to industries and sectors of all sizes and with certified, orchestrated and automated management models. KIO Networks visualizes its leadership role to strongly compete in a global scale in the near future.
CIO Insights
Managing Resources Needs Focus On Key Risks Jeff Theiler, SVP & Chief Information Security Officer, Hancock Bank
Hancock Holding Company (NASDAQ: HBHC) is the parent company of Hancock Bank in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida and Whitney Bank in Louisiana and Texas with a market cap of $2.73 billion. Jeff Theiler
Resources to Meet the Security Challenges
For security professionals, or any management professional for that matter, the key to managing limited resources is to focus on the key risks. Sound governance, risk and compliance practices are an effective way to manage limited information security resources - they may even lead to more resources! The need for improved risk management focus, among other things, is changing the CISO role. The CISO role is transitioning beyond primarily a technical focus to include skill-sets related to business strategy integration and risk management principles. With these skills, CISOs are being asked to facilitate business solutions balancing the needs of securing information with the business needs for information access and convenience to achieve business objectives. That is not to say that IT and Information Security professionals have not been practicing risk management. Rather, I think the challenge has been translating those technology and security risks into understandable business impacts that can drive the resource discussion and enable the CISO to play a more integrated role with corporate and line of business executives in strategic business decisions. To facilitate resource discussions, CISOs can rely on several fundamental elements.
First, for those organizations practicing ERM (enterprise risk management), use the existing risk framework to develop or refine IT risk assessment processes - are these processes using the same scoring and rating methodologies as the rest of the organization? Same taxonomy? Basically, use the risk language of the organization to convey IT or security risks in terms of business impact without too much "techno-speak." Focus is on identifying critical security gaps, mitigation activities and resource needs to address gaps. This enables all involved to determine which risks to accept, avoid or resolv. Second, develop a corporate risk profile for enterprise security. This profile would clearly outline for directors, executive management,
Develop a corporate risk profile for enterprise security regulators, what the organization looks like, the playing-field if you will, as it relates to the organization's use of information assets, where located, access methods, along with the key risks, available resources and top security initiatives to support
the risk profile. Be sure to include reference to use of third-party technology providers supporting the organization and whether possession of customer data. Third, enterprise-level security metrics (key performance or risk indicators) are crucial to the resource discussion. There are any number of metrics available for IT and information security. The main focus is to reduce to a handful of enterprise-level metrics that give clear indication as to the effectiveness and efficiency of the security program. For example, comparing your information security budget as a percentage of the IT budget with industry benchmarks and/or peer data and further referencing key metrics around vulnerability management can certainly focus attention on the appropriate resources needed to address risks. Finally, determine the maturiy level of your security organization. If not following one of the security frameworks (ISO, COBIT, etc.) and even the most fundamental of "blocking & tackling" activities associated with effective security management are a challenge, then it may not be a good use of time or effort pursuing complex initiatives requiring significant investment or resource capabilities.
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Long View: Defining and Customizing the Future of IT
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areas like converged infrastructure, managed IT/outsourcing, cloud, virtualization, storage networking, collaboration, user support, and Data Center. Long View since its inception has achieved outstanding growth and profitability year after year. With its presence in the healthcare, oil and gas, government, and education sectors, Mawhinney says, “We have become a dominant player in the Western North American IT market based on our industry experience, successful track record, the quality of our people and our technology partners.” The company’s philosophy of becoming a 100 year old company has been the cause of all the success. It has strived to ensure that every one
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n relative terms, it was not long ago that the IT department could have consisted of a single computer operator, storing data on magnetic tape, putting those tapes in a box and that box in a basement. As time has progressed, IT has evolved and while many players have stepped foot in the market, not many have managed to make an impression, with a few exceptions. The story of Calgary based Long View has made its mark due to its business model, “To build the best and most sustainable team driven IT consulting and procurement organization where great people can have healthy lives and prosperous careers”. The company’s business model has endured the changing and expanding nature of IT. “By focusing every effort towards our clients and employees,” says Gord Mawhinney, CEO, “We continue to foster personal relationships, which in turn has helped advance Long View’s growth.” Mawhinney goes on to add, “Long View has furthered the development of its employee’s careers and clients’ businesses, all reflecting back to our business model of growth and success.” Long View offers project based technology solutions focused on IT infrastructure, as well as end to end operational outsourcing solutions for SMB to enterprise customers. Founded in 1999 by Don Bialik, it houses some of the best IT people anywhere and has senior technical experts in key technology
Long View offers project based technology solutions focused on IT infrastructure, as well as end to end operational outsourcing solutions for SMB
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of its clients will be a reference client that will stay with it year after year, decade after decade.
Strategy for the Near Future
Long View continues to use Geoffrey Moore’s Core vs. Context model as a strategic planning tool. Their business planning process is a multifaceted approach combining financial strategy, technology changes, and trends in regional markets. As such, they review and update their Core vs. Context grid at quarterly strategic planning sessions. These updates are shared with all employees via the internal website, monthly general meetings, executive update e-mails, and weekly team meetings. This tool has proven effective because it addresses the challenges of disruptive change, a constant issue in the technology sector. Don Bialik, Founder
Nexus IS: Amalgamating Bleeding Edge Technologies
Deron Pearson, CEO
a simple telephony system to the most robust IP Call Center networks,” says Deron Pearson, CEO, Nexus. The company’s motto is to leverage its extensive experience and expertise, to enable organizations to securely connect, collaborate, and create. Nexus’s Professional Services objective is to align clients’ organizational and technical requirements through a six phase technology solution lifecycle: prepare, plan, design, implement, operate, and optimize.
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n today’s competitive environment, enterprises are fighting a tough battle to stay at the top of the ladder. Intense competition requires them to be on their A game at all times, complemented by a seamless communication between different resources scattered in different locations. With advanced technologies now a key strategic organizational asset, the need for higher availability, security, and reliability has also increased significantly. Enterprises need to counter challenges ranging from design to implementation to support services. They require more agile IT infrastructures to be more responsive to their various Lines of Business and operate at the speed of a constantly accelerating IT environment. Helping enterprises achieve seamless communication and highly agile IT infrastructures is Nexus IS, a dynamic provider of end-to-end technology solutions based on consulting services, enterprise networking, collaboration, data center, managed services and cloud. “Our expertise with converged networks, security, wireless, voice, video, data, and Unified Communications, coupled with our strong partnership with technology leaders Cisco, EMC, VMware, NetApp, Apple and Microsoft enables us to deliver a wide range of organizational technologies from
Helping enterprises achieve seamless communication and highly agile IT infrastructures is Nexus IS, a dynamic provider of end-to-end technology solutions
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As our customers continue to make improvements leveraging our technology solutions which range from Collaboration to Data Center to Cloud Migration Strategies and more, we continue to expand our offerings to ensure we can deliver the latest cutting edge solutions that solve key business challenges,” says Pearson. Nexus serves the private sector, from small business to the Fortune 100; and the public sector including state, local, and education. In addition, the company has highly specialized vertical market practices to ensure its customers are provided the most comprehensive and competitive solutions. The company lays heavy emphasis on being relevant to their customers and manufacturers by investing early in technologies and solutions that are at the leading edge of the industry. Additionally, they invest in top technical and engineering talent in every marketplace that they operate in. Nexus has grown organically at a compounded rate of over 30 percent annually since 2004, and will grow over 40 percent in 2013. With over $450 million in annual revenues, the Company is on track to surpass one billion dollar in annual revenue within three years. The company continues to invest in a comprehensive product and service portfolio while capitalizing on opportunities for continued market expansion.
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CIO Insights
Achieving Greater Business Value with
Innovation
Denise A. Saiki, CIO& VP – Enterprise Business Services, Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) is a global security and aerospace company that employs about 116,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The company currently has a market cap of $45.77 billion.
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oday’s competitive environment is putting pressure on most businesses to reduce the overall costs of operations. But at the same time there is a pressure to drive down costs; Organizations are dealing with increasing demand for the latest technology solutions. The technology literally changes by the minute, customers and employees expect to have the latest advancements at their fingertips, just as they do in their personal lives.
Keeping Pace Technology
with
Changing
CIOs and information technology organizations are very familiar with the technology trends that are driving all of the businesses — cloud, mobility, and data analytics. In many respects, these technologies are not
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new. CIOs have been addressing their application to their businesses over several years. However, more changes lie ahead as the technologies further evolve. Lockheed Martin provides cloudbased services for many customers and also takes full advantage of the cloud’s capability for its own large-scale enterprise data center consolidation project. Having known many advantages that cloud brings, Company’s migration project is focused on driving efficiency and reducing costs. Organization’s solution positions it to take advantage of internally-hosted, and in some cases, externally-provided cloud solutions. Our teams are helping customers harness the power of big data and get the most out of the data that are available. Information security is a
core part of our operations and we are utilizing impactful analytics to inform our cyber defense strategy. Data can be a powerful tool in understanding the trends in our business and we are continually looking for ways to use that to our advantage. Mobility is a major trend too. There is an expectation that everyone should be connected at anytime from anywhere and, more increasingly, with any device. One current focus area for our business is bringing mobile technology to the manufacturing floor. By bringing the technology closest to where the work is getting done, we can improve the efficiency of our production and logistics operations which will benefit our customers. Our focus is to drive down costs of legacy operations, and then use some of the savings to invest in
new technology. The challenge then becomes scaling new technology for an organization with thousands of employees and hundreds of sites around the world while maintaining a secure environment. My team is tasked with ensuring that the technology and systems we introduce work across the business — from teams building fighter planes in Fort Worth, Texas, to those delivering citizen services in Canberra, Australia.
Challenges to Breakthrough
One of the main gaps I see in the market is enterprise-wide cyber security. A lot of companies provide individual products, but there is a lack of products and services that offer a fully-integrated model for monitoring network activity and identifying threats. Although Lockheed Martin is mostly known as the world’s largest defense contractor, we are also the largest provider of IT services to the
Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 455.6 million units in the third quarter of 2013, an increase of 5.7 percent from the same period last year. Sales of smartphones accounted for 55 percent of overall mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2013, and reached their highest share to date.
federal government. Cyber security is at the core of everything we do. Using experience gained from protecting our own networks, we have developed solutions for securing an organization’s critical information, systems, and networks to ensure confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity. We are taking a proactive stance to dealing with the advanced persistent threats that face our — and our customers’ networks every day. We place emphasis on an intelligence driven defense model, to ensure agile response to attack and enhanced resilience of our systems. We have automated analysis that uses a wholly objective approach and data that already exists within the corporation. Our proactive approach to protecting our systems, people and products helps us continue to build on our trusting relationships with our customers. Our second key challenge is to ensure we are doing everything we can to attract and develop the future workforce. We know that in the next decade our retirement-eligible population will grow significantly and we will see the greatest turnover we have ever seen in our business. We need to make sure that we have a robust pipeline of individuals ready to take on these critical roles. To do this we must inspire students to pursue these disciplines, which are critical to our national security and economic strength. Success depends on collaboration among industry, educators, policy makers and families. Lockheed Martin is committed to working with these groups to develop programs that educate and inspire tomorrow’s scientists, engineers and mathematicians.
Going Ahead with Innovation
Source: Gartner
Our Lockheed Martin team has a strong culture of innovation –
Denise A. Saiki
innovation with purpose has been at the core of our business for 100 years. That innovation is driven by our employees. Their thoughts, ideas and problem-solving skills fuel the creativity of thinking and innovation that our customers depend on to solve their most complex problems, from breakthroughs in clean energy and advanced materials to major leaps in robotics, big data technologies, and cyber security. Our IT expertise is also focused on further enabling innovation across the team by increasing the ability of our workforce to collaborate with each other. We make sure that they have the right tools to share information, discover new possibilities and engage with their coworkers across the enterprise. The critical role CIOs and their organizations will play now and in the years ahead will be determining the strategic investment approach for utilizing the rapidly developing technologies to achieve the greatest business value.
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Saksoft, Inc: The Information Management Specialist
“S
aksoft is uniquely positioned as a specialist Information Management Services Provider. Our end to end services capability, technology agnostic approach to solution design and a passion to make our customers successful makes us unique. We are actively looking to acquire US based IM companies for scale and additional services which we can offer to our clients” Traditional ERP and legacy systems, while rich in data, have not provided companies and management teams with decision making capabilities. The volume of transactional data to be analyzed and reported has grown exponentially, challenging system integrators and solution providers. The emergence of social media and inability to integrate social media information into enterprise systems has led to data con-
Aditya Krishna, Managing Director & Founder
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flicts and customer satisfaction issues. Jersey City, NJ based Saksoft, Inc. addresses these issues and has found success. Saksoft’s BI and DW frameworks allow for the right assessment on the information which is required to make decisions. “Our Analytics team provides decision options based on the analysis and summary of structured and unstructured data. Our Operational Reporting services (sold under the brand name of RaaMS Reporting as a Managed Service) assist line managers with instant access to enterprise data. Our ability to support “What If”, “Now What” and “So What” scenarios defines the way we service the market,” adds Aditya Krishna, the Managing Director and Founder of Saksoft Group. The company’s end to end Information Management offerings are targeted towards customers in BFSI, Telecom, Retail and Logistics and Distribution segments. Being a niche provider with strong domain expertise in chosen verticals allows the company to provide its services competitively. The company provides Information Management Service such as IM Strategy, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence, Analytics, RaaMS and Enterprise Mobility. Software Testing offerings such as Test Strategy and Test Management, Non- Functional Testing, Functional Testing and Specialized Testing. Application Development offerings which include Web Application Development, Enterprise Content Management, Portal Development and Collaboration solutions and Re-engineering
Legacy Applications. The technology agnostic company has strong domain exposure to Banking and Financial services, Credit Management, Retail, Travel, Logistics and Distribution. The company also
The technology agnostic company has strong domain exposure to Banking and Financial services, Credit Management has strong partnership and dedicated CoE for leading Business Intelligence products like SAP Business Objects, QlikView, Jaspersoft and Birst. With rich partnerships for leveraging of knowledge in complex scenarios company operates with a risk-reward business model that has never failed them. In the times to come the company intends to grow into an organization that is trusted by customers for their data, information and decision needs. This will involve organic and inorganic options. ”On the organic side, we want to serve more clients in our targeted markets, deepen our relationships and drive efficiencies within Saksoft and also within client organizations. We also understand that we cannot build all things on our own. Strategic Partnerships and Acquisitions would be one of the initiatives to grow the company,” mentions Krishna. Data Governance, Social Media, Enterprise Content are some of the areas where the company would like to partner similar interest organizations.
Simeio Solutions LLC: A Complete Solution to Identity and Access Management
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ata security and Access Controls continues to be a major concern of organizations today. Businesses demand greater efficiency, security and regulatory compliance to know who has access to what and how they are granted access. Identity and Security have traditionally been internal and self-contained, creating silos that lead to costly, inefficient duplication of resources, difficult to maintain systems and applications, limited visibility, and cumbersome user experience, which has led to an increase in security vulnerabilities and others problems. Founded in 2007 by Hemen Vimadalal, Simeio Solutions LLC is a Hoboken based company which provides complete, end-toend Security, Identity and Access Management (IAM) services and solutions that help organizations provide seamless, secure and roleappropriate access to a rapidly growing and evolving set of
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Simeio covers all the bases, from plan to build to operate, professional services, business-ready cloud solutions, and expert managed services
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Hemen Vimadalal, CEO
information, services and online resources, anytime, anywhere, on any device. “Our name “Simeio” is derived from the word “focused” and no one is more focused on Identity and Security or has more people with deep expertise than Simeio. Our business, technical, and domain knowledge is unparalleled” says Vimadalal, CEO, Simeio. The company’s single-source approach to Security and IAM encompasses expert managed services (both near/on and offshore models supported), cloudbased identity-as-a-service, and professional services that ensure ontarget, smooth and cost-effective system design, implementation and support. Providing complete end-to-end services, Simeio covers all the bases, from plan to build to operate, professional services, business-ready cloud solutions, and expert managed services. With a global reach, they have extensive
industry experience to meet any challenge. Simeio is committed to selling solutions rather than products and is not confined to any one product; software platform or deployment model delivers a solution that is the perfect fit for their client. Simeio Solutions has been recently awarded with the prestigious Oracle Excellence Award for Specialized Partner of the Year in North America for Security and Identity Management; it provides services to numerous Fortune 1000 companies across all industries including financial service, high technology, health care, public utilities, education and more. Realizing the growing significance of customer experience, Simeio continues to see Identity data scattered and unstructured. The concept of traditional Security and Identity Management is further blurred with the onset of sharing information on social networks and bring-your-own-device (BYOD). “Our roadmap is to introduce a comprehensive and holistic set of services powered by an industryfirst next generation Identity Operations Center (IOC) which will allow our customers to leverage Identity and Security as a Service, leveraging behavioral and context based access models together with risk intelligence and analytics to allow our customer to advance their business rather than remain in pure support mode,” added Vimadalal.
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View Point
Security Should Be Looked at With a Service Perspective Gary Eppinger, VP - Enterprise, Supervalu
Eden Prairie, Minnesota based SuperValu, Inc. [NYSE: SVU] is the third-largest food retailing company in the United States. Founded in 1926, the company has a market cap of $1.61 billion.
Social Media’s Relevance in the Retail Industry
I would say my perspective for media is relevant especially for a company which has a close relationship with customers. We got full connection with the customers. It gives us the opportunity to provide services for them in real time. So you do not have to call to complain manager, you can post the complaint, we can see them and respond to it immediately when there is an issue or even more importantly when we have a chance to have real time training opportunity or to give delivery. We provided the application to our customers to make their shopping experience better. We think about what
marketing used to be, it was very generic. We used to send out the marketing merchandise to everybody in a certain zip code. Social media gives us an opportunity to give specialized specific marketing and discussion that’s very different for you and it would be for me based on my current needs. Social Media at Supervalu an asset and not a Potential Threat From my super value perspective, a social media strategy is all based on our marketing strategies which is aligned with the IT organization to ensure that we can deliver what our customers need. So we try understanding customers
We provided the application to our customers to make their shopping experience better better and ensure that we are building the platform that will make it different. Maximizing Cost Efficiency for IT Delivering high security services is one of my passions. It helps to think of delivering security from the service perspective. Having a great security platform allows you to protect information and customer data in privacy of their conversation allows you to have a higher sincerity to the customer. Looking at security projects in the same manner as looking at business applications, they need to be justified. All of those thing need to be looked at as benefits, as there’s cost saving and productivity that you can derive by giving security upgrading project. Gary Eppinger
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CIO Insights
DLP should Begin on Small scale and Must bring Security Awareness Joe Oranday, CISO, Frost National Bank
Frost Bank (NYSE: CFR) is a Texas-chartered bank founded in 1868 and based in San Antonio, with 115 branches across the state with a market cap of $4.31 billion.
Building an Effective DLP Program
Building an effective Data Loss Prevention Program begins with the realization that DLP is a business utility, not an IT Security tool. To deliver operational value, security leaders need to identify and work closely with business leaders who can assist in formulating a strategic plan for the daily use and continuous maintenance of a DLP Program. Business leaders can be instrumental in defining and supporting the key objectives of the program, reducing the risk of data loss while demonstrating compliance to regulatory and contractual expectations. An effective security leader can add value to the DLP Program by matching the tool and technology capabilities to the needs of the business. Initially, a DLP Program should begin on a small scale with a clear definition of the specific data types that, if not adequately protected, constitute potential risk to the organization. Although modern DLP tools can support many different categories, a practical approach is to focus on established data types that are less likely to create false positive alerts, such as social security or credit card numbers. In addition, successful DLP implementations will begin in "monitor" mode without proactively blocking either emails or network
access. Inevitably, DLP tools reveal that data, rather than staying only within established business processes tends to go beyond those
A mature DLP Program can help the organization understand where its data flows, train employees to better protect sensitive data boundaries. With detailed incident data at hand, security leaders can work with business process owners to understand and remediate the gaps that caused the alert. The most significant value that a DLP tool brings to an organization is security awareness training. In my experience, DLP-detected incidents are almost always caused by wellmeaning individuals who simply did not realize that they were putting corporate data at risk. Using specific DLP detected events in security awareness training processes can make a powerful impact as they identify real world behaviors that
Joe Oranday
are the root cause of the problem. Of course, incident data must be cleansed of names and data, but the issue can still be discussed. An example would be the employee who forwards sensitive data to his or her personal email account because he or she did not know about IT's secure web mail access offering. A truly effective DLP Program can empower the business by delivering capabilities that might have been previously perceived to be too risky without the oversight of DLP technology. One example is the security problem caused by the proliferation of USB memory sticks. Initial, heavy handed security approaches to USB sticks might have been to ban them outright or disable USB accessible ports on PCs. Every organization must establish its own risk tolerances in choosing which controls to implement and how those controls should be implemented. At its best, a mature DLP Program can help the organization understand where its data flows, train employees to better protect sensitive data and provide reasonable mitigations that empower businesses to focus on growth and not security limitations. The key to success for IT and security to work with the business owners is to craft workable DLP policies and to establish a mindset of continuous, incremental improvement.
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Succeed to Lead: Supporting Leaders by Providing Resources to Build the Organization
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here is a new trend of offering the federal contracts that traditionally went to large firms are now going to 8(a) Certified, SDVOSB (Service Disable Veteran Owned Small Businesses), Veteran Owned, Woman Owned and Hub Zone businesses. This is the direct result of the recent discovery by the federal government that these socioeconomic firms can do the same work as the big firms with better quality and at a lesser price. Succeed to Lead has positioned itself to become the market leader in this segment. Succeed to Lead, LLC, is a SBA Certified 8(a) Program Participant, Certified Small Disadvantaged and Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business. Committed to serving as a force for integrity, good sense, and wise
Dr. Byron Cherry, CEO
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solutions to the problems facing organizations, it was envisioned by its founder, Byron L. Cherry, the CEO, to provide innovative solutions to the challenges that all businesses face. “Our consultants help organizations overcome staffing shortages, budget constraints, and knowledge gaps. We have effectively built and developed solid relationships with such clients. We deliver high-quality and best value through their exceptional creativity, ingenuity, analysis, communication, and professionalism,” says Cherry. He goes on to add, ”We believe that we have the skills, expertise, and in-house ability to meet any requirement that we encounter.” The company provides a broad range of consulting services to organizations facing staffing shortages, budget constraints, or knowledge gaps. They serve the Department of Defense, federal agencies, state and local governments in Information Technology (IT), Financial Management and Budget Analysis and Execution, Human Resource Management, Logistics Management Services, Program Management amongst others. Hence, the company is in a strong position to respond to the fluctuations in today’s market. It has low overhead costs, a competitive benefits package, and
strong ties with big businesses as well as federal agencies. Another crucial aspect that is unique about this company is the fact that they routinely add qualified professionals to their database which allows them to be responsive to a variety of staffing and consulting needs. “We play to our strengths rather than spread ourselves too thin. Too many other companies, especially small companies, try to be all things to all people. That is a sure way to lose credibility quickly,” mentions Cherry. Succeed to Lead is an organization founded on administrative and management consulting and has grown to incorporate other capabilities as their reputation as well. Some of the biggest clients of the company include US Special Operations Command, HQs Marine Corps Systems Command, HQs U.S. Marine Corps and Small Business Administration. The company continues to see the traction within the Department of Defense sector and is now all set to expand into many other federal agencies and looking forward to some great teaming relationships with some of the large firms. Marching forward the company will continue to be a great organization that provides high quality and great service to its clients. “We are Veteran-friendly. Employees with prior military service often bring keen insight, experience, and knowledge of our government customers’ needs and requirements; this helps us develop better solutions for the most critical challenges which is a reflection of our motto, Your Success is Our Success!” says Cherry.
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CIO Insights
Revolutionary Changes across IT in the Retail Energy Business By John Burke, CIO, Ambit Energy
Ambit energy was founded in 2006 and is a provider of electricity and natural gas services in deregulated markets across the United States.
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fter 100 years of operations, the nation’s retail energy industry is going through a monumental transformation. Over the past five years, major information technology projects have upgraded the nation’s energy grid to provide more detail and control over energy production, distribution and consumption. In turn, the increased information available to organizations has CIO’s at utilities scrambling to implement systems and processes that best capitalize on the new data points. The most apparent example is with the deployment of digital smart meters at residences and commercial
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buildings. For the past century, mechanical energy meters were inspected every 30 days or so to best estimate the amount of power a building was drawing. (Remember the man in the yellow boots?) Over the past five years, millions of households and commercial buildings across the nation have been upgraded to digital “smart meters” – capable of transferring power reads wirelessly back to providers up to once every 15 minutes. Said another way, instead of handling one power read per month, retailers and utilities are receiving up to 2,880 reads per month! The benefits have been enormous, such as wire line providers saving transportation costs through remote management of meters, consumers receiving better service through digitally detected outages and consumers and businesses receiving greater bill detail that impacts energy conservation. Now, apply this same “digital management” to power transformers, relays, generation and power markets, and you have an industry driven by big data and the need to analyze and optimize performance.
The Pace of Adoption
Despite the evident wins with the Smart Grid expansion, the adoption of smart grid initiatives is an intrastate, with some state regions heavily invested in smart grid technologies while others only toying with pilot programs. Different state regions, driven by different state guidelines and different governance structures over the energy organizations, are adopting smart grids at different rates. This is largely due to the high cost to build out digital device technology within the grid to produce harvestable amounts of meaningful data. Texas and the west coast
states, such as California, Oregon, and Washington, have moved farther in some cases than deregulated states. Additionally, California has a robust time of day pricing plan, with new and innovative gas pipeline management technologies being implemented in northern California.
Big Data Challenge
John Burke states have been early adopters, while other states have moved more slowly. In addition to regional influences, smart grid adoption has been impacted by regulated vs. deregulated utility regions. The generation, wholesale, and retail players are competing among themselves to offer the best service to others in their industry.
Competing for Funds
For the most part, regulated utilities across the nation have been very slow to implement smart grid initiatives. IT organizations within regulated utilities have been competing for funds with the operational technology groups to improve the customer’s experience, as well as to improve the efficiency of delivery. In the deregulated world, these organizations are split into generation, delivery, and supply and have their own missions and budgets funded by their needs. This is not to say regulated utilities cannot move the shield forward with the smart grid. Progressive west coast
We have heard the buzz word “big data” for years and the retail energy industry is now beginning to deal with it. The easiest way to consider the impact of big data is to understand that a typical team of database administrators and business intelligence database software developers are not prepared to handle massive amounts of data. Due to this challenge, I’ve heard industry CIOs and CEOs speak in panicked terms on how to move forward. The biggest “big data” driver in retail energy industry is the
Google's Android operating system reached a new milestone during the third quarter of 2013. With a total base of 211.6 million smartphone units shipped during the quarter, Android accounted for 81 percent of all smartphone shipments. On the other hand, Microsoft's Windows Phone, grew an amazing 156 percent year over year. Source: International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
digital smart meter. Either through compliance measures forced upon utilities by public utility commissions to adopt smart meter data (e.g., state mandated time-of-day usage rating plans in northern California’s PG&E) or by hyper competitive pressures in deregulated markets (e.g., pre pay products driven of daily smart meter reads) big data is here to stay in energy. Many companies have chosen to outsource the management of smart meter data and a number of IT service firms have arisen to service this need. Others, such as Ambit Energy, have decided to handle the situation with in-house resources.
What’s Next?
Big data is difficult to deal with, but I am encouraged by the IT industry’s response. Products such as MongoDB, based on NoSQL, and Hadoop allow companies to input data on a disc and let the software analyze the data relationships for them, rather than attempting to process and store the volumes of data in a traditional relational database format. There is a paradigm shift that I consider a street smart approach to the problem: “nearness” to the answer is more cost effective than finding the “perfect relation” to the data. A lot of the time, “nearness” is all a company needs to make a decision. In the relational database world, vendors such as Microsoft (PDW) and Vertica have introduced products that allow for aggregated functions across massive sets of relational data. In summary, the retail energy is going through an IT driven shift as monumental as the introduction of the internet to that data industry. Although not at a rapid pace, digital technologies and applications are impacting energy retailers across the nation, and there are many areas in need of solutions. It is an exciting time to be a part of the change.
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Tigerspike: Unlocking the Power of Personal Media
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he world today has become highly technocentric where people are making maximum use of technology to save their time and efforts. Consumerization of IT has destabilized the traditional ways of shopping, conceiving media and socializing. Today people are fortified with handheld magical devices like Smart phones, tablets and mobile phones which has changed the way the world works. It has given them an ultimate power to gather information, shop, play games, watch audio-visuals and connect to the world at the wink of an eye. Changing trends demands businesses to acclimatize to the need of providing better tools to the workforce and better experience to customers. It has become very intricate to reach a fragmented audience due to many numbers of devices, screen sizes and operating
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Creating a common platform for all the solutions being deployed to customers and employees
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systems. Creating a common platform for all the solutions being deployed to customers and employees can deliver huge returns to businesses. To achieve the same, Tigerspike, with its world renowned design and user experience skills together with a hosted platform ‘Phoenix’, produces mobile
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applications that are unmatched. Phoenix automates many processes, and helpsthe businesses to make the most of personal media tools andstay ahead of the curve. Founded in 2003 by Luke Janssen, Tigerspike is a mobile technology company that pioneered UGC and mobile messaging. Today it is the world’s leading provider of personal media technology solutions specializing in user centric mobile software development. Tigerspikedesigns and builds solutions across all platforms and devices. From apps, hybrid and HTML5 responsive sites to the most complex back end integrations The organization uses their Kallide methodology which combines advanced user experience skills with enterprise grade engineering delivered using an enterprise mobility platform called Phoenix. The Phoenix platform and the UX methodologies which are built into it, reduce complexity, time to market, and total cost of mobility while creating scalable, usable, secure products and solutions. Phoenix also acts as a single source of big data mobile analytics. “Our focus on usability and UX methodologies and tools is an approach that is unique to us, and most software vendors are not user centric in their thinking,” says Janssen.
Building World Class Solutions
The organization is well placed to work with global brands. For an instance, They have developed a mobile app for ‘The Economist’, a leading newspaper with features like Editors highlights, Offline reading, Audio, interactive advertising and pinch to zoom which received a
Luke Janssen, Group CEO tremendous response. American Express, Woolworths, The Telegraph, Shell, Vodafone, Kaiser Permanente, Novartis, Emirates, Yahoo, and Fox are a few of its major clients. With success coming its way, Tigerspike has grown with over 50 percent CAGR in last five years and has set up a Future technologies division within its Innovation Lab to create a sustainable competitive advantage through future development of Phoenix and the creation of a suite of mobile focused patented new technologies. Tigerspike has also featured in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 every year since 2007. The organization plans to continue to grow through developing ongoing partnerships with Fortune 1000 companies, and to continually innovate to remain on the cutting edge of enterprise mobility for the next ten years and beyond.
View Point
Managing Trends in a
Socially Responsible Way Scott Sikora, CTO, WhitePages Based in Seattle, WhitePages is the provider of contact information for people and businesses in the U.S. Founded in 1997, the company has raised a funding of $45 million from Technology Crossover Ventures and Providence Equity Partners.
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very modern IT organization has embraced the value of a service oriented architecture. Loosely coupled services providing functionally to one another is a well-established industry norm. However, it is maddening that there are so few industry standards, or even accepted best practices about how these services are versioned, deployed and tested in a reliable, scalable and performance based way. The problem has only become more complex with the proliferation of local and cloudbased virtual machines that can be created and destroyed on the fly. I think the industry really needs some fundamental research on how to manage infrastructure at a servicelevel, rather than at an application or machine level. Add to this the
technology that is now available to link your mobile phone number to your old college apartment, Pinterest profile, Instagram photos, last four tweets, and the value of your current home. Managing these trends in a socially responsible way that brings value to our lives is something that will be playing out over the next 10 to 15 years.
The Big Three
Hence, the three biggest issues facing CIOs are hiring, engagement, and retention of talented tech professionals. The gap between supply and demand for well-trained software engineers is getting wider by the month. As an industry and a society, there is a need to encourage diversity and access for everyone to get technical training, starting in high school. I am committed to bridging WhitePages’ previous divide between the engineering team and the rest of the company. It has helped boost morale and has driven our engineers to think
Scott Sikora
outside the box and cultivate an innovative culture within our walls. In a company like WhitePages, where the majority of employees are engineers, I act on the behalf of both the business and tech departments to help cultivate an inclusive work environment, which encourages all members of the company to present a united front. I encourage our engineers to put on the hat of their peers ¬ inside and outside the office, across departments, and in roles that may not appear in their resume. Innovation often comes from places that you’d least expect and if you’re confined solely to your comfort zone, you’ll never dig up that next big idea. I put a great deal of importance on organization and culture, especially when it comes to the engineering program at WhitePages. I believe in the value of working with the individuals in our engineering departments to not only advise them to be “tech leaders”, but also help them become “people leaders”, a characteristic that can be overlooked in engineers. I work with our engineers on a daily basis to help build morale and leadership skills to ensure that they reach their full potential, in both technical skill and team management.
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December 2013
Tranquilmoney: Enabling Easy Management of Healthcare Receivables
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making sure the insurance plans pay what they contractually owe. In addition, Tranquilmoney also provides all the assistance needed to comply with the Affordable Care Act incentive payments, which is $44,000 per physician for Medicare. Tranquilmoney's software platform PracticeTracker is certified as meeting the requirements for this incentive payment. Tranquilmoney’s biggest client
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ealthcare providers, including physicians and retail pharmacies, are faced with declining reimbursement from insurance plans, and higher costs to comply with all the changing electronic data standards that have become practically mandatory. A typical physician must hire a consultant to decide among 400+ software packages available, pay for the software and infrastructure, pay for training a back office team, and constantly follow up to ensure collection of insurance receivables. This is where Tranquilmoney comes in. Founded by Karun Philip, Chairman and CEO, Tranquilmoney, the company provides the only "soupto-nuts" solution including Cloudhosted software, and a dedicated trained team of IT and medical billing professionals to each client. The New York based company charges a flat percentage of actual collections, with no extra charges for training, customization, and outsourced A/R follow up. “A typical physician would pay about five percent of their monthly collections, with no upfront cost, and out track record shows a typical improvement of 20 percent in collections, making the solution one that makes money rather than costing money,” adds Philip. The revenue comes out of complying with electronic data standards and
Tranquilmoney, provides the only "soup-to-nuts" solution including Cloud-hosted software, and a dedicated trained team of IT and medical billing professionals to each client
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Karun Philip, Chairman, CEO
is Costco Pharmacy, who has been with it since inception in 2001. “We manage around $900 million a year in third party healthcare receivables each year. We expect the future growth to come from the $2.7 trillion broader healthcare market, of which around $600 billion is physician receivables,” explains Philip. The market is fragmented, but there is a trend towards consolidation that is emerging, and Tranquilmoney is positioned to be a strong player in the market over the next decade.
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December 2013
View Point
The Future of
Video in Education By Sean Brown, SVP, Sonic Foundry
Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO) is a provider of enterprise webcasting solutions, video content management and distribution for education, business and government.
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he cost of higher education has nearly doubled since 2000 and continues to rise, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. At the same time, college enrolments are declining, down 2.3 percent this spring compared with last year. The skills preparedness of a college degree have come into question — a 2013 “Bridge That Gap” Index shows that only 39 percent of employers believe college graduates they interviewed over the past two years were prepared for a job in their field. Much of the discussion around fixing our broken education system is focused on finding technology solutions; and for good reason. Front and center in this discussion is the flipped classroom model, which uses lecture via video outside of the classroom while reserving prized class time for 1:1 studentteacher interaction. It is imperative to increase the real-time and real-world value of college degrees in order to meet the rising costs of higher education. Incorporating video into classrooms can provide a better learning experience for students. Despite the investment of time and effort required to implement the flipped classroom model effectively, the approach is clearly delivering key
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benefits to both students and faculty and will continue to see increased adoption in the coming months and years. Take Clemson University, for instance. The flipped model is one that is quickly catching on with faculty there, thanks to professors like Ralph Welsh, who started experimenting with this technologydriven pedagogy three years ago. Ralph redesigned and refined his courses over time and now puts the onus on the student to come to class already having watched the lectures and ready to engage in conversation. He has personally seen a 50 percent increase in the number of courses he can offer with the flipped model. Student satisfaction is high, because it is an engaging learning experience and is meeting the interest of a new generation of technology students. Video-based online learning, whether it is used to flip a course or to reach students in real-time regardless of time and location, is becoming a standard offering in higher ed. Embracing video in the classroom benefits both faculty and students. This new student-driven demand is putting academic video at the top of institutions’ technology planning initiatives, and more and more faculty members are realizing the power of
Sean Brown
lecture capture to broaden reach and cater to individual student needs. But it hasn’t always been that way. Like any new initiative, generally speaking, there will be some reluctance and fear from those involved. The faculty is in front of the classroom. Their faces, their reputations are on the line. It can be scary facing a camera and a remote audience that spans time and distance when they are accustomed to facing students in the classroom. But the attitude toward academic video from faculty members is changing. They are embracing the shift in pedagogy, seeing it as a tool that enhances learning, not forcing them into new ways of teaching. In fact, the first national faculty survey about flipped instruction, released in November by Sonic Foundry, in conjunction with The Center for Digital Education, shows that 50 percent of faculty polled are already flipping or plan to flip by this time next year, and 81 percent say an “improved mastery of information” is the top student benefit. Mary Fanelli Ayala, the dean of
the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ENMU, uses lecture capture in her classroom and says streaming video improves the pedagogy of online, hybrid and even faceto-face classes. “High-quality, user-friendly lecture capture means that students can tune in live or later to the actual teaching
Video-based online learning, whether it’s used to flip a course or to reach students in realtime regardless of time and location, is becoming a standard offering in higher education
presence of our best professors. Face-to-face students can ‘attend’ when they’re sick without sharing the latest bug with the whole class, and everyone can review lectures and explanations before a test,” she says. And students love that. New innovations in education technology this year will further enhance the classroom experience. Sonic Foundry has innovated new ways for faculty and students to create and share lectures, learning modules and assignments wherever they are. The company has put the tools needed to quickly capture, upload, edit and publish rich video right into the hands of the faculty. Using a laptop or computer’s built-in camera and microphone, they can easily record high quality video and rich media. This allows faculty to have more control over their content, and user-generated content easily facilitates flipped instruction. The classroom of the future provides more control and flexibility when it comes to content creation. In fact faculty and students are driving it just as much as the schools’ technologists. This year you will see faculty and students sharing knowledge anywhere, regardless of technology infrastructure thanks to the new options for user-generated content. We will see more flexibility in creation and consumption of rich video, and schools will have vast portals of rich video that can be referenced for years to come. The knowledge shared in your classroom is important, so embrace the power of video in your classrooms and watch how much more effective and successful you and your students will be.
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December 2013
Vidyo Inc.: Creating a Paradigm Shift in the Video Communications Industry
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or many years, legacy video conferencing did not meet user expectations. Outside of expensive telepresence rooms, the quality was inconsistent. Hackensackheadquartered Vidyo, founded in 2005, changed the industry by offering a system that provides ease of use, scalability and a high-quality experience, based on a completely new architecture. Vidyo’s solution does not require dedicated networks and reduces costs by leveraging the VidyoRouter™, which utilizes scalable video technology (SVC) to provide everyone their own, reservation-less meeting place. In the past, video conferencing infrastructure required full racks of propriety hardware. Now it can be cloud based on a handful of virtual machines. Vidyo’s infrastructure can be accessed from any device: smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops and immersive room systems, and can connect with legacy endpoints as well. Vidyo runs over non-QoS networks so that anyone on an Internet, LTE or 4G connection can participate in a high-quality video conference from any location in the world. Vidyo's product portfolio delivers comprehensive support for end user platforms and includes client software for most mobile devices and desktop operating systems. Vidyo also offers small and large room solutions, recording functionality, and can be deployed as a private or public cloud solution. This paradigm shift in video communications has had a tremendous impact on the industry.
Bringing Universally Affordable Visual Communications to the Masses Most solutions available from legacy players in today’s visual communications market are simply not affordable
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for many types of organizations and users nor are they capable of scaling for large deployments. Legacy video conferencing solutions require dedicated networks and massive amounts of proprietary hardware – unlike Vidyo which works over the Internet, general IP networks, 4G or LTE connections and can run on virtual appliances. Vidyo is the only solution on the market today to offer high quality, massive scalability, affordability and access to anyone on virtually any device. The VidyoRouter™ eliminates the need for the older, Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) model that requires massive computation, transcoding and decoding in order to deliver multiparty interaction. The VidyoRouter enables artifact free, low delay, video collaboration with unprecedented error resiliency and low latency rate matching resulting in natural, affordable, high-quality video conferencing. Vidyo continues to be the industry’s primary source of technological innovation, driving the future of video communication to accelerate creation of innovative guidelines that move the industry forward.
Testament to The Claim
Vidyo has over 2000 customers using Vidyo-branded systems worldwide, conferencing service providers, and collaborations with industry giants, including Google, Nintendo, Ricoh and Hitachi. The company also has multiple marquee healthcare partners such as Philips, HealthSpot, REACH Health, Rubbermaid Telemedicine and AMD Global Telemedicine driving technology innovation for medical providers and enabling new applications for patient care and physician collaboration.
Ofer Shapiro, President & CEO
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, uses Vidyo to support global, large-scale, realtime collaborative video conferencing among a community of 20,000 scientists from over 600 institutes. Vidyo is also being used in many academic communities such as Internet2, and universities such as Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern, and has corporate customers such as Mozilla. Vidyo remains committed to transforming the way the world communicates and collaborates with the backing of distinguished investors. In April of 2013, the company announced a $17.1 million round of financing, bringing the total amount of net capital raised by the company to $116 million since its founding. Vidyo’s growth will continue to be driven by a new way of selling video conferencing, allowing Vidyo’s partners and customers to incorporate video communications into devices and applications people use in their regular work environments and daily lives. Vidyo continues to innovate in the industry by providing new collaboration technologies, and working towards driving standards such as WebRTC (through the relationship with Google) and H.265.
Windstream Corp.: Premier Enterprise Data, Voice, Network and Cloud Provider
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oday’s fast-paced world requires increased productivity and availability of IT resources and applications for businesses who need to rapidly implement cloud services without costly capital investments, reshape their environments on demand, adhere to strict regulatory compliance requirements, store massive amounts of mission-critical data, and more. Windstream, headquartered in Little Rock, AR, understands these business challenges and delivers a comprehensive product suite of cloud solutions, managed services, voice and network options specifically designed to help businesses meet their goals. Founded in 2006, Windstream is a FORTUNE 500, nationwide provider of advanced networking, data center and cloud services to businesses of all sizes. Through a series of acquisitions, the company has grown its voice and data network from 16 states to a nationwide presence and
Jeff Gardner, CEO & President
increased its data center total to 26 after acquiring Hosted Solutions in 2010. “As one of the nation’s largest data, voice, network and cloud providers, our ‘personalized service, smart solutions’ brand promise, combined with our ability to provide end-to-end technology solutions, positions Windstream for continued success and growth,” says Jeff Gardner, chief executive officer and president of Windstream.
More than 80 percent of its business customers, ranging from startups to FORTUNE 100 companies, trust their production-level environments with Windstream. Customized solutions, rapid response times and more personalized service than that of the competition, all offer Windstream customers the convenience and ease of working with a single point of contact, all with a single provider.
An End-to-End Solutions Provider
The Windstream Promise
Powered by 26 state-of-the-art, SSAE 16 and PCI-compliant data centers across the nation, Windstream offers enterpriseclass cloud computing solutions including public, private, and hybrid cloud. These managed and dedicated hosting solutions, combined with a full line-up of advanced network communications and technology products, including voice and data services such as VoIP, SIP trunking, MPLS, and dedicated high-speed Internet, offer clients a complete set of integrated, end-to-end services. The Hosted Solutions "high touch" approach ensures consistently agile solutions for end users. Solutions such as disaster recovery, network services, OS management, application server management, information security, data protection (and more) are custom-designed by a team of dedicated, expert solutions engineers and architects, and then supported 24x7 by three tiers of support personnel, protecting missioncritical infrastructure and data.
For a large organization with more than six billion dollars in annual revenue, Windstream is exceedingly flexible and nimble, developing customized technology solutions specifically designed to meet the needs of each individual customer, acting as a trusted advisor and dedicated to their customers’ success - all critical during an era when technologies change almost daily. The company is committed to being a nationwide, premier enterprise data, voice, network and cloud provider. “No matter the business challenge, Windstream can meet the needs of any client seeking a provider with a strong, successful history of delivering managed hosting, cloud services, disaster recovery options, business continuity solutions and more,” says Jeff Gardner. Windstream continues to provide unmatched service and cutting-edge technology innovations, allowing its customers to focus on their business operations with the assurance of having Windstream as their trusted advisor.
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View Point
Managing
Regulated Data
in the Cloud By Daniel Udoutch, CEO, Code Green Networks
Founded in 2004, Code Green Networks, Inc. provides data loss prevention and content security solutions for enterprises. Headquartered in Sunnywale, the company has raised a funding of $34 million from Sierra Ventures, Bay Partners and SV Angel
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loud storage offers impressive benefit to the enterprise in terms of cost reduction, scalability and operational ease. However, the very off-loading and “sharing� of resources that underlies these advantages come with a potential loss of visibility into where sensitive data resides and how it is protected. Security and meeting compliance requirements involving regulated information are in fact, often cited as the main inhibitors to cloud adoption. Many IT professionals worry that cloud computing will be less secure than what they can deliver on their own premises. These concerns climb to critical importance when the organization must comply with industry or government regulatory bodies governing, for example, the handling of personal health or private financial records.
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides regulatory guidance for Protected Health Information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and related rulings. The original HIPAA guidelines covered healthcare organizations, insurance companies and other entities as primary handlers of this information. But in 2013 the HHS released its Omnibus ruling clarifying, among other things, that storage companies maintaining protected health information nowneed to comply with regulations regardless of whether they actually view the information they hold. The new rules specifically include cloud service providers. The Data Security Standards established by the Payment Card Industry (PCI-DSS) impose privacy protection rules on retailers, credit unions, banks and other organizationshandling card and card holder information. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, GLBA,
DLP solutions come with a variety of sophisticated tools which can be deployed to reduce the risk of inadvertent or accidental leaks requires financial institutions to properly protect a variety of personal information. There are also numerous state privacy regulations that must be followed. Many other regulatory requirements can be cited. Unfortunately, the improper release of regulated information can
result in painful consequences ranging from damaging media exposure to harsh fines and legal liabilities. Data Loss Prevention, DLP, technology has proven to be an essentialtoolin protecting regulated and other sensitive data as such information has migrated from secure data centers, to distributed file servers to the desktop, and, to mobile computing devices. Most recently, DLP providers are extending their solutions with features to control content in cloud storage thus providing the important ability to apply uniform governance of information over the complete network. DLP solutions come with a variety of sophisticated tools which can be deployed to reduce the risk of inadvertent or accidental leaks or
exposure of sensitive information outside authorized channels. It provides this capability by using data monitoring, filtering, blocking and remediation features that can be customized to meet the requirements of the organization. Our experience in helping companies comply with regulated information requirements lead us to suggest that paying attention to a few basic principles may help the organization prepare for the migration of sensitive information to the cloud 1) Involve the Stakeholders by insuring the participation of those responsible for managing the use of regulated information and those understanding the regulatory compliance requirements 2) Set objectives and establish credible expectations appropriate for the organization by gathering and reviewing existing policies and procedures concerning the handling of sensitive information. Develop agreement on what information you want to place in cloud storage and note any information requiring special protection and control. In the absence of a sensible and well communicated policy, employees will often use unsecured, cloud services to store company confidential data in order to make it more easily accessible from their home or their personal mobile devices. 3) Assess the costs Involved through a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analyses that will make it easier to compare alternative possibilities. In this case, such a study should include the costs for hardware, software licensing payment and terms, maintenance, training, and any professional services that may be required. 4) Test Any Proposed Solutionby
Daniel Udoutch
insisting on a short demonstration or Proof of Concept to evaluate ease of installation and usage with your own systems and data, both inside and outside of cloud storage. A system that requires separate services only for cloud storage will be both inefficient and confusing in operation. Seek a solution capable of comprehensive and consistent compliance management across the enterprise including the cloud, 5) Before storing any new information in the cloud, DLP should be employed to inspect all previously stored information to bring it under the same policy levels as will be applied to newly arriving data. Once this has been done, conduct a compliance audit involving the information across the enterprise. An appropriately configured DLP solution will facilitate consistent enforcement of data management policies across the enterprise whereever information resides, including the cloud and under unified administrative control. This will substantially reduce the data loss risks to an organization as a key component of its overall information governance strategy.
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View Point
Addressing Endpoints and Servers as a Security Blind Spot By Patrick Morley, President & CEO, Bit9
Waltham headquartered Bit9 is a provider of endpoint and server security based on real -time visibility and protection. The company which was founded in 2008 till date has received funding of $72.8 million from the likes of Atlas Venture,Highland Capital Partners,Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and .406 Ventures
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ot too long ago, securing the enterprise IT environment was a lot easier than it is today. Applications ran on dedicated servers in the data center, and IT organizations controlled access to these applications and established boundaries to enforce security policies. Today, rapidly evolving computer trends such as virtualization, mobile and the cloud are impacting network security in major ways. Fortunately, innovations in network security have kept pace with these trends, resulting in a new generation of advanced threat prevention. For example, by unifying security at the network and hypervisor levels, businesses canbetter realize the
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major benefits of virtualization — including significant flexibility and cost-savings —without compromising security. The belief is that the efficiency benefits of new technologies will easily offset the cost of next-generation network security. As a result, organizations have adopted these new measures rapidly. But the problem with many nextgeneration network security approaches is that they can create a false sense of confidence, because they do not fortify “nontraditional” endpoints such as laptops and servers. Endpoint security came into being due to a paradigm shift in what is considered a network’s perimeter. Today, as more and more people use laptops to work from places other than the home office, the IT perimeter is not as well-defined. This makes it impossible for centralized network security devices to completely protect computers. Endpoint security supplements network security, by allowing computers and servers to defend themselves and the valuable information on them. This capability is critical because failure to sufficiently protect endpoints and servers can leave organizations with a huge security blind spot. Advanced malware — which disrupts computer operations, gathers sensitive information or enables access to private computer system is growing at a dizzying pace. Security researchers estimate there are more than 100,000 new malware samples cataloged each day, which translates to about
70 every minute or more than one new threat every second. Traditional antivirus solutions, which depend on identifying malware by its previously seen signatures, can no longer keep up with this continuous stream of new, never-before-seen malware. With the amount of malware currently being distributed, some percentage of computers will always be infected and capable of spreading infection to other machines on the network. Furthermore, as hackers shift their ultimate goals from disruption and notoriety to financial and intellectual property theft, the tactics they use have changed accordingly. The advanced malware used today is increasingly targetspecific and stealthy, often evading signature-based defenses. Adding to the challenge is the fact that, due to the dramatic increase in advanced threats, IT security teams are getting a lot more alerts. These need to be prioritized and investigated, and if necessary, contained and remediated. But to do this, certain questions need to be answered, such as — is there really malware on my computers? Which ones? Did it execute? What did it do? Did it delete itself? What machines need clean-up? Most alerts come from network devices, but addressing them requires visibilityinto what’s happening on endpoints and servers. For most enterprises, the endpoint has become the weakest link — and the attacker’s target of choice. Servers, for example, are where the majority of customer data, intellectual property and user credentials are stored. Failure to protect servers from advanced threats can lead to significant data loss, brand damage, large financial penalties, and diminished customer confidence.“Nontraditional” endpoints like laptops are vulnerable because they are often operating offnetwork and not always protected
by corporate network security. Not surprisingly, a 2013 Webroot study showed that companies with more than 25 percent of their employees accessing servers remotely have higher rates of malware threats. In addition, traditional endpoints like PCs can become “zombies” by plugging in infected USB devices or mobile phones. Sadly, while most of the bad guys have recognized the endpoint as the low-hanging fruit on the enterprise tree, many enterprises have not. But just as next-generation network security has evolved to meet the world of modern, advanced
Endpoint security supplements network security, by allowing computers and servers to defend themselves and the valuable information on them threats, so too should endpoint and server security. A new generation of endpoint and server security should be based on several concepts including: • Real-time, continuous visibility into every endpoint and server (so malware will have minimal time to
Patrick Morley
execute) • Detection on those endpoints and servers in order to identify threats that get past antivirus (without requiring a signature) • Effective response, which requires a complete history of what’s happened on every endpoint and server • Prevention— or the ability to stop any untrusted software from executing Finally, and perhaps most importantly, integration between network, endpoint and server security is needed to ensure optimal response to and prevention ofadvanced threats. Until now, these two types of security have largely operated independently of each other. Today’s advanced threats call for a fundamental mindset shift, including a more cohesive, integrated approach and more due diligence where endpoint and server security is concerned. Moving forward, eliminating this endpoint and server blind spot will be essential toprotecting critical IT and business assets from harm.
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View Point
Fact Driven Design: Enabling Factual and Objective Driven Development By Shai Wininger, CTO, Fiverr International Limited
Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Fiverr is a global online micro-task marketplace offering tasks and services. The company has received a total funding of $20 million from Accel Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners.
W
ith data deluge surpassing the thresholds on a regular basis, the industry is focusing on integration and analysis of data to derive helpful insights. The importance of data is being talked about a lot. However, what differentiates a successful product from a struggling one is the awareness of where and when to integrate data into your production cycle. The use of data through business intelligence and
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experimentation has a lot to do with the maturity of the company and its team. Implementing a Business Intelligence system is a challenging effort and usually requires several dedicated people for the job. In reality, where resources are always limited, it is not uncommon for a team to hold back on BI and experimentation in favor of moving faster with product features. We faced the same dilemma when we started Fiverr, and we decided to wait for the right time.
The Right Moment
What is that right moment? BI and experimentation are two different beasts. For BI to be effective, it requires a lot of data to work with. There is no sense in building a bigdata solution just for a few visitors a day. Churn and cohort analysis for 100-200 users is a waste of effort. Experimentation however, is different. It is easy to set up, costs virtually nothing, and can help tune a product into growth from the get-go. Building an experimentation culture is key to growing your product, and company. Product Management is becoming a science. Although there is still a distinction between Growth Hackers and Product Managers, this will eventually dissolve into one title. Companies will expect their Product Managers to be data savvy and growth oriented.
Fact Driven Design
Interaction with younger startups made me realize that companies go through similar evolution stages, from being almost agnostic to data to reaching factual, objective driven development Zen. I call this level of enlightenment ‘Fact Driven Design’. A few simple steps can be followed for achieving Fact Driven Design Zen. The first step is to define business objectives as clear, measurable KPIs. Secondly, you need to come up with a hypothesis that aims at improving one of the KPIs. This should be followed by building your changes which could be anything from a small change to a full feature. The final step is to track the KPIs you planned on improving and look for positive results through A/B testing. This multi-step process should be repeated forever. While following this process, startups go through various phases and finally arrive at Fact Driven Design Zen. Using Fact Driven Design (FDD) can save your
company. It forces everyone to focus on what is important. Resources are utilized better and arguments are saved. This makes the entire team home in on what is most important for your business.
Challenges in Implementation
Implementation of FDD involves various challenges. The first one is the “Traffic Challenge”. Your site may not have sufficient traffic to complete experiments in a reasonable amount of time. If you are among the lucky ones that do, you will still find it hard to run tests in lower parts of your funnel, where traffic is slim. So, one needs to focus on “Top Of Funnel” experiments like starting with your homepage. Experiment must be done with bigger changes because the smaller the change, the more traffic you will need in order to get dependable results. You also need to make sure you choose an A/B Test platform that lets you see conversion difference trends before full confidence is reached. The next challenge is “The
Worldwide PC shipments are expected to fall by -10.1 percent in 2013, slightly below the previous projection of -9.7 percent, and by far the most severe yearly contraction on record. Source: (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.
Shai Wininger
Developer Challenge”. Development resources are limited. So, have your team work on two (or more) versions to begin with. Creating more variations after the feature is live in production is always harder to justify. Have your team build stuff in a flexible way. Changes are a part of the product’s lifecycle and engineers should prepare for them. Doing this will make your code better and more maintainable regardless of FDD. The final challenge is for the designers. Designers are often driven by gut feelings. They tend to invest most of their time and attention on typography, layout and color principals. Working with data is not their forte’ and in many cases, they might resent the idea altogether. Involving designers in early experimentation discussions is the best way to tackle with this problem. Spend time talking about your KPIs and how you expect to improve them. At Fiverr, designers are part of all the product sessions. Another way to get designers on board is by allowing them to come up with their own hypothesis, putting it to the test, and letting them ‘own’ the experiment and its results.
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View Point
From Ink to iPads:
Leveraging Mobile Apps to Transform your Business By James Quigley, CEO & Co-founder, Canvas
Founded in 2008, Canvas is a cloud-based software service that enables users to collect information using mobile devices, share that information and integrate with existing backend systems. The Reston based company has raised funding of $9.3 million from Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, Melanie Perkins and Osage Venture Partners.
F
or all of the momentum around enterprise adoption of cloud and mobile technologies, it is useful to take a step back and recognize that businesses have only scratched the service when it comes to the productivity and cost benefits these technologies can deliver. We will look back at this period of rampant growth of mobile devices and realize it was in fact just the start of the curve as far as businesses are concerned. Consider that the average office worker still goes through approximately 10,000 sheets of paper a year (at a cost of $80 a year per worker), figures that indicate businesses of all sizes are being held back in productivity, cost effectiveness and innovation by their reliance on paper. At the same time, there remains a disconnect between the desire by enterprises to leverage mobile apps and the pace of mobile app development. In an Appcelerator survey of enterprise leaders released in January 2013, Fifty-five percent of companies ranked mobility at the top or near the top of their priorities list, with 66 percent plan employee-facing
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mobile applications. However, the same survey reports that 73 percent of enterprises have built fewer than five applications, and 39 percent have built none or just one. For enterprise and IT decision makers to experience the full benefits of cloud computing and mobility the first step is often a very simple reduction on their
reliance of paper based processes. Businesses of all shapes and sizes still rely quite heavily on old school data collection using paper. One only has to meet a service technician at their
home, sign up a child for school, or visit the doctors office to see how deeply this reliance is embedded in our daily lives.
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Make it Simple
Many enterprise decision makers have reached a point with an IT project when the remedy becomes more troublesome than the ailment it was designed to cure. An enterprise can benefit significantly by removing paper from their business processes, but if paper forms and Excel spreadsheets are replaced by equally cumbersome electronic forms that require repetitive data entry, the benefits can evaporate quickly. For that reason, it is critical for enterprises to leverage an intuitive mobile app solution that does not require weeks of training, or that is not built to adapt in real-time to diverse user needs. Cloud-based mobile app solutions ensure that users can easily convert paper forms to apps, and then add and remove features and functionality as needs dictate. The less complexities introduced into the mobile app solution, the better the chance it will be embraced by the workforce and used in a way that will deliver the desired benefits.
Make it Cost-Effective
As referenced, reliance on paper costs enterprises in a major way. Converting paper forms and paperbased processes to mobile apps eliminates not only costs associated with the paper itself, but also costs related to inefficiencies that result from paper forms errors, delays in processing paperwork, and the inability to provide decision makers with access to real-time information. But there are options in getting from Point A to Point B, and each has its own cost and resource
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requirements. Enterprises might find it appealing to create a mobile app from scratch, or even build an enterprise app store, as both allow the enterprise to in their minds retain full control of the apps. But these are significant undertakings that eat into budgets, IT resources. These projects can take several weeks, if not months, and is one reason that, as the Appcelerator survey shows, more enterprises are not deploying multiple apps. A key reason that Canvas’ cloudbased, “as-a-Service” mobile app platform has been embraced by thousands of organizations is that it allows enterprises to eliminate costs associated with a custom, inhouse app development project, in turn freeing up IT and development personnel to address more pressing needs.
Make it Scalable and Flexible
It is not uncommon for enterprises to view mobile app development as a one-time project and this can lead to an approach where the business
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The question becomes how an enterprise can quickly and efficiently make this transition in a way that maximizes cost savings, productivity gains and innovation, and how it can use the technology to affect these changes.
It is critical for enterprises to leverage an intuitive mobile app solution that is not built to adapt in realtime to diverse user needs
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James Quigley
hops from one mobile app project to the next – re-creating parts of the wheel each time. One-off mobile app projects also tempt enterprises to build an app for a specific set of user needs, on a specific platform, or only optimized for certain mobile devices. Flexibility is critical, and a cloudbased mobile app solution can ensure that each individual app seamlessly integrates with other apps, as well as the enterprise’s existing backend systems. This flexibility and scalability connects each app project to a broader, long-term enterprise mobile strategy. A 2012 survey by IDG Research found that the overwhelming majority of IT decision makers (86 percent) view enterprise app projects as a critical or strategic priority, but that two-thirds of respondents indicate it is extremely or very challenging to deliver these applications on time or on budget. Leveraging a cloud-based mobile app solution breaks down many of the cost and complexity obstacles to mobile app deployment, ensuring that enterprises can fully leverage the benefits of transitioning from paper forms to mobile apps.
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