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July 2022
Vol - 3 Issue - 9
Must-Watch Tech Companies Special Head of Advisory Board Dr. Manoj Varghese, Ph.D
Managing Editor Sarath Shyam
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Dr. Johny Andrews Andrew Scott Joseph Alex
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Digital First Magazine July 2022
Digital First Magazine is a digital magazine published by Connecta Innovation Private Limited. All rights reserved. The opinions expressed in the content are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Connecta Innovation Private Limited or any of its members or associates. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for the advertisements and all representation of warranties made in such advertisements are those of the advertisers and not of the publisher. Digital First trademark is owned by DFG Digital First Infotech Pvt Ltd. and Connecta Innovation Pvt Ltd. has permission to use Digital First brand name. Digital First Magazine is a Free Subscription digital magazine strictly not for sale and has to be strictly for internal private use only. Publisher does not assume any responsibility arising out of anyone printing copy of this digital magazine in any format and in any country and all matters related to that.
MANAGING EDITOR’S NOTE
Why Tech Matters?
I
f change is the only constant, then technology waits for no one. It is in a continuous state of development and upgrades - no wonder it influences all the existing industries. For instance, we saw rapidly accelerating digital transformation when the pandemic disrupted every organisation’s operations. Remote working became the new norm. Zoom, the video conferencing company, added an unprecedented number of free participants in the first half of 2020, making $328 million in revenue during its February–April quarter. Like Zoom, which became a household name practically overnight, many technology companies thrived during the pandemic while the world expected a shrink in economic growth. In many ways, 2020 was a turning point for mankind and a boon for business leaders who embraced the latest technologies. Experts believe that in the next decade, we will experience more progress than the last 100 years combined as technology reshapes health and material science, energy, transportation, and a broad range of
industries and domains. The emergence of technologies like Augmented Reality (AR), which is expected to grow by a CAGR of 100% in the period 2021–2025 to reach a total revenue of USD 20 billion in 2025, is enough to convince any executive that tech is the go-to choice of the future. Business leaders much keep an eye on the latest upgrades in technology to make their job easier. The phase of immediate crisis management is over. Now, it is time to ay solid foundations for future innovation and growth. Adopting the latest technology is the best solution. In this issue, we have identified ‘10 Must-Watch Tech Companies - 2022’ that are setting new trends and driving transformational changes across all business segments. On the cover, we feature Corent Technology, a global organisation known for automating some of the most complex, time and labour-consuming Cloud migration, modernisation, and management tasks. Enjoy Reading.
Sarath Shyam
Digital First Magazine July 2022
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CONTENTS CONTENTS
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COVER STORY
CORENT TECHNOLOGY
A GAME-CHANGING PLATFORM FOR THE SAAS INDUSTRY
MUST-WATCH
TECH
COMPANIES 2022
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Digital First Magazine July 2022
Maarten Vyncke
Alon Mantsur
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AUG-E
CYBRELLA
Working Towards a Sustainable Tomorrow
Offering Highly Advanced and TailorMade Cybersecurity Solutions
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COVER STORY
FEYZI FATEHI CEO, CORENT TECHNOLOGY
EMPOWERING A NEW GENERATION OF SAAS ENTREPRENEURS
Patrick Henry
Thomas Engelbertz
Kenneth Bond
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GROGURU INC.
LEARNSHIP
ROOK CONNECT
Offering Strategic Water Management Solutions to Commercial Farmers
Unlocking the Potential of Multicultural Teams with a Cutting-Edge Training Platform
The Cutting-Edge Business Management Software Designed to Maximize Efficiency
Digital First Magazine July 2022
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CONTENTS CONTENTS
26 cyan Security Group On a Mission to Make the Digital World a Safer Place Frank von Seth, CEO
36 ICE CREAM LAB Delighting Customers with Premium Ice Cream Extravaganza
Sachin Pradhan, Operations Director
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Digital First Magazine July 2022
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Beyond Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Kimberly B. Lewis, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of East Texas, and Owner of Motivational Muse, LLC.
EXPERT’S OPINION
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IN MY VIEW
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Future and Scope of Fintech in India Ajit Deshmukh, Managing Director and CoHead – Investment Banking, Equirus
Trends that will Dominate the PR Industry in 2022 Dhanlaxmi Bhoir, Assistant to GM and PRCorporate Communications, TCL India
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The Age of Hyperpersonalized Customer Experience (CX) with AI and Big data Navin Dhananjaya, Chief Solutions Officer, Ugam, a Merkle Company
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Environment-friendly Business Ideas for Entrepreneurs KD Kuldeep, Business Coach
LEADERS’S INSIGHTS
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The Rapidly Growing Demand to Learn, Understand and Analyze – The Data Sameer Redij, Chief Revenue Officer, ESDS Software Solution Ltd
Digital First Magazine July 2022
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IN MY
VIEW
Beyond Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Kimberly B. Lewis, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of East Texas, and Owner of Motivational Muse, LLC.
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he challenge to attract and retain talent has never been more difficult than it is today. The pandemic ushered in a long line of people resigning from their jobs in search of more flexibility, work-life balance, and control over their own destiny. The Great Resignation, a term used to describe the throngs of people quitting their jobs in the last 18 months, nearly carries the same gravity as the phrase The Great Depression. The Great Depression was a global economic depression between 1929 and 1939 that began after a sharp decline in stock prices in the United States. This caused an economic ripple effect that shook the economies of the world. The discussion in boardrooms around the world these days centers around why people are quitting, how to attract new talent and most of all, how to keep the people that are still working. Case in point, a Microsoft survey of more than 30,000 workers worldwide showed that as many as 41% of workers were thinking about quitting their jobs or at least changing their professions. The uncertainty of the future has caused people to have a sobering revelation about their s present jobs and their goals. Obviously many are seeking something different than what they have, or perhaps have ever known.
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Workers want to be valued, respected, paid an equitable wage, seen as individuals and not as digits on a spreadsheet, and they desperately want to BELONG
KIMBERLY B. LEWIS
Kimberly B. Lewis is the President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of East Texas and the owner of Motivational Muse, LLC. She has more than 20 years of executive level non-profit and business experience. She is an author, speaker, executive life coach, consultant and frequent contributor to Forbes Magazine as a member of the Forbes Nonprofit Council. She has authored three books: a historical novel entitled “The Fourth Generation,” “A Seat At The Table or A Part of The Meal”- Creating A Culture of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, and the most recent publication entitled “Biases” – A Guide for Uncovering Area of Unconscious Bias.”
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In the UK and Ireland, a study was conducted by Personio, an HR software company indicating that 38% of the workforce also planned to resign from their jobs within a year’s time. So this trend of the “Big Quit,” continues and is spreading globally. According to the US Department of Labor, more than 4 million people quit their jobs in the month of April, the highest monthly surge to date. So to answer the first question, “why are people quitting?” The Pew Research Center surveyed workers recently and found that low pay, a lack of opportunities for promotion and a feeling of disrespect at work are the main reasons why Americans quit their jobs in 2021. The other prevailing issue is childcare. The pandemic closed many childcare facilities, reducing access to childcare providers.
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Childcare is also costly in the US, so when you add low wages to the lack of access to affordable childcare, it computes to the fact that for many it’s more economical for at least one caregiver to remain at home with the children. The next two questions at the table are how to attract new talent and keep current employees working. These questions are ones that companies have some control over. But, then again “control” is part of the problem. Workers want to be valued, respected, paid an equitable wage, seen as individuals and not as digits on a spreadsheet, and they desperately want to BELONG. This sense of belonging, goes far beyond having a diverse and inclusive workforce. The “belonging” is tribal. Workers spend approximately 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week at their jobs, with their co-workers. If there is a disconnect between them and their co-workers or supervisor, it can be a lonely and frustrating existence. Belonging is when feel accepted, genuinely liked and appreciated by those around you. When a worker experiences these things, the worker has essentially found their tribe. To build or develop a sense of belonging, it is essential that company leaders relax their control. Utilize these tips to begin changing the culture of your business: 1. Believe that all people enter the job with ”good intent.” They intend to do a good job and can be trusted to learn the job and do it well consistently. 2. Trust teams to work out their struggles, and give them some tools to help them to understand each other’s perspective through training on biases and teamwork. 3. Encourage “safe spaces” for workers to speak openly and respectfully. 4. Don’t be afraid to show vulnerability. Speak about your failures and struggles and how you overcame them or how you’re still working on them. 5. Finally, treat everyone equitably, not equally. This means that one employee may need the flexibility to work different hours to allow him to pick his children up from school and another may need work from home to care for an ailing parent. To build trust, and rebuild the workforce, flexibility and new way of leading is required. Paying higher wages alone, will not cut it anymore. Creating a culture that fosters a community atmosphere and tears down silos, allows people to get to know each other. It ensures people that they won’t be penalized for actually showing that they care about their co-workers by getting rid of terms like “fraternization” or “chain of command” and related policies. Leaders have to get back to showing human compassion. They have to get back to trusting people and in turn the workforce will trust them enough to return to work.
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Digital First Magazine Higher Education Digest July 2021 2022 January
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First Magazine 14 Digital July 2022
COVER STORY
CORENT TECHNOLOGY
A GAME-CHANGING PLATFORM FOR THE SAAS INDUSTRY Corent Technology is a global organization known for automating some of the most complex, time and labor-consuming Cloud migration, modernization, and management tasks. In conversation with Digital First Magazine, Corent Technology’s Vice President of Partner and Market Development, Scott Chate shares his insights on the software industry, the inception and journey of Corent, its service offerings, and a lot more.
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Mr. Scott, in your opinion, how has been the growth of the global SaaS market? And most importantly, how does Corent Technology position itself in this competitive market? The growth of the global SaaS market has been incredible. Since the first major validation of the SaaS model by Salesforce, hundreds of high-profile SaaS companies have driven a revolution in software, disrupting the traditional ISV landscape. Salesforce was established in the late 90s and today has a market capitalization of over $195 B and earns more than $25 B in revenue per year. That is incredible growth, but one company does not bring a revolution. To see the whole picture, you have to acknowledge Workday, ServiceNow, Shopify, and other large entrants disrupting the market. In fact, there are over 10,000 SaaS companies, yet the transition to SaaS is only getting started, with estimates suggesting less than 20% of enterprise software spending is done on SaaS. Today, everyone talks about the growth of the cloud, yet the key driving factor for cloud growth is SaaS. Cloud and
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SaaS complement one another very well, with SaaS providing the demand and cloud providing the capability to rapidly scale up to enable the rapid growth of SaaS applications. A recent McKinsey report suggests that by 2030 SaaS will be a multi-trillion-dollar industry. They predict that the 6% share of this market that India has today would translate to over a trillion dollars by 2030. That would mean over 1,000 new SaaS providers and half a million well-paid technology jobs. Extrapolating these estimates and applying them globally with the typical 4 times multiplier effect of high-tech jobs, we can expect 40 million new jobs globally because of SaaS. It’s an astonishing transition for the software industry. Corent has positioned itself in this marketplace as a technology platform that enables ISVs and enterprises to rapidly take advantage of this industry transition to cloudbased SaaS. Corent does this by providing the technology to support the whole end-to-end Cloud journey and SaaSify any application in a matter of days. With Corent’s platform, there is no need for the deep-pocketed access to capital that has been necessary to invest in the complexities of
WITH CORENT’S PLATFORM, THERE IS NO NEED FOR THE DEEP-POCKETED ACCESS TO CAPITAL THAT HAS BEEN NECESSARY TO INVEST IN THE COMPLEXITIES OF ARCHITECTING AND DEVELOPING A SAAS SOLUTION
architecting and developing a SaaS solution. Corent’s platform provides all the ‘as a Service’ capabilities needed for efficient SaaS and dramatically lowers the barriers to entry for SaaS. Our readers would love to know the founding story behind Corent Technology. How has been the journey so far? We started Corent with the realization that the transition to the SaaS model was going to be built on the cloud and require an expensive and challenging transition for traditional software providers. We developed key patented technologies to enable applications to be examined and analyzed and then augmented with the changes necessary to enable efficient SaaS operations without re-architecting or re-developing the underlying code. By creating a platform that provided all the ‘as a Service’ capabilities for tenancy management, SaaS operations management, and SaaS commercial management that work with any application, we fundamentally changed the software vendors’ options for transitioning to SaaS. And of course, our platform was
developed as SaaS itself so that we could provide it to anyone who wanted to become a SaaS provider. Speaking about our journey, we had good successes in validating our approach. This was then an early stage in the transition to cloud and SaaS, and we found that many organizations were struggling with the basic steps of migrating to the cloud for their internal applications. We recognized that our automated analysis capabilities developed for analyzing applications for SaaSification could be used to assist with migrating these enterprise apps to the cloud. We extended our product focus to migration offered as a service, forming the complete SaaS platform capable of taking a customer’s applications through their complete cloud journey, from assessment, migration, modernization, optimized operations, and, if desired, SaaSification. Altogether, it continues to be a gratifying journey. Tell us about Corent Technology’s product and service offerings. How does the company intend to stand out from the crowd? Corent’s SurPaaS platform includes MaaS (Migration & Modernization as a Service), ComPaaS (Continuous Optimization), and SaaSOps (SaaS Operations), providing a completely intelligent, application-aware automation for the end-to-end cloud journey and SaaS. Our ability to analyze and automate at the level of applications, and not only at the infrastructure level, sets us apart from competitors. The capabilities to enable the complete cloud journey, including the ability to SaaSify and then operate and manage SaaS applications, are the key ways we stand out from the crowd. What are the key benefits Corent Technology partners get? Corent partners get a platform that addresses the key driving force in the industry, namely the transition to cloud and SaaS. They get a platform with the greatest scope of capabilities for their customers’ cloud journeys, including the unique one of SaaSification and SaaSOps. Partners have options to go directly to their customers with a SaaS offering that can be white-labeled or via a ‘factory’ model where their staff engages Corent with their customers on projects such as migration or modernization. Corent’s platform enables partners to quickly come to market with one or more highly advanced product offerings that offer real cost benefits to their customers, both for focused projects like migrations or modernizations and ongoing management and optimization. Because Corent platform is itself SaaS, partners get quick and easy onboarding with no upfront investment in infrastructure.
Digital First Magazine July 2022
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Scott Chate Vice President of Partner and Market Development Corent Technology
Today, Corent is regarded as a leader in Cloud Migration, Modernization, and SaaSification Technologies. How do you ensure that your clients are delighted with your service year after year? One of the primary ways we ensure clients are delighted with our service is by providing high levels of value. Every client appreciates getting more value than expected, so building in the automation and features that make their tasks easier is essential. One of the characteristics of SaaS services is that they are provided remotely, and this means we have to pay extra attention to the communications and online engagements that we use to collaborate with our partners and clients. We’ve had many clients and partners with whom we have ongoing engagements even though we’ve never met in person. Some of our significant impacts on our customers have come from our capability to rapidly transform their
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applications to SaaS. In several cases, our SaaSification of an existing application has led to the ISV being acquired shortly after, illustrating the powerful way that having SaaS capabilities makes any software application more valuable. In other cases, the SaaS platform capabilities for SIs and MSPs provide them the ability to quickly launch world-class offerings to their customers that enable their cloud journey. From your perspective as a leader, how has the performance of Corent Technology been in the last few years? Corent has made numerous key milestones over the past few years to strengthen our positioning in the marketplace and optimize the alignment of our offering with the needs of our partners and our customers. We’ve added several highprofile global Systems Integrators as partners to extend our reach to their enterprise customers and address their need to transition to the cloud and to SaaS.
How are you trying to drive employee engagement and facilitate innovation in Corent’s employees? And how have you ensured that the company is investing in and leveraging the correct technology while being careful to balance cost with ROI? Nowadays, there is a lot of talk in business circles about driving employee engagement. In this respect, we are very fortunate because the SaaS market and the cloud market upon which it sits are so dynamic and evolving so fast that it generates a lot of enthusiasm. This fast pace of change and advancements makes things exciting and opens up new opportunities in the technology world. Plus, we get to interact
CORENT RECENTLY WON THE 2022 ‘BEST PLATFORM AS A SERVICE’ CODIE AWARD AND WE WERE THRILLED FOR THE INDUSTRY LEVEL RECOGNITION, ESPECIALLY SO WHEN THE RUNNER UP WAS AN INDUSTRY ICON LIKE IBM RED HAT
with many leading-edge companies and entrepreneurs who are developing new businesses and innovating with our SaaSOps platform. At Corent Technology, the workplace culture has always been about innovation and facilitating it has to do with encouraging people to take on the seemingly impossible projects and tasks if it’s to accomplish something outstanding. In a start-up, when the focus is given on creating groundbreaking technology, the ROI is often difficult to estimate before the innovation takes off. However, we’ve focused
on ensuring that the value proposition of our products to our customers is so high and compelling that it naturally produces a rewarding ROI. What are the opportunities Corent Technology sees in the global market? Corent Technology has always aimed at the global marketplace. That is partly driven by the fact that our platform is SaaS. One of the huge levers of SaaS is the fact that it can be accessed and used by anyone, anywhere there is internet access – and that is rapidly becoming almost everywhere. We have a partner-driven model, which allows us to expand our global reach through them much more effectively than we could as a small company. Our partners are global SIs and MSPs who use our SurPaaS platform to offer cloud migration, modernization, optimized cloud operations, and SaaS operations for their customers. What exciting things can clients expect from Corent Technology in the coming years? With the constant evolution of cloud capabilities and their influence on software go-to-market strategies, I expect to see even more opportunities to enable SaaS Providers in the coming years. We are already implementing automated containerization for applications and advanced metering that can provide new ways to monetize SaaS applications. Corent recently won the 2022 for the ‘Best Platform as a Service’ CODiE Award and we were thrilled for the industry level recognition, especially so when the runner up was an industry icon like IBM Red Hat. Being entrepreneurs in the software industry as a small company and able to create solutions that are recognized in that calibre of company is is exciting, and offering a product that enables others to do the same with their software feelseven better. We also see fantastic opportunities in our ComPaaS product with intelligent advisories and automated actions that take the overwhelming complexity of cloud infrastructure management and distil operational insights for SaaS or regular applications into cost-saving opportunities. As for the future, the most exciting possibilities we see are for Democratizing SaaS, to 1) enable the ISVs of the world, and the entrepreneurs with an idea or expertise perhaps along an open-source application to rapidly transform themselves into SaaS providers to ride this industry transition to SaaS success, and 2) for the enterprises with internally developed and proven solutions mainly for their internal consumption, to also offer them as SaaS to public directly or through a subsidiary to generate additional revenue streams and that way significantly increase their shareholder value.
Digital First Magazine July 2022
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COVER STORY
FEYZI FATEHI CEO, CORENT TECHNOLOGY
EMPOWERING A NEW GENERATION OF SAAS ENTREPRENEURS Feyzi Fatehi is the CEO of Corent Tech is a technology visionary, inventor, innovator, and entrepreneur, and the recipient of the 2019 CODiE Lifetime Achievement Award. A Silicon Valley veteran, Fatehi studied at Cambridge, Princeton, UT Austin, and UCLA and has given talks at Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon, as well as at industry events around the globe. He was featured in Forbes as a disruptor in the software industry. Recently, Mr. Fatehi authored a Forbes book titled ‘Democratizing SaaS.’ In a conversation with Mr. Fatehi, we got to know more about his experiences, challenges, and efforts that went into writing this book. Here are some excerpts from the interview.
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Mr. Fatehi, please tell us a bit about your career so far. How have your life experiences shaped you into the leader you are today? Sure! I studied solar engineering at UT Austin and then did my master’s degree in software architecture. In the meantime, I worked with Honeywell on the first powerplant automation in Texas. I was campus recruited by HP in Silicon Valley and joined a team that invented the first Real-Time Database a few years later. Later, I completed my MBA while I joined the global alliances and channels management team at HP, responsible for several billion-dollar HPs revenues.
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In 1999, I left HP and started my entrepreneurial journey by working with multiple disruptive and innovative technologies, particularly pioneering SaaS technologies. That led to Corent, working on fundamentally disruptive technology in the form of SaaSOps and other platform technologies at Corent, leading to several consequential and patented inventions. Regarding leadership, having the will, tenacity, and resilience to overcome obstacles at each stage became the hallmark of my journey towards a greater purpose and vision of commitment to innovation as a personal and corporate value, duty, obligation, and responsibility.
As the CEO of Corent Technology, what challenges do you face, and how do you overcome them? The biggest challenge of any disruptive innovation effort is dealing with uncertainty. Uncertainty of time, resources, effort, and, therefore, finance is required to achieve the impossible breakthrough that you have your eyes set on. Disruptive innovation does not happen in a command-and-control atmosphere. Besides the genuine commitment to the vision and tenacity for handling the ups and downs, innovative team members need psychological safety to act from
a state of inspiration rather than desperation. While each member keeps other members accountable to pull their weight and contribute and complement the team’s efforts, people need the safety to speak their minds and permission to be respectfully direct and be allowed to stick their necks out and have the right to be heard without any fear of being reprimanded. Therefore, creating a culture of recognition, acknowledgment, and celebration of successes along the way to re-charging members’ mojo, positive energy, and confidence is an integral part of a leader’s responsibility.
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SAAS IS ONE OF THE SEMINAL CONCEPTS FOR SOFTWARE THIS CENTURY, AND WE WANTED TO SHARE OUR VISION FOR HOW THAT MODEL COULD BE REALIZED IN A WAY THAT ENABLED ANYONE, LITERALLY ANYONE, TO BECOME A SAAS PROVIDER BY PROVIDING ALL THE ‘AS A SERVICE’ CAPABILITIES NEEDED AS A PLATFORM
According to you, what have been the significant milestones during all these years of your journey as a leader? Some of the most rewarding mileposts would be developing Corent’s core product and securing several invention patents, recruiting a robust number of customers and ecosystem partners, assembling an incredible advisory board comprised of industry luminaries, and achieving the highest endorsements and certifications from industry leaders like AWS Microsoft.
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In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, how did you manage the operations of Corent Technology without any severe hassles? One of the most dramatic realizations that came out of the pandemic was the Digital Transformation which has been happening for the last couple of decades and has had a profound influence on our ability to get work done from anywhere. This is especially true for knowledge work, of which the software industry is a prime example. Because Corent’s platform was itself SaaS, running on the cloud, and we were already a globally distributed organization with sales and marketing in three continents and development in India, we were well-positioned to function even during pandemic lockdown conditions. We definitely increased our proportion of ‘Work from Home’ scenarios and adapted with more virtual meetings. Coming to your book, ‘Democratizing SaaS,’ Mr. Fatehi, first of all, many congratulations. The book has been garnering a lot of praise from the industry leaders. Please tell us what inspired you to write the book ‘Democratizing’ SaaS? Thank you! I’ve been humbled to have so many of them express strong support and even offer testimonials for the book. Inspiration-wise, when we started to analyze the potential for our SaaSOps platform and the difference it could make in lowering the barriers to entry for developing a SaaS solution, it became obvious that this model was not only good but potentially revolutionary. SaaS is one of the seminal concepts for software this century, and we wanted to share our vision for how that model could be realized in a way that enabled anyone, literally anyone, to become a SaaS Provider by providing all the ‘as a Service’ capabilities needed as a platform. For you, what was the most challenging part while writing a book? What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning ‘Democratizing’ SaaS? Honestly speaking, one of the most challenging parts of writing the book was simply finding time while also running Corent. Luckily, the research for the book was largely intrinsic to the activities we were engaged in as a company, studying and innovating to bring the conceptual model of an ‘as a Service’ platform for SaaSifying and operating applications as a SaaS to life as a product. Much of the other research for the book consisted of pulling together the big picture of
BECAUSE CORENT’S PLATFORM WAS ITSELF SAAS, RUNNING ON THE CLOUD, AND WE WERE ALREADY A GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED ORGANIZATION WITH SALES AND MARKETING IN THREE CONTINENTS AND DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA, WE WERE WELLPOSITIONED TO FUNCTION EVEN DURING PANDEMIC LOCKDOWN CONDITIONS
global industry numbers, the fantastic scope and scale of this SaaS transition that otherwise might not be so readily apparent. A classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees. What authors do you like to read? What book(s) have strongly influenced you and your writing? I’ve long been a fan of Marshall Goldsmith, and he has had a strong influence on my perspectives on leadership in business. Marshall’s book What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There had a big influence on my leadership style, and I have started to reading and enjoying his new book The Earned Life. Mr. Fatehi, what does literary success look like for you? I’d count the book as a literary success if it propelled this idea of Democratizing SaaS and inspired entrepreneurs to take the leap and create their own SaaS businesses. Before wrapping up, a piece of advice you would give to a writer working on his first book? I suggest first-time authors to expect it to take longer and work harder than they may have envisioned.
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Frank von Seth, CEO
cyan Security Group
On a Mission to Make the Digital World a Safer Place First Magazine 26 Digital July 2022
AT CYAN, CUSTOMERS FROM DIVERSE INDUSTRIES ARE PROVIDED WITH TAILOR-MADE SOLUTIONS THAT BEST FIT THEIR REQUIREMENTS
I
n today’s digital climate, the demand for cybersecurity is at an all-time high. Companies cannot afford to have their business interrupted, accounts compromised, or data stolen, encrypted, and destroyed. Similarly, people don’t want to worry about their data being phished, scammed online or losing their personal data. cyan Security Group is one of the must-watch cybersecurity companies founded with a vision to safeguard the digital lives of millions of internet users worldwide and continuously works on protecting them against existing and future cyber-threats—anytime, anywhere. cyan’s journey began in 2006 initially as a B2B provider of network security solutions. Later in 2010, the company changed its business model, realising that to protect the vast number of users, a B2B2C model, leveraging the far reach of the telcos, was necessary. This transition proved beneficial for cyan, and it further aimed to expand its product portfolio powered by its Threat Intelligence Platform. Later, the company signed
its first major contract with T-Mobile in Austria. In 2018, cyan went public in Frankfurt and inked a major contract with Orange Group, one of the world’s leading telcos. Last year, Frank von Seth joined the team of cyan and took on the role as its CEO with a clear focus on driving customer success to the max. Seamless Security Solutions Providing Unbeatable Protection Under its cybersecurity segment, cyan offers four general types of products, namely OnNet Security, OnDevice Security, Clean Pipe DNS, and Child Protection. ● OnNet Security is a network-based solution seamlessly integrated into a provider’s infrastructure and rolled out to the entire customer base for easy and fast cybersecurity. ● OnDevice Security is an endpoint-based solution that ensures customers’ cybersecurity via a customisable, white labelled application. ● Clean Pipe DNS offers providers and MVNOs the
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opportunity to filter unwanted data traffic and malicious content directly on their network and reduces data volume while providing a safer and faster browsing experience to their customers. ● Child Protection is an endpointbased solution that helps parents ensure their children’s digital safety while encouraging healthy screen time limits and a safe browsing experience. The expert team at cyan has built all the above products by leveraging its disruptive technology powered by the Threat Intelligence Platform, which screens the internet 24/7 through 200 virtual datacentres worldwide. They use AI and ML in their 25 proven analysis methods, thereby keeping the time that users are vulnerable to a minimum. “Our database of over 300 million entries is constantly updated and grows continuously. Since we do not need to push signature updates to millions of end-users, those updates become available almost instantly on the network independent of the device used by end customers – a truly unified experience. This makes us stand out on the technology side of things,” says Frank, CEO of cyan Security Group. Technical Expertise & Unique Approach are Added Benefits At cyan, customers from diverse industries are provided with tailormade solutions that best fit their requirements. These customised solutions are delivered by the seasoned team of solution architects, data scientists, and product managers who carefully analyse the needs of the individual markets. Another significant advantage that cyan’s partners get is its B2B2C white-label solution. Firstly, clients can support and differentiate their brand with highly relevant valueadded services by using one of cyan’s products. Secondly, MNOs benefit from an ARPU uplift in times where
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CYAN HAS A SMALL BUT CLOSE-KNIT TEAM OF 150 EMPLOYEES WHO CARE DEEPLY FOR THE USER’S SECURITY
Markus Cserna, CTO, cyan Security Group GmbH
high competition in the telco space has been eroding ARPU. “Most importantly, through a partnershipbased approach, we work closely with our partners on delivering the product to the end customer,” adds Frank. Delighting Clients with Exceptional Services “We at cyan see it as our social responsibility to be the invisible protector for all our customers’ digital activities –we operate with the most advanced cyber technology and protect them against any risks; seamless and without interruption,” states Frank. As a result, clients identify and endorse the highly scalable and easily implemented solutions by cyan. Besides this, Frank and his team are always ready to offer guidance to their clients through the whole process and beyond. Currently, Orange (France & Slovakia), Magenta (Austria), T-Mobile (Poland), and dtac (Thailand) are some of cyan’s happy customers.
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Fostering Positive Work Culture cyan has a small and close-knit team of 150 employees who always look after each other’s best interests. Here, every employee is given the opportunity to think out of the box, come up with innovative solutions, and contribute to the company’s transformational journey. At times, the team has “good days” and “bad days”, but getting through challenges together as a team remains important to them. Likewise, cyan’s team focuses on solutions instead of problems and carries lessons and knowledge from their roadblocks towards the future. “We want to encourage people to be a part of the whole journey, our story and our impact on a safer future,” asserts Frank. Top Tips from the Expert Currently, the entire team of cyan is focused on expanding its go-to-market approach that will assist their partners in marketing their latest solutions effectively and reach the potential clients as soon as possible irrespective of their locations.
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Therefore, Frank provides two valuable tips for tech start-ups. “First, be sure of your product. Your technology has to meet the market demands. You need to ensure that the development of said product continuously evolves and adjusts to the fast-paced and changing environment and therefore stays on top. And second, know your customer’s needs. Your customers are new to the subject for many tech products and hence need guidance in the process. Make sure you provide a setup in which they can learn from your experience and provide the necessary insights to facilitate a successful product implementation.” Eying Global Markets for Growth & Expansion Powered by a market-leading Threat Intelligence Platform and network-based protection capabilities, cyan plans to focus on two major areas for its future growth and expansion. Its primary goal is to upsell its existing customer base, and the second is to add new products and address untapped markets. cyan already has a massmarket ready product portfolio with highly scalable and
user-friendly technology to make this happen. Moreover, Frank and his team are now working with their new and existing partners on leveraging these benefits. “We are going in the right direction as subscriptions at our new customers are picking up significantly, but there is still room to improve with regard to the products sold at our partners,” shares Frank. To add new products under its umbrella of solutions, cyan recognises the opportunities in the cloudification trend. The CEO of cyan Security Group further reveals that the company is pushing its global positioning to protect the constantly growing number of internet users.
Roadmap to an Exciting Future The year 2021 saw the arrival of new customers and employees joining cyan, and together, they are working on developing their products, matching partners’ needs, and evolving as a company. Highlighting one of the exciting projects that cyan is working on, Frank reveals, “One specifically interesting project to mention is the current process of developing an end-user focused product, which marks a turning point for us as a company. With this, we will have our own B2C product and therefore an even better and closer connection and understanding of the end-user and the market.”
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EXPERT’S OPINION
Future and Scope of Fintech in India Ajit Deshmukh, Managing Director and Co-Head – Investment Banking, Equirus
I
ndia currently, exists in the sweet spot of demand and supply for Fintech Enabling factors. A conducive policy environment and the presence of a sizeable talent pool means Start-ups are rushing to solve specific problems whether its customer acquisition of old financial products like insurance, lending, payment instruments or new age personal finance products like BNPL, AI/ML based investment strategies etc. On the other side increasing penetration of smartphone, internet and covid accelerated digital literacy has meant growing demand and acceptability for availing financial services online. In a country as large and as under penetrated as India, tech is the only logical solution for economically targeting and servicing customers. While the long-term use-case of tech enabled finance is undeniable recent events have knocked the wind out of the India Fintech story’s sails. We broadly categorize Fintechs as Money movers, managers , lenders and lastly definers (crypto, blockchain and other alternate asset classes). Each of these have unique acquisition and profitability changes. We see the following trends developing in :
First Magazine 32 Digital July 2022
Ajit Deshmukh has over 25 years of management and leadership experience. He has been associated with
Equirus
in
leading
the
technology space and has played a leadership role in cross border Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and fund raising for technology companies in the IT industry & Investment Banking industry. He also heads the digital practice where we work with new age tech driven startups on their seed, growth capital, and M&A requirements. Prior to joining Equirus he was the founder of Wizarth Advisors, a boutique investment banking firm that offered financial advisory service to cross border
M&A
transactions.
Mr.
Deshmukh has been working with founders of IT companies and CEOs of High growth companies in their Inorganic Initiatives.
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In a country as large and as under penetrated as India, tech is the only logical solution for economically targeting and servicing customers
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1. Money Movers: In Mar’22 India clocked in 5.4 bn UPI transactions worth INR 9.6 Tn. However, Indian payment companies still struggle to be profitable despite of the high volume. In more developed economies, financial services companies make money on payments, as the transaction margins are high and interest rates low. India is a different market, the margins in Indian retail market are wafer thin and with government’s digital agenda push; MDR will keep trending downwards. Payment companies will thus continue be customer aggregators and find alternate ways to monetize this base through lending or cohort analytics 2. Money Managers: The wealth management industry is undergoing a monumental shift due to changing demographics, the influx of new generation potential investors, transitional global scenarios, and most importantly the rampant digitalisation. This industry is extremely competitive and commoditized, and customers are highly demanding, as their needs constantly evolve. Technology has been a key differentiator that has enabled the broking sector to consistently deliver value for investors. For these new age investment platforms, it is not just about rendering a service to the customer, but also about enabling the customer to make informed decisions. Everyone wants a platform that is simple, intuitive, and easy to use. These money management platforms have helped bring in a lot of first investors into the investing fold. We will continue to see wealth management platforms build an ecosystem around investing to improve customer stickiness 3. Money lenders: We will see a lot of the money movers migrate to the lending ecosystem to monetize their customer base. With regulators keeping a keen eye out on the segment. We will see more Platform & NBFC partnerships in the lending space where the lending risk will lie on the books of the NBFC whereas the platform will be responsible for sourcing and running advanced analytics on cohorts to facilitate underwriting 4. Money definers: India will now join a handful of nations to launch its own blockchain currency. This has huge implications for finance overall and underscores India’s preeminence in digitised finance. The central government is also launching a digital rupee to make the transactions more efficient, and the Reserve Bank of India will implement it to reduce the people’s dependency on cash. India is now a step closer to become one of the few countries who have made regulations related to the digital currency and adopt blockchain technology and integrate it with the economy. Immediately, the CBC means leveraging the benefits of blockchain, lower opex, and faster settlements. We need to wait for full details to understand all implications. However, the taxation of virtual assets is now clearly defined hinting that government understands that the next wave of profits will come from this segment.
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Sachin Pradhan, Operations Director
ICE CREAM LAB
Delighting Customers with Premium Ice Cream Extravaganza First Magazine 36 Digital July 2022
THE ICE CREAM LAB APPLIES MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY’S FLASH-FREEZING TECHNIQUE, UTILIZING LIQUID NITROGEN AS THE STYLE OF PREPARATION, TO INSTANTLY FREEZE DIFFERENT NATURAL INGREDIENTS INTO ICE CREAM
E
veryone loves ice cream. What if the ice cream is freshly freezing right in front of your eyes, and what if you are told it is low in calories, with no added preservatives or coloring, and you get to choose from a vast flavor range; amazing, right? This is precisely Ice Cream Lab’s USP, and it never falls short of delivering a lip-smacking & unique experience. The Concept behind Ice Cream Lab’s Franchise The Ice Cream Lab is based on an innovative International Ice Cream concept that originated in California, the USA, in 2013. It applies molecular gastronomy’s flash-freezing technique, utilizing liquid nitrogen as the style of preparation, to instantly freeze different natural ingredients into ice cream. “We started franchising in 2019 with Oman, Bahrain, Saudi, and then continued with Nigeria, Daouk (Iraq), Malaysia (Penang & Ipoh), Europe (Sweden & Portugal), and India (Mumbai, Bangalore, Andhra Pradesh,
Hyderabad, and Kolkata),” shares Sachin Pradhan, Operations Director, Ice Cream Lab. In just two years, it expanded to over 10 international markets with 25 plus stores currently opened across the globe. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ice Cream Lab continued to witness an impressive turnover in the following years— 4.21M (2018), 6.11M (2019), 4.5M (2020), and 5.2M (2021). In terms of flavor profile, at Ice Cream Lab’s first operational base, UAE, around 16 flavors are offered, catering to suit the diverse tastes of the market. Additionally, milkshakes are available for those who want to sip their desserts. “When we started in November 2014, we only had 7 flavors, and then based on the UAE culture and taste, we developed yogurt ice cream, yogurt base acai ice cream, and came up with eight more. Through our R&D department, we can come up with 1000s of new flavors suiting customers’ taste from various cultures fitting to the market’s taste,” mentions Sachin.
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ICE CREAM LAB OFFERS AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY TO ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS WHO WISH TO START A BUSINESS BY FRANCHISING A REVOLUTIONARY PRODUCT UTILIZING UNIQUE TECHNOLOGY.
An Open-Door Policy at the Workplace Ice Cream Lab believes in an open door management style where employees are encouraged to openly communicate, share feedback, and discuss issues or queries with their managers. Moreover, focus meetings are conducted at timely intervals where team members can share innovative ideas, recipes, or suggestions to elevate existing recipes or flavors. “We ensure any good ideas provided by our internal or external employees are implemented and based on
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the outcome same are implemented as policies and shared with all our Franchise Partners across the globe. The ideas implemented by employees also get awarded with recognition,” adds Sachin. How Ice Cream Lab Creates a Buzz Through Social Media? Sachin considers social media as the best platform for marketing and branding goals. Through this platform, Sachin and his team educate their customers about
Ice Cream Lab’s ice creams being healthy, made with a natural ingredient base, with no preservatives, no additives, and no artificial flavor & colors. Sachin further reveals that almost every customer clicks pictures and makes videos of their ice cream since the entire process is very theatric and captivating. They also tag Ice Cream Lab on their social media handles, thereby providing free and personal advertising and endorsement. Therefore, this is one of the most essential reasons behind Ice Cream Lab’s quick brand awareness. Partner Franchisees get Continuous Support & Guidance Ice Cream Lab offers an excellent opportunity to aspiring entrepreneurs who wish to start a business by franchising a revolutionary product utilizing unique technology. It all begins with 9 steps-based approaches, including inquiry and discussion, request for consideration, franchise disclosure document, on-site tour, signing of the franchise agreement, site selection, design and construction, on-floor training, and grand opening & 365 days of continuous support. Sachin says, “We personally ensure that we at least visit our franchisee twice a year for surprise
audits and sit to analyze their performance and furnishing necessary guidelines to improve our franchisee’s overall profitability. We also provide them with newly introduced and customized recipes as per the local market needs. We also help them with social media marketing which is done by our central marketing team.” Altogether, a single-store franchisee benefits from year-round continuous support and guidance from Ice Cream Lab’s team. However, as a Master Franchisee, the client automatically becomes Ice Cream Lab’s 50% partner. The first outlet is given free, and from the first outlet onwards Master Franchisee gets rights to sub franchisee outlets across that country. This is how a mutually benefitting and supportive relationship is established and maintained between Ice Cream Lab’s franchisor and franchisees. Testimonials by Other Franchisees Mumbai-based Ice Cream Lab’s Franchisee, Lalit Mohan Srivastava, said, “I would highly recommend ICL brand to everyone who wants to become a nextgeneration entrepreneur with an innovative brand because it’s an awesome ice cream with no ice crystals
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state that Vikrant sir and Sachin sir motivated me, were responsive to every question I had, and most importantly, they understood who we are and what we are trying to do. They were with me in every step of the way, providing valuable guidance. They helped me throughout this journey, and I am sure they will be at my side supporting me till I become successful!!”
and no preservatives, no additives, low sugar and which is recommended by many health-conscious customers in Mumbai.” Venu Madhav, Ice Cream Lab’s Hyderabad Franchisee, commented, “Firstly, I am glad that I am a part of such an amazing team. I can confidently
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Aiming for a Higher Growth “Our aim is to spread our wings across the globe and to have a minimum of 200 outlets by 2025,” reveals Sachin. Ice Cream Lab conducts various campaigns on its social media platforms and collects franchisee queries through its official website to attract prospective franchisees and customers. Until now, Sachin and his team have successfully expanded Ice Cream Lab’s wing without any external help. However, they are prepared to work with professional consultants to achieve faster growth. Ice Cream Lab’s loyal customers are in for a big treat in the coming days. They can visit new outlets in Germany, Belgium, Israel, Bangladesh, and other parts of India. The expert team of Ice Cream Lab is also working on a few different models for cities where Liquid Nitrogen is unavailable or very expensive. So, keep an eye on Ice Cream Lab’s website for the latest updates on new outlets.
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MUST-WATCH
TECH
COMPANIES 2022
ACCA Software
aug-e
Website: https://www.accasoftware.com/en/
Website: https://www.aug-e.io/en/
Headquarters: Bagnoli Irpino, Italy
Headquarters: Antwerp, Belgium
Keyperson: Guido Cianciulli, CEO
Keyperson: Maarten Vyncke, Sales Manager
About the Company: ACCA software is one of the world’s leading producers of software and services for the architecture, engineering and construction industries.
About the Company: As a high-tech company, aug-e is positioned as software that enables new value models in the energy market and is, together with its partners, shaping the structure of this new market of sustainable energy.
First Magazine 42 Digital July 2022
BAYFU
Corent Technology
Website: https://www.bayfu.de/en
Website: https://www.corenttech.com/
Headquarters: Kolbermoor, Germany
Headquarters: California, USA
Partner
Keyperson: Christian Wagner, Managing
Keyperson: Scott Chate, Vice President of Partner and Market Development
About the Company: With a team of experienced experts, BAYFU offers 360-degree consulting, services and implementation of private LTE/5G campus networks.
About the Company: Corent offers a technology platform that enables ISVs and enterprises to rapidly take advantage of this industry transition to cloud-based SaaS.
cyan Security Group
Cybrella
Website: https://www.cyansecurity.com/
Website: https://www.cybrella.io/
Headquarters: Vienna, Austria
Headquarters: Boston, USA
Keyperson: Frank von Seth, CEO
Keyperson: Alon Mantsur, CEO
About the Company: As the leading provider of revolutionary network-integrated & endpoint security solutions, cyan enables companies to offer additional protection to the digital lives of their end customers.
About the Company: Cybrella offers
professional cybersecurity services for small to medium-sized businesses and to larger enterprises looking to expand their cybersecurity capabilities.
Digital First Magazine July 2022
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Fraud.net
GroGuru
Website: https://fraud.net/
Website: https://www.groguru.com/
Headquarters: New York, USA
Headquarters: California, USA
Keyperson: Cathy Ross, Founder, and
Keyperson: Patrick Henry, President & CEO
President
the first end-to-end fraud management and revenue enhancement ecosystem specifically built for digital enterprises and fintechs globally.
About the Company: GroGuru is focused on helping farmers implement strategic water management for the smart farm, by deploying soil sensors that measure things like soil moisture, temperature, and salinity at various root depths of crops.
Learnship
ROOK Connect
Website: https://www.learnship.com/en/
Website: https://rookconnect.com/
Headquarters: Cologne, Germany
Headquarters: Calgary, Canada
Keyperson: Thomas Engelbertz, CEO
Keyperson: Kenneth Bond, CEO & Enterprise Software Solutions Architect
About the Company: Fraud.net operates
About the Company: Learnship is a technology company laser-focused on improving the way people learn the language and behavioral skills they need to thrive in intercultural working environments.
First Magazine 44 Digital July 2022
About the Company: ROOK Connect helps businesses streamline operations, enhancing their ability to operate efficiently and to maximize revenues through the application of lean practices and workflows.
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Higher Education Digest Digital First Magazine November July 2020 2022
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MUST-WATCH
TECH
COMPANIES 2022
Maarten Vyncke, Sales Manager
AUG-E
Working Towards a Sustainable Tomorrow First Magazine 46 Digital July 2022
AUG-E WAS FOUNDED TO CREATE A HORIZONTAL, COMPREHENSIVE PLATFORM TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO GET CONTROL OVER THEIR ENERGY USAGE AND BEHAVIOR BACK
S
ustainability has become the focus in recent times. As several startups and entrepreneurs create innovations to ready the world for the future, being sustainable and using clean energy has become the utmost priority. On a global scale, the energy market is growing at a significant rate as more and more building owners are aware of the effect of buildings on global decarbonization. The current price pressure on energy commodities creates a “perfect storm” as more and more people are aware of energy costs in day-to-day life and business, thus looking for opportunities to tackle these. The complexity of the energy market in general, combined with the current state of technology, strengthens that growth. As a high-tech company, aug-e is positioned as a software that enables new value models in the energy market and is, together with its partners, shaping the structure of this new market of sustainable energy. The aug-e software will help companies save on energy bills, increase their ROI on their green energy assets, and have a significantly better user experience in their buildings.
aug-e was founded to create a horizontal, comprehensive platform to allow people to get control over their energy usage and behavior back. The story kick-started during the pandemic with a strong focus on local energy communities. After a significant investment by Proximus and Besix, the journey expanded to a broad focus on smart buildings and smart energy management, always with an intense angle on sustainability and people-centric. Sustainable thinking The aug-e SaaS platform consists of 3 main elements: a digital twin, smart algorithms, and a smart energy management system. These can be applied to energy assets like batteries, solar panels, EVs, etc.; all types of buildings from residential, commercial, and even industrial, and on a community level. The Digital Twin is the digital version of a building structure in a logical way through a predefined concept that allows for optimal usage of all building data through the life cycle of the building. Smart algorithms combine the static
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building data, historical energy data, potential added energy assets, weather data, occupant feedback, and other relevant metadata that aug-e’s artificial intelligence uses to learn the historical behavior of the building and predict future energy consumption based on different scenarios. These scenarios can be adding energy assets like solar panels and batteries, Energy efficiency exercises on BMS and HVAC systems, and revenue-generating use cases that are still in the works. The Smart Energy Management System builds on top of the digital twin and smart algorithms and activates the automation of the different building blocks. By adding live data from the digital twin to the smart algorithms and combining it with, for example, weather forecasts, the dayahead market price, the building will actively start steering itself, optimizing energy consumption, and taking into account occupant information ranging from meeting room management, visitor information, EV charging preferences. The aug-e software can be applied on single assets, which is used to make a battery smart. When in a building, aug-e uses individual smart assets and the building &
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occupant data to generate a smart and sustainable building. Because all the data is either in place via the digital twin model or can be easily gathered via the aug-e user interface, the algorithms will keep steering for optimal behavior from an energy and user perspective. The goal is to deliver a sustainable building that is in sync with its occupants from an energy and user experience perspective. Combining different buildings into 1 community by exchanging energy is the last step the aug-e software can facilitate. Apart from the full software, aug-e also provides consultancy with regards to smart energy management and smart buildings, creating accessible digital buildings that can unlock all the future potential value. Since its inception in 2018, the aug-e performance has now a high steady growth starting, with an average of +50% on a yearly basis. "Currently, the focus is strongly on the ARR to further strengthen the SaaS growth, where we see a big increase in current lead generation due to the energy prices being high and the big governmental push on electrical driving,” says Maarten Vyncke, the Sales Manager
AUG-E AIMS TO HAVE THE FLEXIBILITY OF 1 GAS-POWERED PLANT BY 2027, MEANING THAT THE COMPANY CAN OFFER THE GRID THE SAME FLEXIBILITY USING A DECENTRALIZED SOFTWARE MODEL WITH ITS ATTACHED HARDWARE
at aug-e. As the global energy market evolves at different paces and paves the way to electrification, aug-e sees this as an opportunity to follow international expansion. “The European electricity market is comparable, although local regulations differ, so we aim for the most advanced regulations for energy sharing, prosumer energy markets, and full-blown local energy communities. Currently, regulations in Spain are recently adapted, for example, so we are starting in Barcelona," adds Maarten. Aug-e aims to have the flexibility of 1 gas-powered plant by 2027, meaning that the company can offer the grid the same flexibility using a decentralized software model with its attached hardware. Clients Say Jabba sells, distributes, and installs the alphaESS batteries in Belgium. By adding the intelligent aug-e layer on top of these batteries, installed mainly in households, Jabba is able to increase the generated value for its customer by adding services like Energy monitoring and visualization, Increasing self-consumption, and Simulation of the upcoming capacity rate in Belgium. "In the future, and thanks to Jabba for being a great partner in this project, we will add multiple extra use cases like dynamic contract trading, day-ahead trading, and offering net stability to the grid,” shares Maarten. Adding these use cases will result in more use of sustainable energy, lower energy prices for consumers, and a new prosumer value stream helping the grid.
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WORKING ON MULTIPLE RESEARCH PROJECTS WITH UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER KNOWLEDGE PARTNERS, AUG-E MAKES SURE TO REMAIN INNOVATIVE AND CUTTING EDGE IN RELATION TO THE EVER FASTER-EVOLVING MARKET
Besix Dordrect has been built as a showcase, not only a physical one. The digital building got a lot of attention. With aug-e, the company further developed on this digital twin to streamline the full energy stack in the building, allowing Besix to offer more energy-related services (better comfort, more EV charging, greener energy) to the users while maintaining the energy cost and not having to invest in additional new high voltage cabins. Encouraging Innovation The employees at aug-e aim to have the best energy solutions in the world. With this in mind, they all work towards innovation through regular creative exercises and discussions. There is a strong focus on knowledge sharing within the different teams via weekly project updates, internal training, and cross-team work to ensure all employees are working towards the same goal. Working on multiple research projects with universities and other knowledge partners, aug-e makes sure to remain innovative and cutting edge in relation to the ever faster-evolving market. "As a company, we are also firm believers in ecosystems, towards our customers and from a knowledge perspective towards are employees, allowing them to work cross-company with companies like Microsoft on joint projects,” Maarten says.
First Magazine 50 Digital July 2022
Digital First Magazine July 2022
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LEADERS’S INSIGHTS
Environmentfriendly Business Ideas for Entrepreneurs KD Kuldeep, Business Coach
A quote on the internet says, “Success isn’t just about what you accomplish in your life; it’s about what you inspire others to do.” Driving inspiration from this quote, some people choose a path to success in which they walk towards success while taking others along with them. That is what Mr. Kuldeep Singh, a network marketing entrepreneur, and a business coach, has been doing. A 37-year-old simple man with big dreams, Mr. Kuldeep, comes from Shyampur Jatt (a small village near Hapur), Uttar Pradesh. He always wanted to shift to Delhi and live a different life than his hometown.
First Magazine 52 Digital July 2022
The concept of eco-friendly businesses or green businesses has gained a lot of importance, considering the environmental deterioration that has taken place and is taking place
E
nvironmental concern is gaining importance among people at a breakneck pace. The negative impacts of the harmful activities done by humans have started manifesting themselves in the worst forms, thus posing a threat to the existence of humankind. Businesses nowadays are trying to be as eco-friendly as possible. Entrepreneurs are also looking for ways to conduct their daily activities as environmentally friendly as possible. The concept of eco-friendly businesses or green businesses has gained a lot of importance, considering the environmental deterioration that has taken place and is taking place. Green businesses commit to environmental protection and an environmentally sustainable future. Here is a list of some environment-friendly business ideas that entrepreneurs are adopting in today’s times. Energy auditing and green consulting Under this, the businesses are helped to implement the strategies that can help them reduce their carbon footprint.
Environmental law Legal services are provided to protect the environment and take legal actions against those who violate environmental laws. Cleaning of air ducts Dust and dirt can very quickly get accumulated in air ducts, thus hampering the ability of the air conditioning system to work correctly. This ultimately increases energy consumption. The eco-friendly small business nowadays ensures regular cleaning of air ducts to reduce energy consumption. Eco restaurants Another idea is to open a restaurant that uses only locally sourced foods, sustainable products and processes. Organic nutritionist Organic nutritionists help people understand the importance of an organic diet. They help people eat clean, which is better not only for their health but also for our environment.
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Plant delivery service This is another excellent eco-friendly idea to promote greenery. The idea is to source and delivers plants to people or businesses that will help clean the air around them. An advertising agency which specialises in green business With all the new green businesses and initiatives becoming prevalent, they’re going to require someone who knows how to spread the word among the masses about the excellent work that they are doing. For this, advertising is one of the most helpful ways. You could therefore start a green business advertising agency to promote the excellent work being done by people and create awareness. Recycled furniture and home goods This type of business makes use of recycled materials
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to build furniture and home goods which people use in their everyday lives. The similar idea is to open an antique shop which is into reselling older furniture or refurbishing it and then reselling it. Eco-friendly kids toys It is a fantastic eco-friendly small business idea which has a high chance of getting successful. Not everyone knows, but children’s toys use many unsustainable materials. The eco-friendly toys will give parents an environmentally-conscious option for their kids. Green remodelling Green remodelling is a great green business idea for the handy entrepreneur. This idea involves taking a worn down home and making it something new using sustainable materials and updated appliances that reduce carbon footprints.
SlimYoo
slimyoo.com
Digital First Magazine
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istockphoto.com/DanielBendjy July 2022
MUST-WATCH
TECH
COMPANIES 2022
Alon Mantsur, CEO
CYBRELLA
Offering Highly Advanced and Tailor-Made Cybersecurity Solutions First Magazine 56 Digital July 2022
CYBRELLA, HEADQUARTERED IN MASSACHUSETTS, IS PERFECTLY POISED TO SAFEGUARD AN ORGANISATION FROM CYBER THREATS WITH ITS HIGHLYADVANCED TECHNIQUES AND PROVEN BEST PRACTICES
O
rganisations are increasingly investing in cybersecurity measures as it remains at the forefront of businesses as they migrate to virtual environments. According to studies conducted by Gartner, the cybersecurity market is forecasted to reach 186 Billion Dollars by 2024. Moreover, if cybersecurity was already becoming a concern for businesses previously, the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic has brought about a seismic shift from companies functioning conventionally to achieving digital transformations. This, in tandem with the implementation of various emerging technologies followed by enterprise-wide transformation, has left digital systems increasingly vulnerable to financially-motivated hackers. As we embrace the post-Covid era, cybersecurity strategies need to be modified accordingly. Another major factor that demands the increase in cybersecurity attacks be appropriately addressed is the global and geopolitical events occurring across the world. Like the Ukrainian/ Russian war, cybersecurity is being severely impacted by the two countries trying to cause security breaches with a slew of cyberattacks. Cybrella, headquartered in Boston, is perfectly poised to safeguard an organisation from cyber threats with its
highly-advanced techniques and proven best practices. Cybrella is not a generic cybersecurity solutions provider but rather an experienced cyber protection solutions provider that caters to the vast yet niche segment of SMBs. This is a vast opportunity, one that Cybrella is capitalising on and maintains one of the leadership positions. “Cybrella is positioned to stand and support the SMBs because these companies have usually forgotten about cybersecurity,” explains Alon Mantsur, CEO of Cybrella and a veteran in the cybersecurity space. He explains that while every facet of the digital organisation possesses cybersecurity implications, large-scale enterprises are better positioned to meet their cybersecurity requirements than SMBs. SMBs provide most of the services larger payroll companies offer, many of which are centred around handling sensitive data. These might only be hundreds of companies with less than 100 employees, implying it's too tiny a vertical for the regulator to create, monitor, and enforce standards like the larger FinTech enterprises. This is where Cybrella comes to the fore. The company treats them with the same importance and dedication an enterprise company receives and develops customised and scalable cybersecurity solutions based on the market-lead best practices.
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HAVING GAINED A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THE MARKET AND THE SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES, THE TEAM OF EXPERTS AT CYBRELLA COMBINED A PERSONAL TOUCH WITH AUTOMATED METHODS, WHICH WORKS WELL WHEN WORKING WITH SMBS, SO IT’S A FIT FOR BOTH CYBRELLA AND THE CLIENT
First Magazine 58 Digital July 2022
Creating a Safer Environment with Two Key Services Cybrella stands apart from other IT services companies. The company specialises and focuses on two primary services: CISO as a Service and Application Security as a Service. When clients looking for CISO As a Service are on-boarded, they receive cybersecurity expertise as part of the package, a unique offering. The AppSec as a Service also stands out because it is challenging to find expertise in development and cybersecurity through one company. Cybrella’s security experts are well versed in the developer's language. Alon explains, “When working with SMBs that are lean with their budgets, they often reverse engineer their cybersecurity, waiting until there is a problem versus mitigating the risk ahead of an incident. This approach can end up causing companies to lose time and money and compliance issues as well. It is more cost-effective to put a security program in place upfront that is day-to-day than wait until an incident occurs down the road.” Cybrella can work with the client from the beginning to customise and scale a program to its needs as it changes. He adds, “In reality, today and
The Cost of Cyberattacks Ransomware Attacks
Supply Chain Attacks
$20 Billion
Jump Over
By end of 2021
$1.85 Million Average cost
300%
In 2021 compared to 2020
Data Breaches
$4.24 Million Average cost
22 Billion
Records in 2021
moving forward, no matter what size a company is, it is not a question of IF a security incident will happen, but WHEN, and our job is to make sure that our customers are at the level of readiness to handle any event as quickly as possible and without damage.” Taking the Road Less Travelled While Cybrella ensures customer satisfaction, it is not uncommon knowledge that each customer has unique requirements. In fact, different countries have various regulations, standards, and terminologies. Alon specifically recognised that the U.S. SMB market was unmanaged in cybersecurity and set out to change that. Before embarking upon this journey to establish Cybrella, Alon had founded the largest cybersecurity service company in Israel, 2BSecure, which was acquired by Matrix IT (MTRX. TA). He developed specific services and methodologies for enterprises across all industry sectors in Israel and Europe. But despite possessing in-depth industry knowledge and having incepted a successful company in Israel, Alon noticed that the US market was different. He observed that the US market is enormous and not segmented like Israel and Europe. Also, the sales process is entirely different in the US. In Israel and Europe, the process is based on personal engagement and it in some way is contingent on the chemistry between the solution provider and the customer. However, in the United States, the process is more automated where
Cloud Migration
48%
Of businesses store sensitive data on the cloud
IOT & Remote Services
57%
are vulnerable to medium or high-severity attacks
one can connect via email communications, and a company can engage a vendor before even meeting them in person. Having gained a complete understanding of the market and the significant differences, the team of experts at Cybrella combined a personal touch with automated methods, which works well when working with SMBs, so it’s a fit for both Cybrella and the client. “Part of our marketing strategy is to contract with partners where we can complement their services with our cybersecurity expertise and services. This allows partners who primarily offer the traditional IT Services to offer added services to their customers that they usually would not have been able to provide. And it works similarly for us. When Cybrella manages security for a customer, and we need to deploy tools to manage the cloud, for example, we will often subcontract with one of our partners to bring their expertise to the table,” reveals Alon. He adds, “Despite the challenges of establishing Cybrella in a foreign U.S. market and at a time when the pandemic changed how everyone was working, we have grown 25 percent each year. Part of this success during such unprecedented times was due to our working with partners as part of our strategy.” Three Key Pillars Despite being a relatively recent entrant in the US market, Cybrella strongly believes in three factors that make them stand apart from other solution providers. It is part of the company’s value proposition to offer a personal touch
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The Cybersecurity Journey by NIST 01
Vulnerability Management • Risk Management • Penetration testing • Application testing • Code Review • Breach & Attack simulation
03
Monitoring • Advanced threat intelligence • Help build a SoC solution • Optimize SIEM/SoC deployed • Offer advanced 24X7 SoC • Cyber Threat Hunting
02
Identity
05
04 Harness Security Frameworks • Data Security Deployment • Access Control • Cyber Policy & Framework • Awareness Training
Recovery/Mitigation • Create and Manage attack recovery plans • Communication
Respond
Protect
CISO
Advisory services • Hiring CISO • Design secured architecture • Cloud Security • Deployed advanced solutions
(National Institute of Standards and Technology)
Detect
06 Incident Response • IR services • Digital Forensic • Data Breach Response • Ransomware response
Recover
So what can be done? Compliance with the Cybersecurity Framework will help you achieve Cybersecurity Maturity. “Rome was not built in a day”, Our perspective is that Cyber Hygiene has a few basic elements
CYBRELLA STANDS APART FROM OTHER IT SERVICES COMPANIES. THE COMPANY SPECIALISES AND FOCUSES ON TWO PRIMARY SERVICES: CISO AS A SERVICE AND APPLICATION SECURITY AS A SERVICE
with how business is conducted with customers. The team continually strives to organise in-person meetings with the customer, meet at least once per quarter and during status meetings, and have either one of the VPs participating in these meetings or Alon himself preside over the meetings. And because Cybrella has a dedicated CISO and security expert for each of its customers, the company can keep a pulse on the customer’s level of satisfaction. Constant innovation and operating under total transparency are the other two key factors. Alon says,
First Magazine 60 Digital July 2022
“We are constantly innovating. Our latest project is the development of a customer dashboard that will allow them to monitor the progress of their cybersecurity program, a first in the US market. For example, they can see what was a risk two months ago, is no longer one today.” Mapping Out Future Plans The US as a market holds massive potential with a broad range of close to 30 Million SMBs peppered across the country. While 80 per cent of SMBs might be operating with less than five employees, around 20 per cent are made of 5-100 employees across various industry verticals. Cybrella envisions continuing to tap into this market. “It would be a big deal for us if we can work with 1 out of 100 in each sector.” In conjunction with this, the company is targeting payroll companies with the vision of helping them implement cybersecurity as if they were a bank. Alon concludes the conversation with the rest of his plans for the company, “We are also targeting small municipalities where we build and develop the methodology for properly securing their IT needs and SMART city tech, which has specific security needs such as ICS, OT, wi-fi for water meters, and lighting features. And as mentioned earlier, we are planning to launch our new customer dashboard by 2023. This year, our focus is to take that growth to the next level by doubling our revenue and team.”
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LEADERS’S INSIGHTS
The Rapidly Growing Demand to Learn, Understand and Analyze –
The Data Sameer Redij, Chief Revenue Officer, ESDS Software Solution Ltd
‘No Excuses, No Limits’ is the passion with which Mr. Sameer Redij operates every single day. His focus is to create returns on investments and value-driven people relationships to empower every person in the ecosystem to achieve their business goals, profitably. As Chief Revenue Officer of ESDS, Sameer is the leader for revenue realization, providing exuberant support, and achieving client satisfaction. Sameer also concentrates on ESDS’s marketing, brand building, and brand recognition initiatives. He is constantly innovating to build a culture where every ESDSian strives to achieve new benchmarks. Prior to re-joining ESDS in August 2021, Sameer carried over a decade of leadership experience working with CXOs and management teams of premier organisations across industries. Previously, Sameer has been a Managing Partner in EvolutionCo, which excels in helping brands with application, content, digital, marketing, and technology support. Prior to EvolutionCo, Sameer was Chief Revenue Officer at ESDS. Other profiles included being a Sales Vice President at CTRLS, Director for Gartner India’s Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) business, and working with IBM where he significantly contributed to the growth of DotCom & Global Technology Services’ India division.
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As businesses and industries are realizing the importance of Big Data and its role in helping the business grow, the demand for data experts and analytics specialists among many other datarelated roles has been rising.
D
ata is the new Gold or the new Oil, which has now become the most valuable asset in the world. The use of this Data is not limited to one field or industry but rather made useful across various segments. Be it analytics, marketing, IT, sales, CRM, or media organizations, all are churning their data thoroughly to make the best of it. Along with organizations even individuals and professionals are making their way towards learning, understanding and analyzing the data that surrounds us via various academic courses and certifications. These knowledge enhancement courses are helping professionals across industries to amplify their work profiles. Rather than an added skill, data analytics has become more of a necessity, since data is becoming the future. This importance and preference will only keep increasing going further since more and more industries are joining the digitization bandwagon. This naturally gives a boost to data analytics as a part of higher academic courses.
Booming Demand needs Solid Management Daily, approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are being generated, which is a massive amount of data globally. This means the need to manage this enormous level of data requires more hands and brains that will work towards understanding, cleaning, evaluating, processing and analyzing this data. This simultaneously increases the demand and need for data centers and cloud service providers for storing and further distributing the data. The India analytics industry market size is estimated to increase between $98 billion and $119 billion by the year 2026. As businesses and industries are realizing the importance of Big Data and its role in helping the business grow, the demand for data experts and analytics specialists among many other data-related roles has been rising. In the coming 5-7 years it is estimated that India will have more than 10 million opportunities in the analytics sector. No doubt the vast field of data will have an endless number of opportunities as per the growing demand in
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the market. This leads to an increase in demand for more academic courses in the data sector for fresher’s as well as working professionals who want to establish their careers in this field. As industries and businesses have realized the value of big data and how to make use of it for making strategic business decisions more importance is given to such coveted roles in organizations with generous pay scales. The pandemic has pushed businesses further to make use of the data for understanding their customers and providing them with customized solutions and keeping them hooked with continuous engaging content. The use of data also comes at work for tapping new potential customers, and similar profile customers along with understanding the existing customer’s needs. Professionals that come with certification courses in the data field have higher chances of being noticed and shortlisted by recruiters among other profiles. Professionals with developed skills in the field of data can be applied in any industry or country that matter. Data is present globally, irrespective of its type, size or industry, companies need people to help understand and make sense of the data, whether it is of relevant use or not and how to take advantage of it for impactful business decisions.
take raw data, extract it further into useful, priority order or importance level and many more sub-divisions as per the set briefing or goal. Organizations with a vast amount of data that require substantial storage space, with the help of data specialists can eliminate irrelevant data and make space for the relevant set of data along with cost-saving. It can be said that the job of a data specialist is equivalent to that of a problem solver. As we move further into the depths of digital transformation, organizations will seek more candidates with data management skills. From IT, healthcare, retail, finance, marketing & sales, and manufacturing among several other industries have started understating the importance of big data. Organizations are investing heavily in securing and managing their precious data in terms of both manpower and finances. For budding professionals adding data certification courses into their portfolio will surely make them stand out in front of hiring managers of such organizations. Data specialization courses help students and professionals learn more problem-solving skills in terms of data. There are courses available that provide hands-on experience in solving challenging data queries, which only adds to professional learning development. In this emerging market with changing customer behavioral patterns, data is and will only help organizations to flourish in this competitive market. Organizations that can manage to take the right advantage of their data as per the ever-changing market demands can excel in creating a successful business. In this data-driven market, companies and individuals who can identify valuable business opportunities and churn a profitable ROI from the data at hand can surely excel at creating an established identity for themselves in this competitive market.
Organizations with a vast amount of data that require substantial storage space, with the help of data specialists can eliminate irrelevant data and make space for the relevant set of data along with cost-saving
Analyzing Career Opportunities in Data The job of a typical Data analyst, scientist or specialist involves working with data in more than one way. Right from data mining, processing, management of the data, working with statistical analysis and reports that help towards presenting the data in the required manner. These basic steps and actions depend on the purpose, source and goal of the data in question for further evaluation and interpretation. These data specialists
First Magazine 64 Digital July 2022
Powerful protection designed for PC gamers
NORTONLIFELOCK.COM Digital First Magazine July 2022
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COMPANIES 2022
Patrick Henry, President & CEO
GROGURU INC.
Offering Strategic Water Management Solutions to Commercial Farmers First Magazine 66 Digital July 2022
GROGURU® WUGS IS A PATENTED WIRELESS UNDERGROUND SYSTEM THAT ENABLES THE PERMANENT INSTALLATION OF SOIL SENSORS IN ANNUAL FIELD CROPS LIKE CORN AND SOYBEANS AND ELIMINATES THE NEED FOR ANNUAL INSTALLATION & REMOVAL OF SENSORS REQUIRED BY ALL COMPETITIVE ALTERNATIVES IN THE MARKET
T
oday, the world is at a critical juncture where we have too many people with insufficient food and water supply. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FOA) agency of the United Nations reports that there are 800 million chronically undernourished people in the world, where we are already using 70% of the global freshwater supply for agriculture irrigation, and need to increase food production by 70% by the year 2050 just to keep pace with population growth. To evade global hunger and water scarcity in the coming future, optimal irrigation is required to maximize crop yield and save water and other scarce resources sustainably. San Diego, California based GroGuru Inc., addresses this issue through its strategic water management solutions for commercial farmers. “GroGuru is all about strategic water management for commercial farmers. We help farmers make more money by increasing crop yield while, at the same time, more efficiently using water and other
scarce resources like fertilizer, energy, and labor, in a sustainable way. We are focused on scalability and ease of use,” states Patrick Henry, President & CEO, GroGuru, Inc. Scalable & Easy to Use Solutions Designed to Make a Difference GroGuru understands the challenges faced by farmers and the limitations of the available equipment in the market. With its breakthrough Wireless Underground System (WUGS) technology, the company is on a mission to make the world a better place by allowing farmers to save water, cost-effectively grow more crops, and sequester more carbon in the soil. “GroGuru® WUGS is a patented wireless underground system that enables the permanent installation of soil sensors in annual field crops like corn and soybeans and eliminates the need for annual installation & removal of sensors required by all competitive alternatives in the
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Patrick Henry President & CEO
As the CEO of GroGuru, Patrick Henry drives the overall strategy and operational execution for an exciting AgTech company that will change how we grow crops by using an innovative IoT system for precision irrigation and soil monitoring and management. Patrick is a senior executive and serial entrepreneur who has run four different startup companies with multiple exits. His articles about various aspects of entrepreneurship and building businesses can be found in Inc. Magazine, FastCompany, Tech.Co, Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, and other publications. He has also been featured on CNBC, Bloomberg Television, and Forbes.
First Magazine 68 Digital July 2022
market,” explains Patrick. When it comes to cable-based sensors, chances of rodents chewing upon them or getting cut by farm equipment or workers are high. However, these problems are nullified as GroGuru’s WUGS solution is cable-free from the underground sensors to the aboveground telemetry system. “The GroGuru system is soil sensor and irrigation equipment agnostic,” adds Patrick. GroGuru also offers its software as a service, SaaS, GroGuru® InSites, as a stand-alone solution that works with third-party hardware. This is not all. GroGuru’s solutions are highly scalable and easy for farmers and agronomists to use. It enables farmers to increase crop yield by 10 to 20 per cent and save 10 to 20 per cent on input costs. “This is a massive efficiency improvement for water, and the payback period is less than one growing season. Using GroGuru’s system, farmers are experiencing a 6-8X return on investment (ROI) every year,” pinpoints Patrick. Up & Thriving Irrespective of Challenges The global COVID-19 pandemic left disruptive footprints across most industries, the AgriTech sector being one of them. Numerous organizations had to and still are fighting tooth and nail to survive, let alone thrive in the marketplace. Led by a progressive management team, GroGuru found a way to stay strong and is starting to thrive again. From 2019 to 2020, when the pandemic had just set in, GroGuru experienced roughly flat revenue after three years of a 500% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR). Even though the figures show a marked decrease, GroGuru managed to gain market share, which is much needed in a challenging market.
In late 2020, GroGuru launched a stand-alone SaaS business where the team deploys their software on legacy hardware from Sentek, Valley Irrigation’s AgSense products, and Zensio. The reason behind the launch of this new business model was to leverage the company’s investment in GroGuru® InSites and farmers’ investment in legacy hardware. This enabled the company to accelerate GroGuru’s recurring revenue growth as well as offer better insights to farmers for managing irrigation than they have ever had before using its AI engine in the Cloud, and the highly scalable and highly intuitive user interface (UI) that farmers can access on their computer, tablet, or mobile device. Likewise, GroGuru® WUGS, underground wireless system, is also gaining momentum in the marketplace. Services Exceeding Customers’ Expectations In the AgriTech sector, customers need assurance over products that could withstand all the farming conditions. GroGuru’s product is reliable, and its software as a service (SaaS) is quite easy to use and intuitive. Farmers can access SaaS on their computers, tablet, or mobile device. Apart from this, the team of GroGuru also offers agronomic consulting support to customers to aid them in their decision-making process. They do this by an automated system using AI and agronomic expertise on staff. Brent Beckman, Principal, Beckman Agriculture, said, “In Northwest Kansas, irrigation is restricted to 11 inches per year. The use of GroGuru helps me know the times when it is critical to water and ensure crop yield. As a distributor of the system and a user, I am seeing a hit rate of 90% of the customers I present the product to.”
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Another client, Harold Grall, Owner of Hasta Farms, shared his experience saying, “Use moisture probes is a critical part of our operation, as water is our most limited resource. GroGuru has introduced the first permanent probe. The probe tells me moisture levels at various depths, which is critical to know during key points in the growing season. Use of the GroGuru system has taken my yield from 230 bushels per acre to 250 bushels per acre, an increase of 20 bushels per acre. At $5 per bushel, that is $100 more per acre. GroGuru is much better than the AquaSpy system we used before.” These testimonials speak highly about GroGuru’s easy to install, easy to use, reliable, and effective service offerings. Eying the Global Markets for Expansion “We entered 2022 with over 1,000 SaaS subscribers, 200+ end customers, over 4,000 sensors deployed, and over 100,000
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acres under management,” states Patrick. Today, GroGuru is well positioned with more than double subscribers and plans to expand its strategic partnerships in the future. In addition, Patrick feels that the US market is massive, and GroGuru will stay focused on this opportunity for the next year or two. As GroGuru enters the international markets, its team will ensure that they remain selective and build great partners in these geographic locations.” GroGuru’s highest priority markets include Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Columbia, Argentina, and Venezuela. “Our dealers and channel partners have over 5M acres of footprint. In the coming years, we will continue to innovate around wireless communication, AI, and agronomic insights in our software as a service,” concludes Patrick.
34
Higher Education Digest July 2020
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MUST-WATCH
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COMPANIES 2022
Thomas Engelbertz, CEO
LEARNSHIP
Unlocking the Potential of Multicultural Teams with a Cutting-Edge Training Platform First Magazine 72 Digital July 2022
LEARNSHIP’S PRODUCT PORTFOLIO COVERS ALL THE SKILLS INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS NEED TO BREAK DOWN INTERCULTURAL AND LANGUAGE BARRIERS. ALL THE PRODUCTS ARE BUILT AROUND THE UNIQUE LEARNSHIP HALO™ TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM.
I
n today's globalized market, there is a huge demand for business language and communication skills providers such as Learnship, which helps enterprises shatter cultural barriers and unleash the full potential of their global teams. Founded in 2008 in Cologne, Germany, Learnship is the world's leading online language and intercultural training provider, with more than 1,000 trainers working with 25,000 learners annually with more than 2,000 corporate clients. Initially, Learnship focused on trainer-led learning. Later, after acquiring GlobalEnglish, a pioneer of online learning for global enterprises, Learnship took multicultural education to the next level. The tech company combined GlobalEnglish's online experience and deep understanding of international organizations with its unique learning methodology and technology to build a complete learning solution that includes a self-paced, trainer-led, and nextgen blended training platform. "Our mission is to unlock the potential of multicultural teams within every global enterprise to create a more
collaborative, productive, and successful workforce," says Thomas Engelbertz, the CEO of Learnship. A Wide Range of Training Solutions Learnship's product portfolio covers all the skills international organizations need to break down intercultural and language barriers. All the products are built within the unique Learnship Halo technology platform: ● Solo is a digital language learning product. It offers personalized, bite-sized modules that easily fit into busy schedules and allow learners to progress at their own pace. ● In Learnship's long-standing Elevate courses, available in 12 languages, learners embark on a customized program that includes regular interaction with their trainers in the virtual classroom to improve their language proficiency. Learnship also offers individual learner programs for executives focusing on their documents, challenges, and timeline. ● Sprint is a blended learning solution combining digital pre-work and trainer-led sessions in short, high-
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impact courses focusing on specific language skills, such as negotiations, presentations, and remote project management. It is also ideal for the fast development of overall business language proficiency. ● The Evolve training concept goes beyond languages to prepare employees for living and working in a different culture, emphasizing cross-cultural communications, intercultural awareness, and country-specific insights. "All courses include initial assessments for valuable insights into our learners' proficiency, profile, mission, and goals," asserts Engelbertz. Moreover, additional features such as email templates, videos, intercultural notes, news feeds, and more enrich the learner experience and help maximise language application and experience. Learnship's USP is Outcome-focused, ROIfocused delivery Over the years, Learnship has built a broad range of training solutions to cover all employee needs per the growing demand of companies.
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Engelbertz reveals that his team conducts companywide diagnostic surveys that accurately identify their local and global challenges and then selects the most appropriate solutions to address them. While the upstream enterprise diagnosis and training courses' deployment aim to understand a company's business needs better, the downstream part is just as crucial. Whenever Learnship works with international companies, they measure the metrics specific to training, but also a metric that matters to the C-suite and decision-makers: the return on investment. As a result, Learnship's outcome-focused, ROI-focused approach gives the tech company a competitive edge in the global market. Happy Customers are Good Customers Learnship's expert teams have built data-driven global training programs relying on four pillars. First, a customercentric approach, with international and domestic teams dedicated to helping clients deliver the best business impact. Second is the business-relevant, premium content
OVER THE YEARS, LEARNSHIP HAS BUILT ITS BROADEST RANGE OF TRAINING SOLUTIONS TO COVER ALL EMPLOYEE NEEDS AS PER THE GROWING DEMAND OF COMPANIES WHO CONTINUE TO LOOK FOR WAYS TO SHATTER THE LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL BARRIERS WITHIN THEIR TEAMS TO IMPROVE COLLABORATION, ATTRACT, RETAIN, AND DEVELOP GLOBAL TALENT.
development, and delivery, based on Learnship's longstanding online pedagogy expertise. The third is its cutting-edge digital technologies and tools to boost learner engagement and monitor progress precisely. And fourth and the most important is a pool of expert trainers and coaches, recruited from a wide range of industries, with relevant certifications and extensive experience, ready to assist client organizations at every step. As a result, Learnship's clients are so satisfied that they regularly submit their language training programs to the Brandon Hall Awards, which are like the Oscars of the EdTech industry. The tech company has worked with numerous multinational companies from diverse industries such as media, financial services, retail, technology, telecommunications, etc., delivering unparalleled results. Transparency & Employee Engagement Go Hand-In-Hand Engelbertz explains that transparency is the key to engaging and motivating employees in the workplace. "When your talent trusts management, relates to their challenges, and understands the ins and outs, only then can they truly commit to the change we want to drive." Moreover, efforts are taken by the leadership team to listen to their global talent and also implement their suggestions. Recently, a Diversity and Inclusion team has been set up as part of the employees' initiative, sharing regular insights with the management.
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"Whether it be training, peer-to-peer transfer of skills, or simply exchanging ideas in the coffee room, I believe developing a common knowledge base and open communications can lead to innovation," continues Engelbertz. Tapping the Global Markets for Expansion Going ahead, Learnship plans to invest in three critical areas as part of its global expansion strategy. ● Intensifying Talent Recruitment & Development: Learnship witnessed a huge demand for its digital business education solutions over the past two years. To strengthen its workforce, the tech company is looking for diverse talent in IT development, content development, and sales to amplify its performance and meet its strategic and operational goals and objectives. ● Developing New Learning Options: Engelbertz and his team are creating brand new products and content to overcome fragmentation in the teaching and learning process. He underlines that one of their significant
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undertakings is Precision Learning, a bite-sized learning option focusing on new business needs such as remote networking skills or remote project management. Moreover, the company's content development roadmap aims to cover over twenty-five new programs by the end of 2023. ● Investing in Advanced Technologies: The Learnship team is also working on its flagship language training software platform—Halo—through which learners will be constantly tested and performance will be precisely tracked. It will allow learners to manage their courses and interact with trainers, administrators to have complete insight into all learning activities, and program managers to manage learner outreach, registration, assessment, and training materials—all from within the system. Hybrid work, globalization, continuous learning, and digital transformation are hot topics on the C-suite’s agenda. Not only does Learnship seem to fit perfectly into today’s trends, but it invests heavily in the technologies and talent that will make tomorrow’s trends. That is why we believe it is one of the 10 must-watch tech companies in 2022.
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EXPERT’S OPINION
Trends that will Dominate the PR Industry in 2022 Dhanlaxmi Bhoir, Assistant to GM and PR- Corporate Communications, TCL India
I
n the last several years, the public relations sector has changed dramatically. With the growth of social media and the requirement for businesses to have a strong online presence, public relations has become a much more digitally driven sector. Clearly, a lot has changed in the field of public relations during the last several years. As organisations focus more on making customers feel at ease with the new normal, public relations is assisting them in growing not only by providing them with many possibilities to innovate, but also by strengthening their connections with customers by connecting themselves with innovation. To remain at the vanguard of public relations, you must make an effort to stay current on what is happening. Indeed, it is equally crucial to identify developing trends that will expand in size. In this approach, you can keep your competitive edge in an ever-changing environment. Let’s have a look at the latest and emerging trends in the PR sector that might arise in 2022.
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Dhanlaxmi has had a long and distinguished
career
touching
many different aspects of human resources, sales, Marketing, service, PR, logistics handling and more for a prolonged period of 6 and half years. Even in this short span of her career, she has many remarkable achievements under her name. After dedicating 3 years to the service industry, she then decided to make a move into the public relations sector, and from then there has been no looking back. She has been serving the PR community for 3 years, her support is meaningful for the leaders, and the organization as well, is currently associated with TCL, a global leader of consumer electronics, as an Assistant to GM and PR- Corporate Communications.
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Inception of Digital PR Without a question, the technological era has altered media networking in new ways. To acquire traction, brands are using new promotional techniques, with a particular emphasis on the digital domain. A wellthought-out Digital PR strategy will aid in the development of a brand’s identity through exposure and interaction.
A well-thought-out Digital PR strategy will aid in the development of a brand’s identity through exposure and interaction
Return of Print Media The newspaper industry may have been steadily declining in recent years, owing mostly to the Covid era. However, it is clear that print media is regaining its grandeur. Print demand is also 30% greater this year than it was in 2020, according to media buyers. According to analysts, the non-metro tier II and tier III areas have been a big boost to the print growth narrative, which is also a new favourite for advertisers. To summarise, print media has always shown to be important in communications. Despite the COVID-19 storm, the print sector managed to remain a solid pillar and a
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reputable source of information for its consumers and advertisers. It is critical to note that regional magazines are getting the greatest traction in the print media. Short-form content Short-form material will become the dominating type of content on the internet in the next years. Every year, the amount of time individuals spend on the internet grows. People will have more time on the internet in 2022, but they will have less patience for long-form information. This is due to a decrease in their attention span. Personal branding Brand management is becoming a public relations technique. The idea is to position oneself as an authority in your sector, which will lead to additional cooperation chances with other organisations and clients. Personal branding was formerly used to develop a “personal brand,” but it is now used to advertise the firm and its products. This is accomplished through providing compelling online material and graphics, such as videos and social media postings, that represent the firm. Virtual events The virtual events market size is rapidly growing across the globe. The organisers will continue to create virtual events since they are cost-effective and provide worldwide access to material without requiring travel. Virtual or online events will undoubtedly continue to grow even in 2022. Influencer marketing playing an important role Influencers play an important role in increasing brand exposure and ensuring that the product reaches the proper target group. Influencers are now seen as the new generation of thought-leaders and industry experts who have a big impact on the reputation of a company. Influencers’ online campaigns and communications have a greater likelihood of success since they help spread the word about a brand’s website, products, and services to their followers. Influencer marketing is expected to peak in FY2022 and continue to have a significant influence in the years ahead. Another critical factor that might determine success or failure is targeting the proper influencers. The year 2022 will be one of transformation. As time goes on, the public relations business will play a critical role in cultivating a network of brand champions. PR firms must be adaptable enough to redefine themselves with services tailored to the challenges of the modern generation.
K12 Digest Digital First Magazine Sept-Oct 2020 July 2022
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Kenneth Bond, CEO & Enterprise Software Solutions Architect
ROOK CONNECT
The Cutting-Edge Business Management Software Designed to Maximize Efficiency First Magazine 82 Digital July 2022
ROOK CONNECT PROVIDES A MASSIVE ADVANTAGE TO ACCESS FACTS IN REAL-TIME, VISIBILITY OF ALL OPERATIONS AS THEY HAPPEN, AND THE CRITICAL INSIGHT NEEDED TO MAKE THE BEST DECISIONS
I
ncepted in 2015, Calgary, Alberta-based ROOK Connect is a trustworthy software fit for businesses looking to streamline operations, enhance their ability to operate efficiently, and maximize revenues through the application of lean practices and workflows. The company offers business process and workflow automation software, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and business intelligence (BI), designed to maximize efficiency. “We provide new-age technology, exceptional functionality, an amazingly simple user interface, and workflows the way businesses need them,” shares Kenneth Bond, CEO & Enterprise Software Solutions Architect, ROOK Connect. This software comes fully stacked with templates, workflows, processes, and business tools, providing the digital applications needed to drive businesses forward. Remarkable Product Features In today’s digital climate, numerous businesses struggle to find the right software/ERPs that cater to their specific needs and requirements. Here comes ROOK Connect’s team to their rescue. Based on years of experience in
implementation and designing digital workflows and processes, the team assists clients in configuring and customizing ROOK Connect’s diverse products to match their exact business needs. As a result, clients streamline their day-to-day business processes efficiently and effectively through the software’s adjustable tools, plugand-play modules, templated applications, and industryspecific configurations. In addition, ROOK Connect provides a massive advantage to access facts in real-time, visibility of all operations as they happen, and the critical insight needed to make the best decisions. This unique software also connects with almost all third-party software providers. Its long list of perks doesn’t end here. Born in the Cloud, ROOK Connect ensures the highest level of protection, security, and data compliance. To date, ROOK Connect has helped numerous businesses, organizations, departments, staff, vendors, and customers from diverse industries, including field service management, fleet management, logistics, supply chain management, nursing and residential care facilities, property management, POS, sales and retail services, e-commerce, construction management, etc.
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What makes ROOK Connect Unique in the Market? While many companies abandon clients soon after software implementation, the seasoned team at ROOK Connect not only takes in their requirements and delivers the product but also provides unmatched support and guidance, evolving with their clients. Moreover, ROOK Connect has the flexibility to adapt and grow with businesses, empowering them with a wide variety of workflows, processes, configurations, and even customization tools that ensure the software works the way they need it to. Apart from its numerous features, ROOK Connect is unbeatable in pricing. “Our hands-on approach, digital mapping, and ability to work with customers to ensure they get what they want is what gives us an edge in the market,” reveals Kenneth. Whether it is People, Technology, or Professionalism, ROOK Connect delivers on all fronts.
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Teamwork at its Best Since the beginning, ROOK Connect has always been and continues to be all about the team. All the employees are out-of-the-box thinkers and highlyskilled professionals aligned to the company’s core values (customer-centricity, transparency, reliability, team-driven, adaptive, innovative, & wow factor) and work in harmony to deliver quality results and drive customer success. “We don’t want just to deliver the end result to our customers; we want to provide them with options and work with them to understand their processes today, so our team can help improve these processes in the future,” says Kenneth. He further explains that to address and fulfill the customers' demands from the software, they have found the best way to make them part of the ROOK Connect team. Once they are on board, clients are guided and supported at every step.
AT ROOK CONNECT, A STRONG FOCUS IS ON BUILDING LONGTERM RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS THROUGH TRANSPARENCY, HONEST COMMUNICATION, AND INTEGRITY
Building Meaningful Relationships with Clients Ultimately, the goal of ROOK Connect is to build customers for life. Kenneth says, “I am very proud to say that ROOK Connect was founded and funded 100% off the referral of existing customers leading us to the next customer.” At ROOK Connect, a strong focus is on building long-term relationships with their customers through transparency, honest communication, and integrity. It’s a happy place where the ROOK Connect team and their clients brainstorm ideas and develop the best possible solutions to achieve excellent business results. The clients, in turn, do not fail to vouch for ROOK Connect’s services, teamwork, and approach. Delivering Stellar Performance Time & Again When it comes to ROOK Connect’s progress, the company has been climbing the ladder of success year after year. With customers expanding throughout North America and in small pockets of other countries, ROOK Connect has grown, evolved, and adapted to the market's demands and stood out as a market leader. In the coming years, ROOK Connect aims to target UK and Australia for its business expansion and continue to grow its customer base.
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EXPERT’S OPINION
The Age of Hyperpersonalized Customer Experience (CX) with AI and Big data Navin Dhananjaya, Chief Solutions Officer, Ugam, a Merkle Company
A
s a customer, what is one more likely to respond to – a mass campaign with discount ads or customized promotion campaign with purchase recommendations? The answer is simple – the former is impersonal and does not evoke a response whereas the latter has potential to resonate with the customer. A Merkle survey found that 86% of people prefer personalized offers based on their interests and browsing or purchase history as opposed to generic mass emailers. For businesses today, meeting their customer’s expectations is not enough anymore – they need to anticipate and exceed them. This impels companies to review their customer experience through a people-centric lens – Think customer! What is customer experience (CX)? It is the collective of every interaction a customer has with a business, encompassing their endto-end journey. The growing prevalence of various e-commerce platforms has changed customer purchase dynamics considerably. The customer is more powerful than ever, which has resulted in a
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Navin joined Ugam as their Chief Solutions Officer in 2013. He leads solutions management and is responsible for conceptualizing and developing new, innovative solutions and taking them to market. He oversees the client delivery for overall analytics (including media, audience,
site
analytics)
and
digital commerce service lines at Ugam. He is also responsible for conceptualizing and building Ugam’s JARVIS – a cognitive computing system. He is passionate about creating
an
environment
that
promotes personal and professional growth. His understanding of both, analytics and technology, gives him a unique edge to identify the right talent from all backgrounds and mentor them to build successful careers. He is truly Ugam’s gardener for talent – both metaphorically and literally. He brings over 25 years of experience, has held senior roles in companies such as Mu Sigma, Infosys, and Manthan.
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The customer is more powerful than ever, which has resulted in a paradigm shift in marketing techniques from being productcentric to customer-centric
paradigm shift in marketing techniques from being product-centric to customer-centric. Thus, creating a need for effective customer experience management (CXM) systems that will help retain customers and result in conversions by enriching the overall experience. Great customer experience is personalized, relevant, seamless, memorable, and consistent. How do we deliver this great CX? Customer data is largely available, but is often unstructured, diverse, and colossal in volume which can be overwhelming for traditional modes of data analysis. This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a vital role to make sense of this data and help formulate appropriate strategies that drive customer experience. We are now able to teach machines to adapt rather than simply program them. Big data is an essential input to achieve an accurate, 360-degree view of customer interactions, and is a prerequisite for AI-based systems. Cutting-edge technology, efficient processes coupled with AI and machine learning, powered by a skilled workforce can deliver next-gen CXM systems. Some of the applications of AI and big data to drive great customer experience include: ● Deeper understanding of end-to-end customer journey ● Better customer engagement by means of hyperpersonalization ● Real-time decisioning and faster resolution of customer complaints
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In a world where every individual craves a tailored experience, AI and big data help companies and brands to gain a far more accurate understanding of their customers. Brands can communicate directly to each one of them, rather than generalized demographics. Hyper-personalized experiences not only help with customer conversions but boost customer retention. Here’s an instance of how a retailer redesigned their marketing strategy to create more personalized journeys for their customers. The retailer used to employ mass campaigns to reach out to their customers which failed to achieve the desired effect. This led to loss of customer loyalty and in turn, sales. By leveraging AI and big data, the retailer was able to formulate propensity models that helped identify consumer footprints across various categories and deliver behaviour-triggered communications. By using AI to understand the customer better, taking advantage of real-time decisioning and predictive analysis, customer journey was improved through all touchpoints and across channels. This resulted in hyper-personalized experiences that added tremendous value. A people-based strategy that takes personalization to another level is the future of CXM. Leveraging AI and big data will help businesses form structured, sustainable and long-lasting models to drive customer satisfaction, increase revenue and make meaningful impact on the holistic experience of the customer.
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