Digital Bulletin - Issue 17 - June 2020

Issue 17 | June ’20

THE RISE OF RPA An exclusive interview with Blue Prism’s new CEO, Jason Kingdon

STAYING CONNECTED DURING COVID-19 How Cisco is helping employees and customers through the pandemic

BANKING’S NEW DAWN Yapily’s CEO, Stefano Vaccino, tells us why open banking is shaking up the finance world, and how a recent funding round will supercharge the company’s growth across Europe

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here‘s a lot to be said for trusting your gut in business; talk to any successful leader and they’ll tell you about the importance of having faith in your intuition.

Our cover star this month is testament to that. Three years ago Stefano Vaccino a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - had the world at his feet.

But a presentation on open banking in 2017 lit a fire inside of him, with Vaccino immediately quitting his role at Red Deer and establishing Yapily, a fintech firm now making waves in the financial world.

“My only fear was actually why I didn’t see many companies doing it already.

Why were there only three or four, and not 100?” he tells Digital Bulletin in a wide-ranging interview, in which he also discusses the company’s recent funding round.

Elsewhere, Blue Prism’s new CEO, Jason Kingdon, spoke to us this month in one of his first interviews since he stepped into his new position.

To speak to Kingdon is to speak to a man who is clearly invigorated by the challenge, and somebody who believes passionately in the potential of RPA. He gives us the lowdown on the company’s Digital Worker platform that has been used by healthcare services, the financial industry and the NHS in the fight against COVID-19 in recent months.

On a similar theme, Cisco’s Head of Corporate Social Responsibility for UK & Ireland, Kathryn Baddeley, goes into detail about how the tech giant has mobilised to help customers, partners and employees alike stay connected through the pandemic.

You’ll also find deep dives on Syniverse and MobileIron, as well as some different viewpoints on how autonomous vehicles will develop over the next decade in our regular Debate feature.

Please do enjoy the issue.

PUBLISHED BY BULLETIN MEDIA LTD, Norwich, UK Company No: 11454926 www.DigitalBullet.in TALK TO US editorial@digitalbullet.in business@digitalbullet.in

PUBLISHING

MEDIA PRODUCTION

DIGITAL MARKETING

INSIDE VIEW

Jack Ma has stepped down from the board of Softbank Group after serving as a director for 13 years. Ma also resigned as chairman of Alibaba last year, saying that he wanted to concentrate on philanthropic causes

CONTENTS

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MONTH IN REVIEW NEWS, VIEWS AND ANALYSIS

PEOPLE BLUE PRISM Combining the potential of humans and machines

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DATA INTELLIGENCE YAPILY Making waves in open banking

36 FUTURE

DEBATE The transformative impact of autonomous vehicles

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A LIFE IN TECH

CONNECTIVITY

SYNIVERSE Why blockchain can complete the puzzle for network operators

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Dr. Anton Grashion spills the beans after 30 years in the security game

72 52 EVENTS

IT SERVICES

CISCO Keeping communications fluid during COVID-19

SECURITY MOBILEIRON Shoring up mobile communications for the enterprise

The best digital technology events for your diary

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An exclusive column from Rodney Joffe, Senior VP, Technologist and Fellow at Neustar

MONTH IN REVIEW

NEWS UPDATE Digital Bulletin rounds up the news that shaped the enterprise technology space over the last month

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NEWS UPDATE

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

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t was another busy month for mergers and acquisitions in May, with the COVID-19 pandemic seemingly doing little to dampen down the market’s enthusiasm for a deal.

Facebook reached into its deep pockets to buy the popular gif and movable image library Giphy for $400 million. Facebook confirmed that the platform would be “joining the Facebook company today as part of the Instagram team,” where it is already widely used. Half of Giphy’s traffic already comes from Facebook platforms, with 25% coming from Instagram.

Apple confirmed previous reports that it had acquired the virtual reality startup NextVR. 9to5Mac first reported the agreement in early April, tagging the value of the deal at around $100 million, although Apple hasn’t disclosed financial details. NextVR specialises in VR content for the likes of sports events and concerts.

Elsewhere, VMware continues to bolster itself through acquisition gains, having confirmed that it is to buy Kubernetes security startup

Octarine. It will integrate Octarine into Carbon Black, the security firm it bought for $2.1 billion last year. Octarine enables cloud-native environments to be intrinsically secure, from development through runtime. “We can fundamentally transform how workloads are better secured,” said a VMware spokesperson.

Having been hit by a number of privacy and security issues, Zoom announced the acquisition of encrypted-chat startup Keybase. Zoom said the deal was a milestone in its 90-day plan to further strengthen the security

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of its video communications platform.

The video conferencing company has set out an accelerated plan to repair its reputation, which has been damaged during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Sinch has paid $250 million for SAP Digital Interconnect. Reports of the acquisition first emerged in April as SAP looked to streamline. The deal will allow Sinch, a leader in cloud communications in Europe, to take a foothold in the United States market. Around 1,500 enterprise customers currently use SAP Digital Interconnect.

In the biggest potential merger in this and many other months, O2 and Virgin Media, two of the UK’s biggest telecoms companies, have agreed to come together. The £31 billion combination will create a challenger to BT. The deal will need to be signed off by regulators, however, with watchdogs likely to be concerned over the impact on consumer choice.

Softomotive has been acquired by Microsoft, and has confirmed that all of its products will become part of Microsoft Power Automate. The deal was announced at Microsoft’s Build event, where its CEO Satya Nadella said: “We’re bringing RPA — or robotic process automation to legacy apps and services with our acquisition of Softomotive.” Financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed.

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FUNDING General Atlantic has followed Facebook in making a significant bet on Indian telco Jio Platforms. It has invested $870 million at a valuation of $65 billion, meaning it has taken a 1.34% equity stake. In April Facebook ploughed $5.7 billion into Jio, which has now raised $8.85 billion in the last month alone. “General Atlantic shares our vision of a Digital Society for India,” said a spokesperson.

Intel has committed $132 million to tech startups through its investment arm. Intel Capital has taken stakes in 11 different “disruptive” young companies.

The startups have made breakthroughs

NEWS UPDATE

in the areas of artificial intelligence, autonomous computing and chip design. Intel Capital is set to invest as much as $500 million in technology companies before the end of the year.

InfraVia Capital Partners has seen its latest tech fund raise $270 million. The Growth Equity Fund will be invested in B2B technology companies. Among the 15 investors is Iliad’s founder Xavier Niel.

“I am very happy to invest personally to help European scaleups become global leaders,” he said. InfraVia said it expects the coronavirus pandemic to accelerate digital transformation initiatives.

Alphabet and Sequoia Capital have backed Cockroach Labs in a Series D funding round. The cloud database startup, creators of the leading SQL database CockroachDB, pocketed $86.6 million from the investment call.

Cockroach Labs joins a long list of tech

firms getting financial backing as businesses are forced to scale their systems because of stay-at-home orders worldwide.

ASAPP has raised $185 million in new funding. The firm has built AI software to assist call centre agents. It says the cash will help it meet the “extraordinary demands” of its customers during the coronavirus pandemic. ASAPP has now raised a total of $260 million since forming in 2014.

Cloud security firm Orca Security has landed $20 million from a Series A funding round. GGV Capital led the investment circle. Orca’s technology allows enterprises to have full visibility on their cloud infrastructures. It also detects vulnerabilities, malware and high-risk data without the need for agents. The Israeli company wants to double its headcount and business by the end of this year.

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MOVERS AND SHAKERS The biggest news this month comes from Google, with Eric Schmidt, the man who helped shape the organisation into a technology giant, reportedly leaving the organisation after almost two decades’ service. CNET broke the news that Schmidt quietly left his role as technical advisor in February, citing a “person familiar with the situation.” Schmidt took over as CEO of Google in 2001, taking the company public in 2004, and becoming executive chairman in 2011.

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Stuart Levey, HSBC’s Chief Legal Officer and former US Treasury official, has been appointed as Libra’s first CEO. Levey will head up Facebook’s digital currency efforts starting in the summer. Libra is battling to win regulatory approval after a difficult project launch. Facebook recently confirmed its coin will be linked to individual national currencies. Levey has been at HSBC since 2012.

Twitter has appointed Fei-Fei Li as an independent director. Li is a former Goog-

NEWS UPDATE

le VP and served as Chief Scientist of AI/ ML at Google Cloud. She departed because of her involvement in Google’s controversial military contracts. Li is currently the Sequoia Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford. “Twitter is an incredible example of how technology can connect the world,” she said.

Google Cloud has made two high-profile executives appointments to further its ambitions in the telco and communication sectors. Former SAP exec

Lori Mitchell-Keller has joined Google as vice president for industry solutions, a newly-created position. In addition, George Nazi has joined the company from Accenture as vice president for telecommunications, media and entertainment industry solutions.

Capital One has tapped Goldman Sachs’s former chief information security officer, Andy Ozment to take the role of head of technology risk. Capital One reeling from a data breach last year that exposed personal data of 106 million customers, which resulted in its CISO Michael Johnson departing his post.

Ozment previously served as senior cyber official in President Barack Obama’s administration.

Monzo has confirmed that Sujata Bhatia is its new COO. The fintech had been on the hunt for a replacement for Tom Foster-Carter, who left unexpectedly in November. Bhatia, who was previously an exec for American Express in Europe, is due to start in her new role at the end of June. Last month, Monzo appointed Mike Hudack as its new Chief Product Officer.

Stay right up to date with the latest news shaping the enterprise technology sector with The Bulletin, available at digitalbullet.in

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CLOUD’S SILVER LINING Could the coronavirus pandemic change the way enterprise stores its data forever? James Henderson reports

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he coronavirus pandemic is having a profound effect on all corners of the enterprise technology market. With the economy set to suffer its worst concerted global recession in more than a generation, it will come as no surprise that spending in the IT sector is also likely to take a dive.

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.4 trillion in 2020, a decline of 14

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8% from 2019, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. The situation is understandably causing CIOs to prioritise spending on technology and services that are deemed “mission-critical” over initiatives aimed at growth or transformation.

But in all crises there are winners and there are losers. And, fuelled by a once-in-a-generation shift in the labour

NEWS ANALYSIS

market, cloud looks to be winning in a big way.

New data from Synergy Research Group shows that Q1 spend on cloud infrastructure services reached $29 billion, up 37% from the first quarter of 2019. This was in line with the expected market growth rate and showed no meaningful negative impact as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

All of the leading cloud infrastructure service providers posted strong growth over the first quarter of the year, with that momentum also trickling down to smaller providers.

Speaking to Digital Bulletin, David Friend, CEO and co-founder of cloud storage company Wasabi, says there is definitive evidence of a significant spike in demand for cloud services since the beginning of the pandemic, with busi-

David Friend

Martyn Crew

nesses keen to protect themselves by shoring up funds.

“The amount of new data we store each week has grown by more than 50% over the same period last year as people appear to be moving to the cloud across the board. We’ve seen a number of customers who have been putting off moving their data to the cloud suddenly come alive as they shift to working at home,” he says.

“Shifting to the cloud and eliminating the fixed costs that accompany on-premise storage allows businesses to move from a capital expenditure model to an operating expenses model.

This way, they can preserve liquid cash reserves by drawing out costs over longer periods of time.”

Noel O’Grady, Sales Director, Ireland, Sungard Availability Services, says he

Noel O’Grady

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has also seen a clear uptick in customers demand: “As soon as the virus started to spread, our customers increased network orders to increase their capacity. Whether customers hosted data and applications in data centres or private and public clouds, we saw significant interest in cloud bandwidth increase, some even requesting to double.”

The shift to a working-from-home model has happened almost overnight, and there is no suggestion that things will go back to normal in the post-pandemic world. This period of lockdown has been a successful proving ground 16

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for remote working, with technology allowing teams to work collaboratively in real-time.

If businesses can thrive in such an environment, it will undoubtedly lead many to consider the value in filling expensive commercial buildings with staff and regular business trips around the world.

“It is looking increasingly likely that working-from-home arrangements will become the norm for many workers after the pandemic,” says O’Grady. “As customers have adopted the excess capacity that cloud providers once had

NEWS ANALYSIS

in place, providers will need to buy more capacity to reintroduce that leeway.

“It is unlikely now that customers have this additional capacity that they will want to reduce it, should external threats, such as a second wave of COVID-19, happen again. Providers will therefore need to be able to offer even more capacity in the future to ensure organisations have a safety net in place to continue operating during any form of crisis where the workplace becomes inaccessible, or mass working-fromhome is needed again.”

Friend says the virus has put a spotlight on the need for more remote capabilities, whether that’s teleworking and video conferencing, remote collaboration tools or the need to move work off-premise to the cloud, and that its apparent success has led to a point of no-return.

“We’re experiencing the biggest remote working experiment in history, and for many businesses, the shift to the cloud will be permanent even when people do start to return to the office. It’s a big transition to move your data to the cloud and I’d seriously doubt anyone is going to want to move back to onprem storage.

“Storing data in the cloud is clearly where everyone is going - who wants to own a room full of expensive storage servers anymore?”

There is no question that the pandemic has acted as a catalyst for many companies to expedite their digital transformation ambitions, and those looking to migrate to the cloud will have many options to choose from.

It represents a huge opportunity for cloud providers both large and small.

But increased demand will place more pressure on cloud providers, with any downtime likely to see them lose customers to their rivals - it is very much a buyer’s market.

“Cloud providers are suddenly compelled to scale their activities to

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Only providers that have created a resilient architecture, designed disaster recovery plans, and enforced procedures and policies will be able to manage the surge in demand”

cope with the significant increase in the number of users and the frequency of their usage - all without compromising user experience: remote support will be fundamental to achieve this,” comments Martyn Crew, Director at visibility and traffic monitoring outfit Gigamon.

“Cloud and other technologies like entertainment content services will be fighting over network bandwidth, representing an additional challenge for providers and users.

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“In theory, major players have the means necessary to ride this wave as their advanced analytics capabilities allow them to manage resources efficiently, securing continuous performance and reliability. Ultimately, only providers that have created a resilient architecture, designed disaster recovery plans, and enforced procedures and policies will be able to manage the surge in demand.”

Crew believes that, ultimately, cloud will cease to become a choice for com-

NEWS ANALYSIS

panies and instead be as integral as the software platforms which they rely upon on a daily basis, leading providers to consider bumping their pricing. “With a constantly evolving situation at a global level, customer demand is likely to continue to fluctuate, meaning businesses must be able to scale and adapt in order to remain profitable.

Cloud will be a key enabler of this. “Demand for cloud will continue to rise and cloud computing will cease

to be an option, becoming a real business essential to ensure productivity and agility. For cloud providers, this means fewer major spikes in demand and more constant and ongoing usage. This may also lead to a surge in cloud pricing, favouring companies that can afford to invest more in this now critical technology.�

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UNLOCKING DATA IN BANKING

Helped along by expert insights from Yapily founder and CEO Stefano Vaccino, Digital Bulletin dives into the world of open banking and finds out how data sharing has reshaped financial services AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer

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t takes a degree of boldness to make a career-defining decision on the back of one convincing presentation. Yet three years ago, Stefano Vaccino did just that.

A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a former Goldman Sachs trader, a successful innovation leader within startups - the fintech world was Vaccino’s oyster when he settled down to watch an address on the topic of open banking in 2017.

But so convinced was he by its content and the opportunities it presented, he took some decisive action. Vaccino quit his role with Red Deer immediately.

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Two days later, he founded Yapily - the London-based fintech company that is today making waves in open banking and financial services.

“For me, the opportunity was too big to miss,” he reveals to Digital Bulletin.

“I was super-convinced on how this was going to change financial services, and I didn’t see many competitors in the space. My only fear was actually why I didn’t see many companies doing it already. Why were there only three or four, and not 100?

“And one thing I learned in the years prior to that was that if you don’t commit full-time, side projects rarely take

YAPILY

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I was super-convinced on how this [open banking] was going to change financial services, and I didn’t see many competitors in the space” Stefano Vaccino

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off. That’s why I went full steam ahead straight away.”

Open banking is a movement that is altering the dynamics of financial services.

By definition it is all about data; more specifically, the notion that data longheld by banks and financial institutions should be freely accessible, not least to whomever that data relates to, be it an individual or business customer.

Innovated in Europe over the last decade, open banking became further formalised in law in 2018. When the European Union (EU) enacted its Second Payment Services Directive, it became an obligation for banks to offer access to third-parties via an open API (Application Programming Interface). Along with the implementation of GDPR, the EU - over the course of a few months - transformed rules around data ownership and greatly increased competition in the banking sector.

“The main objective they had in mind was to allow more competition,” says Vaccino. “If you think about it, banks are selling services to the customer based on the data they have. They don’t make money on current accounts; they make money on loans, credit and lots of other services that they sell around that. But they were not sharing this data with the rest of the world. Forcing banks to create APIs and share data they have on

YAPILY

their customers was going to allow for more competition.”

For the already-flourishing fintech ecosystem, this represented an opening into a previously closed-off sector. Today, Yapily - whose own API allows users to connect to multiple banks through a single interface - is just one of a number of companies set to thrive in a new era of open banking. Use cases are springing up in all manner of different areas, as Vaccino outlines.

“When you think about open banking, think about all the data on your bank account. So your name, your surname, your email address, your balance, all the

transactions that you have done since you opened the account - now they can reach a service provider in a few milliseconds. For example, if you go and get a mortgage, instead of printing three months of bank statements [to prove your identity], you can share two years of transactions in milliseconds.

“Then there’s the accounting space.

A lot of accounting software used by SMEs accesses client data using Excel or other rudimentary approaches - with open banking, this is now slick and secure and fast. Not only can SMEs receive better accounting software, but also faster access to SME loans. OverISSUE 17

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Banks have the opportunity to create premium APIs on top of the mandated APIs. Then they can turn this regulation into a revenue opportunity” all, they will have much better financial services.”

It is not just in these areas that the principles of open banking are having an impact. In the payments industry it is set to have a similar transformative effort according to Vaccino, despite early reservations around privacy and security, and a historic demand by payments companies to exercise tight control over the end-to-end process.

While normally payments firms would charge up to 2% for a transaction, the open approach could allow for direct purchaser-to-merchant exchanges.

“In the more short and medium-term, we will hear much more about open banking payments because the benefits are very tangible and the cost-saving is immediate,” claims Vaccino. “Think 24

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about when you go on an ecommerce platform. If there was a button that allowed you to initiate directly from your bank account to the merchant’s bank account, this can ultimately become free, instead of the merchant being charged by the card provider.”

How have those in financial services reacted to this changing world order?

A Capgemini report last year found that long-established banks were still slow in coming round to the idea of open banking. While 90% of those surveyed were in support of ecosystem-based business models, only 44% expressed interest in orchestrating an ecosystem of their own.

But Vaccino views it from a more optimistic perspective and actually believes that not only will banks benefit from sharing data with their rivals, but that the most forward-thinking will see the chance to generate extra revenues through “premium” APIs. “The regulation mandates what they have to offer, which has a minimum common denominator - but now they have the opportunity to think, “okay, the regulations don’t force us to share passport information or mortgage account details”. If people want to access that, they will have to pay. So banks have the opportunity to create premium APIs on top of the mandated APIs. Then they

YAPILY

can turn this regulation into a revenue opportunity.

“They are at different steps on the journey. Most are switching from compliance mode - where they have had to create this API - to thinking about how they can take advantage of it by integrating with other banks or selling other features on top.”

Open banking is evidently still at the start of its journey to maximum potential. Europe has undoubtedly led the charge, with the rest of the world still playing catch-up. In Asia, countries such as Japan and Hong Kong do not

have laws but have introduced measures to encourage data sharing in financial services. The United States, meanwhile, has seen less appetite for open banking given the more complex nature of its regulatory environment.

Looking longer-term, Vaccino believes the movement will spread globally - and not just in banking. He says open data initiatives are likely to filter across a range of industries.

“We will hear much more about open finance,” he predicts. “Banking is just the starting point; other industries, like pensions, insurance, utilities - they are

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Banking is just the starting point; other industries, like pensions, insurance, utilities - they are all embracing an open philosophy”

all embracing an open philosophy. It’s just a question of time before this will happen, it’s not an “if” any more.

“In just a few years from now, we will be able to serve multiple data sources off a single individual, and this single individual will be able to have bespoke services, much more bespoke to their personal situation. Open finance is going to be a big trend.”

Vaccino hopes Yapily will be ready to take advantage. The company has faced similar challenges to most in recent months, namely around the transi26

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tion to remote working and the impact of the coronavirus on its business pipeline. Vaccino even contracted COVID-19 himself, just as Yapily was finalising an investment round.

“It was a bit scary for me because I was worried I wasn’t going to be available to sign the documents, and if I couldn’t sign the documents then this funding round would not happen,” he reveals. “This was in March, so now I am recovered and healthy. From a company perspective, we quickly told the team what changes we were going to

YAPILY

do. We are now all working from home, the productivity is very good and we are continuing to draw business.”

Confirmed in April, Yapily managed to raise $13 million from the Series A funding round led by Lakestar and existing investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and LocalGlobe. It has now pocketed a total of $18 million in funding and plans to spend the extra cash on expanding its team and building out its services.

“Open banking has reached a maturity by which it made sense to accelerate our growth,” concludes Vaccino. “The

money will be used to grow our technical team and integrate with many more banks, first across Europe and then maybe into other continents.

“To sell into most European countries, we will need a commercial team with the right language skills, so we will improve our sales effort. And for the type of client we are going after, which most of the time are mature tech companies, we need to offer what I call enterprise-quality services.”

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PEOPLE

BLENDING MAN & MACHINE With RPA one of the fastest growing segments of the enterprise technology world, Blue Prism’s CEO, Jason Kingdon, tells Digital Bulletin why digital workers should be on the radar of any company looking to carry out a successful transformation

AUTHOR: James Henderson

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or all the talk in recent years of technology disrupting the world of enterprise, it is a virus that has forced industry to truly transform, with the way businesses operate - from the very biggest organisations to SMEs being flipped on its head and remote working becoming the norm.

But it is technology itself that has enabled many companies to keep going in one form or another, shielding the global economy from being decimated entirely. Technologies such as video conferencing, work collaboration tools and other cloud-based services now form the backbone of the enterprise world.

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There is no doubt that the crisis will take some time to get over, but it is also worth acknowledging that had this happened a decade ago, the technologies currently holding business together were in their embryonic stages, if they even existed at all. The after-effects would almost certainly still be felt today.

It is an observation not lost on Jason Kingdon, Blue Prism’s newly appointed CEO. “It wasn’t too long ago that if you wanted to do a global broadcast, you’d have to book a satellite

BLUE PRISM

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PEOPLE

We are helping the NHS with ICU demand, live bed management, linking care home and NHS admin systems, appointment rescheduling and automating the 111 service to the COVID database”

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to do it, a whole team of technicians would have to be involved,” he recalls during a wide-ranging interview with Digital Bulletin.

“If this would have happened 10 years ago, who knows how much more damage it could have done to the global economy. We’ve never seen anything like this and let’s hope we don’t ever again.”

While the CEO role is a new one for Kingdon, his presence at Blue Prism is not. Having met with the company’s founders Alastair Bathgate and David Moss in 2007, Kingdon jumped on board, utilising the AI knowledge and skills he honed as founder of the Intelligent Systems Lab at University College London.

Kingdon says he instantly believed the founders had hit upon a winning formula with a product that solved a technology issue he himself had tried to tackle with his first company Searchbase (which Kingdon subsequently sold to New York-based private equity outfit Warburg Pincus).

“They already understood the importance of interoperability. At Searchbase, we were always having to integrate with other products and 60% of the product stack cost was on interoperability issues. I could see that Blue Prism had dealt with those issues and I just thought about how smart it was.”

The potential of enterprise robotic process automation software (RPA) that

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provide digital workforces to automate complex, end-to-end operational activities was clear, and Kingdon spent the next nine years as Executive Chairman.

Kingdon took something of a back seat since Blue Prism’s IPO in 2016 - “almost a tradition”, he says - but he is now stepping into the CEO position, a role carried out for almost two decades by Bathgate.

“He has done an amazing job and it’s fair to say he is due a break,” says Kingdon.

It has certainly been a baptism of fire.

As with just about every other software business, Blue Prism has had to pivot to a remote working model, something Kingdon said it was able to achieve relatively easily given its established flexible

working options. Today, all customer service operations, management services and administration tasks are being conducted in a lockdown environment.

At the end of April, the company also announced that it had raised £100 million from existing and new investors.

“One of our worries was what this situation would do to the overall market and how our other businesses would perform, hence the finance raising. We just wanted to take all of the anxiety off the table and ensure that everyone understood that we are in good shape, and that people didn’t have to worry,” Kingdon says.

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For the people who have seen this stuff in action, the penny has dropped. It is clear that there is a new way of doing things”

bilised as the seriousness of the pandemic became clear. The company has donated ‘digital workers’ - which combine AI and RPA to create ‘intelligent automation’ - and services to assist on the front lines of the health emergency, across many sectors.

“Within a month of offering these services, we had more than 110 initiatives within the NHS and financial services rolled out. We are helping the NHS with ICU demand, live bed management, linking care home and NHS admin systems, appointment rescheduling and automating the 111 service to the COVID database, to name just a few.”

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Blue Prism’s digital workforce is also being utilised by the Small Business Administration in the United States to administer loans, with a loan being rubber stamped every 90 seconds at the peak of the programme, while in the UK Leeds Building Society is leveraging the platform to enable mortgage holidays for customers feeling the financial effects of the virus.

“That is a whole business process that those guys would have had no idea they needed to offer five or six weeks previously, so that is a whole new service sitting across their technology estate,” adds Kingdon. “They’ve got mortgages

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going back decades, so there will be a number of systems that are being managed by the digital workers. That’s the kind of flexibility that makes a difference.

“The situation has certainly highlighted the capability of digital workers.

Increasingly, businesses are beginning to recognise the advantages of putting these new processes in place. They can see that it is simple to train the digital worker to carry out these important tasks - once they’ve set them up, they can just allow the digital workers to get on with it.

“For the people who have seen this stuff in action, the penny has dropped.

It is clear that there is a new way of doing things.”

It is true to say that RPA was a technology on the rise in the pre-pandemic world. In fact, a report last year from Gartner named RPA as the fastest growing segment of the enterprise technology market, boosted by the technology’s ability to accelerate digital transformation initiatives, drive efficiencies and eliminate waste. The value of the RPA market is expected to sky-rocket, from $17 billion in 2019 to $75 billion in 2025, according to Wikibon.

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which, since its IPO in 2016, has increased its physical workforce from 60 to 1,000, with its market cap growing to more than $1 billion during the same period.

On a macro and micro level, it does suggest that the effort to change the conversation on RPA and, indeed, AI, from a dystopian perspective where great swathes of the populace find themselves out of jobs, to one of man and machine working in harmony, is being won. Although Kingdon admits that anxieties over the technology still exist.

“I completely understand the anxieties but they are totally misplaced, there is just no truth in this theory that business people want to have no employees.” he states emphatically. “What people do

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want is to offer improved services to their customers, greater flexibility, agility and make better returns for themselves that is what motivates and drives people.

“When you think about the number of jobs that need doing, the actual execution tasks are the ones that offer the least reward. It is very rare that you find people who just enjoy doing those tasks, and they are also disproportionately anxiety-creating.

“There is a person that sticks in my mind who did back office tasks for Lloyd’s of London and one of her jobs was updating currency exchanges overnight, which is really important but not really demanding. If you make a mistake such as typing in cents instead of dollars

BLUE PRISM

I completely understand the anxieties but they are totally misplaced, there is just no truth in this theory that business people want to have no employees” it has all these downstream complications and that can become really problematic when it should just be a really simple administrative task.”

Most people, says Kingdon, want to be freed up to work on more creative and rewarding tasks, and it is difficult to argue that point. It is this mission to change the nature of work - to go in a “big, bold and transformative” direction - that comes across clearly when speaking to Blue Prism’s CEO. “One of our best customers is MetLife in the US, and this approach totally embraces what it is that they do. I asked them what they think is the biggest change since they started using digital workers as a strategic capability and the answer was that the people they hire are now immediately doing value-adding tasks.

“So rather than sticking people on entry tasks, they can impact the job from the minute they arrive with real energy and enthusiasm and actually help customers. I think that these fears we spoke about before are misplaced and

once people see the technology in action, the anxiety dissipates.”

Over the last four years, Blue Prism has built a significant customer base that includes 20% of the Forbes 2000.

As one of the first individuals in the UK to attempt to commercialise AI, Kingdon believes this growth is proof positive that RPA and AI are truly being embraced by enterprise and will soon be seen as essential business tools.

“We have customers in 170 countries across 70 commercial sectors and 75 buying centres. We didn’t do that because somehow we sold and marketed something really well,” Kingdon concludes.

“What has happened is that people understand that this product is transforming what they do and unlocks things in their business. If you see that kind of pace, it will be pretty short order before you see this technology pretty well everywhere - it will be as familiar as word processing and all of those other tools we use everyday.”

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DRIVING CHANGE

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Each month, Digital Bulletin picks the brains of experts in a particular sector of the technology world. This month, we ask: How will future technology and the emergence of autonomous vehicles change the mobility space over the course of the next decade?

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“ Safety and reliability will determine success” Cyril Leman, Automotive Product Lead, HERE Technologies

Urban mobility spaces have always been constructed with location and geography in mind. Whether it’s at the foot of a mountain, by the coast, or along a river, location is the common denominator. With urban areas expected to hit 70% of global populations by 2050, issues around mobility and congestion are becoming increasingly pertinent and cities must adapt over the course of the next decade to become ‘smarter’ in order to avoid the negative impacts of these challenges.

Smart cities in the modern age will reach the next level of innovation by focusing on location data and embracing data sharing. In time, cities will move from seeing, to thinking and eventually doing. Issues around sustainability and mobility will pose challenges that can only be tackled by businesses sharing their resources with each other and with governmental institutions.

Applying machine learning to sensors and cameras will collate the data and

allow us to find patterns, trends and anomalies that exist under the surface.

If developers, city-planners and transport services can access and harness this, they can create new services that solve real-world problems around mobility such as planning more efficient operations, merging different modes of transportation together and ensuring equal access to everyone.

For instance, rail lines, roads, cycle lanes and bus routes could be optimised, cutting commuting times to the bare minimum. Public services will become more intuitive and robust with a collaborative, data-driven approach that will see better transport standards

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Open data is clearly key to the future of mobility and while we are already seeing the benefits to a degree, as collaboration grows so will the benefits” across the globe. As far as road safety is concerned, enabling data to transfer between connected cars will identify other vehicles in close proximity and even predict accidents before they happen.

Open data is clearly key to the future of mobility and while we are already seeing the benefits to a degree, as collaboration grows so will the benefits.

Looking at autonomous vehicles specifically, there ought to be optimism about the long-term benefits of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Safety is the most crucial aspect of current discussions – if we’re going to see driverless vehicles become a genuine part of future mobility, the technology must earn people’s trust as a prerequisite.

More experience with ADAS vehicles will naturally create more data points, and alongside the creation of collaborative data repositories, we will begin to see more robust maps and naviga38

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tion solutions to support cars. This will improve the reliability of the vehicles themselves, which is crucial to improving the safety and trust of the overall autonomous driving experience. As autonomous vehicles become increasingly immersed and normalised as a transport option over the course of the next decade, we will see the risk of human error eliminated, providing a notable impact on safety in the mobility space.

Shorter commutes, efficient public transport, fewer road accidents and more enjoyable journeys are all on the horizon, thanks to advancements in technology.

But better use and sharing of data will be crucial in seeing this become a reality. Once this is achieved, cities can then truly understand the environment around them and ensure vehicles, drones and people interact safely and intuitively.

Location intelligence has the potential to create a truly harmonious, autonomous and connected future.

FUTURE

“ A decade of diversity on the road” Tom Cheesewright, Applied Futurist

We live in a car culture. Not just where I’m from in the UK, where 68% of people in the UK commute by car or van, but globally. With notable exceptions, cars are the framework on which our cities are designed and constructed.

And where they are not, they are often the aspiration. When looking to the next decade, we can say with certainty that the car is not going away. If we want to move to less individual and more sus-

tainable forms of transport, that will take time. Nonetheless, we will see some significant changes in the coming years.

The first change is cultural: it appears the young and urban may be falling further and further out of love with the car.

Where once it offered freedom, and status, today it looks more and more like a burden. Why invest a huge proportion of your income into a poorly-utilised asset when the bike keeps you fit, public transport is ubiquitous, and ride-sharing gives you the freedom you crave?

More importantly, why spend money on something physical when it is the digital domain where status is secured?

The second change is technological.

I recently wrote a report for Auto Trader

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When looking to the next decade, we can say with certainty that the car is not going away�

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that showed that the truly autonomous vehicle remains further away than many people think. It will be at least 20 years for something that can whisk us to our destination with merely a spoken command.

But there will be many changes within that time span, starting with the shift to all electric. As volumes rise, so prices will fall. Range anxiety will be eliminated by new generations of battery technology.

Performance already leaves most combustion-engined cars standing.

In time, we will likely see a greater range of sizes and body styles, with new market entrants looking to differentiate and the simpler electric platforms allowing a greater range of possibilities. New manufacturing technologies will allow more customisation and personalisation. Safety will improve, both through stronger and lighter materials, and through semi-autonomous features that take the edge off the worst aspects of humans behind the wheel.

In short, the biggest change to the mobility space over the next decade is diversity. Though we remain primarily a car culture, everyone will have many more options than before. And we will use them, picking the right combination of ride services, public transport, pedal and electric vehicles to whisk us to our destination in the manner that suits us best.

FUTURE

“ Business models are going to get shaken up�

Dr Ramsey Faragher, founder and CEO of FocalPoint

The big changes will be in business models, industry players and urban design. We are already seeing the business models within the mobility space shift from product to service businesses - it started with the ridesharing businesses like Uber, and subscription businesses like ZipCar. We expect that

individual vehicle ownership will drop further as autonomous vehicles become more prevalent. This, in turn, will create new verticals and room for new players within the space. Consumer technology brands such as Google and Apple are already making moves into the mobility space, but we could also imagine the likes of travel and entertainment majors developing services within the vertical.

Beyond passenger vehicles, the more immediate big shift will be in the mass adoption of delivery robots. COVID-19 has accelerated the trialling and adoption of these services, and we expect the final hurdles around the cost of positioning systems and battery drain being solved by companies such as FocalPoint. With these advances, delivery vehicles will be able to be rolled out at scale, in controlled environments at first, and then in mixed urban environments.

We can expect to see major changes to how cities are managed and designed - designing for better traffic management as AVs allow for more efficient use of available road space, and designing for shared pedestrian/ vehicle/robot use.

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canyons, while the alternatives such as LIDAR are expensive and energy-hungry. Our S-GPS product solves these specific problems, while our D-Tail product goes further, allowing for ubiquitous indoor/outdoor navigation. We expect our products to be in market in Q1 2021.

“ Data is key to driving mobility” Sherezad Rehmann, Senior Director of Global Product Management, LexisNexis Risk Solutions

All new vehicles are expected to have connectivity by 2030, feeding data directly into car manufacturers. Carmakers want to understand exactly how their vehicles are used and how they can cut the cost of ownership as they invest in developing increasingly autonomous vehicles as part of their zero emissions and zero fatalities objectives.

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and deliver new services such as PayAs-You-Drive products. As a consequence these two worlds are coming together in a data ecosystem that will help underpin the mobility services of the future.

The potential that vehicle centric data offers to the insurance market is immense. Rather than rely on estimations and proxies for risk, it could tell an insurer the car’s mileage (valuable insight during and post-pandemic), the car’s position, how it is driven and what ADAS features are present and being activated.

The challenge has been in enabling access to this data in a way that is fully compliant and in a form that is meaningful for insurance. Consider the volume of car makes and models, the number of motor insurance providers, the quantity of motorists buying insurance. You need to create standardisation so that drivers can shop around for insurance based on how they drive and the safety features on their car.

The logical solution is a data platform strategy that takes telematics data from any device or app, connected car and vehicle build data where the data can be standardised, contextualised and normalised in a fully compliant manner for use across all vehicle makes or models. It means that no matter your

FUTURE

car a driving score will be consistent and can be used by insurers.

The first step on that road is enabling drivers to maximise their investment in ADAS. In 2019, every mainstream car manufacturer was offering vehicles with a range of ADAS features. Across the US and Europe, that translated to an average of more than two ADAS features for every new car sold.

As there are many ways each manufacturer describes their ADAS features, a common classification of ADAS has been created so that the features of a car, and their relative performance can be understood and used by insurers.

At the same time, car manufacturers will be able to see what ADAS features have the most impact on their customer’s safety to help drive further enhancements. These learnings help carmakers and insurers better understand the vehicle, how it’s driven, its performance and how semi-autonomous features work in the real world, giving them that glimpse into the future.

It’s a virtuous circle – as consumers learn how data from and about the car can work for them, market adoption can increase and innovation will help drive further benefits in terms of safety and total cost of ownership.

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SYNIVERSE

BLOCKCHAIN’S ROLE IN A HYPER-CONNECTED WORLD With telecommunications standing on the cusp of a 5G and IoT revolution, Syniverse’s Douwe van der Heij says blockchain could be a vital piece of the jigsaw for network operators

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AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer

very industry is, in some way, being reordered by new technologies. For some, the impact is significant if not revolutionary. For others, it is truly transformational - and it’s reasonable to say telecommunications falls into this second category.

Telecoms provision is about to make some giant leaps forward, with the roll-out of 5G and the continued proliferation of IoT devices set to profoundly

impact the consumer and enterprise worlds. And as more and more individuals and businesses embrace mobile, the underlying technologies that support this connectivity will become ever more sophisticated.

The organisations driving this change are operating at the bleeding edge of innovation, carrying out research and development at full speed to see how the likes of cloud and artificial intelligence can help our networks meet unprecedented demand. Another technology to throw into this mix is blockchain.

Like many other sectors, telecoms is exploring why blockchain - one of the

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most hyped technologies of the digital epoch - might hold the key to unlocking new savings and efficiencies. According to recent market research, the blockchain in telecoms market alone could be worth just short of $1 billion by 2023.

One company making strides in this field is Syniverse. A household name Syniverse may not be, but the Florida-based multinational is a key player in the telecoms arena, enabling roaming for many of the world’s largest network operators and providing a host of other enterprise-level services.

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“Syniverse is set up across three major business lines being ‘Exchange’, ‘Engage’ and ‘Connect’,” outlines Douwe van der Heij, Senior Director for Product Management, to Digital Bulletin. “‘Connect’ is really where we connect mobile network operators to each other in terms of roaming or domestic traffic.

“In ‘Engage’ we predominantly connect enterprises to mobile network operators, meaning that we facilitate delivery of application-to-person messaging, such as OTP (one-time password) messages if you need to connect to your bank, for example. Then in ‘Exchange’,

SYNIVERSE

With new technologies like IoT and 5G, there’s definitely a rigorous change happening, so there’s a need to start doing things differently in an ecosystem like mobile roaming” we are really monetising transactions for our customers. So our customers have a multiplicity of relationships – we serve as the clearing and settlement agent to help them do business with each other.”

It is within the ‘Exchange’ business line that Syniverse has been testing use cases for blockchain. In the practice of clearing and settlement, blockchain’s immutability makes it highly applicable when Syniverse is facilitating transactions between clients. But the bottom line for mobile operators is the opportunity to save time and money, as van der Heij explains.

“Operators are really looking to increase their efficiencies; they’re very cost-conscious in terms of knowing that they need to grow their business while not necessarily having the resources to do so. This has been a trend over the past years where they struggle between

growth visions and the level of investment they can make and save.”

Last year, Syniverse announced a collaboration with IBM to use open-source blockchain technology for validating new wholesale billing and charging processes for clearing and settlement services.

The pilot was designed to enable “smart contracts” to be coordinated and executed between mobile operators.

Syniverse then worked closely with two of its main customers - Orange and Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) - to test the solution. Van der Heij goes on to explain further.

“We did some design-thinking with IBM around how blockchain could be beneficial to our business and more importantly to our customers’ business,” he says.

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You risk making technology the topic when it should not be the topic. We are excited about technology in terms of the benefits it can bring to our customers, but what our customers are really interested in is the benefits and not so much the technology”

for optimisation and in strengthening our value proposition with blockchain.

“We decided to partner with IBM because it has already developed a lot of blockchain applications for different markets, so they’ve got global experience in commercially-deployed blockchain solutions. We felt that the path to the market would be a lot quicker and more thorough with IBM’s knowledge in conjunction with our own industry knowledge.

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5G, there’s definitely a rigorous change happening, so there’s a need to start doing things differently in an ecosystem like mobile roaming. So why not rethink how we are doing clearing and settlement, and see if we can help customers be more efficient and effective in monetising the business they have between each other?”

The pilot was designed with the GSMA’s Unified Data Record (UDR) standard in mind, a new global indus-

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try standard for charging settlements designed to address the sharp rise in device usage as a result of 5G and IoT. Feedback from Orange and MTS was widely positive. Orange stated that the solution improved operational efficiency in the areas of call event creation and data exchange, while MTS reported “valuable efficiency gains” around auditability and smart contract management.

Syniverse has since rolled out the pilot to its wider customer base, with opera-

tors able to engage the solution through the IBM Cloud even if they do not have their own knowledge or resources around blockchain. Van der Heij says this approach has brought its clients together around a common objective.

“Some operators are definitely interested in talking about blockchain technology – they have blockchain solutions themselves – and ask how they can integrate?” he says. “But then there are others that are really very far away from that. Our role at Syniverse is always to be bringing those parties together so something like blockchain should not be a barrier to do business, it should be a facilitator.

“Customers can use our blockchain solution without having the need to build that knowledge or to invest in hardware or software in their premises.”

For van der Heij, any technology implementation should be based around the value it delivers for businesses - not least when it comes to blockchain. He says this is an approach Syniverse has adopted with its IBM solution.

“You risk making technology the topic when it should not be the topic. We are excited about technology in terms of the benefits it can bring to our customers, but what our customers are really interested in is the benefits and not so much the technology.

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“Through blockchain, if we can give them better audit capabilities, more robust security and more efficiencies into their workflows, then that’s what’s important to them. Most of them are not really interested in how we do that as long as we deliver.”

Perception has long been a common hurdle to blockchain adoption. Van Der Heij is of the view that the technology’s association with cryptocurrencies, and especially Bitcoin, has led to hype and some misunderstanding about what blockchain actually delivers and where it holds the most potential.

Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Study reflected this imbalance. The report revealed that nearly half (43%) of global senior executives surveyed still feel blockchain technology is “overhyped”, which was a higher percentage

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than in 2018. Yet 86% then went on to state that they believe it will achieve mainstream adoption in the future.

These conclusions suggest that blockchain is following similar maturity curves to other disruptive technologies. Indeed, Deloitte’s study summarised that blockchain is ultimately “gaining traction and acceptance in more sectors”. But from van der Heij’s own experience, a shortage of expertise is still evident in enterprise right now.

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In the last couple of years there have been lots of POCs (proof of concepts) [around blockchain] but then after that, nothing. For us this was key – to not get stuck in the POC cycle but to proceed because you’ve proven a value”

“There are two dangers: there’s one group of people who are really excited about the technology but forget that eventually the purpose of all business is to make a profit, so there needs to be value in return for the investment. Then the other group is the sceptical people, who are simply sceptical because they have some level of knowledge but maybe not too much experience,” van der Heij says.

“In the last couple of years there have been lots of POCs (proof of concepts) [around blockchain] but then after that, nothing. For us this was key – to not get stuck in the POC cycle but to proceed because you’ve proven a value.”

Van Der Heij finishes by contending that blockchain’s success or failure in the telecoms industry will, in the end, come down to the biggest players working together.

“We will need to compete and collaborate at the same time, you can’t have a monopoly. It simply is not going to happen and it’s also not good in terms of industry development. So this is what we will do – we’ll talk with our competitors about how we bring these blockchain benefits across to all of our customers. There is certainly some work still to be done but luckily we have industry groups like the GSMA who are readily discussing topics like this.”

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STAYING CONNECTED DURING COVID-19

Cisco’s Head of Corporate Social Responsibility for UK & Ireland, Kathryn Baddeley, tells Digital Bulletin how the company is helping its employees, partners and customers through the COVID-19 pandemic, and the importance of staying connected

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H

i Kathryn, thank you for speaking with us. Firstly, can you in some way sum up the effect the coronavirus outbreak has had on Cisco?

The pandemic has been challenging for everyone; at Cisco, we take our employees’ mental and physical health very seriously and that has been our main concern throughout this period. We’ve also focused on supporting our customers, partners and communities during this time. Alongside initiatives to scale services and support remote workers on a global level, we’ve also made commitments in cash, in-kind and planned-giving support to help both the global and local response to the virus.

Talk to us about the top-level initiatives that Cisco has put in place, including its $2.5 billion financing initiative for customers and partners, as well as the $225 million cash support fund.

Cisco has announced a commitment of $2.5 billion in financing to support business resiliency as part of its overall commitment to supporting customers, partners and communities through the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, customers and partners are under considerable pressure to keep their businesses connected, as well as productive and secure. As such, the new Business Resiliency Programme provides solutions

to organisations to help them continue to operate and stay productive.

We also recently committed $225 million in cash, in-kind and planned-giving to support both the global and local response to the virus in healthcare, education, government response and critical technology As part of this commitment, we are allocating $8 million in donations and $210 million in product to support the global coronavirus response, We’ve seen our collaboration tool, Webex, grow considerably during this time, supporting a record 324 million users in March, with usage more than doubling in the Americas. For comparison, Webex meetings had 153 million attendees worldwide in January. Due to this increase in demand and, in response to the challenges businesses now face, we have extended access to Webex for free.

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Other initiatives include Cisco partnering with IBM to offer support to schools, charities and healthcare settings across the UK to enable them to get the most out of their Webex set up. They’re offering the technology and training for free to over 185,000 charity staff members to rebuild after the pandemic and co-ordinate with their staff teams, volunteers, and plan virtual events.

Can you share any feedback or evidence about the impact these initiatives are having?

A great example of how these initiatives have been able to make an impact during these times would be the pop-up PPE production line set-up in our Reading and Meraki London offices to create 3D printed face visors. Working with community 3D printers, including EduMaker, we’ve been able to deliver over 9,000 face visors to an NHS COVID hub, GPs and other frontline settings in and around the South East of England.

As employers rightly prioritise the safety of their people and supporting their customers, we’ve also seen a seven-fold increase in adoption of Webex in countries affected by the outbreak of COVID-19.

Our response to provide free Webex and security technologies to any organisation was to aid newly remote workforces so they could stay up and running.

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Cisco has announced a commitment of $2.5 billion in financing to support business resiliency as part of its overall commitment to supporting customers, partners and communities through the COVID-19 pandemic” In April, Webex hosted more than 20 billion meeting minutes - that’s up from 14 billion meeting minutes in March, which was double the number in February. In just one day, Webex handled 4.2 million meetings, more than twice the average on a peak day before the pandemic. As testament to the platform’s reliability and security, it has been chosen by high-profile organisations for critical tasks such as the European Commission’s EU-UK Brexit trade negotiations.

While there is no replacement for meeting face-to-face and being in the same room as a colleague or customer, video meetings have played a crucial role in connecting us all during this time.

CISCO

Do you agree that well-established technology companies like Cisco have had a responsibility to help tackle this virus?

For many years, tech companies have spoken about putting people first, taking a human-centric approach to innovation and generally being a force for good in society. There is now a genuine opportunity for these brands to make good on their promises by tackling fake news and misinformation online, making isolation and remote working bearable and prioritising purpose and value-led practise.

At Cisco we’ve always encouraged all our employees to volunteer and support their communities. Giving back is a core practice at Cisco, and initiatives such as Time2Give, where employees

can take advantage of five paid days off to volunteer for causes that matter to them, enable our employees to support their wider community. We’ve increased that to 10 days in 2020 to help them to make a real difference in these challenging times. We’ve raised millions for non-profits through employee donations and matching funds raised.

How has the pandemic brought Cisco’s CSR approach into focus?

This unprecedented crisis has meant that, as a business, we have had to recognise that our employees need to see us step up and do so much more to help efforts in the fight against the virus.

We’ve made commitments in cash, in-kind and planned giving support to

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For many years, tech companies have spoken about putting people first, taking a human-centric approach to innovation and generally being a force for good in society. There is now a genuine opportunity for these brands to make good on their promises” help both the global and local community respond to the pandemic in areas such as healthcare, education, government response and critical technology. From popup PPE production lines internationally, to teaming up with IBM to volunteer and deliver Cisco Webex for free to schools across the UK – the collective efforts of employees across the board to provide aid and expertise during this time has been overwhelming.

Technology has also needed to adapt and develop quickly to support businesses work remotely, but also to crucially help those on the frontline.

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111 service to meet the upsurge in demand. This extension to the 111 service has added capability for an additional 7,500 clinicians to work shifts; with an extra 2,000 being live at any one time. The remote contact centre would normally take weeks, or even months, to create but was up and running in just 48 hours.

Detail for us the collaboration with IBM around Webex, and exactly how you are delivering free access for schools and charities in the UK? With schools continuing to operate remotely, it became increasingly apparent that the video tools available to

CISCO

teachers were not allowing them to have the right control or settings. We saw stories of teachers being booted out of classrooms or individuals taking control of the screen, leading to inappropriate content being shared.

In response to these challenges, and many more resulting from the outbreak, we joined forces with IBM to support teachers and operational staff in schools, charity workers and people working in care homes and healthcare including GPs. This meant giving free access to all of these people across the UK to secure video conferencing through our Cisco Webex web conferencing tool.

Alongside the free secure video confer-

encing tool, IBM and Cisco employees have volunteered their time to help install the video-conferencing technology and provide guidance to use the tools and help new users get started.

As an example, when the crisis impacted Italy and many universities were forced to close, Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome worked with Cisco to take their entire curriculum online. With lockdown occurring in early March, that month they were able to deliver 4.500 classes, reach over 7.500 students with 550 professors, run 550 mid-term exams and 400 students to defend their Master theses in order to complete their degrees completely remotely. Through fast decision making and technology in place to support their students they were able to be resilient during the outbreak, offering hope through this difficult time.

What lessons has Cisco as a company learned or had reinforced during the outbreak?

We know that globalisation requires Cisco employees to work across distance and time zones. Our people consistently tell us that the Cisco flexible working practices are a great part of our culture and one of the top things they love about working here. While remote and flexible working is embedded into our way of working, following medical ISSUE 17

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professional guidance, all Cisco employees were required to work from home using Cisco technology.

The impact of the outbreak has been felt by so many, and it’s too soon to say whether we will be able to return to how we were before. Working practices have needed to adapt quickly during the outbreak and will continue to evolve as we enter the next phase, with businesses beginning to reopen and measures gradually lifting.

Supporting our communities has always been intrinsic to our values at Cisco and the crisis has highlighted the need for businesses to be value-led even more so than before. It’s crucial that we all strive to help and strengthen our communities so we can come out of this together.

Tell us more about your job as Head of CSR at Cisco UK & Ireland, and what CSR means to Cisco.

I have been at Cisco for over 22 years, starting in Australia in 1997. Throughout my journey I’ve taken on initiatives to help support local communities, employees and Cisco as a business. I am currently Cisco’s Head of Corporate Social Responsibility for UK & Ireland which means leading and enabling innovative CSR initiatives across the organisation. From engaging employees, to supporting the business and helping

Our people consistently tell us that the Cisco flexible working practices are a great part of our culture and one of the top things they love about working here” Cisco’s not for profit partners. CSR is deeply rooted in our culture at Cisco.

We strive to empower our people to put their time, technology, and resources to work in service of an inclusive future, where technology gives everyone the tools to thrive.

What are your objectives in your role over the next 12 months?

It’s hard to determine what the next 12 months will look like, as the UK starts to move towards recovery in its response to COVID-19. We’ve only just started to see measures lift, allowing some businesses to reopen. It’s front of mind for us that we are able to support businesses, our partners and customers through this next step, as well as ensuring the safety of our employees is paramount.

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MOBILEIRON

IRON-CLAD MOBILE SECURITY MobileIron’s SVP of Product Management, Brian Foster, says that Unified Endpoint Management is more important than ever in the pandemic age

AUTHOR: James Henderson

T

he impact the coronavirus pandemic continues to have on the enterprise technology world is profound. From the overnight pivot from office to home, to the rapid uptake of cloud and work collaboration services, the way we work has changed dramatically and, quite probably, forever.

IT executives the world over can now probably be split broadly into two camps: those that had already put in place initiatives that have helped their companies to deal with the fall-out of the crisis relatively comfortably, and those that are having to take drastic actions to address operational disruptions and business decline.

Brian Foster, MobileIron’s SVP of Product Management, says some much-needed

light humour recently brought the impact of the pandemic on the enterprise world into sharp focus. “I saw a funny meme a few weeks ago that asked the question: ‘What has driven your digital transformation?’ and the options were CEO, CIO and COVID-19, and the person had checked COVID-19,” he tells Digital Bulletin.

MobileIron is a software company that specialises in Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) for enterprise mobile devices, counting the likes of Google, Sky, Nasdaq and Barclays as clients. Its UEM improves data security by taking more information signals into account before granting access to business resources.

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The last place companies can assert control and visibility is the endpoint itself and because of this, endpoint security and management and the ability to attest to the validity of the user and device is increasingly important” Brian Foster

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authorisation, verifies the network, and detects and mitigates threats before allowing access to critical resources, with the promise of a providing secure digital workspace to every user across a company’s mobile enterprise.

It is an area of enterprise security that has become absolutely critical, with unprecedented numbers of workers no longer working on the enterprise network, instead working remotely and accessing applications through a public cloud.

“The last place companies can assert control and visibility is the endpoint itself and because of this, endpoint security and management and the ability to attest to the validity of the user and device is increasingly important,” says Foster.

The pandemic, he believes, has highlighted two areas where enterprise is lacking. “Every company has increased the amount of people working remotely, and there are all sorts of challenges that IT has had to deal with to enable that change,” he comments. “Many had infrastructure and tools that were able to support 10% of their workforce working from home, and all of a sudden they’ve got 80% doing so, so companies have had to upgrade infrastructure.

“Usage of cloud platforms such as Zoom have increased but you don’t actually need to go through an enterprise network to get to the likes of Zoom. The

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enterprise network has always been a chokepoint for identity, for security, for access control for the enterprise.

“The pandemic has accelerated this notion of realising that we don’t have to put everyone on the enterprise network from their device to the cloud application, but at the same time enterprises have to ensure the new journey is also secure.”

The rapid nature of the pandemic has meant that many companies have been caught flat-footed, left to rue the decision to kick the can down the road when it comes to getting serious about their digital transformations. That remorse will lead to businesses large and small getting their digital affairs in fairly rapid

order once things return closer to the norm, reckons Foster.

“We have a lot of on-premise customers that have faced difficulties because they’ve needed to double capacity and they’ve had to physically go to their data centres. That has been painful and they’ve realised that they wouldn’t have had to do any of this if they were in the cloud, it would have scaled automatically,” he says.

“Customers are saying that when this is done they are going to figure out how to get in the cloud quicker, because if there is a second peak they know it is going to be easier working in the cloud than being on-premise. People will ISSUE 17

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Customers are saying that when this is done they are going to figure out how to get in the cloud quicker, because if there is a second peak they know it is going to be easier working in the cloud than being on-premise�

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come out of this saying that there are better ways to do things and they need to make them a priority, that’s where secure access and edge become really important.”

Foster predicts that growth in take-up of UEM will be split, with large enterprises looking to scale-up their security offering, for example: ensuring that 80% of a workforce is protected by its UEM platform, while smaller businesses - those with less than 2,000 employees - will look to invest in UEM for the first time.

Within the mobile security space, the pandemic could also accelerate a shift away from passwords, something that Foster unapologetically labels “evil”, instead leveraging the biometric capabilities of mobiles and tablets for authentication purposes.

This shift towards a passwordless world, he believes, is one of the major trends that will drive the cybersecurity market over the coming years.

“Five years from now, you’ll see enterprises with no passwords at all for their employees, and the trend towards remote working could expedite that time.

There are the security costs to passwords, they are phished and we do expect to see an increase with more people working remotely and off mobile devices.

“There is a friction with passwords in general which is a huge IT helpdesk

problem with people forgetting them or not changing them. I have travelled a lot during my career and I would get notices from IT that I needed to change my password, but I would wait to do it until I was on the enterprise network, because what if I mess up and lose access to everything when I’m on the road?

“If you think about that friction when people are working remotely, you don’t want to have that friction because it is going to be harder to help them fix it.”

Even before the coronavirus pandemic and the indirect growth it could lead to in UEM spend, the market was predicted to grow rapidly over the next four years, with global revenues set to jump from $3.08 billion in 2020 to almost $7 billion in 2024, according to a report by Global Information Inc. Within the sector, MobileIron is battling for business with the likes of IBM, Microsoft, VMware and Blackberry. Stiff competition, but Foster believes that his company holds a key advantage over what are some of the biggest names in the enterprise technology world.

“Mobility is really at the heart of what we do, it is how we started,” he says.

“A customer recently told me the reason they went for MobileIron rather than Microsoft, for example, was because they want to manage their mobile devices like mobile devices and not like ISSUE 17

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Windows. MobileIron is built for mobility from the ground up and we are specialists in that space.

“It is my belief that customers that view mobility as being central to their enterprise pick MobileIron because we are just better at it than anyone else.

Our approach, flexibility and user experience is consistent.”

To this end, MobileIron bolstered its UEM offering in April with the acquisition of incapptic Connect, a leader in mobile automation app release software based in Berlin, Germany and Warsaw, Poland, to accelerate the mobile app release journey for enterprise customers.

MobileIron’s UEM will be integrated with incapptic Connect software to help customers quickly develop, deploy and

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secure in-house business apps, resulting in increased productivity and business innovation. “incapptic Connect fits in that UEM market and it provides two opportunities for us; the first is it is very involved in the release of applications, either internal or external mobile applications in the enterprise,” says Foster. “It has always been a partner of ours automating the processes of using our capabilities as well as their own to build this library of enterprise apps, and release them automatically and seamlessly.

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“We’ve got a German automotive customer who has over 400 internal apps and every time they release one of those apps, incapptic Connect saves them over 10 days per release cycle by automating some of the workflow and the technical steps on those apps. That company is saving 6,000 days per release of all of their 400 apps, and they release those more than once a year.

“It is the same principle for public store applications, because while you might think that a company only has two public store apps, that company is operat-

ing in 40 different languages, so they are releasing to 80 different app stores.”

The acquisition will also provide an opportunity to work with some of the bigger beasts in the UEM market, says Foster. “incapptic Connect gives us something we can sell to Microsoft UEM or a VMware UEM customer because it works equally well with those UEMs, so is a foot in the door. So that is an opportunity to work with customers that we don’t work with in a UEM capacity to release their apps.”

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A LIFE IN TECH

A LIFE IN TECH Dr. Anton Grashion has been in the security game for over 30 years, having founded one of the UK’s first email security-as-a-service companies in 1989, and has been helping companies move forward ever since. Now Senior EMEA Marketing Director at Corelight, he tells Digital Bulletin some of the things he’s learned down the years

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DR. ANTON GRASHION

I

would describe myself as being intensely curious with a passion for new and innovative ideas.

My first job out of university was working offshore in the oil industry and I became involved in the computing side of our operation, so that was what first really attracted me to the technology space. From there I did a Masters degree in computing and a doctorate in artificial intelligence (AI).

I’ve always been open to opportunity and so changes of direction have, for me at least, worked out well. I started as an IT manager, before becoming a database developer and running my own business.

My biggest influence was teaming up with a business partner to develop one of the UK’s first ‘as a service’ email content security products. That was my move into security and arguably the biggest influence on the rest of my career.

I have worked with some great people, so it’s almost impossible to pinpoint a few who have really influenced me.

There really are too many to mention and many of those I have chosen to work with at different companies as well.

Jim Gordon had the original idea for e-Sweeper that got me into security and we had worked together previously in very different environments but that was a significant step-change in my career. In marketing I have to say Alan Saldich at Corelight has taught me a lot even at this stage of my career.

On the business side I have worked with some great people, G-J Schenk stands out and Evan Davidson is one of the best sales leaders I have worked with and I was part of his management team at Cylance which was a blast. He together with John Giacomini showed me how leaders can have such a positive effect on teams.

One of the biggest struggles we had introducing e-Sweeper was getting the big anti-virus vendors to change their revenue models so we could move to a monthly billing model - a few enlightened individuals saw the opportunity and worked with us.

Adoption of cloud and hybrid-cloud environments have been significant changes in the enterprise security sector since I started. The overall awareness of security has had to change and improve over time as malicious actors and those combating them drive innovation.

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The technology that is really driving innovation in the security space is AI and machine learning (ML). For better or worse it has shaken up thinking, but it has also provided a bandwagon for lazy thinkers.

This has contributed to uncertainty in the IT community as AI/ML is sometimes inappropriately referenced or we get sucked in to semantic arguments about the definition of AI/ML rather than about the efficacy of the solution.

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research directed at it can only increase its disruptive effect.

Our industry does need to be more diverse and in patches some organisations are making a big difference. The women in technology movement is also shaking things up and initiatives like that are moving in the right direction.

There are such fascinating challenges in the tech sector, and we need to make sure we make that fascination obvious as people choose their careers.

The simple advice I would give to young people considering working in

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I hope that technology will have changed the world for the better over the next decade. We already see the impact that technology has had on genomic sequencing etc and as long as we can manage to keep ethics in step with innovation we should be in good shape.

The one thing I would tell myself if I were starting my career over again is not to stress over taking opportunities when they arise - I took them but probably worried more than I needed to.

technology is: Do it - jump in! There are so many routes in, and fields to work in you probably can find something that aligns to your interests.and things you find stimulating.

You can change direction during your career but if you don’t make the odd leap of faith then you will never know what could have been.

I do believe that technology must be used as a force for good - certainly.

It has the scope and ability to change many lives for the better, too often it gets bogged down in the mundane allowing us to do more dull stuff.

There’s nothing I would change about my career, I’ve enjoyed it, worked with some great people and moved from a physically dangerous environment to a cyber-dangerous environment which has been pretty exciting.

COVID-19 is easily the most challenging event I’ve experienced in my career.

At a very high level I believe Corelight will change the world for the better by helping people understand what’s happening in their network and reducing the mean time to answer questions and hypotheses they have about potential problems. Corelight makes things safer, more available as well as making IR and threat hunter’s lives easier.

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EVENTS Industry conferences and exhibitions are off the table for now, but there are still many digital events worth making time in your diary for...

WSJ TECH HEALTH JUNE 02, 2020 Now more than ever, the conversations centered around technology for the healthcare industry are more important than ever.. You’ll hear insights from top executives as well as regulators about the state of innovation in health, medicine and technology. Speakers will explore the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead as companies large and small push for a radical redesign of the medical world as we know it. Executives from the likes of Uber Health, Healthcare 72

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Microsoft, SoftBank and Amazon will have all been confirmed as speakers.

CISCO LIVE JUNE 02–03, 2020 Cisco Live, the company’s premier in-person customer and partner experience of the year, is being relaunched as a complimentary, full-scale digital event, enabling remote participation from anywhere in the world. Cisco said its digital experience would build on the original event’s history of delivering high energy live broadcasts and technical on-demand training.The

JUNE – JULY

digital event will feature: live-streamed keynotes, innovation talks and technical content; On-demand technical deep-dive sessions; interactive opportunities with Cisco experts; and social media contests.

AGILE + DEVOPS JUNE 08–11, 2020 TechWell has morphed the popular Agile + DevOps West conference into a fully virtual experience this year. From the comfort of your own digital device, you will have access to all of the same great content and experts you have come to expect from an Agile + DevOps West conference. Agile + DevOps Virtual will be streaming over 80+ talks—including five keynotes, 25 tutorials, and 50+ sessions all in an engaging and interactive premium virtual atmosphere.

WWDC JUNE 22, 2020 Now in its 31st year, WWDC 2020 will take on an entirely new online format packed with content for consumers, press and developers alike. The online event will be an opportunity for millions of creative and innovative developers to get early access to the future of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS, ISSUE 17

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and engage with Apple engineers as they work to build app experiences that enrich the lives of Apple customers around the globe. Apple also announced it will commit $1 million to local San Jose organisations to offset associated revenue loss as a result of WWDC 2020’s new online format.

COLLISION FROM HOME JUNE 23–25, 2020 Collision from Home brings together the people and companies redefining the global tech industry.Collision from Home attendees will participate from wherever they are in the world, lives74

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treaming talks from tech CEOs, international policymakers and global cultural figures. They’ll chat and connect with each other through the bespoke Collision from Home app and they’ll engage with some of the world’s most influential companies and fastest-growing startups. Some 250 speakers have already been confirmed, including senior execs from Samsung, Microsoft, Uber, Google and Whatsapp.

HPE DISCOVER 2020 JUNE 23–25, 2020 HPE is bringing HPE Discover 2020 to customers in an ongoing virtual

JUNE – JULY

experience. The event kicks off on June 23 with a live keynote by CEO Antonio Neri, along with a host of live and on-demand sessions, demos and training designed to help organisations now and into the future. Attendees will be able to engage with HPE leaders who can help recover and accelerate transformations, as well as technologists, engineers, experts and peers to identify solutions and strategies to succeed.

FORBES CIO SUMMIT JULY 22-23, 2020 Today’s leading CIOs are helping companies win by reinventing their operations for a digital-first world. But the task isn’t easy and there’s no guarantee of success. Join your peers at The Forbes CIO Summit to hear from top technology leaders who are tapping artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing and data analytics to turbocharge change. Learn how they are reshaping their teams to become invaluable business partners in the never-ending battle for customers’ attention. And be inspired by insights from transformational CIOs who are influencing strategy in boardrooms and beyond.

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Remote working represents three degrees of chaos when it comes to cybersecurity, writes Rodney Joffe, Senior VP, Technologist and Fellow at Neustar

F

or cybercriminals, chaos always means opportunity. For them, an unevenly communicated and rolled-out security patch means an opportunity to find users who feel protected, but aren’t. Unclear organisational rules about which apps staff should use mean an opportunity to capture sensitive data from employees who think they’re just doing their jobs. Rapid adoption of Internet of Things devices means an opportunity to find security holes where organisations wouldn’t even think to look.

Of course, for a criminal it doesn’t especially matter whether the opportunity arises as a result of some other company’s mistake, complex processes in your 76

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own business, or an attempt to evolve with new technology. They are focused only on what they can get out of the opportunity, not on why it came about.

Over the last few months, the COVID-19 crisis has wreaked global havoc, the extent of which we’re still figuring out how to measure. From devastating health impacts, to deep economic consequences, to untold personal anxiety, finding ways to manage the effects of this pandemic and fight back against them has, quite rightly, been everyone’s number one priority.

It has also, however, created chaos on a scale which is an unprecedented opportunity for cybercriminals – and for IT professionals, it has presented

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one of the greatest challenges they’ve ever faced. Indeed, research conducted by the Neustar International Security Council last month found that almost two-thirds of companies experienced at least moderate disruptions to their network security practices, with nearly a quarter reporting major disruptions.

Unknown network environments The change which specifically opened the door to cybercriminals is, of course, the mass transition to home working.

Faced with the pressing need to socially distance their workers, organisations found themselves going overnight from being able to assume that most staff (typically more than 90%) are accessing systems from within the office to having it almost guaranteed that they will be logging in remotely.

The efforts from IT staff which made this possible were nothing short of herculean, but it has meant that the bulk of a company’s networking activity has shifted from happening in a relatively controlled environment with lots of oversight to whatever network environment workers happen to have set up at home. That means a huge array of home routers, cable or fibre modems, and alternative connections like MiFi devices are now in touch with corporate networks.

Over the last few months, the COVID-19 crisis has wreaked global havoc, the extent of which we’re still figuring out how to measure” Behind these, workers will be connecting not just their corporate laptop, but a range of home technology from personal computers and tablets to games consoles, televisions, and smart home devices. Generally speaking, these will all appear publicly as a single IP address, and any compromise in that network segment, even if it’s just a smart light bulb, can be used as a stepping stone to a serious breach.

New connectivity workflows Of course, many of the corporate systems and tools that workers will use on a dayto-day basis are hosted in the cloud. This means that productivity software, communications platforms, and other vital tools are now often delivered in a way which anticipates remote access, and has a security stance which accounts for that fact.

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locally. These include payment gateways and financial systems, servers used for research and development work, authentication and directory systems. Even in the cloud-first era, a lot of value is still held in owned infrastructure. When teams are working remotely, virtual private networks (VPNs) are necessary to grant access to those core systems.

For many organisations there will be cases where VPN access is being expressly provisioned in response to this crisis. In every case where VPNs are keeping business going, the surge in remote working will place great strain on those VPN systems.

The net result of this way of working, together with an entirely different network architecture built from people’s home networks, is a new attack vector for malicious actors. In March alone, Neustar found and tracked over 28,000 COVID-19 related domain registrations and host names through its threat feed sys-

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tems, all aiming to disrupt organisations’ activities and potentially open the door to phishing and ransomware attacks.

DDoS vulnerability One of the major challenges with using VPNs to enable remote access arises before we even consider the security of those connections. Cyber criminals are aware that hardening a VPN against denial of service style attacks is very challenging – and often won’t have been done at all.

The nature of a VPN means that they must be fully encrypted connections.

This keeps data secure as it is transported from its point of storage to its point of use. It also, however, means that some methods which inspect packets of data to identify whether or not they are malicious – and so spot and mitigate DDoS attacks – cannot be used on VPN connections. Instead, the attack will only be revealed when it reaches the VPN server and is opened up.

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Confidence in the security and resilience of a network will be more important than ever: now is the time for businesses to push their security stances forward” Those VPN servers can also be easy to identify, as businesses often use “vpn” as part of the URL name. Taken together, these factors create a huge opportunity to launch devastating attacks, which interrupt systems that businesses can’t afford to do without, with relatively little effort or technological sophistication. Even if a number of services, such as email, are hosted on public infrastructure, implementing VPN access to private infrastructure means potentially creating a push-button which takes the entire workforce offline.

The true cost of cybercrime The deeper frustration in all of this is that, while the chaos is nobody’s fault, and IT administrators are doing nothing but good work to keep the world running,

our attempts to mitigate the attack opportunities it results in risks critical, real, non-malicious information failing to reach its destination. While cyber criminals are exploiting these opportunities, lives are at stake – and in this period we’ve already seen some of the biggest DDoS attacks we’ve ever mitigated.

Through hard work and dedication, we will, collectively, turn the tide on this crisis.

Remote working, however, will be part of our lives for some time yet – and there’s every sign that it will continue at far higher rates than before the pandemic.

Confidence in the security and resilience of a network will be more important than ever: now is the time for businesses to push their security stances forward. This involves finding ways to change the names of VPN servers to obfuscate their location, leaning on managed service providers who can provide the muscle to mitigate massive attacks and reduce the load on IT teams, and educating staff about how they can play their part in keeping information secure.

From a technical standpoint, we’ll come out of this much stronger. While businesses may be facing initial challenges now, software will improve and organisations will begin to better understand how their security strategies must change as workforces become increasingly remote.

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