Digital Bulletin - Issue 27 - April 2021 by NODE

DIGITAL BULLETIN Issue 27 | Apr ’21

WOMEN IN TECH

Increasing representation from factory floor to the C-Suite

HYBRID CLOUD

How has the pandemic changed cloud strategy for enterprise?

TRANSFORMING

INDUSTRIES GHD wants to unlock the power of advanced technologies for its clients - and with entire infrastructure markets ripe for disruption, it is moving with even greater purpose. GHD Digital’s Steven Karan and Bob Armacost tell us how

JAMES HENDERSON Content Director

here are some sectors that have been all-in on digital transformation for a number of years, sometimes even decades. Think of financial services, telecoms and retail and how they’ve led the way when it comes to implementation. But there are other corners of enterprise that have found it much tougher going. Nowhere is this truer than in industrial markets like energy, construction or utilities, which are all very much centred on physical assets and infrastructure. We’ve written before about the challenges these industries face when it comes to successfully adopting digital technologies, and we do so again this month, focussing on the capabilities of GHD, which has set out to change the narrative of digital transformation for industrial organisations. The business formed GHD Digital three years ago and is on a mission to empower its clients to make the digital leap, incorporating game-changing technologies such as AI, big data analytics and digital twins. And by introducing digital technologies to often energy-in-

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tensive businesses, GHD is also making businesses more sustainable. “That’s absolutely central,” Bob Armacost, GHD’s North American Digital Leader, tells us. “Together with our clients, we create lasting community benefit, that is our mission statement and that’s really what we’re all about. It’s the principle that drives our business.” Elsewhere, we look at the subject of increasing female representation both in technology but also the C-Suite. We pick the brains of five high-profile women in tech about plotting a path to fairer representation in the technology industry. And our news analysis this month looks at how CIOs and CTOs should be preparing for a return of employees to the office. A hybrid model of office and home working would represent another large-scale technology challenge after the scramble to enable remote working in 2020. With technology leaders being asked to do more with less, they have their work cut out. Enjoy the issue!

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Contents 06

Month in Review

Case Study

Connectivity

IT Services

News, regulations and analysis

GHD

Bringing transformations to life

HARMAN Taking 5G technology to the road

Cloud How the pandemic has reshaped hybrid cloud

50 100 58

Data Intelligence

People

68 78 94

BCG Platinion Understanding modern data architecture

Debate Increasing female representation in tech & the C-Suite

Security Experts make stark cybersecurity warning

A Life in Tech

100

Closing Bulletin

Sitecore’s new CEO Steve Tzikakis on a stellar career in technology

An exclusive column from Mark Klein, Chief Digital Officer at ERGO Group

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

Headline: Microsoft could complete a $10 billion acquisition of messaging platform Discord, a service popularised by the gaming community, by the end of April, according to reports. Intel: Sources told the Wall Street Journal that the talks are exclusive and are in advanced stages. If successful, the deal would be Microsoft’s biggest since LinkedIn in 2016. Discord was recently valued at $7 billion, has more than 300 million registered accounts and last year generated revenues in excess of $130 million. If successful, the deal would be Microsoft’s biggest since LinkedIn in 2016. Headline: Digital identity firm Okta has agreed a $6.5 billion deal to buy one of its main competitors, Auth0. Intel: The deal represents a considerable consolidation of the identity and access

management (IAM) market. Recent research conducted by Gartner found that IAM was a $12 billion business last year with projected growth to over $13.5 billion in 2021. Under the terms of the deal, Auth0 will operate as an independent business working inside Okta.

Headline: McAfee is getting out of the enterprise security business, after agreeing to sell its enterprise business to Symphony Technology Group for $4 billion. Intel: McAfee said that once the sale is completed, it will “become a pure play consumer cybersecurity company”, with Symphony to rebrand its enterprise arm. Its enterprise business is a partner for 86% of the Fortune 100 firms around the world and realised $1.3 billion in net revenue in fiscal year 2020, according to McAfee. It will use part of the proceeds to pay off $1 billion in debts. ISSUE 27

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FUNDING Headline: Online payments technology provider Stripe has raised $600 million in a new funding round that values the company at a bumper $95 billion valuation. Intel: Stripe has enjoyed an outstanding year which has seen its valuation almost treble. After the most recent round of funding, Stripe is the most valuable private fintech company in Silicon Valley. Stripe said it plans to use the new funding to invest in its European operations and expand its Global Payments and Treasury Network. Enterprise revenue is now both Stripe’s largest and its fastest growing segment, more than doubling year-on-year. Headline: One of Europe’s hottest startups, Hopin, has closed a bumper funding round of $400 million, taking the value of the virtual events platform to $5.65 billion. Intel: The virtual events business is in rude health after a year in which 8

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physical events have all but disappeared. The change is expected to endure, with the value of the market tipped to increase from $78 billion to $774 billion over the next decade, according to Grand View Research. Hopin’s raise comes a year after the company was founded and four months after closing a $125 million round.

Headline: Open source RPA company Camunda has raised $100 million in a round of funding led by global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners. Intel: Gartner has said it expects hyperautomation to achieve rapid growth in 2021, as enterprise looks to automate large swathes of its processes. Camunda said the investment is based on market momentum toward hyperautomation and the resulting demand for cloud-native, open process automation solutions.

NEWS UPDATE

PEOPLE

Headline: AWS has appointed Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky as its new leader. He will replace Andy Jassy, who is leaving the cloud leader to take the position of Amazon CEO. Intel: As is so often the case in the technology world, AWS has gone back to somebody they know very well, having announced that Selipsky will be the next person to lead the company. Selipsky has long been considered one of technology’s rising stars and has proven his credentials as CEO of Salesforce-owned data visualisation software maker Tableau. He left his role as vice president for sales, marketing and support after 11 years at AWS in 2016 to take the top role at Tableau. Headline: Reddit has named former Snap Inc executive Drew Vollero as its first chief financial officer. Intel: The appointment if its first CFO comes at a time when the social media

platform is still at the centre of stock market volatility, most notably with Gamestock, while at the same time preparing for an IPO of its own. Vollero’s hiring is a step toward tidying up Reddit’s books before going public. Of the IPO, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said recently that the company is “working towards that moment”.

Headline: Google’s Google Cloud unit has announced it has appointed 20-year Intel design veteran Uri Frank as the company’s Vice President of Engineering for server chip design. Intel: Google is looking to move away from buying external motherboard components to building its own “system on a chip”. The thinking behind the move is that to gain higher performance and to use less power, Google’s workloads demand even deeper integration into the underlying hardware. “I am excited to share that I have joined Google Cloud to lead infrastructure silicon design,” Frank said.

Stay right up to date with the latest news shaping the enterprise technology sector with The Bulletin, available at digitalbulletin.com ISSUE 27

MONTH IN REVIEW

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DIGITAL POLICY

In a new regular feature, Digital Bulletin analyses one of the new digital policies that countries around the world are enforcing with the goal of regulating the online world. This month we look at Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code

AUTHOR: Beatriz Valero de Urquía

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MONTH IN REVIEW

n a society that relies more and more on social media for news content, it came as a shock when last February, Facebook blocked Australian users from sharing news links. The tech giant’s decision was a response to the passing of a law that would require online platforms to pay publishers for news content. The news ban reopened a long-running discussion about the relationship 12

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between regulators, social media platforms, publishers and advertisers. Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code was developed alongside the country’s Competition and Consumer Commission to address the “power imbalance” that it claims exists between digital platforms and news businesses. The legislation will require companies such as Google and Facebook to

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negotiate with news outlets and provide remuneration for sharing their content. If no agreement were to be reached, the regulation allowed the Australian government to set the price of news itself. The proposal opened a worldwide debate regarding the ethics of regulating the internet, as well as its impact on online advertisers. Facebook itself initially supported its own right to ban news links from being shared and stated that the News Media Bargaining Code “fundamentally misunderstood” the internet, and it is not the only one to think this way. “The internet avoids anything that resembles centralised management, something that this law actually creates,” says Konstantinos Komaitis, Senior Director of Policy Strategy and Development at the Internet Society. “On the internet, decisions are made

autonomously by independent networks according to their local needs. This ensures agility and rejects policies that are bad for the networks to interoperate. Such agility cannot be guaranteed if there were a central authority making these decisions.” Despite Facebook’s initial positioning, the company lifted its ban on the sharing of news links after reaching an agreement with the Australian government. As a result, the proposed law was modified to state that arbitration would only be used as a “last resort” and it was granted more time to strike deals with publishers. Shortly after, Facebook announced it had reached a multi-year agreement with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. to pay for news content, following the example of Google, which had struck a similar deal a few weeks prior.

Konstantinos Komaitis

Chris Waiting

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Although the debate has now died down, and Australia has gotten back its news, there is still an open-ended question about how these regulations will affect online commerce and, more importantly, whether other countries will follow suit. “The big question is: will this deal have an impact on online advertisers in Australia or in other parts of the world?,” says Eb Adeyeri, Vice President of Partnerships at Jellyfish. “In my humble opinion, no. As an industry, we need to dispel the myth that publishers lost revenue because advertisers turned to Facebook and Google. Many advertisers that Facebook and Google have courted wouldn’t have done any advertising prior to the internet. A crude analogy is if, in the 1900s, horse owners started asking car manufacturers for payment

because they were losing revenue as more people started driving cars. The numbers speak for themselves. According to figures disclosed by the Australian parliament, of the country’s $9 billion annual online advertising spend, Google gets about $4 billion and Facebook receives $2 billion. Online advertising is now the norm, not the exception, and it’s a growing business. “Publishers must realise that their own advertising revenues are likely to be lower without Facebook and Google than with it,” says Anthony Burr, from Burr Media. Despite the controversy, Australia’s legislation seems to be setting an example around the globe. The Canadian government has already revealed its plans to adopt similar regulations, and the United Kingdom has said it is working on rules that will “try and help rebalance

Eb Adeyeri

Anthony Burr

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the relationship between publishers and online platforms”. However, the jury is still out on whether any of these intentions will become legislation. “Many countries will be watching closely, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see some smaller markets trying to copy Australia’s model - but not the UK or U.S. as I just don’t see an appetite right now,” says Chris Waiting, CEO of The Conversation. “However I believe this is only one slice of a larger discussion we need to have about the power of a small number of companies that control much

of our digital lives - with the EU the most likely venue.” The Australian chapter of this debate is now closed, but one thing is clear: the world is watching the island, and taking notes for the future. “These are the deals that can make or break the news media industry,” Burr says. “In the end, the result is a win for consumers who will continue to have a choice of where to find engaging news content through credible global media platforms and not have to pay for it. For now at least.” ISSUE 27

MONTH IN REVIEW

PREPARING FOR THE NEW ‘NEW NORMAL’

Enterprise is readying itself for employees to return to the office. Technology leaders face having to implement a large-scale digital transformation for the second time in 12 months. We speak to five experts about what should be high on their agenda

AUTHOR: James Henderson

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NEWS ANALYSIS

f 2020 was the year that we got comfortable with working from home, then 2021 promises to be the year where hybrid working becomes the norm. The pandemic saw a working model that has stood the test of time for more than a century turned on its head, but a global vaccination roll-out means that enterprises will soon be able to welcome workers back to the office. Many of us will welcome the chance to get around a desk with our colleagues and collaborate in a way which has proven difficult over endless video chats. But it is also true that the last year has shown that people don’t have to be shackled to a desk for eight-and-a-half hours every day to do their jobs.

Alex Dalglish

It does feel as if there will be no largescale return to ‘normal’, where working from home is an outlier, with the emergence of a hybrid model the most likely outcome. A recent report commissioned by Legal & General found that 80% of employees wish to continue some form of remote working after the pandemic while research from Gartner found that 47% of organisations will give staff the choice of working remotely on a full-time basis, with another 43% open to flex days. If a balance between remote and office working represents the best of both worlds for employees then spare a thought for the CIOs, CTOs and CISOs who are tasked with making this vision a reality. It comes just a year after

Alexandra Foster

Andrew Sellers

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Joe Walsh

Mike Hook

these same technologists were handed the challenge of delivering tech transformation programmes in just a matter of weeks. Alex Dalglish, Head of Future Workplace at SoftwareONE, says that facilitating a smooth translation from home to office, and then back again on a regular basis, is now a “top priority” for CIOs and CTOs. “The hybrid model that incorporates home and office working will demand secure and flexible technology, which is why the responsibility falls on CIOs and CTOs,” he says. “Having employees move back to the office will cause IT teething problems. Many businesses rely on in-house IT teams to handle technical problems, who will be incredibly busy managing this transition.

“From ensuring each employee will have the necessary licence they need depending on the applications and software they use, to solving issues with VPNs and onboarding new employees to on-site devices, CIOs and CTOs need to support IT staff and, where possible, encourage use of self-service options. They will also have to re-evaluate the crisis plans they put into place a year ago. Have licences for on-premise applications been cut over the last 12 months that will need to be repurchased? Will staff that joined during the pandemic have the right level of access to tools or information they’ll be using in the office?” Dalglish says that high on the wish-list for heads of tech will be technologies that make the switch between the two

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NEWS ANALYSIS

environments frictionless, to reduce impact on productivity. “Unified Communications [UC] will be a key tool. Whether an employee is working in an office, their bedroom, or a coffee shop [post-pandemic], the experience must be consistent and hassle-free. This means seamlessly switching from voice and video, and being able to access calling, chat, and virtual meeting spaces in a single collaboration platform, regardless of the device used. UC-enabled working benefits the business through enhanced employee productivity and efficiency, with a positive impact on the bottom line.” As well as working from their private networks, many employees will also

have spent the last year working from their personal devices, especially those who have joined their new company during the lockdown period. “With seven in 10 employees currently using their personal devices for work, IT teams face an ongoing battle to secure their networks,” says Joe Walsh, Director of B2B at Samsung UK & Ireland. “Whether it be file sharing over an unprotected network or downloading malicious apps, the increase in vulnerabilities opened by using a personal device cannot be ignored. This uncertainty is reflected in employee data, which shows that 18% of those using a personal device for work had no

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confidence in its security over the last 12 months. This is hugely concerning.” Walsh says this trend has meant Samsung has seen a notable rise in the number of organisations enrolling Enterprise Mobility Management EMM technology as part of their operations, with 88% also planning on investing more in the solution for 2021. “EMM enables IT teams to remotely configure, update and protect large fleets of company devices, wherever they are. This is something we are seeing more customers request when purchasing new devices. “For organisations to successfully deploy a hybrid working model, they must regain control of the devices being used on their network. By enrolling devices that come encrypted with

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a security platform built from the chip up – such as the Knox platform we layer onto our devices – IT teams can stay one step ahead of the security risks and keep company data safe.” Alexandra Foster, Director, Insurance, Wealth Management and Financial Services at BT, says: “Home networks and the frequent switching between workplaces represent a significant vulnerability to both corporate networks and data. CIOs and CTOs must address this issue if they are to ensure their organisation meets its regulatory obligations and prevent any damaging security breaches. “Managed LAN, WLAN and wireless solutions are needed to securely connect corporate end-users to voice, data and Internet of Things applications – giving them complete visibility and control of their

NEWS ANALYSIS

local area network. Furthermore, network performance, monitoring and diagnostics can provide greater insight and transform the connected user experience.” Technology leaders may well view the challenge with some trepidation, especially with many of them having their budgets cut because of the financial impact of COVID-19. Enterprise leaders want to see rock-solid security and a seamless cloud strategy, but being asked to expand IT while saving money is no mean feat. Andrew Sellers, Founder and Managing Director at managed infrastructure

services company Foundation IT says the experience of the last year should show businesses that they benefit when technology services get integrated more tightly into the business strategy, and are not treated as two independent streams. “If this pandemic teaches us anything it’s that technology is an enabler to do more and do it better, whether that’s about generating more customers or improving engagement. This has board attention now, change programmes should accelerate as a result and maybe IT won’t be asked to continuously find 10% cost savings year-on-year and be ISSUE 27

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given an appropriate budget to be able to invest and in turn help the business grow and succeed.” It is fair to say that the idea of what a successful and functioning office looks like has changed over the last year. Spaces for collaboration and technology that empowers and enables innovation to flourish will be expected. Mike Hook, Executive Director, LMG tells Digital Bulletin that working environments need to provide a level of user experience which is good enough to 22

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incentivise staff to return to the office. It is a challenge that will require the C-Suite working alongside CTOs and CIOs.. “Most people have had a reasonably positive experience working from home, so if the office doesn’t offer something different or a step up from that, people simply won’t return, and that will be detrimental to organisational effectiveness,” says Hook. “The migration to homeworking has been very successful but equally, many of us are itching to get back to collaborating

NEWS ANALYSIS

with others and the social aspect of working within a team. Creating a hybrid environment, with some working from home and some in the office or elsewhere, will be an entirely new technological challenge. “A frictionless experience and transition, UC and video conferencing [VC] will also be critical to offering an outstanding user experience. The now all-too common phenomenon of ‘Zoom fatigue’ or lifeless presentations to clients can be remedied with the innovative solutions emerging

from the audiovisual space. Digital pitch, training rooms or studios can help overcome the feeling of disconnection from your teams or clients, while still relying on the same UC or VC platform. “Green screens, videowalls, graphic processors, broadcast quality audio etc. are all established, proven tools that can assist in overcoming these key issues. The VC experience has been better for many while working from home, so this is another area where offices need to up their game.” ISSUE 27

CASE STUDY

MAKING TRANSFORMATION

REAL

GHD has a long history of excellence in the professional services arena, serving multiple infrastructure markets with its engineering expertise. Now the company is doubling down on advanced technology to radically transform its clients and industries, as Steven Karan and Bob Armacost, leaders at GHD Digital, explain to Digital Bulletin

PROJECT DIRECTOR: Chloe King AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer VIDEOGRAPHER: Fraser Harrop

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GHD DIGITAL

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igital transformation is ubiquitous. Industries like financial services, telecommunications and retail are riding the technology wave, and in many cases the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of change even more. But while this has been happening, the journey to digital maturity in other sectors has been far slower. Take infrastructure markets, for example. It’s much more challenging for a water authority or an energy company to transform its business with technology. The core of these asset-intensive organisations has been rooted in the physical, not the digital. GHD has set out to change the game. A professional services company with expertise in engineering, construction and architecture, GHD knows the hurdles and 26

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opportunities these markets face - after all, its global team of more than 11,000 people works every day to better things for its sizeable industry client base. Recognising the shifting landscape three years ago, GHD set up GHD Digital. Steven Karan, who was recruited last year to lead GHD Digital’s efforts in Canada, likes to call it “a startup in a big firm”. With a growing team of data scientists, design thinkers and expert digital consultants, GHD Digital’s purpose is to make digital transformation real for GHD’s customers. “Our clients are all of different sizes, each with a unique mission, and are all at a different point on their digital journeys,” Karan tells Digital Bulletin. “Some of our industries have had so much focus around just making sure business continues to

GHD DIGITAL

operate; that clients continue to be served with electricity as needed, or with water as needed. It’s not about a lack of wanting to innovate and wanting to adopt solutions, but investments have really been focused around just keeping the lights on.” Through GHD Digital, GHD believes it has an enormous opportunity to transform its clients’ businesses and revolutionise industries. The company’s footprint is big - it is recognised as expert in built environments and transport infrastructure, as well as future energy and environmental services. And these are areas ripe for disruption with technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced data tools, not to mention digital twins, offering a genuine route to innovation. Indeed,

GHD believes its industries stand today on the verge of a different, smarter future. Then there’s the greater impact. GHD Digital was born out of a desire not just to improve the outlook for its clients, but to ultimately change our world for the better around topics like climate change, sustainability and social good. “That’s absolutely central,” says Bob Armacost, North American Digital Leader. “Together with our clients, we create lasting community benefit, that is our mission statement and that’s really what we’re all about. It’s the principle that drives our business.” To achieve its “transform for good” goals, GHD Digital has organised four different practice areas. The first is called “Digital Intelligence” and helps clients realise the

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Our clients are all of different sizes, each with a unique mission, and are all at a different point on their digital journeys” Steven Karan

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power of data and analytics through expert consulting and enabling tools. The second is around the “Digital Experience” and how capabilities such as automation, augmented reality and more can drive transformation. Thirdly it has a dedicated practice for supporting municipalities with digital adoption, with many of its clients coming from the public sector, called “Digital Citizen Experience”. Then the fourth area is called “Digital Lab” (D-Lab), with a team focused on helping customers to think differently and perform advanced and accelerated problem-solving around their biggest issues. “Those four practices really provide us a wide range of capabilities to be able to go into any one of our clients in any of our markets, and then tailor the right propositions and solutions for them out of all of those capabilities. We have close to 600 members in our digital team globally right now,” says Armacost. What GHD Digital’s leaders really view as its secret sauce is the marriage of these fast-developing digital capabilities with the organisation’s deep and historic engineering expertise. The company is able to call on more than 90 years of industry experience, at the same time as moving with the agility of a young tech startup. “I believe this is what really makes GHD Digital unique,” says Karan. “By way of an example, water has been a market that we have served as an organisation for 90 years

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now, and over the last three years with GHD Digital, we’ve been able to extend what we can provide our water clients, in terms of the value and services under one roof. “Traditionally, a water company would ask us to take a look at a water transmission system, for example, and point out where it might have structural faults or where it needs to make some targeted upgrades. Now, to be able to then go to that same client, and say, in addition to that, we can also look at your advanced automation systems to make sure they’re fully optimised, and we can bring our data scientists in so if you’re concerned

about what your water consumption rates are going to be like in the future, we can model that for you and connect that back with our engineering capabilities. “That’s a compelling, compelling value proposition: to be able to serve a client with those capabilities end-to-end, and it is the thing that really excites me the most when I look at where else we can do that through this application of data, digital, analytics, AI and automation in a real and meaningful way.” People and outcomes are central to GHD Digital’s approach - but what are ISSUE 27

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the technologies that offer its clients the biggest scope for change? Karan believes the answer lies in AI and digital twins, both of which drive data intelligence. In the case of AI, he says that many GHD clients are beginning to understand what AI could offer them - but what’s of as much importance is understanding what it can’t offer them, too. “There is still a little bit of that hype right now with AI, and there is some dialogue out there that it really can solve every business problem that exists, and that’s not true,” he says. “AI cannot solve every problem that a large utility has today, but what it can do is very much help it focus on gaining productivity, gaining efficiency of operations, and driving insights from the large data that it collects.” With digital twins, the possibilities in infrastructure markets are obvious. Limits

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in technology capabilities and prohibitive computing and storage requirements can make digital twin adoption difficult, but this is a domain at which GHD Digital is running hard. Its own customised digital twin technology promises to bridge the virtual and physical worlds across an asset’s entire lifecycle, and Karan expects digital twin adoption to accelerate in North America over the coming years. A key partner for GHD Digital in digital twins and across the business is Esri. With its powerful mapping and spatial analytics technology, Esri is the world leader in location intelligence and works closely with all of GHD Digital to engage clients with its software. ArcGIS, Esri’s core offering, provides the underpinnings for making maps, embedding geographic services, and delivering infrastructure project

GHD DIGITAL

In Partnership: GHD Digital and Esri Esri, the world leader in location intelligence, supports GHD Digital’s engineering projects with its powerful mapping and spatial analytics technology

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information for clients of all sizes and types. It’s a relationship that dates back more than 15 years, and two years ago the companies formalised a business partnership which enables even closer collaboration. One example of their work is a geospatial portal, built by GHD Digital on ArcGIS, which is able to bring together vital data and information for any client project or asset. Then in the field of data analytics, GHD Digital has been able to build a series of analytics models on top of the Esri platform which can deliver insights and predictions for different use cases in different markets. 34

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“Our relationship with Esri is very strong, and it’s primarily driven by people and the investment that both sides have made in understanding the platform and what we can do with it together,” says Armacost. “On the GHD side, we’ve put in place a set of very experienced and talented leaders to help coordinate the Esri relationship. Then on the Esri side, the account support and the relationships that we have are just fabulous, in terms of supporting training and understanding the art of the possible.” Karan adds: “Esri is a tremendous partner. We always enjoy collaborating

GHD DIGITAL

Together with our clients, we create lasting community benefit, that is our mission statement and that’s really what we’re all about. It’s the principle that drives our business” Bob Armacost together, approaching everything from conferences and clients together, and the Esri solution is such a deep solution, and the capabilities and the features and functionalities that Esri’s products offer are so advanced relative to much of the competition, that it’s oftentimes an easy conversation that we have with clients.” Marc Goldman, Director AEC Industry Solutions at Esri, explains: “This is a very strong partnership - we’ve come to understand GHD’s business, and the areas that they focus on are very well aligned with ours. We’ve worked with GHD helping ISSUE 27

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AI cannot solve every problem that a large utility has today, but what it can do is very much help it focus on gaining productivity, gaining efficiency of operations, and driving insights from the large data that it collects” Steven Karan

them make strategic shifts towards digital over the last few years. Delivering GIS, embedded into GHD’s digital solutions, empowers the end client and end users to have a better long-term experience with the physical built project.” Adding to its own product and platform capabilities going forward is a priority for GHD Digital. Strong partnerships like the one with Esri help the organisation augment its core consulting business with its own technology, and GHD 36

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Digital continues to make targeted investments in this area to future-proof its business and accelerate digital adoption for its customers. Challenges remain aplenty, including keeping up with the speed of technology change in the wake of COVID-19 as its businesses continue to deal with the effects of the pandemic. But Armacost believes GHD Digital is on the right track. “Some of the large, game-changing platform investments that we’re

GHD DIGITAL

beginning to work on are very different ways that organisations in our industry have really delivered capabilities out to the market, and we’re really excited to have the opportunity to do that. So that’s one of the big changes for us, is really that increased shift more to products and platforms,” he says. “A second thing we’re really focused on is continuing to be hyper-obsessed with how we can assist our clients with digital transformation. So if we talk about water

again, we have a wide range of solutions and products that we’re helping our water clients with, but we know we have to continue to be out ahead of where our clients are thinking, and that involves us investing internally in technology, but also helping to expand our partner ecosystem so that we’re helping our clients bring together the right solutions in the right way. And then it’s all about people. Our business, just like any other business, relies on outstanding people.” ISSUE 27

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Some of the large, game-changing platform investments that we’re beginning to work on are very different ways that organisations in our industry have really delivered capabilities out to the market, and we’re really excited to have the opportunity to do that” Bob Armacost

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GHD DIGITAL

The future is exciting, and Karan is glad he made the leap. When he was approached by GHD Digital, it was a month into the pandemic and Karan was unsure about the upheaval. At the time of writing, he still hasn’t set foot in a GHD office but certainly has no regrets about taking on the responsibility for growing GHD’s digital business in a key market. “I would say the best decision I ever made in my career was to join GHD,” says Karan. “We have talented people in the business who have made my job so much easier, and now I’m really just focused on extending what we already do, and growing into these new capabilities: AI, digital twins, intelligent automation, and that’s exciting. “What gets me up in the morning, and puts a smile on my face, is knowing that the work we do has not only an impact for ourselves and our clients, but has a huge positive impact on the communities that we serve. I’m immensely excited by that opportunity.” Armacost concludes: “The work that our digital team has been doing over the last couple of years has truly been a labour of love. The commitment that myself and all of our colleagues have truly goes beyond traditional work, because what we see is that we’re helping to transform our clients’ industries and their markets for good.” ISSUE 27

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DRIVING CHANGE In a future not too far down the road, cars’ value will be measured by their entertainment features rather than their speed. Roger Jollis, Vice President of Product Management at HARMAN International, speaks to Digital Bulletin about how 5G technologies are accelerating this change

AUTHOR: Beatriz Valero de Urquía

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HARMAN INTERNATIONAL

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utonomous cars might still be a future dream, but connected cars are very much a current reality. At the moment, there are over one billion motor vehicles in use worldwide. In 2019 alone, carmakers sold 28.5 million connected cars with embedded telematics. As cities grow and roads are more and more populated, vehicles are also becoming safer and smarter, as part of an evolution facilitated by 5G technologies. By 2025, one-third of the world will be covered by 5G, supporting 3.6 billion connections. Mobile phones, computers, buildings, factories and cars, among others, will all adapt to these new types 42

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of networks, and take advantage of their many benefits. Later this year, HARMAN International, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, will supply the first 5G-capable car with the company’s new telematics solution. HARMAN expects this capability to pave the way for the development of innovative products for the automotive industry, which will include productivity applications, realtime traffic reporting, and high-definition entertainment services. The cars of the future will be connected to other vehicles, as well as road infrastructure, service providers, mobilephone equipped pedestrians and cyclists. They will be smarter, safer and more

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sustainable. However, HARMAN’s vision is more far-reaching. It envisions a time not too far down the road where the purpose of cars will change, becoming not just transportation tools but essential entertainment sites. “Connectivity will support the in-car cabin, transforming it into a new space and experience zone,” says Roger Jollis, Vice President of Product Management, HARMAN International. “OEMs can no longer just differentiate themselves on a vehicle’s horsepower, top speed or range – we have reached a saturation point where almost all manufacturers are able to deliver the required performance. The differentiator has become the experiential use cases you can bring into the cabin occupants. At HARMAN, we describe this as moving from RPM to EPM – ‘revolutions per minute’ to ‘experiences per mile’.” These on-the-move experiences range from everything from video games to live concerts. At last January’s ExPLORE event, HARMAN presented three of these experimental concepts: Gaming Intense Mx, an immersive gaming experience; Creator Studio, a content-creation tool; and the most surprising of all, Drive-Live Concert, which “brings the live concert experience into the car”, including the ability to interact with the artist from the road.

Connectivity will support the in-car cabin, transforming it into a new space and experience zone” Roger Jollis

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Although the emotion of witnessing a live performance is hard to replicate, attitudes towards concerts have changed since COVID-19 began. According to Nielsen, about 32 million people attend at least one music festival in the U.S. every year, all of which have been cancelled for the last year. In a climate where mass gatherings are banned and web-based experiences are limited to online video and simple chat boxes, HARMAN’s proposed offering is the closest one can get to a live experience in a COVID-safe way. Its Drive-Live Concert concept allows users to request songs, trigger cheer-based features and select camera angles from which to view the performance. In return, artists can respond to users, give shout-outs, or play the most requested songs, fostering the connection with their fans. “While these experiential concepts are not meant to be production features, each demonstrates what will be possible in mobility in the not-so-distant future,” Jollis says. The driver of this change? 5G. The low latencies that are characteristic of 5G technologies are fundamental to the development of vehicle-toeverything (V2X) features, which connect cars to different elements of their environment, such as phones, infrastructure 44

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and other cars, and will allow for the establishment of cars as entertainment sites. In order to further develop these capabilities, last February HARMAN acquired Savari, a Silicon Valley startup focused on V2X technologies in 5G edge and automotive devices. “The adoption of 5G is an imperative step in the move towards safer driving, and eventually autonomous driving,” Jollis says. “By leveraging the high speeds and lower latencies of 5G, our OEM partners can create V2X advanced safety features that mitigate road

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conflicts, using peer-to-peer signals to warn drivers and pedestrians of potential hazards. Vehicles can also connect to the road infrastructure to help improve roadway efficiency, using V2X-enabled roadside units to control traffic lights, utility poles and traffic metering systems.” The acquisition of Savari is a fundamental step in HARMAN’s journey towards a future of connected and autonomous cars. By leveraging the startup’s software and talent, HARMAN will strengthen its 5G edge, multi-ac-

cess edge computing and smart infrastructure solutions. The goal, according to Jollis, is for both teams to work together alongside industry partners in the development of an open platform based on 5G and V2X. The platform will be bolstered by Savari’s agnostic solutions across vehicle-to-infrastructure, vehicle-to-phone, vehicle-to-vehicle and infrastructure-to-phone. “Such connections to the infrastructure will enable real-time traffic or accident alerts that can be used for better planning of routes and predicting ISSUE 27

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arrival times,” he says. “It will also enable real-time, high-definition map content. In the past, navigation information was static with the traffic information overlaid on the maps, but with 5G you will have real-time information on the maps, such as 360-degree video feeds at junctions to show traffic or environmental conditions.” However, the transition from RPM to EPM, and from 4G to 5G won’t be

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instant. To avoid any possible bumps in the road, HARMAN has also introduced several units that allow OEMs to deliver cars that support the current 4G systems, but that also have the flexibility to feature a 5G upgrade in the future: the 5G-ready Telematics Control Unit (TCU) and Turbo Connect (TBOT). “Cars are relying more and more on connectivity, so its availability and performance is essential to deliver

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The adoption of 5G is an imperative step in the move towards safer driving, and eventually autonomous driving” the experience to the end-user,” Jollis says. “TBOT is an intelligent software agent that predicts and anticipates the network conditions before a vehicle enters those zones. It can proactively switch network bands and profiles to sustain the connection. “The result will be providing the customer with uninterrupted service – whether that supports navigation information, streaming of music, or pushing data from the car to the cloud. Furthermore, it can detect areas where data may be more expensive and therefore download information in advance to save the user money. It’s another first for the industry and will be a meaningful differentiator for HARMAN and our OEM customers.” Another challenge in the road to connected and autonomous vehicles are antennas. Today’s connected cars usually need to have at least 18

antennas, which are highly expensive and inefficient. HARMAN has developed a multi-band conformal antenna that combines several of them in a single module, which can be mounted and hidden below the vehicle. “Rather than the ‘shark fin’ or ‘horn’ you see on today’s cars, the result is a sleek and aerodynamic design that saves on weight and materials while delivering the required connectivity performance,” Jollis explains. But connectivity is a two-way street. There is no use for smart antennas and ultra-modern V2X features in cars if they have nothing to interact with. This is the reason why connected cars can only reach their full potential in the context of smart cities. “In the past, HARMAN has mainly focused on connectivity solutions for automotive, but to create the full connectivity experience, the infrastrucISSUE 27

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In the past, HARMAN has mainly focused on connectivity solutions for automotive, but to create the full connectivity experience, the infrastructure needs to be connected too”

ture needs to be connected too,” Jollis says. “The street lights, surveillance cameras, traffic signals, call boxes, the interactive digital signs – all these need to get connected as well.” All these elements of the city will eventually become smarter, and be able to interact with vehicles through its V2X solutions. These data flows will not only improve road safety and traffic flow, but also assist in the monitoring of external 48

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factors such as weather conditions, identifying hazards, and city planning assistance. HARMAN’s acquisition of Savari only goes to show HARMAN’s commitment to its vision of expanding its portfolio beyond automotive solutions to allow for these interactions. “This sets us up for the next generation of automotive infotainment and cluster solutions, where the car will rely more on the cloud and the edge than

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the on-board compute and storage capabilities,” he explains. The road to the EPM reality is still long, but HARMAN seems to be on the right track. In this year’s second quarter, the company will present a 5G-capable car with its “first of its kind” telematics solution. Once 5G has become widespread, this model will be followed by a second generation of the technology a few years later, in which OEMs will

be able to take full advantage of the productivity and entertainment features of the new car models. “At the crux of the automotive industry’s development is the vehicle’s shifting value from hardware to experiences – RPM to EPM. And 5G will be the key enabler of this,” Jollis says. So fasten your seatbelt and warm up the engine because, when it comes to car connectivity, we’re all in for a ride. ISSUE 27

IT SERVICES

THE STATE OF THE HYBRID CLOUD The cloud has continued to be a critical component of every enterprise’s digital transformation. With the pandemic reshaping how digital services are delivered, is the hybrid cloud approach still valid?

AUTHOR: David Howell

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HYBRID CLOUD

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IT SERVICES

or many enterprises, the hybrid cloud approach had worked well for them, offering a useful mix of on-prem and public cloud services. As the pandemic deepened, the use of hosted applications became far wider and looks likely to become the new norm. Is the hybrid cloud approach still valid as businesses move into a post-COVID-19 environment? Research from Virtana, which surveyed 350 IT decision-makers in the USA and UK, is telling, as 72% of enterprises have moved one or more applications 52

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from the public cloud back to on-premises. Over a third (36%) of respondents cited technical issues with the public cloud service they had been using. Speaking to Digital Bulletin about the findings, Kash Shaikh, President and CEO of Virtana explains, choosing the right supplier is crucial. “Attention must be paid to selecting the right partner, tools, or platforms. Platforms developed by companies that have been optimising on-premises applications for many years and knowhow to optimise public cloud cost vs performance are the best to choose from.”

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Reducing cost and increasing efficiency are often the core drivers cited by enterprises when they describe their use of the hybrid cloud to deliver the IT services they need. However, the rush to support mass remote working has, in some instances, ignored the security aspect of this strategy. Indeed, the 2020 Intelligent Workplace report from NTT clarifies that security required more attention, with 77% of organisations finding it challenging to identify IT security or business risk across their remote workforces. Prathmesh Jadhav, senior manager in Deloitte’s consulting practice, explained to Digital Bulletin how cloud services must be planned to ensure stated outcomes are met. “Engineering teams should view cloud adoption as an iterative journey and maintain a clear focus on the organisation’s overall business and IT strategy in order for hybrid cloud deployment to be delivered at speed. Each engineering team will require a basic set of tools, connectivity and visibility to perform their day-to-day functions.” The hybrid cloud, then, has not been a panacea for some enterprises that have struggled to evolve their processes, particularly as their workforces have fragmented. However, the future development of any business’s IT will have a cloud component. How this component is designed and then deployed will

Engineering teams should view cloud adoption as an iterative journey and maintain a clear focus on the organisation’s overall business and IT strategy” Prathmesh Jadhav

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It’s now the responsibility of business leaders to do everything possible to provide these women and men with the tools, leadership and support they require to deliver first class digital customer and employee experience” Danny Winokur need to be clearly defined to gain the advantages of hosted services. Head in the cloud What began as SaaS (Software-as-aService) has expanded to PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and now IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service). IaaS is gaining the most attention at the moment, as enterprises’ IT infrastructure has had to be radically altered to simply keep 54

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companies functioning. With medium and long-term planning now coming into focus, an evaluation of existing cloud deployments is a priority. The Agents of Transformation Report from AppDynmaics concludes that 81% of technologists state that COVID-19 has created the most significant technology pressure for their organisation they have ever experienced. The report highlights that technologists need specific resources and support from their organisations to meet the challenges ahead, with 92% of respondents stating that having visibility and insight into the performance of the technology stack. “Technologists are stepping up in their organisations’ hour of need,” says Danny Winokur, general manager, AppDynamics. “It’s now the responsibility of business leaders to do everything possible to provide these women and men with the tools, leadership and support they require to deliver first class digital customer and employee experiences. It will be the skill, vision and leadership of these Agents of Transformation that will determine how businesses are able to navigate this turbulent period and emerge stronger on the other side.” A concerted push to overhaul how cloud services are organised and used should be a core focus for all businesses according to Tom Christensen, CTO and

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Kash Shaikh customer advocacy, Northern EMEA at Hitachi Vantara: “Early cloud adopters are now developing a hybrid cloud strategy before embarking on a cloud journey. They have become aware that application modernisation is critical before shifting the workload to a cloud service. “Market analysis shows that it is up to 50% of all workloads that are repatriated. Also, 36% will stay in a hosted or private cloud and 14% will be relocated in public cloud. The four top reasons for this are security and cost concerns, manageability and performance issue.” There is no doubt that cloud services are now an essential component of

Tom Christensen delivering the agile application access all businesses now need. The obstacles to the efficient creation, deployment and management of these cloud services align them with strategic planning that integrates the cloud into the medium and long-term development plans of each business. Here, the hybrid cloud approach has proven its value yet must not be seen as the only solution. Agile business As businesses continue to advance the technologies they use, including the expansion of AI – particularly machine learning – the adoption of IoT and the ISSUE 27

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COVID-19 has undoubtedly highlighted the benefits of having IT infrastructure that is scalable and flexible, in either the public or private cloud” John Starling

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burgeoning 5G network, all these advances have data as their common denominator. The digital transformation journey that all enterprises have been following leverages cloud services to integrate what had been siloed datasets and couple them with hosted applications to deliver a new digital landscape that can increase efficiency, reduce costs and offer new opportunities to develop business processes and enhance customer-facing services. John Starling, UK cloud engineering leader at Deloitte, explains how the cloud is a vital component of every enterprise’s data and application strategy. “COVID-19 has undoubtedly highlighted the benefits of having IT infrastructure that is scalable and flexible, in either the public or private cloud. For example, rapidly building new services, for instance call centres, and bringing data and insights together using artificial intelligence and machine learning services have relied on the cloud services. We do not expect the benefits and acceleration of hybrid cloud adoption during this period to be lost.” The ultimate question is whether the hybrid cloud is still the best option for most businesses? Tracy Woo, senior analyst, Forrester concludes: “We still

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see hybrid cloud as the main strategy for companies. Increasingly companies recognise that cloud is necessary to stay competitive. Adding digital engagement and collaboration underscores that necessity. And although data leaving the data centre still remains a top concern for I&O professionals, they also find that cloud offers not only lower base operating costs (e.g., for hardware, software, and administrative labour) but also lower security costs.” For all businesses, the cloud remains a critical component of their IT infrastructure. Gartner says: “IT services must be continuous, regardless of

Tracy Woo external factors. This expectation changes the traditional role of IT operations, requiring an increased dependence on automation and zero or minimal-touch maintenance. The benefits of this include increased efficiency, faster workload deployment, reduced costs and consistency across processes.” Any cloud deployment architecture has radically altered as enterprises have grappled with new working environments and expanding technologies they want to utilise. In the past, the architecture of the hybrid cloud has been a barrier, with many businesses lamenting vendors’ ability to create hybrid cloud spaces that meet all the IT needs of any given company. Today, the hybrid cloud is in rude health. ISSUE 27

DATA INTELLIGENCE

DATA ARCHITECTURE IN 360º BCG Platinion’s Assaf Tayar explains the consultancy giant’s ‘bionic company’ methodology and how the role of the modern data architect is changing

AUTHOR: Stuart Hodge

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BCG PLATINION

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he late American academic Douglas Horton once famously stated that “the art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity”. It’s an idiom worth bearing in mind when considering how many modern businesses attempt to navigate vast oceans of data in an attempt to leverage insight or create value. As data becomes bigger and more complex to understand and interpret, it’s becoming easier for some organisations to become overwhelmed to the point that they can fail to maximise their potential, in some cases, lose focus and purpose strategically. For over 25 years, Assaf Tayar has made it his mission to ensure that companies leverage technology properly to create maximum value. His passion for putting together teams to tackle the challenge of navigating the complex modern data ‘jigsaw’ became immediately clear, as the BCG Platinion Managing Director (lead for Western Europe, Africa, South America), spoke to Digital Bulletin. BCG Platinion was launched as a unit within Boston Consulting Group focused specifically on technology implementation and delivering value to clients by enabling their core businesses via tech – and, as you would expect from one of the ‘Big Three’, it works with world-class 60

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brands as diverse as L’Oreal and GlaxoSmithKline, to use but two examples. “It’s about bringing together the people, the ways of working and the technology to make our clients industry leaders,” Tayar says. “That’s the Digital BCG mission. “You have the need to be extremely concrete in terms of technology and how you deliver value rapidly. Those two components, the technology that has drastically evolved, and the ways of working in the digital world, is what

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Data is fundamental, as is customer engagement. Those are really the two pillars of architecture” Assaf Tayar

Platinion is providing in the broader Digital BCG context.” A keystone of the methodology BCG Platinion uses is the ‘bionic company’ model, where all of the disparate parts of the aforementioned puzzle come together cohesively, working independently or interdependently and in conjunction at times, to ensure scalable growth. Understanding the true nature of data architecture, as Tayar explains, is pivotal for any modern business. ISSUE 27

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“You look at where the value today lies for clients, and it’s in having more personalised services,” he says. “Data is almighty. It’s fundamentally important in this world. The other one, and I think it’s important to think of both together when you think about architecture, is you need to get stickiness – or customer engagement. When you reflect from an outcome perspective and what you want to deliver as value, you need to master both. “So data is fundamental, as is customer engagement. Those are really the two pillars of architecture. And it’s much more fluid, but you need to give a good definition to fluid... you need to have an archi62

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tecture that evolves with the technology because technology is moving very fast. That is what allows you to capitalise on what the market is offering.” So, how does that make sense in practise? “Let’s look at an insurance company, say, and, for example, the pricing of your contract for a client,” Tayar explains. “Let’s imagine they are a fabulous insurance intratech company with built analytical models, taking information internally as well as from the market, maybe even with added Artificial Intelligence plug-ins. “Your architecture also needs to be able to integrate those fabulous plug-

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ins. So it’s not only about being flexible and all the rest of it, you need to be able to leverage the market, which moves much faster than any organisation. There is no single organisation that can build all the capabilities as well as the market does. It’s the ecosystem.” Tayar’s profound belief is that if you build things from solely a process-oriented perspective and build out from that as a start-point, then you will be unable to adapt should the business’ needs change. And he believes the mentality is now shifting towards building things out from a more data-centric perspective to start with. “Your architecture needs to be extremely open and data is the glue between everything,” he says. “It’s then about ‘how

do you link all those data strands together so that you enrich the experience?’ So data, where data was a kind of storage, becomes central in your architecture. “It’s just not that you need a data platform like a data lake, I think that’s the wrong way to look at it. It’s that you need to design your applications around the data, in a way that makes sense for your clients. The old logic is to think data and build value around it, and not hardcore processes. That’s the big shift. Thinking data-centric, is where the rationale around architecture is going.” Even more interestingly, Tayar has identified the emergence of what he’s calling a ‘360º data architect’, describing it as “a million dollar role” in terms of just how vital it is to ensuring business success

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by being fully-versed across a breadth of organisational strands. “Being an architect nowadays is a fantastic job, because you need to have that 360º view and they have a key role in the full life cycle,” he says. “So, in terms of strategic planning, if they’re really good, they should bring great ideas on the table, so that you can derive new ideas as a company, more innovation. “They are essential to ensure consistency across the various chapters (squads of people), so that you are not going left and right, moving laterally in decision-making terms, depending on which squad. But they are also fundamental in helping the development teams to develop in the right way. “That’s why you see that as a digital architect, it’s a much broader skill set that’s needed for clients than what you used to have in the past. “There is a big shift and I believe that kind of 360º architect is needed now, to be successful. I think it’s a fantastic revolution, because you are showing value to the business, to the clients, and to your internal development teams. It’s no longer the guy in the ivory tower who controls the cost and says ‘you need to do this’ or ‘you need to do that’. Of course, the control element is still there but it has become much more complex. 64

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“And that’s why most organisations struggle, because they don’t have those skills. So you need to build those skills, and there are different ways to develop those skills. Our job is to help inject the right capability, create, develop those skills internally, work together and create an environment so that they learn by doing.” And it’s at that point of the business journey where Tayar’s other real passion comes in: people. Ensuring that companies have the right talent to create the sustainable value they require. It’s important though, at the point of integrating talent within the whole

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An architect is not going to drive any strategic insights but what is evolving in the planning is the ability to better understand what new technology exists to fuel your strategic thinking”

ecosystem that a company doesn’t lose sight of its overall strategic outlook. And it’s the cyclical nature of the model which drives the success across the various business areas, as Tayar explains. “Even with the new ways of working, it’s fundamental is that a company still has a strategy, first and foremost,” he says. “An architect is not going to drive any strategic insights but what is evolving in the planning is the ability to better understand what new technology exists to fuel your strategic thinking. But it’s not necessarily the architects who are the best person placed for that. It’s more about using design-thinking to

achieve another way to define strategies. Design-thinking, human-centred design. “The ideas coming from there should then be considered by those who understand the maturity of technology and can assess: ‘Is this something for my organisation?’ So it’s not that architects are leading the strategic planning, but they complement it. This technical knowledge, that’s why I like to combine those architects with people who can help a client think differently.” The level of investment Tayar has in his clients’ respective journeys, whether it’s entire transformation across the business, or focusing on key objectives, ISSUE 27

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I believe that kind of 360º architect is needed now, to be successful. I think it’s a fantastic revolution, because you are showing value to the business, to the clients, and to your internal development teams”

is undoubtable; he speaks passionately about his desire to ensure the very best for each other. One of the primary methods BCG uses for the larger-scale projects is using their ‘Agile Transformation’ roadmap, which the company describes as a “holistic, collaborative, and bionic approach”. Working in autonomous teams, everyone from the business-focused decision makers to architects, engineers, compliance people and even those on the product side work to teach agile behaviours, execute agile pilots and then adapt the operating model 66

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across the organisation to help build an ‘agile playbook’ – and the whole thing works at scale, which is key. “You need to have a kind of captain, or ‘product owner’ who has a clear definition of ‘What is the outcome I want to produce? And what are the key capabilities we are bringing together?’ This shift is essential. If you don’t, it’s like I explained before, you’re going to always be lagging on the IT side to produce what the business needs. Because it’s ill-defined, the business is changing, the technology is too complex,” says Tayar.

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“So, building new squads is a second key element but it’s not sufficient. If you only do that, every squad will work independently. So you need to ensure you go on scale. You need chapters across those squads, and that’s what ensures consistency. For example, an architecture’s chapter that will ensure that we have the same thinking about architecture in all the squads. It can be the choice of a technology. Take IUT (Implementation Under Test), you have as many IUT technologies nowadays that you can imagine but it would be prudent that we only use one technology,

because then you can create the same API (Application Programming Interface) for all of the squads, for example. “So you create consistency, cost-efficiency, then you can go on scale. “Our role is to help our clients set the foundation and help them move towards scaling. That’s the full cycle: sourcing strategy, the right partner, the right setup, collaboration model, and then providing them with the tools they need to improve internally. This is what we do, which is powerful for clients and as I always say to them: ‘As soon as I’m out of here, the better job I have done’.” ISSUE 27

PEOPLE

Women in tech In every issue, Digital Bulletin picks the brains of experts in a particular sector of the technology world. This month, we ask: “Women are still heavily under-represented in the technology industry and the C-Suite. What steps are vital to accelerating progress?”

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DEBATE

“ Three-pronged approach” Shivvy Jervis,

founder of human-centred innovation advisory FutureScape 248

You only have to look at the sheer breadth and scope of the tech ecosystem and how it’s chock-full of opportunities, or how C-Suite roles call for a myriad of traits that women possess in spades, to wonder why gender inequality still remains a burning concern. The mind boggles. Crucially, what will it take to catalyse a meaningful shift? I see three vital components: Shake up the pipeline – educators and parents, are you listening? Let’s briefly go to the root or origin of talent. In an analysis of multiple studies, my forecasting lab FutureScape 248 finds that the 14-16 year band is the most pivotal time for young women when it comes to determining the path they take towards the early stages of a STEM or business career. The onus to encourage young minds towards these subjects – be it via study or internships – lies with teachers and parents. In pushing so much of our lives to virtual, the pandemic will have prompted more families and teachers to take notice of the

profound impact digital skills can have for their daughters or female pupils. I have seen a three-fold increase in the number of young women approaching me for tips on building a business, learning to code, or what I often say is as vital - being able to get under the hood of digital tech and work alongside it. Adjust the culture architecture Thousands of anecdotes abound of women at all stages looking to hit the highest levels of management in their fields or advance in tech, held back by toxic cultures or behaviour. Let me qualify this by saying too that both male and female leaders can propagate these unhealthy environments, which can often drive out valued talent. Indeed, I ultimately left a prominent news organisation covering the tech news desk at 28, because a female boss mistreated me

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mercilessly instead of championing bright, new talent. Her behaviour was brushed off by peers – be it virtual or in-person, when these value systems inform how colleagues are treated, what new hires are exposed to and what is deemed acceptable, they dissuade talented women from staying or advancing. Culture training refreshers and updates to the ‘behavioural fabric’ of an organisation must be part of yearly upskilling programmes. It does not end with onboarding or new employee induction programmes. Intersectional states of play – don’t hire more of the same More routes to progression for minority groups are key. When informally polled via my lab, most organisations we spoke to said D&I (diversity and inclusion) were key on their agenda, and yet they admitted their C-Suites or tech leads had few neuro-diverse or BAME candidates. What if you’re female but also an immigrant, from a minority group, or autistic? When we don’t see enough women like us, we feel less enthused to continue tirelessly forging ahead against all of the odds. Let’s consciously open up that seat at the table to those with diverse, unique perspectives versus eventually settling on offering it to someone that maintains the bland homogeneity of the group. 70

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“ Bold parity goals must be implemented and achieved” Melinda Lee Ferguson, VP & GM, UK and Ireland at VMware

The technology industry needs to go beyond encouragement and platitudes in order to attract more women into the industry and support them in maintaining their career momentum. Firstly, progress in gender equality and building a more inclusive culture within a business can be achieved by making solid commitments that keep the business accountable for making real, significant changes. That is why at VMware, we’ve made a commitment as part of the company’s wider 2030 Agenda, to hire one woman for every one man, and to ensure 50% of VMware’s managers are women or from an underrepresented community. Alongside making bold but achievable gender parity goals, seemingly small but actually impactful adjustments can be made to traditional processes to drive inclusivity. For example, taking steps in the hiring process, including updating job descriptions and ensuring they are vetted for biased language. This can have a big impact on remov-

DEBATE

At VMware, we’ve made a commitment as part of the company’s wider 2030 Agenda, to hire one woman for every one man”

ing perceived bias around working in a male-dominated industry. Whilst businesses can make radical changes within their organisations, in order to drive more widespread change in the technology sector, businesses need to work with strategic partners to create systemic change. There is power in coming together with others to drive change across an industry. This can also be achieved through female hiring at board level. Having female representation at board and senior leadership level does not only show other aspiring women in tech that they can

also make it to the top, but also ensures gender parity is front of mind and drives more inclusive decision-making. Fundamentally, women in senior leadership roles in the technology industry have a key role in demonstrating that there isn’t a glass ceiling and paving the way for future generations of women. We must build a future that is accessible, unbiased and inclusive for all. It is the businesses that are driving the equity agenda, through doubling down on diverse hiring and inclusive leadership, that will see gender equality become more of a reality in their organisations. ISSUE 27

PEOPLE

“ Diversity improves the tech space for everybody” Ellison Anne Williams, CEO and founder, Enveil

As Women’s History Month, March is traditionally a time to highlight the impact of women on society at large and to draw attention to areas where the disparity of progress between women and their male counterparts is most prominent. One such area is the technology sector where we not only see a notable shortcoming of women participants, but a particularly great discrepancy in terms of leadership roles. Accenture and Girls Who Code put out a powerful report last year highlighting many of the statistics behind this divide and Pew Research and others have also conducted important research on the topic. And beyond statistics and studies, I am one of many women in tech who can add the colour of personal experience to the discussion. But rather than focus on the problem itself, let’s focus instead on solutions. We want - and need - more women to pursue careers in technology. Diversity makes the space better, bringing new 72

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ideas to the table and helping us create working environments that are inclusive for all. Here are three ways we can continue to accelerate the progress of women in the tech sector. Amplify the power of choice As simple as it may sound, the first step to increasing the number of women in tech is to ensure young women consider it as a possible career path. Only 27% of female respondents to a survey by PwC said they would consider a career

DEBATE

Diversity makes the space better, bringing new ideas to the table and helping us create working environments that are inclusive for all”

in technology, compared to 62% of males. We need to show that pursuing opportunities in tech is an option worth consideration. We can do this by continuing to promote STEM for young girls in school settings - there are a number of great organisations already making advances in this arena. Further, we can open doors for women through exposure to career options and making the field more appealing through flexible work environments and opportunities for advancement.

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Normalise women in tech leadership positions We need to continue to highlight women in leadership roles in the tech industry. While research by Entelo found that only 10% of executive roles in tech are filled by women, drawing attention to the women leading the charge can help boost and normalise women leaders. Efforts associated with International Women’s Day earlier this month did a good job celebrating the success of female executives - search #IWD2021 on any number of social platforms to see a snapshot. Establish and support opportunities for mentorship I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a number of incredible mentors over the course of my career who have given time and advice, input that was especially critical as I founded my startup. While it is fantastic to have female mentors, this is an area where men in the field can also make a substantial contribution. There is no need to shy away from offering career advice just because someone isn’t an exact reflection of yourself. Many of my mentors have been men and I would encourage any women aspiring for a career in tech to focus on finding someone whose career you want to emulate no matter their gender. 74

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“ A cultural and organisational challenge” Christina Kosmowski, president at LogicMonitor

Increasing the representation of women in tech and the C-Suite is a challenge that must be met on a broad cultural level starting with how opportunities are presented to women in society, as well as through pragmatic steps taken by companies themselves. As a society, the education system must allow more space for young girls in STEM and prioritise their continued engagement, right through until they enter the workforce. This is the only way we

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will have equal footing and representation in the tech industry. After all, prioritising women in STEM does not take away from anyone else’s opportunities; it simply provides tech companies with an even better pool of talent to continue future innovation. Indeed, it cannot be overstated that there is room for everyone at the table. Education is a crucial factor in how far women rise within tech organisations. Encouraging early STEM development

in girls and young women will do much to create equal representation as these women evolve within their tech careers. From the very beginning, educational institutions have to make STEM education accessible to everyone – no matter their gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, or anything else. Equally important is to look at what steps businesses can take on a pragmatic level to give women, who are already in the industry, access to greater opporISSUE 27

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tunities. Tech companies must reflect on anything they can do to encourage career development for their female employees. A vital part of this is that tech organisations need to be more strategic about giving women a seat at the boardroom and senior leadership tables. For example, a company may hold an annual meeting solely for vice presidents and the positions above. In most tech companies, it is highly unlikely that there will be a 50/50 split between women and men currently in these high-level positions. However, the company could decide to invite more women to the meeting to achieve this split, regardless of their level in the company. This strategy works, because it not only ensures that more women have a seat at a table where they are underrepresented, but it also helps them advance in their own careers. After all, opportunity is so often about access, and moving women closer to the positions of power in an organisation can guarantee this access. Ultimately, there is no easy answer to quickly increase the representation of women within tech companies and the C-Suite. However, organisations taking practical steps to help advance women’s careers within a broader framework of social change and encouraging young women to go into STEM will help society progress on the issue. 76

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“ Both men and women have a huge role to play” Dr Anjali Subburaj, Digital Commerce Chief Architect at Mars

The course of actions to see more women in the technology industry and the C-Suite are twofold: women need to empower themselves and the male organisational leaders to implement measures to establish equity for women. Men are comfortable mentoring women in technology into junior to middle level positions. However, very few, if any, come forward to sponsor women to the most senior positions. We need more visible women at the most senior positions in the technology industry. Such role models will also help attract more talented women to the industry. My advice to women in technology is to invest in your own learning. Make learning a habit. Look at the person in the role above you and learn from them and seek feedback from your community so that you can continuously grow and improve. Many people assume that strong communication skills are not necessary to work in the technology industry. After all, won’t they be spending more time

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My advice to women in technology is to invest in your own learning. Make learning a habit”

with computers rather than people? I too started my career in technology with this assumption, but quickly realised that my technical skills will never gain the recognition and value that they deserve, if I cannot successfully convey their importance to others. Speak for your work and don’t leave it to the work to speak for itself. The biggest challenge for women in the male dominated technology industry remains deep rooted unconscious bias. I have struggled with this throughout my career. I did not fit into a typical IT organisation. I believe in fairness, value integrity and advocate

diversity of opinion. I was often told that such principles conflicted with organisational interests. I was frequently urged to overlook unjust treatment and encouraged to be more like my male colleagues and generally toe the line. My professional competencies would also get dismissed. I struggled to accept such compromises. I changed myself, but on my own terms and conditions. I let go of my own biases, which made me objective. This objectivity has given me the courage to stay true to my principles and yet be impactful. ISSUE 27

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“ TAKE RESPONSIBILITY OR RISK A SOLARWINDS REPEAT” Leading cybersecurity experts from both sides of the pond, Dick Morrell and Richard A. Clarke, highlight how another SolarWinds-level hack could be right around the corner and the need for a sea change in cybersecurity governance and practice across the globe

AUTHOR: Stuart Hodge

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epeated gusts of controversy have followed news of the SolarWinds hack and world-renowned experts warn a hurricane of similar security exploits could occur in future due to toxic corporate culture and futile security governance. Dick Morrell, founder and former CTO/ Chairman of global internet security and filtering software SmoothWall and ex-UK Ministry of Defence and U.S. Department of Defense advisor, is dismayed with the overall response to the cyberattack and has called out executives for repeatedly refusing to take ownership for security failings. Digital Bulletin can also exclusively reveal former White House staffer Richard A. Clarke, who worked for multiple U.S. Presidents including as specialist cybersecurity advisor to George W. Bush, echoes many of Morrell’s security concerns. In February, Microsoft President Brad Smith dubbed the SolarWinds hack “the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen” and told U.S. news programme 60 Minutes that an internal analysis of the attack found that “certainly more than 1,000” software engineers had been involved in the December operation which affected the software giants, various other technology companies and vendors as well as several U.S. Government agencies. 80

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It has since emerged that the password “solarwinds123” was discovered by an independent security researcher, with former SolarWinds CEO Kevin Thompson blaming the critical lapse in security on “a mistake an intern made”. Although not directly involved on a commercial footing with SolarWinds, Morrell has previously in 2017 brought a now acquired division of SolarWinds, Trusted Metrics, into the UK marketplace so he is acutely aware of technologies and processes involved.

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Morrell, whose current role sees him head up cloud consulting and security training for UK-based tech skills provider QA Limited, actually predicted an event similar to the SolarWinds breach around six weeks before it happened during a webinar with Guy Martin of OASIS Open where he flagged up the “massive risk” with supplier-based or partner-based networks – and he claims the true gravity of the attack may be even greater than what has been reported. He says: “I am incredibly aggrieved that the CEOs, and CTOs of companies such

as SolarWinds can now turn around and say with no shame whatsoever at all that ‘this could have affected anyone’. That has to the biggest cop-out from a company that’s listed on the NASDAQ, that is governed by the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission), and which has published 10K quarterly filings for the last 10 or 12 years since going public – all of which actually gave a breadcrumb trail to potential threat actors, paving a way for eventual attack. “I find it utterly bizarre when SEC-listed companies, when they’re hit by a ISSUE 27

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I am more concerned about how far attackers managed to jump off into trusted networks, and may have left doors open that we won’t find for another five, six or seven years” Dick Morrell

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security threat and start to see a deprecation in their share price, and when they are very much aware that their methodologies and processes have been shown to be lax, that they don’t come out and actually work with a seasoned and industry-aware PR partner in order to get that story straight. Because honesty really, really matters in the security ecosystem. “I’m sick of the buck-shifting. I would much prefer a COO or CTO to come out, to put their hands up and say, ‘we didn’t get it right, and these are the subsequent actions that we’ve taken’– rather than coming out and saying, ‘it could have happened to anyone’. This is even more critical given SolarWinds have been involved in merger and acquisition activity to which it is not clear that security due diligence and best practice was ever followed. This always and everywhere has the implied risk of walking in back doors and privileged access to development resources that otherwise should be protected.” Morrell continues: “My concern is even bigger with regards to SolarWinds, because if SolarWinds’ development environment was hacked – and we don’t know how it was hacked and nobody’s ever going to tell us how it was hacked – SolarWinds also have a duty of care to ensure paucity and transparency with

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an even bigger, more aware community in the Open Source arena. SolarWinds Papertrails product potentially affects GitHub and organisations provisioning containers into Docker and Kubernetes environments with many applications still badly configured to run as root. “Proactive knee-jerk responses like blocking DNS address ranges to stop potential attacks… that’s slamming the door shut after the horse has long since bolted. I am more concerned about how far attackers managed to jump off into trusted networks, and may have left doors

open that we won’t find for another five, six or seven years. Myself and my industry counterpart Raj Semani (CTO of McAfee) spoke daily concerning SolarWinds and the threat factors involved and across the industry there are many concerns still outstanding. I doubt we will ever see these addressed. Until the next time and, rest assured, that is never far off!” The warning is stark and it’s worth heeding. In that same webcast interview with Martin mentioned earlier, Morrell identified concerns he had with Tesla’s head-up in-vehicle display systems and ISSUE 27

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If I’m a hacker and I want to cause mayhem, all I need is your quarterly filings, and you scroll down to section 24-25, and that gives me the indication of whether or not you’ve got something to hide” Dick Morrell

their software design. A matter of weeks later Tesla acknowledged assumptions in those critical design failures and recalled 135,000 vehicles. But this particular issue has been a long-standing grievance with Morrell, and he identifies a trail of complacency stretching back over a decade. Morrell claims that, even as early as the spring of 2009, he had identified and alerted embedded vendors in the U.S. which were using derivatives of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux community version 84

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CentOS as their build platform, making them aware of weak practices and lack of governance. Twelve years on, this has not seen a level of improvement that allows Morrell to rest easy and he advises that such a cavalier approach to resolving inherent flaws which place organisations at risk, either now or in the future by bad practices, cannot continue. He explains: “Organisations whose time to market is shortened using Open Source-derived technology places

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a responsibility on those companies to proactively manage, identify and patch dated, staid, older versions of shipping versions of code libraries. To maintain intellectual property almost every organisation backporting newer GPLv3 licenced code, with the Samba project being just one example, is taking part in exercises to deliberately recompile patches into older GPLv2 variants. They are sidestepping responsibility to contribute upstream fixes and code to projects and maintain proprietary advantage protecting intellectual

property and residual commercial value, without thought for security best practice. “You have to ask: what security risk exists to the end-user customer by recompiling and rebuilding binaries without those fixes and changes being scrutinised by the maintainers of that original source or their engaged community? What if those development environments in those vendors were targeted outside the Windows ecosystem? Who is to say that has not already happened given the threat vectors we’ve discussed? “The danger inherent in that approach is organisations deploying black box expensive network layer technology relying on ‘Linux Inside’. This essentially meant relying on auditors failing to apply the same security auditing schema to a device than they would for example on a racked server using Linux running services such as OpenStack or hypervisor based KVM technologies forming staple parts of cloud. Penetration testing schema and agreed parameters do not come close to scrutiny of running firmware on the devices in question. It is potentially Christmas Day for the hacker elite.” And Morrell says it’s very easy to identify those who are making themselves vulnerable in this way, by simply referencing companies’ 10K and 10-Q quarterly filings. ISSUE 27

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He points out that if any vendor’s terms state “because we use open-source code, we may be required to take remedial action in order to protect our proprietary software”, then it immediately flags that firm up as a potential target. “If I’m a hacker and I want to cause mayhem, all I need is your quarterly filings, and you scroll down to section 24-25, and that gives me the indication of whether or not you’ve got something to hide,” says Morrell, who is also the current Ambassador for Open Technology organisation, OpenUK. “It really is that simple to add you to a list of targets to then add to a list of social engineering exercises or remote 86

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surface attacks to gain access, especially now so many development staff are working from home often outside of corporate gateways and policies. “By essentially stating in your 10K filing openly ‘our software is based on Open Source technologies for which we have no control, therefore this may affect our time to market, our ability to assess and mitigate risk’ you are complying with SEC regulations but also raising a white flag. “Whereas in the Open Source community, we march on goodwill. We have maintainers. Maintainers look after software, but maintainers can only release new versions of the software

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containing updated patches, if people put the patches back in. “When we release a patch, there are millions of pairs of eyes looking at their source code. That’s the old adage. We’ve always used this for 25 years. Open Source equals millions of pairs of eyes. It’s not true, because open-source as it’s grown as an anathema, as its grown as a phenomenon, generally it’s millions of pairs eyes consuming stuff, not necessarily contributing back. “Open Source licences are there to encourage adoption but also to encourage good practice. Organisations are too focused on time to market and bottom end profitability to realise that by not partaking they are placing their customers and their own reputation at risk.” Former Oval Office advisor Richard A. Clarke is also passionate about the need to do security properly and with conviction and, as a leading industry voice, his comments agreeing with Morrell highlight this as a global problem. “There was a time when Linux systems were not as secure as they are now,” Clarke told Morell in a recent interview provided to Digital Bulletin. “The U.S. Government asked NSA (National Security Agency) and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) to work to make a secure version of Linux, and then to make that available, ISSUE 27

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not just to the US government, but to the public. It did, and it was the first time that the NSA was working in a public, open way, Open Source way, and it provided to the world an improved and secure operating system. If you want a highly secure way of using Linux, Secure Linux is the way to go.” What Clarke says makes sense to anyone with an Open Source mindset as the further a software moves away from the original open source code, the more vulnerable it becomes. With that in mind, U.S. government policy has now changed when it comes to identifying

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vulnerabilities. Also, given the sheer amounts of data held by government agencies and the sheer sensitivity of that data, he outlined a need for clearer governance when it comes to security standards for cloud-based systems and the need to safeguard existing systems from a legacy perspective. “Given the huge amount of government databases and technology, it’s not something that can change quickly,” Clarke says. “That means that we’re going to have, for a long time, systems that are using legacy technology, legacy software, and hardware. When we think

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about improving security we have to realise that we can’t just come up with new things that will make things better in the future. We also need approaches that take care of systems that are already there by improving them, rather than replacing them. “The United States government now has an internal directive that says if you find a vulnerability in software, your first obligation is to fix it, not to develop an exploit for it. If, in rare cases, you think that it’s justified to develop an exploit, then you’ve got to make that case. You’ve got to make it on an inter-ministerial basis, inter-agency basis and the equities of the private sector and the financial services sector and other critical infrastructures have to be taken into account in making that very rare, rare exception, where there’s some piece of software that might need to be exploited. Perhaps to go after, let’s say, an Iranian nuclear programme. But for generally available software, if we find a vulnerability in it, now the policy is don’t exploit it, patch it. “We need, though, standards for security of cloud systems and the NIST process. The NIST framework, that was announced earlier this year as a result of a year-long public dialogue in public processes around the country is an example of how the government

Patch management is a problem throughout government. As we move into the Internet of Things, increasingly, it’s going to be a problem throughout all of cyberspace” Richard A. Clarke

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This is a people and culture problem, we need smart folk making strategic brave decisions armed with an appreciation of their own risks, and training and processes better than paper-based non-aligned ISO practices must become the new norm” Dick Morrell

can work with the private sector in the United States to establish open standards that improve security.” This applies on a worldwide basis of course, and the point becomes even more pertinent when considering the sheer amount of data held on a variety of devices given the proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT). “Embedded software is a real problem because people don’t realise it’s there and they don’t realise that it has to 90

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be patched as well,” Clarke adds. “So, patch management is a problem throughout government. “As we move into the Internet of Things, increasingly, it’s going to be a problem throughout all of cyberspace, where there is software that needs to be updated, patches that need to be applied, and people don’t know what they have in their inventory. That’s going to be really true with IoT, because people today don’t realise what’s connected to their network.

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“We saw that in the case of the Target hack (the 2013 breach of the U.S. retail giant where hackers stole data from up to 40 million credit and debit cards of shoppers), where there was an outside provider working on air conditioning and chillers that may have been, according to press reports, the way hackers got into the network.” Morrell is in full agreement with Clarke and reinforces the need to be vigilant and to consider service

partner networks across business verticals and to consider how organisations better use SOC (System on a Chip) and SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) technology and to use better use of threat alerting technologies, both proprietary and Open Source. “The problem we’ve got here is the fact that it’s not just about the device, and that’s where a lot of people are getting it wrong,” Morrell says. “It’s about the underlying broker extensions. ISSUE 27

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Things like Apache Fuse, Apache Camel, Fuse MQ, MQTT, all of the bits and pieces that sit below the IoT device in that architecture trailer. “Even if you had what you believe is a modular cloud infrastructure to connect devices and threat surfaces in isolation, there is still the need to harness business applications and event management fabric in order to drive home governance. “As we have seen with SolarWinds and the deliberate targetting of trusted certificate based update processes and technologies we are very much having to ensure awareness and ownership is key.” 92

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Morrell is both adamant and passionate in his assessment of next steps. “To mitigate all of these problems,” he adds. “Conformity of training on hybrid and multi-cloud is absolutely critical and we must not take a vendor-based approach. Especially when it comes to being able to identify risk when you are using a DevOps-based approach to planning. We have to get this right. We are going to just compound the problem if we do not take this opportunity to actually own and identify risks and educate and empower staff who have to deliver an ambition. Be that in cloud, the enterprise or IoT arenas.

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“This is a people and culture problem, we need smart folk making strategic brave decisions armed with an appreciation of their own risks, and training and processes better than paperbased non-aligned ISO practices must become the new norm. If we don’t solve this now and assume relying on CI/CD then we are going to look back in four years and realise we are in a myriad of pain. It is simply not good enough to say well we followed NCSC and ISO standards guidance. “This is first and foremost about harnessing and provisioning technology well, but also redefining and understand-

ing risk. Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services invest very heavily and proactively in security and provide support services that are of huge benefit to customers but because of the myriad ways we as cloud consumers provision to cloud and our own individual threat appetite and governances, we have to be more intelligent. “Even more so given we still mistakenly deal with SIEM, and event data badly risking another SolarWinds type exploit to our own provisioned platforms. That is even more critical when considering temporary often torn up and torn down instances contained within a Docker or Kubernetes ecosystem. If this issue is not tackled, then the problem is going to get bigger by design and become even more business-critical, I am watching it happen in projects across the EU, especially in the automotive sector. “I only hope now that my concerns are echoed by a respected senior security advisor to The White House in Richard Clarke, that those of us taking this matter seriously can finally gain traction and be heard amongst our peers. Those service provider partners and the hardware vendor community must do better, we have removed the seventh veil – they’re naked. It’s time for change.” ISSUE 27

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A life in tech Sharing his wisdom this month is Steve Tzikakis, the newly appointed CEO of Sitecore. Tzikakis is a veteran in the global enterprise application software space as he joins Sitecore from a 13-year tenure at SAP

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STEVE TZIK AKIS

n the early days of my career, I was intrigued by how technology could support different business areas, driving company growth. I founded a small company selling CRM software, and that selling the customer experience dream became my entry into the digital world. I found customer systems, sales and marketing automation interesting because essentially, their aim is to make the user experience better and ultimately improve the lives of customers. My career was largely shaped by my move into the technology sector working for software companies, where

I was focused on driving business growth and improving customer experience. One of the most influential people in my life has been my late father. I learnt a great deal from him, and he instilled in me that whatever you do, whether it’s in your career or life more broadly, falling and making mistakes is inevitable. What’s important is how quickly you can get back up again and continue running towards your goal. When I worked for the family business, my father threw me straight in at the deep end. I think being trusted and given that responsibility at a young age showed me that I had the potential

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to progress and hold a leadership role myself one day. The CEO role requires you to think bold and have a dream. I am lucky to work with and coach many successful leaders on how to develop their dream as well as learn to articulate it clearly. I think the destination is just as important as the journey. Knowing where you want to go and what you want to achieve helps to elevate yourself and keeps you focused. It also gives you a challenge and something to strive toward. 96

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Someone aiming to be a CEO, or to hold any C-level position, must be humble and always in learning mode. You may be an expert in your field and ready to lead, but people around you will always have different perspectives, so it is important to stay open. I think having an abundance mindset is also key for anyone looking to take on a leadership role. I take a tough, disciplined approach to leadership, but I am always mindful of whether I’m being fair and think about what I can give back in return for what I ask of my teams.

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Continuing to take steps towards the overall dream that I have envisioned is my biggest achievement. I’ve always been driven by the journey to growth for the companies I’ve worked for, and I have been able to do that throughout my career. Some of my greatest accomplishments have been leading teams that have delivered some of the greatest digital transformation programs for some of the world’s leading organisations. These mega programmes have been a source of great friendships, successful partnerships and customers who have become clients for life.

The next big rock I’m focused on is building on Sitecore’s growth and expansion. We have the most remarkable team, and watching them come together to deliver against our accelerating ambition is already proving to be one of the most exhilarating chapters in my career. The pandemic has forced consumers and businesses alike to conduct more traditional in-person activities online, making it more important than ever for organisations to become digital-first. For many companies, the digital experience became the only experience, and research from McKinsey showed that we jumped five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption in a matter of just eight weeks as a result of the pandemic. The past year put a spotlight on just how ill-prepared many companies were to respond in the moment, and we will certainly look back at 2020 as a catalyst for digital transformation. Since the move to online-first and online-only engagement with brands, customer behaviours have changed to show a clear preference for digital. This ISSUE 27

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preference for digital engagement is here to stay – there’s no going back. One big mistake when it comes to creating engaging content is not personalising or tailoring it for each customer. Customers now have access to an enormous amount of information about a company and its products and services. They expect, if not demand, that you treat them like a preferred customer. I would tell aspiring technologists that a career in technology is all about innovation. The most important thing is to understand your customers,

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know what innovations and changes will best help to serve them, and then work to put them in place. Even though what you are developing and evolving is technology, never forget that technology should always be people-focused at heart and aimed at making the world a better place. With technology changing and advancing so quickly, it’s hard to predict what will be the most important – especially over a period of a decade. That being said, digital experiences have become key for all organisations to interact with and support customers, so

STEVE TZIK AKIS

any technology that can power this will be crucial. Tools like data analytics to understand customer data and better personalise content, and the use of AI to automate content development and ensure the right content can be served to customers in real-time will both play a large role in the next few years. I think it should be part of every job requirement to have a good work/ life balance, and I make it a priority to switch off from work and technology. You can’t produce consistent, long-term results if you don’t practice this.

Whether spending quiet time alone reflecting, practicing your favourite hobby, or with friends and loved ones, it’s important to have time to reset and relax outside of work. For me, that means spending time playing with my children. In its own way, that can be challenging and stimulating, as you need to be 100% present and engaged – it’s demanding, but it’s also refreshing and relaxing. Outside of family time, I also find swimming and running as great ways to destress away from work. In the wake of the pandemic businesses are finding it mission critical to interact and make human connections with customers via digital channels — often their only option to engage with customers directly – and Sitecore’s digital experience platform allows them to do just that. I’ve had years of experience in leading teams and my passion for helping customers drive digital transformation has given me the confidence to step into this new role as CEO of Sitecore. My ambition is to accelerate our global expansion plans and innovation of more market-leading SaaS solutions, while further increasing our customer centric DNA. ISSUE 27

THE CLOSING BULLETIN

Mark Klein, Chief Digital Officer at ERGO Group, breaks down the key elements of a successful digitalisation strategy

ur entire society is moving in the direction of digitalisation. Over half of the world’s GDP (65%) is predicted to be digitalised by 2022. However, although 87% of senior business leaders say digitalisation is a company priority, only 40% of organisations have brought digital initiatives to scale, according to Gartner. Digital transformation is an attitude. New technologies such as artificial intelligence, data analytics and robotic process automation should not be thought of as a pure end in themselves, but as means for adapting to the new service habits of customers and futureproofing business models, in insurance 100

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or any other industry. Digital transformation strategies have to be designed from the bottom up, ensuring the core of the business is able to carry the weight of digital technologies. Digitalisation must be approached like building a house. It’s a project that needs a foundation, at least three pillars, and a crowning roof. Any building that lacks one of these parts will not survive a storm, and the same is the case for companies facing ever-changing customer demands. ERGO Digital Ventures’ House of Digital Transformation outlines how to use digital technologies to create a business model transformation that will stand the test of time.

MARK KLEIN

The foundation: cultural change Digital transformation without culture is not lasting. You can build lighthouses, you can implement some products, but if you want to make that a continuous transformation you need to spend time and energy to make that culture come alive in your company. Communication is the key to achieving this. The cultural transformation starts by taking away the fear of digitalisation, the idea that it’s dangerous or just killing jobs. We are all using digital technologies day in and day out in our private lives but, sometimes, we are hesitant to implement them in our core processes when we are on the job, and that does no good. Communication is fundamental in explaining that digitalisation can help colleagues work more efficiently, and give them the freedom to do the job they’re really good at as humans: being creative, showing emotions and engaging with the customer. The people who know the best way to digitalise a company’s processes are those running them. You need to engage the whole entity in digitalisation and look for processes that you can automate to make them better and faster for your customers. By communicating with colleagues and explaining how new technologies work, you can demystify them and drive adoption rates, creating a strong foundation for a lasting transformation.

Digitalisation must be approached like building a house. It’s a project that needs a foundation, at least three pillars, and a crowning roof” Core: business model transformation Business model transformation is at the core of the house, it’s where people live. When you use digital technologies and digitalisation, you always have to follow a purpose. You don’t do digitalisation just to digitalise; that is to really do nothing at the end of the day. You do digitalisation because we want to improve business models, and really understand how we can best leverage digital technologies to make them come alive. For that, at ERGO we focus on three pillars, different approaches that complement one another but that, together, carry the weight of our digitalisation strategy. First pillar: traditional business model Not all the elements of the house need to be brand new. The first pillar is working with the business model that’s already in place. In the insurance industry that ISSUE 27

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is maintaining traditional ways of selling insurance, having agents out there selling insurance as well as selling direct by phone or online, etc. What digital will do is bring all of these together, and make them even better. An omnichannel project achieves this by making existing business models more customer-friendly by building customer portals, having the right set of applications available for customers, improving and driving traffic and conversion on the website, and putting CRM in place to really improve the relationship and our communication with customers. Second pillar: disruption Every day we see more and more customer journeys start online, and I think

Digitalisation can be everything, and it can be nothing. It’s not a goal in itself, but a way of improving existing processes, products and services to serve the new customer needs” 102

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that, if you’re not there, you will eventually be left behind. The second pillar complements the first one, and it is to reinvent yourself. In addition to traditional models, it’s important to explore new ways of doing things, like pure digital players. In this field, ERGO has created nexible, an insurer where everything happens digitally, with no phone and no broker involved. It’s an experiment, but one with a lot of potential. Third pillar: ecosystems The third pillar is about collaboration. The new business models will be made of ecosystems. Insurance products in particular have become an intrinsic part of the customer journey. When you sell a car, you sell insurance with it, when you go and

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travel, you take insurance with it, and you see that even in the times of COVID-19. We are working with partners in different industries (mobility, travel, commerce), dealers and startups to create a more holistic customer experience. Large customer players really want to work together with insurers to bring a better user experience to their customers. And we can offer them the products but also the know-how of how to sell insurances. Roof: digital technologies Once we have a strong base of a digital culture and business model transformation, it’s time to place the roof. Digital transformation without digital technologies is impossible, you need these technologies to make digital transformation come alive.

In ERGO we have identified certain technologies that have a lot of potential and with which we are driving digital transformation: robotics process automation, artificial intelligence and data analytics, and voice automation. With these technologies in mind, we are focusing on processes that can basically be automated for the best of our customers throughout ERGO’s footprint. Digitalisation can be everything, and it can be nothing. It’s not a goal in itself, but a way of improving existing processes, products and services to serve the new customer needs. By designing a digitalisation strategy that takes into account all of the elements needed to truly take advantage of the benefits of new technologies, companies can build up a digital transformation as safe as houses. ISSUE 27

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