Gigabit - May 2017

TELIA

BREAKING GROUND ON FINLAND’S BIGGEST DATA CENTER

May 2017

AI is coming.

Look busy EXCLUSIVE

PwC

Technology design in an age of cyber threats

Top 10 Business Gadgets

WE SPEAK TO THE MOST DISRUPTIVE CIO OF THE YEAR

Deliver an enhanced customer experience We can support your business to simplify its IT infrastructure and achieve its strategic objectives on its digital transformation journey. More than 8 million businesses across 170 countries trust us to keep their business ahead of the curve. www.business-solutions.telefonica.com

EDITOR’S COMMENT

Disruptor WHAT BETTER WAY to launch a new tech title than with an interview with the European CIO of the Year Phil Jordan.

Described as an agent of disruption, Jordan is also a keen sailor, and we look at how he has navigated Telefónica through some choppy waters to the position of strength it finds itself in today. “Technology without business is contextless,” he tells John O’Hanlon, “and these days however well you understand the business, if you can’t see the place of technology, then you are a danger to it!” See inside to dive fully into the CIO’s philosophy.

Also in our launch edition is a take on the increasingly debate issue of robots, artificial intelligence and whether machines are displacing the human workforce.

KPMG’s Head of Innovation and Investments Shamus Rae discusses how AI is impacting the finance sector in particular, and how the industry should respond to embrace these new technologies.

There are plenty of new and disruptive gadgets on the block too. We round up 10 of the best gadgets currently out there for businesspeople I hope you enjoy the first issue of 2017. As ever, continue the debate @Gigabitmagonline

Enjoy the issue!

Tom Wadlow Editor tom.wadlow@bizclikmedia.com

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AI is coming.

Look busy

Top 10 business gadgets

EUROPE

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Telia Finland Oyk

Telia Finland Oyk

Microcred Key Retirement Group

EUROPE

Deutsche Telekom NLDC Yorkshire Building Society Travix International

AFRICA

Constance Hotels and Resorts

MIDDLE EAST

Al Ghurair

Emirates NBD Dimension Data

USA & CANADA

California State University PwC

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Microsoft Health The Good Samaritan Society

Constance Hotels and Resorts AFRICA

NEXTDC

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WRITTEN BY: JOHN O’HANLON PRODUCED BY: KIRON CHAVDA PHOTOGRAPHY BY: JOHN HARRIS

INTERVIEW

TELEFÓNICA’S HIGH PROFILE CIO, P H I L J O R DA N , I S K E E N O N S A I L I N G I N T H E L AU N C H E D I T I O N O F G I G A B I T H E D E S C R I B E S H O W H E CO N T I N U E S TO N AV I G AT E H I S B U S I N E S S T H R O U G H C H O P P Y S E A S A N D M U R K Y W E AT H E R TO I T S D E S T I N AT I O N

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P HIL JORDAN IS known in the global CIO community as an agent of disruption. The European CIO of the year 2016 doesn’t come across that way; unfailingly affable and accessible, his demeanour is that of a benevolent uncle, and for someone with the future digital capability of a €40 billion organisation depending on his decisions, he is surprisingly relaxed. This belies intellectual rigour and the twin passions for IT and for communication that have marked his time as Global CIO of Telefónica at a time of, yes unprecedented disruption.

Maybe more than most industries, telecommunications service providers – or telcos – like Telefónica that used to be communications monopolies controlling fixed line networks in their own territories, have been shaken up by the internet. True, they quickly moved in to colonise the mobile space, and added services around TV and cable, but audacious upstarts like Twitter, Skype and WhatsApp have thrown such a large spanner into their traditional business model that they have all had to start transitioning to a new, digital model, and that has 9

INTERVIEW been a journey without maps.

Telcos have been transforming with varying degrees of success, but it’s widely, if grudgingly, accepted that Telefónica is one of the leaders in the race to provide a fully digital, endto-end customer experience. Since Jordan took up his post in September 2011 it has developed a bold global IT transformation strategy. To set the scene, revenues from simply connecting customers to a fixed or mobile network have been hit hard and will continue to dwindle – future growth has to come from far more intuitive and collaborative relationships with customers, whether corporate or private. As Jordan told me when we previously met in 2015: “Of course networks have always been important to us and remain our number one asset, but IT has become mission critical because it’s driving our business to be digital in its DNA, creating omni-channel digital experiences and also creating worldclass virtual shared infrastructures right across the group.” The outcome for customers will be access through a single digital interface, wherever they want, for whatever they want in a personalised way.

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MAKING SENSE The CIO role has emerged from the shadows, says Phil, and there’s no doubt that in the last three years those CIOs who stay in the back office are missing the opportunity to lead their business through transformation. In his case he really begins to sound like Merlin at Camelot as the era of the ‘sense maker’ dawns. “I think digital transformation demands that the CIO become chief story teller and sense maker for the business. All the boundaries are blurring; people are confused, excited, but also bewildered. If everything is merging and connecting, they ask, what is our role? What do we prioritise?”

The CIO who can make sense out of these uncertainties is a real asset to any business – but only if he or she understands that business to its core.

While he wouldn’t claim to be the only person in the business with a broad vision, as CIO he is in a unique position to navigate through its complexities – and this is a highly complex organisation. “My role requires an understanding of both the business and of the technology. Technology

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without business is contextless, and these days, however well you understand the business, if you can’t see the opportunity of technology disruption, then you are a danger to it! As a CIO you have to corral people and lead them on a journey – and to do that you have to be able to communicate well.”

Sense-making is not what he set out to do. As far as he remembers, he came into IT in the footsteps of his brother, who seemed to be making a good living at it, and because it looked easy! Starting out in the late 1980s as an operator on a big IBM mainframe for Clarks shoes has worked in his favour.

“Now that I am a global CIO I find that people quite like the fact that I grew up from the IT shop floor. It has given me a good overall understanding of all aspects of technology, particularly how they relate to the business. Two things struck me right from the beginning. One was the modernisation impact IT 11

was already having and the potential it could have. The other was that I found a rare ability to talk about it in a way that was not too nerdy or weird and connected with business people. In whatever role I have had I have been able to find a way of communicating the approach, goals, challenges and progress, within the business and with IT people, and I think that it remains a very important part of my contribution in the role I have today.”

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Another place it comes in useful is at home. As a father of three, he doesn’t post on his LinkedIn profile that he is honorary Domestic CTO and head of technical support to three children and his wife. It’s a job that grows in significance as the family grows, and wherever he is in the world he has to take regular support calls!

Whatever path he had chosen one senses he would have made use of the same qualities. “Perhaps the

reason I have had some success in what I have done is that I am a sense maker by nature. I am pragmatic and practical.” Pushed further he admits that the sense making starts with his own process of rationalisation.

“I simply can’t engage until it makes sense to me. Once I get it, I am very intuitive. Once I see the shape of the story, what the value is and how we might influence the business in the right direction, I will really go with it.”

CREATING A LANGUAGE In pushing forward the digitisation of the business he pays tribute to the support he’s had from chairman and CEO José Maria Álvarez-Pallete López. “I believe in what we are doing. Sometimes my convictions are tested sorely, but I stick to them.”

Being an outsider, an Englishman in a predominantly Spanish and 13

INTERVIEW

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Latin American environment, that support has been reassuring. “I explained early into the digital transformation process that I’d have to be so disruptive that I’d have to be prepared to be fired. José Maria has the same views about the need to be brave to lead real change and that gives me great confidence, the attitude that says we will do it or go down fighting.”

It took him quite a long time to find the right engagement and language for digital transformation, he recalls.

“Everyone understood we had to be digital, but wanted to know how and when that would happen, and how digital we are today. I gather from talking to CIOs in other industries that not many businesses have done what we did. I went out looking for a metric; something that would truly engage the board. Not all the board members have intimate knowledge of how the business really operates.

To move to a truly digital world you have to get right inside the operation and really understand how your business works so we looked at

every process in every segment of our business in every market, to determine if each process, operation or customer experience was happening in real time and to what extent it was automated. We did the hard work of assessing that, then we rolled it up, and I am able to say now not only what our digital capability is today but where it will be in a year’s time and in two.

“I think we have been able to create a language that the board can understand – a language that is communicable so we can describe our journey to the external world, something we can track, and something that targets investment.

That is a good example of sense making. Today I can point to which geographies, segments and processes that are not digital enough – to let us make sure the investment is focused in these places. That is how I can bring value to the business as a leader, taking all these inputs, making sense of it and driving a journey of change that is no-regrets.”

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INTERVIEW

DIG

WHAT WE EXPECT FROM Of course there was no way the young Phil Jordan could have foreseen any part of what he is doing today. January 1, 1985, he points out, was the date of the first public phone call made on a mobile phone in the UK. Today there are 86 million connected devices, driving, dictating, controlling and ultimately enhancing people’s lives.

The world has woken up to digital but a large section of business still doesn’t get it. Many larger enterprises indulge in ‘digitalwash’. “It makes no sense to disguise yourself as a digital business.

Customers will quickly see through businesses that put lipstick on the bulldog and fiddle around with their online channel to give the impression that they are a digital company.”

A complex service business like Telefónica cannot afford to do this.

As customers engage they won’t be slow to pick up that the experience is not end-to-end, not real time or not automated. “Amazon is an excellent example of a digital business. It’s super-easy to engage, quick, intuitive, frictionless, painless. Speaking as a consumer, it is all the things I 18

May 2017

want. I have never spoken to them, never had cause to ring them, I can do anything I want to, where I want, on whatever screen I choose.” That kind of experience creates trust, and that level of trust is what he wants Telefónica customers to have.

Whilst admiring Amazon, he doesn’t make too much of the comparison with the ecommerce giant, which hasn’t the complexity, the 90 year history or the large fixed and mobile infrastructure and data centre estate to deal with. However, end-to-end digital is vital to both. Sixty million Telefónica customers in seven countries are already experiencing a tranformed experience, with millions more to follow in 2017. Pressed for

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an example he chooses an unlikely one. Not many people know much about Moquegua, a small town more than 700 miles from Lima, but it was selected as one of the first Peruvian locations to migrate. “Naturally, we select where to start migrations to minimise risk now it’s great to think of our customers in Moquegua having a more Digital experience

than many more major cities.”

The majority of customers in Latin America will have migrated by the end of this year and the digital transformation will be complete on the current strategic planning horizon.

This will enable the company to leapfrog competitors in its market, and enable the next priority, the movement from digital to data.

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INTERVIEW

DIGITAL TO DATA

DEMOCRATISATION Networks, IT and digital services make up the company’s first three “platforms”. Telefónica now describe the fourth as the customer’s data and insight, which Telefónica is preparing to put back into the hands of customers. As a business Telefónica has accrued a tremendous amount of data from its 341 million subscribers, but that data has traditionally been used to build and optimise networks.

Jordan explains: “Telcos have access to millions of bits, and historically this was mostly used to build and optimise networks. There’s so much richness about a customer’s life in that data, so just think what could be achieved by liberating and using the data in partnership with our customers to create the insights and intelligence that will provide a secure but predictive, personalised and context sensitive experience.”

To fully realise that vision, the entire world would have to change, though.

He worries that political and regulatory change will put the brakes on change.

“We need policy makers to be the most progressive they have ever been 22

May 2017

and I worry that the political landscape is moving the other way. We seem to be seeing more fragmentation, isolation and protectionism precisely at a time when this digital world needs progressive law making that is not bounded by geographical boundaries. Artificial Intelligence will become mainstream in the next three years. We need to decide ethically and legally what role it will have in thousands of different industries and applications. It makes no sense to do that in isolation. We should be getting together and collaborating on what the role of technology will be as the virtual and ‘real’ worlds blur and decision making moves from being rule-based to machine-based.”

Jordan worries that the space between the regulatory and digital worlds that exists today will get wider as the potentialities of data, for good or ill, expand. “It is terrifying that there is such a big gap between the opportunities technology can offer and our ability to lay down a framework for it.” The next phase of what he calls the digital industrial revolution is already upon us. Every sector will have to engage with it, and here he sees a golden opportunity for Telefónica.

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“WE CAN APPLY SOMETHING THAT IS EASY FOR US – CONNECTIVITY. WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE A PLACE IN THAT VALUE CHAIN BECAUSE WE PROVIDE CONNECTIVITY. WHERE WE HAVE CLOSE ASSOCIATION WITH A BUSINESS IN THE CONNECTIVITY SECTOR WE WILL GO BEYOND AND PROVIDE THEM WITH THINGS LIKE CUSTOMER PRIVACY, DATA MANAGEMENT AND CLOUD. WHERE WE DON’T WE WILL BE THE CONNECTIVITY PROVIDER” 23

INTERVIEW

DISRUPTION IS A DANGEROUS

GAME Jordan makes a clear distinction between disruptive technology, which is just another tool at the end of the day, and the process of disrupting a business through technology.

It’s only in the latter context that he would like to be considered as one of the more disruptive CIOs in the IT industry. “What I’d call disruption is challenging the business to be something different by deploying technology. The scale of the change I have been driving for some time now is among the boldest in the telecoms industry. Disruption is a dangerous game. The successes are 24

May 2017

remembered but there are hundreds that failed and got fired. My personal contribution as a leader in disruption tends to be in sense making, storytelling and challenging inertia.”

The advice that other CIOs would be wise to listen to from the European CIO of 2016 would be to start with the need to understand the business at least as well as the others round the table. “IT is the only function that touches all parts of the business. CIOs who just run IT and understand technology are not remotely transformational given the challenge we have all got. I’d

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S suggest they engage the board on the need and the destination of digital transformation, define clear actions and clear KPIs, and then show progress. Digital destination, definition and delivery, balance all three or risk getting fired - this is the dangerous game for CIOs in 2017.”

When he gets the chance, Phil Jordan loves boats and sailing. It has some valuable lessons for a CIO, he believes. “As I see it, one of my key roles is to hold the business on its technological journey and not allow short term tactical headwinds to blow it off course.” You need to keep your

destination firmly in sight, even when reaching it means tacking in a different direction. Without conviction as to the destination, the tack will become its own end. In his work for Telefónica he has had to do a lot of tacking, and explain an apparently erratic course even to his own team. “In the blurred world I have been talking about, it would be great if there was a GPS for business evolution, but don’t believe the consultancies that tell you they have one. It’s all about team work, reading the environment, making good decisions and, sometimes, sailing close to the wind.”

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

AI is coming.

Look busy Written by Tom Wadlow

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial intelligence will shake up employment across all industries, especially in finance functions where menial, repetitive tasks may no longer be the domain of eager-to-impress graduates. We speak to Shamus Rae, Head of Innovation and Investments at KPMG

“I’m a maverick lunatic so I’m probably the wrong person to ask if there’s going to be too much AI,” laughs Shamus Rae, Partner and Head of Innovation and Investments at KPMG. His stout belief and faith in artificial intelligence is unwavering, perhaps not surprising given he cycles 120 kilometres a week and owns a Tesla.

Robotics, automation and humans are living side-by-side, and Rae’s job is to maximise these relationships through digitisation at KPMG, both internally and externally for clients.

A shake-up in the traditional formation of the workforce writ large is coming. A World Economic Forum report predicts that five million jobs will disappear in 15 countries by the end of 2020, the Fourth Industrial Revolution driving a demand for creativity at the expense of office admin. Put bluntly, “people need to embrace working with robots rather than people,” KPMG’s UK Head of Culture Jayne Vaughan said late last year.

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NO BRAINER? KPMG has been studying the consequence of new technologies on the finance function of business in particular.

And what better place to start than with KPMG itself. Rae describes how AI is impacting the organisation’s work in transactional accounting: “If we do an audit on a bank, today what we would do is have a lot of staff working through their loan book doing some sampling and assessment. We only ever do sampling because you simply can’t go through a global bank’s loan book manually – it is

too time and labour intensive.

“We’ve built an AI engine that can go through an entire loan book, not only bringing cost benefits but also quality in terms of making our audits much more thorough. We can look at the paperwork which came with the loan and do other things automatically, like revalue assets loans are borrowed against.”

Exceptions, triggered by mismatching data or anomalies spotted by AI, can be sent out to human colleagues, naturally leading to a demand for higher-skilled employees who only deal with complex scenarios.

But can we trust the robot to get it right every time? For Rae this is the wrong question to ask, not least because 100 percent accuracy 100 percent of time is an unrealistic expectation, even for a maverick lunatic. “If you start analysing the quality of work humans do then it is obvious that they are not 100 percent either,” he adds. “We want AI to be superhuman, and if somebody asks ‘how do you know it will be more accurate’, we need to have the data to back it up.”

BY 2020 5 MILLION JOBS

IN 15 COUNTRIES WILL BE LOST TO

AUTOMATION

(World Economic Forum)

AI IS COMING. LOOK BUSY

UPSKILLING Graduate uptake at the big four UK accountancy firms will be reduced as a direct result of technology transforming the ways companies are audited. EY has already said that its intake could drop by as much as 50 percent by 2020.

Rae explains: “We and many companies across many sectors have hundreds of finance graduates coming in and doing the really taskorientated work to develop their capabilities. In the next three to five years this will be automated away.

This means we have to find another way of taking in and bringing up graduates to make sure they are capable to do the higher-skilled work.

Though the likes of KPMG will continue to be vital feeders of financial talent to businesses in all industries, Rae believes that a significant proportion of any graduate intake 29

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

“I’m sitting here thinking that in 10 years’ time if I have brain surgery, I would rather have a robot who’s got access to hundreds of thousands of brain operations from around the world than a human” deficit will be offset by unlocking the power of SMEs. Building stronger connections between government, universities and businesses will no doubt be vital in making this a reality.

KPMG’s own recruitment requirements will comprise two different types of people. “One is the accountants who have the right skills to deal with the exceptions and higher skilled worked,” says Rae. “But we also need people now who look after the data lakes – is new tax regulation relevant to our tax lake or not? This is the sort of questions they will be facing. Maybe it is a bit quick to call them data scientists, but we certainly need ‘knowledge managers’.”

But what about other companies?

KPMG works with a huge number of businesses, many of which are on the FTSE 100, and Rae says that most of these organisations are running AI pilot schemes. However, few are 30

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what he describes as “running with it in anger”. Rather, businesses are using it in narrow places to build confidence, but it is only a matter of time before full commitment becomes a matter of necessity. In this respect, KPMG is one step ahead, spending $100 million a year on internal application of AI technology.

A RACE AGAINST TIME? The advancement of AI and its sophistication is not going to slow up, meaning the race to develop skills to sit alongside it is more pressing than ever. And for Rae, the likes of KPMG will be key protagonists in the unfolding story to come. “From our point of view, as an industry we hire graduates and train them up, but we are a feeder to all industries who need finance expertise. We therefore have a societal responsibility to find ways

AI IS COMING. LOOK BUSY

to train people so they don’t have to do the laborious work anymore.”

Rae also observes an eagerness among graduates to develop skills more creatively. Indeed, a study

by Epson on European workers generally found that two thirds are willing to retrain for new roles defined by enhanced technology.

The UK’s digital skill base has been subject to regular negative headlines, but Rae champions the case for optimism and proactivity.

“I have had many conversations with government and industries and there is a realisation of the need to be proactive about the management of this.

“If we have a more positive attitude and ask how we can adjust the education system to be more

FINANCE

GRADUATE

INTAKE COULD DROP BY AS MUCH AS 50 PERCENT,

ACCORDING TO EY

creative while encouraging technical skills, and imagine utopia not dystopia, then we will get there.”

FIVE YEARS ON… Stopping short of asking Rae to describe his AI utopia, we fastforward five years to a vision of 2022.

“My prediction is that most of the offshore non-IT centres will be gone,” Rae says. “As a consequence we will see most call centres disappearing as well – the work done on creation of voice, designed to displace annoying computer voices, is very impressive.

Eventually you will ring up your mobile phone company or bank and you will be speaking to an agent, and you won’t be able to tell that it isn’t human.”

This naturally leads back to the question of can there be too much AI. Despite warning of his maverick bias, Rae did indeed answer.

“There is danger of AI being overhyped and going too far into it now when things may not be where they need to be. However, I’m sitting here thinking that in 10 years’ time if I have brain surgery, I would rather have a robot who’s got access to hundreds of thousands of brain operations from around the world than a human.”

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Anyone working at executive level within business has a responsibility to ensure they are equipped with the latest technological innovations to help make work as smooth and easy as possible.

Not just that, but it also helps to show colleagues, or rivals for that matter, that you’re at the forefront of knowing exactly what’s available in order to keep up appearances. GIGABIT’s exclusive guide is designed to help ensure that you are – and here is our top 10 list of must-have gadgets for anyone who’s anyone in the business world right now.

TOP 10

10

9

Zendure 2nd Gen A8 Pro Portable Charger

VYSK QS1 Case

An exec having a smartphone is a given – but which charger is the most robust and provides the best charge and functionality?

W ith those criteria in mind, we’ve selected the Zendure 2nd Gen A8 Pro. Its capacity of 25,600 mAh is huge and it also has four handy USB ports in case you wish to charge more than one device. Impressively, it also automatically detects which device you’ve connected, and adjusts its output accordingly to achieve the quickest charging time. Then, when your device is back up to full power, the charger will tur n itself off automatically.

VYSK phone cases have revolutionised the security of data on mobile phones. They’ve been developed to offer complete protection against malware and hackers by merging software and hardware into one ‘unhackable’ piece of technology. The cases are built for specific models of smartphone and work to protect your calls, texts, photos and videos, using what the company describes as “next-generation encryption”.

For anyone who works in a sector where corporate espionage could be a factor, the Vysk QS1 is any easy answer to any security concerns.

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AIRPORT TECH GADGETS 2017

8

The GlocalMe U2 mobile WiFi router

Having a good mobile hotspot to share on the move can earn you the acclaim of your colleagues and perhaps a few drinks after the hard work is done.

The GlocalMe U2 is suitable for business users who travel frequently and also those who are tired of dealing with ropey connections in the various boardrooms they visit. The embedded encryption offered by the U2 also means data is much safer than using any public Wi-Fi hotspots. The connection can be shared with up to five devices, and it also has cloud-SIM functionality which means it can be used quite easily in many places around the world without the need for a local SIM.

7 Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 Mini (128GB) One of the most common jobs for a travelling executive is to pick up data quickly on the move and although you can do that with hard drives and cloud storage, a USB Flash drive which is compatible with multiple operating systems is always a very handy option.

The Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 Mini is affordable, fits easily in the pocket and can work with both Mac and PCs whilst also looking quite stylish.

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TOP 10

Vince Camuto Turin Briefcase

6

Now, there is always an element of vanity involved for any top business executive and looking stylish is always important. It’s pretty much impossible to go wrong with a professional, classic black briefcase and the Vince Camuto Turin briefcase certainly fits the bill. It’s sleek and can be carried as a top-handle briefcase or over the shoulder. The look can be adjusted with handles which fold into the pockets and it’s also a good-size for carry-on luggage. Importantly, it also possesses all of the key compartments and cubby holes for carrying important documents and devices that any top exec is going to need.

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5

Sony Smartwatch 3 Stainless Steel

The smartphone market is an increasingly competitive one and although many people will swear by the Apple Watch 2, the latest version of the Sony smartwatch is far easier on the eye. The wrist strap is made of stainless steel and looks more like a classic watch. In terms of functionality, the device is easily synced with a smartphone, possesses an impressive selection of apps and can be controlled using voice, touch and finger gestures.

AIRPORT TECH GADGETS 2017

4

Wocket SmartWallet

Nothing makes someone working in business look more bumbling or disorganised than faffing around with dozens of debit or credit cards when out and about.

If you’re going to discreetly pay that bill for the business lunch, you want to do it smoothly and the Wocket SmartWallet lets you do that. It holds just one card that you program with all of the other card details you need to make any purchase. Easy.

TrackR Bravo

3

One of the biggest bugbears for any top exec is losing something vital to yourself or the business. The TrackR Bravo is a coin-sized, attachable disc which can be put on anything from a pair of keys to a phone – or pretty much anything else – and then acts as a sort of radar to keep track of the item’s location. Missing items within 100 feet can be found using the accompanying app and Bluetooth signal, but even if it’s further away, the device can be tracked using other TrackRs around the globe as a collective cloud to help you find it. It’s a really useful device for keeping track of things, especially if you’re on the move.

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TOP 10

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2

AIRPORT TECH GADGETS 2017

A cer H7550ST

Few things in the business world are more frustrating than preparing a top-notch presentation, only to find that the projection system at the office you’re visiting does not work as you’d hoped – wasting valuable time and making everyone look a little unprofessional. To ensure that doesn’t happen, some execs may choose to take their own projector with them. A short-throw projector like the Acer H7550ST is ideal for smaller conference rooms. By placing it on a desk near the screen you can still project an image that’s as large as 25 feet. It also has 3 HDMI ports and displays highquality video with little lag-time.

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TOP 10

1

BOSE QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones

But it’s not all about work. Even the most dedicated of execs need to unwind, and often that has to be done on the move. So whether you’re on an inter national flight, a first class train carriage or simply grabbing some “me” time in the office, nothing helps to tune out the outside world better than a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Most of the best sets are too bulky and unsuitable for the office or travelling, but the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones are ideal. The in-ear headphones offer convenience and quality of sound whilst being perfectly portable and discreet. They also feature an “aware mode” that allows in just enough sound to ensure you’re ready for any situation.

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1

AIRPORT TECH GADGETS 2017

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BUILDING Sustainability Written by Catherine Rowell Produced by Lewis Vaughan

With the rise of cloud data, IoT and smart technologies, data centres have become big business. Telia Finland Oyj is behind the current construction of the largest data centre in Finland, embedding sustainable initiatives which will drive longterm benefits to the region

D

ata centres have become an essential part of business growth, with the rise of cloud technologies and IoT changing the way in which markets operate and communicate with their audiences. At present, there are two to three largescale data centres in Finland, including one owned

by Google, but these centres have been built to focus solely on in-house business. Consequently, the new data centre by Telia Finland, named Telia Helsinki Datacenter, will be unique through catering to a multitude of different businesses. Juha Ekman, Director of the new data centre building project and Head of Large Production Premises at Telia Finland

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MISSION CRITICAL AND DATA CENTRE CONSULTANCY Ramboll recognise the importance of designing core infrastructure services to maximise on the potential of the development, ensuring these meet the needs of the digital age whilst providing the best return on investment. We provide Project Management, Multi-discipline Lead and Design Consultant services from Feasibility through to Final Handover.

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TELIA FINLAND OYJ

explains: “In addition to in-house data centre and colocation functionality, this data centre will enable all kinds of different cloud services.” The new site will become Finland’s largest open data centre.

Delivering a broad spectrum of telecommunications and other services, Telia is a leading mobile phone operator in Finland and also offers various platform and IT services for corporate businesses. All these services will benefit from the new data centre and its capabilities and efficiency.

With a building engineer background, Ekman plays a pivotal role in the company’s largest construction

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Number of employees at Telia Finland Oyj

3k

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projects. He explains that preliminary construction work for the data centre has proved challenging with regards to timescale as a result of excavation work, which is time-consuming in Finland as a result of being the home of the toughest bedrock in the world. The first phase incorporated 100,000 cubic metres of blasting work which took approximately six months. The next phase is currently underway through the winter season, which will impact on essential concrete work. “Casting concrete would be fine if you can do it in summer,” Ekman explains. “In our case, we have a long winter season and we are casting concrete in midwinter.” However, he adds: “This is nothing

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ENGINEERING WORLD CLASS DATACENTERS Royal HaskoningDHV is an independent, international engineering consultancy providing services for the entire living environment. Our work contributes to the sustainable development of the communities we work in all over the world.

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“The new data centre will be 33,500 square metres in total, with white space taking up 15,000 square metres.

The maximum number of racks will be 5,000 and it can house up to 200,000 servers” – Juha Ekman

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new when you are building in Finland, but it stretches the schedule a bit.”

The company had no prior benchmark to follow in Finland - nor in Europe, as such a hybrid data centre had not been built before - but knew it must allow for the longest life cycle possible, be fully flexible and energy efficient. Ekman explains that previous data centres in Finland had been built mainly by international companies, with Finnish companies solely providing supporting roles. However, in the construction company’s new data centre, Ekman states: “We wanted to make sure that we have sufficient international and local skills, in addition to the competence to design this mechanical and

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electrical (MEP) project.” To this effect, the company has selected Royal HaskoningDVH from Netherlands and Granlund Oy from Finland, the biggest Finnish MEP designer in the country. “They are providing the MEP design together and it is good choice, because it combines both perspectives,” Ekman adds.

Although massive amounts of details have been accounted for, the majority of work is being designed and constructed at the same time due to time constraints, with the support of BIM technology to ensure minimal revisions and overlaps. Ekman explains: “The new data centre will be 33,500 square metres in total, with white space taking up 15,000 square metres. The maximum number of racks will be 5,000 and it can house up to 200,000 servers.” The total IT power for the data centre will be 24 megawatts of power input, of which 6MW will be online in 2018. The capacity will be increased further by expanding the data centre modularly, based on

• Specially tailored CyberAir 3 for Telia data center in Helsinki • Enhanced unit and larger heat exchanger • More cooling capacity

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TELIA FINLAND OYJ

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business needs and growth. Ekman stresses that such developments will help the company expand its business further in the most cost efficient way: “This data centre will be an enabler for our growing businesses and the future services that we will provide.

We are helping to bring business to digital era but also provide new services to consumer customers.”

Sustainable and secure Encompassing four storeys, sustainability is at the heart of current construction work. It’s reflected in the project’s design, with an underlying focus on client values. Aiming to achieve the LEED certification, Sonera is abiding by LEED guidelines, taking care to document and “do everything right from the beginning of the project to end”. The new data centre will be able to warm around 20,000 flats through generating 200,000MWh of heat energy per year. This heat will be recovered and reused. Ekman explains: “It’s not only a question of improving technology. This is the first time in Finland, in Europe and in

JUHA EKMAN Ekman is Department Manager for Telia Finland Real Estate unit. He has worked over 10 years in Telia Finland and his main responsible area is real estate management of large production premises in Finland.

Ekman has specialized to comprehensive real estate management creating add value for the company´s core business.

Previously Ekman worked seven years for Telia´s subsidiary Unibase as construction consultant and Area Manager.

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1.3bn

Telia Finland Oyj the Nordics that we are features, highlighting revenue in actually providing our heat a pledge to implement US dollars to energy companies at this renewable energy scale.” This Energy Reuse sources and provide Efficiency (ERE), and long-term long-term sustainability.” partnership between the heat provider Security, energy efficiency and and energy companies is significant. sustainability have all become areas The site will use renewable energy, and valued by the company’s clients both its water chillers will have exceptionally locally and internationally. Designs high efficiencies. Ekman explains: “We for the data centre will conform are increasing the water temperature to both national and international with heat pumps to recycle the waste demands and requirements. Ekman heat through the local district heating acknowledges that the company grid. Additionally we will implement “has to be ready for international rainwater harvester and solar power customer security demands and

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TELIA FINLAND OYJ

“In addition to in-house data centre and colocation functionality, this data centre will enable all kinds of different cloud services” – Juha Ekman

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requirements”. The company has therefore also undergone significant risk analysis and overhaul of current systems to ensure the centre will be fully secure against any potential risks.

With completion date in early 2018, construction of the data centre is on schedule, yet Ekman stresses that this would not be the case without the right people on board, believing this to be the most important tool in current building work and continued focus on sustainable initiatives. He explains: “There must be enough of the right people, such as the project management team, data centre professionals and specialists”, noting that this year will be challenging due to the company’s aim to increase the number of construction workers from 100 to 300. The project management is provided by the experts of international consulting company Ramboll. However, Ekman is confident the data centre will provide longterm advantages to the region and drive increased business to the area, delivering regional long-term benefits.

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How Microcred is using technology to improve Africa’s payments sector Written by Catherine Rowell Produced by George Tweed

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We spoke with Microcred Chief Innovation Officer and CTO Denis Moniotte regarding the digital transformation of the company, designing innovative products and integrating first class technologies to provide financial inclusion for all

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icrocred has come a long way from its humble origins, providing financial support to 575,000 clients and companies who are excluded from loans within a traditional brick and mortar setting.

Aligned with the company’s operations to deliver quality customer service is Chief Innovation Officer and CTO

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Denis Moniotte, who has been behind the construction of a new distribution network in Senegal and Madagascar, and is developing Microcred’s products and services to support an ever-growing customer base. “We were addressing customer needs differently a few years ago, and we will still be addressing it

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differently in a few years from now,” reflects Moniotte. He explains that the company receives loan applications from clients excluded from traditional banks for a number of reasons, which ranges from the loan SME’s can afford being too small, to a lack of paper trail. “Even when the amount is acceptable, the bank will want to see paperwork documenting income, tax returns etc., and many clients don’t have that,” he says.

“They just run the business and don’t maintain any books,” leading banks to automatically reject them. Microcred aims to eliminate fake promises by truly delivering outstanding services to underbanked populations. Microcred is a commercial company, or what Moniotte calls a double bottom line business. “We are a social business,” he adds. “We are a commercial company and have to be profitable, but what happens to our clients is the key driver of our value creation.”

BUILDING NEW PRODUCTS To ensure Micocred builds products for customers which are both significant and practical, the innovation team

spends a significant portion of time listening to clients and liaising with design researchers to create ideas for future products. This enables them to build prototypes and undergo pilot programmes for approximately four months, where products are further refined and then rolled out throughout the company’s core business model.

This process also supports Microcred and helps the company understand how clients have previously managed without financial support. Dedicated staff members visit SME’s to see whether clients’ businesses are viable, cost effective and have the ability to reimburse a possible loan.

This emphasis on building customer relationships and developing new products has enabled the implementation of strong governance, policies, economics of scale and the centralisation of vital functions within Microcred’s infrastructure. Moniotte is clearly passionate about reaching out to individuals who have not previously had access to traditional financial services through these developments, as 85 percent of the population in areas the company operate are

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“We are on a journey to create a very different kind of business in terms of how it can be valued by the market” – DENIS MONIOTTE, CIO AND CTO

underserved by the finance industry.

Although targeting what Moniotte calls “a handful”, Microcred builds around 40 branches per country and 50,000 active borrowers who all highly value Microcred’s products and services.

To ensure a seamless delivery of services, Microcred extracts data from its platform overnight, where proprietary algorithms support the establishment and eligibility for clients who wish to receive automated decision loan products. Moniotte explains: “Each day, we determine for every client, ‘from this morning, according to the past behaviour, this

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client, on this specific product, is eligible for X amount.’” The client is then able to take a pre-approved loan from their local agent. Such developments have therefore enabled Microcred to make processes much more relevant and accessible for clients.

PERSONALISED TOOLS AND PRODUCTS Whilst Africa remains a “cash based society”, Microcred has to build a ubiquitous distribution network so clients can access their finances easily through bank agents, such as at grocery shops, pharmacies

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or petrol stations. Moreover, the transformation of Microcred’s IT infrastructure has enabled clients to now gain freedom of choice and flexibility. Clients are automatically given an electronic account, where personalised tools and a centralised management system enables the company to cater to each client’s specific financial needs and access information through one core system.

Microcred’s digital transformation also incorporates the implementation of strong device management on its Windows and mobile devices.

The company utilises biometrics to

combat fraud, alongside the use of Watchguard for increased security.

Additionally, the company’s removal of admin rights across the board has allowed them to support all devices remotely. Other embedded technologies within core operations include Google’s corporate document email system, Zendesk for ticketing and Optitune as its Windows device management tool. All of these tools have become first-class technologies which are highly effective in Africa.

With its client base in mind, over a thousand commercial officers at Microcred now deliver seamless

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loan applications through the use of tablet devices, where photographs of documents can be taken, simplifying the process. The development of a smartphone app is also a customerfocused innovation Microcred is proud of, which will work without a data connection. “The number of smartphones in Africa is rising,” adds Moniotte, “but many people who have a smartphone don’t have constant access to 3G or 4G, they have really limited access.” The company’s launch of SMS based service Baobab was also named Best African Retail Company in 2016, enabling clients to gain confirmation for every transaction. There are now more than 800 Baobab service points in Madagascar and Senegal. Moniotte adds: “It’s about understanding how we can put out digital products, digitise our business and channels whilst serving clients sustainably.”

However, Moniotte is aware that the company is unable to build such innovative products and platforms alone. A partnership with Software Group was key to have a technology that supports the innovation, as it has

allowed to build tailored digital user experiences. “They are quite excited by our ability to innovate, how close we are to our clients and the ideas that we come up with,” explains Moniotte.

“We are on a journey to create a very different kind of business in terms of how it can be valued by the market.”

FUTURE GROWTH Microcred has taken approximately

Denis is CTO and Chief Innovation Officer at Microcred.

Denis leads the financial product innovation, resulting in readyto-scale innovative products for financial inclusion. The innovation process comes from orchestrating customer research, product development, scoring algorithm development, UX design, piloting, business planning.

With his team, he has delivered innovative loan and saving products and new delivery channels.

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MIRCOCRED annual revenue in $US 72

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five years to grow, amongst continual challenges of training 3,000 employees around changing rules and regulations. This is in a sphere of increasing competition, with the challenge of new players and startups which have become established in the fintech industry. However, Moniotte explains that being a “one stop shop” for clients has repeatedly given Microcred an edge, stating that “the repayment rate banks receive from clients is also defined by how much the client wants to stay in relationship with the bank.” If all companies do is provide lending services, he explains that they will more likely default on repayments, as there is no relationship to lose for the borrower.

The implementation of new technologies and digitisation of services has enabled Microcred to scale up and become increasingly sustainable by increasing efficiency and reducing costs. It is a company that focuses on its people and its clients, with significant expertise on the ground, and is now home to vast numbers of branches and a reputable brand name. The company will continue to provide a multitude of services and digital solutions, improving services through digital innovations, which will enable clients to gain increased accessibility alongside traditional services. Now such technologies have been established, replication and future growth in bringing key products to market has become a real possibility. Microcred’s digital journey has spread across the whole organisation to transform the company into a digital bank with a local presence.

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Strategically planning for a technological future Written by Dale Benton Produced by George Tweed

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Through a sharp focus on customer service and technological innovation, the multi award winning Key Retirement reassesses its technology process to significantly grow the equity release market and meet the changing demands of its customer base

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s the UK’s market leading equity release advisory service, established back in 1998, Key Retirement has grown exponentially in the last 15 years and has become a multi-award winning equity release service provider.

Under the wider KR Group umbrella, more2life Limited, a specialist lender of equity release, has also established itself as the 3rd largest provider of lifetime mortgages in the same sector within the last 3 years.

Through diversification and establishing itself as the go-to place for the over 55’s seeking to safeguard and maximise income from property and retirement assets, the Group continues to go from strength to strength, with technology playing a vital role.

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Part of that growth has come as a result of the private equity firm Phoenix Equity Partners buying the majority stake in the group back in 2013. This saw the business look inwards at the company’s strategic growth moving forward, specifically its underlying technologies.

“Working closely with Phoenix and the executive board forced us to look at how we incorporate the right strategic roadmap and growth pattern to support the goals and aspirations of the organisation,” says Darren Halliwell, CTO of KR Group.

“How do we make the bigger step change and allow room for growth and scale?”

Following the acquisition, the Group set about achieving key strategic targets with regards to growing

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Darren Halliwell CTO

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not only as a business, but growing the equity release market itself.

The company’s key priority is providing equity release products and services to the over 55 market, but as with any industry it is a fluid market that drives the business.

“The key question we had to ask ourself was with a dramatically growing market and an aging demographic, how do we as a business remain at the head of the pack both as a broker and a lender? At the time we didn’t feel we could do that with the then existing technology,” says Halliwell.

To respond to this changing market

The number of awards that Key Retirement has received

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and changing demand, the first step for the Group involved the creation of a new infrastructure, CRM solution, new origination and lending platforms and a new website capable of handling the volume of traffic and personalisation of the company’s interaction with the customer and or broker.

These represented the “building blocks” that Halliwell refers to in which the business could then continue to grow and scale. Through an investment of around £5 million in technology stacks, this allowed the Group to do so without increasing operational costs, being much more efficient and productive in its processing and ultimately in a better position to deal with customer behaviour.

“Three or four years ago the majority of our organisational interaction with the over 55 customer base was purely over the telephone. Right now, we are at a point where around 85 percent of it is through online web enquiries,” says Halliwell.

Challenges and success For an organisation to undergo such a large scale transformative

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“Getting the organisation to a point where it was capable of understanding its customer better, having a true single customer view, one version of the truth in terms of data and data analytics has been a key success for us�

Darren Halliwell CTO

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process there will be undoubtedly challenges along the way. With KR Group, a significant challenge was the speed of delivery and whether it could be achieved while staying ahead in terms of customer expectations and demands.

While still learning and maturing, the transformation is not without its successes and it’s of no surprise that it is the engagement with the customer that drives that.

“Getting the organisation to a point where it was capable of understanding its customer better, having a true single customer view, one version of the truth in terms of data and data analytics has been a key success for us,” Halliwell says.

The company can then use this as a means of personalising its interactions and ultimately better serving its customers overall.

“Further, with the investment in a digital transformation programme, we have made numerous productivity and operational efficiency savings leading to reduced sales completion times, all of which delights the customer.”, he adds.

Technology Technology and innovation is significantly disrupting industries and sectors all around the world and the financial industry is no different. For Halliwell as CTO, technology sits right at the heart of the business and the transformation.

“Without those initial foundations to allow us to achieve further integration and automation of systems and accepting that without our thirdparty customers, providers or lenders, we would not reach our potential or deliver an even better customer experience,” he says.

“It would be a very heavy manual based approach and it would be a much more cost prohibitive operation.”

“However, thanks to that hard work and endeavour by a lot of dedicated and talented individuals within the business we are now even better positioned to deliver even more exciting innovation that will keep us at the forefront of all we do.”

Partnerships Partnerships are key to the success of the business. KR Group went through

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a due diligence process soon after the acquisition and changed the way the company seeks out partners to work with. The company looks for partners who not only provide the business with service solutions, but also whether the particular company could be a long-term partner.

“We look for someone who could get in and understand how our business operates and ultimately provide better solutions alongside us,” says Halliwell.

Through partnerships, Halliwell has

Residential & Buy to Let

2nd Charge Mortgages

Equity Release

Bridging Finance

an open dialogue with them to better understand where, from a technology perspective, the market is heading.

A great example of this is with one of Key Retirement’s leading vendor partnerships, AlfaPeople UK Limited. Phil Rawlinson MD of AlfaPeople shared his experience from the vendor perspective: “Having seen first-hand Key Retirement’s use of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and associated technologies, I say with confidence it is an exemplar of how projects should

Commercial Lending

Personal Loans

Savings

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1998 The year that Key Retirement was founded

be designed and delivered, having witnessed huge variance in quality during my previous roles at Microsoft and typically getting involved when projects were on a downturn. These issues were largely down to a lack of governance on both sides, no eye on value generation for the customer and delivery team members that have a default answer of ‘yes’ now what was the question – not challenging the customer, every step of the way.

Working with Darren’s team, together we have created a value based solution that covers every aspect of Key Retirement’s business, that is perceived as mission critical and ensures the ultimate customer experience, whilst reducing costs through intelligent business processes’’

Data In the financial service industry, data and the handling of data is integral to the success of a company. In the equity release sector, which is an emotional and often delicate decision making process for customers, this is an extremely prescient issue.

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Key Retirement has an ISO 27001 Certification, which is the international standard that describes best practice for an information security management system (ISMS). This certification acts as an important stamp in which the company can demonstrate its security credentials.

This commitment to a secure approach to handling data has been integrated along every step of the way through the design and development of the company’s architecture, minimising the risks associated with data handling and storage.

Furthermore, Halliwell adds: “Demonstrating through such a recognised certification programme as ISO also brings other benefits such as confidence to our network of referring partners (Key Partnerships) and any potential funder of our more2life division. It demonstrates we mean business and this can be the edge or a critical factor when these organisations are looking to choose their partner to place either funds under management, or safety and protection of their customers data.”

As a multi award winning

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company across the UK, Key Retirement can boast being the market leader in the equity release sector and this is through the way it interacts with the customer.

“The customer and their needs is absolutely number one to us in terms of everything we do. From the initial engagement of the enquiry right through to the monies released stage, we ensure the customer whether in the B2B or B2C space - is at the forefront of everything that happens,” says Halliwell.

Unlike other financial services, equity release can often be an emotional purchase. This is recognised by Key Retirement.

“It’s about putting an arm around the customer and being mindful of their requirements and needs. It’s not a pushy service; the customer almost guides us through the process and not the other way around,” he says.

Halliwell believes that for the company to continue to offer market leading services and serve the customer base better, it must continue to allow the customer to be the driving force behind everything it does.

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“Winning awards and receiving great customer feedback demonstrates that throughout this process and over the last 15 years, we must be doing something right,” says Halliwell.

The company works with the customer base to continuously improve its services. This includes a customer care questionnaire that allows it to look at what works, what doesn’t and extrapolate the key information in order to improve.

It has also recently surpassed the 10,000 mark in positive ratings from Trust Pilot with an average rating

of 9.8 out of 10, the highest in its sector both for score and volume of respondents. In 2016 the Group accepted its 50th award in the industry for customer excellence, all of which have been achieved in a large part in the technology investments mentioned previously.

No signs of slowing down Looking to the future, where does the Group go from here?

“It’s very much about remaining number one, maintaining our position as a market leader and continuing to innovate and grow that market, both for Key Retirement

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and more2life,” says Halliwell.

A key example of the way in which the Group has innovated the market has been through more2life. More2life, a company which manufactures lifetime mortgage products in the market and sells them to the wider broker community, worked with Key Retirement and a number of other leading brokerages to integrate the first online KFI and application broker portal to accelerate that process.

But looking at the customer interaction, Halliwell recognises the changing market, and tomorrow’s demands will be very different from today’s. As smartphone and tablet technology develops, the way in which both the B2C over 55 market and B2B broker market expects to interact with the company changes with it.

“Even in the last few years customer behaviour in the demographic has changed and becoming more adaptive to that is crucial. The next stages will see continued innovation in customer engagement channels both for the broker and the lender along with an eye on continued process improvement aimed

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“As any industry changes the demands change too. You’ve got to move with the times and make sure you are giving customers what they need, and I think we have made great steps forward in responding to changes in customer (B2B and B2C) behaviour and will continue to do so” Darren Halliwell CTO

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at driving even better customer experiences,” says Halliwell.

“As any industry changes the demands change too. You’ve got to move with the times and make sure you are giving customers what they need, and I think we have made great steps forward in responding to changes in customer (B2B and B2C) behaviour and will continue to do so.

“It is an exciting and challenging time for KR Group and the sector

as a whole and I am proud to be working for an organisation that views technology as a true enabler for positive change both in terms of that technology and how we also strive to improve people’s lives.”

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O FFERI N G T H E D I G I TA L CHOICE Written by Tom Wadlow Produced by Danielle Harris

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Deutsche Telekom has embarked on a digital journey to transform its customer service offering, from introducing new smart services to adopting agile working methods internally

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t is difficult to think of a job that is being transformed more by digitisation than a customer service agent.

The days of the traditional call centre are numbered. In its place, multichannel contact centres that deal with enquires not only by phone, but also email, web chat, text and social media across numerous devices.

Deutsche Telekom (DT) is one organisation embracing this new world of digital customer service.

One of the world’s largest telecoms operators with 156 million mobile customers and 225,000 employees spread across 50 countries, provision of support to customers is no mean task. In Germany, some 68,000 people are dedicated to ensuring its consumer base remains happy.

However, in order to remain happy in the future, customers are demanding a choice of different ways of being served. Almost 85 percent of under

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30s expect access to services around the clock, while one in four euros will be spent online by 2020.

Digitisation is coming, and DT has already started to make its move.

Step-by-step Indeed, the company’s progress towards digital customer service can be grouped into four major parts: new digital services, working mode and culture, communication and education, and robotics and AI. At the forefront of the transformation is Gero Niemeyer (Managing Director Customer Service, Telekom Deutschland GmbH), Franz Weisenburger (SVP Customer Experience Management) and Dominik Bauersch (SVP Customer Service/New products & Services).

Asked how far the company has travelled already, Weisenburger points out that there are, technically,

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“We took a very clear decision to adopt a mobilefirst approach, whereas before it was about websites” –G ero Niemeyer, Managing Director Customer Service, Telekom Deutschland GmbH w w w. t e l e k o m . c o m

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Based on this proposition, Bluepond has proven to be a strong and trusted partner of Deutsche Telekom for many years now.

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www.bluepond.eu

Personal interview with Hans Martens, taken at the RPA & AI summit in London, November 2016

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another three years of the five-year programme to go. However, as Bauersch adds, it is more complicated than running across a timeline.

“It is difficult to answer exactly how far we’ve come to date,” he says. “It is not a result of a disruptive move, more of a step-by-step approach. We always start small, run pilots, carry out trials, ask for feedback and find out if things work. If they do work we start to let them grow. For example, our webchats started on a tiny base for one to two years, then we decided to go for it.”

Despite the complex nature of the transition, some tangible markers have been laid down. Already DT is seeing 5.6 million visits a month to customer

service websites, while solution rates have risen from 32 to 42 percent, helping online customer satisfaction reach 120PP, versus 80 for call. It is also being proven from an economic standpoint, the company predicting the period 2015-2019 will deliver about €350 million in cost reductions.

While the benefits of digitisation appear overwhelming, Bauersch is quick to emphasise that this is about offering a quality choice of services.

“I think an important point to make is that this is not a digital-only plan for customer service,” he explains.

“We believe in offering customers the choice between digital and a personal service like a call back.”

Deutsche Telekom’s Magenta App. has been downloaded more than a million times

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“We don’t believe in discriminating channels - that’s the reason we don’t hide phone numbers on our website” – Franz Weisenburger, SVP Customer Experience Management

And Weisenburger adds: “We don’t believe in discriminating channels - that’s the reason we don’t hide phone numbers on our website.”

New digital arrivals Deutsche Telekom’s most significant new digital service comprises the reinvention of the Magenta App. Downloaded more than a million times in the space of seven months,

customers are taking to the new features, which include bill details for fixes or mobile contracts, actual data volume, video-chat and easy contact options, along with options for customers to manage contracts and receive push notifications. It is one app for all service and sales functions.

“Fifteen months ago we had an app which was rated at 1.5 stars,” says Weisenburger. “We had to change nearly everything, from the team to the way we work, in order to become more agile. There are a lot of new features which have stabilised the app and now we have a rating of 4.5 stars and 4.5 million users.

It has come a long way in a short time. We have just won an award for the best telco app in Germany.”

For Niemeyer, who heads up the customer service team containing Weisenburger and Bauersch, a shift in focus has been the key to recent progress. “We took a very clear decision to adopt a mobile-first approach, whereas before it was rather about websites, keeping them up to date and doing the back-end integration. We relocated a lot of

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ALMATORobots at your Service.

perform better.

Deutsche Telekom Implements Robotic Process Automation Project with ALMATO „We are thrilled to be the company chosen by Deutsche Telekom, as it shows that we, as a German RPA company, could convince through our expertise as well as local proximity.

It confirms once again that we have taken the right path early on: the automation of previously manual processes leads to a considerable increase in efficiency and a significant competitive advantage for our customers.“ Peter Gissmann Managing Partner, ALMATO

R

obots have already conquered factory floors. Now, robots are entering more and more offices. Since March of 2015, Deutsche Telekom has implemented almost 400 software robots with ALMATO, one of the pioneers in Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Higher efficiency through automation RPA‘s digital robots automatically handle a wide range of different business processes, e.g. chargebacks or contract changes.

Within less than two years, ALMATO has automated more than 40 different processes, including complex ones with handling times of more than 10 minutes.

With RPA, Deutsche Telekom was also able to implement new, innovative processes that would have been too costly without automation.

Using digital robots, employees are freed from mundane work so they can concentrate on more challenging tasks.

The fully automated handling of processes enables higher efficiency compared to manual work and leads to time and cost savings as well as more satisfied customers through an increase in service quality.

Seamless integration and significant cost reductions

„RPA integrated seamlessly with our complex system environment.

By automating key processes with high volume we were able to achieve significant cost and time reductions after just a short time.“ Christoph Bill Head of Infrastructure and Workflowmanagement, Deutsche Telekom

“We created our own center of excellence to speed up the adoption of automation. Throughout all project phases, whether analysis, robot creation or operation, the collaboration with ALMATO is very professional.”

Sebastian Zeiss VP Automation, Deutsche Telekom

Over 300.000 automated business transactions each month Overall, the robots currently work with over 30 different applications (e.g. e-mail management, SAP, Siebel CRM, routing and ticketing systems) and successfully complete 320.000 business transactions each month. The project is still evolving, with new processes continuously identified and added to the automation roadmap.

ALMATO GmbH Obere Wässere 9, 72764 Reutlingen info@almato.com www.almato.com

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design capabilities and budget into mobile, and now the app and mobile is the most important area we focus on. It has proven to be a very good decision – we are a lot more agile in our development.”

Whether wanting to call, receive a call-back or use webchat, customers can now choose the best option for them via a magic button on the app and in the future on DT websites. By selecting the appropriate service issue, they will be able to see waiting times for available experts and make a choice on which channel is best to proceed with their enquiry. Customer data is then transferred to the agent with the most appropriate expertise to deal with the question at hand.

Even traditional call methods of customer service have been brought into the digital age thanks to SMS and IVR call-backs. “Our call-back function is grounded in smart data,” says Weisenburger, “so if you’re using our Magenta App for moving houses then the call back will connect you with someone who specialises in moving houses. We try to deliver a seamless experience, even when you

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decide to switch between channels.”

In addition to traditional call back, Deutsche Telekom has developed and launched a personal call back service which allows you to reconnect with the agent you have recently spoken to. “That’s one of the most annoying things for customers – calling several times and explaining the while story again from the beginning,” adds Weisenburger, who also points out how this has impacted the role and mindset of the service agent. “This is a benefit for the customer but also impacts the culture and way our agents work. There is added accountability.

If I don’t deliver excellent customer service then any complaint will come straight back to me. The customer has my name and number and I am in charge of making sure they are happy.”

Community collaboration Sometimes the best placed person to answer a question is a fellow Deutsche Telekom subscriber. Telekom-Hilft is an award-winning digital feedback platform with more than two million unique visitors a month, a platform to discuss all things telecoms from a

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“We relocated a lot of design capabilities and budget into mobile, and now the app and mobile is the most important area we focus on” –G ero Niemeyer, Managing Director Customer Service, Telekom Deutschland GmbH w w w. t e l e k o m . c o m

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Create magnificent experiences for your customers with Genesys

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B2C and B2B perspective. Now fully between the customer community functional on mobile, it is a hive of and web development teams. discussion and debate for DT users.

“Every year we invite the 30 top “Managing this platform is somewhat community engagers, who answer different to managing a contact centre, more than 1,000 customer queries as customers are not looking for an or conversations a year, making answer from a Telekom service agent,” it quite a time intensive hobby for explains Bauersch. “A big proportion them. We discuss the Community of these customers want to exchange IT improvements roadmap and ask with other customers, though some them what they need to improve use it to share complaints, so the service they deliver we have to be prepared to their peers in the for both uses.” community. This is not If a customer has just about technology a request which – it is about dialogue definitely requires and feedback Annual revenue input from a service management,” of Deutsche rep, then DT will Bauersch explains.

Telekom respond within two hours, “You need great whereas general questions teamwork and a common into the community will be left spirit between IT, Website for 24 hours before an intervention and Customer Care teams.” providing another customer has not already answered appropriately.

Education: bringing “Often we just give a like to digital to the masses a response on a community For customers who may not be as discussion, to confirm that the digitally savvy as those in the nucleus answer from the user is good of Telekom-Hilft, service agents are advice,” adds Weisenburger, who playing an active role in communicating describes the close collaboration the benefits of going digital.

€70bn

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For example, if a customer is calling up to ask about a bill, a more convenient alternative to a phone conversation may lie in one of many self-service options such as the app or website. Having answered the query on the phone, a customer service agent will then explain the other options for future reference, sending a personal email explaining the digital solutions.

“We are finding that satisfaction

“This is not just about technology – it is about dialogue and feedback management” – Dominik Bauersch, SVP Customer Service/New Products & Services

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rates are higher when we do this,” says Bauersch. “We were not sure how customers would react to the selfservice offer because we do not want to make it seem as if the customer is not welcome in our service centre. The usage of self service has increased, so the approach is working.”

Click through rates on links and services sent in these emails is above 30 percent, much higher than

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most B2C emails which often are sent out in automated campaigns.

“It is very different from a CRMbased email campaign,” adds Niemeyer. “The email is part of the personal one-to-one conversation and also part of the solution to the customer’s question in itself.”

Agility Much of the digitalisation work to date has been facilitated by an internal

shift to more agile working practices.

It is something which Niemeyer and his management have worked hard to instil from the top, a culture which has trickled down the whole customer service organisation.

“It is always a bit tricky to say how we do this, and how to make sure it sticks,” Niemeyer says. “It is a lot about leadership and top management leading by example and using these different approaches,

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not just making their teams do it.

“We also found it works better to use different methods on concrete things, what I would describe as ‘normal business’. Often you see workshops on ‘how do we become agile’, which is a thing in itself. Instead, we did workshops on specific things that can make us more efficient – things that are, on the face of it, boring things like scanning documents and document fraud. We are trying to apply

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agile, different methods to normal things we deal with every day.”

The Magenta App development is a prime example of this agile culture and cross-collaboration in practice.

In a short space of time, 23 different versions were created and delivered to customers, with 371 completed stories and 1,018 bugs identified and fixed.

Alongside the bigger projects, an UX squad approach involves interdisciplinary teams (internet,

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customer service reps, ux designer, AI enhancement programmer and texter) working The fourth and final major element together to improve minor elements of of DT’s customer service digitisation the customer journey on a daily basis. involves the use of robotics and artificial By analysing customer behaviours, intelligence to enhance processes. the team fix one (sometimes tiny) issue Costing just €6 an hour to run, the every day in what is a continual process company already operates with 500 largely left alone by management. The robots which have automated up to team has defined its own success 90 percent of more than 20 internal KPI: happy website visitors. processes, from screen navigation Communication has been and data entry to copy of critical importance, and paste activities. and this has come from At the customer the top. Bauersch facing end, DT’s first adds: “We launched digital assistant is a team day initiative carrying out about The number of several years ago, 5,000 dialogues staff at Deutsche where teams can a week, helping Telekom go and talk about customers to resolve trends in the industry and problems without having at Deutsche Telekom, and last to call a contact centre agent. The year we focussed on digital culture, pilot chat bot has been successful digitisation. There was a video so far, despite some initial caution message from us and discussions from the likes of Weisenburger. “In around how we can use new tools the early days we were not sure if our to improve customer service and customers would be willing to use this, why we start to sell our self services but it has been received very well. It is like products. As Gero mentioned, it solving problems quickly and clearly.” starts at the top and it was important But what if the robot cannot get it that we led those discussions.” right 100 percent of the time? Niemeyer

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“For me the next logical step is to take the chat bot conversation and continue this with an agent conversation in webchat” – Dominic Bauersch, SVP Customer Service/New products & Services 106

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explains: “The chat bot follows the same decision tree as the tech guys in the service centre do, so what we have learned in the service centre regarding the best ways to respond we have programmed into the chat bot.”

“If the bot cannot solve your problem, it will advise you to call the service centre, “Bauersch adds. “For me the next logical step is to take the chat bot conversation and continue this with an agent conversation in webchat. You don’t have to switch the channel, the agent simply takes over from the bot.”

Rise of the machines We end our conversation discussing how much integration of AI can and should take place over the coming year. For Bauersch, a key target is the early stages of conversations between service agents and customers.

“For instance, the first minute of the conversation is always the same – how can I help you? Do you need help with mobile or fixed line? May I have your customer ID, address and date of birth?

We believe this part of the conversation can be handled efficiently by a bot.”

Another potential avenue for a

pilot bot to thrive, with Deutsche Telekom about to trial on Facebook and Twitter an automated feedback process. If the customer reveals to the robot after the dialogue that their question was not answered, they will be reconnected to the agent.

The level of success regarding implementation of AI is all about finding the appropriate balance, as Weisenburger states: “We don’t believe that technology will replace agents completely within the next years, rather it will help them to give better responses.” Indeed, Niemeyer adds that “technology is not yet advanced to a stage where you can replace whole processes. It is more about which part of the interaction can be supported by a bot.”

Fast forward to 2020 and the end of Deutsche Telekom’s five-year customer service transformation programme, and it will be fascinating to see what this balance looks like.

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Green Data Written by NELL WALKER Produced by DANIELLE HARRIS

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NL-DC

We talk to NL-DC about its incredible sustainability innovations, and the ways in which its newfound independence from KPN is being utilised

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W

ith sustainability and green credentials an ever-present and increasingly important issue across all businesses sectors, some companies stand out as champions of innovation in this area. Dutch NL-DC is known for its reliable and energyefficient data centres in Aalsmeer, Almere, Eindhoven, Groningen, Oude Meer, and Rotterdam, all of which are cloud and carrier-neutral and allow optimal access to the world’s telco and data networks.

NL-DC may appear to have burst into the industry as already the leading provider of data centres in the Netherlands, but it has in fact been part of the KPN group for many years, and at the start of this year broke away as a daughter company.

NL-DC is now the name of KPN’s colocation service, allowing it to dominate the market with freedoms not previously afforded to it. The company’s offerings are now able to be far more diverse and customerfocussed, and NL-DC already boasts an enviable reputation.

Building a brand “It wasn’t easy to remove ourselves from KPN and strike out alone,” says Paul Driessen, Commercial Product Manager.

“And it wasn’t done in a day either,” adds Cees Greyn, VP Services.

“We knew we could do better. A project team was created, which both Paul and I were members of, and we investigated how we could do better. We needed more focus, and because KPN is a telco, the market didn’t see our data centres as carrier-neutral. Customers demand carrier neutrality as a major element which should be supplied. We were carrier neutral already, but our name was attached to the provider – KPN – so moving away from that allowed us more opportunities.”

Asked if being a part of KPN proved restrictive, Driessen replies: “It’s fairer to say that we now have more room to maneuver. It’s wasn’t restrictive as such, we just have more possibilities now and focus on data centre business. We wanted to go in a slightly different direction which

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What we do We build high quality electrical systems, HVAC, emergency generators (incl. fuel supply) and water mist systems for data centers. We provide new installations and upgrade or expand your present system.

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What drives us We have had a strong passion for technology for over 75 years. We are committed to supplying innovative and sustainable technical products and solutions that enhance the security of our customers.

Who we are We are Hamer. We design, install and maintain technical systems. We are located in the Netherlands and Belgium and have over 350 employees.

For more information visit www.hamer.net

Hamer is a NLDC key partner

NL-DC

the customers were demanding.”

Part of this freedom is the ability to move further into international markets. KPN is focussed on the Dutch market, but in Driessen’s words, “the internet and cloud do not stop at the borders of a country. It’s different for telcos because usually the country defines the telecom company, but we knew that a lot of what we try to do and will be doing is coming from abroad, giving us an international perspective on things.”

NL-DC is not, however, planning to build new data centres in other countries for the time being. For now it is more concerned with the expansion of its brand, and the continual improvement of the facilities it already has: “What we’re doing is trying to bring focus to the company,” says Driessen. “If you’re a company that wants to come to Europe, then come to the Netherlands and the biggest Dutch data centre provider there is – that’s us. We have 50 or 60 years’ experience in data centre management, so we know what we do and we’re part of a healthy group.

That’s the news we want to spread.”

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“IF YOU’RE A COMPANY THAT WANTS TO COME TO EUROPE, THEN COME TO THE NETHERLANDS AND THE BIGGEST DUTCH DATA CENTRE PROVIDER THERE IS – THAT’S US” –P AUL DRIESSEN, Commercial Product Manager

Security While NL-DC does not offer digital security, as part of its effort to be as expansive a resource as possible to the customer, it will provide options and point them in the right direction: “It’s like we’re renting out apartments,”

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“FORTOP CRUCIAL FOR OUR RELIABILITY”

Ronald van Veen technical product manager NLDC Harmen Sikkema managing director fortop

NLDC/KPN has been using Janitza meters for twelve years Fortop has been providing Dutch telecom company KPN with Janitza meters/analysers for twelve years now, which is crucial for the optimum availability customers expect from the company. “Thanks to the good connections fortop has with Janitza, the meters are fully adjusted to our specific requirements. This means we can optimize the reliability of our data centres,” says Ronald van Veen from NLDC.

text: Erik Driessen photo: Ben Vulkers | Vulkers Fotografie

NLDC is the new name for the company in which KPN has placed its colocation services since this year.

In this way, the telecom company is better able to respond to market developments. NLDC manages six data centres and uses over twenty buildings.

“These are all equipped with fortop meters. The same applies to the 1,400 KPN buildings,” Van Veen says, emphasizing the close relationship between his company and fortop/Janitza.

Availability is essential Van Veen is technical product manager at NLDC. He designs data centres and sets them up, including the associated installations. He also checks if current data centres still meet the latest requirements.

“The availability of ICT services is essential for our customers. These services have to be available at all times: 24 hours per day, seven days a week. Therefore, we have to provide a sufficient supply of energy and prevent overload. To this end, it’s essential that we have continuous and clear insight into our complex installations. Meters have been fitted in all consumers, feeds and intersections. By intensive measuring we attain high service reliability. Fortop is a vital link in the chain.”

“IT IS ESSENTIAL WE HAVE CONTINIOUS AND CLEAR INSIGHT INTO OUR COMPLEX INSTALLATIONS” However, the Janitza meters do a lot more for NLDC. “In the unlikely event that a problem is detected, we will analyse in detail what may have caused it. In this way, we want to prevent the problem from recurring.

This information, too, is extracted from the meters of fortop,” Van Veen explains. The meters also yield important business economic information. “Data centres consume enormous amounts of energy, and we want to handle these as efficiently as possible. In this process, the meters are indispensable. Another important aspect is the fact that they give us the information we need to be able to send our invoices at the end of the month.”

Van Veen is very happy about the reliability of Janitza.

He points out that the first meters were installed twelve years ago. “Technology will always have its flaws: the question is not if something breaks down but when. We are very satisfied with the life of the meters, though. Many meters are older than ten years and are still working smoothly – an absolute necessity in this sector: they can’t keep breaking all the time.

Luckily, the Janitza failure rate is really very low.”

Van Veen is not only enthusiastic about the quality products of Janitza but also about the added value of fortop. Both companies closely collaborate to their mutual benefit. “Fortop understands very well the importance of availability for us and our customers.

The direct connection fortop has with Janitza comes in very handy for us. Together we have been able to explain clearly what we are looking for, and so the standard products from Janitza are tailored to our needs. Fortop has gained much knowledge, which it can put to good use in other sectors.”

Providing the best possible solution Van Veen likes the idea that fortop intends to be in it for the long haul. “They don’t aim at selling as many products as possible but rather at providing a client with the best possible solution. They do this with a keen eye for detail. It’s the very reason why we’ve been each other’s key partners for twelve years.”

THIS IS FORTOP Complete insight into your energy quality, and the greatest safety and reliability of your machines and installations. Aspects that are critical for your business processes.

Fortop is data centre specialist. www.fortop.nl | www.janitza.com

NL-DC

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Driessen explains, “and we say ‘here’s the key’ and strongly advise you to use a good alarm system – but if you don’t, it’s up to you. KPN offers security measures, but if the customer wants to work with another company, they can implement whatever they want into the environment.”

NL-DC does, however, cover the necessary physical security elements, including fences around data centre premises, high walls, cameras, guards on-site at all hours of the day, and state-ofthe-art locks so that the customer can be assured that there is no physical threat to their data.

“NL-DC MAY BE THE MOST SUSTAINABLE DATA CENTRE PROVIDER IN THE WORLD” – CEES GREYN, VP Services

Partnerships Invaluable to NL-DC’s success is, of course, the company’s partners.

SPIE-ICS is a long-term contracting partner, and is responsible for building the company’s awardwinning tier IV data centre in Eindhoven in just six months.

“That project was very successful from a commercial point of view, on top of winning several awards,” Greyn explains. “People talk about partnerships, but it’s about more than just doing good business together. With SPIE we have a true partnership conducted in an open and constructive way.”

For engineering contracting services, NL-DC relies upon Royal Haskoning DHV, which expands upon the company’s own work in a priceless way.

“We have our own technical team which is responsible for the infrastructure design of our data centres, but when we need to upgrade and build something new, Royal Haskoning brings it to the next level,” Greyn explains. “It’s important

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to have partners which add value to the ideas you already have.

“Hamer is a mechanical contractor which worked together with SPIE on the Eindhoven project – specifically for the mechanical part – and they also work on other data centres in NL-DC,” he continues, “and ForTop Automation & Energy Control supplies us with a measurement system for the electricity used in the data centres.

We measure all the variables and see where we can adjust settings, and can see our customers’ energy usage, meaning they only pay for the energy they actually use. This is a really detailed and efficient system that ForTop supplies.”

Being green Now to the most impressive element of NL-DC – its sustainability credentials, the innovation for which has all been developed in-house by the company’s technical team. In 2015, the company was honoured with two awards for its tier IV data centre, which boasts the unique function of using all of its generated heat rather than wasting it. It is used locally to

50+

The current number of NL-DC employees heat offices in Eindhoven (on the High Tech Campus), and while this is already remarkable, the company is planning to expand on this idea.

Jeroen Vollmuller, VP Operations, is working with the Aalsmeer community towards using this same technology in the heating of the mayor’s office, a local swimming pool, a school, and several commercial buildings.

As with the offices which are benefitting from NL-DC’s waste heat, this involves NL-DC building a system in an existing environment, which simplifies the process. “It’s a very interesting project and gets attention from other municipalities,” Driessen says. “This is a data centre creating – together with all the mentioned parties – a system in which a heat exchange is placed in an existing environment.”

“As far as we know, it’s the first

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‘People talk about partnerships’ – SPIE is your partner.

The ambition of SPIE is to be the European multi technical service provider for data center owners with regard to design, construction and maintenance.

OUR VALUE ADDING SERVICES: • Industrial approach for designs, construction & smart maintenance. Using a standardized and smart method so we can serve the national and international companies uniformly.

• CSR – HSE Q as part of our daily work we embrace the care of the environment, the safety of your and our people. Therefore we are known with the latest and most efficient techniques which we use to achieve these goals.

• Support provider role we are able to offer our smart hands & eyes on the largest internet hub’s in Europe. With this service we have a focus on data center owners, cloud providers, managed hosting providers, system integrators, enterprise, broadcast and telecom companies with a need for “On-site Support”.

SPIE, sharing a vision for the future Address: Huifakkerstraat 15, NL-4815 PN Breda, Netherlands Tel: +31 (0)76 544 54 44 www.spie-nl.com/ (Netherlands only) www.spie.com/en (SPIE Group)

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28,000M2 / 22.5MW NL-DC current capacity of 28,000 m2 and 22.5 MW offers customers attractive options for rapid deployment time it’s ever been done,” adds Vollmuller. “Everybody talks about it, but nobody has done it. We are preparing it at the moment and we hope we can start delivering it at the beginning of next year.”

More amazing still is the work NL-DC has done to achieve the prestigious DatacenterDynamics Sustainable Data Centre Award in 2016. An award that was offered last year for the first time ever, NL-DC was honoured to receive it, and it stands as a physical representation

of the incredible innovation required to achieve the technology it won for.

“What did we do?” Driessen begins: “Data centres have to be very reliable sources of energy for computer systems. If the power grid fails, diesel engines take over to ensure the customer experience has no downtime – something that we offer as a guarantee. The diesel engines have to go from zero to full power in a couple of seconds to ensure that, but you can’t do that with a cold engine.

If you tried to do that with your car

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NL-DC

NL-DC has also been 100 percent CO2 neutral since 2011, because it only uses a combination of wind energy from the North Sea, and biomass energy from the Golden Raand powerplant in the north of the Netherlands

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99.999999% NL-DC innovations in data center design help to maintain an uptime track record of 99.99999% every time, you wouldn’t get more than 10,000km out of your engine, so what you have to do is pre-heat them – like what happens with fire engines and ambulances – meaning you can go full throttle immediately.

“The heating of those engines is typically done by electrical systems which use nine kilowatts each. In Aalsmeer, we have 14 of those machines in a row, all needing to be pre-heated. That takes a lot of power, so our invention came from the knowledge that we

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need to heat the engines and that we create heat as a waste product. So we created a heat exchange, and figured out we could set the temperature as low as 45 degrees Celsius, which is 15 degrees cooler than the norm.

That’s why we won the DCD award.

Again, it’s something that had been talked about but nobody had done it. How did it feel to win? Brilliant!

Because our peers recognise what we do as being quite special, and something that might have a big impact on data centres worldwide.”

“Heating the machines uses the same amount of energy as approximately 300 households,” Greyn adds, “which is a huge amount, but it can be prevented. It’s good for the environment, good for our children, and for the preservation of the future.”

“Plus the lifespan of this technology is between 16 and 20 years,” says Vollmuller. “The return on investment is around 24 months, so the finance guys are also happy.”

NL-DC has also been 100 percent CO2 neutral since 2011, because it only uses a combination of wind

energy from the North Sea, and biomass energy from the Golden Raand powerplant in the north of the Netherlands. They are both local powerplants, so the energy does not have to travel far, and this is what is called ‘dark green energy’. Of course, none of these achievements are enough for NL-DC, and the company is still striving to be better.

“We want to take everything a step further,” says Driessen, “because a maximum of 10 percent of the total energy available used in the Netherlands is green. Our aim is to try and cut back on the use of energy as much as possible and have as little impact on the limited available green energy as possible all the while maintaining the high quality service we supply our customers with.”

While the company still considers itself to have a lot of work to do, Greyn proudly concludes: “NL-DC may be the most sustainable data centre provider in the world.”

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YBS: on a digital journey to the new

world

Written by Tom Wadlow Produced by George Tweed

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Yorkshire Building Society’s mission is to become the UK’s most trusted financial services provider, being simply brilliant at delivering mortgages and savings services across all available channels

“

People don’t care if you’re back office or front office. They care about the end-to-end transaction and the level of service,” says Stephen White with a degree of assured honesty, describing how digital has broken down boundaries once seen in traditional finance organisations.

“A group of smaller financial services players, I believe, will emerge in the next five to 10 years and be seen as providing something fundamentally different – a new world of finance.”

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Stephen White Executive Director and Chief Operations Officer Stephen is responsible for the Group’s Operations functions, including Lending, Customer Services, Arrears and Collections, Property and Procurement, the Group’s IT, Information Security and Change Management. Stephen has 20 years’ experience in financial services, most recently as Group Chief Operating Officer at Allied Irish Bank. His previous roles also include Executive General Manager at National Australia Bank and management roles at Ernst & Young, Royal Bank of Scotland and Abbey National, where he started his career as a branch manager.

And for Yorkshire Building Society to lead that group, this means delivering on the vision to become the country’s most trusted provider of being simply brilliant at mortgages and savings.

White has been Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer at Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) for just over a year.

He is fully aware of the magnitude of the task ahead, but equally

convinced it can come to fruition.

“Back in the 60s the bank manager on high street was one of the most trusted people you knew, up there with doctors and lawyers. The financial crisis in 2008 destroyed trust in financial services companies across the board. The trust is not there. I was approached

by YBS to try and recreate something different in the market.

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“I’m not saying we’ve achieved it yet but we certainly can achieve it. Building societies have a unique opportunity because we’re not a bank and don’t have shareholders, we have members and can really focus on that service proposition, the key differentiator.”

White’s new world vision emanates from time spent in Asia and Australia, regions with different approaches to banking. A proud Scot, he is the first to admit the UK has fallen behind other more innovative parts of the world.

“That really shaped my thinking around what the realms of possibility are for financial services here,” he adds. “From 2009-2014 I was in Australia with NAB, in charge of customer processing and payments, and part of that role was also looking

after the customer servicing in the international offices, which included Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, New York and London. This gave me real exposure to different forms of technology and digital and what was happening elsewhere in the world.”

A new challenge Family priorities brought White back home in the summer of 2014, where he initiated a digital restructuring and transformation journey at Allied Irish Bank (AIB). Approached last year by YBS, he decided to take on a different, though not dissimilar challenge.

Such a challenge can be outlined in three major strands, the first being complexity brought about by rapid growth and acquisitions post-2008 crisis. The business doubled in size, and with that came new brands and

“Do we want to become more digital?

Yes. Do we still believe in branches?

Yes. We want to provide a seamless experience across all of our channels” – Stephen White, Executive Director and Chief Operations Officer

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product ranges. Second is cost control and pressures created by new regulation, coupled with the need to innovate. This has created a necessity to become as efficient as possible without sacrificing the final component of the challenge – meeting ever-heightening customer expectation. The demand for easier, accessible and more personal services has grown exponentially alongside the proliferation of multichannel communication.

“I believe YBS is small enough to be nimble but at the same time large enough to meet these challenges and change the market,” White comments. “This is a five year journey, and five years is not even an end point. However, we’re already starting to make a difference.”

Indeed, YBS already sees significant volumes of online traffic.

More than 560,000 of the building society’s three million customers are registered to use its online services, amounting to 3,000 daily transactions.

YBS also has a history of being an early mover. Back in 2007, it became the first bank or building society to

YBS at a glance Bricks and mortar: 99 agencies, 208 branches Reach: 3.1 million members, more than 560,000 using online services Assets: £39.6 billion People: 4,500 employees Diligence: 8,500 members on panel to review products and services

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facilitate debit card payments as a way of paying mortgage fees and into online savings accounts. A year later, YBS became the first UK lender to allow mortgage applicants to complete an entire application online. Conveyancing was also brought into the online mortgage application process in the same year.

mortgage and savings applications process on mobile.” The amount of existing borrower transfers being carried out online has also risen, last year seeing a jump of 60 percent.

Webchats are also being incorporated into the YBS website, again helping customers to achieve more online.

Further enhancing the convenience factor for customers is a Mortgages: the 10-minute mortgage meat and drink agreement in principle And it is mortgages service, rolled out last where the most year. “If you’re looking impressive to buy a house, one progress has been of the first things an The year Yorkshire made in recent estate agent will ask Building Society months too. Enter is whether you have was founded Nick Mortimer, Head a mortgage agreed. of Marketing and In terms of ease, Ecommerce, responsible simplicity and confidence, for key brand messaging and it really helps,” Mortimer continues. driving ecommerce activity.

Overall turnaround times were “Mobile devices, especially halved during the course of tablets, are delivering much greater 2016. Average turnaround for an volumes of mortgage application application now lies at around 11 traffic,” he explains. “Around 40 days, compared with 23 just over a percent of our applications begin year ago. Central to this has been through mobile devices, and we are listening to feedback from brokers, about to launch a fully-responsive who account for around 60 percent

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The secret to satisfied customers?

Top talent.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the market leader in customer satisfaction, rated by 1500 CXOs across 13 countries in Europe as the company they were most satisfied with in the IT Industry. We believe that the main driver of satisfaction is our extremely talented workforce of 371,000 global professionals. Our relentless focus on hiring and retaining the best talent, has seen us recognized as a top employer in Europe yet again in 2016. Nothing drives customer satisfaction quite like top talent. No company drives certainty quite like TCS.

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Award winning Yorkshire Building Society recently enjoyed a triple success at the PEX Network Process Excellence Awards, held in Florida. The world’s most prestigious process excellence awards, YBS won two of the three categories entered, finishing runner up in the other.

The recognition at PEX includes: Winner of Best Start Up Business Process Improvement Program (Under 2 Years) – Our Improvement Journey to Success Winner of Best Process Improvement Project Under 90 Days Bereavement Process Review Runner up in Best Project Contributing to Customer Excellence - Improving Broker NPS for Mortgage Applications The Group claimed also fared well at the Moneynet Personal Finance Awards 2017. Yorkshire Building Society was named Best First Time Buyer Mortgage Provider and Best Offset Mortgage Provider, while Norwich and Peterborough Building Society (N&P) picked up the award for Best Fixed Rate Mortgage Provider for the third year running.

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of YBS lending. Introducing a system where individual underwriters take ownership of cases has proven key to speeding up the system.

This had led to a remarkable improvement in Net Promoter Score (NPS) ratings, with brokers (and customers) up and down the country benefitting from the newly streamlined process. Broker NPS has risen from -11 to 46 in the space of a year.

Another important metric underlining these improvements comes from KPMG Nunwood and its Customer Experience Excellence Analysis, which ranks YBS 27th best in the UK across all industries examined.

Though much has undoubtedly been achieved, more is required.

Head of IT Andy McCleod, already a key protagonist in White’s team, will have an important role to play. “There are so many other things to focus on once you have your mortgage offer, and we are starting to ask whether we can intervene in other parts of the process,” he says. “The typical home buying process takes 120 days – what can we do to improve that? Working with our brokers has been one way

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“This is not necessarily about big projects, rather making sure that everything we do is grounded in customer understanding and insight” – Nick Mortimer, Head of Marketing and Ecommerce we have successfully explored.”

“How do we get it to less than five days?” White asks. “How do we get it to one day? These are the questions we are now asking ourselves.”

Behind the scenes Reaching a one-day mortgage turnaround may appear like a huge project to be undertaken, but YBS’s success to date boils down to a series of smallerscale, fast moving initiatives.

“This is not necessarily about big projects, rather making sure that everything we do is grounded in customer understanding and insight,” explains Mortimer. “What we did last year was examine every fine detail that matters to our customers, making a series of small changes. Our NPS

improvement is all down to these small, detailed bits of work we have done with the customer at the centre.

Commercially we also had our best ever year online. Our agile, fleet-footed approaching is paying dividends.”

White agrees, adding: “The whole concept of how we deliver change is evolving. Twenty years ago you would create a project, give it some money and implement it, and for some things that works. But once you start a project it is very hard to stop it, because that is the way the organisation’s culture works – you give the money to see it through.

So what I did at AIB was bring in an experimentation culture I found in Australia, which involves setting aside some investment to learn fast and move fast. If it works, great. If it

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doesn’t, close it down and move on.” from Adobe SiteCatalyst, which Mortimer’s ultimate objective is offers visibility of how consumers to open up digital space to more of are using YBS web services and the YBS customer base. This will points out possible inefficiencies. involve a mixture of promotional Clicktale software records customer and educational activities with sessions and displays heat maps customers, as well as making showing patterns of click throughs, digital processes simpler. which can help YBS to place its most “I see my role in this digitisation important messages in parts of web journey as the voice of the displays where customers customer,” he says. naturally look.

“There is something in Running in tandem the DNA of YBS that to this is what puts the customer Mortimer calls at its heart, and I “common sense speak about this from stuff”. Whether Number of employees this be simply my own experience at Yorkshire at bigger banks. spending time in Building Society The competitive contact centres product portfolio talking to customers and customer experience directly about their becomes a powerful combination, experiences, gathering colleague and my job is to communicate that suggestions based on what they to as many people as possible.” hear on a daily basis, or monitoring Mortimer and his team use a huge social media, it all contributes array of insight tools to track and to creating a bigger picture. analyse customer behaviour, helping “We listen to all of these feeds and to inform investment decisions. This have a very long list of things we want includes use of segmentation models to achieve, and filter these based on through to more detailed analyses what can deliver a genuine difference

4,500

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for both the customers and the Group,” Mortimer adds.

“There are two broad ways our customer insight work joins up with our change teams. We’re constantly looking at tactical fixes and quick wins, for example testing different versions of websites and seeing which ones work best with our customers before deploying live.”

Accessible appointments The second type of outcomes are more structural changes which deliver new capability.

Mortimer points to a recent breakthrough in mortgage appointment booking as the perfect

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example of this in action.

He begins by outlining the issues identified with the legacy system. “We recognised that from a cross-channel perspective it was pretty clunky in terms of customers requesting to get an appointment in branch – it was a very manual process which involved call backs between branch staff and customers. We have all had call backs at times when we’re either at work or not by our phones.”

Customers can now book a branch appointment directly into a mortgage advisor’s diary via a fully automated

system, also receiving free email alerts and text prompts. This has led to a higher proportion of applications being completed, which in turn is boosting satisfactions ratings and even led to YBS being shortlisted for Best Digital Service Initiative at last year’s Banking Technology Awards. A project lasting a total of nine months, this involved close collaboration with BookingBug, and has led to more than 3,500 appointments being made online, which translates to around 15 percent of all appointments.

Mortimer continues, pointing to another feature of the new

Nick Mortimer Head of Marketing and Ecommerce Nick is accountable for the Group’s brand strategy, marketing communications and e-commerce capability. Prior to joining YBS Nick held a series of senior leadership roles at Barclays Bank in strategy, commercial and marketing positions across retail, premier and business banking divisions

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system. “We can also do some prequalifying studies with the customer as part of this process, where we set out what we need from a mortgage customer.” Not only does this save time a for a customer who YBS would not be able to lend to, but also helps staff to schedule appointments that are more likely to result in a completed mortgage journey.

Partner power The mortgage appointment breakthrough highlights the massive benefit to be reaped from leveraging the expertise of partners.

Indeed, the biggest eye-opener for White in Asia and Australia was the potential of partner power, beyond simply outsourcing to reduce costs. “Now it is about a multitude of factors as well as cost, including economies of scale, risk mitigation, access to resources and agility with digital,” he states.

McCleod’s remit as Head of IT very much involves the establishment of a strong, agile partnership network; a network that appreciates and understands each

other’s requirements, ambitions and approaches to innovation.

“The challenge facing the industry at the moment is one of ‘what is a digital strategy for an organisation?’” he says. “Our partners are very keen to understand that so they can respond with services and applications to support and enable it. So while our partners may or may not have a distinct digital strategy, they will understand what our future is and allow us to become more agile by, in many cases, connecting up applications that already exist, rather than building their own.”

Again these partnerships and technology investments circle back to the needs and expectation of YBS customers, with McCleod’s decisions as Head of IT very much intertwined with the priorities of Mortimer’s marketing function.

“Vendors are creating more adaptable models so they can provide unique experiences for each different business, regardless of the industry they are serving,” McCleod continues. “Brand isn’t just about the YBS logo, it is about the

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experience we give. Customers are increasingly basing brand loyalty on values, so this means we must work even harder to deliver compelling communication and experiences.”

Partners in action Often it is transformation at the back end which can optimise internal processes, and thus lead to more effective end-to-end delivery of services for customers. Creating an agile digital workspace is one major priority currently being explored with the help of Computacenter.

The basic premise behind the partnership is to allow YBS colleagues to choose how, where and what device they want to work on.

“We’re not talking about mortgage application workers here, as this is regulatory controlled,” McCleod explains. “We’re talking about knowledge workers and those in leadership roles and how they can become more creative at problem solving. We have a myriad of applications that can help our colleagues but they’re difficult to deploy, often because of

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licensing models being expensive and thus limiting our choice. So Computacenter has been looking at this dilemma to help us give people more flexibility, more freedom and more mobility to work in a way that is most effective for them. It is an interesting and exciting dynamic.”

Enabling further flexibility within the organisation is the work carried out in partnership with HP. The computing giant is helping to renovate YBS’s core infrastructure to establish greater connectivity to applications that have already been built. This will allow more efficient distribution of resources in the future, while helping YBS to consider whether on-premise or off-premise models work best for a particular function. “Business models in our industry are beginning to shift and the ones that are able to connect to other data sources and business model transactions will bear fruit,” McCleod observes.

Another key partner is IBM, especially when considering its work around creating what White describes as a fully functional customer hub. “We have carried

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out a lot of positive work with IBM around our customer hub, and there is still much to do,” he says. “The customer hub maximises our use of data to develop better service for our customers, and IBM will continue to be a key influencer on this.”

Sharing the wealth Away from mortgages and savings accounts, an important line of business for YBS is the facilitation of company share plans. YBS Share Plans offers the full end to end digital customer experience for corporate clients and their employees, whilst recognising the need to support these with traditional telephone and postal processes, enabling customers to communicate with us through their preferred channel. The service covers client on-boarding and all related employee engagement channels through the life of the plan, to the vesting/maturity.

YBS Share Plans connects with other businesses in financial education and wealth management to support employees in making the right choices when joining a

plan or at vesting/maturity, when decisions need to be made taking into consideration tax liability when individual financial advice might be appropriate for example.

This again materialises from a network of partners working in tandem, with YBS at the core. “We work with several vendors to deliver this service, and this ecosystem of clients and vendors use YBS as a hub, which is an important part of that customer’s journey from joining a share plan to realising the growth in their savings and shares over time,” explains McCleod “We are helping customers by connecting them to the relevant information to support them in making the choices that are right for them, taking the lead in the overall project planning and logistics around delivering a cross-industry model; and we believe this is a digital business model in its own right that can be evolved further.”

What does the future hold?

As these lines between traditional financial service providers and

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quick-to-market fintech companies continue to dissolve, a natural endpoint to our conversations sees a discussion on how far YBS will head down the digital road.

For McCleod, the overriding vision is simply for YBS to become the number one in the market. “Our vision is to make YBS the best provider of mortgage and savings experiences,” he says. “To do this we have to compete with everybody and make sure our offering is better than theirs.

If you follow that through logically, we will get to our one-day mortgage experience, and brokers will be able to deal with more customers.”

How much digitisation this will take, is an intriguing question, and one that McCleod believes is an important conversation to be had.

Part of this conundrum is neatly

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summarised by Mortimer. “This is still a complex process,” he says, “and we do not want to trivialise or oversimplify a mortgage application. We need to convey the important messages – this is a big decision for somebody to make in their life. This said, there are ways to communicate this that can help customers navigate the process much better. It is a constant evolution.”

And it is this balancing of the scales which White has pressed from the beginning – the need to excel in all channels, not forgetting that one of those still lies in-branch.

He concludes: “Do we want to become more digital? Yes. Do we still believe in branches? Yes. We want to provide a seamless experience across all of our channels, recognising that our digital channels are going to grow.”

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Andy McCleod Head of IT Customer Focused for 29 years.

Background in Property, Surveying, Asset Management, Arrears, Share Plans, Contact Centre Management, Business Process, IT Outsourcing Solutions for Banks and Building Societies, IT as a Service and IT Shared Services, IT Strategy & Business Engagement, Information Security and Mergers & Acquisitions.

More recently working with IT colleagues who are leading the development of engaging IT Frameworks which improve customer service at reduced costs standards.

An ambassador for Digital across YBS Group and charities and organisations in Yorkshire.

Outside of work love to travel, scuba dive, attempt to get fit and will be working hard to energise as many as possible to raise funds for End Youth Homelessness.

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Up in the cloud Written by Nell Walker Produced by Danielle Harris

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Business Review Europe speaks to the CTO of Travix International, Rob McDonald, about how his team has transformed the company’s IT processes and, as a result, the business

S

ometimes, when multiple businesses come together with the view to form something bigger and better, it’s difficult to get themselves organised in a way that best utilises the combination of their strengths. Consolidation isn’t

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easy, and it is at this critical point where companies often employ somebody with experience in business transformation to guide the way.

Enter Rob McDonald, CTO and CPO at Travix International, one of the leading global online travel agencies which is part of the BCD Group, and operates under the brand names CheapTickets, BudgetAir, Vayama, Vliegwinkel, and Flugladen.

As well as flight tickets, Travix offers attractive pricing for hotels, rental cars, insurance, parking, and transfers, and operates across 35 countries with over 500 multi-national members of staff. The company mantra is ‘we move people’, and aims to provide the full package of services necessary for travellers who choose it.

Travix is the combination of

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The company mantra is ‘we move people’, and aims to provide the full package of services necessary for travellers who choose it three businesses (CheapTickets, BudgetAir, Vayama) merged into one in 2011, yet they each continued to operate separately until McDonald stepped in two years later.

“It was pretty challenging,” McDonald admits. “At that point there was no real integration yet; nothing had changed on either the IT

or the business side. Once I joined, we made some quick decisions and said ‘this is what we now need to do’. We changed our strategy and short-term plan accordingly to focus on optimising what we had, so we could drive the maximum business value from our existing platforms. The technology teams were instantly on board and excited to be part of the plan for a big future.”

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Collaboration.

Innovation.

Better Journeys.

For 30 years, Amadeus solutions have kept the travel sector moving – from search to booking, from pricing to ticketing, from managing operations to managing customer experiences. Today, we help our customers all over the world improve the travel experience for billions of people a year.

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We’re committed to making the future of travel even better – to connecting the industry, harnessing new technologies and finding new ways to make travel more rewarding – for 30 years to come.

Let’s shape the future of travel amadeus.com

Success doesn’t happen by chance: embrace evolution with the right technology partner!

In the travel industry, the consumer journey is fast evolving and is on the brink of momentous change: travellers expect answers that are faster and more relevant to their immediate needs than ever before.

Innovative technology, such as mobile personal assistants or chat bots, artificial intelligence and big data are already part of people’s lives. In such a fast changing world, many players’ future could now be at a crossroads. But success doesn’t happen by chance. In adapting to these changes, collaboration is the key to ensuring that travel retailers’ performance is not affected.

Amadeus is a leading technology company dedicated to the global travel industry. Our solutions help improve the business performance of travel agencies, corporations, airlines, airports, hotels, railways and more. Thirty years ago, we started with a vision and worked hard with our partners to build a better way to connect the world of travel.

Our relationship with Travix dates back many years and is based on a close collaboration that has grown

stronger over the years. We’re working together with a view to make booking travel faster, more rewarding and personalised. Today, we’re proud to accompany Travix on their transformation journey. We power Travix’ air content and are helping them diversify their offer beyond air.

Our cutting-edge technology will accompany them to the next level.

Rob McDonald, Chief Technology Officer at Travix says: ‘Amadeus has been our leading technology partner of choice since day one and has been instrumental to our steady growth. With the support of Amadeus innovative technology, we are fully equipped to continue on our journey, which will translate into a better customer experience.’

Sébastien Gibergues, Head of Online, Leisure and Travel Media, Global Customers at Amadeus IT Group, commented: ‘It’s a real pleasure to work with Travix: thanks to their creativity and innovation mindset, they are making the most of our leading technology to stay at the forefront of the industry evolution.’

T R A V I X I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Merging the three While McDonald was forced to build an entirely new business process, this wasn’t entirely new for him. Prior to joining Travix in 2013, he had worked on front end and middle-tier level platformbuilding, but the huge end-to-end scale of this project was uncharted territory.

McDonald admits he sometimes became frustrated that the process couldn’t move as quickly as he desired, due to the sheer number of elements involved, but that was a part of what made it so satisfying: “The team was totally engaged and up for the challenge. In a large scale program like this there are many opportunities for teams to step up and make a difference, and that is what I saw. We were able to adopt new technologies and really up our game across the whole technology stack.”

Prior to Travix, McDonald’s career was predominantly in the travel agency sector, beginning with Online Travel Corporation PLC, a start-up acquired by lastminute.com which he then moved on to, and followed that with a role at the company lastminute. com was bought by, Travelocity.

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500+ Number of employees at Travix International

He then worked for five years for Rank Group PLC, deviating from the theme by delving into the world of gambling with brands like Mecca Bingo and Grosvenor Casino, before stepping into his current role.

Technology McDonald joined Travix prepared for a sizeable challenge, and fortunately the existing staff were ready and willing to take on whatever was needed.

“It was pretty obvious what needed to be done,” he explains. “It was

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just a matter of making a decision and moving forward. I got the senior team on board and said ‘this is what we need to do’, and just went in that direction. The technology teams knew what to do but had previously not been allowed the freedom to go that route, and so the inevitable had been deferred for a long time. Once we got stuck in it took about two and a half years to complete the consolidation of the technology platforms.

“It was very much a consolidation integration story. We had a very

successful and sizeable business, but so much complexity in the technology area. The moment I started we made a big change around in terms of the teams, focussing on our ability to deliver in three layers; front end, platform, and back office (ERP). We had to accommodate all the functionality we needed from all three businesses to make sure that when we migrated, we were ready to go. We didn’t have one system that would work long-term so we re-used parts of our business logic layer, and

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then for the most part built it from the ground up.”

A major challenge that struck during the transformation was in trying to integrate truly global requirements into a single system. One of the platforms had been built from the ground up to suit the North American market: “The US business model for travel is very different; they had a lot of complex functionality and capabilities that we don’t necessarily use in Europe,” McDonald says, “so when we had to migrate their platform – the hardest platform we had to work with – the stakeholders were managed very carefully so we didn’t miss anything. They were relatively happy with what they had and didn’t want to lose anything, but at the same time wanted to take advantage of everything they’d get on the new platform.”

Once the platforms were securely consolidated, the focus turned to tooling in order to streamline each smaller process. Teams were having to use multiple systems for every job, so if somebody in Amsterdam was working on the US or Asian site, they would require different tools for each one.

“Having to learn systems in triplicate or more lowers operational efficiency, and with that, once you smooth it down to a single platform it’s much easier for you to measure the success of the changes you’re implementing,” McDonald says. “The finance operations team went from using three different accounting packages and back office processes to a single platform, which means we can actually

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TECHNOLOGY

Travix International flies to 9,000 destinations

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3.5+ million passengers a year report properly as one company, and that makes a huge difference to our business operations.”

Now, the company can track what is happening day-to-day, hour-byhour, whereas previously the team had to wait until the end of each month to gauge its performance.

From the perspective of the customer, the changes that the company has undergone means it can roll all of its services out globally with ease, whereas such a thing would not have been possible historically; Travix would have had to build the

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50+ planes filled every day same product several times – one for each country. The time to market is dramatically improved with this new and improved structure.

The challenge of driving systems consolidation does not necessarily have to slow down innovation entirely.

During this period McDonald and team were able to add hundreds of new features in parallel, which allowed the business to continue its high growth: “A couple of things stand out for me – the first was that we embedded a highly powerful new rules engine into our platform, which allowed the business

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“The more time we can strip off the process of searching for flights and payments, the better the customer experience” – Rob McDonald, CTO & CPO

teams to be extremely creative in how the system behaved. The rules engine controls pricing, filtering, sorting and content sourcing – which means that features which previously had to be built by developers are now controlled and implemented by business teams.”

Travix uses the Agile Scrum methodology for its software development. Scrum allows the delivery of features and functionality in short time cycles, meaning the company can prioritise work and break it into smaller iterations of 2 weeks, continually releasing until the feature or product is finalised: “So we build the most important features in cycles of two weeks and put them live when ready,” McDonald explains.

“The thirteen development teams were focussed almost entirely on this migration project, and the overall

goal was focussed around either front end technology, the platform, or back office finance processes.

“As we got to the end of the program we were able to turn those teams from technical teams to product or features teams, the idea being that each of those teams could then start to deliver features directly into the new platform on their own. Then it became more aligned with the overall business, with a product team working on flight features, one on call centre technology, and so on. They’re all able to deliver specific products and features in their specialist areas, and employee engagement is at an all-time high.”

Technology partners are key to large scale programs of this nature: “We are at our heart a flights business, and our partnership with Amadeus has meant that we can innovate

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across our systems to add new customer experiences and exciting new features. For example we were the first company to show airline branded fares on our sites, which opens up the complex world of airline products in a new and exciting way.”

Another partnership Travix particularly values is that with Google.

McDonald and his team decided early on in the transformation process that they would move straight to the cloud as soon as possible (something which went live nearly 2 years ago), and so Travix partnered with Google, predominantly due to the fact that this meant the business would be immediately influential on the roadmap.

“We built a whole platform new front end platform which would run easily on their cloud platform, and worked closely with Google using the alpha version of their Kubernetes container management system,” says McDonald. “While it’s a little risky to do that, the upside was that we were able to work very closely with Google engineers to fix faults in the platform and help them build key features that would really benefit us. Through that

we formed a really close partnership with the Google cloud team; that’s a big differentiator for us certainly as we grow globally. We need to be closer to the customer so they get the best experience. The more time we can strip off the process of searching for flights and payments, the better the customer experience. Google helps us work globally and optimise performance.”

This streamlining has proven invaluable for Travix, and the customer response has been overwhelmingly positive – and rightly so. After all, McDonald says, “the customer has always been our main focus.

The challenge is to serve them consistently when you’re basically rebuilding functionality from one platform to the next. That doesn’t add value to the customer until the customer is able to use the new platform. There’s a transition period that we have to accommodate there but everything moves much quicker, and all the benefits you have from a single platform kick in.”

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THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND LUXURY WRIT TEN BY WEDAELI CHIBELUSHI PRODUCED BY VINCE KIELT Y

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WE CHAT TO ROSHAN KOONJA, CIO AT CONSTANCE HOTELS AND RESORTS, ABOUT THE GROUP’S TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGY

W

hen we called Roshan Koonja, he had just touched down in Mauritius. He was back home from San Francisco after participating at IBM Connect 2017, a prestigious gathering of CIOs hosted annually by IBM. This was one of a series of recent international conferences that Roshan had been invited to as a guest speaker.

Roshan feels privileged to be in these high-profile forums where he passionately shares his experiences with cutting-edge technologies that he has successfully implemented at Constance Hotels. Regular invitations to these international platforms are encouraging signs for Roshan who feels that his organization is respected in the international arena with its successes in embracing change through a

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people-first digitization model.

To say that Roshan likes technology would be an understatement.

Over the last 20 years, he has built an impressive track record in the information and communications technology sector in the hospitality space through the design and development of practical, innovative business solutions. Roshan has established himself as a resultsdriven no-nonsense player within his company, reaching the upper echelon of management in the process. It is no surprise that he is a well-respected and often sought after to speak at global hotel technology conferences.

The information technology industry of the 90s in Mauritius was still in its infancy stages when Roshan joined Constance Hotels. While his first assignment was to implement an IT

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system for his organization, Roshan actually ended up delivering more than just a technical solution. His astute understanding of leading trends in the global hotel industry led him to be very strategic in the use of information and supporting technologies to deliver an innovative end-to-end solution that would help his company operate efficiently, effectively and competitively.

Maintaining growth is central to Constance Hotels’ overall goals. Even though the company has been around for merely 46 years, it continues to gain international recognition with CNN recently naming two of its hotels (Constance Moofushi Maldives and Constance Prince Maurice Mauritius) in its list of the world’s top 25. Constance’s success is partly

2,500

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES AT CONSTANCE HOTELS AND RESORTS

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due to the group finding its niche market. Based across four Indian Ocean islands, Constance Hotels prides itself on a human-scale, luxury vibe. The group comprises of seven hotels: two in Seychelles, two in Maldives, two in Mauritius and one in Madagascar. The Constance guest experience aligns with these local cultures, rather than entertaining the generic touristy practices. The hotel group also wants technology to be a large part of guest experience.

That’s where Roshan comes in.

Based out of Mauritius, Roshan oversees global IT operations across all four islands and leads a team of 20 people. Roshan acknowledges that technology should be treated as a strategic tool rather than just a set of tactical methods. Together with his CEO, Mr Jean-Jacques

Vallet, he advises the board on the strategic direction of where technology can be used and how technology can be an enabler.

Roshan is currently looking into innovative solutions ranging from Internet of Things (IoT), Business Intelligence, Social Collaborative solution and most lately Cognitive Solutions. They are now in a new era of I.T moving from a principally back office function to more of an integrated value creation enterprise.

Roshan is constantly seeking new ways of using technology to increase revenue and tap into unforeseen opportunities. While doing so, he is never veering away from the overarching ultimate goal of always improving the total guest experience. “Our motto at Constance Hotels is to convert our guests’

“I’M ALWAYS ON THE SEARCH FOR TECHNOLOGY” - R OSHAN KOONJA

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

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expectations into emotional experiences. We try to enable these in the most secured way in order to safeguard our shareholders’ interests, protect guests’ data and of course our brand name.”

We ask Roshan how he and his team boost guests’ experience via technology. “The diffusion of the system of information technologies in the hotel industry has increased the efficiency, quality and flexibility with which guest services are supplied. It has already led to the generation of new services and has infiltrated many areas of our group. From marketing to back office, IT is everywhere. And we have created wealth across the whole system.

One simple example of how we enhanced guests’ experience is through a complete revamp of the room entertainment system. All our rooms are equipped with a Mac system which is used for enabling IPTV technology including features like Miracast, Airplay, Connection to multiple devices, charging of mobile devices, PC mode etc all connected to full HDTV. Our guests have the comfort of their home at their disposal. We lay a lot of emphasis on WIFI and as a matter of fact we have this concept of FREE WIFI Everywhere. We also have a wide variety of latest movies and music where our guest can choose from while also providing FREE access to all major newspapers and magazines across the globe through our online system.

This “comfort zone” also includes the ability for guests to communicate with our team members.

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Through devices in their rooms, guests can use mobile messaging service WhatsApp to make any requests. It actually works as an e-concierge service “We ensure that the requests are recorded, and that we can actually service that request in the minimum amount of time, in accordance with the service level agreement implemented internally,” says Roshan. He emphasizes that communication via WhatsApp is just one “arm of the cycle”. Constance Hotels has a holistic approach where we try our best to “WOW” guests by making sure that we know our guests throughout the whole lifecycle with us so that we can make their stay as enjoyable and memorable.

Roshan’s tech strategy expands beyond the hotel room, and onto the

ROSHAN KOONJA

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Roshan Koonja is an innovative, resultsdriven and self-motivated senior executive, with 20 years of experience in hotel technology sector. He provides vision and leadership in the development and implementation of business focused information technology initiatives. He also translates emerging technologies into real business value, is responsible for developing and re-engineering business processes.

He has strong track record in successfully developing and implementing innovative IT solutions to practical business purposes in the hospitality, banking, CRM and market intelligence sectors. He is a holder of an MBA from University of Birmingham and a Master from University of Lancaster.

He actively speaks and write for Hotel Technology Conferences worldwide. He has recently been nominated for the SuperNova Awards which recognises leaders in disruptive technologies and member of the Mauritius Institute of Directors. w w w. c o n s t a n c e h o t e l s . c o m

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golf course also. Constance Hotels owns and manages two 18-hole golf courses in Mauritius and one in the Seychelles. The group pioneered the Indian Ocean golf scene – it was the first to build a championship golf course (home of the Senior European Tour) in Mauritius and also to build an 18-hole championship course in the Seychelles. Constance invests heavily in its golf facilities, and needless to say, Roshan is involved in this too. “We have to make sure that we have the right reservation system as well as an appropriate tournament system for golf,” he tells us. All our golf carts have a GPS system, so we can give the players the luxury of knowing the distance and layout of the holes as they are playing.” Roshan’s technological input extends to Constance Golf Academy, which allows guests to train with professional, qualified golf instructors. Roshan has implemented software, which enables the golfers to analyse their swing in a bid to figure out how to improve.

With experiences such as golf

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training, Constance has established itself as a small luxury brand and as a matter of fact has been nominated for three consecutive years as Top Luxury brand by ReviewPro. “Although we have reached a very high position in the luxury brand echelon it is important for us to stay vigilant to ensure that Constance’s technological development does not stagnate”.

Roshan strongly declares “I’m always on the search for new technologies and as a matter of fact I was recently nominated as the finalist at the SuperNova Awards by Constellation Research in San Francisco for having implemented innovative technologies across the islands. I will take any kind of new technology that can add value and create wealth across the whole system with the ultimate goal of enhancing the guest experience”.

Identifying technology that fits Constance hotels is just one part of Roshan’s job. He has to make sure that his team is well versed in any new type of technology that he brings along. “Being in an insular environment, it is very hard to find the

“THE TEAM IS GROWING FAST, AND I THINK WE’RE GEARED UP WITH THE RIGHT INFRASTRUCTURE, THE RIGHT PEOPLE AND RESOURCES TO BE ABLE TO REACH YET ANOTHER HALLMARK”

JMG is the distribution arm of TheBrandHouse and is one of the most respected organisations in Mauritius in the field of home appliances and consumer electronics. JMG acts as the essential link between the brand owners and the market. JMG imports, markets and distributes top international brands such as Samsung, Panasonic, Beko, Zanussi, Black and Decker, Elba, Alcatel, JBL, Galanz, ASUS and Chigo. For your corporate needs JMG has a dedicated team of professionals, offering tailor-made services, quick and easy delivery, facility of payment – all with guaranteed satisfaction.

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right competencies in the local market.

Very often competencies have to be outsourced from abroad. However, all my projects are accompanied by a transfer of technology and know-how to the local resources. This makes sure that they grow and at the same time providing the best of services to the guests and staffs. I also make sure that the staffs are certified on the latest technologies.” Roshan gives us an example: When we had Apple Mac Minis installed in the rooms, we partnered with Apple, trained our people on the platform of Apple and did a transfer of knowledge.

Roshan also tells us what he looks for when hiring people. “For me, what is most important when I hire for the team, is that the person has a good team spirit. Attitude is very important.” he explains. If someone

has the right mind-set and willingness to grow within the existing team, they will draw his attention. Of course, technical expertise is important to him, but “it’s not critical”.

Roshan is confident that his recruitment and wider technological strategies have been successful.

“I’ve gained respect from my team members and the board. The team is growing fast, and I think we’re geared up with the right infrastructure, the right people and resources to be able to reach yet another hallmark.”

Gourmet food and customer service are still the fundamental pillars of the hotel industry, but technology can make it easier to consistently deliver a memorable experience to the guests. And Constance Hotels understands that critical tenet.

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Dealing with DIVERSIFICATION Written by Lisa Higgins Produced by Craig Daniels

AL GHURAIR

How has Al Ghurair Investment transformed its IT setup into an organisation able to serve a diverse array of business interests operating in many different industries?

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T

Mohamed Said Group CIO

ransforming the Information Technology in one of the largest diversified conglomerates in the Middle East, Al Ghurair, from a service provider to a business enabler has been a mammoth undertaking.

In the last 15 months the familyowned group, which was founded in 1960, has restructured its IT department, moving it from a fully centralized function to a federated organization with a major Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) program across all the business units that make up the hugely successful group. Business Review Middle East speaks to Mohamed Said, Group Chief Information Officer, who led the technological evolution to find out just how such a feat was achieved.

From the outset Mr Said looks to be the right person for the job. Having started his career in programming, Mr Said, 45, advanced into software and application development until he reached his role at Al Ghurair.

Prior to joining the group, he had extensive experience both regionally

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and globally where he led large digital on a large digitization initiative, transformation programs for major implemented huge ERP program and retailers in the US and GCC. At Al created a supporting infrastructure Ghurair he embarked on an ambitious providing value for the businesses. digital strategy to turn the existing IT Beside the Administrative functions department into a business partner. provided by the ERP system which “The most challenging part of includes Finance, HR, and the transformation journey Procurement, the solution was dealing with the extends to cover the diversification of Al Operational activities Ghurair,” he says. for different “We are a industries such Years Al Ghurair conglomerate as Manufacturing, Investment has with many Projects, been operating different industries; and Property Foods, Resources, Management ” Properties, Construction, Energy and many more. For Differentiating capabilities a large and diversified group To deliver the new digital landscape like that, it’s a challenge for for Al Ghurair, Mr Said divided the an IT department to find the right strategy into three different phases. balance between synergy and “The first phase involved creating responsiveness and to be able to differentiating capabilities within speak the business language of the IT department. My immediate all these different businesses.” task was to create a strong linkage “The first task in the transformation between the IT organization and was to revamp our systems, the businesses. We moved from specifically ERP, which had little a centralized organization to a standardization. We embarked federated organization, where we

50+

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AL GHURAIR

“When you’re making IT organisational changes you need to drive collaboration and interaction with the business CEOs and GMs to make sure they are aligned with you on the strategy” – MOHAMED SAID GROUP CIO

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focused more on responsiveness to the business demand by having technology experts with relevant industry expertise supporting the businesses.

We have also built a PMO (Project Management Office) within the IT department to ensure we deliver upon our vision and strategic objectives.

“The second phase was about implementing the ERP project, Disaster Recovery program, and building technology road maps for each business. The third phase is still ongoing, building on what we have done already and embracing various technological trends, from Cloud Computing to Robotic Process Automation and the Internet of Things to execute on the technology road maps” Mr Said has also facilitated the introduction of paperless meetings via a leading collaboration solution on Apple’s iPad that transforms directors’ and executives devices into highly secure digital board and committees meeting packs that can be accessed online or offline from any location.

While these achievements are no

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doubt numerous, they did not arrive without challenges.

“When you’re making IT organizational changes you need to drive collaboration and ensure the businesses are aligned on the strategy. We also hired the right people, despite encountering challenges in finding appropriate caliber across every role.”

Indeed, Mr Said’s understandably high expectations of new hires added an extra element to the recruitment test.

“Finding talent, generally speaking, is a challenge for any CIO,” he continues, “but to add to this, I wanted people capable of understanding the businesses and their needs. They report directly to the business, and thus, have the advantage of directly demonstrating how the IT strategy works. It took time but now we are in a very good position and are executing the strategy as we speak.”

Change management Establishing a change

management framework to lead the ERP program ensured there was a readiness from the businesses to adopt the introduced changes to processes and systems.

“We worked with the businesses to ensure that every IT project had a sponsor from the business.

A change management plan was put in place when it came to the training, communication, and reassessment of roles and responsibilities,” Mr Said explains.

“For example, one of the major challenges in ERP implementation was to find the right balance between what each business needs to be customized and the base product

AL Ghurair Resources ship for transporting grains

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AL GHURAIR

20

Number of countries that Al Ghurair Investment works in

package. Many companies fall into this pitfall and end up with highly customized ERP systems, which may not contribute to the bottom line of the business.

Mr Said collaborated with the executive leadership team, who welcomed the technology road map. “We looked at the solutions, if customization was a business need with a tangible impact, we accommodated it, but if it was not, then we worked together to identify the best solutions.”

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Another important element related to Change Management was Benefit Realization. “Our governance model includes what we call “Rear View Mirror” where we analyze the utilization of the new systems. This helps us answer the question: “Did we realize the benefit of what we implemented?”

“As an example, we realized that a percentage of users were not logging onto one of the systems,” Mr Said says. “We are now going back to assess the reason. Are these users

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following a manual process, do they get their data from outside the system? Answering these questions helps us in adopting the system to continually improve it and realize the full benefits for the businesses.”

Vendor Partnership Mr Said continues: “The partnerships with our vendors have worked extremely well so far, and we look forward to working with them again in the future on other transformational initiatives.”

As for the next three to five years, the Group CIO is keen to focus on exploring differentiating opportunities and leveraging technology and trends related to mobility, cloud, robotic process automation and big data.

“We want IT to become a capable organization and to play a proactive role in providing differentiating capabilities for the business,” he concludes.

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Emirates NBD

First-class banking in the UAE Written by Catherine Rowell Produced by Heykel Ouni

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Senior Vice President of Procurement and Realty Services Abdullatif Albastaki discusses how the move towards digitisation has impacted financial services in the UAE

S

ince its formation in 2007, Emirates National Bank of Dubai (NBD) has been going from strength to strength, with operations in nine countries across the world including the UAE, Egypt, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), United Kingdom, Singapore and other countries such as India which will start operation in Q4 2017. With the potential to grow and deliver value to shareholders, customers and employees, the bank is staffed by over 10,000 employees representing 70 nationalities,

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cementing its position within the UAE with the potential to expand into further markets. With the aim to grow the business and its operations in alignment with Dubai’s Smart City vision, Emirates NBD is continually reassessing its procurement and supply chain strategies, remaining innovative with the creation of new products and services, with over 200 branches in the UAE and worldwide.

With a multitude of roles under his umbrella, Senior Vice President of Procurement and Realty Services Abdullatif Albastaki is responsible for the group procurement for the entirety of Emirates NBD, including Emirates Islamic Banks and the company’s international branches.

In addition, Albastaki is behind the delivery of the bank’s supply and management in all regions, physical security, travel and transportation, alongside projects and engineering.

Furthermore, his remit includes the fit outs for the bank and facilities management for both owned and lease branches. However, with regards to residential buildings, Albastaki confirms that this service

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is outsourced to specific companies, with contracts monitored closely.

“We provide all the support, strategic services and project management skills to ensure products that are required for businesses run smoothly and for products to reach the market on time, according to schedule,” explains Albastaki. “Last year was the best collaborative year between procurement and all the other businesses.”

“We provide all the support, strategic services and project management skills to ensure products required for businesses run smoothly and for products to reach the market on time”

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Procurement power With one of the biggest brand names in the region’s banking industry, Emirates NBD has significant buying power and presence within the UAE. To this effect, the bank continually focuses on providing an advantageous space for employees and customers through leasing management, fit outs and design.

Albastaki sits on multiple steering committees, which incorporates the visibility and budget of new branches, alongside ones which need refurbishing and remodeling. All of this is allocated before the end of the year, with the aim to provide focus for the year ahead. It also ensures that all buildings under Emirates NBD are designed in alignment with the rules and regulations of the country, and that they are designed smartly to ensure collaboration with multiple teams. Albastaki comments: “Through negotiation and research, we find the best spaces, working with consultants and contractors to provide this in the best way possible, but at the same time, providing the best value for money,

alongside the use of ISO certified and environment friendly materials.”

With approximately AED 3 billion invested in purchasing operations, Emirates NBD utilises procurement software Zycus to successfully undertake strategic sourcing, at which Albastaki is behind every purchase. Both requirements and budgeting is finalised at executive level, which is then cascaded down and allocated, enabling all teams to understand their forecast, build the required resources and allocate them accordingly in alignment with the number of projects planned.

“We collaborate and sit together to plan all of the projects realistically, so we are able to hand it over due to the required time,” comments Albastaki. This has enabled the bank to achieve no delays in any given project, with products and services delivered on time and on schedule.

Albastaki continues: “This highlights that we have strong teams in both Procurement and Realty Services in addition to the outstanding suppliers and service providers that led us to build strong stakeholders trust.”

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E M I R AT E S N B D

Quick to market The bank’s IT procurement team works closely with the group’s IT services to ensure first mover advantage with new products and ideas, with a strong focus on customer feedback and requirements. “From a strategic point of view, we are using a strong brand name which allows us to be the first in the market most of the time”, explains Albastaki. With a continual focus on sourcing technologies, Emirates NBD ensures these are consistently up to date, up to speed and open in the market, providing a stream of procurement earlier than everyone else, or alongside everybody else.

Albastaki adds: “It’s really essential for us

to be advanced with technology in our procurement and supply chain and of course, from the supplier perspective, we look at all these points as well.”

The bank has announced that it aims to invest AED 500 million over the next five years towards digital innovation and multichannel transformation of processes, products and services.

Listening to customers’ feedback and providing consistent innovative solutions has enabled Emirates NBD to win a multitude of awards, such as Bank of the Year, Best Customer Experience in Banking and Best Mobile Banking app. It has also become the first bank in the UAE and the Middle East to win in three

categories at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence in 2016. Albastaki adds: “All of these are of course useful leverages, which we can use in negotiations with suppliers.”

The bank utilises approximately 2,000 suppliers - a mix of both national and international - enabling it to cement its status as leaders in the market, manage all sourcing elements to a high standard and remain ahead of the game. Albastaki explains, “the number of suppliers goes up and down, because some smaller suppliers we sometimes bring in for one time only”. However, he adds: “We have

approximately 100 or more strategic suppliers”, which is continually fluctuating.

From a spend perspective, Albastaki confirms that there can be up to 200 suppliers that the bank can consider.

Nonetheless, the growth of Emirates NBD has not been without its challenges. One common issue is governance, both in Dubai and countries where the bank imports from, whilst logistics, lead time and benchmarking services are also regular challenges. Albastaki explains: “We are on boards with leaders and consultants which give us insight on

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“Being a brand name, we are strong and can mutually come to a common ground with suppliers and service providers to finalise our contracts”

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what prices are around the world, and we try to benchmark them on current market conditions as well.”

Emirates NBD also encounters internal challenges with regards to contracting, insurance and risk, at which Albastaki explains, “some governing bodies we have internally would want to see a minimum requirement which might not fit the suppliers’ appetite”. However, he concludes: “Luckily, being a brand name, we are strong ourselves and can mutually come to a common ground and finalise our contracts.”

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Abdullatif Albastaki Senior Vice President Group Procurement & Realty Services

“We need to be digital, secure, and influence our customers to use and explore the digital world�

E M I R AT E S N B D

Millennial influence Technological innovation is imperative for Emirates NBD to retain and attract further customers, remain competitive and bring requirements and products to the market effectively, ensuring positive, continual customer engagement.

IT has become the biggest spend at Emirates NBD, where over 87 percent of the bank’s customer transactions are now undertaken through digital channels.

For this year, the bank will be focusing on the millennial generation and its influence within banking and digitisation. “We have noticed that the new generation want everything at their fingertips. People do all their payments online, transfers online, sort their credit card payments online, so the need to carry cash is becoming less, year on year,” explains Albastaki.

“To allow this, we need to be digital, secure, and influence our customers to use and explore the digital world.”

The bank’s aim to be proactive with customers and solve problems before they occur through providing solutions before customers ask for

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them is something Emirates NBD is striving to achieve. Use of online and mobile apps and products, creating a seamless and convenient financial service, will allow it to do just that.

With the vision to be globally recognised as a financial services provider, delivering tailored, innovative banking solutions, Emirates NBD will continue to listen to customers and drive key products to the market, whilst ensuring all new services encompass accessibility and remain user friendly through embedding smart technologies, strategic sourcing and essential procurement services. In 2016, the bank achieved all targets, despite a slowing in the market, and achieved steady growth, cementing its position within the UAE and opening up the future for expansion into new markets in years to come.

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What do the Tour de France, Nelson Mandela and digital business have in common?

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D I M E N S I O N D ATA M I D D L E E A S T A N D A F R I C A

We spoke to the Managing Director of Dimension Data Middle East about the future of digital business

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hen I ask about her experiences in the maledominated tech sector, Mechelle Buys du Plessis laughs: “We just can’t balance that boardroom, can we!”. Buys du Plessis is Managing Director of Dimension Data Middle East. She has spent 22 years at the global IT services company, working in diverse areas such as marketing, client services and sales management. She became Managing Director in 2015; in this role she

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ensures Dimension Data remains an equal opportunities employer.

“We need to make sure that we’re attracting and retaining the best skill and to do that we need to make sure that we’re providing equal opportunities to the best of the best,” Buys du Plessis tells me. “To me, gender doesn’t have a part to play when there is a global IT skills shortfall.”

MIDDLE EAST

Maintaining talent is important to Buys du Plessis.

Dimension Data has a strong reputation to uphold - the company has been providing IT solutions and services since 1983.

Buys du Plessis began in 1994, and can remember Dimension Data’s humble South African roots. “Dimension Data was a young company at the time, and we were going through changes in our country [Nelson Mandela became the first black South African president in 1994],”

she said. Today, Dimension Data has 31,000 employees, 75 percent Fortune 100 clients, 59.6 percent Fortune 500 clients and a 58-country coverage.

In 2015, it received over 100 client, vendor and industry awards, and over 50 of these in the first half of 2016.

What services does Buys Du Plessis oversee? “Dimension Data focuses on four high level areas: digital infrastructure, hybrid cloud, workspaces of tomorrow and cyber security,” she says. “IT-as-a-service is growing across those four pillars… we look at everything from cloud advisory services that help our clients deliver against a clear roadmap, to delivering off premise, or public cloud services; on premise cloud solutions and hybrid cloud solutions.”

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Better together for 25 years

By unlocking the potential of the digital era, we’ll be even

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D I M E N S I O N D ATA M I D D L E E A S T A N D A F R I C A

Mechelle Buys du Plessis Managing Director, Middle East

Originally qualified in Food & Nutrition sciences, Buys du Plessis started her career in IT in 1994. She has worked across multiple countries & three continents. Starting at ground-roots level, she quickly moved from a presales role, to a sales role and into Corporate and Key Account Management. Her passion for service delivery moved her to General Manager, Client Services. From here, she was appointed head of Marketing for Africa and Middle East, prior to moving to the United Arab Emirates in 2007.

Buys du Plessis has filled Sales Management, Solution Director and Managing Director roles in the United Arab Emirates. She is happily married to Anton and is proud to have a daughter, currently an under-grad veterinary student in Ohio, USA.

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TECHNOLOGY

Many clients come to Dimension Data seeking its cloud services for Microsoft and cloud services for SAP. Microsoft technologies form the core building blocks of Dimension Data clients’ productivity and unified communications and collaboration (UCC) strategies. The company’s cloud services for Microsoft focus on reducing cost in achieving this strategy. Likewise, with Dimension Data’s cloud services for SAP, cost control is achieved. All this is provided on a fit for purpose SAP HANA certified public, private and hybrid cloud solution, backed by certified SAP support teams.

Buys du Plessis continues to add to Dimension Data’s service pool. “We offer a OneCloud partner programme, IT outsourcing, consulting and professional services, managed services, managed services for data centres and support services,” she expands.

“Our solutions centre around big data, client computing, cloud, data centres, data centre management & automation and data centre optimisation. This is a very big area

Manoj Kumar Regional Sales Lead

Holding a Masters in Business Administration, Kumar started his career in India and moved to the UAE in 2003 as Sales Account Manager in the IT field. He joined Dimension Data in 2007. Kumar is very passionate about client relationships, team work and partnerships with key vendors. His main goal is always about enabling better solutions for our clients. Kumar is married to Jaya and they have a son, Om Kishan.

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for us,” Buys du Plessis says, pausing for breath. “Quite a large spread - it might sound very confusing. It’s not.

We basically work with our clients from a consulting engagement, all the way to managing the IT operation on behalf of our client.”

Finally, she makes sure to note networking and security, Dimension Data’s original domain.

We ask how security services have developed since the early days.

“Security is and always will be big business,” Buys du Plessis explains. “Big dollar figures are quoted in terms of what cyber security is doing to the world.

“Globally, and in the Middle East, security is enabling digitisation. If you look at fintech or technology businesses, they are leading this charge, and we see this in the Middle East as well. Many of these businesses are asset light, whilst ensuring secure transactions, so we think that security expands beyond the physical perimeter into the cloud environment.”

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This benefits businesses; it enables them to have quick deployments across multiple cloud platforms.

This process is especially relevant to contemporary Middle Eastern businesses, where according to Buys du Plessis, a large amount of rightsizing, downsizing and mergers and acquisitions take place. She tells us that the Middle East is “very visionary, very innovative…going out there and pushing the internet of things”.

Buys du Plessis explains how cloud technology contributes to this progressive sector. “We love cloud technology,” she laughs. “We’ve basically acknowledged that for most of our clients there’s going to be both cloud and non-cloud components, but with cloud playing a very strong role. Dimension Data has invested a significant amount of money in our capability over the past five to six years. The strategy is two-fold - one side is for our own organisation to make sure that we are agile enough to serve our clients best, the second is to build the cloud into the centre of everything we do with our clients.”

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es e y o pl a t a m e of ion D r e b ns m e u N im D t a

Ahmed Elias Procurement & Partner Alliance Lead, UAE

Elias is a CIPS ( Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply – UK ) certified professional and a finance graduate who worked in the finance sector for a decade.

He started his career as a junior level Accounts Assistant before moving to the role of Lead Accountant within just a few years in the manufacturing industry. From here, he moved to Sales Coordination and Sales Administration roles, which positioned him well to move to the procurement field as a Buyer for the oil field industry. Elias joined Dimension Data in 2007 as Team Leader for procurement. Having lead the procurement team as procurement manager, Elias stepped into a Dimension Data UAE management role, where his responsibilities include supply chain and vendor alliance management. Elias’s in-depth knowledge of procurement, logistics, vendor management, contracts management, e-procurement and vendor pre-qualification sets him apart.

His wide experience across multiple industry verticals, including manufacturing, construction, oil field services and IT with Dimension Data brings unmatched value.

Elias has a passion for motorcycling and is a proud father of a 15 year old son.

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Ovais Khan Services Lead, UAE

A graduate in Computer Engineering, Khan has been employed with Dimension Data since 2008, where he started as a Network Engineer. With a passion for technology and services delivery, he has since risen over the years to lead the current services team.

During this journey, Khan has served in various services functions within Dimension Data Services including Project Management and Services Delivery, and was a proud recipient of CEO award for Certification of Excellence in Services. Khan has numerous certifications in Project Management, Finance, Services Management, Process Improvement and IT Networking. Khan embraces his lazy nature which helps him find, creative and efficient ways of doing things. Khan lives in Dubai, with his wife and two beautiful daughters. Khan enjoys combat sports and in his spare time, plays cricket for a local cricket club.

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MIDDLE EAST

Two years ago, Dimension Data partnered with ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation) to establish new ways to engage global Tour de France fans.

With cloud at the core of our solution, Dimension Data has revolutionised the viewing experience by transforming the way race data is analysed and delivered to the cycling community, which includes fans, the media, the teams and the experts. Dimension Data plans to build on that innovation for every year of its involvement in the Tour, powered by cloud infrastructure.

“As much as it’s a privilege to manage such a successful business, there are things that keep me awake at night. I take personal responsibility for our exceptional employees, and

our clients are at the top of my mind all the time,” Buys Du Plessis admits.

However, she’s proud of Dimension Data’s growth during the 22 years she’s worked there. Ultimately, the challenges are worthwhile. “My first love has always been technology and how it changes business…how it changes life. I wake up every morning thinking that it’s a hell of a privilege to manage a business with products and solutions that change lives.”

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THE POWER

to finish in four Written by Tom Wadlow Produced by David Kulowitch

The leader of the Hornet Family – President Nelsen is committed to boosting four-year graduation rates through innovative tools for student success

C A L I F O R N I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y, S A C R A M E N T O ( S A C S TAT E )

The IRT division at Sac State aids the success of its faculty, students and staff by providing a toolbox of applications and data, helping to empower the entire University through access to IT services. We spoke to Interim Vice President and CIO Christine Miller to find out more

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here is no shortage of determination at California State University, Sacramento.

With 30,000 students and more than 3,000 staff on its books, aligning a common vision and instilling a culture of equal access to gamechanging IT services is no easy task.

Indeed, President Robert Nelsen’s vision for Sac State comprises four bold components, the first revolving around a highly progressive target to increase the four year graduation rate from nine to over 30 percent.

The other components comprise diversification of revenue streams (a challenge for many state universities), greater engagement in the wider community to support student career prospects, and boosting diversity and inclusion.

For Sac State’s Information Resources and Technology (IRT)

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division, helping students to drive towards successful degree completion via technological innovations has been the overriding priority in recent years. Enter Christine Miller, who has been steadily raising the profile of technology at Sac State since first arriving in 2014 as Associate Chief Information Officer, and now as interim Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer. It is her job to ensure IRT provides the tools required for students to not only achieve their goals, but achieve them as part of a process that is both timely and straightforward.

“For the past few years, we have been very focused on student success related projects, pushing towards the goal of reducing time to degree,” Miller explains. “As a University, we have always worked to enhance student

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Christine E. Miller,

interim Vice President & Chief Information Officer – Information Resources & Technology (IRT)

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success, but now we are collaborating and working cross-departmentally in new and nimble ways to accomplish this four-year graduation goal. We are working harder than ever on a campus-wide scale, which is helping to create a more inclusive culture.”

Miller and IRT’s scope is extremely broad. Operating a team of 100 staff with a $10 million budget, the team’s expertise includes management of enterprise systems, campus applications, identity management, cyber security, technology service centers, websites, mobile apps, reporting, learning space provision, wireless and other infrastructure.

Faster, smarter A large part of IRT’s recent energy has been channelled into implementing the Sac State Graduation Ecosystem, encompassing a series of integrated tools backed by analytic capability to help students succeed faster.

Central to this is the KEYS to Degree Toolbox, a suite of online tools designed to help students manage all aspects of their University experience – from scheduling

their courses, managing financial aid, to assessing their progress via real-time dashboards, and, ultimately applying for graduation.

Short for ‘Kit to Empower Your Success,’ the KEYS to Degree Toolbox includes the Smart Planner program, a bolt-on to Oracle’s PeopleSoft enterprise system from The Burgundy Group that was launched at Sac State in fall of 2016. “This helps our students, a large proportion of whom are first generation, to set a semesterby-semester plan using a guided roadmap to achieve academic goals and finish on time,” Miller adds. “And while we continue to collaborate with colleagues in Academic Affairs and Student Affairs to build all of our degree programs in the tool, we’ve reached a threshold of 8,500 students who have tried using Smart Planner, which is around 40 percent of those who are currently eligible.”

Miller communicated the University goal to complete implementation of Smart Planner, i.e. make all degree programs available by the end of spring 2017. Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, and IRT each play an ongoing

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role in making Smart Planner and KEYS to Degree ubiquitous at Sac State. A Smart Planner dashboard developed in Tableau allows anyone to see detailed metrics about Smart Planner usage and adoption rates by college and degree program.

It is this integration of different elements from various vendors which is setting Sac State apart from other state universities. “There are other universities who are implementing these kinds of tools, but what makes us different is that we are packaging this into a single toolbox and using very deliberate marketing, communications and training strategies to help build this into our culture,” Miller continues. “There is something for everyone here; the goal of the ecosystem is to support and facilitate the activities of students, faculty, staff, and administrators.”

This is an important observation, for it is not only students who are leveraging the power of the Graduation Ecosystem tools. Advising staff can access many of the features and use available data to better guide their students. As Smart Planner

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facilitates the planning and logistics of registration – formerly a more manual process – it frees advisors to focus on more personalized conversations about students’ learning goals and overall campus experience.

Data driven “A side benefit of Smart Planner and other Graduation Ecosystem tools is that it provides us with extremely valuable data,” Miller reveals, pointing to multiple analysis software programs from vendors that work alongside IRT’s own Tableau dashboard.

The first is Ad Astra’s Platinum Analytics, which will ingest data generated by students using Smart Planner to help Sac State make predictions about course demand.

Another program leveraged is Illume

by Civitas Learning, a predictive analytics suite that identifies students who may benefit from interventions in order to stay on track. “We can use data to contact students in targeted ways, based on what we know about their progress, which is a more proactive model of student support,” Miller adds.

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Stingers up!

Hornet pride – and graduation rates – are on the rise

“For the past few years, we have been very focused on student success-related projects, pushing towards the goal of reducing time to degree” – Christine Miller, Interim Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer

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As Interim CIO, Miller is a champion for data to constructively inform decision making in a strategic way at all levels of the University. As with many businesses across myriad industries, data is becoming one of the most vital assets an organization possesses. How data-driven decision making is valued and used could well prove the difference between success and failure.

Provision Alongside the virtual Graduation Ecosystem, a great number of

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physical assets are also helping students to maximize achievement.

“IRT is based in a building called the Academic Information Resources Center (AIRC), which is one of the only 24/7 buildings on campus, with hundreds of seats and spaces for individual and group study – what we call informal learning spaces,” describes Miller.

“We also offer several large computer labs across campus, and a service desk which we are currently transforming into an integrated service center, similar to the Apple Genius

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Bar model. Our goal is to deliver a one-stop experience to meet faculty, staff and student technology needs, including collaborative technologies so they can practice presentations, test and explore new and emerging technologies, and receive expert troubleshooting help as well.”

With many undergraduates commuting into Sac State, IRT’s laptop checkout has proven immensely popular. The past year has seen some 70,000 checkouts of the 200 devices held, with Miller confirming IRT’s intention to grow the inventory based on demand.

Students may use the laptop checkout program to view lecture material, which can also be accessed remotely through the Mediasite lecture capture system – which IRT describes as ‘expanding the classroom.’

Ever evolving features on mobile are also further enhancing flexibility. “We are always trying to make additions and improvements to our Sac State Mobile app,” continues Miller. “Among the many features of the app, probably most important is the ability for students to register for classes, and view real-time parking status before even arriving on campus. We are also

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Real-time parking and registering for classes are a few of the ways the Sac State Mobile app puts services into the palm of students’ hands.

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looking to add other functionality to the app, such as ride sharing to help ease traffic congestion.”

All of this is powered by a robust WiFi system, covering nearly 100 percent of the Sac State campus.

learning management system.”

Sac State is currently testing two options for its next-generation learning management system (LMS); this after more than three months rigorously researching and engaging with faculty, students, staff and vendors.

Access This broad feedback Much of Miller’s will inform whether focus has been on D2L’s Brightspace or provisioning IT for Instructure’s Canvas as many students as will be recommended possible, removing to President Nelsen barriers to access, in late spring. The and fostering a culture new LMS will mark an of inclusive learning. important step forward A key component of in meeting current and this is e-learning. emerging teaching “E-learning is vital and learning needs, here because we are – Christine Miller, and should provide committed to reducing Interim Vice President for new opportunities barriers to learning Information Technology and to enhance online and graduation, Chief Information Officer course delivery. especially since we Information about serve a student population who often courses offered by Sac State is now have work and family commitments,” communicated via a brand new online Miller explains. “We want to offer course catalog, developed using blended, flexible options, and at Leepfrog CourseLeaf. Simple to the moment have around 5,000 navigate and sleeker in appearance hybrid courses available in our compared with the 2016/2017

“We want technology to be at our students’ fingertips, helping to make their experience seamless”

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Computer labs, project rooms and open study spaces provide a variety of collaboration spaces and learning resources

academic year, the 2017/2018 catalog is a one-stop course shop for current and prospective students.

“I think this is a fabulous tech-win for the campus,” Millers says. “It is truly a next-generation catalog, and will improve the quality of our data as well as deliver an improved user experience.”

Improved communications and access to information could well be a deciding factor for prospective students when choosing whether

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to make Sac State their future. With a strong IT foundation supporting it, the University appears well positioned to offer the resources necessary to push hard towards its Finish in Four graduation goal.

For Miller, the future of IRT must be an agile one in order to keep up with changing times. She concludes: “We found that we can’t spend two years working on a project and find out that goals have changed by the time we deliver the solution

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The Academic Informational Resource Center (AIRC) is one of Sac State’s few truly 24/7 buildings, with open study space and computer labs for students, faculty and staff

– technology moves quickly, and we need to be more nimble as an organization to best meet campus needs.”

“These are certainly interesting times, and we are eager to see how technologies such as the Internet of Things will continue to shape our strategy. We want technology to be at our students’ fingertips, helping to make their experience seamless.

It is an ongoing challenge, but also a tremendous and exciting opportunity.”

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WILL NOT pass

The leading professional services network PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) works with governments, universities and large global organizations; its diverse client base is united in placing one issue at the forefront of policy – that of network security

Written by John O’Hanlon Produced by Vince Keilty

PWC

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here’s rarely a time when cyber security isn’t in the news these days. At the time of writing Twitter, Facebook, PayPal and other platforms had just fallen victim to a cyber attack, and it’s even thought attempts have been made to manipulate the US election result from overseas. As society in general and business in particular becomes more dependent on the software that runs its infrastructure and information management systems, the level of security we can achieve becomes not just a business critical issue but an existential one.

As security adviser Roger A Grimes said in a recent InfoWorld article: “I’ve seen American companies work on a secret new product, only to have a Chinese company release a very similar, if not identical product first. Sometimes even the wording in the documentation is identical.

I’ve seen entire American company divisions shut down as a result.”

How hackers work Every CEO is aware of the need to protect their business: few realise

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that though most hacks are based on simple password phishing the hackers are some of the smartest people on the globe and it takes equally smart people who understand their mindset, to counter them. Don O’Neil is a Director in PwC’s Technology Solutions - CIO Advisory Solution group based in Las Vegas. He is more of a strategist than a hacker himself, but his division employs some of the best white hat hackers on the planet, whose job is to carry out penetration tests on businesses from start ups to major players and government departments too. It works with the consulting arm of the global PwC organization’s verticals, Consumer and Industrial Products; Technology, Communications and Entertainment; Healthcare and Financial Services and a final unit devoted to delivering major government projects, to provide its customers with infrastructure security.

However the division goes beyond just assessing security systems and giving advice: it will do precisely as much work or as little as the customer requires, right though to full implementation. The system

he will recommend will be tailor made for the client. “We go into an organization, analyze their business, the way they function, their technology requirements and all of the things that go into how that business operates.

Then we map out the right technology solution, architecture and design to meet that requirement. Then we can do the implementation work for the client – if that’s what they want.”

The solutions provided by PwC take an identity driven zero trust approach, overlaying on the existing

Don O’Neil Director – CIO Advisory

Don is a Director in PwC’s Technology Solutions - CIO Advisory Solution group based in Las Vegas, NV. CIO Advisory Solution capabilities span IT Strategy, Shared Services & Outsourcing Advisory, Business Systems Integration/Enterprise Architecture, Technology Infrastructure Solutions, and Business Continuity. Don is a member of the Technology Infrastructure Solutions Practice. Don is a former CTO and 26+ year veteran of the IT industry. Don focuses on HA infrastructure builds, data centers, and networks for several start-ups and major customers such as HP, Cisco, and Pacific Bell. Don brings operational, management and in depth infrastructure knowledge. Just prior to joining PwC in 2011, he was a Sr. Network Engineer with Science Applications International Corp (SAIC). Don’s responsibilities included architecture and design of customer networks, data centers, cloud infrastructure, business systems integration, information management and technology Advisory/ Strategy, as well as technology & infrastructure solutions. Industries targeted include education, government, gaming, finance, banking and enterprise solutions.

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ADV

VERT

PWC

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systems and the network, so there’s no disruption at the time of implementation, though specific inherent vulnerabilities may have to be addressed. “Many organizations don’t think about securing their networks from insider threats, or securing them from lateral movement once an outsider gets access through an edge connection. That’s a key point – stopping that lateral movement so if you are breached from the outside they can’t continue to exploit that breach, and leave hidden payloads behind. It’s equally important to stop the internal threats from employees, contractors and

their workers from accessing systems they are not supposed to access.”

Technology that never sleeps At the heart of PwC’s solutions are two technologies: 802.1X authentication to determine who and what can access the network, and next generation firewalls and micro-segmentation capable virtual switches to segment the network, preventing lateral movement and unauthorized application traffic.

802.1X is a highly effective network access control protocol if it is properly aligned with the business’s operations: as a consulting firm that has grown on consulting work based on its understanding of every aspect of its clients’ business, from finance to HR and data management for

“It’s equally important

to stop the internal threats from employees, contractors

from accessing

and their workers systems they are not supposed to access” – Don O’Neil, Director – CIO Advisory

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example, it can add value a way no single technology provider could. “We understand how businesses function as well as understand the technology,” he says. “The technology we use to counter global threats is complicated.

People don’t want to deploy it on their own. Networking organizations don’t know how the business units work.

The problem has to be approached from both angles. Our deep business knowledge is what differentiates us, along with our partnership with industry leading technology providers like Palo Alto Networks, with whom we developed the Security Framework

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for Business Leaders last year to help our clients establish breach prevention security postures.”

In principle, keeping networks safe is quite simple. First, prevention of unauthorized access to the network thwarts any hacking attempt right on the border. If they can’t get in they can’t find anything out. Second, in the event of entry they can be contained from making any progress – this is done through segmentation and monitoring of all application and user activity. “Once hackers breach outer layers of protection and get inside the organization they

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try to move laterally,” explains Don O’Neil. “But because we leverage a zero trust architecture with strong authentication, network segmentation, and application visibility, we can stop the attack at multiple levels. Even if a user’s laptop becomes compromised and controlled by an attacker, the hacker’s malware will not be able to move laterally on the network because the next generation firewalls will enforce segmentation and block any malicious traffic.” Four or five levels of security stop an intruder at the door.

An additional safeguard is provided by segmentation: whether the network is

accessed through a VPN, a corporate wired network (LAN) or a WLAN, or even a compromised IoT device, PwC’s solution controls how and what each user can access, the time of day they can access it, the device they use and their location at the time.

Vision restored So every device that connects to the network, workstations, cameras, servers, even an Internet of Things (IoT) device, has to recognized through a valid certificate, fingerprint or profile. This does not interfere with the companies that want to leverage

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“Once hackers breach outer layers of protection and get inside the organization they try to move laterally” – Don O’Neil, Director – CIO Advisory

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BYOD, however the corporation might only want to allow those devices access to low risk areas like e-mail, a time clock system or an intranet. The organization’s critical infrastructure is blocked at the point of entry to the network from the individual or device being even able to detect its presence.

Take the education sector. Institutions hold huge volumes of research data and may have privileged access to some government networks. Yet millions of students and researchers rely on easy access to publications and material relevant to their area of study. This is where NAC and segmentation really cuts down the risk. An individual may be granted full access to a research lab when on their home campus, but that access can be restricted or denied depending on the device they have, when they are traveling or if they are visiting a high-risk country.

Too many organizations don’t know how their individual business units work, O’Neil concludes, nor how their technology is deployed, what their networks look like from end to end or which devices have access

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to it. But after a PwC consultation process, custom designed system and architecture and can be implemented, the risk of internal or external breach is reduced to virtually zero. “Knowledge transfer is a big piece of this,” he insists. “At the end of the process we don’t want to leave them with an inherent dependency on us - unless they want that dependency.” Some organizations may be able to maintain and manage the system on their own keeping

track of changes in the environment: others may choose to continue with a service provider who can do that, or continue to work with PwC.

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THE HEALTHCARE

Revolutionaries We go behind the scenes to see how Microsoft is transforming the medical industry Written by Catherine Rowell Produced by David Kulowitch

Health

M I C R O S O F T H E A LT H

M

icrosoft is best known for its key role in the computing revolution. Less well known is the role Microsoft plays today in the health industry, but a similar revolution is underway and once again the company is at the center.

Responsible for helping customers and partners navigate that change is Dr. Simon Kos, chief medical officer.

What is a doctor doing working for a technology company? “No, I don’t provide medical services to employees!” Kos quips.

Whilst practicing critical care medicine in Australia, he saw firsthand just how fragmented information in healthcare was, and recognised the risk that posed to patient care.

An interest in technology became a career as Kos explored first Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems, then later a much broader

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portfolio as he ran the health division for Microsoft Australia. His current role might be different in scope and scale, but the industry challenges remain. “Digital transformation is underway all around us, and will dramatically change how we deliver and receive health services.”

A time of change Health today is at an inflection point. On the one hand, standard operating procedures and a risk averse culture foster predictable, high quality care. On the other however, healthcare costs are unsustainable and new models of care are required, largely to address the increased burden of chronic disease in our modern society. This paradox – an industry resistant to change that fundamentally needs to reinvent itself – is playing out across the

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MEDICAL IMAGING

ENABLING MEDICAL ADVANCES IN THE

CLOUD Today’s technological breakthroughs are changing how we live. We see it every day and know what’s coming – driverless cars, reusable rockets, 3D printing. Advances are changing medicine as well. For example, recent breakthroughs in medical imaging can isolate tiny anomalies long before they become life threatening.

Although imaging technology has advanced, a physician’s ability to access and collaborate on the images has not, and the situation is exacerbated as imaging files grow in size and complexity.

The problem is that today’s enterprise image management technology is already a decade or two old – introduced long before the cloud – and is not designed for speed, mobility or the latest imaging files.

This undermines our clinicians’ abilities to fully leverage the advances in imaging.

Cloud technology can harness the breakthroughs in medical imaging

and it delivers what physicians need most: speed, access and collaboration. It can engage patients and get them more involved in their care. And it provides a secure and cost-effective way to relieve the strain on enterprise systems.

As I see it, back-end cloud technologies can now keep up with the front-end excitement. And unlike enterprise technologies, where decisions to buy are capital intensive and all-or-nothing bets, a health system can choose to deploy the cloud for image management when and where they need it most. In essence, one can simply “tiptoe into the cloud” to enable advances in medical imaging.

- Chris Hafey

Chris Hafey is Chief Technology Officer at NucleusHealth – TM

a leading technology firm developing and deploying powerful, proprietary solutions to manage medical images in the cloud for fast and secure access using any web enabled device and modern browser.

To learn more about NucleusHealth or our nucleus.io™ technology, visit us at www.nucleushealth.io or www.nucleus.io. You can reach Chris at info@nucleushealth.io.

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globe. “The Microsoft health vertical is substantial, with over 168,000 health customers and an estimated 30,000 partners, we have a broad base for telemetry.” Kos explains.

Central to the Microsoft business model is the concept of partnership.

“We essentially have two core functions. Engineer high quality, interoperable software platforms, and support partners who use those platforms to create solutions.” Kos rationalizes. He goes on to note that it is common for health organizations to have thousands of applications in their technology portfolio, and an ecosystem approach is required to manage information effectively.

This aggregate view allows Microsoft to spot emerging technology trends, view cutting-edge innovation, and disseminate best-practice.

He goes on to say “Healthcare IT has historically been focused on automation through systems of record, like the EMR. That’s an important step, but just the start of the journey.

Unlocking value through systems of insight, collaboration and innovation is where transformation occurs.”

Digital transformation So, if the EMR isn’t the end-state, what does digital transformation look like in health? Microsoft uses a model based on the Quadruple aim1.

1) Engage patients 2) Empower care teams 3) Optimize clinical and

operational effectiveness 4) Transform the continuum In fact, this model might just as readily be applied to other industries like retail or banking, because the drivers of digital transformation are affecting every industry. “Think about how booking travel, shopping online, catching a ride, or even just watching a movie, has changed in the last decade. As consumers, we expect more today. Now think about the patient experience. We’ve got a long way to go.” Kos observes.

Most health organizations have a portfolio of initiatives underway that map to these four pillars, whether they’ve consciously thought about it in this framework or not.

Bodenheimer, T. & Sinsky, C. “From Triple to Quadruple Aim: Care of the patient requires care of the provider” Ann Fam Med Nov/Dec 2014, vol. 12 no. 6 673-576 1

We have you covered Lumen21, in partnership with Microsoft, is supporting healthcare’s digital transformation by enabling an environment that allows for better data sharing, collaboration, and communication among healthcare providers in a HIPAA-compliant cloud environment. Lumen21’s security expertise and in-depth knowledge of the requirements for regulatory compliance provide a breadth of support for healthcare companies working to meet the needs of patients and the rest of the healthcare marketplace.

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HITRUST-VETTED COMPLIANT CLOUD ENVIRONMENT FOR HEALTHCARE APPLICATION WORKLOADS Lumen21’s Compliant Cloud Computing Platform leverages Azure’s platform HITRUST certification, adds to it a client-facing HITRUST certified environment for client workloads.

A complete HITRUST environment that Simplifies Compliance.

Validated for HIPAA Compliance Load and go Managed for continued compliance

COMMUNICATE AND COLLABORATE SECURELY USING OFFICE365 Office 365+ RAP proactively assesses your environment to identify the security and compliance areas mandated by regulations that should be addressed.

Results mapped against the HIPAA regulations for compliance GAP Analysis of your current Office356 configuration Gaps ranked as High, Medium and Low Remediation recommendations Results for input into the company’s annual risk assessment

BEING COMPLIANT DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN YOUR ENVIRONMENT IS SECURE Risk-based approach to define and implement compliance solutions that support a robust security and governance program for your organization.

Cloud Compliance and Security Cloud readiness assessment Defining security roles, responsibilities, processes, and service levels for a cloud environment Developing metrics for measurement and continuous monitoring Information Security Program Development Assessing current security practices Developing a strategic security plan Building risk management, incident management, vendor management, and privacy programs Policy development and standards mapping

We have you covered on the full spectrum of Compliance, Security, and Cloud; whether it is your own workloads or a PaaS or SaaS environment, if it involves compliance and IT, who else but Lumen21?

M I C R O S O F T H E A LT H

Patient engagement We’ve all experienced the healthcare system at some point. It can be frustrating, scary, and confusing.

“It’s one of the only industries I know where information needs to be kept totally private yet shared with everyone.” Kos observes. What does patient engagement look like? At the simplest level, it’s technology that promotes the patient to an active, empowered position in the care relationship. That could be as simple as a patient view into the clinical care record, online meal ordering, or a kiosk check-in process. Many organizations have already replaced bedside entertainment systems with patient infotainment systems, allowing patients to access contextual, accurate and personalized health information, and even interact with the care team.

Where could it lead? “I see precision

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medicine, medical wearables, and the connected patient home as aspirational goals. The technology is not the limiting factor.” says Kos. Patient engagement strategies are about more than simply adding a pleasant veneer to a healthcare encounter. “That wouldn’t be transformation.” explains Kos. He illustrates using an example from Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. They changed how they monitor certain cardiac conditions at home, replacing the traditional three-ring binder with an online record shared in real-time with the care team. The addition of video footage from the webcam has made a dramatic improvement, and they have decreased the mortality of hypoplastic left heart syndrome from 20% to almost zero.

Their story is publicly available on Youtube and well worth a watch: This model is currently being rolled out to other hospitals nationally, and will redefine the prognosis for this condition. As a model of care however, it could just as readily be applied to any other condition

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that would benefit from remote monitoring – acute or chronic. Similarly, tools that empower the patient or carers with information about their condition, allow them to document and monitor progress, and interact with their care team, can improve the experience and outcomes of care.

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Empowering care teams “We have to move beyond the EMR. It’s a poor proxy for communication.”

Kos begins. He continues to note that whilst many US health systems have spent hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on their EMR systems, the spend has not boosted productivity or improved clinical workflow. A digital health record is important, but when coupled with a last-century pager system for communication, a disorganized intranet for policies and procedures, or a manual clinical education process, the potential value goes unrecognized. “The growth of shadow IT in health is phenomenal.

I see clinicians using personal email addresses, swapping patient files over personal cloud storage, texting patient images and EMR screenshots

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on their personal phones, even using personal messaging services for patient handover or online groups for clinical research.”. Kos observes that clinicians aren’t trying to be rogue with medical information, but they are frustrated with the tools that they are expected to use in the workplace.

There are better ways to help clinicians communicate, collaborate, team and learn. For each insecure, consumer cloud service, there is an enterprise grade, HIPAA compliant

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alternative. Kos points to the Office 365 suite as an example that does email, calendaring, messaging, telephony, webcasting, groups, intranet, business intelligence, social networking and more. “The irony is that many health organizations own this technology, yet haven’t rolled out these capabilities to their clinicians.”. Is better communication and collaboration the end-goal?

Again, Kos describes it as building blocks for transformation. “Using

these digital capabilities to deliver care in new ways is the objective.

Telemedicine for example, or centers of excellence on enterprise social networking.”. One of the most radical initiatives involves augmented reality.

Case Western Reserve University is using the new technology to reinvent the whole way they teach medical students anatomy, going as far as to remove cadavers from their curriculum in favour of holograms.

Their story can be seen here.

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TACKLING POPULATION HEALTH ONE PERSON AT A TIME

The transformation to value-based care is driving significant changes and healthcare providers are now recognizing a fundamental need for actionable, customer-intimate, patient-centered solutions. That’s where Health360 comes in.

Built for the Microsoft Cloud, Health360 enables providers to personalize care experiences, ensure quality, lower costs, and increase satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Consumer Engagement Care Coordination Consumer Experience Care Network Management Scan the QR Code with your mobile device to view a quick video and learn how you can achieve more personalized care with Tribridge Health360.

Phone: 888-423-0985

www.tribridgehealth360.com

Email: info@tribridge.com

Optimize outcomes and operations “Health is data rich and information poor.” Kos goes on to say that the data collected in clinical systems is generally for operational, communication, or medico-legal purposes. Most systems do not store information in a way that makes analytics easy, and an enterprise wide view across systems doesn’t emerge organically. “For an industry that prides itself on being evidence based, health does a poor job of using the most recent and relevant evidence – their own!” Kos exclaims.

He sees analytics as a continuum spanning retrospective reporting, real-time dashboarding, predictive analytics, and even prescriptive decision-making using cognitive services and machine learning. Even relatively basic initiatives like patient journey-boards and KPI dashboards can have a huge impact on baselining performance, identifying bottlenecks and streamlining operations.

Kos sees the effective use of data and analytics as the only practical way of achieving population health.

Whether it is managing a chronic

disease to prevent unnecessary readmissions, or supporting patients as they manage through a care plan, timely and accurate information is key. Assistance in Recovery (AiRCare) is doing exactly this, leveraging Tribridge’s Health 360 solution. This allows them to identify patients for proactive care, and engage them with clinical and behavioural care protocols to create a unique personal care plan. They have risk-based scoring for factors like suicidality, pregnancy, and relapse, that take into account age and history. This approach has been published as the AiRCare Model of Behavioural Health Crisis Management, and is considered an international best practice. The results are indeed impressive, including a lift in the 12 month continuous abstinence rate from the national average of 35%, to 72% for AiRCare patients.

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Leaders in Transforming Healthcare with Innovative Solutions Empower Your Patients. Engage Your Care Teams.

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Innovation for mHealth

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VitalHub provides real-time patient information at the “point of need”, not just the point of care. Our innovative mHealth platform leverages Microsoft technology to deliver the security and privacy essential for mobile and touchscreen devices.

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Going forward, Kos sees a real role for cognitive services in health. “We have an asymmetry of information, and the scarce time of the clinician is the bottleneck in redressing the balance.”.

Microsoft makes cognitive services available as APIs to developers to create bot agents. He calls this conversational computing, and sees it applied to everything from the logistics of figuring out what health services are covered by your plan, to

assisted medical triage for non-urgent care. “The things cognitive services can do today is quite remarkable.

They can ‘hear’ by interpreting your spoken voice, they can ‘see’ by analysing pictures, and they can even predict how you are feeling. The more information we feed a machine model, the smarter it becomes.” For a fascinating view on how this has come together to revolutionize the life of one blind man, see the story here.

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M I C R O S O F T H E A LT H

Transform the continuum Some of the most exciting models of care leverage cloud computing.

This is currently the primary focus for Microsoft. Once viewed with skepticism by the health industry due to perceived security or control limitations, the cloud is now undeniably being embraced by health organizations around the world. Indeed, Gartner predicts that within this decade organizations will be going to the cloud precisely because it is more secure than the on premises counterpart. Part of this momentum is driven by cost efficiencies and outsourcing, but there is another motivator that is becoming increasingly apparent – some capabilities are only possible in the cloud. “The cloud is essentially a global

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supercomputer, that you can access on demand and pay only for what you use. You get all the benefits, yet the cost is spread across all the users. Kind of like timeshare.�

Kos reflects. The virtually unlimited storage pool makes medical imaging storage cost effective, or any other big data scenario for that matter.

The incredible processing power makes genomic sequencing feasible.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are most practical in the cloud. Aggregations of software as a service providers, like an enterprise app store, allow organizations to discover, trial and deploy new applications with a minimum of risk and hassle. Kos sees the potential of the cloud to defragment all the data silos that frustrate holistic health information management.

The cloud can also be a place for partnerships. Application developer Gojo teamed up with hand hygiene specialist Purell to create an innovative approach to combat hospital acquired infections. By combining information from activity monitors about staff traffic into a patient room, together

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with usage feedback from the hand sanitizer dispenser, it is now possible to track with accuracy handwashing compliance. See the story here.

Making cloud computing trustworthy is a key priority. Part of that involves making sure it is secure, and Microsoft invests over a billion dollars annually to that end. Just as important though is making sure that the cloud can be used compliantly, so Microsoft has invested in industry certifications like HIPAA through a Business Associates Agreement, HITECH, and FedRAMP. Keeping information

private, being transparent about datacentre operations, and allowing users the controls to manage their own data round out the trust story.

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M I C R O S O F T H E A LT H

1. Empower your care teams Balance the ICT portfolio

3. Optimize your clinical & operational effectiveness Unlock & utilize the data asset

2. Engage your patients & partners Extend beyond org boundaries

4. Transform the care continuum

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Modern platform agility to embrace & sustain innovation

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The importance of partnership Operating within the nucleus of Microsoft is a global partner network with entry criteria set deliberately low, so any development organisation using Microsoft technology can join through an online signup process. This is intended to bootstrap entrepreneurs, providing immediate benefits like access to technical support, training, and programs like Bizspark that subsidize development licensing costs and provide a certain amount of free cloud hosting each month.

The network is tiered, allowing partners to differentiate their product or capabilities through certification, and at the higher levels to tap into co-marketing and co-selling directly with Microsoft.

“For health organizations, this means an ecosystem of partners on a common technology platform providing capability, choice and competition.” Kos summarizes.

For more information about the Microsoft Partner Network see here.

Conclusion Kos sees change accelerating for the health industry. The sector is not immune from digital disruption that has changed so many other sectors and redefined our perspectives.

Moving beyond digitization into transformation is the new challenge, and health organizations across the globe are rallying with innovation.

“This is ultimately why I continue with healthcare IT over clinical medicine.

For me, the choice is between changing the world one patient at a time, or having impact on a global scale. I see Microsoft playing a key role in the digital transformation of healthcare.” Kos concludes.

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The Good Samaritan Society

and the needs of the many Written by Dale Benton Produced by Tom Venturo

T H E G O O D S A M A R I TA N S O C I E T Y

Through the construction of a multi-million-dollar care village, complete with tower residency and mall complex, the Good Samaritan Society will continue to lead the way in the hospitality sector

“I

t’s a mission driven organisation to extend Christian hospitality to those in need across the continuum of care, independent of your religious following or race,” says Shawn Terlson, President and CEO of The Good Samaritan Society (GSS).

As a leading not-for-profit registered charity in Western Canada, the GSS has been striving to provide quality accommodations, health and community care services and programs to aging individuals for over 67 years.

Terlson has over 20 years in healthcare behind him and sits in the perfect position to drive forward the strategic development of the charity, starting with a major structural construction program that will allow the charity to better serve its residents.

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A time to care In a time where the country is facing the largest population of 75 and 85+ in history, replacing and refurbishing care homes with state of the art accommodation is needed now more than ever.

“I’m working with my strategic leadership team and trying to point the ship in the right direction with regard to what’s happening environmentally with that aging population,” Terlson says.

“Some of our facilities are over 50 years old and in need of replacement, so how do we go about achieving this, updating those facilities and at the same time pay close attention to the changing demographic?”

That is the challenge before Terlson and the GSS. Over the last six months, Terlson and his team have identified key areas in need of redevelopment.

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T H E G O O D S A M A R I TA N S O C I E T Y

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“At GSS we have to do the business of seniors’ care in a much smarter way going forward” – Shawn Terlson, President and CEO of The Good Samaritan Society One such development, a 236bed facility, was built over 50 years ago. The building was structured and modelled as an institutional complex that is not like the homely environments by today’s standards of more modern care homes. Coupled with the fact that this facility had two seniors to a room in many cases, Terslon recognised that this was not best practice by modern standards.

Make no mistake, this major overhauling is no afterthought or lack of foresight. Terslon spends six weeks of his year visiting the various care homes, meeting employees and residents and familiarising himself with the day to day operations.

“This posed the question, do we throw good money at the bad or should we work with our partners, Alberta Health Services,

and recognise that we need to replace these facilities for the benefit of our seniors?” he says.

Complex construction Terlson and the GSS have secured 12 acres where the Good Samaritan Village will be built - a 432 bed-home like no other.

The village will comprise of 12 units or homes, with four homes per floor that create a neighbourhood and a tower complex made up of four floors. This structure is residential in appearance, and each floor and separate unit will be a “home-like environment, not simply an architectural monument.

“The unique thing about what we are trying to do is the building of an environment where seniors and residents will have everything they

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We are happy to be in partnership with the Good Samaritan Society and Armstrong Flooring to provide quality living spaces. When the Good Samaritan Society decided they needed to make changes in many of their central Alberta accommodations, they contacted us to inquire about an appropriate solution. We made product recommendations that would help to streamline the finishes throughout their many facilities.

With the prospect of removing the various existing finishes of laminate, carpet, and aged vinyl, the replacements chosen would need to be carefully considered. The decision to use Armstrong’s Rejuvenations made the best sense for a variety of reasons. As Armstrong boasts, “Rejuvenations is the perfect choice for areas where infection control is a concern. This wh easy-to-clean vinyl sheet improves impermeability and contributes to a sanitary, more aseptic environment. Rejuvenations has a low-maintenance, UV cured polyurethane coating that eliminates the need to polish or spray buff. It saves time and money, and reduces life-cycle costs.”

With the vast array of health and mobility needs throughout the Good Samaritan Society’s many facilities, durability and versatility weren’t the only factors that needed careful deliberation.

Lifestyle and guidance were also important.

Design details and shapes with proven color combinations were used to help patrons with conditions such as dementia feel safe and co contribute to wayfinding throughout the spaces.

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atmosphere in Pembina Village, Clearwater Centre, Dr. Gerald Zetter Care Centre, Wedman House, Southgate Care Centre, Good Samaritan Place, Good Shepherd Home, and the Corporate Offices.

Armstrong’s commitment to health and the environment made their products a perfect fit. With low VOC emissions, compliance with LEED credit EQ4.3 for indoor air quality, and compatibility with Green Guide for Healthcare GGHC-IEQ4.3, the product has been a great benefit for the clients of The Th Good Samaritan Society facilities. To keep the facilities functional and maintain a healthy living environment during the renovations, our installation crews received special training, and appropriate equipment was used to ensure dust containment, air quality, and infection control standards were met.

We are proud to continue to be a part of improving the quality of life for so many through this relationship and look forward to future projects together with Armstrong and The Good Samaritan Society of Alberta.

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need in one structure,” he adds.

With the whole of the bottom floor dedicated to a mall comprising of restaurants, shops, a day spa, retail pharmacy, a daycare for staff and a senior’s clinic, the finished structure will be quite the achievement.

is the better servicing of the residents.

“There are a lot of moving pieces.

We want to use our equity from the sale of our existing lands back into the property to make it more cost effective for Alberta Health Services so we can provide better care for their seniors,” says Terlson.

Smart investment As a not-for-profit Building blocks charity, the question With a potential on everyone’s lips will construction date be centred around of spring 2018 and investment, how aiming at a fall 2021 much is this going completion ready to cost and where for occupancy in that investment September that same will come from.

– Shawn Terlson, President and CEO year, there have been The answer rests in of The Good Samaritan Society and will continue the close partnership to be a number of with Alberta Health services in significant challenges that Terslon and which GSS will transfer operating the GSS must overcome to get there. agreements that will generate income The major challenge for Terlson to to the new seniors environment. date was the location and acquisition This will require the sale of existing of that 12-acre parcel of land land to offset what GSS’ capital integrated into a neighbourhood and contribution would be. Terlson admits not on the outskirts. This was key in the cost of construction alone is the process of establishing the homeupwards of around $90 million. like environment of the complex.

But one thing is clear, the end goal Despite the project being in its

“...do we throw good money at the bad or should we work with our partners?”

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infancy, Terlson can call upon key successes along the way that will enable GSS to approach the future construction with the focus and enthusiasm needed for a project as unique as this one.

The planning and design of the facility is an achievement in itself.

“Big facilities can be institutional, but this is so far removed from that,” he says.

In breaking the facility up into 12 bed homes, this allows for it to be staffed to tailor for a 12-bed resident population which in turn presents more time for those dedicated staff to provide better care and service to the senior residents in their homes.

“We’ve really looked at it from a staffing perspective and a resident usability perspective, and how we can make this a fantastic environment for many years to come,” Terlson adds.

create, construct and run a facility like the Good Samaritan Village.

GSS works with PharmaCare to centralise the pharmaceutical needs directly into the complex, while also working with Chandos as a construction partner that Terlson feels is key in enabling the charity to fully realise this incredible vision.

“It’s about looking at vertical integration and how we can decrease our costs and increase our ability to invest in other services, in care.

We can only achieve this through our strategic partners,” he says.

A crucial element in care residency is the ability to monitor not only the health of the residents but the location.

Through a close partnership with building systems solutions provider Honeywell, GSS is investing in numerous smart building technologies.

Powered by partners Terlson can feel assured in the strategic partnerships that GSS has established in order to

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T H E G O O D S A M A R I TA N S O C I E T Y

This includes integrating technology solutions that can auto update patient charts though smart sensors in places throughout the building that can take the readings of resident based on their RIF tag information and auto fill that information into an electronic chart.

Again, these investments have one aim. “It’s all about allowing the healthcare professional more time to spend being by the side of the individual, taking away laborious

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paper tasks and creating more efficient care,� explains Terlson.

The needs of the many Despite the undertaking of such a huge construction project, there is a challenge in finding the right balance between satisfying the needs of the construction with the needs of the senior residents.

For Terlson and the GSS team it seems that balance

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has been the centre of every decision moving forward.

“We’ve really looked at every aspect of our organisation and building with a magnifying glass to ensure we come in on time and on budget and create a building that’s efficient and effective, and will continue to be that

way for the next 20 years,” he says.

“At GSS we have to do the business of seniors’ care in a much smarter way going forward so we can maximise the use of our people resources to benefit our seniors.”

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POWERING AUSTRALIA’S NEW

MEGAWATT

INDUSTRY Written by Leila Hawkins Produced by Jeff Debicki

NEXTDC data centres are not anonymous industrial sheds – as shown here at P1 Perth, they need to appeal to clients as well as staff and partners

We speak to NEXTDC Chief Operating Officer Simon Cooper about the country’s rapidly expanding data centre sector, charting the vital role the company has played and will play into the future.

A

round the world Australia may be best known for its unique landscape, stable economy and cultural mix, but there’s also an exciting IT industry growing here full of ready and willing early adopters.

Australia’s ICT industry has developed enormously in the last decade, something that data centre provider NEXTDC has been a big part of.

Establishing a presence

NEXTDC’s sites straddle the range of Australian climates, from humid sub-tropics to semi-arid to the chilly south, with facilities in five major cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra. It has already built out around 35MW

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of 42MW of potential capacity across these locations, with each site and market chosen for specific reasons, and has a further 60MWplus in the pipeline as it focuses on second-generation sites.

Brisbane, where NEXTDC’s first data centre was built, is the go-to city for national businesses to position their Asia-facing headquarters. The capital city of Canberra poses real prospects for company growth, as the federal government has increased their IT spend by $3 billion in the past two years to $10 billion, and is increasingly focussed on connecting to public and private clouds. In Melbourne, the market is growing substantially faster than anywhere else in Australia, and all

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the way over on the west coast, new submarine cables landing in Perth in the next few years could turn the city into a regional data hub, not to mention being the central focus for all development in the Western Australian economy.

As the company developed this national coverage it was naturally important for NEXTDC to have a strong capability in Sydney, where international players already operated data centres alongside the largest home-grown players, such as Telstra and Optus. However, as Simon Cooper, NEXTDC’s Chief Operating Officer explains, “the

strategy was to get to Sydney later once our reputation and capabilities were understood, since it already had a mature market. We initially focussed on the opportunity that the rest of Australia presented.”

Because of this, once NEXTDC arrived in Sydney toward the end of 2013, more than a quarter of the new data centre was contracted prior opening – NEXTDC had already established a strong customer base and brand recognition, which pulled business through and enabled NEXTDC to make rapid inroads into the competitive Sydney space.

When complete toward the middle of 2017, B2 will be Brisbane’s largest independent data centre, offering 3,000m2 of technical space and 6MW of power

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ABB delivers intelligent power to secure the data needs of tomorrow. Data centers need power 24/7 to avoid outage costs of a reported $1 million or more per hour.

ABB’s data center solutions and integrated systems are designed for heavy-duty applications and the world’s ever-increasing data demands. As an expert in power and automation, we have solutions for every type of data center; cloud, colocation, telecommunications and financial services customers.

With today’s data centers consuming 30 times more power per square foot than the average office building, and with the demand for electricity continuing to grow, it is critical that we plan to use our resources more effectively.

We believe that intelligent data needs intelligent power and provide technologies which allow for stronger integration of renewable energy resources.

We adopt a three-pillar strategy to improve efficiency and ensure continuous operation:

1. We don’t just view energy as electricity – it could also be hot and cold water. We use smart intelligent connections to get heat out and product cooling back to the data center. ABB can offer innovative power grid technology and expertise required to integrate multiple power sources as well as grid power into your data center.

2. We all know that increasing energy demands lead managers to over-plan capacity

from the outset. At ABB, we take a different view, by provisioning electrical infrastructure with more industrial thinking. The use of elastic critical infrastructure allows operators to purchase the required amount of capacity from day one, reducing costs and driving energy efficiency. ABB’s entire portfolio is designed for modularity, from components like circuit breakers, UPS systems, all the way through to our engineered solutions like substations.

3. We also provide solutions for more environmentally friendly data centers through

deep component visibility. Data centers can be complicated things; they include a myriad of devices, from servers to fire extinguishers to cooling equipment, all of which need to be connected. By using industrial protocols that transfer more content and data we minimize the amount of cables and reduce complexity in the architecture

Just imagine how everyone is depending more and more on data, computing power and connectivity, with an increasing reliance on optimum data center performance.

At ABB, we can help you meet the data demands of today and tomorrow.

www.abb.com/datacenters

The Australian market

Simon Cooper

Chief Operating Officer Simon Cooper directs the data centre design, construction, operations businesses at NEXTDC. He is a qualified engineer with extensive leadership experience in the international IT and telecoms industry. Simon was previously based in Singapore as Senior Vice President at Tata Communications, responsible for strategic network development in support of the company’s global portfolio.

Cooper joined the company in 2011 when NEXTDC was at the early start-up stage. Prior to joining he was Senior Vice President, Network & Solutions, at Tata Communications, where he got to know NEXTDC’s then future founder Bevan Slattery while working together on an international submarine cable development project. When Slattery needed a COO he called Cooper because of his extensive experience in the telecommunication sector and successful delivery of multiple large infrastructure businesses.

At the time the data centre market hadn’t taken off in Australia, so Cooper seized the chance. “My previous role was a global one, so I could see what was happening in North America and Europe. The cloud was coming, the enterprise

In the FIRST 12 MONTHS that we had OPTUS ON BOARD THEY INCREASED THEIR FOCUS ON CLOUD SOLUTIONS rather than building data centres and instead make use of ours 286

May 2017

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was shifting and I could see where Microsoft, Google and others were going. You don’t get the opportunity very often in your career to jump into something like that and shape it.”

Since then the market has changed rapidly, especially with large-scale, international operators expanding massively in Sydney and turning their attention to Melbourne. “If you match Australia to its direct population it’s punching well above its weight,” Cooper says. “That’s something Australia has always done with technology. I think it’s a combination of distance and some of the cultural linkages back to Europe and the US. Also aspiration, both at the enterprise level and the individual. If you were to talk to Microsoft or Amazon, the use they see here compared to the population is quite dramatic.

NEXTDC has successfully taken part in that and helped it along.”

As a result the company is growing fast – its facility utilisation increased almost a third in the past year, and it’s in the midst of expanding data hall space in its first-generation

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Jeff Van Zetten

Head of Engineering and Design Jeff Van Zetten is responsible for the overall design, commissioning, Uptime Institute Tier Certification process, ongoing performance, and energy tuning of NEXTDC’s data centres.

Prior to joining NEXTDC, Jeff was based in Singapore as the Asia-Pacific technical director for a leading high-performance, buildings technology company.

Jeff has experience in onsite commissioning and troubleshooting data centre and major projects throughout Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.

Shatter DCI Constraints Cloud providers, enterprises, and service providers need data center interconnect (DCI) networking that can scale and adapt as quickly as business and operational demands change.

Comlinx and Juniper Networks can help you grow and accelerate cloud services in an open, programmable environment.

Contact the team at Comlinx to see how they can help your business to SHATTER the DCI constraints.

Call +61 7 3852 9800 or visit Comlinx.com.au

Data centres are an increasingly critical component of organizations’ IT strategies, guaranteeing uptime for key infrastructure, and acting as a hub for cloud access and interconnection. The need to avoid downtime is also driving increased redundancy at all levels. NEXTDC is addressing this challenge by driving network innovation that delivers the speed and agility required to meet these new demands.

“On this journey, we have the support of our local partner Comlinx with technology from the global networking vendor Juniper Networks,” said David Dzienciol, Chief Customer Officer & Executive Vice President of Technology at NEXTDC. “The Juniper Networks technology allows us to more easily scale network capacity and support a multitude of network architectures”.

“We know that NEXTDC can always count on Junipers networking innovations and that coupled with our Comlinx 24 x 7 NOC, ensures that NEXTDC’s high density, high performance Data Centre requirements are supported in the best way possible” said Comlinx Co-Founder and Director, Scott Smith. “The flexibility provided within the Juniper API environment will also ensure that automation continues to drive operational efficiency for NEXTDC’s business and its customers.”

“We are proud to say that our strong partnership with Comlinx has enabled us to

continuously provide highly-valued services, all while delivering on the very best of networking innovations for major data centre operators like NEXTDC and beyond,” said Ralph Candiloro, regional VP ANZ, Juniper Networks.

As customers’ needs for connectivity become increasingly sophisticated the performance and security demands on networking infrastructure has similarly grown. To keep up with these constantly evolving requirements Juniper believes in a strong partner ecosystem to provide comprehensive and consistent levels of service all while simultaneously delivering on tailored offerings specific to their needs.

Comlinx has been a long-standing partner of Juniper Networks, and possesses extensive skills across Juniper’s switching, routing, security and optical technologies. They have achieved and maintained the highest level of Technical and Support Accreditation for the past 10 years.

Junipers innovative technology can help your business to deliver greater customer value. To discover how Comlinx and Juniper Networks can help you and your customers, visit www.comlinx.com.au or www.juniper.net or call Comlinx on +61 7 3852 9800.

www.comlinx.com.au

www.juniper.net

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Elements of the core infrastructure that supports the data halls at S1 include the rooftop mechanical plant, which can utilise direct freeair cooling to greatly reduce the amount of energy used

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Number of Employees at NEXTDC Perth, Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney facilities (e.g. adding an extra 1MW in Sydney) while building three brand new data centres in national partnership with the awardwinning FDC construction and fitout company. S2 will be NEXTDC’s

second data centre in Sydney, and will be operational during 2018. With an ultimate capacity of 30MW and around 8,000m2 of client space, it will be the biggest facility in the company’s nationwide network.

Brisbane will see a new data centre in mid-2017, scaling up to 6MW, and in Melbourne a site of at least 25MW of capacity is also well along in its construction phase.

The sites are carefully positioned so that they’re well served in terms of transport and the essential utilities of water, power and telecommunications.

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fdcbuilding.com.au

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Buildings are designed in such a way that they’re expected to be active for up to 50 years.

Energy and sustainability has been important to NEXTDC from the outset, and as an example of putting money where its mouth is, the company made its first material investment in renewable energy back in 2012, specifically a 6,000m2, 400kWpk rooftop solar array at their M1 Melbourne site. Typically this installation will generate around 500MWhr per annum, which is 100 percent consumed by the resident customers and critical infrastructure.

Connected business environment

NEXTDC data centres offer a range of connectivity services to allow their customers to connect directly to each other and to the myriad of service providers present in any of NEXTDC’s facilities and others.

In NEXTDC’s data centres customers have the option of physical (dedicated port) or virtual (shared port) connections.

Cross Connects are physical cable connections within a data

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John Turner

Head of Construction & Project Management John works closely with NEXTDC’s suppliers to maintain schedules, and the quality of the infrastructure and services contracted by NEXTDC, while directing the on-going development of NEXTDC’s facilities, both operational and in development.

John Turner previously held senior positions in, or contracted to, major corporations including Westpac and CSC, where he was responsible for the delivery of critical operation facilities, data centres and large scale commercial projects throughout Australasia.

ACG Fire & Security is one of Australia’s leading specialists in high-end integrated security, IP CCTV and safety solutions.

ACG stand by the premium service it offers and is renowned nationally as setting the highest standards for security installations.

With four offices throughout Australia and technicians in every state, ACG focus on working closely with their customers to ensure they provide a range of services and integrated solutions that are constantly evolving based on our client’s needs.

SERVICES • System Design & Installation • Automation Design & Installation • Data Centre Security • Bank & High Risk Area Security • Airline & Airport Security • Healthcare & Research Facilities • Hazardous Area Security • Corporate Office Fit Out • Remote Alarm & Video Verification • 365 Days / 24 Hours Service • Customised Services

PRODUCTS • Electronic Security • Access Control • Closed Circuit Video Surveillance • IP Video Systems • Communication Systems • Lighting & BMS Automation • IT Network Implementation • Electronic Lockers • Electronic Rack Locking

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CONSTRUCTION

Teams of highly skilled technicians are always onsite at NEXTDC data centres, and are available to perform a wide range of Remote Hands services

The entire national team supporting

OUR FIVE DATA CENTRES KNOW HOW EACH OTHER OPERATE, and are all there for each other if and when required – SIMON COOPER, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

centre providing a dedicated connection between those two parties. Users can also connect to the AXON interconnectivity platform, from which they can provision and de-provision reliable and highly secure elastic crossconnects (EXCs) in seconds.

The physical Cross Connect product consists of either singlemode optical fibre (SMOF – single or dual core) or a Cat 6 Ethernet cable, and each is delivered by a trained NEXTDC facility technician via secure dedicated interconnect rooms, also where multiple

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NEXTDC M1 data centre Learn more at srasolutions.com.au/#nextdc

Designed, coloured, contained, secured, installed and repeated since 2012.

Let’s talk about expanding your current capacity or building your new data site: call Richard Wixon on 0451 634 624 or richard.wixon @ srasolutions.com.au

RACKS

POWER

COOLING

SECURITY

MANAGING

MONITORING

srasolutions.com.au

AUSTRALIAN INGENUITY & ENGINEERING

NEXTDC told us to ‘get started’.

Five years later we’re still going.

“

Simon* says: SRA Solutions’ continued support of NEXTDC with our wide range of critical data centre products and great engineering is based on us jointly recognising where expertise and innovation can deliver repeated success.

Technology behind the technology

What drives the partnership?

We are proudly Australian owned and

Passion and innovation are cornerstones

are a key supplier to the nation’s leading

of the NEXTDC message and we strongly

independent data centre operator. Helping

align with these values. Our team has

get the physical infrastructure right is a

helped NEXTDC pursue its goal to provide

critical part of NEXTDC being at the top

enterprise-class colocation services nation-

of their industry. We certainly feel that

wide with flexible infrastructure solutions.

we are part of the technology behind the technology.

Data centres of the future We have designed and built products for

Rack-ready

data centres for some 30 years, extending

SRA Solutions have worked closely with

across racks, cabinets and enclosures,

NEXTDC to provide fully installed racks

through to high efficiency cooling, scalable

within their data halls, featuring energy-

power installations and heat load testing.

efficient hot or cold aisle containment

We are at the forefront of turnkey

and industry unique colour-coded doors

solutions for data centres of the future.

to indicate the correct equipment installation and airflow. We are proud of our ability to provide customised racks tailored to the NEXTDC rack-ready solutions environment.

*

Simon Dunphy, General Manager—Sales and Business Development, SRA Solutions: 10+ years experience in high level data centre design

”

and construct projects for government, defence and commercial investments.

Call him directly on 0435 125 189 to discuss what SRA Solutions can do for you.

Paramount Airconditioning, a family owned and operated business, offer the best commercial airconditioning & mechanical services Melbourne & Sydney has to offer with over 40 years experience in installation and service, back up by in house mechanical engineering and NEBB Certified commisioning.

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CONSTRUCTION

carriers have established a point of presence. Each data centre has multiple fibre entry points (aka pits) to ensure that carriers can provide fully redundant offerings to their and NEXTDC’s customers. Diversity and redundancy is also supported within NEXTDC’s facilities through multiple paths and data hall entry points from each interconnect room.

As NEXTDC develops its second data centre in a given city, it will be bridging the physical distance between the two data centres with an expanded data centre cross connect product set, based on diverse fibre links if required, or very low cost fibre-like dedicated connections. This will allow organisations to seamlessly extend their service between data centres, and give customers of either facility secure access to the other.

NEXTDC also operates its own private Enterprise LAN supporting the many IT-related services needed to run a large data centre business, which is deployed with the support of their local partner Comlinx based upon technology

Jeff Burvill

Head of Facility Management Jeff oversees NEXTDC’s five operational data centres – soon to be eight – and the facilities teams, not only does he ensure the facilities are maintained and run 24/7, but the safety and security of the people working onsite. Previously an Operations Manager at Alcatel-Lucent, and before that AAPT, Jeff has over 20 years’ experience in managing infrastructure for large-scale telecommunications enterprises.

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piller.com

We’re No.1 for mission critical power protection.

At Piller we are proud to support NEXTDC’s national network of next-generation data centres with an award-winning combination of our Diesel Rotary Uninterruptible Power Supply (DRUPS) and our unique Isolated-Parallel Bus solution.

The first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region, it was instrumental in NEXTDC being awarded the Uptime Institute’s 2015 Brill Award for Efficient IT.

NEXTDC

Nothing protects quite like Piller

V

ROTARY UPS SYSTEMS / HYBRID ROTARY UPS SYSTEMS / DIESEL ROTARY UPS SYSTEMS / STATIC UPS SYSTEMS / STATIC TRANSFER SWITCHES KINETIC ENERGY STORAGE / AIRCRAFT GROUND POWER SYSTEMS / FREQUENCY CONVERTERS / NAVAL POWER SUPPLIES / SYSTEM INTEGRATION HEADQUARTERS: PILLER GROUP GmbH Piller France / Piller Germany / Piller Iberica / Piller Italy / Piller UK / Piller Brazil / Piller Canada / Piller USA / Piller Australia / Piller China Piller India / Piller Korea / Piller Singapore / Piller Taiwan

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from the global networking vendor Juniper Networks.

What sets them apart

NEXTDC has already forged very strong relationships with the likes of Telstra, Fujitsu, CenturyLink, and Optus amongst many other successful complex solution providers. “For example, during the first 12 months of our Optus partnership they increased their focus on cloud solutions rather than building data centres, instead making use of ours,” Cooper adds.

The on-the-ground expertise provided by NEXTDC’s engineering,

NEXTDC offers a Remote Hands service for onsite technical assistance, ranging from managing deliveries and installations, performing compliance or equipment audits, or simply escorting contractors

facility and project management teams is a fundamental point of difference to their competitors.

NEXTDC’s people are designing, testing, monitoring and tuning these data centres, and a key area of strength that NEXTDC prides itself on is working directly with customers.

“We’ve got highly trained members of our team on-site 24/7, ready and able to unbox any customer equipment sent to us, install it in racks, connect it, power it up, and hand it over remotely so that the customer never needs to come to the site or to spend money

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on sending others to the site if they so choose. At the other end of the spectrum, if it suites, once individuals have been inducted into the site they can show up 24/7 and we don’t need to get in their way.”

The data centres are fitted with business lounges for customer staff to have somewhere comfortable to relax and recharge at any hour of the day or night, alongside quietrooms, meeting rooms, private office space and everything you might expect in a client-focussed office environment, but not so much in a large-scale data centre.

None of NEXTDC’s core data centre staff are outsourced, everyone from the engineering team all the way through to customer service representatives are on the payroll. “The person you see when you walk through the front door might at first appear to be a security guard there to check you out, but they’re really not,” says Cooper. “They’re primarily there to help and assist, a concierge if you will, and most importantly are first and foremost there to say

304

May 2017

My previous role was a

GLOBAL ONE, so I could see what was happening in North America and Europe.

THE CLOUD WAS COMING, the enterprise was shifting and I COULD

SEE WHERE MICROSOFT, GOOGLE AND OTHERS WERE GOING

– SIMON COOPER, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

Smart and Effective Fire Protection Systems Unified Fire Protection focus as a contracting and service enterprise is to provide the expertise required in designing, supplying, installing and maintaining a wide range of fire protection services.

We cover a comprehensive range of fire protection systems including: • Fire Sprinkler Systems • Pre-Action Sprinkler Systems • Hydrant and Hose Reel Systems • Gas Suppression Systems • Water Mist Systems • Fire Detection Systems • Emergency Warning Systems • Aspirated Detection Systems • Fire Extinguishers • Annual Certification Inspections

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To safeguard your business, contact our office at: 3/7 Inglewood Place, Baulkham Hills, NSW 2153 Business Contact: (02) 9099 0333 Emergency AH: (02) 9099 0335

info@unifiedfire.com.au service@unifiedfire.com.au www.unifiedfire.com.au

‘Hi, I can see you’re supposed to be here and I can see you have booked some NEXTDC remote hands support, how can I help?’”

To be able to do this the company has put a very strong focus on in-house training programmes, including shadowing across all departments for technical engineers, sales staff and customer help desks. Employees might initially join part time or be doing night shifts to support themselves while

studying, for instance, and this enables them to become part of the team and the culture as they move deeper into the organisation.

“Having an engaged workforce is vital to achieving our strategic objectives,” continues Cooper.

“NEXTDC’s success is all about teamwork, and a workplace that promotes diversity and fosters a culture that recognises and celebrates our success as a team.”

NEXTDC is also willing to rotate

Excellence in Pre Fabricated Engineering for Mission Critical Facilities.

CONSTRUCTION

B1 is located in the heart of Brisbane’s CBD, and is Queensland’s most fibreconnected commercial data centre

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WESTERN AUSTRALIA’S DATA CENTRE, ELECTRICAL AND COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY Everett Smith-Proud Partner of

www.everettsmith.com.au

• Data Centre Audits • Electrical Engineering • Power Monitoring and Reporting • BIM Modelling • DC Installations • Hot and Cold Aisles • All Copper & Fibre Installation & Design • Fibre Guide & Containment Systems • Wireless & GPS Installations • Certified with all Major Data Manufacturers

DATA CENTRE SERVICES

www.crs.com.au CRS delivers customised racking, security caging, hot and cold aisle containment, network connectivity, UPS systems, power monitoring and intelligent networked power distribution, and lighting control and automation solutions to the ICT and commercial construction industry. co

LEARN MORE

CONNECT WITH US

Unit C, 110 McEvoy St, Alexandria NSW 2015 | T: +61 2 9469 1100 | E: sales@crs.com.au

NEXTDC’s five story S1 offers enterprise-class colocation space, and provides on-demand access to major cloud platforms such as AWS Direct Connect, IBM SoftLayer, Microsoft Azure and Office 365 via ExpressRoute

staff around the country, so employees get a sense of how the data centres operate nationally.

“It might not feel like the three or four-person team running the Brisbane date centre is very deep,” Cooper explains, “but in fact the entire national team supporting our five data centres

NEXTDC’s data centres are constantly monitored and maintained to ensure service continuity and high quality power even in the event of a grid outage

know how each other operate, and they are all there for each other as and when required.”

Achievements

The strength of NEXTDC’s company culture and business success has allowed it pursue certification for important industry standards, among them those set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This independent, non-governmental organisation seeks to ensure best practice in terms of safety, quality and compliance across pretty much every industry. NEXTDC has achieved ISO certifications for quality management, environmental management, and information security.

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PROUD PARTNER OF NEXTDC

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From humble beginnings in 1966, Donald Cant Watts Corke has grown into Australia’s largest privately owned cost and project management consulting firm. We have helped some of the nation’s most respected organisations turn their ideas into reality; and proudly support the NEXTDC team in delivering their projects across the country.

www.dcwc.com.au

Level 10, Angel Place, 123 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW 2000 P: 02 9922 4500 F: 02 9922 6017 E: dcwc.nsw@dcwc.com.au

CONSTRUCTION

The output of M1’s 6,000m2, 400kWpk rooftop solar array is 100 percent consumed by the resident customers, who also benefit from M1’s industry-leading NABERS 4.5-star rating for energy efficiency

Specifically in the data centre industry, NEXTDC was just one of 15 organisations around the world to win a Brill Award for Efficient IT in 2015, thanks to its innovative engineering and unique deployment of German powersystem specialist Piller’s isolatedparallel bus, which also played a part in NEXTDC winning the 2014 DatacenterDynamics APAC Award for Innovation in the Mega-Data Centre. To prove the resilience of its facilities NEXTDC has also attained Tier III certifications from the Uptime

Institute, a global advisory body that works to improve the performance and efficiency of IT companies.

Cooper says these certifications, partnerships, and relationships with customers are what has differentiated NEXTDC from competitors and enabled it to grow so quickly. For now, Cooper is concentrating on the existing construction programme, but given the potential of fast-growing cities across Australia and beyond, he is not ruling out further expansion.

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