Gigabit - December 2017

December 2017 SMART ABOUT DIGITAL

THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL AT THE BBC

BREXIT AND THE GDPR

VEON’S

RADICAL TRANSFORMATION AN INTERVIEW WITH VEON’S CTO, YOGESH MALIK

TOP 10

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FOREWORD WELCOME TO THE December issue of Gigabit.

VEON is one the world’s largest telcos. Founded as VimpelCom in Russia by an American entrepreneur and a Russian scientist, it grew to serve 230mn people in 12 wildly different territories – from Italy to Pakistan. But organic growth across such variable terrain left a legacy infrastructure as complex as it was huge. Enter CIO Yogesh Malik and a company-wide vision to transform from the foundations up.

VimplelCom became VEON in February this year and embarked on a transformation project the scale of which the industry had never seen. We met Malik at his Amsterdam HQ to find out more.

Also this month we delve into the vision of the BBC’s pre-eminent OTT video offering, iPlayer, with Head of Digital Partnerships Cyrus Saihan, plus dig into a rapidly approaching item on the 2018 to-do list of digital leaders everywhere – the roll out of GDPR in the EU. We hope you enjoy all that, plus a raft of other insights, in our final issue of Gigabit for 2017.

As ever, join the conversation in Gigabit’s Linkedin group, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Enjoy the issue!

www.gigabit.net www.bizclikmedia.com

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AI, iPlayer and the consumption of content: The future of digital at the BBC

EUROPE VEON West Ham United FC Deutsche Bahn

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Top 10 Cloud services for enterprise

Basefarm Betbright

ASIA BBM BNP Paribas Cardif

MIDDLE EAST Bank ABC MIS UAE Exchange Mashreq Bank – Re-Run

AUSTRALIA Gladstone Area Water Board Digital Realty

AFRICA Diebold Nixdorf

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BREXIT AND THE GDPR

INSIGHT

AI, iPlayer and the consumption of content: The future of digital at the BBC

Cyrus Saihan, Head of Digital Partnerships, answers questions on the BBC’s digital innovation pipeline and how the corporation works with partners big and small Wr it ten by : TOM WA DLOW

INSIGHT CYRUS SAIHAN ARGUABLY holds one of the most intriguing roles in the media technology sphere.

Tasked with bringing third party innovation into the BBC to help create and distribute content in new ways, he is a key broker in ensuring that UK TV license payers receive value for money.

Not just this, but content experiences that are truly world-leading.

With projects spanning from virtual reality and holographic TV to voice interfaces and ‘mind-controlled’ content consumption, Saihan is at the heart of innovation at one of the globe’s most iconic broadcasters.

Here, he gives Gigabit the inside track.

GB: How has the BBC grown in the digital space in recent years?

CS: Throughout the BBC’s history we have continually reinvented the organisation to help deliver on our mission to inform, educate and entertain. The BBC launched its first website in 1997 and since then we have gone on to grow in the digital space, with highlights being the launch of BBC iPlayer in 2007, the delivery of the first truly digital Olympics in 2012 and becoming the world’s first broadcaster to move a channel exclusively 8

December 2017

online with BBC Three in 2016.

We’re also creating a more personal BBC, helping viewers and listeners find more of what they like through more personalised experiences. And by using data, we can make better informed decisions around future programming for everyone. With exciting digital technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, voice interfaces and artificial intelligence continuing to impact the media industry, we have a world-class technology team exploring these areas and making sure that we will continue to adapt and grow in the digital space.

Do you approach digital development at the BBC as you would at any other business?

The licence fee model of the BBC means that our UK services can remain free of adverts and we operate independent of shareholder and political interest – all of this combined gives us a unique position in the market and enables us to take a different approach to many other businesses.

Funding high-quality original programmes about the UK is something the BBC can do like no other media organisation – the licence

2007 The year BBC iPlayer was launched

fee enables the BBC to think about the whole country, not just a certain set of audiences and in the process, helps put the UK at the forefront of the global media industry.

Personally, what has been the most satisfying or exciting project you have delivered at the BBC? It has been great to collaborate with the industry and put in place distribution deals that give the BBC the opportunity to reach all digital audiences (for example, BBC iPlayer 9

INSIGHT

“Funding high-quality original programmes about the UK is something the BBC can do like no other media organisation” – Cyrus Saihan, Head of Digital Partnerships, BBC

is available on over 10,000 different types of device in the UK for free, from computers and smartphones to tablets and connected TVs).

In terms of new innovations, developing and delivering projects to test out emerging technologies at their very early stages has been very satisfying. Working on projects such as mind-control interfaces in 2015 (two years ahead of global giants such as Facebook), holographic TV and virtual reality back in 2014 has been very exciting.

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Tell me about your plans for iPlayer.

How can you build on its huge success to date?

BBC iPlayer has been the number one video-on-demand service in the UK for some time, but we are now looking to make the leap from it being seen as a catch-up service to a mustvisit destination in its own right.

Our goal is to make BBC iPlayer the number one online TV service in the UK and by 2020 we are looking to double the number of people that we reach and quadruple the time that each person spends on BBC iPlayer every week.

A key focus for us at the moment is providing a more personalised experience for our users, surfacing a selection of programmes that are unique to them, taking cues from a range of different factors such as their location, age and previous viewing habits.

What other projects are you working on that you would like to tell us about?

We are always looking for new ways that we can use new technologies to deliver new audience experiences. One recent project that I led was a proof of concept that lets you log in to the BBC’s digital services using your unique voiceprint instead of having to type in a password.

We worked with Microsoft on this internal experiment, using their artificial intelligence technologies to help identify a user’s voice. As well as letting a user sign in to BBC services using their unique voice instead of a standard password, our prototype also gave a user the option to select want they want to watch by talking to their device.

For example, saying “BBC…show me something funny” brings up a selection of comedy programmes and saying “BBC…what’s going on in the world?”

starts playing the BBC News channel.

We are still at the early stages of voice interfaces, but as the technology advances, voiceprints and artificial intelligence could enable some interesting personalisation opportunities. If you look further into the future, when artificial intelligence has advanced sufficiently, you could end up in a conversation with your TV about what’s available to watch now, whether you like the sound of it or not, whether there’s something coming up that you’re interested in, and what you like to watch when you’re in a certain mood. All the time, your TV service would be learning about your preferences and getting smarter about what to suggest and when.

There could be interesting scenarios in a typical family setting too. Just by listening to the voices in the room, your TV could automatically detect when there are multiple people in the living room, and serve up a personalised mix of content relevant to all of you in the room. When your children leave the room to go to bed, BBC iPlayer might hear that the children are no longer there and then suggest a different selection of content for you and your partner. All of this 11

INSIGHT

1997

The year the first BBC website was launched personalisation could happen without anyone having to press a button, sign in and out or change user profiles.

How closely do you work with the big tech corporations such as Google, Apple and Amazon?

Our audiences are spending an increasing amount of time on the devices and platforms that large technology companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon own and operate, and so we work closely with these companies in a range of areas. Whether it is the success of Radio 1 publishing videos on YouTube or BBC News being one of the most followed news accounts on Facebook, BBC content has a strong presence on new and emerging platforms.

We also regularly partner with the large technology companies in new areas of innovation. For example, Amazon, Google and others are 12

December 2017

investing heavily in a voice-controlled future and we have worked with the companies in this area. As a result of this work, our news and radio services can be discovered and accessed on Amazon Alexa and Google Home, in turn helping us to explore how speaking to our digital devices might offer the chance to enhance our services and benefit our audiences.

Likewise, do you work with any smaller, disruptive companies?

We work with all types of companies, from small start-ups and agencies to the global technology giants. In recent years we have worked with several small UK companies that have enabled us to experiment with new innovations, ranging from crowd-sourcing videos from audiences for documentaries, to creating award winning interactive video and virtual reality experiences.

The BBC spends around ÂŁ30m a year with digital agencies, many of them in the UK. Our ongoing collaboration with independent digital agencies is essential and helps us deliver a constant stream of innovation and creativity that enables us to compete successfully for audience attention in an ever-more crowded and global

market. The external creative economy is a vital source of new ideas and talent and helps us deliver many of our digital products, whether it is the BBC Music app or the range of online games that we put out for popular brands such as Danger Mouse and Dr Who. What trends do you think are the ones to look out for in the coming years?

It’s incredible to think that the iPhone is only just 10 years old, that Snapchat has only been around for six years and that Facebook has more users than the population of China. Whether it is artificial intelligence, voice interfaces or driverless cars, there will be many digital technologies that will impact all areas of our lives and bring about major changes in the coming years.

One area that I’m particularly interested in at the moment is augmented reality: the merging of digital content with the real world. Augmented reality has the potential to have a huge impact on the way that we consume information and media content – instead of taking your smartphone out of your pocket to see the latest news headlines, you might be able to simply see the headlines projected directly in front of you as you walk down the street.

“It’s incredible to think that the iPhone is only just 10 years old, that Snapchat has only been around for six years and that Facebook has more users than the population of China” – Cyrus Saihan, Head of Digital Partnerships, BBC

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INSIGHT

BREXIT AND THE GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation will help the EU legislate against breaches of data security. But how will this affect business, especially those based in non-EU countries?

Writ ten by KIE RON BAIN

LAST YEAR, THERE were 3.6mn cases of computer fraud in the UK alone, representing approximately one case for every 18 residents.

A large proportion of such crime targets individual data, utilising personal details to access bank accounts and steal money.

These crimes are not limited to the domestic sector. Following on from the infamous TalkTalk, Yahoo and NHS data breaches, recent events in the US have seen credit checking giant Equifax fail to provide sufficient measures to protect customer data.

Conservative estimates speculate that private damage claims issued against Equifax could even cause the company to cease trading.

It is these high-profile cases, together with increasingly rapid changes to the information technology landscape, that has prompted EU regulatory bodies to update existing data protection frameworks with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Increasing protection: Enter the GDPR Following the increasing need for a new approach to data protection on

INSIGHT

the business stage, the EU is set to introduce the GDPR on 25 May 2018.

This new legislation replaces the Data Protection Directive (DPD) 95/46/EC and is designed to create consistency in corporate data handling across the multiple jurisdictions in the union.

When the DPD was originally approved in 1995, technologies such as third-party cloud storage and social media platforms were non-existent. Only around 1% of EU citizens used the internet and the 16

December 2017

protocols for accessing information were tediously slow compared to the superfast fiber optic cable that supplies bandwidth to urban centres.

With the proliferation of new data types, data-mining techniques, digital marketing and the rise of smartphone technology, the need for legislation that handles the ubiquity has risen exponentially.

UK Business: ICO and the GDPR Does your business need to be GDPR compliant? If you are UK-based, the

‘IN 2015, THE EU COURT INVALIDATED SPECIAL LOCATIONSPECIFIC MEASURES THAT ALLOWED FOR THE FREEDOM OF DATA PROCESSING BETWEEN THE US AND THE EU’ advice offered by the Information Commissioners Office, the agency currently tasked with the enforcement of the existing Data Protection Act, is that “if you are currently subject to the DPA, it is likely that you will also be the subject of the GDPR”.

The following statement was made by a spokesperson for the ICO, speaking to the BBC on the matter of enforcing the GDPR in the UK: “The new law equals bigger fines for getting it wrong, but it is important to recognise the business

benefits of getting data protection right. There is a real opportunity for organisations to present themselves on the basis of how they respect the privacy of individuals – and gain a competitive edge.”

Further focus was made in the statement to the implications of failing to comply with the GDPR: “But if your organisation can’t demonstrate that good data protection is a cornerstone of your business policy and practices when the new law comes in next year, 17

INSIGHT you’re leaving your organisation open to enforcement action that can damage both public reputation and bank balance.”

Key regulatory changes presented by the GDPR Some of the most notable changes to current regulation put forward by the GDPR include the following updates and revisions to existing measures: Extra territorial applicability – previously data protection measures were taken “in the context of the establishment”, which meant that if companies processed data overseas then they could not be punished for breaches in legislation. The GDPR is very clear on this matter; if the data belongs to EU citizens, then the new legislation applies regardless of where it is processed.

Increased fines – the GDPR raises the level of financial penalty for breaches to 4% of the annual global turnover of a company or €20mn (US$23.6mn), whichever represents the larger amount.

Consent to data use – companies will no longer be able to use long terms and conditions full of complex legal definitions and 18

December 2017

must now present the purposes of data processing in clear and plain regional language. Equally, facilities for the withdrawal of consent must be easy and simple.

GDPR and Brexit: Business hesitation With Brexit now looming, many UK-based companies have previously been unsure of the extent to which the GDPR is likely to impact their operations.

A survey conducted by Crown Information Management services in March 2017 reported that at the time 24% of businesses had ceased making provisions for implementing the regulations, with tech and data handling companies making up 44% of this percentile.

Official UK Government statement On 21 June, the UK Government put an end to the suspense and revealed its intentions to press ahead and bring the GDPR into domestic law.

This was confirmed in the Queen’s speech, which looked at the role data plays in commerce, with the following statement noting: “Over 70% of all

trade in services is enabled by data flows, meaning that data protection is critical to international trade.”

However, according to research conducted in July 2017, it seems that many UK businesses have failed to be polarised into action by the Government’s ruling.

The study, conducted by one of the UK’s first fully compliant GDPR job boards, CareersinCyberSecurity. co.uk, together with London law firm Hamlins LLP, produced the following statistics on the readiness of UK companies for the impending change.

• 73% have not allocated any budget for compliance • 53% are yet to appoint a data protection officer • 15% believe that Brexit means exemption from the GDPR • 12% claim that they do not have the existing funds for compliance • 11% do not consider there to be any risk to their business

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INSIGHT

‘LAST YEAR, THERE WERE 3.6MN CASES OF COMPUTER FRAUD IN THE UK ALONE, REPRESENTING APPROXIMATELY 1 CASE FOR EVERY 18 RESIDENTS’

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Matthew Pryke, one of the partners at Hamlins made the following statement about these findings: “Despite awareness about the GDPR, too many businesses are complacent and think because of their size or nature of business they are somehow exempt from having to comply. Regardless of Brexit, this regulation – even with the words EU fronting the name – will still apply for all businesses operating in the UK. Those who leave it to chance and don’t prepare now, could be left high and dry if the Information Commissioner’s Office find businesses breach regulations.”

Implications to personal data management Perhaps the greatest challenge to UK based businesses will be when the UK finally ceases to be an EU member state. In 2015, the EU court invalidated special-location specific measures that allowed for the freedom of data processing between the US and the EU; ending the so called safe harbour scheme, in response to the NSA affair revealed by Edward Snowden.

Once the UK leaves the EU, it is

therefore expected that there will be no special provisions made for the processing of personal data. This is perhaps one of the key factors that forced the Government’s hand in implementing the June 2017 ruling, as it is hoped that the UK will receive a formal adequacy decision from the European Commission. Failure to receive such a decision could see a significant impact to business between the UK and the EU. Finally… financial implications With the UK currently exploring the opportunities represented by global trade, the EU remains a viable and profitable market for all types of UK based services. No one can predict at this stage what implications there will be for data based industries currently trading and working with EU member states - save to say that there are likely to be difficulties.

However, as many businesses in the EU equally benefit from access to the lucrative UK market, hopefully it will be in the best interests of both parties to find workable arrangements that facilitate no impact on the continuous flow of trade.

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ely d i its w t d s e mo bas 0 e 2 s om ri e r f h p t r a nte dat t on e r d y o e ide ol is rb v r rep t o o m f n s r y ’ co on pe hp ces i n d c o i v n a k r h a S se y, t ted, form w d i Net l a u i o g l ib . It t e c s s r a i l e g v d P c g r vi e nts a a r l use v u i n e u t o s o n c ra us lts acc eA g c u f s , o p l o y e o r ds Sk for ver t e o r e n c d o N nti dis 7. hun e the d v 1 n e i e 0 c r s 2 an ser ss p u o une l J f adv l o a i t r a p ns oud l d A o c i l d f l i o igh om an m h r f % s d 4.6 ate ude orld l r 2 c w e y n i ar on the onl s t s d e s a s e on i s o i h r t t r a p c p r b d a ss cr y r te nte e n o e n e p i y f e ad lo db e e so r r e l v s a R e s gu DP es. d, l n t i e G u t e tI wa f r b so sb to ttri e n s a i c e i t a ser v men essm re dat s e s e gr he na a w g f in a n on o ocessi i t a pr loc a t da and

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TWITTER

Twitter is an online news and social network service where users post and interact. Registered users can post tweets, but anyone can read those which are shared publicly. The company is based in San Francisco but has 25 offices across the globe. Twitter has mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows 10, Windows Phone, Blackberry and Nokia S40. Users also have the option of sending a tweet via SMS and of streaming video on the site. The website has been ranked the 11th most visited site on the web according to Alexa’s web traffic analysis.

9

SHAREPOINT

SharePoint is a collaborative platform integrated into Microsoft Office 365. It was launched in 2001 and now has 190mn users across 100,000 customer organisations. This document management and storage system is highly configurable so it can be used in various ways. It comes in varieties that include SharePoint Server, SharePoint Standard, SharePoint Enterprise and SharePoint Online.

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8

BOX

Box, formerly known as box.net, is a company based in California which manages cloud content and file sharing for business. It was founded in 2005 and the company currently employs 1,400 people. The service provides file-sharing and collaboration options as well as other tools for working with uploaded files.

Box accounts are available in three varieties: enterprise, business, and personal. Official clients are offered from Windows and MacOS, and mobile service is available across Android, Blackberry 20, iOS, WebOS and Windows Phone devices.

Enterprise clients of Box include IBM, Schneider electric and Procter and Gamble.

7

GMAIL

Gmail is a free email service funded by advertisements. It was launched by Google in 2004 and is now available in 72 languages.

It is accessible on the web and as a mobile app on Android and iOS but can also be accessed through some third-party apps allowing email synchronisation. Gmail comes with 15GB of free storage and users can receive up to 5MB in an email including attachments, and can send emails of up to 25MB. Files from Google Drive can however be inserted into emails.

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6

GOOGLE DRIVE

Google Drive is file storage and synchronisation service which was launched in 2012. It allows users to access and edit documents simultaneously in real time, store files in the cloud and share files across various devices. Google Drive is a website platform but also offers apps which can be used offline or online on Windows and MacOS computers as well as Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. Users have free access to 15GB storage and can purchase up to 30TB in addition to this. Google Drive is also available as part of Google’s G Suite, a monthly subscription service for businesses and organisations – this version offers unlimited storage and advanced administration options.

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5

ICLOUD

iCloud is an online storage and cloud computing service which was launched by Apple in October 2011.

By the following February it had accumulated 782mn users. Users can store data like documents, photos and music, which can then be downloaded onto iOS, MacOS and Windows devices. Data can also be shared between users, including photos, music and games, by linking accounts via AirDrop Wireless. Users get 5GB free storage typically, with the option to purchase an additional 50GB, 200GB or 1TB. This storage is shared between all devices using the same account.

4

SKYPE

Skype was first released in 2003 – and as of 2014 it holds a 40% share of the internet call market. It is available in 108 languages and allows account holders to chat via video across devices including computers, tablets, smartphones and the Xbox One as well as smart watches. Skype calls can also be made to regular telephones. Some of Skype’s services, such as one-to-one video chat, are free of charge and instant messaging and file sharing are also available.

Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 for $8.5bn and since 2012, Skype has been powered entirely by Microsoft systems. It is now integrated within Microsoft’s products.

3

FACEBOOK.COM

Facebook was founded in 2004 and by 2008 had 100mn registered users.

As of June 2017, 2bn people use the platform which is available in 140 different languages. It is the most popular social network in the US, UK and Canada, but Asian countries have their own equivalents so uptake has been lower – particularly as the site has been blocked in China since 2009. Facebook has 69% market penetration is North America and 57% in Europe. Facebook stores its data in custom-built data centres in the US and Europe. Data is stored on a combination platform with new events stored in log files, which are then pulled out and displayed to users.

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2

OUTLOOK.COM

Outlook.com is a suite of webmail as well as web-based storage of contacts, tasks and calendar services. One of the world’s first webmail platforms, Outlook was founded as Hotmail in 1996 and was renamed in 2012. As of 2015, Outlook has 400mn active users. Outlook also allows users to make Skype calls, as well as being able to create “aliases” in order to have several email addresses for the same account.

Outlook is available in 106 languages and has client apps for both Android and iOS, which were formerly known as Accompli. These were acquired

by Microsoft in December 2014 and rebranded as Outlook Mobile in January 2015.

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1

ONEDRIVE

OneDrive is part of Microsoft Office 365 and allows users to access files from any device, access files offline and keep files safe – if a device is lost the files can be accessed, and are encrypted using SSL. It was launched in 2007 and is now available in 107 languages. As of 2016, the service offers 5GB of free storage, with the opportunity to purchase additional storage either separately or through subscriptions to Office 365 or Microsoft’s Groove Music. OneDrive also allows users to download entire folders as ZIP files, with a 4GB or 65,000 file limit. Client applications are available for Android, iOS, Windows 8, Window 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

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A CLEAN-SHEET

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Written by Romily Broad Produced by Glen White

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YOGESH MALIK, 2017’S MOBILE EUROPE GROUP CTO OF THE YEAR AND ORACLE CIO OF THE YEAR, IS LEADING A ROOT-AND-BRANCH DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AT ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST TELCOS, VEON. OBSESSED WITH HIS CUSTOMERS, MALIK HAS REDEFINED THE MEANING OF ‘CLEAN-SHEET THINKING’ TO HELP THE COMPANY SERVE ALL 235MN OF THEM

“

You know, the word ‘transform’ is used a lot. It’s everywhere. Transformation. I’m transforming. You’re transforming.

Everyone’s transforming!

“But it’s the purpose. That’s the key.”

Yogesh Malik stands in a corner office on the sixth floor of VEON’s headquarters in Amsterdam, describing a philosophy that has helped him drive a root-and-branch reformation of one of the largest telcos on the planet. Malik has been awarded a Group CTO of the Year 2017 by Mobile Europe and has just been named Oracle’s CIO of the Year. As he reveals the stunning scope of the transformation he’s

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helping to lead, around us the final touches are being made to the decor of a building that now looks as aspirational as the company’s brand, products and culture feel.

VEON the platform The company renamed itself VEON, from VimpelCom, in February of this year. A commitment to what the company calls ‘radical transformation’ is encapsulated in the name – it’s the brand of its existing personal internet platform, technology through which it doesn’t just connect its customers, it aims to provide worldbeating localised services and liberate them from such anxieties as going

EUROPE

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VEON

dark when the credit runs out.

Years of divestments and organisational change have led to this moment – a process focused squarely on shedding the ballast of a traditional telco in order to surge forward as a large but agile technology company. The VEON platform leverages powerful data analytics and artificial intelligence, offering users a variety of new, personalised and contextualised services on anything from entertainment to

financial services using data insight to predict and satisfy customer needs.

It bundles in messaging capabilities to enable users to connect by voice, text, picture and video through a constantly iterated proprietary platform. The aim is to securely provide everything online at a tap of a finger, and importantly zero-rating is a ‘fundamental component of the service’, with users able to stay online for free even when they are out of credit.

“That’s key when you transform. Keep the customer, understand the forces acting on them. Forget about the rest” YOGESH MALIK GROUP CTO, VEON VIDEO: The Veon platform 34

December 2017

EUROPE

Emblazoned throughout VEON’s freshly appointed offices are reminders of its core values, foremost among which is to be ‘customer obsessed’. It’s a purpose that has fuelled the company’s transformation and that is made real in VEON’s core consumer offering, fine-tuned as it is to the needs of customers across the frontier markets it serves – majoring in Russia and Pakistan, but stretching from Tajikistan to Algeria. It’s also a major player in Italy, in partnership

with Hutchison under the brand WIND Tre. It’s where the VEON platform first cut its teeth. The company employs around 40,000 people across its 13 territories, under six distinct brands.

Clean-sheet thinking It’s all a result of what Malik describes as ‘clean-sheet thinking’, where the customer’s needs are sacred and drive decisions from top to bottom.

“It’s about thinking about your customer and nothing

VIDEO: Clean-sheet thinking

w w w. g i g a b i t . n e t

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© 2017 Accenture. All rights reserved.

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NEW APPLIED NOW

LEAD OR LOSE: A VISION FOR COMMUNICATIONS SERVICE PROVIDERS’ DIGITAL FUTURE Communications Service Providers (CSPs) understand all too well that digitalization in the world has not yet translated into new value for themselves. Continuing a trajectory of cost cutting is only going to be a race to the bottom. The industry is at a turning point.

The European Telecommunication Network Operators – ETNO – recently issued the “Lead or Lose” report, based on Accenture Strategy research, that looks at Europe’s digital future.

It defined three foundational capabilities for success: an ecosystem built around the Internet of Things, pervasive digital networks and institutions reinvented as digital entities.

Networks are at the heart of these developments, but will CSPs be leaders, utility providers or subsidiaries of foreign disruptors? To flip the race to the bottom to a “Race to the Top”, CSPs need to grow their core business while transforming it but scale new “S curves of growth” by innovating their own and 3rd party digital services which can potentially gain much broader reach across a platform-based ecosystem.

Accenture has defined four growth models, but also pinpointed fundamental moves for CSPs to insure their future success, starting right now.

Hyper-personal, hyper-relevant Get as close as possible to the customer and

become part of their “Digital Daily Routine”. That requires personalization and contextualization, with an omni-channel customer experience providing services that understand customers, rather than the other way around.

Embed intelligence to monetize CSP strengths Develop beyond data and analytics capabilities and embed intelligence via a cognitive technology platform at the core of the CSP. In digitally-driven future ecosystems, the orchestrators—the operators who own the data and therefore can be the first touchpoint and define what a customer gets and when and how— will have disproportionate power over the whole value chain. Through automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and continuous learning, the “CSP Brain” opens new possibilities for creating and monetizing innovative services for customers via trusted third parties across an expanding ecosystem.

In a digital future that’s evolving at an everaccelerating pace, CSPs possess a crucial advantage: a primary relationship with the customer. At Accenture, we are working with many Tier 1 CSPs to help them transform their way into the champions’ circle. They have strengths that the disruptors can’t buy – identity, quality of experience, security and billing relationships, which can be turned into tradeable assets for the ecosystem.

VEON

else,” he says. “Not about your competition, just the customer.

“See what the customer really wants, then look at what’s impacting the customer and what affects their choices. Is it a competitive thing which is influencing them? The internet, their freedom? What is going to make up the customer’s mind on what to choose and what not to choose?

“Clean-sheet thinking is something like the automotive industry moving towards a completely electronic car. An electronic car is nothing but a computer on wheels and Tesla figured that out.

“It’s very hard for the incumbent big auto manufacturers to make a hybrid car. They are building on the same chassis, they’re constrained by the engine room, by the back room. But Tesla clean-sheeted – they wanted space, a beautiful dashboard with everything visible like a computer screen…

“That’s key when you transform. Keep the customer, understand the forces acting on them. Forget about the rest. Then find

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a way to provide the best solution for the customer while being sustainable and competitive in the marketplace.”

Leading technology transformation Malik and VEON’s leadership clean sheeted their entire organisation and pivoted it around the needs of their customers. For a company with over 235mn customers across a wide variety of territories, embarking on such a comprehensive reformation was certainly bold. But Malik is adamant that VEON represents more than a rebrand - the company’s mission, identity, and culture are ready for the future and the rebrand is a ribbon on the package.

“VEON is a company where on one hand we have extremely big size and diversity - but not only that, we have a great pioneering spirit. Amongst the diversity and the scale, we are able to pioneer new frontiers, and that makes us very, very special,” he says.

“Now the CTO role for me is extremely important in this journey.

It’s about moving from conceptual

LEADING 5G INNOVATIONS ZTE’s Latest 5G Achievements in 2017

www.zte.com.cn

Strategy-Boosting 5G Ecosystem Together Cooperation in Standard & Research

Cooperation with Operators

Key player and contributors of 5G standard organizations

Cooperation with many mobile to explore, research and verification of innovative technologies

Cooperation in Ecosystem

Vertical Industry

Acceleration the commercial 5G maturity

• GIA (Global IoT Alliance) founded

by ZTE has more than 140 members so far.

• ZTE concentrates on Smart City, Smart Home, V2X, Industrial Internet and related business models.

ZTE Corporation is a global leader in telecommunications and information technology.

The company is committed to providing integrated end-to-end innovations to deliver excellence and value to consumers, carriers, businesses and public sector customers around the world to enable increased connectivity and productivity.

Founded in 1985, ZTE is listed on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. In 2016, ZTE achieved an annual revenue to over RMB 101.2 billion, bolstered by growth in the company’s Carrier Networks and Consumer Businesses.

With the industry’s most comprehensive product range and end-to-end solutions, ZTE offers cutting-edge wireless, access & bearer, value-added services, terminals and managed services to telecommunications carriers, in addition to ICT solutions for enterprises and government agencies. ZTE’s advanced capabilities enable leading telecommunications operators and Fortune 500 enterprises in more than 160 countries to achieve their business objectives and increase competitiveness. In addition, ZTE’s acclaimed AXON and Blade mobile devices are chosen by consumers around the world.

VEON

1992 Originally founded as VimpelCom

40k+ Number of staff at VEON

$8.9

billion The annual revenue for VEON (2016)

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thinking to delivery and strategizing the next move.

Transformation leadership is central to a CTO role.

“We need to understand software. Coming from telecoms we were very linked into hardware and software, coupled together. Those elements needed to de-couple to understand software much better as a skill in its own right.

“And we need to be extremely financially savvy. As a CTO, I cannot just bring ideas to my CFO, my CEO, which I wouldn’t believe in if it was my own money. The metrics of customer engagement, the metrics of brand, the metrics of return on investment, they need to be very, very closely felt in the technology strategy in order to make the transformation real.”

The company’s emergence as a brand – and platform – called VEON speaks very publicly about how it can deploy technology to empower its customers. As it advertises to the world, it offers customers a chance to “Be Truly Free”.

There is no doubt it’s an ethos very closely aligned to Malik’s own personal beliefs in terms of how the company should be operating.

He tells us that as a child in India he endured frequent trips to doctors to patch up the scrapes of his adventures. As a result, he aspired to become a doctor himself at the time, to improve lives and “excel in solving their problems”. While his career took a different path, he says the same basic

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purpose still informs him when leading technological progress at VEON. He says passionately: “Who am I really serving? How can I make my effort in such a way that I see delight on the customer’s face? That is a main driver for me. What do we need to do next to serve our customer? How can we make the service better? How can we make it more effective? How can we explain things more easily? How can we inspire?

“For me what holds a lot of importance is to have a purpose. Because without a purpose

“VEON is taking radical steps to own its future and influence the shape of things to come” YOGESH MALIK Group CTO, VEON

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VEON

you cannot really transform anything.

“It’s absolutely key to have a purpose as a centre, and customer is a purpose. Then, of course, we need to have an open-mindedness. We cannot go into any situation thinking only one solution would work. We’ve got to balance things. Sometimes a local opinion matters, sometimes a global opinion matters.

“Thirdly, we should walk the talk. If you don’t do that, we just kind of stumble preaching something, it never gets done.

“Have purpose, be very openminded, walk the talk, all of the time.”

The future of telecoms VEON is taking radical steps to own its future and influence the shape of things to come. In Malik’s view there has been a breakdown in the value chain in the telecoms industry more generally. OTT content services are leveraging networks to build closer relationships with customers than the network providers themselves. Infrastructure is installed and maintained as a commodity

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divorced from the needs of their end users. Devices and sales swirl competitively around the edges.

The outcome is an increasingly disengaged customer. The reincarnation of VEON from VimpelCom – and all the change that has occurred under the hood - is geared around fostering customer engagement from the grass roots, by transforming the fundaments of both company and service.

“As a telecoms industry, we were given 3G as a tool,” Malik says. “We were given 4G as a tool and now we are talking about 5G, but we have never addressed our core problem: How do we address customers in a real-time, personalised manner? How do we empower our customers and our consumers more, so that they feel in control in the same way they feel in control of their bank account, or their airline ticket, and how can we take this customer confidence to the next level?

“That is what we are dealing with right now and, in my opinion, if we do not deal with that, we can keep building networks of new

VEON’S TRANSFORMATION

VIDEO: Transformation VEON’s journey to transformation began as a reaction to the increasing entropy it perceived in the telecoms industry, as well as growing headwinds of currency devaluations in the markets it calls home. CEO Jean-Yves Charlier has written that the industry risked becoming dumb pipes facilitating the real engagement being driven by fast-growing OTT players. Meanwhile, VEON – or VimpelCom as it was then known – was performing poorly versus its competitors and was riven with inefficiency.

It chose to aggressively and systematically disrupt itself. It’s vision: “a unique telco & tech combination that allows to capture the “best of both worlds” The company set about massively improving its capital structure via the consolidation of its two leading markets – it launched the WIND Tre joint venture with Hutchison in Italy and merged Mobilink and Warid in Pakistan.

It then refreshed its management team, overhauled its compliance structures, installed new corporate values and hugely reduced its costs.

In 2016 CTO Yogesh Malik and his team initiated group-wide implementation of a new digital IT stack. It is the largest technology transformation the industry has ever seen, completely overhauling how the company is managing its business globally. It is replacing a patchwork legacy infrastructure that has grown country-by-country with one central, cloud-based platform. It is bringing new product development back in-house.

The platform provides the analytics power to supercharge product development and helps to realise the company’s goal of offering streamlined, personalised services to customers in real-time.

A rebrand to VEON and the global roll-out of its eponymous personal-internet platform followed from February 2017.

As the company reported a 9.5% year-onyear revenue growth for the 9 months 2017, at $7.2bn, the platform surged to a potential userbase of more than 170mn. It is already stacked with almost 140 content partnerships, and will be available in all VEON markets in 2018.

An all-new, global tech company has arrived.

VIDEO: The future of telecoms

“In 12-to-18 months, I think it’s no longer going to be green shoots we’re talking about, it’s going to be the new harvest brought by this change“ YOGESH MALIK Group CTO, VEON

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technologies, but we will never address a core of the issues. And the core of that is the IT behind the networks serving our customers.

“And what can we do with the data we have? Following all the regulations, we can personalise that customer journey. We can make that customer be the customer, not a SIM card holder.

“Today, everyone is going after SIM cards, but actually the customer is either owned by Apple, or by Google, or by Yahoo, whatever brand they identify with. They are not owned by the telecom operators. This is

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what we would like to change, and this next step for us to become a trusted advisor is going to be key.”

Malik is confident, though, that change is afoot, and he believes the reborn VEON can be a pioneer for this new methodology and way of thinking across the industry.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but it has begun. Malik is leading the charge at a company in a prime position to succeed. It refers to the countries it serves as the ‘markets of the future’ and with its huge, diverse team and bold technology strategy it aims to make a dramatic impact.

“Now it’s not just a concept or a vision, there are actions to back it up,” he says. “I think that whole transformation on network, customer angle, complete ID transformation, and bringing data to customers’ lives will really give birth to a datadriven company culture. In fact, that’s happening right now as we speak.

In 12-to-18 months, I think it’s no longer going to be green shoots we’re talking about, it’s going to be the new harvest brought by this change.

“It’s hard for me to comment on the strategies of other companies, but I do understand there are complexities when you’re sitting on a huge legacy infrastructure skillset, and on revenues that you do not transform too swiftly. You need to be careful, and passionate, so it will very much depend if other telcos have the similar kind of pioneering spirit as us.

“There are a couple of examples in Asia and the US where companies are really changing with a huge vision of conquering the next horizon as well. Otherwise you will be a commodity. You will perhaps be essential to the market, but you will not be a differentiator.”

By now VEON’s offices, gleaming in the heart of Amsterdam’s burgeoning Zuidas business district, will be resplendent in its final livery.

After we talk, Malik heads straight to the airport for a flight to Algeria.

He has the look of a man who’s delivering the future personally.

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West Ham United

Digitising the game to accelerate fanengagement Written by Catherine Sturman Produced by Andy Lloyd

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West Ham United’s move to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at the London Stadium presented a unique opportunity to revolutionise its IT infrastructure

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L

ong rooted in English history, football is an emotive sport followed by loyal fans who travel far and wide to see their favourite team compete against rivals. However, in the last 10 years the traditional game has changed in the face of a vast demographic, where digitisation has disrupted the way in which we communicate and interact with others. Fans are able to now share experiences and speak to the players themselves through the emergence of social media.

Technology continues to impact the sport and has consequently altered what fans expect to receive out of attending matches.

Having won the bid to relocate to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the iconic London Stadium, the Club looked to Mike Bohndiek to help them review their technological landscape. Initially appointed in a consultancy role and now Head of IT he looked at Upton Park (the club’s previous stadium) and its technological capabilities.

Understanding the demands the

industry faces to cater to both fans and staff, Bohndiek undertook an essential gap analysis to ascertain what the club lacked from a technological perspective, and what it needed to ensure not only an exceptional venue which would cater for all ages, but would deliver an excellent fan experience each time.

“What quickly became apparent was that IT had been in a dark corner for quite some time,” he says. “The primary challenges surrounded the club’s decentralised, ageing infrastructure.”

Although Upton Park had been the home of West Ham since the late 1890s, Bohndiek explains: “When you’ve been in a physical location for so long, things work, not because they’re best designed or most efficient, but because they’ve worked before. The attitude is that they worked yesterday so they’ll work tomorrow, without a vision as to how it might be modernised and mobilised.”

Observing that many departments at the club were siloed, with servers out of warranty, machines which ran

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W E S T H A M U N I T E D F. C .

Windows XP and an outdated switch estate, Bohndiek adds that the club suffered from a number of network storms, which saw them come close to the cancellation of a Premier League match on one occasion.

“It meant that the access control systems weren’t functioning a couple of hours before kick-off,” he says.

Additionally, West Ham also had a widespread apprehension of adopting and procuring new technologies, something which Bohndiek had to address quickly.

Greater flexibility By eliminating the use of classic virtual private networks (VPNs), the implementation of hybrid cloud solutions has seen West Ham overhaul its outdated processes and provide increase mobilisation and flexibility. Staff are able to work anytime, anywhere through the use of remote access and twin factor authentication, providing substantial organisational growth and ability for cross-collaboration.

“We broke into the Brand Finance’s

“It’s an interesting marketplace with the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, who are starting to see some fierce competition from startups, where people are bringing genuine innovation to the market” Mike Bohndiek Head of IT at West Ham United Football Club

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top 15 European clubs as a part of the move, and had European exposure and much more global exposure,” comments Bohndiek.

“We want to be sending coaches out to countries such as Japan which they have recently visited. We want them to be signing promotional partnerships on the go.”

“I think it is an interesting marketplace with the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, who are starting to see some fierce competition from startups,

where people that are bringing genuine innovation to the market,” continues Bohndiek. “Approximately 70% of what we do is in the cloud.”

Additionally, the club’s collaboration with Sage saw it digitise its HR platform and create solutions within its manual paper processes, such as job applications and internal items such as the booking of annual leave. Staff will soon be able to access team and company-wide updates from smart devices and be more sustainable in the process.

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W E S T H A M U N I T E D F. C .

With much to be done to transform the London Stadium experience, partnering would be a key success factor. Partnering with Ricoh ITS throughout the migration project, Bohndiek says: “There was great synergy with Ricoh and their growth in the ITS business, particularly in the UK and more widely in Europe. Similar to their strapline ‘Imagine, Change,’ we were looking at reimagining the future and bringing it to reality.”

The collaboration between the two parties saw the club reduce its number of active suppliers from 150 to just 32, whilst consolidating a large number of maintenance contracts, pricing and payment terms to drive further business savings. Consequently, the club has seen a reduction in supplier costs of approximately 25%.

“Our work included consolidating our multiple CCTV providers across

West Ham United partner with Ricoh to deliver IT change and business process transformation “The transformation project that Ricoh has helped West Ham deliver is critical to the business and a significant catalyst for change. Staff have seen IT go from a poor relation into something that really works for them day-to-day. It has challenged thinking across the business.

Before it was muddling along with an adequate IT service, now it’s become an enabler for better, smarter and more productive working.”

Mike Bohndiek, Head of IT, West Ham United FC

Watch the West Ham video Click Here

Ricoh delivering IT change at West Ham United • Cuts capital and on-going costs £60k on hardware, £180k annually on support • Transforms IT, enables business process change and smarter working • Reduced hardware footprint – virtualised servers, 50% cut in desktops devices

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Mike Bohndiek’s talk at the The Stadium Business Summit in 2017: ‘A technology Shift: West Ham FC’s Move to London Stadium’

the club’s estate to just one contract and one maintenance contract, saving up to 30%,” notes Bohndiek.

“We have accumulated savings of over £200,000 in a number of areas, while making a fruitful partnership.”

Changing regulations Furthermore, Bohndiek remains acutely aware that changes to existing data privacy laws come into force in April 2018, in light of the dangers facing fan and staff security in the midst of the rising number of cyberattacks and need for enforced security to ensure

confidential data remains sealed.

Through a partnership with Foregenix, Bohndiek has been subsequently been behind the development of a new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) strategy at the club, and has closely examined the complexities surrounding the data in which it holds, particularly within the healthcare space.

“We are multi-faceted from a data perspective. Areas such as health and medical records, high net worth individuals are outliers and can be targeted for cybercrime at West Ham.

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W E S T H A M U N I T E D F. C .

“The industry is recognising that a scalable and suitable solution was found here that’s really made a business impact. We try to do that as a concept across all of our business units” MIKE BOHNDIEK Head of IT at West Ham United Football Club

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With players and doctors working under our medical services, as well as contractual and financial information, which is another layer that we have, we then have our more classic business areas, such as CRM and data sources,” comments Bohndiek.

“Foregenix are checking how users access data, what the policies are, how our consents are looking at CRM level, et cetera. Foregenix’s key strength is in PCI DSS compliance, where they have a number of experts in that field. In a field without a clear framework we feel it prudent to go to those who are experienced in data security frameworks in other fields and use their structured approach to identify the key steps.”

“For us to be compliant with the green guide and with our safety advisory board, people have to allow us to do certain things with their data but how do you promote that to them?” asks Bohndiek. “Who are the controllers? What are the joint arrangements between us and the London Stadium as an entity to ensure privacy is being maintained? Is it in the boundaries of what is required? It’s getting really interesting.

“We’ve had that within full protection of medical records, full protection of high net worth individuals, understanding of how we will function as a business because, as a football club clearly, playing football matches in front of capacity crowds is our core business. Supporting that with the core business

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is a very different beast from a GDPR perspective for football and for venues with a neutral audience.

“Whilst May is when the regulation comes into effect, we have an internal March deadline which will see us understand the framework, train the staff so the company can live and breathe data protection and GDPR by default.”

and remote sites,” explains Bohndiek.

“We also had promotions set up on three systems depending on whether fans bought over the phone, online or in store – all of which didn’t talk to one other.” Integrating these systems has seen the club utilise a complete omnichannel solution for all its commercial operations.

Moving to a larger venue has also seen the club extend Commercial growth its service offering With such renovation through increased within its internal technologies. It has The year that operations, West increased its till West Ham Ham’s fragmented numbers from 25 on United F.C. technology estate has a match day to over 50 was founded also been revamped to available for peak match enable commercial growth days. With roaming tills and accommodate any peaks available in its executive lounges, it in demand. Its retail capabilities, has also enabled fans to purchase from in store and warehousing to its merchandise in their box or lounge. online delivery abilities, have all been “Since the implementation, the streamlined to cater for increased system has processed over £8mn traffic surrounding match days and of payments across the estate. festive holidays such as Christmas.

The third one recently opened in “We previously had problems with Basildon, so the retail solution is shrinkage and stock control, and the scalable,” comments Bohndiek. balances to push these out to stores “The industry is recognising that

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a scalable and suitable solution was found here that’s really made a business impact. We try to do that as a concept across all of our business units. What is a commercial need in order to best sell sponsorships and get ourselves on the move, sharing and collaborating?” he adds.

“What does the media team need in terms of the amount of storage and live streaming from Facebook Live? What do the CRM guys need in terms of moving Dynamics and Office 365 and look towards hosting our

customer view? We really went endto-end within our transformation.”

A Look to the Future; increased fan-engagement Nonetheless, the biggest impact of all these changes will be most clearly seen within the fan experience. From extending the match day, assisting fans on route or promoting transportation routes, the infrastructure layers which can support data analytics is being explored to allow the

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W E S T H A M U N I T E D F. C .

“Fans have got this connected world in which they can tap into. They want to be talking to people. They want their friends and family involved and understanding what they’re doing or be showing off that they’re at a particular match” MIKE BOHNDIEK Head of IT at West Ham United Football Club

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club to look at ways to further shape the fan experience into something exceptional.

So, what further challenges does West Ham have to tackle?

With its vast demographic, catering for all ages, Bohndiek explains that there will be different levels of knowledge not only from a technological perspective, but also the history surrounding the club itself.

“Some older fans will know who Bobby Moore was, what he achieved and the legendary status he has. A 10-year-old will perhaps not have that context,” he says. “What better way than to use something like augmented reality, and have a young fan view the history and culture of the club through a medium in which they are used to. They will then start sharing this experience and happiness with the game on social media.

“Fans have got this connected world in which they can tap into.

They want to be talking to people.

They want their friends and family involved and understanding what they’re doing or be showing off

that they’re at a particular match,” Bohndiek continues. “They want to be sharing photos, sharing videos, sharing clips and emotions and feelings they were having at that time.

“So, there’s now two products when you come to football. There’s the on-the-field experience and watching the match. But there’s actually a wrap-around experience that transcends the operational.

How do you get to the grounds? How are the bag searches? Could you find your seat ok? And then there’s the engagement side: Did you have fun, did you use the app, did you win a prize, did you compete with these people, did you meet a player afterwards, and that wrap-around.”

However, despite its challenges, West Ham’s IT migration project completed on time and within budget, an impressive feat for any project of such magnitude. Impacting all areas of the business, West Ham remains committed to developing new and existing technologies to cater towards its fans.

It’s partnership with Ricoh will

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also see the transformation of its merchandising for the future.

With ambitions to make all of its services multilingual, West Ham is continuing to work with Ricoh, which is working towards developing the industrial process of printing commercial products, such as its t-shirts and wallpaper, and tailor these products to its fans.

“By taking any photo of any fan at a game, we want to have the ability to get his or her image printed on these products, which can be paid for on the day or delivered to a fan’s home as an additional bonus,

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and create a treasured memory for our fans,” explains Bohndiek.

“Paperless is becoming more common as it revolves in new verticals and new markets. We’ll continue working with Ricoh to push those sorts of elements. Equally, they’re also looking at the Internet of Things world more around virtual presence devices, which we would like to be involved with in the future.”

With such breadth of sporting knowledge and talent, Bohndiek notes that he is soon to leave West Ham Football Club, as its IT migration is now complete. With over

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10 years’ experience in supporting sporting facilities in digitising and integrating their services, he now aims to break out into sports consultancy with Pragmatic Technology Insights (PTI) Consulting.

“I’m looking to take this knowledge and experience and work with a variety of businesses to help them mature more quickly, as the risk, as I see it, to many stadia or many clubs partially is getting left behind and losing that next generation.

“As well as football, I’ve been in the realm of professional cricket, as a coach and a mentor. I’ve worked

with people in that element from first team, right the way down to looking at performance analytics,” he adds.

“I’m now able to engage with the all aspects of the business – from the boardroom, to the business units to the 1st XI and their analytics - and make recommendations around the tools and software that are out there to help them digitise their services.

“This is on top of the infrastructure for a stadium, as well as deskside experience and what CRM systems could look like in the future.

The holistic experience gained is what I’m aiming to share.”

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DEUTSCHE BAHN and the journey to a digital future Written by Catherine Sturman Produced by Richard Durrant

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DIRK KLEINOW, HEAD OF IT SYSTEMS IN DEUTSCHE BAHN’S PROCUREMENT DIVISION, DISCUSSES HOW THE COMPANY IS WORKING TOWARDS A DIGITAL FUTURE

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nvesting approximately €1bn in a number of digitisation projects, Deutsche Bahn has become heavily focused on transforming its service delivery over the last five years. With an additional venture capital totalling up to €100mn, its ambitions have seen its overall operations and transport infrastructure overhauled, as well as adopting an enhanced ‘customer-centric’ attitude along the way.

Obtaining positive financial results in 2016, Deutsche Bahn has continued on its digitisation journey and has placed significant emphasis on guaranteeing positive customer experiences.

“Since I started working at Deutsche Bahn, we have placed a greater focus on customer satisfaction. We see procurement as an integral part of the business, where collaboration between different departments has become vital,” explains Dirk Kleinow, Head of IT Systems.

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“We see procurement as an integral part of the business, where collaboration between different departments has become vital�

DIRK KLEINOW Head of IT Systems, Procurement

DEUTSCHE BAHN

An example of Deutsche Bahn’s pilot programmes has seen the implementation of autonomous and semi-automatic vehicles in its logistics operations

Working within Deutsche Bahn’s procurement division for over 10 years, Kleinow has seen the company strenuously work to strengthen its partnerships with suppliers through the adoption of new, data-driven business models in order to become a leader within the transportation sector.

New technologies Utilising an ERP system to support its supply chain management operations, Deutsche Bahn has also begun to implement cloudbased services to not only simplify its procurement processes across

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its global base, but factors into its long-term ambitions to obtain industry-leading procurement.

“When we moved to the cloud, we had a depression in our pricing systems,” observes Kleinow.

“Nonetheless, we have become more flexible in deploying these systems, and not just in Germany. Since we are now on the cloud, we are more linear and are able to deploy our systems within different countries.

The time to invent and implement systems within different countries is getting shorter and shorter.

“We are continually trying to

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Case study of DB Schenker’s CarryPick automated online order fulfillment and returns handling solution for Lekmer.com, Scandinavia’s largest online toy retailer.

renew the system and get more outside information into our supplier management systems, which will support the procurement team to find better sources of supply. We think it is a good place to look at for the future.” To this effect, the company is also undertaking a number of pilots surrounding robotic process automation to further support data sharing on different platforms.

Not content with solely digitising its supplier management procurement operations, Deutsche Bahn’s logistics operations have also been overhauled. The implementation of autonomous and semi-automatic vehicles is currently something which the business is working towards, which will ultimately drive long-term benefits. “At the end of the day we are a logistics support company and we try to look at what the trends are and how we can participate in these trends or even get a lead in these trends,” comments Kleinow.

“We are also looking at artificial intelligence, but at the moment the maturity grade of AI is not at the level that we can apply it to our systems.

I’m thinking three to five years and this will be a field where you will definitely see growth.”

Customer benefits So, how are customers benefiting? Throughout its digitisation, Deutsche Bahn has been committed

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I CAN SPOT TROUBLE FROM 18,600 MILES DOWN THE TRACK. With IBM Cloud and Watson IoT, railway COOs can spot potential issues before they have a chance to cause a problem.

By tracking data from thousands of sensors in real time, they can deliver a smoother customer experience—every mile along the way. Find out more at ibm.com/you This is transportation to the power of IBM.

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to ensuring service quality remains concerns within its service delivery exceptional and consistent across its operations. “The two throughout. Since the start of 2017, words translate to ‘the future of rail’,” Wi-Fi, TV and films are all now freely says Kleinow. “We are looking at available on all of the company’s rail getting more information out of our services, highlighting the company’s systems, which we feed back to the commitment to listen to customer responsible divisions. It also covers demand. All rail customers are also the sourcing of materials so that all able to take advantage of Deutsche rolling stock is ready in time.

Bahn’s ICE portal, which “Sustainability is provides detailed travel also a big issue for Number of information and us,” continues employees at electronic newsletters Kleinow. “Our Deutsche Bahn to inform and entertain industry initiative, customers on their Railresponsible, journeys. Listening concerns the green to customers has delivery chain for become intrinsic to the our goods which we very fabric of Deutsche Bahn, are receiving into the where it understands that customer company.” Launched back satisfaction has become key to its in 2015, the initiative focuses on innovation and continual success. improving sustainable practices However, none of this would have and efficiencies across the been possible without Deutsche railway supply chain, promotes Bahn’s quality programme Zukunft transparency and enables capacity Bahn. Launched in 2016, Zukunft building with industry suppliers.

Bahn enables Deutsche Bahn to listen Its members include Deutsche better to customer requirements Bahn, Abellio, Alstom, Arriva, and eradicate any bottlenecks or Bombardier and many more.

10,000

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The future of rail Deutsche Bahn has been strengthening its rail infrastructure in Germany, with the long-term ambition to support the development of smart cities. Its new rail line running from Berlin to Munich opens in December, which will reach speeds of up to 300 km/h. “It will link the capital with Munich in less than four hours, which is quite quick for 600km, which is around 325 miles,” comments Kleinow.

“We are trying to get more people

“Innovation will change our way of working, but it will also change how we gather information and improve the speed of our services” DIRK KLEINOW Head of IT Systems, Procurement

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onto the rail, and attract customers with better prices and more availability within all of our trains. If we have more trains running more frequently, people will easily be able to change from using the car to utilising the rail.”

The company’s continued focus on delivering not only quality services, but also building strong partnerships with suppliers, will see it continue to go from strength to strength. Its long-term ambitions to remain a leading employer in

Customer service is a key focus area for Deutsche Bahn

Germany will also see it continue to innovate alongside the development of the market.

“Innovation will change our way of working, but it will also change how we gather information and improve the speed of our services,” Kleinow adds.

“I think that the procurement department will change its way of negotiating contracts; it will come to be the facilitator of ‘the sourcing event,’ put it that way,” concludes Kleinow.

“We’ll gather all the information, bring all the parties together, and create collaborative teams.

This, I feel, is the future of procurement.”

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A SOLID BASE FOR MISSION CRITICAL Written by Fran Roberts Produced by Lewis Vaughan

An in-depth Infonetics Research survey found that companies were losing as much as US$100mn per year to downtime, making Basefarm’s guarantee of 100% uptime all the more important, especially when it owns the largest data centre in its home city of Oslo. Erik de Jager, VP Data Centre Services, explains more

“

Colocation and data centre services are a part of Basefarm’s core business,” explains Erik de Jager, VP Data Centre Services at Basefarm, which was founded in 2000 in Norway as a specialist in high-availability managed hosting.

“Basefarm has unique qualities, with these we expanded into foreign markets. We went first out to Sweden in 2003. Then in 2010, we entered the Dutch market. Recently, we acquired a company called The Unbelievable Machine Company, so we’re now also represented in Germany and Austria. As we progress, we always want to improve continuously, whilst maintaining all qualities. We aim to be specialists in our field.”

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As a Dutchman, de Jager originally came on board in 2009 to help establish the company’s Amsterdam office. Over the years, he has held several roles within the company, both in the Netherlands and in Norway, before beginning his current role at the beginning of 2017. “I came back to Norway again having been given the opportunity of further developing the colocation services for Basefarm Norway,” he explains.

HIGH-END SERVICES, 24/7 With the current rise of data centres, especially in Norway, colocation is hotter than ever. As such, the need for high quality data centres providing flexible

EUROPE

Erik de Jager, Basefarm’s VP of Data Centre Services

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solutions has never been greater.

Edge computing and IoT solutions put high demands on computing infrastructure that exists close to the sources of data. Basefarm’s newly opened datacentre in Oslo is designed and built for tomorrow’s demands. The new centre called OSL5, is the largest data centre with tier III standard in the greater Oslo area with a data floor surface of 6,000 sqm. The centre is fully redundant and certified to all important security standards. “The business of our customers relies not only on our stability but also our efficiency,” remarks de Jager.

Basefarm gives clients access to modern, secure and environmentally friendly data centre capacity centrally located in the Oslo area.

“In this facility, we have ample

place for colocation customers and ourselves, of course, because we want the best data centre services available for our own managed services as well.

This facility has the same values as any other Basefarm service – deliver high-end services, be constructive as well as close to our customers and do this with dedication,” observes de Jager. “That means that even customers who have the most critical systems and a need for 24/7 service and security with 100% uptime will find a great partner in Basefarm.”

GREEN ENERGY Norway is known as a supplier of clean energy and it is no secret that this is becoming increasingly important worldwide. Using hydro power and boasting environmental

“What is unique about Basefarm’s offering is that we are not only a colocation provider but we also have a managed service department. It means that we can integrate” ERIK DE JAGER VP Data Centre Services w w w. g i g a b i t . n e t

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certification (ISO14001), Basefarm takes its responsibilities seriously.

“It is essential to demonstrate both externally and internally that we respect and care about the environment,” de Jager explains.

Security, too, is an essential part of Basefarm’s offering. “Of course, we provide all physical security to make sure nothing stops or interferes with the operation of the centre, but we also specialise in security of our operational service – meaning our Basefarm’s data centers have video surveillance, physical barriers, locks, mantraps and secure access control

routines and workflows, digital threats.

Security is in our DNA,” says de Jager.

A PIONEERING PROVIDER As with any business, Basefarm’s customers are at the heart of its operations and the company takes great pride in the service it offers. “The services which we offer on top are in the same line – treating all of our customers as unique and giving them full service as opposed to just giving them a key and wishing them good luck. We are

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Number of Basefarm employees

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Above: (Left to right) Arne Sunde – CIO, Nina Kloster – VA Product Management, Patrick Tahiri – Compliance Manager rated number one in service delivery by Whitelane for a reason,” states de Jager.

“What is unique about Basefarm’s offering is that we are, as mentioned, not only a colocation provider but we also have a managed service department. It means that we can integrate. For example, if a customer needs data centre space and services from our centres, and also has a need to have storage as a service or backup as a service, we can actually arrange

those services for them. If they have an interest in cloud solutions, we can build hybrid solutions straight from the data centre out to the cloud.”

MODULAR BUILDING This adjustability of Basefarm’s solutions is also applied to the way it constructs its facilities. “There is a very high degree of flexibility because of the way Basefarm builds data centres. This means that 4,500 sqm is

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Sverre Støkken – Lead Architect (left) and Poul Henning Sørensen - Senior Systems Consultant

“We don’t want to just expand the data centre, we want to expand our services.

We can really make a difference in the strategies of companies we’re housing” ERIK DE JAGER VP Data Centre Services 82

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still available for the customers. It gives tremendous flexibility for people having special wishes. This could be anything.

It could be customers that wish odd shaped spaces, some have a desire to be extra close to communication lines, or customers that do not want to be close to outside walls. Anything will be possible. Also, construction of EMP solutions is a viable option. It’s also quite a good way to ensure that customers don’t get burdened with too much investment,” de Jager notes.

CONTINUOUS EXPANSION Whilst Basefarm already offers an impressive amount of solutions to its clients, the company is keenly focused on what it can offer in the years to come. “The long-term vision is always in focus because customers, while they need a place to reside their data, at some point, they will also need to look at future technology and how to service their customers better. If you look at large oil companies or banks who reside in our centres as colocation customers, several are already looking to

transform to data driven enterprises,” de Jager advises. “They’re looking at artificial intelligence, they’re looking at the cloud. These are things that are normally not associated with colocation. For Basefarm, this is also core business.”

Assisting clients with those additional services is a key goal for Basefarm in the upcoming years.

“There’s a huge demand at the moment so we’re looking to fulfil that demand and build out our data centre to house all grade customers,” de Jager adds. “Our dream is, of course, to integrate this with all the other cool stuff that Basefarm does. As I mentioned, clients want to move to the cloud or get involved in big data or artificial intelligence. We would like to be there for our customers. We don’t want to just expand the data centre, we want to expand our services. We can really make a difference in the strategies of companies we’re housing and helping them achieve their goals.”

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BetBright on digital disruption and differentiation Written by Dale Benton Produced by Glen White

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In the bid to disrupt the status quo of the online gambling and casino industry, BetBright has an ace up its sleeve

BetBright website

R E TA I L

“

To deliver a disruptive and differentiated vision for the sports betting and casino sector.” That’s the mission statement of BetBright.

Founded in 2012, BetBright is a digital entertainment company, providing an innovative and unique online platform for gambling as well as an online casino. Based in Dublin, and operating throughout the UK, it is not the only gambling group of its kind, so how can it stand apart from its competitors? How can BetBright disrupt an already crowded market?

That task falls into the hands of Marcus Brennan, the founder and CEO, and Ronan Murphy, Technology Director. Thankfully for the company, both men bring unrivalled experience in the technology and gaming space.

For Brennan, having launched the world’s first mobile subscription lottery service in Ireland, the key to pushing the boundaries with BetBright is his core belief in technology and innovation.

“I bring the same ethos and approach to BetBright that I have brought to my previous businesses,”

says Brennan, “which is a belief in technology ownership as an enabler of innovation, differentiation and speed to market in order to disrupt.”

This is a sentiment echoed by Murphy, who himself comes from a career with significant experience in transforming the gaming industry, a career that saw him develop automation for Paddy Power, work with Finsoft (Sportsbook provider) and Boss Media (Poker and Casino) as well as working with Disney.

“I believe in making the most of technology, processes and people to deliver superior results,” he says.

“I have spent over 25 years building and operating complex software. This has given me the experience to be able to focus on what is important: what will thrill our customers.”

Growth and disruption Since its launch in 2012, BetBright has grown significantly, with forecasts predicting that the company will see revenues increase by at least 170% for 2017 over 2016.

In this time, the company has also seen a major expansion of staff, with

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around 120 people now operating under the BetBright umbrella, 70% of which focus directly on technology, product and marketing.

So, what is the overall vision of BetBright, and how will it not fall into the trap of being just another online betting platform?

“The long-term vision is to disrupt using big data, our own bespoke recommender and personalisation technologies, superior UX and artificial intelligence across our operations,” says Brennan. “It’s about bringing the best practice e-commerce technologies and capabilities from outside this sector empowered by our own technology. Technology control is a core value for us.”

While it is most certainly a long-term ambition, the speed with which BetBright has grown shows that continued growth is very much in the immediacy.

“In 18-24 months’ time, BetBright will have transformed completely.

We have control of our technology; we are fast, nimble and have a clear vision and understanding of that future product and service. We

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“In 18-24 months’ time, BetBright will have transformed completely. We have control of our technology; we are fast, nimble and have a clear vision and understanding of that future product and service.

We are ideally positioned to shoot ahead and disrupt” MARCUS BRENNAN, CEO

really are ideally positioned to shoot ahead and disrupt.” Says Brennan.

He sees it as an opportunity to tap into significantly untapped potential.

“People do not realise the potential there is to rethink this sector. We do. We have identified many areas of the gaming experience that can be radically improved,” he says.

“The gaming sector can sometime be inward looking. We look for inspiration from many sectors.”

R E TA I L

Marcus Brennan, CEO Big data It is a pretty bold statement to come into a crowded market and say that you want to disrupt the status quo, particularly when that status quo involves the likes of Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and Bet365 – all wellestablished and hugely successful online gambling companies.

Murphy is keen to stress this use of big data, and how that will be a key driver of innovation. He points to the

way in which BetBright will utilise the data captured from its users to inform the company’s operations and, in effect, create a more personalised and dynamic user experience in real time.

“Think YouTube, Amazon, Netflix – all of these companies know their customers behaviours,” he says, “and they present videos, movies and services based on who is online. Their content adapts in real time to how people interact with it. It’s a dynamic

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and personalised experience.”

This calls back to Murphy’s experience, not only in the gaming and entertainment sectors, but working with technology across multiple outside sectors and bringing the best practices from those sectors into the online gambling space.

Most if not all online gambling and entertainment companies utilise a white label platform, one that is built by a third part developer and utilised by the host company. BetBright has developed its own SportsBook.

Developed 100% in house, The Sportsbook platform provides

BetBright with a level of control that most other online gambling companies cannot surpass.

As Murphy notes, it allows BetBright to be more agile and more customer focused than most of their competition.

“This level of control means that we are extremely responsive,” he says.” In the time it would take some of our competitors to set up meetings to discuss something that has been flagged, or an interesting opportunity on the horizon, we’ve already delivered new innovations to production. With this control, we can deliver new software at least twice a week.”

Twilight Team Challenge

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Ronan Murphy, Technical Director Technological innovation For a company whose operations are 100% run through an electronic online platform, it goes without saying that technology truly is the lifeblood of BetBright. But in the ever-changing world of technology, with today’s practices almost rendered obsolete by tomorrow, how does it stay ahead of the game and ensure that the products and services it offers continue to not only be what customers want, but continue to disrupt?

“The pace of change is relentless,” says Murphy. “But we know exactly where we are going and more

importantly, how to get there.

“We constantly research and keep up to date with innovations in other sectors and we are constantly optimising our product offering. We study how our customers interact with our platforms. If we notice any friction points, we immediately remove them.”

In line with listening to what customers want and just good business sense, BetBright launched its own casino which significantly expanded the business.

Brennan notes that when looking at the existing players in the market, close to 50% of all revenue is

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BetBright operations

generated through an online casino platform. BetBright, in order to both keep up and continue to push the boundaries as to what can be expected of an online gaming and entertainment company, launched its online casino platform in 2014.

“Casino,” Brennan adds. “Is an essential part of the customer lifetime value. Customers expect to find a casino element and if you don’t have it, then you’re going to lose customers. Yes, we integrated it over time, but it was never an option. It was in our plans from day one.”

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Data management As noted previously, BetBright is not the only player in this market and both Brennan and Murphy admit that in order to succeed and stand apart from these competitors, BetBright cannot ignore what they are offering.

To do this, BetBright has a Product Management team specifically focused on understanding what the customers want, what they like and dislike, and to look at how customers interact with and engage with competitors.

“Our Product Management team and

R E TA I L

“BetBright is highly automated. We are integrated to a range of provider feeds which send us everything from race card information with runners, riders and prices to football fixtures and prices” MARCUS BRENNAN, CEO

our Data Insights team use big data to understand what customers want, but they also track our competitors’ offerings too,” says Murphy.

There will always be instances of a competitor launching a new service before anyone else can get there. Murphy concedes that in this market, in order to disrupt what’s currently out there, you cannot turn your back on what others are doing.

“Cash Out is a great example of a feature that was launched by a competitor,” he says. “It very quickly became a must have

feature, and we had to copy.

“It will certainly happen again in the future and quite frankly, to ignore what competitors are doing would be foolhardy.”

Brennan has alluded to a clear vision, a roadmap in which BetBright knows exactly where it wants to be and how it needs to continuously evolve and innovate in order to get there. This Product Management element, and utilisation of customer data, allows BetBright to pour over the data rich environment that is the gaming industry.

Powered by content providers To tap into this data and extract the true value that it can yield, BetBright continuously partners with suppliers and providers that enable the company to process vast amounts of data, efficiently and quickly.

“BetBright is highly automated and as such we are integrated to a range of provider feeds which send us everything from race card information with runners, riders and prices to football fixtures and prices,” says Brennan. “It would be impossible

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2012 The year that BetBright was founded

Staff on the IT Operations team

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for us, and any competitor, to compile all of this information and input it into the systems alone, especially when you factor in the rapid change that comes with live in play betting.”

To that end, one could argue that BetBright is heavily dependent on its content provider partners, particularly in its casino element. As the company does not develop the casino games that are integrated into its online platform, it relies on game providers such as Evolution, NetEnt, IGT, Scientific Games, and MicroGaming.

Now in its fifth year of operation, BetBright is very much a growing company and as Brennan mentioned previously, the company has a clear roadmap for the journey ahead.

This roadmap is dictated by the company’s unrivalled commitment to listening to what the customer wants, what it needs and researching and optimising to meet that changing need. It’s all about growth and innovation – that core mentality of pushing the boundaries and continuing to disrupt the status quo remains at the very heart of every decision that BetBright chooses to make.

After all, Brennan feels this is a market not only full of potential, it’s a market that’s actually lagging behind some of the broader e-commerce world. This, he truly feels, BetBright can change. “We intend to be the first to take it to a new level,” he says, “and that will be wonderful for our customers.”

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A digital ecosystem Written by Dale Benton Produced by James Pepper

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Breaking free from BlackBerry, BBM is embarking on a major growth throughout Indonesia, transcending beyond simple instant messaging

I

n the modern world, everything is instant. Entertainment continues to find ways to be in the palm of our hands and at our very fingertips - it has to be, we demand it.

As the world continues to become more and more digital, consumers demand more and more of their needs to be readily available and hosted in one simple location. Utilities, e-commerce, social media, television, accessible at the push of one button.

Instant messaging used to be exactly what it implies, a form of contact that was fast and easy to use.

But now, even instant messaging has had to transform, as “chat” is very much the killer application, enabling instant messaging companies to expand into becoming ecosystems, bringing together chat, social, content and commerce.

Most will have heard of the likes

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of WeChat in China, LINE in Japan, Kakao Talk in Korea as instant messaging companies that have made this transformation already, but BBM in Indonesia is also one that comes into the fray. Born out of BlackBerry, best known to the general public as the former developer of the BlackBerry brand of smartphones and tablets, has transitioned itself to an enterprise software and services company. As an instant messaging service, BBM was very much a consumer dominated product, but as BlackBerry shifted its focus to enterprise, it no longer fit the parent company’s direction and BlackBerry looked for options to maximise its value going forward.

In 2016, Creative Media Works, a division of PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk (Emtek) – one of Indonesia’s largest media, content and social

ASIA

Matthew Talbot Matthew Talbot is chief executive officer of BBM. He brings to his role more than 20 years of technology industry leadership, international management, and extensive sales and marketing expertise in mobility and cloud technologies, financial services, telecommunications, and consumer content in both start-up and public company environments.

BBM is one of the largest and the world’s first mobile

CEO, BBM

messaging app. Moving beyond Blackberry devices with over 100 million installs on Android, iOS, and Windows, BBM has evolved from a pure messaging application for communication (text and video) to a social ecosystem unifying Chat, Social, Commerce, Services and Ads. On 27 June 2016, Creative Media Works, a division of PT Elang Mahkota Teknologi Tbk. (Emtek, IDX:EMTK) Indonesia’s largest media, content and technology

business - announced a strategic alliance with BlackBerry to accelerate BBM’s research and development in offering new and exciting features, services and content to the global consumer market.

Creative Media Works now operates under the BBM banner as a stand-alone consumer focused business with offices in Waterloo, Mississauga, Ottawa, Singapore, Jakarta, UAE and South Africa.

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networking business - announced payments (utility payments, top-ups) a long-term strategic alliance to comics, shopping, travel, career, accelerate consumer BBM’s research sports, transportation, coupons, and development in offering new and subscriptions, beauty, sports and polls. exciting features, services and content This ecosystem, as Talbot notes, is to the global consumer market. all centred around one unifying vision.

“BBM is actually 12 years old this “It’s the goal of making sure that year,” says Matthew Talbot, CEO of in a day in the life of a consumer, the Creative Media Works (CMW), the one app that people go to is BBM, company which has the as it can connect all their daily license to operate, services, social experience develop and run and content at their BBM Consumer fingertips,” he says. globally. “For a Since becoming long time, BBM a part of the Emtek was the default Group, BBM Number of global messaging is significantly service, and expanding its market employees everyone remembers presence in Indonesia at BBM having a BlackBerry and across the Middle East email account and using and Africa. Talbot, having worked BBM. Obviously though the market within the mobile technology solution has changed, and with that, we BBM space for more than 20 years, has seen has also had to change to survive.” the transformation of the market and, This new direction has seen BBM more importantly, what customers evolve from a pure messaging are demanding right here, right now. service connecting people to a “Messaging apps are the new social ecosystem, unifying chat, ecosystems. The average consumer social, commerce, content and has over 3.4 messaging applications services such as news, games, video, on their phone, and only uses four to

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“It’s the goal of making sure that in a day in the life of a consumer, the one app that people go to is BBM, as it can connect all their daily services, social experience and content at their fingertips” MATTHEW TALBOT CEO of Creative Media Works

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five apps every day. The application war as such is already won for time in app, and due to the significant cost involved in constantly trying to drive consumers to individual applications, as well as ongoing support costs around development had accelerated this opportunity,” says Talbot.

Talbot points to Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014 as a pivotal moment in the changing perception of what a messaging app could and should be.

“That was the year when messaging apps surpassed social media apps,” he says. “The reality is, the killer application already exists and it is messaging. The stickiness of messaging presents a real opportunity to integrate more and more content and relevant services, increasing stickiness, increasing time in app, by allowing consumers to access multiple services they do each day via the one app and socially connecting them.”

CMW’s core vision is for BBM to be the top one or two messaging applications within its key markets, but as Talbot notes, it’s hard for any messaging service to go from zero to

more than 60mn users. To that end, BBM is focused on expanding and cementing its footprint in markets where it already has a significant holding, such as Indonesia, and parts of the Middle East and Africa.

“Messaging is all about scale, and the network and connection effect that it creates,” Talbot says.

“We’re continuing to scale from organic growth, while simultaneously becoming stickier by providing more services and more content into the daily lives of our consumers. The key success factor here is about partnering with ‘best of breed’ content and service providers that are local and relevant to our consumers.”

This part is key and CMW has partnered with a number of players in Indonesia already, as well as globally.

Just to name a few examples of the breadth of BBM’s portfolio, it has successfully incorporated the world’s leading hotel price comparison site HotelsCombined, online e-commerce marketplace Bukalapak, and global transportation technology company Uber to name a few. IT is also working to launch a payment wallet solution

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with the group’s joint venture with Ant Financial called ‘DANA’, which will enable end-to-end payment across the BBM ecosystem of content and services, online and offline payments, as well as person-toperson payments within Indonesia.

“We’ve really tried to partner with the best of breed partners and integrate them into BBM,” Talbot says. “That comes back to the opportunity around the scale that we have, which has enabled us to work with partners that are very much aligned with our success.”

Creative Media Works, operating as BBM, was established in 2016

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and the following 12 months has seen significant growth for BBM, but there has been one persistent challenge that Talbot has had to contend with, something that he calls the company’s “Achilles heel”.

“I can give a speech at a conference, lay out a full presentation on what BBM is and what it stands for and our ambition, and I can guarantee that people will walk away from it and still refer to us as BlackBerry Messenger,” he says. “It’s two-fold really though, because in markets like Indonesia, BlackBerry is such a well-known brand, you have to strike a balance against what has

BBM Messenger Partners with Criteo to Augment Access to Premium Brands and Advertisers in Indonesia Welcome to the #VibrantFuture of Commerce Marketing Since establishing its publisher relationship with Criteo (NASDAQ: CRTO), the commerce marketing leader, in 2016, Creative Media Works, operating as BBM, has expanded its access to premium brands and high-value advertisers, resulting in significant increases in in-app engagement for brands through BBM Messenger.

BBM is the largest messaging platform in Indonesia and has more than 60 million monthly active users.

Since it was created in August 2005, BBM has evolved from a pure messaging application for text and video communications to online social ecosystem unifying chat, social, commerce and services like bill payments, top-ups, vouchers / coupons, games, comics, news, video, shopping, travel, sport, career and polls.

BBM Messenger’s strength lies in its ability to convert app traffic into consumer engagement, thereby enabling eCommerce players with ads within BBM to increase online sales and engagement. BBM leveraged Criteo to accomplish the following: • Efficiently pinpoint or target specific users within BBM Messenger’s user base, by leveraging The Criteo Engine’s ability to understand each consumer’s online browsing and purchasing behaviour.

• Optimise BBM Messenger’s ad inventory by allowing premium, high-value advertisers to engage more effectively with BBM Messenger users through personalised and brand-appropriate ads delivered in real-time.

“Indonesians spend an average of 5.5 hours a day on apps and the mobile web, with BBM Messenger being one of the top mobile apps when it comes to usage frequency and duration. For brands looking to grow online sales in Indonesia, in-app advertising on BBM Messenger is a massive consumer engagement opportunity. Criteo’s machine learning algorithms intelligently match publishers’ ad inventories with brands’ dynamic ads to achieve the best consumer engagement results. We look forward to continuing to help platforms like BBM Messenger maximise revenue, while helping brands maximise digital ad spending,”

said Dushyant Sapre, Regional Director, Global Supply and Business Development, Asia-Pacific, Criteo.

Results from Criteo’s Collaboration with BBM Since becoming a Criteo publisher, BBM has achieved the following results: • 50 percent increase in overall click-through rates on the BBM platform • 50 percent increase in click-through rates for retailrelated ads on the BBM platform • 50 percent increase in BBM’s daily ad revenue “BBM Messenger works with the best-in-breed partners globally, as part of a continuous effort to provide an enriched user experience, while delivering optimal results to brands and advertisers. The partnership with Criteo gives us access to a robust network of premium and high-value advertisers, while increasing our user engagement and click-through rates. In addition, this collaboration allows both teams to collectively explore various ad formats and methods that work best for brands looking to engage mobile consumers in Indonesia,” said Matthew Talbot, CEO of Creative Media Works, the company that operates and runs BBM globally.

Click here to watch how BBM worked with Criteo Creative Media Works now operates under the BBM banner as a stand-alone consumer focused business with teams operating from Waterloo, Mississauga, Ottawa, Singapore, Jakarta, UAE and South Africa.

For more information, visit www.bbm.com.

Introducing the Criteo Commerce Marketing Ecosystem: Criteo, the leader in commerce marketing, is building the highest performing and open commerce marketing ecosystem to drive profits and sales for retailers and brands. 2,700 Criteo team members partner with 16,000 customers and thousands of publishers across the globe to deliver performance at scale by connecting shoppers to the things they need and love. Designed for commerce, Criteo Commerce Marketing Ecosystem sees over $550 billion in annual commerce sales data. For more information, please visit www.criteo.com or email APACMarketing@criteo.com.

BBM

come before and what messages move to the cloud promises significant and brand image we want to build improvements in performance as well around the new BBM in the future.” as the ability to launch and scale more In light of branching off into its and more services and content. own venture and company culture, As part of the migration, Emtek CMW is working very closely with will be rationalising BBM’s existing BlackBerry as the company is infrastructure by leveraging on GCP still completing the migration of custom Virtual Machine (VM) types infrastructure and processes from across all of BBM’s components. operating under BlackBerry umbrella.

Google Cloud’s presence over the This migration brings map and ability for software about its own unique load balancers to be challenges for Talbot, globally reachable The year as it doesn’t synergise allows BBM to that BBM was with the agile centralise its established environment that infrastructure in BBM is now trying select regions, but still to operate within. provide a low latency, “We are still hosting user experience for its our infrastructure within global subscriber base, as the BlackBerry data centres network traffic will be ingested in Canada, and we’re only halfway in the geographically closest Google through the transitioning process,” Point-of-Presence and traverse he says. “Without control of our their backbone to BBM servers. infrastructure end-to-end, it’s like trying “Google Cloud Connect is a service to steer a boat without a rudder.” offering, which will allow us to connect Part of the transition to a new our Google Cloud infrastructure infrastructure has been its deal with in Singapore and Taiwan to the Google to run on the Google Cloud BlackBerry data centres that are Platform (GCP) in Southeast Asia. This located in North America,” says Talbot.

2005

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BBM migration stats As part of the migration, Emtek will be rationalizing the infrastructure by leveraging on GCP custom VM types across all the BBM components:

CORE MESSAGING

BBM ON BLACKBERRY INFRASTRUCTURE

BBM ON GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM

~5,000 instances

~3,500 instances (with autoscaling)

~500 instances MEDIA STORAGE

NetApp Filers

Migrate to pay per use on GCS

Solid State Disk over FusionIO LOGGING AND MONITORING

~5,000 instances

Migrate PubSub and Dataflow

BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS

~1,000 instances

Migrate to Dataproc and BigQuery

DATABASES

~500 instances

Leverage Cloud SQL

The hardware footprint in the Google Cloud, which spans multiple permutations allows BBM to spin up beefy virtual machines, previously only achievable on bare metal nodes; for example, a 64 vCPU node with 240GB of RAM. This allows for vertical scaling, reducing BBM’s node count footprint and operational overhead.

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BBM

“This network circuit will ride on top of Google’s Wide Area Network and subsequently interconnect with BlackBerry infrastructure over dedicated fibre optics - this allows us to be in control of our own destiny and limit any impact from other ‘network hungry’ Google customers.”

GCP became available in Singapore just this year, which has allowed CMW to host its BBM platform in “our own backyard”, making it easy to deliver services to the company’s largest user base in Indonesia.

“We are excited to be able to deploy into the GCP Singapore region, as it will allow us to offer our services closer to our largest customer base,” says Talbot. “Coupled with Google’s global load balancers and extensive global network, we expect to be able to provide a low latency, high-speed experience for our users globally.”

Such a significant project, one that will see enormous quantities of data and data storage be migrated to a new platform, is not without its risks and Talbot is targeting a Q1 2018

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launch date, which will provide enough time for the company to complete its full migration of infrastructure, processes, data and systems.

Operating in the mobile consumer business, one that continuously transforms and evolves at an increasing rate, Talbot is all too aware of the importance for BBM to remain at the forefront of this change in order to survive.

For BBM, the company today handles between 15,000- 20,000 customer service requests on a

weekly basis, with 6,000 app reviews and approximately 2,000 comments and social engagements. This allows CMW to gain a true picture of understanding what the customers are looking for as a service solution.

“We have such a huge number of touchpoints with the customer on a daily basis where they tell us exactly what it is they don’t like and don’t think works, but more importantly what they do like and what does work,” says Talbot.

“The moment you start thinking

BBM

“There’s a tremendous opportunity for CMW to expand the BBM application into something that adds value to people’s daily lives, but we have to execute on that vision, and make sure that we take this opportunity and build something special” MATTHEW TALBOT

CEO of Creative Media Works

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you’re doing something right, that’s when you stop pushing yourself.

It’s important to hear what’s going wrong and not tell people what you think is going right.”

As CMW continues this migration, partnering with more and more key providers in the market, the company’s immediate goal is to completely free itself of its BlackBerry heritage and truly establish itself as a new entity, and become one of the leading digital ecosystems in Indonesia.

For Talbot, he sees BBM becoming more than a simple ecosystem but a

part of consumers’ everyday lives.

“We have between 50 and 55mn monthly active users at any given month in Indonesia, so we can have a huge impact on the day-to-day activities via BBM,” he says.

“There’s a tremendous opportunity for CMW to expand the BBM application into something that adds value to people’s daily lives, but we have to execute on that vision, and make sure that we take this opportunity and build something special.”

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BNP Paribas Cardif in Japan: Leading the industry with customer care Written by Nell Walker Produced by James Pepper

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Joel Edgerton and Colm Kennelly explain how BNP Paribas Cardif has struck the balance between technology and customer experience to dominate the insurance market in Japan

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hile the world of insurance is ostensibly centred around human experience, it’s amazing how often that focus falls by the wayside, particularly as technology becomes ever more of a priority. BNP Paribas Cardif, the insurance arm of BNP Paribas, is working tirelessly to buck this trend.

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Joel Edgerton, COO, and Colm Kennelly, CIO, have been fronting a technological transformation of the Japanese arm of the business. With backgrounds in business, finance, and engineering between them, the pair boast a powerful grasp of both technology and economics in order to lead this transformation.

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BNP Paribas Cardif head office

“We are very committed to the Japanese market. We have been growing faster than the market for about 14 years,” says Edgerton. “We’re not a normal insurance business – we work with partners on bank insurance which distribute our products. Facing strong competition, we realised that the best way we could compete

was with customer experience.

That started our transformation.”

As a result, BNP Paribas Cardif in Japan has stormed ahead of other businesses and shed competition, upgrading along the way without negatively impacting customers. According to Kennelly, the technology transformation

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B N P PA R I B A S C A R D I F

Inside a Cardif office

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in Japan was a mountain to climb as opposed to a hill, but the payoff has been huge.

“The real battle in Japan is generating buy-in and building momentum and trust in terms of the vision, the mission, and the direction, which involves a healthy degree of change and disruption,” he explains. “Once you get to that point, you mold it all to Japanese values and culture which results in a team player mindset. It’s a very steep mountain initially, but the wonderful benefit is that when you do, you get a conveyor belt-type delivery mechanism where you can churn out quality delivery whilst building on trust and delegation that I don’t think you get in many other countries.”

Edgerton and Kennelly worked on creating the most amount of flexibility in the business transformation whilst catering to the requirements and culture of the nation they serve. BNP Paribas Cardif wanted to introduce more products and distribution channels, leading it to deconstruct core systems and rebuild them in a more modular way, ensuring a data-driven process and infrastructure.

“We can reuse our business logic and reuse data while moving in a way that’s flexible and agile,” says Edgerton. “We’ve got the architecture mapped out for the next five years to develop, in close coordination with our head office. We’ve already started building out pieces of it that are in place, and as we add new business functionalities

B N P PA R I B A S C A R D I F

they’re built into the new architecture.

Data is core to that, but the real impact is not so much on the technology as much as how we implement change. In particular, what is the customer experience impact of any given change?”

“We’re not a technology company, we’re an insurance company,” adds Kennelly. “We’ve got a laser focus on the fact that our mission is to deliver tailored, best-in-class and

fit-for-purpose insurance solutions to improve the risk management and quality of life for our customers.

Technology isn’t the be all and end all, because there will be cases where we have customers who are very receptive to and demanding of high technology, and customers who are the exact opposite. It’s very important that we have a real and accurate sense of what our customers are looking for.”

BNP Paribas Cardif utilises data to

The BNP Paribas 360° 2017 Corporate Film: Discover the other VR-based solutions available to BNP Paribas customers 118

December 2017

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Cardif is part of the BNP Paribas Group better understand customers, first and foremost.

This extends from the most basic point of contact at the call centre, where BNP Paribas Cardif puts no limit to how long an operator stays on the line, to the most complex elements of any relationship between a customer and an insurer.

“We see a lot of possibilities about how we can create new and better interactions with customers,” says Edgerton. Kennelly adds: “What’s very important in Japan is trust, respect, sincerity, and commitment.

Delivery of superior product is the result, but it’s about the journey for us.”

“You hear customer experience buzz words all over the place,” Edgerton continues, “but we don’t want to do the same as everyone else.”

As such, the business organises its own

“Our mission is to deliver tailored, bestin-class and fit-for-purpose insurance solutions to improve the risk management and quality of life for our customers” Colm Kennelly, CIO

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B N P PA R I B A S C A R D I F

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version of customer experience around a Japanese concept called ‘omotenashi’, which translates directly into English as ‘hospitality’.

“In Japan, the word for ‘customer’ and ‘guest’ are the same,” says Edgerton. “The assumption with omotenashi is that you know your customer so well that you’re able to fulfil their needs without them asking. There is no difference between you and your customer.”

No longer needing to compete on price or product specifications, BNP Paribas Cardif concentrates on competing with this omotenashi concept, which is long-running and ever-evolving. Taking the time and effort to create strong relationships ensures a unique level of loyalty.

Kennelly is keen to point out that the audience any business needs to get on board first is its employees, long before customer partnerships can be forged, and that the unique way in which Japanese people work as a team is invaluable.

“The expectation is that the senior individual at the top of the

organisation provides a safety net if things go south, but there’s also an understanding of a level of support from the collective,” he states. “That’s what generates the belief, the trust, and the commitment. If anything goes wrong, the team will try to solve it with transparent communication and try to make decisions based on data.”

“The characteristic I’m looking for in new employees the most nowadays is curiosity,” Edgerton adds. “Employees that are willing to ask questions: ‘why is the customer happy or unhappy?

Why are we doing it this way? Why are we not doing it another way?’ In the same way, we do not want suppliers but partners that are willing to learn and grow together with us. It’s that curiosity combined with technology that’s really going to take us forward.

“For the companies adapting to technology change, the ones that will be successful are the ones keeping their core beliefs and focus on the customer, and use technology to benefit them. Otherwise you either rush to get the technology in place to survive, or get wiped out.

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“In Japan, the word for ‘customer’ and ‘guest’ are the same. There is no difference between you and your customer” Joel Edgerton, COO

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“We want to be in the first group.

We want to be an innovator, a pioneer, and not be scrambling for survival. We want to add value to the customer.”

For Kennelly, the customers must have a “meaningful and aligned experience with BNP Paribas Cardif” in order for the business to thrive. Currently, it appears that this mindset has been wildly successful for BNP Paribas Cardif, and allows the business to bask in confidence for the future while it moves ahead with advanced technology.

“We’re looking at what we do in terms of AI, in terms of business automation, IoT, mobile, cloud, social, and how that’s all underpinned by being a truly digital processdriven company,” Kennelly concludes. “We also need to challenge ourselves naturally in terms of whether what we’re doing is adding real value from the customer’s perspective. If not, apart from the mandatory topics which we have to do regardless of whether the customer sees the value or not, we shouldn’t be doing them.”

Transparent communication is an important feature of Cardif’s company culture

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SMART ABOUT DIGITAL Written by Dale Benton Produced by Stuart Shirra

Bank ABC has been a leading provider of banking and financial services in the Kingdom of Bahrain for more than 35 years, and has embarked on a digital transformation in order to embrace the changing financial landscape

I

n the global financial landscape of today, one of the biggest keywords is digital and digital transformation. More and more organisations, companies, banks and financial institutions are transforming their entire processes both internally and externally to embrace the ever-growing demands that a digital market brings with it.

Bank ABC is an international bank headquartered in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain. Founded in 1980, the bank has firmly established itself as a leading provider of banking and financial services throughout the Arabian Gulf and across its footprint in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Naturally, on its journey towards its market leading presence today in 2017, the company has had to undergo its own digital transformation in order to continue to be the bank of choice.

This is an ongoing change, but where ABC Bank differentiates itself is in its approach to the very understanding of digital banking. “Digital banking became a go-to word

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Stuart Rennie

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BUILDING THE NEW OPERATING SYSTEM FOR FINANCIAL MARKETS R3 is an enterprise software firm working with over 100 banks, financial institutions, regulators, trade associations, professional services firms and technology companies to develop Corda, its distributed ledger platform designed specifically for businesses. R3’s global team of over 140 professionals in nine countries is supported by over 2,000 technology, financial, and legal experts drawn from its global member base. R3 recently announced the successful completion of the first 2 of 3 tranches in a Series A fundraise valued at USD 107 million.

Corda is the outcome of over two years of intense research and development by R3 and its members and meets the highest standards of the banking industry, yet is applicable to any commercial scenario. It records, manages and executes institutions’ financial agreements in perfect synchrony with their peers, creating a world of frictionless commerce.

www.r3.com | www.corda.net | businessdevelopment@r3.com

BANK ABC

around 2013, but everybody has a different understanding of what is meant by digital banking,” says Stuart Rennie, Group Head of Information Technology.

“Our digital strategy at ABC is not only about our customers and providing more digital services for customers, but includes the organisation itself - internal touchpoints with staff, customers, vendors, outsource providers and of course, how the Internet of Things will change our processes.”

For Rennie, it’s very much centred around the idea of an agile approach to developing the organisation’s internal applications and processes, and not just embracing digital banking for Number of employees digital banking’s sake. at Bank ABC Through the transformation, Rennie is overseeing a digital strategy that will enable Bank ABC to become quicker and faster in terms of its capabilities to rapidly develop new services and applications.

Rennie describes this as “packaging smaller sets of functionalities”, developing and delivering these functionalities in a series of “sprints”.

Despite the company seeing itself in the infancy of this digital strategy, the agile approach has been extremely successful and it will look to replicate this approach in

1K-5K

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Make smarter, more risk-aware decisions with industry-leading insights from Moody’s Analytics. Read the latest edition of Moody’s Analytics Risk Perspectives™ for research and information on IFRS 9, emerging financial technologies, and other essential topics for global risk practitioners.

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Leveraging centralized IT for multijurisdictional regulatory reporting and internal decision-making The Middle East region offers unparalleled growth opportunities for banks – as well as presenting them with some particularly tough risk management and regulatory reporting challenges. Moody’s Analytics currently serves more than 130 financial institutions regionally, with its market standard enterprise risk, professional services, training & certification and credit research solutions.

The company has now been helping customers in the Middle East and North Africa region to deliver and maintain Basel compliance for more than twenty years.

Moody’s Analytics is a strategically important partner to Bank ABC, with a relationship that spans over a decade. It has helped Bank ABC to meet evolving regulatory reporting requirements from multiple regulators, using a centrally deployed technology architecture that serves users in various locations. The Basel reporting requirements cover credit, market, operational, and liquidity risks.

“The Moody’s Analytics centralized architecture helps Bank ABC deliver gains in efficiency and optimize operational costs.”

approach allows financial institutions to embed financial spreading and risk rating within their credit workflow processing, for maximum efficiency gains together with reduced operational costs.

IFRS 9 compliance More recently, many Middle East banks have embarked upon their IFRS 9 journey to meet the revised accounting standard on expected credit losses. IFRS 9 projects require significant data for modeling purposes, and computational power for the calculation of lifetime credit losses. Moody’s Analytics augments banks’ internal data with extensive credit risk and macroeconomic data to assist in compliance with the new standard, supporting the automation and workflow of expected credit loss calculations and disclosure reporting.

To maximize the return on investment in its technology, Moody’s Analytics provides customized training programs to assist banks in unifying their credit culture across the enterprise.

The program ensures that staff are equipped to make optimal use of technology, providing them with the appropriate skills for their roles.

- Stuart Rennie, Group Head of IT, Bank ABC

This program evolves with policy and underwriting changes. In addition to enabling banks to meet regulators’ requests in a timely and comprehensive fashion, the IT infrastructure and training implemented by Moody’s Analytics supports internal decision-making processes.

In pursuit of this objective, Moody’s Analytics works closely with its customers’ senior management to align the programs with each bank’s policies and risk appetite framework.

Corporate credit assessment and underwriting are key areas of focus. The Moody’s Analytics

To learn more, please contact us at mena@moodys.com

“Digital banking became a go-to word around 2013, but everybody has a different understanding of what is meant by digital banking” – Stuart Rennie, Group Head of Information Technology

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other areas of the business.

One of the biggest challenges of any form of digital transformation is ensuring there is always a business case first, and not simply looking to digital just because your competitors are.

Striking this balance comes down to an understanding of the market and keeping a clear eye on the business case or problem that can be solved through digital.

“There’s a lot of hype around digital and other technologies such as artificial intelligence, distributed ledger technology, crypto currencies right across the market,” says Rennie.

“But at the end of the day, we need to keep asking ourselves; how is this going to benefit the customer?

The Bank? And why have existing technologies not been successful previously? Many times, the real issues are not with technology.”

One such example of this that Rennie points to is blockchain, arguably one of the biggest buzzwords across the financial industry right now. As more and more organisations began

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“There’s a lot of hype around digital and other technologies... But at the end of the day, we need to keep asking ourselves; how is this going to benefit the customer? The Bank? And why have existing technologies not been successful previously? Many times, the real issues are not with technology” – Stuart Rennie, Group Head of Information Technology

to discuss and build prototype solutions based on blockchain, it brought about a level of pressure to those companies that did not.

“Naturally, people are going to want to know what your blockchain strategy is if competitors are talking it up,” Rennie says.

“But really, it’s not an IT question, but a business question. It’s about understanding if there is an opportunity, existing or new, that digital or blockchain, etc. can now help to resolve. Even then, is it feasible and do the numbers stack up? If these stars are aligned, it is time to move … and fast!”

No transformation journey can be completed alone and, for Rennie and Bank ABC, establishing key strategic relationships both internally and externally has and will continue to be critical.

Rennie says that an organisation is nothing without the people that make it up.

“Systems may help you become more efficient in terms of overall cost and operations,” he says. “But essentially everything comes down to relationships with people, managing those relationships and partnerships with a long-term strategic view.”

In a digital landscape, one that will

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BANK ABC see the implementation of new systems and ways of working, there is an element of risk involved that is inescapable. This approach to key relationships and being smart about the partners that Bank ABC selects to work with that allows the company to navigate this risk and collaborate successfully.

“We have an extensive record of long term relationships with banking application partners such as AFS, Unisys, Finastra, Moody’s Analytics and technology providers such as Microsoft, Almoayyed Computers, GBM, and Batelco. The new digital requirements more recently have required establishing close ties with BackBase and R3.”

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“Systems may help you become more efficient in terms of overall cost and operations. But essentially everything comes down to relationships with people, managing those relationships and partnerships with a long-term strategic view” – Stuart Rennie, Group Head of Information Technology “We are always looking for partnerships that are centred around trust, open dialogue and a synergy between our ambition and their capabilities to help us get there,” says Rennie.

During the digitisation of an organisation, there can and are often casualties in terms of losing staff. Heading up the group’s IT team, Rennie is a firm believer that undergoing such a transformation should excite anyone in IT, as it presents the perfect opportunity to create new challenges, solve new problems and access new technologies.

“Working in IT, particularly within

the current environment of this digital transformation process, if you feel you’re being challenged and you have work hard for something, that’s much more gratifying than it being handed to you on a platter,” he says.

“That’s what we’ve felt here. A personal responsibility to systems.

We’ve been pushed and, when issues are encountered, we’ve taken ownership and endeavoured to overcome them. That is difficult to achieve if you outsource ownership of IT during these transformations.”

Having worked in IT for more than 20 years, Rennie maintains a very hands-on approach to IT, one that he feels is critical from top to

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bottom in digital transformation.

“You need to roll your sleeves up and get involved,” he says. “Half of our management team’s time is spent on our systems, with the other half on people and process. There’s a real appetite for continuing to learn

and leverage the systems here.

“People feel challenged and are encouraged to push themselves, which for me is crucial towards achieving success as we continue to navigate this everchanging digital space.”

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Moammar Information Systems Integrating an unrivalled IT legacy that lasts Written by Dale Benton Produced by Craig Daniels

Moammar Information Systems is embarking on an ambitious journey to become the IT integration solutions partner of choice throughout Saudi Arabia, recruiting Ziad Mortaja to steer this vision

A

s a provider of IT systems integration solutions founded in 1979, Al Moammar Information Systems Co. (MIS) has continuously evolved its operations in order to sustain its position as one of the most efficient and competitive diversified companies throughout KSA. Earlier this year, MIS welcomed Ziad Mortaja as the company’s new General Manager. Mortaja brings with him years of experience in Schneider Electric, Hewlett Packard and Cisco, which will prove crucial as the company embarks on an aggressive growth strategy over the next decade “My experience working with the large internationals will help inform my decision making with MIS, as we build an organisation and evolve

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MIS to become a stronger systems integrator throughout KSA with international standards,” he says.

MIS is made up of six divisions with key areas of focus; solutions, security, IT services management, systems, networking and operation and maintenance. It is this diversified portfolio that has allowed MIS to develop partnerships with some of the largest technology providers operating in the Middle East, including Oracle, Cisco, HPE, BMC, Microsoft and many others.

“This mixture and depth of our portfolio allows MIS to provide complete solutions to our customers,” says Mortaja. “We target with our six divisions large and strategic projects as we have the capacity and the capability to take on those projects.”

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ZIAD MORTAJA MIS General Manager

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This capability is solidified through the company achieving the highest Saudi Government Classification Certificate, a prerequisite to be able to bid and execute large scale IT projects and services in the kingdom, a true reflection of the company’s credibility in the market. Working with such largescale major clients within its portfolio, MIS thrives to develop and foster the relationship with these clients in order to achieve a solution offering that is of benefit to both MIS and the technology provider.

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“Every year we build an operational business plan jointly with our partners, where we agree on focus markets, targets and investment areas,” says Mortaja. “MIS has the capabilities and the skills to address all the needs across all the elements of the IT value chain, from infrastructure, application operation and support.”

MIS has worked with some of its biggest clients for more than 30 years and as the IT infrastructure space has evolved, the company has worked closely with these clients to

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continue to provide them with the the marketplace and within their own most effective services and products, technology creation space. These rather than leaving them to navigate relationships essentially formulate our the changing landscape alone. business plans,” says Mortaja.

This relationship also In the IT integration works both ways, as solutions space, technology and increasing attention is innovation drives this being turned towards transformations’ data, data storage, close working business intelligence with clients such and, consequently, The year MIS as Microsoft and data security. As was founded Cisco allows it to technology continues develop its solutions to redefine the market, in alignment with that.

Mortaja is keen to stress that “We are always communicating and no technological transformation can engaging with our clients, and this be effective without the company’s informs us as to what is happening in most important asset, its people.

1979

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M I S ( A L M O A M M A D I N F O R M AT I O N S Y S T E M S )

MIS strives to attract, develop and, more importantly, retain the highest level of human capital in order to be a market leader.

“As a company, our human capital is part of our entire development ethos,” says Mortaja. “Every time we identify a new skillset that’s required, or a new technology element we focus our investment plan around how we can train our people and develop them to be the very best they can be for the company and for the client.”

Due to the changing nature of the market, having a skills gap can be inescapable at times and MIS works closely with what Mortaja describes as “extended partnerships” that provide it with resources that enable the company to learn and provide specialised services.

“We assess our core competencies with our own staff and through

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our extended reach to a wellestablished network of partners,” he says. “It becomes a combination of both homegrown and extended reach in order to continue to deliver to client expectations.”

MIS has a vision to become the trusted IT partner for some of the largest projects in Saudi Arabia, but to get there, Mortaja understands that sometimes it’s not about the destination, rather the transformational journey that represents the one key success for the company.

“For me, success is a journey not a destination,” says Mortaja. “My role is to build on more than 30 years of success. We want to be the best for our customers, the best for the company, for our employees and for our shareholders, and with that, it’s a journey that must not end.”

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“We want to be the best for our customers, the best for the company, for our employees and for our shareholders, and with that, it’s a journey that must not end” – Ziad Mortaja, General Manager, MIS

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Enriching customer experience,

differently Produced by Stuart Shirra

The marriage of finance and technology has brought in a sea change in the financial services industry. A new creed of fintech enterprises, born-on-the-web and riding the new digital wave, are disrupting the financial ecosystem with out-of-the-box ideas that focus on enhancing customer experience. Customers, on their part, are increasingly shifting towards digital channels that provide convenience and value.

Their loyalties are with the meritorious

M

oney transfer seems to be the most impacted segment by this new innovative digital wave. In this scenario, will traditional service providers get to surf and stay afloat? Will they stay relevant?

This brings us to UAE Exchange, a leading money transfer service provider, constantly in news with its recent foray into the fintech segment.

It won the Emerging Digital Leader Award at the recent Digital Leader Awards ceremony held in Dubai, UAE. The fact that a 37-year old traditional money transfer brand won such an award, in spite of its long legacy, caught our attention. Business Review Middle East sought to understand how UAE Exchange Group serves as an antithesis of organisational gravity.

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A financial conglomerate UAE Exchange is part of a global financial services group serving more than 15mn customers.

The group handles 6.5% of the global remittances and 7.1% of foreign exchange through two category leaders – UAE Exchange and Travelex – in the group. Along with the two brands, the group is home to three others: Xpress Money, an instant money transfer brand; Remit2India, an online money transfer portal; and Ditto Bank, a fully digital bank regulated by ACPR in France and the ECB. The other services offered by the group include prepaid cards, salary disbursal solution and bill payments. Additionally, the group has banking licenses in Brazil, lending

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Promoth Manghat CEO Promoth Manghat has been a champion of innovation in business since two decades, bringing out-of-the-box solutions in finance, strategy, product development, marketing, mergers and acquisitions and digital space, transforming UAE Exchange group into a truly global entity. The past three years witnessed Manghat taking great strides in the inorganic growth path of the group with critical investments and acquisitions.

He deftly handled the complex acquisition process of Travelex, the world’s leading Foreign Exchange specialist and Remit2India, the online money transfer portal platform apart from acquiring a series of businesses in South Africa, Singapore and Brazil, enhancing its global footprint. Today with five top notch brands – UAE Exchange, Xpress Money, Travelex, Ditto Bank and Remit2India – the group has emerged into a globally leading conglomerate that brings immense value to its over 15mn customers worldwide.

As the group CEO, his digital vision ensured that the group partnered with various Fintech start-ups; is an active participant in various incubators in association with the likes of DIFC, ADGM, New York University etc.; and has also made significant investments in start-ups backed by the highly potent blockchain technology. Manghat’s overarching principle of excellence has helped the brand firmly root itself in the labyrinthine ways of the money movement industry.

As an acknowledged expert and thought leader in the money transfer, fintech and financial inclusion domains, Manghat is a sought-after speaker at industry forums and conventions. He is a regular contributor to various industry and business publications and is a keen commentator on technology innovation in financial services. Manghat serves as a corporate mentor to some of the leading start-ups being nurtured under UAE Exchange’s institutional partnerships. He also serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Steering Committee for Financial Inclusion that seeks to drive sustainable financial inclusion through digital channels.

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“Innovation has played a critical role in our success story. The culture of innovation is enriched by the strong values of integrity, commitment, empowerment and care” – Promoth Manghat, CEO

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operations in India and other markets.

From its modest beginnings in 1980, UAE Exchange has come a long way. The group completed the acquisition of Travelex in 2015, followed by Remit2India, the portal for online money transfers to India. Asides this, the group has also made a series of investments in new age fintech start-ups.

Early adopters The growth trajectory of the brand has always moved forward, backed by its innovative mix of products and services clubbed with excellent customer experience. From the very beginning it has been innovative with products like FLASHremit, the instant account credit facility, and gocash, the multi-currency prepaid card, among others. UAE Exchange has been progressive in its journey because of the aggressive investments made in technology. One of the early adopters of technology for process automation, UAE Exchange was among the first to build a large in-house IT function that engages in technology innovations, process and product enhancements.

Along with the internal technology prowess, the brand also partners with experts like SAP, SunGard and Nice Actimize to enhance customer service, treasury and compliance functions, respectively.

The digital journey Promoth Manghat, CEO of UAE Exchange Group, believes that it’s the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship that has placed the group in a higher league.

“Innovation has played a critical role in our success story. The culture of innovation is enriched by the strong values of integrity, commitment, empowerment and care. Currently, we are strengthening our service offerings using latest technology.

Earlier this year, we launched our contactless wearable for gocash card in the UAE, the first ever company to launch a contactless wearable in the region under this category. This was followed by gocash app and the much-awaited online money transfer licence in the UAE, which is already available in 10 other countries.”

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Fintech partnerships Understanding the dynamics of business, the group is investing heavily towards bringing together the right technology and partnerships.

Detailing it further, Manghat says: “We have earmarked $250mn for digital investments. We are also an active participant in the fintech ecosystem, associating ourselves with accelerators, incubators, startups and academia in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Bahrain in Middle East; India, Singapore and China in Asia; USA and the UK.” The group is committed to nurture and support fintech innovation. This commitment is backed by strategic partnerships and investments with startups. It has collaborated with various fintech start-ups, complementing experience and strategic investments with their fresh ideas to bring the best to customers.

“We have invested in a series of enterprises including Loyyal on Blockchain, Sywch on virtual gifting, Souqalmal, a marketplace aggregator, and others,” informs Manghat.

Today the group is collaborating

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with some of the leading global fintech entities and multiple startup incubators to further its digital ambitions. It has associated with the likes of New York University’s StartAD, ADGM and the DIFC Fintech Hive to transform the fintech landscape regionally. Along with it the group has also built a state-of-the-art DigiLab at its global headquarters in Abu Dhabi, which is an innovation window showcasing the group’s digital assets.

Retail, a vital touch point “Investments on digital doesn’t mean that our focus on retail has wavered,” Manghat points out.

Currently the group has direct presence in 45 markets, while UAE Exchange and Travelex together have around 2,500 outlets globally. This, coupled with the complementary

synergies that Travelex brings on board, multiplies technological prowess and economies of scale exponentially. Meanwhile Xpress Money, its instant money transfer arm, has presence in 160 countries with 200,000 agent locations.

Speaking on the importance of retail, Manghat says: “We cannot overlook the criticality of our physical presence as a brand nor the impact of this customer touch point. Hence retail will continue to feature at the top of all our plans. Meanwhile retail is strongly transforming from being hi-touch to hi-tech and we are emerging into a sort of an aggregator of payments and bringing a differently enriching customer experience. To further enhance our global footprint, we have also acquired a series of businesses in South Africa, Singapore and Brazil.”

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Mashreq Bank and the science of finance Written by Nell Walker Produced by Stuart Shirra

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Sandeep Chouhan, EVP – Group Head Operations and Technology, describes the ways in which high-level technology has kept the 50-year-old business at the top of its game in the UAE

M

ashreq Bank, the market leader in banking innovations in the UAE, is celebrating its 50th Year in 2017, having begun operations as Bank of Oman in 1967.

Over the past five decades, Mashreq has been serving residents and businesses in several countries tirelessly, never ceasing in its pursuit to be the most relevant and technologicallyadvanced business it can be.

With a background in mechanical engineering as well as banking, Sandeep Chouhan, EVP – Group Head Operations and Technology, is best-placed to bring his wealth of expertise into Mashreq. He has been with the bank since early 2015, after holding CIO and COO roles for over 30 years with the likes of Morgan Stanley, Barclays Bank,

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and Citigroup. In his role, Sandeep leads the global transformation of Mashreq’s Operations and Technology across its international footprint.

Chouhan’s current responsibilities include the development of business transformation strategies – something of a strong suit for him, as it has become the backbone of his working life.

“My ability to transform businesses is the key differentiator I have based my career on,” Chouhan explains.

“My latest role in Mashreq is to lead a digital transformation across its global footprint with a core focus on the Middle East region, a place that is experiencing not just accelerated growth, but hyper growth.”

According to Chouhan, technology-led transformations are the only truly sustainable type

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Sandeep Chouhan, EVP – Group Head Operations and Technology

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of transformation, but they still come with their own challenges.

Within a well-established bank like Mashreq, the transformation has to be not just the best, but also the most seamless, and that begins with asking a few vital questions.

“The challenge is twofold. First, is the technology truly industrial?”

Chouhan ponders. “You have to catch it when it is on the upswing of the wave, and being able to determine the industrial nature of these technologies is the first step. Once you’ve established that, can it scale?

Is it secure? Does it have longevity?

“Second, you must think about your choice of partners and resources. A lot of technological innovation takes place through third parties, so the partners are the ones making the innovations, and as an end-user bank you want to partner with the right company, the right products, the right geographic reach, and aligning views.”

This is clearly a structure which works for a company that is often regarded as the most innovative bank in the UAE. Established by entrepreneurs, the pioneering spirit

of Mashreq’s founders remains vibrant, even as – after 50 years – the business prepares to transform again.

“The entrepreneurial spirit that represents Mashreq is forms our core DNA,” says Chouhan. “For the next 50 years, we want to continue to be the leading light in this transformative new age of banking for the UAE, the GCC region and the world.”

Chouhan is building on a wellestablished and well-loved heritage, but he and the business are confident and comfortable doing so, as constant evolution is part of the environment which Mashreq has created for itself.

“It allows for this innovative spirit to blossom into something we cherish deeply, and we protect that hard,” Chouhan says. “Interestingly, anybody who comes to the region and is looking for an innovative partner gravitates towards Mashreq because they know we have this heritage, this hunger, this open-mindedness to take up a very disruptive and transformative business model.”

The Digital Workforce While the banking industry has

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HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid attending the 50th anniversary celebration for Mashreq

historically adopted a very human approach to business i.e. with a heavy reliance on people to perform routine processes, Mashreq’s digital DNA does in fact drive every choice the business makes – even the creation of what Chouhan calls his ‘Digital Workforce’.

Even with his long technological background, Chouhan appears endlessly astonished by the speed at which all things digital change, and he chooses to embrace it. From the dot com and World Wide Web era, to the rapid evolution of mobile phones,

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to the ability to house terabytes of information in tiny containers, the last 20-30 years have enjoyed the quickest digital change in history.

Likewise, robotics has continued to advance. Specific to banking, the first robots ever introduced were ATMs. As technology and banking continued to collide throughout his career, Chouhan’s question was: where else could robotics be applied?

“We’ve seen the arrival of basic robotic tools performing repetitive tasks, to robots with natural

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“Digital transformation is unavoidable.

It’s happening because multiple technologies are rapidly evolving all the time” language processing, to natural language generation, and cognitive capabilities,” says Chouhan. “Digital transformation is unavoidable.

It’s happening because multiple technologies are rapidly evolving all the time. Mashreq is arguably the pioneer in the region to deploy robotic capabilities at multiple levels.”

“We believe the advancement we have seen in robotics capabilities from basic manual tasks to intelligent predictive tasks is happening because technology has bolted on pieces of

different capabilities. The concept of a digital workforce emerged at Mashreq slowly, because as we began to roll out repetitive manual processes the robotic elements were running, we realised that like a human worker, the digital worker also needs supervision.

It needs to be checked for accuracy, for productivity, it needs training and retraining – just like a human worker.

“With a digital worker you can skill-up with ease – a simple upgrade – but it’s still a worker.

The concept of supervising these

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technologies was at the heart of us acknowledging the digital workforce.”

Of course, Mashreq maintains a human workforce who, free of more menial tasks, are available to customers to answer in-depth enquiries, but the main advantage of the digital worker is speed. This is what customers value most, according to Chouhan; wait time and task processing time are reduced, and so any misgivings they may have about leaving their finances in the hands of robots are left by the wayside.

Agility as a service This ecosystem that Mashreq

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has developed runs on an agile methodology – a disciplined, collaborative business process that makes approaching high-end technology more manageable.

This extends, too, to the partner ecosystem whereby Mashreq allows partners to co-innovate.

“The partners should feel that they are getting something in return, and upgrading themselves through our partnership,” says Chouhan.

“Cyber security is also part of the ecosystem. The space, the depth, and the intensity at which transactions are getting digitised – and therefore the

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Mashreq’s Robotic Command Centre vulnerability involved – is increasing all the time, so you need to get the right cyber architecture in place at the foundational level of the journey.”

Tackling multi-dimensional threats is a constant battle for a business like Mashreq, but as a bank which boasts many firsts in the region – the first to introduce ATMs and credit cards, to take on AI and use its incredibly advanced tools – it is better positioned than anybody else to tackle whatever digital transformation may throw at it.

“Mashreq is a pioneer, and we have close to 40 processes run by robots

performing 100,000 transactions a month, plus a robotic command centre to supervise the technology,” Chouhan states with pride. “We have many ambitious plans to grow across various areas, and revolutionise the customer experience. Half the battle is in making the customer happy, and the winner will be the institution who is able to solve the service experience game.

“The customer remains king in the game of service.”

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THE

JOURNEY TO TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION AND DIGITAL

DISRUPTION Written by Niki Waldegrave Produced by Glen White

Gladstone Area Water Board has embarked on the cloud journey and is moving towards a digital future. CIO Kiran Kewalramani discusses how...

G L A D S T O N E A R E A WAT E R B O A R D ( G A W B )

W

ater – it’s one of the world’s oldest resources, it’s not the kind of thing you’d usually associate with being at the cutting edge of technology.

But Gladstone Area Water Board (GAWB), which supplies raw and potable water to major resource-sector industries, powergenerating organisations, and the Regional Council in the central Queensland region, is going through a digital transformation.

Leading it is Chief Information Officer Kiran Kewalramani, who has been kicking goals since he joined GAWB in June 2017.

A results-oriented executive, Kewalramani has previously assisted companies to define, develop and deliver their information and communications technology (ICT) strategic and operational initiatives, including at the NSW Rural Fire Service, Telstra and the NSW Police Force, delivering benefits the organisations can reap time and again.

His latest challenge is to transition GAWB from its traditional ICT delivery model to a Cloud Delivery model

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– sounds easy for self-declared digital transformation champion, right?

“Not quite,” he laughs. “Part of the ICT strategy is to transform GAWB into a digital company, replacing all appropriate manual processes with digital processes and digital workflows.

“Up until a few years ago, we had very traditional ICT, where most of our infrastructure was housed internally.

There were minimal automated workflow or centralised repository around that, and the processes were predominantly manual.

“Now we’ve started replacing them with digital processes and workflows.

So, rather than manually processing things and keeping records in their personal diaries, from a governance perspective, we are starting to leverage the benefits of an overarching compliance system that generates automated reminders.

“The processes are very transparent and are allowing us to remove any duplication. I like to

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Kiran Kewalramani Chief Information Officer

An executive with extensive experience in the roles such as CIO, CDO, PMO, Project Leader/Director within public and private sector organisations in Australia.

Kewalramani has assisted companies to define, develop and deliver their ICT strategic and operational initiatives, and moved to Gladstone five months ago so is fairly new into GAWB and to Central Queensland. He has more than 16 years in IT, has a Bachelor in computing engineering and also completed an MBA and then Public Administration, another post-graduate degree.

G L A D S T O N E A R E A WAT E R B O A R D ( G A W B )

think I’m reasonably well process-oriented, and have that nous to pick up areas that may not have process optimisation.”

“I Smart software strongly About a year or so ago, GAWB embarked on believe implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) GAWB is a leader solution and chose to partner with the enterprise software TechnologyOne. This has been a in our region, and I successful implementation for GAWB. “Whilst we are still in transition, the will do whatever it organisation is starting to see some of takes, from the the benefits of moving into the cloud already – high availability, scalability, technology and digital agility and flexibility – just to name perspective, to take GAWB a few,” Kewalramani says. in the new digital era” – Kiran Kewalramani, Chief Information Officer, GAWB

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Environmental release from Awoonga Dam

GAWB is the first water service provider in Australia – and the second in the world – to achieve ISO 55001 certification for its asset management system.

Leveraging off some of the cuttingedge technology that GAWB vendors offer such as TechnologyOne and SharePoint, Kewalramani recently implemented Microsoft Dynamics as its CRM proof of concept solution. The solution integrates well with GAWB’s corporate application (Office 365) suite.

“That’s been another huge success for us,” Kewalramani reveals. “I would like to think we’re leading the way in the Central Queensland area. I’m cognizant of the fact we’re not based in a metro, which brings its own challenges, but I see our organisation becoming digital at a very envious rate.

Confronting challenges When it comes to challenges over the next 18 months, Kewalramani says the main ones are implementing ICT service effectiveness and closer integration

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Gladstone Water Treatment Plant

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GAWB holds an allocation of 78,000ML per annum from Awoonga Dam on the Boyne River of ICT and business strategy.

ICT at GAWB is also well placed to transition from a traditional model to a more value-added model.

“As part of our transition plan, we are implementing a fit for purpose service delivery management framework. We are investigating automation in our operational technology network. We are investigating facets of Internet

of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence and analytics and how it can better support GAWB in its decision making.

Cost optimisation and running ICT like a business is another focus area for me. So, that whole transition is one of my major focus areas.”

He claims another challenge is better managing GAWB’s information as an asset. “Effective electronic

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“We have on-field staff, and we have now made them digitally enabled. They now have a capability to get their regular maintenance schedule, and associated business instructions on a mobile device” – Kiran Kewalramani, Chief Information Officer, GAWB

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content management is pain point for GAWB at the moment, and ICT is working with its partners to deliver an effective solution for GAWB.”

and secondary sites. This allows GAWB’s network to automatically switch to a secondary internet link, should the primary internet link fail.

It also automatically reverts once Goalkicking the issue has been resolved.

“Whilst we do have some confronting “From the user’s perspective, challenges in front I can’t be prouder they don’t know about it at all. The of GAWB and its successes. For an whole experience is transparent organisation of the size of GAWB, to them,” Kewalramani boasts. we have kicked some really GAWB has transitioned good goals, in a very some of its key short span of time,” applications in the says Kewalramani. cloud, such as GAWB employs “Gladstone is in TechnologyOne, an enterprise riska cyclone prone Office 365 and management system region, on the east is looking at that is based on the shores of Australia. transitioning its risk ISO 31000:2009 Since ICT and management solution international standard operational technology – Cura, into the cloud are pivotal parts of water as well. To augment that, delivery, keeping them operational GAWB has also developed a during emergencies is crucial.” clear, structured strategic roadmap In partnership with Nexon, a cloud to transition to an enterprise wide, fit and managed service provider for purpose cloud transformation. operating throughout Australia “I want to take it to a level where and the Asia Pacific region, GAWB we can leverage off all the benefits of has recently implemented a multibeing in the cloud,” he explains. “And vendor, fully redundant internet if something needs to be kept in a network link between its primary hybrid model, sure we do that, but we

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“Whilst we are still in transition, the organisation is starting to see some of its benefits of moving into the cloud already – high availability, scalability, agility and flexibility – just to name a few” – Kiran Kewalramani, Chief Information Officer, GAWB

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make that as an informed decision.”

Kewalramani says the technology within GAWB is “two-pronged”.

There is the corporate network, ICT, and operational technology, which is predominantly around the telemetric network and the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) network. The company has partnered with Schnieder Electric and Nexon to assist with the delivery of these technological elements.

Enterprises also have a huge appetite for mobility solutions, and GAWB is no different.

“We have on-field staff, and we have now made them digitally enabled,” Kewalramani explains.

“They now have a capability to get their regular maintenance schedule, and associated business instructions on a mobile device.” The solution is fully integrated with TechnologyOne, which means once the on-field staff updates their schedule, it’s updated in real-time on the ERP system.

Gathering momentum Over the next 18 to 24 months, Kewalramani says he sees GAWB

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Lake Awoonga Recreational Area

becoming more digital and wants to lead that change process.

“I also see us managing our information as an asset,” he adds, “where our content management is structured, our record management is structured, and we continue to maintain our compliance with the Queensland government requirements. The information is a streamlined, and getting any requested information is a smoother journey. There is less reliance on people and more reliance on the systems.”

He claims the whole utilitybased industry is starting to embrace technology a lot more.

Those utilities that are not doing it proactively will be left behind in

the game. “Not embarking on a technological transformation for any utilities based organisation will be fatal,” Kewalramani says.

“Nowadays, it’s an unsaid expectation from the business, whatever business you’re in, that you’ll provide a digital service to the customer, because if you don’t, someone else will and they’ll take your market share.

“It’s a do or die situation, pretty much for all the industry. But the good thing is that GAWB has acknowledged that and it’s already started. We’re well on the journey.”

Kewalramani says educating the workforce in the new digital capabilities is something he enjoys, and compares himself to

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Lake Awoonga Recreational Area Ironbark Gully

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Pretty Face Wallabies are a common sight

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once-in-a-lifetime Australian cricket coach John Buchanan, who led the Australian cricket team to win the World Cup three times in a row. He coached the likes of Ricky Ponting, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, and Shane Warne.

“I was not a very good soccer or cricket player, but I am a good manager/assistant coach,” says Kewalramani. “I help bring the best out of people.”

As well as managing his nineyear-old son’s football team, Kewalramani has been a business coach for many people. He has motivated them to drive their business and their lives forward.

“As a business coach, when I approached my new clients, my first question usually was ‘how do you think the business is doing?’ They would say either ‘good, bad, ugly’, and I’d ask, ‘by the way, did you know that your accountant said you made a profit of $20,000 this month?’

“They would look me in the eye going, ‘what? I don’t even have $2,000 in my bank account. My accountant’s smoking some really

good stuff’. They didn’t know the difference between a profit on your profit and loss statement, versus what cash-flow means. He coached these business owners, allowing them to gain financial mastery in their business. “A number of my clients won small business category, in their annual council awards ceremony.

A few even got nominated for the prestigious, Champion of Champion Award,” says Kewalramani.

“My proudest moments are where I’ve helped bring the best out of people, both professionally and on a personal front.”

With GAWB fully cemented on the digital path, and Kewalramani very much in the driving seat, it’s now extremely well placed as a successful water service provider in Central Queensland region.

“I strongly believe GAWB is a leader in our region, and I will do whatever it takes, from the technology and digital perspective, to take GAWB in the new digital era,” he claims.

The connected data hubs for Asia Pacific Written by Niki Waldegrave Produced by Glen White

Peter Adcock, Digital Realty’s APAC vicepresident, design and construction, talks about the company’s growth plans, and why he won’t be totally relying on driverless cars anytime soon

D I G I TA L R E A LT Y

D

igital Realty is the world’s largest full-scale data centre provider offering colocation, interconnection and cloud services.

It has more than 150 data centres in 11 countries, servicing more than 2,300 companies of all sizes in 33 global markets across its secure, network-rich portfolio of buildings located throughout Asia Pacific, North America and Europe. Equating to more than 26mn sq ft of Data centre space across the world.

For more than nine years, the business has delivered a portfolio of data centre solutions – including Digital Realty has announced a joint venture with Mitsubishi

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colocation, Cloud services, business ecosystems, Turn-Key Flex (TKF), and powered base buildings (PBB) – with a record of 99.999% uptime, unmatched by any other data centre provider.

In October, Digital Realty announced it has entered into a 50/50 joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation to provide data centre solutions in Japan.

The joint venture, named MC Digital Realty, will benefit from Mitsubishi’s local enterprise expertise and established data centre presence in Tokyo, as well as Digital Realty’s global client base and industry-leading track record of

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data centre operational excellence.

Digital Realty will contribute its recently completed data centre development project in Osaka, while Mitsubishi will contribute two existing data centre facilities in the western Tokyo suburb of Mitaka.

Collectively valued at approximately 40bn Japanese Yen – or approximately $350mn – the three assets will build a meaningful platform to serve the broader Japanese market, with the potential to significantly expand its scope over the next several years.

And in September, Digital Realty, which turns over $2.7bn annually,

‘FOR NINE YEARS, DIGITAL REALTY HAS DELIVERED A PORTFOLIO OF DATA CENTRE SOLUTIONS WITH A RECORD OF 99.9% UPTIME, UNMATCHED BY ANY OTHER DATA CENTRE PROVIDER’

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Based in Sydney, Australia, Greenbox delivers innovative data centre architectural design services to clients throughout South East Asia.

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announced the commencement of new data centre SYD11 – its fifth in Australia – which is being built in Erskine Park in Western Sydney.

The facility will be adjacent to the company’s existing SYD10 facility, and this signifies huge expansion in the AUS market, adding to the other three Australian facilities in Digital Realty’s Australian portfolio – SYD 12 in North Ryde, and the two data centres in

Melbourne, MEL10 and MEL11.

Once operational, SYD11, located across 16,360 sqm, will be a 14MW facility and the build, which will employ around 500 contractors, is expected to take 12 months.

APAC Vice-President, Design and Construction, Peter Adcock says Sydney – which has the biggest tech start-up ecosystem in Australia – is crucial to the Digital

“We’ve got the potential to pretty much double our APAC footprint in three to five years” – Peter Adcock, Digital Realty’s APAC Vice-President, Design and Construction

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D I G I TA L R E A LT Y Realty’s ambitions in Asia-Pacific.

It also has award-winning sites in Singapore, Hong Kong and Osaka.

“We’ve got the potential to pretty much double our APAC footprint in three to five years,” he says. “Australia – and Sydney particularly – is an ideal location to be a hub. There’s a lot of demand from a whole range of companies that want to establish a presence and provide a low latency service in the country in Australia.

“Sydney’s ideally placed on the Eastern Seaboard, with the fibre optic backbone that runs up through

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Brisbane and Queensland, and down to Canberra and Melbourne.

It picks up a large part of the Australian population, and is sitting on submarine fibre cables too.”

The company is currently working on its latest state-of-the-art, trademarked 4.0 Architecture POD (performance optimised data centres) design, and will install it at the new facility. Its unique trademark has been

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developed from the knowledge gleaned through the construction of more than $2.5bn worth of data centres globally, and uses a modular methodology to build-out raised floor data centre space using standard power and cooling building blocks for cost-effectiveness, design flexibility and energy efficiency.

It will boast the same cooling solution that’s being adopted at its

larger scale facilities in the US, which have a pumped refrigerate economiser cycle on it as well, ensuring excellent annualised Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) without any water usage, which can be quite excessive in large data centres.

“We’ve got the lithium ion battery technology as well that we’re adopting,” Adcock reveals, “which gives a better performance than traditional lead acid. And on the monitoring side, we’ve got the data centre information management (DCM) product, which is a digital

“Australia – and Sydney particularly – is an ideal location to be a hub” – Peter Adcock, Digital Realty’s APAC vicepresident, design and construction

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proprietary. It gives the team in the “The Digital Osaka 1 Data Centre US head office global visibility of the was the big one that really got the whole portfolio around the world. attention of the guys back in the US,” “That works off the same model adds Adcock. “That was 95% sold database as the BMS system which before it was opened. It started out as is a Schneider Struxuware Building an easy stepping stone for a lot of the Operation (SBO), Power Monitoring American companies, working with Expert (PME) unit. This means we can an S&P 500 company they know, and log in and find the utilisation of all our provided a product they’re familiar properties around the world in with because it’s consistent different locations, giving around the world, barring us the information any legislative or to manage and fine code differences.” tune operation and Osaka is a melting performance.” pot of many industrial The significant fields, a broad crossNumber of investment into SYD section of businesses, employees at 11 and the Asia Pacific universities and tech Digital Realty construction plan development. Two over the last 18 months cloud social media stemmed from the Digital companies immediately Osaka 1 Data Centre in Japan – its snapped up the space, and in first facility in the country, which May, Digital Realty announced it provides 7.6MW of IT capacity. is building Digital Osaka 2 ¬Data A thriving financial and colocation Centre – which is four times the centre, Osaka is the Silicon Valley of size of Osaka 1 – alongside it.

Japan. A gateway for international It’s in the final stages of design and exchanges, it houses a population will launch next year. The two Osaka of more than 20mn people and has centres will create a Connected Data a GDP of approximately 80trn yen.

Centre Campus, which SYD 10 and

1,400+

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“The Digital Osaka 1 Data Centre was the big one that really got the attention of the guys back in the US” – Peter Adcock, Digital Realty’s APAC Vice-President, Design and Construction

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SYD 11 have been modelled on.

“We always planned to expand in Sydney,” Adcock continues.

“We also originally purchased a block of land next door to SYD 10, and it’s the next iteration of design – where SYD 10 is seven or eight megawatts, SYD 11 will be up to 14.

“That’s driven by the increased density of the computer equipment that’s going on the white space, so that’s gone from a four to five kilowatt per cabinet average up to six, seven, eight – and in Japan we got some of that up to 12 to 15, so demand is driving the density increases as well, which is where we’ve had to become a lot more diligent on the airflow management.”

Earlier this year, Digital Realty CFO for APAC, Krupal Raval, revealed many of its global top-tier clients are looking to expand massively in Australia, facilitated by the Connected Campus of SYD 10 and 11.

Digital Realty Connected Campuses bring all the critical data centre, network elements, cloud and connectivity together under a single, secure environment for

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Build Here.

Digital Realty.

numerous Australian and international customers. They deliver the on-ramp to the cloud, plus Digital Internet Gateways that optimise customer value through massive network-dense connectivity.

The beauty of the Connected Campus is that even on SYD 11’s first day of operation, there’s already a connectivity-rich environment next door, and because the two data centres are side by side sharing a common boundary, the conduits at the boundary already exist and can be connected in.

“It gives a very strong ecosystem of customers through the POP and service exchange, and rather than

coming in and out of the data centre, they’re actually doing business within it,” Adcock explains.

“If you have a large mix of customers, like we have, they’re all exchanging amongst each other, and once you get the on-ramp to the Cloud, players such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft – Facebook is doing something different – once you get one or two of those companies in, the whole thing starts to multiply.”

In December 2015, Digital Realty announced a partnership with IBM to launch Direct Link Colo, a solution that connects customers its data centres directly to IBM Cloud via SoftLayer’s global Cloud infrastructure platform.

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“We’re being asked more frequently to provide remote services in the data centres that we’re working in” – Peter Adcock, Digital Realty’s APAC Vice-President, Design and Construction

Latest stateof-the-art, trademarked 4.0 Architecture POD (performance optimised data centres) design

By removing third party carriers, the hybrid eco-system for organisations is easier.

“Some of the companies are so big, they acquire to catch up,” he adds. “IBM acquired SoftLayer and are buying into new digital technology. Microsoft is putting a lot of money to catch up with Amazon, who got an early adoption lead.

And Google does its own thing.

Adcock says because the industry is growing so quickly, the biggest challenge is finding employees with the right skillset – and keeping them.

“We’re being asked more frequently to provide remote services in the data centres that we’re working in,” he reveals. “I think that’s just a case of, things are growing so quickly, some of our customers are trying to push more of that onto us,

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which is something we support.

“But everyone is struggling to find people that are trained. It’s interesting, as we’re actually finding companies that are either evolving the company itself – or groups within the company – to specifically service data centre work.

“It’s quite a unique skill set because, you actually want a highquality product built quickly to start with, which is challenging itself – but these facilities are never build out 100% day one.

“And we use a modular, POD-type system, so as you go back and do those build outs in a live data centre, you need to have tradespeople that are very aware of what environment they’re working in – you don’t want something they’re doing to bring down customers’ operations.

“These have to be very precisely planned and designed and built so that you can shut down sections of it, and use your redundancy to do your maintenance without impacting on the customer. So, you tend to build quite strong relationships with very precise people that understand the whole Permit for Work process and are very detailed.”

He reveals another challenge is that whenever anyone wants to start up a data centre, they try to entice staff away from Digital Realty, because they know they’ve been well trained, and the process and procedures in place are industry-leading.

In Australia, co-location growth is predicted at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.4% until 2022, and managed hosting revenues predicted to grow at a CAGR of 14.5%.

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Digital Tseung Kwan O - A virtual tour of Digital Realty’s Hong Kong Data Center

ONCE FULLY OPERATIONAL, SYD11 WILL BE A 14MW FACILITY, ACROSS A TOTAL OF 16,360 SQM But Adcock claims the future of colocation managed services is hard to define over the next few years.

“Now, with your cloud, you’ve got private, public and hybrid,” he explains. “What colocation does, and always will, is allow the smaller companies as they’re growing a stepping stone.

“But equally, with the Amazon and Microsoft, they’re almost virtualising that colocation process – and to the same extent, we are, through the service exchange. That gives you the chance to connect to a lot of different services, and electronically, where in the past you used to have

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the physical cross connects.

“They’ll still be around, but I think the business is evolving and virtualising a lot of those features.

I think the big thing is going to be ‘bots’, so rather than speaking to a person, it’s an automated service.”

He uses the analogy of driverless cars, saying a lot of those features are already currently in the background, ditto with aeroplane auto pilots, “but we still have pilots there to step in when something out of left field happens that hasn’t been programed in, and would take some time for a computer to adapt.

“There’s always going to be a future

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there for these,” he adds, “it’s just a matter to what scale they fit in to the whole stepping stone process.”

Data centres are essential utilities, as like in previous centuries, when power, electricity, water and telephone exchanges were. Because data centres and WiFi-type services are provided at the edge, people have got used to having instantaneous content-rich data, which then dictates low latency high bandwidth services – and while they’re an essential utility, the performance they need to operate is at such a high level.

“There’s a lot of talk about edge computing, and really that falls back into where you get demands for low latency,” he adds. “There’s such a data-rich environment demanded nowadays.

“We used to have main frames and desktops, then it was laptops, and now handheld devices are doing the same thing. There’s so much compute power that’s embedded everywhere now that needs to be connected

back to somewhere, and the Internet of Things is going to be an amazing opportunity for people who mine that for performance and applications.”

Adcock says he sees DNA genome as one of the major technology breakthroughs, and finds it mapping mind-blowing how you can have bespoke medicines targeted for you based on what genes you’ve got and how they react.

“It used to take years to map the DNA genome of the humans,” he says, “and now they’re offering it as a service which is done in a matter of days. Behind that is massive compute power, so we’ve seen some of the institutional companies investing a lot of money in those analytics.

“Sometimes, you dare not ask what’s happening in some of those data halls. Our POD is typically 1,000 sqm of white space and you walk in there from one end to the other and it’s just rows and rows of computers – and what they can be doing on them now is amazing.”

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Diebold Nixdorf: Banking digitalisation Written by Catherine Sturman Produced by Greg Churchill

BRIDGING THE PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL WORLDS OF CURRENCY AND PAYMENTS, DIEBOLD NIXDORF IMPROVES THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE BY DRIVING CONNECTED COMMERCE

I

n an increasingly digitised world, global ATM manufacturer Diebold Nixdorf has made a concerted effort in recent years to implement its solutions globally to further encourage total financial inclusion. By incorporating alternate power sources, mobile banking capabilities, as well as digitally onboarding new consumers, Diebold Nixdorf is leading the charge in banking digitalisation.

With a 32% market share, Diebold Nixdorf is the only ATM manufacturer in the world to have more than a million ATMs installed, placing them at the top of the global ATM market. Every day, Diebold Nixdorf enables businesses to provide seamless, secure and personalised experiences in both the physical and digital world of cash and consumer transactions,

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in addition to placing significant focus on the customer experience.

“We are constantly introducing new solutions to meet the everchanging needs of consumers,” Ricardo Dias Marques, Managing Director for Algeria, English Speaking Countries (ESC) of West Africa, and Portuguesespeaking African countries says.

As a global leader in driving connected commerce, Diebold Nixdorf has optimised its capabilities to ensure positive customer experiences, each time cementing its presence in over 130 countries, and working with nearly all of the world’s top 100 financial institutions and a majority of the top 25 global retailers.

“Today’s financial institutions and retailers need a services partner with the capabilities and expertise to enrich the customer experience,”

TECHNOLOGY

Ricardo Marques

Managing Director for Algeria, English Speaking Countries (ESC) of West Africa, PALOP. Ricardo Marques currently serves as the managing director of Algeria, English Speaking Countries (ESC) in West Africa and Portuguesespeaking African countries (PALOP) for Diebold Nixdorf. In this role, he is responsible for driving the organisation’s strategies and operations in the area to enable secure, software-defined connected commerce and related services across the financial and retail industries.

Marques is a senior management executive with more than 17 years’ experience in the IT and Telco’s industries. Business leader with expertise in consulting, human capital management, business processes, operations leadership and international management, he has worked across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Prior to his current assignment, Marques was the responsible for the business operations in Middle East Africa. Prior to Diebold Nixdorf, Ricardo held senior management roles in other multinational companies, starting and leading operations in Africa, Middle East, establishing himself has an international management expert.

He holds a Bachelor degree in Business Administration, an Executive Master in International Business and a Master degree in International Management.

“The ATM will support banks in the implementation of revenue generating strategies which will create additional selling opportunities, but it will also offer new ways in providing an array of services for customers” Ricardo Marques Managing Director for Algeria, English Speaking Countries (ESC) of West Africa, PALOP.

adds Marques. “They look for a trusted advocate who deeply understands the industry, business objectives and related systems, software, security and service components that keep everything running at the pinnacle of efficiency.

“Service delivery is based on a powerful, interconnected system of people, processes, tools and technology, risk management controls and ongoing performance measurement. These are all designed with the consumer experience in mind. Our platform

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is based on global standardisation and best practices worldwide.”

Financial solutions Building collaborative, customised solutions through new and existing partnerships, Diebold Nixdorf has become the backbone for both the financial and retail sector, and its technologies are highly scalable in order to adapt to consumer needs in alignment with emerging trends in the market. This all centers around its mission to provide endto-end connected commerce

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solutions that seamlessly moves from the financial to retail space.

However, Marques believes that the humble ATM will continue to offer long-term solutions for businesses seeking to integrate the unbanked African market into an effective, complete financial ecosystem.

“Migrating certain transactions traditionally done at the branch to the self-service channel via ATMs, kiosks, or other digital solutions can support banks’ efforts to drive revenue generating strategies, such as marketing at the ATM, which in turn can create additional selling opportunities,” he said.

Advanced data analytics have unlocked Diebold Nixdorf’s ability to provide its customers with datadriven insights, which can help transform traditional business processes for consumers, ensuring they remain the business focus.

Emerging technologies and mobile growth Viewing technology as an enabler, and keeping ahead of the curve

surrounding key trends in the market, Marques explains that emerging technology will help to aid and facilitate greater financial inclusion. Biometric authentication, for example, is one of many emerging technologies that deliver convenience and security.

However, Marques says that this technology will not necessarily replace existing systems. “As long as there is a need for cash, the ATM industry will find new and innovative ways to assist.

We don’t see cash going away anytime soon. In reality, the use of cash actually tends to increase as additional methods of access are introduced. ATMs will continue to play a significant role,” he explains.

According to Marques, a current area of exponential growth across Africa is the implementation and emergence of mobile technology and services, which has simplified the banking experience for consumers. With over a billion unbanked customers across Africa utilising mobile

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CONTINUING A TRADITION OF EXCELLENCE Olicom is a group of companies which has established itself as a leading IT player and market leader in banking automation business by providing specialized passbook printers and high end dot-matrix print heads to its strategic partners worldwide.

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AFRICA

technology, there is significant market opportunity for Diebold Nixdorf to tap into and support.

Mobile technology has also supported the integration and application of further digitisation strategies and financial technologies, and has encouraged a more efficient, connected customer experience.

“Mobile technologies have enabled banks to partner with major service providers to transform the access and payment of services,” explains Marques. “The consumer experience should always be at the center of technological development.

“Financial institutions must provide a seamless interaction through different physical and digital channels (mobile, online, ATM), where they can leverage Diebold Nixdorf’s solutions to create such experiences.”

Research results from ATM Marketplace’s ATM Future Trends 2017 report identified mobile technology as the number one factor that will have the greatest impact on the ATM industry globally.

“Ironically, according to a

2017 Forrester research report entitled Banking on Millennials: It’s not all about mobile, more than half of younger millennials and almost two-thirds of older millennials expect to access all their accounts with a bank within a single mobile app,” Marques continues.

“Furthermore, almost three quarters of older millennials and two-thirds of younger millennials have used a smartphone or tablet for day-to-day banking in the past three months. Today’s consumers want personalised, secure transactions and a seamless experience.

“Consumers demand to be treated as a unique individual, not just a number,” notes Marques.

“Therefore, financial institutions need to not just provide value, but rather customised experiences using secure technologies to engage, onboard and deepen relationships with consumers.”

Mobile banking vs ATMs “The mobile smartphone boom across the continent and the rapid adoption of mobile banking will

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certainly not hinder the rate of ATM distribution,” continues Marques.

“The rise in smartphone penetration has led to the increased use of mobile banking services, and it’s a trend that will continue as our society becomes ever more connected through the Internet of Things (IoT).”

Marques says that the use of mobile technology will support the need to transform cybersecurity services surrounding ATM technology and reduce cases such as ATM fraud and improve current cybersecurity levels.

“As the boundaries between the branch, the computer and the smartphone disintegrate, we’re seeing digital banking become inclusive of the entire banking experience – with the bottom line that consumers want the ability to bank where they want, how they want, with no hiccups along the way.

“Nonetheless, there are still many hurdles. Africa’s financial infrastructure is still lacking in many regions. The cost to open a banking account itself can be prohibitively high, whether for

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the financial institution or for the consumer. Financial literacy is an ongoing issue within cultures that have traditionally taken very different approaches to money management. Collaboration between stakeholders in the industry, coupled with advancements in technology, will ultimately have a positive impact on financial inclusion in Africa.”

ATMs will continue to be an essential tool for consumers, and the customer experience will remain the fundamental pillar of Diebold Nixdorf’s evolution. As a result, the company has launched a new, advanced software solution, Vynamic Mobile, which, among other things, empowers consumers to access information on the next closest ATM right at their fingertips, should the ATM they are in front of be unavailable. Putting the control back into customers hands has, therefore, turned an inconvenient situation into a positive experience for the customer.

Further advantages Working with financial institutions

Diebold Nixdorf’s next generation mobile application suite – Vynamic Mobile – enables a unified and highly personalised experience by leveraging cross-platform data and integrating multiple channels to drive connected commerce

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FROM TWO COMPANIES, WE DEFINED ONE VISION:

CONNECTED COMMERCE

AN E X P A N D E D PRESENCE, WITH EVEN STRONGER GLOBAL EXPERTISE

MYANMAR

THE NETHERLANDS POLAND

THAILAND VIETNAM

CZECH REPUBLIC

CANADA

UK GERMANY

USA

FRANCE

CHINA TAIWAN

PHILIPPINES

VENEZUELA MOROCCO ALGERIA

PERU

INDONESIA

INDIA RUSSIA

BRAZIL SOUTH AFRICA

TURKEY ARGENTINA

IN MORE THAN

MALAYSIA SINGAPORE

AUSTRALIA

130 COUNTRIES

A COMBINED COMMITMENT TO INNOVATIVE SERVICES, SOFTWARE & SYSTEMS SOLUTIONS

SERVICES

SOFTWARE

SYSTEMS

OVERNIGHT, OUR SERVICE ORGANIZATION NEARLY DOUBLED.

14,500 SERVICE MEMBERS

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to address the challenges seen regularly by the financial and retail sectors, Diebold Nixdorf will continue to be focused on providing tools catered for its customers to drive consumer satisfaction and retention. The implementation of mobile, crosschannel interactions will support this goal and enable consistent consumer experiences across all of its platforms. However, according to Marques, the consumer must stay informed to ensure overall success.

“Financial education is imperative in this new era of banking, especially when it comes to educating consumers about new technologies, such as fingerprint, document readers and virtual tellers.

Providing personal, face-to-face assistance to consumers while they are using an ATM is one of the best ways to provide education, and it creates an opportunity to

collect immediate feedback and reactions to added features.”

So, what does the future of financial and retail banking look like?

“As financial and retail markets converge, and synergies expand in the areas of mobile, contactless technology, smart data and more, it will become even more vital that companies recognise and react proactively to emerging trends,” Marques concludes.

“Our strategy is to always put the consumer at the centre and develop solutions which provide the utmost convenience for them. We want to enable more seamless experiences, remove pain points for consumers, and then identify the touchpoints that deliver what they need.

Experience-driven banking offers a much more holistic approach to connecting with consumers.”

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MOCG-A10012-00-7600

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