Gigabit Magazine – December 2019

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DECEMBER 2019

SIMPLE, AGILE, DIGITAL

SHAPING THE FUTURE

TAP INTO THE CLOUD WITH SAP INTELLIGENT SPEND MANAGEMENT Deliver value, generate revenue, and improve efficiency with SAP TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES

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WELCOME

W

elcome to the December issue

brewed around the world throughout

of Gigabit Magazine, where the

history, wheat beer has one of the most

digital transformation stories of the

interesting stories. This month, Gigabit

world’s leading companies come to life.

magazine also explores the digital

Taking pride of place this month is

transformation of Erdinger Weissbräu

SAP Global, a company at the heart

as we speak to Florian Ruth, the

of a global digital transformation

brewery’s Head of Supply Chain.

revolution and the market leader

We also hear from some of the lead-

in enterprise application software.

ing experts in the data warehousing

77% of the world’s transaction revenue

industry, about the ongoing trends and

touches an SAP system, as the

factors shaping the global market.

company is an essential part of helping

Also appearing in this issue is our

small businesses and global corporations

exploration of the effects of AI on

realise their potential.

the modern customer experience,

Our in-depth feature of SAP Global sees William Smith sit down with Fawaz Al-Nouri, General Manager for SAP’s

and our ranking of the world’s top 10 telecom companies.

Don’t forget to check out our other

Transformation Acceleration Program

feature interviews with DigiB, InLoop,

EMEA, who discusses the best ways

Interpublic Group, the United Nations,

to succeed in digital transformation.

Automation Anywhere and more.

“SAP’s purpose has always been about helping the world run better and

Enjoy the issue.

improving people’s lives,” says Al-Nouri.

Harry Menear

Of the dizzying varieties of beer

harry.menear@bizclikmedia.com

w w w. g i g a b i t m a g a z i n e . c o m

03

innovation in practice Sprint and Amdocs have been key partners for over two decades, delivering together innovative solutions to make Sprint the success it is today.

Our joint accomplishments include modernizing billing support systems, introducing a groundbreaking customer care system, providing cost-effective payments processing and the optimization of current and future network capabilities.

This strong Sprint-Amdocs partnership has won widespread industry recognition, including the 2017 Global Telecoms Business Award for Consumer Service Innovation.

Visit www.amdocs.com to learn more about how you can partner with Amdocs to innovate successfully.

www.amdocs.com Š 2019 Amdocs. All rights reserved.

Click the home icon (top right of page) to return to contents page at anytime EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

HARRY MENEAR EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

MATT HIGH CREATIVE DIRECTORS

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CONTENTS

12 40 TAP into the cloud with SAP intelligent spend management

50

AI IN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: THE NEW FRONTIER:

28

76 60

TOP 10 TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES

EVENTS

80

DIGIB

98

Tuenti Ecuador

132 KUBRA

112 WSIB

146

eStruxture

176 InLoop

160

Department of Education and Training Victoria

190

Johnson Winter & Slattery

204

Swinburne University of Technology

218

Saudi Telecom Company

234

248

262

276

Al Gihaz Holding

Interpublic Group

United Nations

Automation Anywhere

290 GSMA

12

TAP into the cloud with SAP intelligent spend management WRITTEN BY

WILLIAM SMITH PRODUCED BY

ARRON RAMPLING

DECEMBER 2019

13

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SAP SE

Fawaz Al-Nouri, General Manager Transformation Acceleration Programs, EMEA, at SAP, discusses the best ways to succeed in digital transformation

T

he necessity of digital transformation is well understood and easily grasped; businesses have to find new ways to deliver

value, generate revenue, and improve efficiency.

What is more obscure is the actual business of going about the transformation – what solutions to 14

put in place, how to adapt them to specific industry, and how to measure and achieve success when doing such transformation.

Multinational enterprise software company SAP’s Transformation Acceleration Programs (TAP) offers customers the necessary expertise to achieve a successful spend management transformation, as Fawaz Al-Nouri, General Manager for TAP in Europe, Middle East and Africa, explains.

“SAP’s purpose has always been about helping the world run better and improving people’s lives. In support of this purpose, TAP was formed to help businesses define their transformation roadmap and how to move from their current outdated systems – where they’re not getting the most value they can – to new technologies that benefit and improve the way they do business and in turn DECEMBER 2019

15

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SAP SE

“ SAP’s purpose has always been about helping the world run better and improving people’s lives”

achieve their vision to better serve their end customers.”

The TAP process begins with gathering an understanding of the client’s existing setup. “Our group of deployment experts will apply a proven engagement model to expedite and improve the success of spend management transformation. We provide software, industry and pro-

16

— Fawaz Al-Nouri, General Manager, Transformation Acceleration Programs for Europe, Middle East and Africa, SAP

cess expertise while championing an operating model focused on value and exceptional business outcomes.

We take a design thinking approach, where we study where our customers are today, but at the same time we also try to understand where they want to be, and the barriers that are stopping them from getting there.” It is only after this exercise has been completed that potential solutions are put forward and discussed. “Based on the TAP analysis, we recommend the right technology and decide what makes sense for our customers to take on. Throughout the engagement we’re thinking about solving our customers problems and making them run better.”

The solutions and capabilities that SAP offers are centred around its

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘SAP PROFILE’ 17 digital core enterprise resource plan-

It’s worth noting that while the digital

ning (ERP) system, S/4HANA. Tightly

core S/4HANA is available in both on-

connected to this digital core are

premise and cloud editions, most of the

branching capabilities for customer

branching capabilities such as spend

relationship management and experi-

management are on the cloud, and

ence, network and spend management,

Al-Nouri is a big believer in working on

digital supply chain, human resources

cloud. “When I started implementing

and people management and more.

software, SAP was known as the ERP

“SAP provides end-to-end solutions

company; we delivered wall-to-wall on-

that cover most of our customers’

premise solutions. At that time, I was a

needs” says Al-Nouri. “The important

little bit sceptical about cloud. I used to

thing is to prioritise and plan when

think that large businesses with com-

to implement what and tie all these

plex IT infrastructure wouldn’t be able

pieces together so that the customer

to adopt the cloud. Then, in 2010 SAP

can run their business seamlessly.”

embraced cloud to offer customers w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

SAP SE

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘SAP COMPANY’ 18

a choice in how they consume SAP’s

running IT processes inside your four

software. This is when I started to work

walls, putting them on the cloud frees

with many customers embarking on

you from managing that on your own.

the journey to move to the cloud, see-

Reduced maintenance, infrastructure

ing first-hand that it’s possible and all

and support costs results in signifi-

the benefits that come with it. It was

cantly lower total cost of ownership.

then that I myself was transformed.”

Number two is the connection to the

In that regard, Al-Nouri cites three

outside world. The cloud gives you

key reasons that spend management

access to the business network you

cloud transformation is worthwhile.

need to achieve a high level of col-

“While we always look at the broader

laboration with other companies and

spectrum, we’re big advocates of cloud

organisations, where businesses con-

technology. Number one is because

nect, communicate and collaborate to

of the return on investment. Instead of

redefine how work gets done. When

DECEMBER 2019

you plug into the business network,

through the cloud. Artificial intelligence,

you get instant access to millions of

the internet of things and many more

potential customers, suppliers and

innovations will be at your fingertips

solutions. This will bring value to all

when you move to the cloud.”

stakeholders; lower processing costs,

However, such transformations

eliminate mistakes, and speed up the

cannot be achieved through technol-

transactions. It’s like comparing email

ogy alone. Culture must always be a

to Facebook, sharing business cards

consideration, as Al-Nouri explains.

with connecting on LinkedIn, and

“It’s important to understand the cli-

postcards to SnapChat. Thirdly, digital

ent’s culture, because every customer

technology means you don’t have to

is different. What we find in cloud

invest a lot of money and time to build

transformation is that transitioning

the technology that you need in-house,

to a cloud mindset by moving away

instead having access to it right away

from on-premise customisations to

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Fawaz Al-Nouri Fawaz Al-Nouri is part of the intelligent spend management group at SAP, bringing 22 years of experience in helping businesses to transform and implement large scale enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, supply chain solutions, and cloud services. Al-Nouri started with Ariba in 2006, which later became part of the SAP family. He held multiple advisory and leadership roles before becoming in 2017 the General Manager for Transformation Acceleration Programs (TAP) in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Al-Nouri’s primary focus in his current role is the transformation of customers from SAP on-premise solutions to the cloud.

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19

Is your organization built to evolve?

How can you navigate relentless disruption and tomorrow’s uncertainty? By becoming a more kinetic enterprise—an intelligent enterprise built to evolve.

It’s time to reimagine everything. Deloitte can show you how—and help you make an impact with SAP ® solutions.

Learn more at www.deloitte.com/SAP

Copyright © 2019 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.

Big questions and big answers, about the future of procurement and cloud.

The past decade has brought intense business and technology disruption—especially for procurement, finance, and supply chain leaders.

Now a new challenge sits on the horizon.

By 2025, SAP intends to end mainstream support for its SAP® Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) solution—an on-premise offering that many organizations use for procure-to-pay processes today. What should you know?

We asked Frederic Girardeau-Montaut, leader of Deloitte Consulting LLP’s SAP Ariba practice, to share his insights.

Why the rush to transition away from SAP Supplier Relationship Management?

The year 2025 is closer than it seems. It takes time to understand your options, build the business case, create your roadmap, and do the actual work. Wait too long, and you could find yourself operating with an unsupported solution and missing out on future innovations.

For many SAP customers, the next step will be the SAP® Ariba® cloud suite. That’s where SAP is focusing its energy, innovations, and solution enhancements when it comes to procurement.

But is jumping to SAP Ariba too soon a risk?

What if needs dramatically change between now and 2025?

There are always risks, which is why you shouldn’t undertake the journey alone.

You need a partner that can help orchestrate your transformation. But there’s another big force that helps reduce the risk, and that’s cloud.

With cloud, you can respond, scale, and evolve as the market evolves. You can become a more kinetic enterprise—one that moves fast and with impact. Cloud also allows you to more seamlessly integrate capabilities—so you can link SAP Ariba solutions with the SAP S/4HANA® digital core, for example, and take it one step further

with SAP® Integrated Business Planning. The payoff? You can drive intelligent automation and insights across the entire plan-to-procureto-pay spectrum.

What kind of help will organizations need?

First, experience matters. The learning curve can be steep. At Deloitte, we have been steadily building on our insights as we help industry leaders worldwide move from SAP SRM to SAP Ariba—from on-prem to cloud. Our 30-year relationship with SAP—and our vast implementation experience—provides a solid foundation for doing that.

Second, this is more than a technology upgrade.

This is an opportunity for a true digital business transformation. This is your chance to enable intelligent spend management that can drive savings and efficiencies across the business … your chance to transform the tax picture … your chance to build tomorrow’s digital supply network.

To do those things, you need a complete team —not just a technology team. You need specialists in tax, spend, cloud, risk, IT implementation, industry-specific business strategy, and more.

And you likely will need it on a global scale.

That’s the kind of team Deloitte leverages to help our clients—no matter where they are in their journeys. It’s about helping them strengthen operations, improve processes, innovate, and evolve—in a holistic way that goes beyond just a technology platform.

Want additional insights? Contact SAP@ deloitte.com to learn more or to schedule a demo of SAP Ariba solutions in action.

SAP SE

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘SAP PARTNER’

standard processes in the cloud is

In the course of its assessments,

key. Therefore, change management

TAP encounters differing reasons for

to ease this transition is a huge aspect

embarking upon a transformation.

that has to be taken into consideration.”

Some businesses might be inspired

Because such approaches can lead

by the need for modernisation, while

to disruption, it is consequently vital

others might be more existential. “In

that organisations keep on top of com-

the current digital age, every company

munication. “A lot of transformations

is under pressure to achieve digital

depend on change management and

transformation, simply because of all

how you communicate the change, not

the technologies that we have around

only to your internal stakeholders, but

us. These technologies are connecting

also to the external world so that eve-

people, the internet, and the physical

rybody knows what’s going to happen

world like never before. When every-

and everybody’s onboard to move in a

thing is connected business as usual

new direction.”

becomes a thing of the past and the

DECEMBER 2019

CO MPAN Y FACT S

• The world’s #1 cloud business software company • Recognised as a Leader across all categories • Proven expertise in 25 industries

23 transformation of many industries needs to accelerate.” says Al-Nouri.

“But some industries are under more

“ In the current digital change in productivity and incremental age, every company process innovation might be appropriis under pressure ate for some industries like mining, oil and gas, and chemicals, other industo achieve digital tries like media, banking, and retail are transformation” under intense pressure to innovate pressure than others. While step

their business model and improve their customer experience now.”

Whether it’s a step process or accelerated change, Al-Nouri sees

— Fawaz Al-Nouri, General Manager, Transformation Acceleration Programs for Europe, Middle East and Africa, SAP

procurement as a central element in w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

SAP SE

PA RT N E R S

“Deloitte is one of the preferred SAP partners for running transformation projects. Whether you want to undertake an end-to-end procurement transformation or plan a bigger digital enterprise transformation with cloud technology, Deloitte can help.”

— Fawaz Al-Nouri, General Manager, Transformation Acceleration Programs for Europe, Middle East and Africa, SAP

24

DECEMBER 2019

the digital transformation. “As business grows, there’s more spend, across more channels, than ever before. This requires better control, better speed, and better sustainability.” To be able to manage these changes, a solid, adaptable and scalable procurement platform is needed. “We call it intelligent spend management, because it covers all areas needed for procurement transformation to be successful.

Full transparency into what and how you’re spending is critical and is best achieved by adopting a seamless source to pay system. This system needs to be intelligently connected with your trading partners so that you and your suppliers are always up to date, and you can apply compliance policies to every transaction. Only then can you leverage advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing to further optimize and automate the system.”

Looking at 2020 and beyond, therefore, and understanding how many businesses need to embark on a transformation, scalability becomes very important for TAP. “We see a lot of w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

25

SAP SE

demand and we want to help as many customers as we can to transform better and faster. We’re addressing this by developing tools that can streamline the transformation process, from legacy systems analysis utilities to data migration accelerators. We are also working closely with our ecosystem. Our technology partners provide solution extensions that complement our portfolio, such as process mining

by Celonis to support process transformation from beginning to end, and 26

signature management by DocuSign to eliminate manual steps. Our system

“ Transformation is an ongoing process, and the most important factor is customer end to end success from transformation to adoption” — Fawaz Al-Nouri, General Manager, Transformation Acceleration Programs for Europe, Middle East and Africa, SAP DECEMBER 2019

1972

Year founded

€24.74bn+ Approximate Revenue

integration partners support our teams by providing their knowledgeable resources for implementation, integration and change management. Large consulting firms such as Deloitte, IBM or EY can, on the one hand, look at the overarching transformation programs and process improvement.

On the other hand, meanwhile, pro-

99,700 Number of employees

curement niche specialists such as apsolut or ExceleratedS2P can focus on the functional design and technical integration aspects.”

Finally, Al-Nouri points out the importance of recognising that transformation is an ongoing process, and the most important factor is customer end to end success from transformation to adoption. As SAP’s member of the executive board Adaire Fox-Martin said in her speech at Web Summit in Lisbon this November: ”I will tell you the single most truthful thing you can hear about transformation: It never ends. The market and the customer will never stop changing.

That fact grounds us and should ground you. We hold customer success as the inspiration of everything we do.”

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27

D I G I TA L S T R AT E G Y

28

DATA WAREHOUSING: WHY THE NEED FOR FLEXIBILITY IS AN INFLEXIBLE TRUTH The industry’s leading experts speak to Gigabit as we gauge the state of the evolving data warehousing industry and why f lexibility is at the heart of leading modern solutions WRITTEN BY

HARRY MENE AR

DECEMBER 2019

29

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D I G I TA L S T R AT E G Y

A

s the global business landscape becomes increasingly digitalised, and new technologies like 5G drive the exponential expansion of the

Internet of Things (IoT), the amount of data created on a daily basis is growing exponentially. Business intelligence and research firm Raconteur found this

year that, on an average day, 500mn tweets, 65bn WhatsApp messages and 294bn emails are sent, while four petabytes of data are created on Facebook and 5bn searches are made online. By 2025, it’s estimated that 463 exabytes of data will be created each day globally – the equivalent of 212,765,957 DVDs per day.

30

In order to keep pace and stay afloat, modern businesses need to gather, store, analyse and draw insights from a mind-bending amount of raw data.

Determining what information is valuable, how to extract it and where to keep it are the challenges that every business in the current landscape must overcome. This landscape, however, is changing so fast that today’s solutions are outdated within as little as six months. In order to keep up, enterprises are increasingly moving towards third party data management and storage solutions hosted in the cloud, for the flexibility and access to leading edge technology that they provide.

Gigabit magazine spoke with experts in the data warehousing space to gauge the state of the evolving data warehousing industry, and why flexibility is at the heart of leading modern solutions. But first…

DECEMBER 2019

31

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D I G I TA L S T R AT E G Y

“PUTTING YOUR DATA REPOSITORY IN THE CLOUD IS SIMPLY BETTER. IT’S FASTER, MORE SCALABLE, WITH ZERO INSTALL TIME, YOU CAN GO LIVE IN MINUTES, AND IT’S ALWAYS UP-TO-DATE” 32

— Jean-Michel Franco, Senior Director of Data Governance, Talend

WHAT IS A DATA WAREHOUSE? The differences between a database and a data warehouse aren’t immediately obvious. Both contain data. Both databases and data warehouses are what’s called ‘relational’ data systems; they each store data in a structured format, using rows and columns. Where they differ is the purposes they serve. Also affecting the market are data lakes, which are newer, and solve different problems in a slightly different way.

A database stores current transactions and enables quick,

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘TALEND & SNOWFLAKE: MIGRATING DATA TO YOUR SNOWFLAKE WAREHOUSE’

easy access to specific transactions

example), and are mostly used for

for ongoing business processes,

online analytical processing (OLAP),

known as Online Transaction

which uses complex queries to analyse

Processing (OLTP).

rather than process transactions.

Data warehouses, on the other hand,

Lastly, a data lake is a newer, highly

present a consolidated view of either a

scalable storage system that holds

physical or logical data repository

structured and unstructured data in its

collected from various systems,

original form and format, rather than

according to Panoply. They are best at

organising it into rows and columns

providing a correlation between data

like a database or warehouse. A data

from existing systems (product

lake does not require planning or prior

inventory stored in one system and

knowledge of the data analysis

purchase orders for a specific

needed – it assumes that analysis will

customer, stored in another system for

happen later, on-demand. w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

33

D I G I TA L S T R AT E G Y

34

JEAN-MICHEL FRANCO, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF DATA GOVERNANCE, TALEND

Putting your data repository in the cloud is simply better. It’s faster, more scalable, with zero install time, you can

“According to a TDWI and Talend survey,

go live in minutes, and it’s always up-

the top reasons companies migrate to a

to-date. Nearly every single company

cloud data warehouse are: a flexible

looking for a new data warehouse or a

cost model, to take advantage of cloud

new data lake will choose a cloud-

features, faster performance and to

based data repository.”

migrate existing products to cloud. The on-premises data warehouse business is shrinking inexorably. Most new customer data warehouses under

ROB LAMB, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, DELL TECHNOLOGY, UK

construction today are being built in the

“There are fundamental differences

cloud (most commonly Snowflake, AWS

between data lakes and data

Redshift, Azure SQL Data Warehouse,

warehousing, and some challenges

or Google BigQuery).

arise from confusion over terminology

DECEMBER 2019

and usage. Data lakes and data

support the expansion of cloud

warehouses are both used for storing

infrastructure from cutting edge,

data, but they are not the same. A data

niche technology to the foundation of

lake is a large pool of raw data set for

modern digital society.

future extraction and analysis – it

“There has been a shift towards the

needs to be searchable, but that may

use of cloud for data warehouse

be the extent of tooling provided.

architecture in recent years as the

“The oil and gas industry was an early

services and capabilities have

adopter of data lakes to land data for

matured,” he continues. “There are

use cases such as minimising

three primary drivers for organisations

unplanned downtime and improving

looking at cloud for data warehousing:

safety. A data warehouse is a repository

• The inability to handle the speed

for structured data supported by a

and volume of multi-source data,

combination of processes and tools to

especially IoT data;

prepare data for a specific purpose. For

• The inability to find a single

example, warehousing is essential for

technological solution to collect,

the healthcare industry as it utilises it

store, and organise data from

to strategise and predict outcomes,

disparate sources;

generate patients’ treatments and share data with medical aid services.”

Lamb has worked for Dell for

• The inability to handle Big Data

projects with a single database; “The challenge is managing these

almost a decade, watching the global

data sources and only integrating the

explosion of data and working to

valuable data into the data warehouse.”

“THERE HAS BEEN A SHIFT TOWARDS THE USE OF CLOUD FOR DATA WAREHOUSE ARCHITECTURE IN RECENT YEARS AS THE SERVICES AND CAPABILITIES HAVE MATURED” — Rob Lamb, Dell Technology

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35

D I G I TA L S T R AT E G Y

WALTER HECK, CTO, HELECLOUD, NETHERLANDS “The more data businesses gather, the

36

manipulate and understand their data.

The change, Heck believes, could not have come at a better time.

“Despite widespread talk of digital

more information they have at their

transformation, many companies

disposal. In a digital world, this is a

across the globe still do not optimally

great asset. But, with more data

use the data available to them. This is

comes more responsibility.

because data tends to sit

Businesses process and store

undiscovered in silos across these

thousands, millions, sometimes even

businesses,” he explains. “That said,

billions of transactions each day, all of

businesses are starting to wake up to

which need to be managed securely

this reality. As such, we are likely to

and effectively. The ability to store

see organisations start redefining

large quantities of data is being made

their approach to managing data. This

increasingly possible by creating data

is a good thing. With the introduction

warehouses,” says Heck, who took on his current role at the Dutch cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS) company in August.

Heck has seen data warehouses grow dramatically in both size and complexity over the past year. He notes that the trend is spurring a large number of enterprises to closely investigate the possibilities of new generations of cloud and data management infrastructure, particularly those that are backed by machine learning and AI which allow companies to more accurately DECEMBER 2019

“WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF 5G AND THE EVOLUTION OF EDGE COMPUTING, DATA VOLUMES ARE LIKELY TO EXPLODE TO UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS THE NEXT FEW YEARS” — Walter Heck, HeleCloud

of 5G and the evolution of edge

Rather than storing data in

computing, data volumes are likely to

warehouses, solutions that provide

explode to unprecedented levels in

even more immediate access as a

the next few years. This means that

flexible service are becoming the

data warehousing needs to be flexible

object of demand for industry leaders.

enough to scale based on volume as

Regardless, the days of on-premises

well as integrate the many different

legacy systems are ending, and

data types for analysis.”

companies need to look to the future if they expect to survive and thrive in a

A FLEXIBLE FUTURE IN THE CLOUD

future where the accumulated digital

The mass migration of the modern

universe is predicted to expand from

enterprise to the cloud may even see

4.4 zettabytes at the start of this year

CTOs and digital executives move

to more than 44 zettabytes in 2020.

their organisations beyond the

Data is the future, and in the future

concept of the data centre altogether.

only the flexible will survive.

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COVERING EVERY ANGLE IN T HE D I G I TA L A G E The Business Chief platforms offer insight on the trends inf luencing C and V-level executives, telling the stories that matter

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AI

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SPEECHTECH: TRANSLATING, RECOGNISING AND SYNTHESISING SPEECH Gigabit explores the world of speech technology and the new AI-powered approaches opening up new frontiers WRITTEN BY

WILLIA M SMITH

DECEMBER 2019

41

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AI

T

he field of speech technologies is a complex and storied one, deriving from computational linguistics and other

academic circles. The latest generation of the

technology is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to open up new possibilities in the space. Companies like jobpal are just the latest in a raft of organisations deriving success from a technological approach to language problems. While jobpal is disrupting the recruitment process with chatbots and 42

“conversational intelligence”, myriad other applications are becoming apparent, which we can broadly cluster in categories of machine translation, automatic speech recognition (ASR) and speech synthesis.

MACHINE TRANSLATION In a world connecting to the internet at pace, there’s an attendant focus on catering to customers in their own languages. It’s here that the field of machine translation has witnessed a new flurry of activity. Southeast Asia as a region is both a technological boomtown and a hub of language diversity. Regional ride-hailing unicorn Grab recently announced it was investing a further $150m, on top of a prior $100mn, in AI endeavours including natural language processing (NLP) to DECEMBER 2019

43

“ ONE OF THE BIGGEST DRAWS OF ASR IS ITS ABILITY TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO SERVICES” w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

AI

broaden access to its app to those speaking underserved languages.

With current levels of technology, however, machines cannot quite match the human touch. An approach involving humans sidesteps some of the issues faced by machine translation.

For instance, a human worker can helpfully edit a transcript to remove unnecessary pauses, false-starts and other disfluencies, as well as easily discern when different people are speaking. This is the direction taken

by Unbabel, a translation startup 44

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘UNBABEL CUSTOMER STORIES: MICROSOFT’

DECEMBER 2019

45 catering to customer service which

translate business customer service

recently raised $60mn in a Series

requests in nearly any language.

C funding round. Vasco Pedro, CEO

“Language remains one of the big-

and co-founder, told Gigabit that:

gest challenges for companies looking

“Through our AI-powered, human-

to function in the global economy.

refined ‘Translation-as-a-Service’

75% of the world’s population doesn’t

platform, Unbabel is creating a seam-

speak English, and a good customer

less way for companies to serve cus-

experience, regardless of language,

tomers in their native languages. It’s

should be a universal consumer right –

where machine learning meets human

if not a digital right.”

ingenuity: we are leveraging Neural Machine Translation, Natural Lan-

SPEECH SYNTHESIS

guage Processing and Quality Estima-

Speech synthesis has also received

tion along with the power of a global

a second-wind from the new ap-

community of translators that work in

proaches made possible by emerging

combination with our technology to

technologies. The field has come a w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

AI

long way since the solution employed

continuing to refine speech synthesis

and made famous by Stephen Hawking,

technology, transitioning Alexa from

who was fond of its robotic quality.

the unit-selection method, which

Nowadays, realistic synthesised

strings small pre-recorded sounds

speech is all around us, whether it's

together, to a neural-network based

coming from an Alexa smart speaker,

model capable of generating speech

or Apple’s digital assistant Siri. The

entirely independently.

fact that a UN report has deemed

46

that the gendering of AI assistants is

AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION

perpetuating sexist stereotypes is,

ASR denotes technologies capable

perversely, in some ways proof that

of processing human speech and

such machines can successfully mas-

turning it into text. One of the biggest

querade as anthropomorphic beings

draws of ASR is its ability to improve

thanks to the quality of their speech.

access to services – whether that’s in

Amazon and others, however, are

DECEMBER 2019

combination with translation,

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘SPEECHMATICS – LEADING AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY’

“ A GOOD CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, REGARDLESS OF LANGUAGE, SHOULD BE A UNIVERSAL CONSUMER RIGHT – IF NOT A DIGITAL RIGHT” — Vasco Pedro, CEO and co-founder, Unbabel

or in turning speech into inputs and so on. The ubiquitous digital assistants found on the world’s smartphones offer easy access to such technologies, with the capacity to speak into your phone in lieu of typing now commonplace.

Machine learning is well suited to the task of ASR owing to the nature of audio, as Will Williams, a machine learning researcher at ASR company Speechmatics explains. “In short, it's the learning and mapping from a raw waveform to phonemes or characters.

You take a slice of the input audio and w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

47

AI

you map it to whether it was a "bu" or a "th". Neural nets actually match the nature of the data because audio is quite hierarchical. With images, at first you can learn edges, followed by whole body parts, and then uncovering what a whole cat is. It's very similar for audio. You have these low-level features that you need to learn, and you can build on top of them to understand high-level features.”

Speechmatics’ specific implementation accommodates language in all 48

its variety. Historically, methods for ASR struggled with variations within a language such as accents and dialects.

English, owing to its geographical spread, likely features the most variation of all – a problem which demands attention considering it is the world’s most widely spoken language. Speechmatics specifically addresses this concern inside its offerings. “Compared to competitors, we are quite accent agnostic,” says Williams. “We have a model, for example, called Global English that we've trained on tons of different accents and variants of English, and we bundle it all into one model.”

DECEMBER 2019

“ WE RELY ON MACHINE LEARNING, WHERE WE CAN SOLVE GENERAL PROBLEMS, IN ORDER TO USE LARGE AMOUNTS OF DATA TO SMOOTH OVER ALL THE PROBLEMS THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE IN BUILDING A NEW LANGUAGE” — Will Williams,, Machine learning researcher, Speechmatics

49 The same unified approach is also

guists at Speechmatics – we strongly

evident when approaching new lan-

believe that we shouldn't be taking

guages, with Speechmatics already

that approach. We rely on machine

supporting around 30. “Any text and

learning, where we can solve gen-

audio data we have is thrown it into

eral problems, in order to use large

the Automatic Linguist, which is an

amounts of data to smooth over all

internal software pipeline – basi-

the problems that you might have in

cally just to see what happens. It's

building a new language.”

designed to deal with new languages

By turning technology towards that

that we've never encountered before,

most fundamental element of human

so it makes lots of automated choices

communication, innovators in speech

about things that you might need to

technology are providing services

do to build the speech system. We

that offer new levels of access to un-

see what comes out the other end. If

derserved populations and new ways

it's good, great. If not, then we'll seek

of interacting with the technology

to add more data in. We don't use lin-

around us. w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

CLOUD

AI IN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE:

50

THE NEW FRONTIER FROM INCREASINGLY ADVANCED CHATBOTS TO GESTURE-CONTROLLED AR WINDOW DISPLAYS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS RADICALLY CHANGING THE WAY THAT COMPANIES DELIVER THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE WRITTEN BY

HARRY MENE AR

DECEMBER 2019

51

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

CLOUD

52

Amazon Showroom

F

or more than 4,000 years, the

tone to attract clients. The advent of

advertising industry has been

the printing press, radio, television, and

defined by new technologies

now the internet and social media have

that allow companies, governments

all radically changed the way in which

and individuals to attract and retain

products are sold.

the interest of their target audiences.

In the mid-1990s, as companies and

In Egypt, papyrus was used to deliver

organisations began recognising the

some of the world’s first commercial

internet’s potential as a marketing tool,

advertising in poster form. The first

huge amounts of time and money were

ever advertising “jingle” or sonic logo

poured into establishing online

was the result of ladies of the night in

footprints. These early sites were

750 BC Greece hammering nails into

primarily HTML brochures, easily the

their shoes to produce a distinctive

best of which was launched in 1996 to

DECEMBER 2019

“ WE’RE SEEING MORE AND MORE DEMAND FOR IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES, IN STORES OR IN VENUES” Stephane Girard, CTO of Digital CX, Capgemini 53

promote the movie Space Jam. Unlike

interactive elements (like the breath-

a lot of these early sites, spacejam.com

takingly over the top experiences

is still fully functional – someone even

provided by Hypergiant Industries and

made it GDPR compliant – and offers

Orano) or exhibit all the cool minimalism

a window into a time when, as IBM’s

of a scandanavian bedside table,

iX team put it, “with no precedents

website design as a way to attract,

to follow, creative directors, designers,

engage and retain customers has

writers and developers learned by doing.”

been elevated to an artform.

Over the past 25 years, the evolution

In 2019, the ongoing mass adoption

of the customer experience (CX) on

of artificial intelligence (AI) is causing

the world wide web has been seismic

a similar sea change in the CX space.

and epoch defining. Whether they’re

IBM’s report on the evolving use of AI

bursting with colourful designs and

in CX elaborates: “AI is unleashing w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

CLOUD

“ WE HAVEN’T SEEN CHANGE ON THIS SCALE SINCE THE INTERNET TRANSFORMED PRINT PROFESSIONALS INTO DIGITAL PIONEERS” IBM iX Team

a new approach for CX strategy, design and development. We haven’t seen change on this scale since the internet transformed print professionals into digital pioneers.” However, IBM notes, the transition to AI-driven CX is happening much faster than the evolution from tactile, analogue CX to a digital marketplace. Half of the companies it surveyed for the report said they are already using AI in their CX strategies, but a large number also admitted that their operations have “important capability gaps, and lack the strategy and skills needed to meet

54

their AI aspirations.”

This is no surprise, as AI has the potential to radically recast the relationship between company and customer. Andy Goodman, who first coined the term Zero UI (which we’ll come to in a minute) back in 2015, even went so far as saying that designers who wanted to keep their jobs in the next decade needed “to become experts in science, biology, and psychology.”

With this in mind, Gigabit Magazine is going to explore the ongoing trends (and potential future ramifications) of AI as its influence spreads across the DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘IMPACT OF AI ON CX: AI HELPS BRANDS BUILD GREATER CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT’ 55 field of CX with all the inevitability of

away from the conventional approach

history in the making.

– where customers interact with

“AI in CX is still in the experimenta-

systems such as websites and mobile

tion phase,” says Stephane Girard,

apps – and towards something more

CTO of Digital CX at global technology

human, centred on either voice or

consulting firm Capgemini, in an

text-based conversation. We’re seeing

interview with Gigabit Magazine.

more and more demand for immersive

According to Girard, who leads

experiences, in stores or in venues.”

Capgemini’s ongoing worn on AI in CX,

Girard notes that, in addition to

the conversation around AI’s redefini-

widespread consumer demand for

tion of the way customers interact

increased immersion and ‘hyper-per-

with companies is undergoing a radical

sonalisation’, the driving trend behind

shift. “The major thing is that we’re

this shift is a desire for increased

moving towards what we call ‘conver-

simplicity in the way that consumers

sation and immersion’. We’re moving

interact with brands. w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

CLOUD

THE DEATH OF THE WEBSITE? The idea of implementing touch-less controls into our daily lives has been going strong for a while now, even if the idea of a video game where “you have to use your hands” wasn’t as ridiculous in the year 2015 as Back to the Future: Part II predicted.

Robert Zemekis’ joke isn’t too far off the mark, however. With the ongoing rise of VR and AR gaming, it feels like we’re getting closer and closer to an entertainment experience that doesn’t 56

involve touching a controller, mouse or keyboard.

What has been gaining traction over the past half decade is the idea of a future that’s free from the traditional idea of touchscreens altogether.

“We use the term Zero UI to talk about methods of getting away from using screens as the controlling device,” explains Andrew Dunbar, general manager EMEA at digital consultancy Appnovation. “The natural place you go from there is to voice control, gesture control and then potentially AI. I actually think it’s a bit of a misnomer, because I don’t think Zero UI isn’t so much about stepping away from DECEMBER 2019

© Universal Pictures IKEA Place app

screens; it’s about changing how we interact with brands, and how we interact with technology as a means of communication.” Dunbar also makes it clear that he doesn’t believe we’re all going to stop using touchscreens and keyboards in the near future. “I think Zero UI is actually quite a misleading term. We’re not all going to switch to voice control. You’re never going to use something like that on a crowded tube, for example. I think it will definitely have a role to play in the future, but I don’t think we’ll ever get away

74%

say AI will fundamentally change how they approach CX

completely from screens, because we’re very visual creatures. You can employ things like voice, audio, haptic technology and even fragrance – there are digital fragrances coming out soon – but I don’t think we’re ever going to

74%

say AI will change how customers view their brand

41%

have an AI strategy

step away from screens and visual interaction, not whilst we’ve got eyes still anyway,” he says. “What is going to change is how brands use these new ways of communicating to differentiate.” Adopting new technologies – from the printing press to AI powered gesture controls – has been a part of the great marketing arms race for centuries. w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

57

CLOUD

“ ZERO UI IS ABOUT HAVING NO VISIBLE USER INTERFACE, AND OMNI UI IS ABOUT HAVING EVERYTHING BECOME AN INTERFACE” Andrew Dunbar, General manager EMEA

OMNI UI The future that Dunbar sees – and how this relates to the customer experience – is characterised by what he calls ‘Omni UI’. “It’s not about having no visible user interface; it’s about having everything become an interface,” he explains. This injection of a digital interface into every element of the customer experience, using IoT, VR/ AR and AI, could radically retool the role of places like the high street shopping experience for the customer.

“How do you justify the role of the High

58

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘DEEPFRAME AT LEGO FLAGSHIP STORE IN COPENHAGEN’

DECEMBER 2019

Street in a modern society, given that we buy much more online nowadays?”

The answer supposedly lies in using AI-powered smart technology to blend the physical and digital shopping experiences even further. AI might mean that physical stores become digital showrooms that use digital displays to create those experiential customer interactions that Girard mentioned.

Copenhagen mixed reality firm

Alternately, apps like IKEA Place and

Realfiction has been working on using

Amazon Showroom let users preview

holograms (another win for Robert

in 3D what items of furniture would

Zemeckis’ vision of the 21st century) to

look like in their homes. Belarusian

accomplish this since 2008.

startup Wanna Kicks, meanwhile, has

Its range of holographic display cases have been used by global brands like Lego, Best Buy and whiskey maker

an app that lets sneaker fans “try on” rare and expensive shoes.

The AI that powers these hyper-

Ardbeg to generate attention that

immersive, personalised customer

resonates with a consumer class that

experiences is shaping up to be the

increasingly lives beyond the reach

driving force behind marketing in the

of classic advertising.

coming decade. From increasingly

According to a company blog, “to

intelligent chat bots to analytics that

compete with ecommerce, shopping

will, according to an anonymous CMO

malls and retailers must consider what

interviewed in IBM’s report, “predict

experiences they can provide that

what customers want before they

cannot be found online and will give

even know they need it”, AI is ensuring

visitors an exceptional experience that

that, once again, the relationship

makes them want to return again and

between company and customer will

bring their friends.”

never be the same. w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

59

60

DECEMBER 2019

Telecommunications companies Gigabit examines the world’s Top 10 telecommunications companies, and the services that they provide WRITTEN BY

WILLIAM SMITH

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

61

T O P 10

62

10

KDDI Japan $45.8bn (2019)

Offering up the usual gamut of fixed-line, mobile, internet and television services, KDDI Japan was formed in 2000 via the merger of three companies with similarly initialed names: DDI, KDD and IDO. Its mobile services are provided through the “au by KDDI� brand. The company is working on bringing 5G networks to Japan, in collaboration with both Samsung and Ericsson, with whom they have been working since 2015. 5G service is expected to begin in March 2020.

DECEMBER 2019

Takashi Tanaka, Chairman

38,826 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

HQ TOKYO, JAPAN

09

63

China Telecom RMB352.285bn (2016)

One of two Chinese companies on this list, China Telecom is a state-owned organisation based in the capital of Beijing. A relative newcomer, having been founded in 2002, the company primarily caters to the Chinese market, offering both fixed-line and mobile telephony, as well as internet and television access. Recently, the company has partnered with the Philippines’ Udenna Corporation to create Dito Telecommunity, launching in 2020 for the Philippine market.

Yang Jie, Chairman & CEO

287,076 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

HQ BEIJING, CHINA

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

AT HARBOUR IT, WE GIVE OUR CUSTOMERS THE FREEDOM TO FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS MOST Learn more

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08

65

Telefónica €48.7bn (2018)

Spain’s Telefonica does most of its business in both Europe and Latin America, where it operates under a number of different names.

In its home country and Latin America, Telefónica’s Movistar subsidiary provides mobile phone services. In the UK and Germany, it uses the O2 brand, the acquisition of which was finalised in 2006. In Brazil it trades under the name of Vivo.

In total, it operates in 14 countries.

José María Álvarez-Pallete, Chairman & CEO

120,138 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

HQ MADRID, SPAIN

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

T O P 10

66

07

Softbank ÂĽ9.602,236trn (2018)

It’s likely fair to say Softbank is more famous for its activities outside telecommunications than for its Softbank Mobile division. Via its $100bn venture capital Vision Fund and other methods it has invested in the likes of runaway success Alibaba and the more ill-fated WeWork. It is also the owner of US Telecommunications company Sprint. The company was founded in 1981 by Masoyashi Son as a computer parts store. He remains the CEO.

Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO

76,866 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

HQ TOKYO, JAPAN

DECEMBER 2019

06

67

Deutsche Telekom €75.66bn (2018)

Like many of the companies on this list, Deutsche Telekom began as a government organisation – in this case part of the postal system. Privatised in 1996, the company now boasts some 178mn mobile customers, as well as 20mn broadband lines. Outside of Germany, in countries such as the US and the Netherlands, the company operates under the T-Mobile brand. It was previously extant under that name in the UK before the company was merged and later sold as EE.

Tim Höttges, CEO

216,000 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

HQ BONN, GERMANY

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

How AWS is helping create a future-ready Australia We are at a fascinating point in the history and evolution of Australian organisations, where they are using technology to transform and enhance the experiences they bring to their customers.Transformation touches everyone, from government agencies including the ATO, Australia Post, and ABC, digital natives like Atlassian and Xero, start-ups like Baraja and Whooshkaa, to established players like Qantas, Woodside Energy, NAB, Linfox, and Fonterra. Having the right skills in place to drive digital transformation is critically important, as is a willingness to embrace change and shift to a more agile, collaborative culture.AWS help organisations of all shapes and sizes with their most critical issues and opportunities. Together, we create enduring change and results.

Let AWS help create enduring change and strategies for you.

NAB’s Cloud Guild drives new tech skills NAB is watching a new approach to learning develop inside of the bank as it approaches the first anniversary of an ambitious program to train its workforce in the ways of cloud. The program, called the NAB Cloud Guild, was intended to enable “more than 2000” NAB employees to acquire or build cloud skills in support of the bank’s $1.5 billion “digital-first” transformation.Inside of the first year, the Cloud Guild is already tracking well ahead of that goal.“The results of the NAB Cloud Guild have been outstanding,” NAB’s Manager Engineer and Cloud Guild Founder Paul Silver said. “Within the first 10 months, we’ve had about 4000 people who’ve gone through the program so far in a one or three day course. “When we started, we had seven people in the whole organisation who were certified in AWS cloud. There are now over 400 people who are certified”.Silver can already see change as a result of the program.

“What we’ve found after people have done the three-day associate courses is they’re becoming self-learners, which is fantastic,” he said. “AWS has great digital content we can consume and use inside our organisation. After people get their first certification, they’re actually going off and selflearning this content with the outcome of getting more certifications, in-turn leading to better outcomes for NAB.” The learning culture is expected to have a strong impact on NAB’s project, which includes a target of moving 35 percent of its 2500 IT applications into the cloud within the next three-tofive years. “With AWS’ help we’ve been able to drive outcomes incredibly fast. This is helping us meet our customer expectations a lot faster than we have been able to in the past,”

Silver said. NAB’s Chief Technology & Operations Officer Patrick Wright said the battle for technology talent in Australia is “fierce”. Wright sees the NAB Cloud Guild not only as a way to create opportunities for employees to learn new skills and grow their career in technology, but also as a means “to attract top talent in the industry.” “We’re embarking on a transformation that we think is fundamentally changing our ompany, fundamentally changing the way we work, and launching us into a new era,” Wright said. “If you want to build a company of builders, you have to have technology career pathways.”

NAB is also taking some cues on best practices from AWS as it continues on its digital transformation journey.

The bank recently tackled the AWS 50 in 50 program, which involves getting 50 applications into the cloud in just 50 days. It was a clear signal of the speed and agility that NAB now wants to operate. “AWS’s passion for customers aligns well with what we are doing at NAB and we’re also learning from them along the way as well,” Silver said. “It’s been a really good partnership to work with them.”

How AWS is helping create a future-ready Australia

Woodside Energy leveraging data to seize growth opportunities Woodside Energy is the pioneer of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in Australia, and the largest Australian natural gas producer. Woodside’s producing LNG assets in Australia’s north-west Pilbara region are among the world’s best facilities, renowned for their safety, reliability and efficiency.

Now, Woodside is seeking to create an integrated LNG production centre – the Burrup Hub - that would see new Scarborough and Browse gas resources processed through the Woodsideoperated Pluto LNG and Karratha Gas Plant. To help realise this vision, Woodside is leveraging gains from its data science and intelligent asset work programs over weeks and days, instead of months and years, allowing the company to make decisions sooner, using richer data. Innovation has always been part of Woodside’s DNA. Applying cloud technology is helping Woodside accelerate the traditional oil and gas project innovation cycle from years, down to months. Woodside uses AWS cloud as the foundation for optimising production in real time, by running high -speed algorithms to uncover new insights and opportunities to deliver extra value. Woodside can run 10,000 algorithms per hour, taking data from over 200,000 sensors attached to its Pluto LNG plant. The company remains focused on reaching all Woodside employees with this work.

Digital at Woodside is not just about ‘gear’; it’s honing and changing the way people work, with collaborative partnerships playing a key role.

Learn more

Visit awsinsight.com.au to find out more how AWS is able to help you thrive in today’s digital economy.

05

69

Comcast

$94.5bn (2019)

Philadelphia’s Comcast Corporation is not a competitor in mobile networks, instead providing internet, cable television and home phone connections. The business was founded by Ralph J. Roberts in 1963. The current CEO, Brian L Roberts is his son. Though a public company, the Roberts family’s preferred stock confers 33.3 percent of voting rights, giving them a large amount of control. Much of Comcast’s business is done through its Xfinity brand, which it adopted in 2010.

Brian L. Roberts, CEO

184,000 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

HQ PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

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T O P 10

70

04

NTT

ÂĽ11.8 trn (2018)

The Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) has a history dating back to the aftermath of the second world war, where it was established by the Japanese government. Though privatised in 1985, the government continues to hold one third of the company’s shares. The services it offers in Japan include internet, fixed-line and mobile. NTT also has a global presence, having launched the London-based NTT Ltd. in 2019, which offers a wide range of technology services.

DECEMBER 2019

Jun Sawada, President & CEO

282,550 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

HQ TOKYO, JAPAN

03

71

China Mobile

RMB736.819bn (2018)

China Mobile is a state-owned telecommunications giant. Based in Hong Kong, it provides its telecommunications network across both the special administrative region and the mainland.

The company was created out of another company on this list, China Telecom. Aside from its dominance in the Chinese market, it has also expanded into Pakistan with its Zong brand and to the UK as a virtual operator targeting chinese students living in the country.

Li Yue, CEO

459,152 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

HQ HONG KONG

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

T O P 10

02

Verizon Communications $130.863bn (2018)

72

One of the so-called “Baby Bells� spun off from the monopolous AT&T in 1983, Verizon was originally known as Bell Atlantic. In 1996, the company underwent a merger with NYNEX, a fellow Baby Bell covering the north-eastern United States, moving its headquarters to New York at the same time. Its current name was gained in the merger with GTE, which was historically the largest telephone provider outside of the Bell System. It says it provides wireless coverage to 98% of the United States.

Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO

144,500 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

HQ NEW YORK, NEW YORK DECEMBER 2019

73

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘VERIZON: BE FIRST TO REAL TIME – 5G ULTRA WIDEBAND’

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T O P 10

74

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘AT&T: “NIGHTMARE” TV COMMERCIAL’

DECEMBER 2019

01 AT&T

$170.756bn (2018) The history of AT&T is, in many ways, the history of the entire telephone system in the United States, thanks to its precursor the Bell Telephone company. Established

by Alexander Graham Bell’s father in law, the company evolved into the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and controlled the Bell System of telephone services across the nation. Accused of being Randall L. Stephenson, Chairman & CEO

a monopoly, it was broken up in 1983 by the

273,210

current competitors. The current company

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

US government, creating many of AT&T’s was itself reformed out of Southwestern Bell, one of those spun off companies.

HQ DALLAS, TEXAS w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

75

EVENTS & A S S O C I AT I O N S

We round up the biggest and best technology events and conferences from around the world‌ EDITED BY HARRY MENEAR

07-10 JAN 2020

76

05 DEC 2019

Tech For Good Gathering

CES 2020 [ LAS VEGAS ]

As it does every year, global tech industry

[ LONDON ]

is kicking off 2020 with an annual rite

Shining a light on the people and

that verges on a religious pilgrimage for

companies making the world a better

anyone passionate about AR/VR, IoT,

place, the Tech For Good Gathering

AI, ML and any other number of tech

is a one day event held in London.

initials you care to name. The Consumer

Technology experts and leaders from

Electronics Show takes place at the tart

around the world (previous speakers

of each year in the Las Vegas Convention

have included Polly Cook, who led the

Centre and attracts more than 175,000

digital transformation of the Red

people every year. From sports tech

Cross, and Lara Burns, CDO and CTO

and robotics to advertising and smart

of Age UK) will share their knowledge

homes, the future of tech will be on

over a series of talks and seminars.

display at CES.

DECEMBER 2019

16-17 JAN 2020

Microsoft Ignite

20-21 JAN 2020

[ LONDON ]

European Blockchain Convention

Microsoft Ignite, the tech giant’s indus-

[ BARCELONA ]

try-leading conference aimed at

The European Blockchain Convention

bringing together the best and brightest

(which alternates between Barcelona

in the cloud sector for talks, networking

and Copenhagen) is one of the defin-

events and demonstrations, is on tour.

ing events for all things crypto and

With the MEA leg beginning in Paris on

powered by digital ledger. This year’s

13 November, 2019, and ending in

event is expected to play host to more

Stockholm on 6 May 2020, the multi-

than 600 tech leaders, regulators,

city series of conferences is the best

investors, corporations, developers

opportunity for SMEs and corporations

and entrepreneurs from the industry.

alike to learn, connect and explore

Its talks, seminars and events are

cloud-based opportunities for their

expected to focus on real-world appli-

business. At the London event, which is

cations for blockchain and digital

being held at the ExCel, demonstrations

ledger technology across multiple

and keynote speeches are going to be

industries, including energy, finance,

interspersed with frequent networking

supply chain, government, insurance,

opportunities.

healthcare, retail and mobility.

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77

EVENTS & A S S O C I AT I O N S

78

24-26 MAR 2020

20-21 JAN 2020

European Blockchain Convention

Money 20/20 Asia [ SINGAPORE ] Asia’s famously grandiose technology

[ BARCELONA ]

and fintech conference focuses on

With thousands set to descend on

helping entrepreneurs and large enter-

Barcelona for the event, MWC (formerly

prises maintain the pace of innovation

Mobile World Congress) promises to

and network with like-minded individuals

be an unmissable technology congress.

and thought leaders. “Complacency is

Hosting groundbreaking innovations

the enemy,” warn the organisers. Money

from almost 2,500 companies and over

20/20 carefully curates its content

100,000 delegates, MWC stands as one

each year in order to present the very

of the largest conferences in the world

leading edge in business and financial

centred around mobile technologies.

strategy to its host of attendees.

DECEMBER 2019

13-15 MAY

ITB China [ SHANGHAI ]

02-04 JUNE 2020

business travel trade fair that focuses

DataCloud World Congress

exclusively on the Chinese travel indus-

[ MONACO ]

try. As the largest B2B-exclusive travel

Next year, Monaco will be home to the

trade show in China, ITB China brings

17th annual DataCloud World Congress,

together top and hand selected buyers

bringing together a variety of experts in

with industry professionals from all over

the cloud, data centre and IT infrastructure

the world, and provides various net-

markets. Touting itself as “the premier

working events and a unique state of

leadership summit for critical IT infra-

the art matchmaking system to

structure”, the event promises to cover

enhance networking and maximize

everything from cloud challenges to

business opportunities. ITB China 2020

edge evolution. Speakers at last years’

will take place from Wednesday to Fri-

event included: Michel Fraisse, VP,

day, 13 to 15 May, at the Shanghai World

Europe, Huawei, Jeffrey Ferry, Director,

Expo Exhibition and Convention Centre

Goldman Sachs and Glenn Fitzgerald,

in Hall 1. The ITB China Conference will

Chief Technology Officer, Product

take place parallel with the show.

Business, Fujitsu EMEIA.

ITB China is a three-day business to

79

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80

BRENNTAG GROUP: A UNIQUE DIGITAL STRATEGY WRITTEN BY

HARRY MENEAR PRODUCED BY

LEWIS VAUGHAN

DECEMBER 2019

81

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DIGIB

Maarten Stramrood, CDO at Brenntag Group and Managing Director of the DigiB innovation hub, discusses the ongoing digital transformation of the world’s largest chemical and ingredients distributor

A

wave of digital transformation is sweeping across the global business landscape, driven by the rapid technological advance-

ments of Industry 4.0 and the Information Age. 82

From cutting edge robotics to paperless invoicing, companies across every industry are racing to galvanise meaningful change that improves efficiency, increases transparency, and translates into greater value for employees, suppliers, partners, customers and shareholders.

Digital transformation is no mean feat. It can be an exhaustive, top-down process that reshapes the internal workings, culture and even purpose of an organisation; it can be a revolution. More often, however, the process more closely resembles something different – something slower, and more considered: evolution. Embodying this process is German chemical and ingredients distributor Brenntag Group and its innovation hub, DigiB.

DECEMBER 2019

83

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DIGIB

“ Create it, launch it, learn from it” 84 “When it comes to digitalisation, our approach is to create it, launch it,

— Maarten Stramrood, CDO, Brenntag Group, Managing Director, DigiB hub

and learn from it,” explains Maarten Stramrood, Chief Digital Officer at

over 580 locations across 76 countries,

Brenntag Group and Managing Director

Brenntag’s decision to establish the

of the DigiB hub in Amsterdam. “We’re

DigiB hub is a bold affirmation of the

not trying to wait until we have a perfect

need for even large-scale companies

situation; we would rather launch some-

dealing with physical products and

thing fast and do it 92% right instead

services to rapidly accelerate their

of delivering a platform or delivering

technological progress. “The business

a project which might be 100% right

we are in is very physical, but you can

but which gets endlessly delayed

enhance and improve the business in

to the point that, by the time it’s ‘ready’,

parts of the supply chain by using

it’s been out of date for two years.”

digital technology,” explains Stramrood.

For a distribution company with more

“I think this is the kind of definition that

than 16,600 employees operating in

we have for digital transformation.”

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘#ONEBRENNTAGMINUTE WITH MAARTEN STRAMROOD’ 85 Founded in 1874 as an egg wholesaler,

We sat down with Stramrood to find out

Brenntag expanded into chemical distri-

more about his role in the DigiB hub and

bution in 1912 and today leads the market

its ongoing endeavours to accelerate

on a global scale. “We serve around

the digital evolution of Brenntag.

195,000 different customers, from huge

“We started about two years ago.

accounts like Shell or BASF down to

I was – I don’t know – employee number

small customers who might only buy one

four. We were basically starting from

ingredient each year,” says Stramrood.

scratch,” recalls Stramrood. With an

“Our added value comes from the fact

extensive background in the telco indus-

that we have a dense global distribution

try, Stramrood reflects that he had spent

network that means we can deliver to

the past ten years focusing on digitalisa-

both large and small clients anywhere in

tion, building ecommerce channels and

the world.” The company has a presence

building teams. “Basically, I went through

in almost every manufacturing industry,

a few acquisitions and a couple of big

from food and life science to oil and gas.

mergers in the space of two years, and w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

KEY INSIGHTS FROM A CORPORATE STARTUP “DigiB is building the digital future of Brenntag.

We opted for a launch-and-learn approach, so that we can easily make adjustments based on feedback and demonstrate the added value of digital applications more quickly.”

Maarten Stramrood, Chief Digital Office Brenntag

TECHNOLOGY, DATA, CREATIVITY.

ON A MISSION TO REINVENT B2B Digital transformation is a necessary step for many

er-facing platform providing consumers with the option

businesses but there is not just one way of accom-

to order products digitally with access to individual docu-

plishing this. At one end of the spectrum, companies

mentation, historic purchasing data and other self-service

are increasingly selling products online, while others

components. Since its launch six months ago, Brenntag

still operate in analogue. Digital agency Dept now

Connect is now live in Germany and North America with

successfully offers digital transformation as one

other countries to follow shortly.

of its services following the development of DigiB, the start-up offshoot of chemical distribution manufacturer, Brenntag.

MARKETING ACTIVITIES IN ACTION These digital marketing transformations have helped

Brenntag owns 500 warehouses worldwide which are

elevate Brenntag to the position of global market leader

used to store and distribute chemical products. Though

in chemical distribution – a sector that has remained largely

the company is forward-thinking and guarantees safe

untapped by the digital evolution. Dimi Albers, CEO at Dept,

and sustainable operations, it still largely operates

said: “The DigiB infrastructure is one of the most advanced

as a traditional B2B company – with many orders made

architectures we have. A lot of time was spent on continuous

via telephone and e-mail. DigiB launched in Amsterdam

integration, which makes it possible for Brenntag to onboard

in 2017 after an initial period testing concepts in Berlin.

new developers and roll out functions quickly to make

The corporate start-up was founded to stand apart from

the business more successful.”

its parent company and act as a platform for working on new digital innovations as well as allow Brenntag to

LOOKING FORWARD

be more efficient and prioritise their customers’ experience.

By setting up DigiB as an innovation hub outside of the parent

FINDING THE RIGHT PARTNER AND PLATFORMS

processes inherent to an international B2B player and remain

Dept came on board to facilitate Brenntag with the design and development of new platforms, Brenntag Source and Brenntag Connect, as well as digitise and centralise its analogue processes with its team. Albers: “Our team possesses a range of skillsets to provide us with the flexibility to keep up. We know that we can

company, Brenntag is able to optimise the complex digital competitive. Dept helped the company transition from a traditional company to a digitally-minded one seamlessly.

Stramrood said: “DigiB is building the digital future of Brenntag.

We opted for a launch-and-learn approach, so that we can easily make adjustments based on feedback and demonstrate the added value of digital applications more quickly.”

provide teams with bolstered creativity, technology and data, which is why it was a no-brainer to help DigiB across all three of these axes. From brand development to digital products and digital marketing, there was no aspect of this process that we weren’t comfortable getting involved with.” Brenntag Source is an innovative tool that helps to boost the company’s internal efficiency by ensuring that data can be easily shared across the company’s subsidiaries.Brenntag Source allows them to retain a local presence within each market and enables Brenntag to use its purchasing power more effectively to optimize spend. “The fact that we can enjoy savings with a relatively simple innovation illustrates the incred-

Maarten Stramrood, Chief Digital Office Brenntag

Dimi Albers, CEO Dept

ible potential digital transformation offers us,” said Maarten Stramrood, Chief Digital Officer at Brenntag.

Brenntag Connect, on the other hand, is a custom-

DEPTAGENCY.COM

DIGIB

88

thought it might be time to look for some-

distribution firms on the planet with

thing more stable. Whenever there’s a

sweeping digital change. One of the

merger, you lose all the best people in

things that makes the DigiB hub special

your team, who go on to get their own

is its autonomy from Brenntag’s wider

teams. Then you have to build a brand

operation. The hub is set up as an inde-

new team. After a few mergers, I thought

pendent entity, giving Stramrood the

it looked like I was pretty good at building

power to expand his team, oversee HR

new teams,” he laughs. “Then, Brenntag

and develop new policies and processes

came calling.”

in the name of finding ways to accelerate

For the past two years, Stramrood

the digital evolution of the wider organi-

has built an 80-person team across

sation. “Not a lot of companies have a

Europe, the US and Asia Pacific focused

setup like ours,” he says. “A lot of them

on starting and accelerating digital

have a little innovation hub tucked away

initiatives, and infusing one of the largest

inside the larger organisation. DigiB

DECEMBER 2019

feels like a little startup. Of course, we’re

Amazon in their personal lives, and

funded by Brenntag, but the impact we

they’re starting to expect the same

make and the way we approach things

kind of convenience when doing busi-

is very entrepreneurial.”

ness with a company like Brenntag.

As a strategist with extensive B2C experience, Stramrood acknowledges that a lot of the drive towards digi-

The big challenge for a company like ours is to deliver on that expectation.”

This expectation of a digitally

talisation is coming from that sector.

empowered experience is one of

“What we hear when we talk to our

the primary drivers behind the three

customers and suppliers, is that more

pillars around which DigiB’s efforts

and more people are expecting the

are centred. “We’re really focused

way that they do things in their per-

on experiences, on the customer and

sonal lives to be the way they do things

employee side of things, in order

in their professional lives as well,” he

to build smoother relationships,”

explains. “People use companies like

explains Stramrood.

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Maarten Stramrood Stramrood is a seasoned digital entrepreneur, mobile veteran, manager and strategist with a very broad background. He is an expert in go—to—market strategies, digital marketing and sales, conversion, data science, digital care, digital driven marketing, data driven operations, operational management, product management, business development, digital disruption and product and process design. He has worn many hats throughout his career— entrepreneur: entrepreneur, CCO, manager, product manager, marketeer and strategist.

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

89

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1874

Year founded

$15bn+ Revenue in US dollars (2018)

16,600 Number of employees

tests across multiple dimensions of their portfolios. “A project manager in Poland can benchmark their procurement data against Brenntag’s US figures or against a competitor, or they can compare two different suppliers. This gives us new insights to strengthen our global position in negotiations,” says Stramrood.

The goal of Brenntag Source is also, Stramrood explains, to improve collaboration across the many regional branches of Brenntag. “We’re trying to enhance the inter-company trading, between our subsidiaries, for example

BRENNTAG SOURCE

the BeNeLux and German organisa-

The first pillar corresponds to DigiB’s

tions, because this will optimise our

goal of improving the abilities and

global stock position.”

experience of Brenntag’s employees.

Brenntag Source is a portfolio of

BRENNTAG CONNECT

internal applications that harness the

The most impactful of the pillars,

company’s data and deliver insights

Brenntag Connect, is the company’s

back to its employees. “We have a lot

ecommerce portal, designed and

of pricing trends and other data points

supported by DigiB. Stramrood

from all across the globe which can be

characterises the portal as an ecom-

very useful to any Brenntag employee,”

merce knowledge and self-service

Stramrood explains. One of the applica-

portal. Due to the highly regulated

tions, Brenntag Explore, gives company

nature of some of the chemicals and

project managers the ability to perform

ingredients Brenntag deals in, only

highly customisable benchmarking

existing Brenntag customers have w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

91

DIGIB

access to the portal, and “becoming a Brenntag customer means going through an intensive onboarding process.” For those that have already been cleared, Brenntag Connect is a powerful tool that can access the company’s product portfolio, place orders, automate repeat business, access track and trace functionality and an array of other contextual information.

The service is currently live in the US, Germany, Benelux and Scandinavia.

“We have a substantial number of cus92

tomers already on the platform and it’s growing rapidly,” enthuses Stramrood.

DIGITAL MARKETING For those who aren’t already onboarded as Brenntag customers — a process that the DigiB hub is focused on automating and streamlining as much as is responsible — the third pillar that Stramrood and his team are working on is the publicly accessible face of Brenntag Connect, which is tied into a digital marketing campaign.

The past two years, like any bold endeavour, haven’t been without setbacks and challenges. “The ride has definitely been bumpy at times, from DECEMBER 2019

“ We have a substantial number of customers already on the Brenntag Connect platform and it’s growing rapidly” — Maarten Stramrood, CDO, Brenntag Group, Managing Director, DigiB hub

technology to cultural transformation,” says Stramrood. The digital acceleration that DigiB is working to cultivate has also presented its obstacles. “With the launch of new digital offerings, we’re not waiting until we’ve got a perfect situation; we’re just trying to get customers on the platform and see if things work,” he explains. “It’s a challenge in itself, because of course you don’t want to disappoint your customers. On the other hand, we’ve found that if you’re open with them, they’re often very accepting, and some are even keen to help you improve the platform. In a traditional organisation like Brenntag, this is a big thing.”

No transformation happens in a vacuum. From recruitment to design to the launch and optimisation of new products and processes, Brenntag and DigiB have embraced the expertise and assistance of experienced, industryleading partners.

When DigiB first got started, Stramrood found himself in need of a large, experienced team to start working on the hub’s vision. “We wanted to make a big impact and not have to start by recruiting one developer at a time,” he explains. “This is why we did a pitch w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

93

Launch your Customers’ Experiences into the Future.

Today.

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Win the client to build the direct-to-consumer engagement.

While data is becoming the new asset, it’s all about building the platform to connect the ecosystem in delivering relevant value to customers. Activate the data to generate insights and translate into meaningful customer experiences and profitable business. www.deloitte.nl Š 2019 Deloitte The Netherlands

for a software development agency and ended up choosing Dept. it offers a great combination of developers and creatives, which is what we desperately needed.”

Brenntag has grown rapidly, organically and through acquisitions during the past few years. “Against the background of the numerous acquisitions and Brenntag’s existing business landscape,

“ We’re really focused on experiences, on the customer, supplier and employee side of things” — Maarten Stramrood, CDO, Brenntag Group, Managing Director, DigiB hub

especially in EMEA, the company now is putting energy into a single back-end

we discovered our new CMS was going

platform,” Stramrood explains. “Now,

to be a major thing, that’s when we

we’re trying to standardise this process,

decided to go with BloomReach.”

which is why Brenntag decided to bring

The challenges of overcoming inter-

Deloitte on board. They’re advising us

market regulation, and varied standards

on how to adopt this more standardised

across dozens of countries, also

approach, because if we want to accel-

prompted Stramrood to bring Vasco

erate the digitalisation of the entirety

Consulting on board. “One big thing

of Brenntag, we need to find ways to

is the issue of complexity, because

speed up the process.”

we work across multiple countries in

DigiB is working with trusted partners

parallel, so the programme manage-

to better build out its core offerings.

ment itself is very complicated. This

“When we start building something, like

is the reason that we started work-

Brenntag Connect for example, we try

ing with Vasco Consulting, because

to make it as open source as possible.

they have done similar types of

However, if the demands placed upon

programmes before: multi-country,

it become more serious, we always look

multi-backend integration projects.”

to embrace more mature, professional offerings,” explains Stramrood. “When

Stramrood is excited to see the work done by DigiB gaining traction in the w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

95

DIGIB

A customer journey should be as simple as crossing a bridge.

There is always a solution, no matter how complicated the challenge! Please follow us on Linkedin for interesting blogs and surveys.

Follow us

+31(0)851307990 vasco-consult.com

97 wider business, but acknowledges

digitising and optimising the internal

that there is still a long way to go.

processes of Brenntag itself.”

“It’s quite thrilling, this evolution and

Step by step, driven by the mani-

digital enhancement of Brenntag.”

festo of “create it, launch it, learn

Looking to the future, the three pil-

from it,” DigiB is using its unique

lars of Connect, Source and the

identity, capabilities and trusted

Digital Marketing will remain at the

network of partners to continue

centre of everything that DigiB does

accelerating digital evolution of the

to realise this evolution. “It’s going to

world’s number one chemical and

be our main focus for the next year,

ingredients distributor.

as we go into 2020,” he explains. “In the future, we’re looking into things like speeding up our onboarding process and exploring ways to use IoT to simplify aspects of the business.

The long-term goal is to move into w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

98

DECEMBER 2019

: R O D A U C E I T TUEN , L A T I G I D , E L SIMP AGILE WRITTEN BY

HARRY MENEAR PRODUCED BY

GLEN WHITE

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99

TUENTI ECUADOR

Gerardo Suårez Napolitano, CEO of Tuenti Ecuador, reflects upon the Telefonica offshoot’s rapid growth, 100% digital offerings and agile methodology

T

he global business landscape is being continually shaped and reshaped by evolving customer demand. In the tel-

ecommunications space, the rise of social media 100

and digital communication is provoking radical shifts in the way that operators approach new and existing markets.

Tuenti came into being in 2006 as a social networking service targeting young people in Spain.

Between 2009 and 2012, it attracted more than 15mn registered users, becoming known as the Spanish Facebook. Seeking new markets and customers, the company has transformed its offering over the past decade, now operating as a private brand which operates as an independent business unit of multinational telecom giant TelefĂłnica. The firm offers mobile telephone services accessible anywhere on any device with the strong digital operation.

DECEMBER 2019

101

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TUENTI ECUADOR

The Tuenti brand entered the Ecuadorian market in 2015, sponsored

Ecuador’s dramatic growth, and the

by José Manuel Casas, Telefónica

company’s vision for the future.

Ecuador’s Executive President, with the

“When we were starting out with

goal of capturing the millennial and and

Tuenti Ecuador, we wondered if it was

centennial market through a roster of

possible to create a new telco brand

simple, affordable plans as an alterna-

that was different from what millennials

tive to traditional mobile carriers. “We

and centennials were accustomed to in

started out with a plan to reach 500,000

Ecuador,” recalls Suárez Napolitano. “To

customers in five years. Four and a

accomplish this, we thoroughly inves-

half years into that plan, we have more

tigated what was positive and negative

than 900,000,” says Gerardo Suárez Napolitano, CEO of Tuenti Ecuador.

102

to discuss the strategies behind Tuenti

We sat down with Suárez Napolitano

2015

Year founded

$36mn

Revenue in US dollars

27

Number of employees

9%

Share of market in telco prepaid segment DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘RECARGA BANCO GUAYAQUIL — STAR WARS’ 103 about these users’ experiences. We

have access to the same great offerings

became obsessed with their wants and

we present to our newest customers.

needs. From those inputs we created

Lastly, we don’t do small print or hidden

the Tuenti experience, which is the sum

conditions; our offering is so simple that

of an attractive commercial offering and

our customers will always understand,

a very simple product to use.” Tuenti´s

remember, and hopefully love it,” says

team operates in accordance with three

Suárez Napolitano. “When we designed

central rules for creating a superior

the product we dedicated a lot of time

telecommunications product: be data

to constantly achieving innovations that

centric, be pro client and keep it simple.

make the experience easier and easier.”

“Our target demographic wants data,

At the heart of Tuenti Ecuador’s suc-

so that’s at the heart of everything we

cess is a dedication to agility, simplicity

offer. We also value our loyal customers

and a constant focus on improving the

as much as we value our new ones, so

product. “Our User Experience (UX) is

long—term Tuenti customers will always

at the heart of everything we do.” The w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

TUENTI ECUADOR

simplicity of Tuenti Ecuador’s digital

The company eschews a physical

products also affords the company

presence, instead embracing a 100%

the opportunity for laser focus on the

digital offering delivered through chan-

intricacies of its offering. “Although the

nels such as Facebook, Twitter, Web

products we offer may be simple, when

Chat and the Tuenti Chat App. “We

we change and improve those projects

know that the best customer service

— offering new integrations, promotions,

is the customer service that doesn’t

etc — we work through those changes

happen because the client doesn’t

in great detail, investing time in test

need it, so we make it as easy as pos-

environments and, in many cases, we

sible for them to find the answers to their

integrate the developments in phases to

problems without having to pick up

ensure the best possible results,” Suárez

the phone. We don’t have any physical

Napolitano explains.

care centres,” says Suárez Napolitano.

Learn More

Find out how businesses like yours are growing on Facebook.

Cisneros Interactive is a Facebook Authorized Sales Partner for Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico and Uruguay helping brands in those countries to take advantage of Facebook’s marketing platform for real business results.

LEARN MORE

N A L P A H T I W UT O D E T R A T S S R E M “ WE O T S U C 0 0 0 , 0 0 5 H F L A H TO REAC A D N A R U O F .

S R A E E V A H IN FIVE Y E W , AN L P T A H T O T YEARS IN ” 0 0 0 , 0 0 9 — N MORE THA Gerardo Suárez Napolitano, CEO, Tuenti Ecuador

105 E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Gerardo Suárez Napolitano Suárez Napolitano is an executive with over 25 years’ experience in several commercial assignments in Latin America. He worked in massive consumer products companies such as Procter & Gamble in Venezuela and Argentina, and Empresas Polar in Venezuela.

His last 15 years has been spent working in telecommunication business in the hand of Telefónica as a Commercial Director in Venezuela, Sales Director of Telesp in Brazil and Commercial VP in Ecuador. In October 2014, he was appointed as Tuenti Ecuador’s CEO and launched the brand in June 2015 as separate business unit of Telefónica. Suárez Napolitano is an Industrial Engineer from UCAB — Venezuela, Finance Magister from Unimet — Venezuela and Telecom Business Master from Catalunya University in Spain.

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

TUENTI ECUADOR

106

HE T G N I D E E C EX D N A G N I T E AN L “ ME P S S E N I S U RB U O F O S L A GO ING Z A M A E H T O T E U D N E E B HAS ” M A E T R U — O F WORK O Gerardo Suárez Napolitano, CEO, Tuenti Ecuador

DECEMBER 2019

107

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

TUENTI ECUADOR

, T N I O P R E “ LESS POW ” N O I T C A E MOR — Gerardo Suárez Napolitano, CEO, Tuenti Ecuador

108

DECEMBER 2019

“Instead, we have an omnichannel customer service offering supported by our own proprietary chat bot that allows us to optimise our service and increase customer satisfaction.” As a result, Tuenti Ecuador has been recognised as having the best digital customer service record in the market, reaching 72% of NPS (Net Promoted Score), Internally, the company has achieved a 60% level of automation regarding customer service.

Agility and innovation are impossible, however, without deep, meaningful understanding of the target market.

Súarez Napolitano prides his team on being young, diverse and creative.

“Meeting and exceeding the goals of our business plan has been due to the amazing work of our team,” he says. “To create this team, we sought to integrate a diverse mixture of talents, incorporate a large percentage of millennials into the company, hire people with experience inside and outside the telco sector, as well as people from different geographies of the country, and ensure an even mix of genders.” This small and diverse team has been essential to Tuenti Ecuador adopting a successful digital strategy, with the agility to evolve and w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

109

TUENTI ECUADOR

110

suit the needs of a market based on clear

Tuenti Ecuador has become the

understanding of consumer demand.

preferred brand for millennials and

This agile methodology is not restricted

centennials in the telco industry. The

to the company’s internal operations.

company’s brand communication and

Suárez Napolitano explains that, through

media strategy are based on awareness,

Tuenti Ecuador’s relationships — all of

consideration, performance and loyalty.

which are based on a commitment to

Continuously, the firm creates cam-

maximising agility — with a growing

paigns with direct collaboration

network of close partners, the company

from Facebook Creative Shop and

has dramatically improved the quality

Google Excellence, who guide them

of its offering and reduced delivery

in the best practices of creative

times across its supply chain.

execution and media.

DECEMBER 2019

111

Looking to the future, Suárez

avenues that aligns with and expands our

Napolitano sees Ecuador as a place

current offering,” he enthuses, adding

of limitless potential. “In 2020, there

that Tuenti Ecuador is a business that cel-

are three key areas we will be pursuing:

ebrates success, takes risks, learns from

ensuring that the Tuenti team continues

its failures, and constantly innovates. He

to operate with the same passion, humil-

laughs, adding one final thought: “Less

ity and individualistic spirit that has seen

PowerPoint, more action.”

us change and grow to become the preferred brand for the country’s young people; expand the capabilities — and therefore the user base — of our digital platforms; and develop new business w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

112

Seamless customer journeys and digital readiness WRITTEN BY

MARCUS LAWRENCE PRODUCED BY

JAKE MEGEARY

DECEMBER 2019

113

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WSIB

Samantha Liscio, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, discusses the organisation’s digital transformation and its drive to enable seamless customer experiences

I 114

n Ontario, Canada, workers benefit from legislation compelling their employers to provide workplace insurance. This

strategy necessitates a provider for that cover and Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) is that very organisation. While many companies view digital transformation as a means to keep up to date with the times or gain a measure against the competition, such compulsions are not so clear for state-mandated entities; if the organisation is essential, one might wonder why that organisation would prioritise exhaustive modernisation and the heavy investment and strategic challenges of shifting operations to digitised solutions that it entails. Samantha Liscio, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at WSIB, dismisses such notions. The focus, she says, has to be on making the customer experience seamless, straightforward, and easy, irrespective of whether employers have the option to change insurer. “Our DECEMBER 2019

The digiHUB is located at WSIB’s head office. It is a workspace for all things digital, featuring an open layout that encourages employees to come together and collaborate

1914

Year founded

CA$4.4bn Revenue in Canadian dollars

4,000 Number of employees

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WSIB

“ Our CEO affirms that our goal here is to be the insurer of choice.

Even as a monopoly, if our customer had a choice they should pick us, and he’s very vocal about that”

116

— Samantha Liscio Chief Transformation and Innovation Officer, WSIB

CEO affirms that our goal here is to be the insurer of choice,” she says. “Even as a monopoly, if our customer had a choice they should pick us, and he’s very vocal about that.”

This obligation is driven by the services and solutions that customers have come to expect from the modern world, where vital information and operations can be accessed and actioned through apps that define and enable sleek, optimised customer journeys. “We still have competition on customer expectations, and

WSIB has a lab at Kitchener’s innovation hub Communitech – employees can collaborate and leverage other communal creative environments

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘WE’RE MAKING IMPROVEMENTS TO DELIVER BETTER SERVICE’ 117 we feel that very keenly these days

status, and they want the WSIB to be

when people can go online and bank

easy and straightforward and availa-

or purchase airline tickets with one

ble. That really is what’s driving digital

click,” explains Liscio. “It makes an

transformation for us.”

imperative for us to be able to provide

With this focus on the customer,

services like that to them, because

WSIB has identified the processes

when our clients come to us they’re

which define the customer journey

injured or they’re ill and they expect

and performed a series of ethno-

that the great work that we do to help

graphic studies into the needs and

them get better and return to work

expectations of its customer base. By

isn’t overshadowed by how difficult it

then taking staff through each facet of

is to deal with us. They don’t want to

that journey, the areas of convolution

be worrying about mailing or faxing

and friction become clear. Addressing

information to us, they don’t want to

these areas of frustration, Liscio says,

have to call to figure out their claim

will enable the digital transformation w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

WSIB

“ With a clear focus on what our customers want, IT can foster discussions around the art of the possible in using digital tools to enable transformation” 120

— Samantha Liscio Chief Transformation and Innovation Officer, WSIB to precipitate the correct changes for

enable transformation. IT can show

the organisation as a whole. “Getting

the business what modern technol-

staff to think from an outside in kind

ogy and modern software can bring

of focus, and getting that customer

in terms of enablement and meeting

experience right, drives other values

those customer needs, effectively

too. We track public value as a key

orchestrating and architecting for the

measure and part of our strategic

future in a scalable, efficient, and

metrics reporting, and if we get the

sustainable way.”

customer piece right, our public value

While Liscio believes that some tra-

and trust measures change for the

ditional access channels will remain

better as well. With a clear focus on

in place to serve the less digitally-

what our customers want, IT can

enabled, removing reliance on paper

foster discussions around the art of

is a fundamental piece of the trans-

the possible in using digital tools to

formation. Claims related documents

DECEMBER 2019

Located in WSIB’s head office at Simcoe Place, the digital factory represents its commitment as an organisation to develop solutions for the people it serves, improve its processes, upgrade its systems, and enable employees to provide the services that customers need with the least amount of effort.

WSIB’s digital factory is both a physical space and a way of working

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Samantha Liscio As Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at the WSIB, Samantha is responsible for digital transformation, leveraging technology and customer experience to streamline processes, provide value and modernise the business. She ensures IT operational excellence, directs innovation and drives the highest possible value from technology assets and investments.

Samantha has over 20 years of experience in IT leadership roles. In previous positions in both the public service and private industry, she led the design and implementation of large-scale digital transformative initiatives.

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121

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘PETE’S RETURN-TO-WORK STORY’ 123 can now be uploaded directly from a

because if you’re handling digital

laptop or mobile phone and delivered

information it fundamentally changes

to the organisation digitally, signifi-

the business processes, rationalising

cantly decreasing the lead times for

those business processes in line with

postage and processing of faxes that

customer journeys and then finally

traditionally hinder the expedition of

deploying the enabling technology

claims processes. This customer-

using agile methods that can be sus-

facing element permeates through

tainable in the long term. Doing all

the organisation as part of what Liscio

three of those together is key so this

calls WSIB’s biggest transformation

isn’t just a technology project, even

endeavour in its 105-year history: the

though a big component of that is

core services modernisation pro-

replacing and upgrading our core sys-

gramme. “It’s essentially doing three

tem of record.”

things,” she explains. “It’s getting rid of paper and becoming digital at source,

This is where key partner Guidewire comes in, providing a suite of w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

WSIB

PA RT N E R S

Wipro “Providing continuous improvement enhancement and on-going defect fixes has been a vital component in maintaining performance and stability in our core system.

Wipro have helped the WSIB rollout system enhancements that have reduced the number of clicks from our core system users by more than 50%” 124

IBM “We’ve just partnered with IBM to do our managed hosting and cloud services, and they’re helping us understand how we can be better use data and analytics in our data centres so that we can automate the repetitive server administration tasks and drive efficiencies as we plan and orchestrate cloud services” Samantha Liscio Chief Transformation and Innovation officer

DECEMBER 2019

WSIB’s leaders come together frequently to talk about its modernization journey and plan for next steps

digitally-enabled insurance tools to facilitate rapid claims registration, administration and return-to-work processes. “A ‘quick win’ for us has been the digital document upload tool that we launched last year, and its connectivity to Guidewire,” enthuses Liscio, adding that the organisation’s time to market has been cut drastically through using the digital factory to drive development. “In the past, it took years to launch WSIB products, but this one was 16 weeks from inception to launch. In 2018, we received more than 2.3mn pieces of paper either by mail or by fax and we’re cutting a lot of that through the digital upload tool; it now has more daily uploads than the total documents we receive in paper. They come in and they go into the Guidewire backend system instantaneously. It also removes some of the call volume that we have from people asking if we have received their postal or fax documents, removing all of the barriers to good and fast customer service.”

To remove the barriers to its own transformational success, WSIB has also partnered with IT and business w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

125

Change. It’s what we do.

Avenai is a business and IT services consulting company that specializes in helping our clients transform into high performing organizations. With a value driven focus, we work with our clients to create business strategies and solutions that drive positive impact. With offices in Ottawa, Toronto and Victoria, BC we are a growing consultancy that has an excellent reputation for working closely alongside our clients and rolling up our sleeves to make sure that change sticks.

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We’re honored to help WSIB deliver on its mission

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘DOUG’S RETURN-TO-WORK STORY’ 127 services consultancy Avenai to intro-

it,” Liscio explains. “Avenai helped

duce a new, digitally-empowered

us do a current state assessment of

organisational framework. “Previously

how our legacy model was impeding

there were silos of IT operations and

our progress and then suggested an

solutions delivery; it didn’t work well

industry standard IT operating model

together. When a major project was

that was much more client focused,

finished and the development work

with delivery verticals leveraging agile

was done, it kind of got thrown over

and DevOps methods and supported

the fence to operations to manage

by horizontal IT shared services func-

and maintain it. If there were defects

tions. We’ve moved our entire 300+

that needed to be worked through

person IT organisation into that new

with problem management, that work

functional model, and have started to

was difficult to assign and there was

change behaviours at the leadership

finger pointing between operations

level by agreeing on a set of values

and delivery as to who should do

that we aspire to. At its heart, it’s w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

WSIB

An employee uses WSIB’s new best-in-class phone system, Genesys

about being customer focused, collaborative, demonstrating clear value to the business and moving from a project to a product focus. Avenai was very helpful in helping us help shift the organisational culture, applying specific behavioural performance objectives, and helping us bring the necessary leadership, values, and culture piece into the change management approach during the deployment of the new model.”

Change management, the Everest of all digital transformations, has thus DECEMBER 2019

“ In the past, it took years to launch WSIB products, but for the digital upload tool it was 16 weeks from inception to launch” — Samantha Liscio Chief Transformation and Innovation Officer, WSIB

129

been enabled by this structural revolu-

simple reimbursement for medical

tion to WSIB’s IT operations and the

costs. Those can be processed auto-

associated change in culture across

matically in the Guidewire solution,

the IT organisation. The success of its

based on WSIB business rules, and

new digital products, and the ability to

we can take advantage of the auto-

automate repetitive tasks and expand

mation potential within the software

the capacity for employees’ additional

itself. This straight-through process-

value-added activities, is facilitated

ing means that claims processing

by this newly-enabled readiness. An

times are dramatically improved and

example that Liscio offers regarding

staff with high skills and expertise

automation is in the straight-through

can spend their valuable time on the

processing of medical expenses

complex claims that require human

claims that it enables. “More than

decisions.” As a result, a claims

70% of the claims that we have involve

process that could have taken a full w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

WSIB

130

“ It’s about being customer focused, collaborative, demonstrating clear value to the business and having the IT leaders model those behaviours by building commitments into their performance objective directly” — Samantha Liscio Chief Transformation and Innovation Officer, WSIB

DECEMBER 2019

payment cycle to deliver has become instantaneous, and the benefit for customers speaks for itself.

In the age of digital transformation, customer centricity and operational preparedness are characteristics that separate the winners from the chasers, and this is no less certain for companies whose offering is mandated by local authorities. These qualities resonate through the entirety of Liscio’s strategic endeavours. “For digital transformation to succeed, IT can’t be the order taker to the business to execute on individual priorities, it needs to demonstrate clear value that’s aligned to the customer, it needs to do these things while keeping the engines running and the plumbing working, all in a safe and secure and sustainable way,” she asserts. “It’s about looking at things foundationally, assessing the key pieces that we need to have in place to truly transform how we do our business, and leveraging the expertise of key partners that will help us get that right.”

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131

132

KUBRA: information security and customer experience WRITTEN BY

SHANNON LEWIS PRODUCED BY

JAKE MEGEARY

DECEMBER 2019

133

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KUBRA

We speak to Tushar Chandgothia, Vice President of Information Security and Risk Management at KUBRA, about how businesses can provide customers with the service they want while keeping digitally safe

K

UBRA was originally founded in 1992 as a bill printing service provider. Clients looking to outsource printing, from

statements to invoices, turned to KUBRA. As the company expanded, so did its interests. From printing, KUBRA moved into billing and payments, 134

which itself moved from the analogue to the digital.

Today, KUBRA provides digital and software services to over 365 clients and their customers.

Tushar Chandgothia has been Vice President of Information Security and Risk Management at KUBRA for over three years. His background is primarily with other service providers. “I make sure, from an executive standpoint, that there is someone to be held accountable for data security,” he says.

KUBRA processes 1.5bn transactions every year, ranging from printed invoices to bank statement, text messages. “We collect a lot of personallyidentifiable information,” says Chandgothia.

“We need to make sure that the systems that actually host that data on behalf of our clients are secure.

At the end of the day what we want to do is maintain customer trust and reliability in our services.”

DECEMBER 2019

135

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KUBRA

“ At the end of the day what we want to do is maintain customer trust and reliability in our services” 136

— Tushar Chandgothia, Vice President of Information Security and Risk Management, KUBRA

DECEMBER 2019

A shift in mentality between generations has forced KUBRA to re-evaluate how it provides services. Gen X, Y, and Z are looking for easy, frictionless interactions. “They ask a question and expect a reply within minutes.”

In response, KUBRA developed artificial intelligence-based solutions to efficiently respond to client messages. With new technology comes both convenience and complication. KUBRA’s applications are made up of over 600 different components, flavours or sub-applications. To avoid vulnerabilities in new

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘KUBRA EXPERIENCE BETTER’ 137 code, KUBRA engages in a shift-left

work as hired hackers, trying to break

mentality. KUBRA’s development and

into applications and find vulnerabilities

implementation team, made up of over

that KUBRA can then adjust for.

150 people, centres around creating

When it comes to ensuring a balance

and testing new code. Every piece of

between functionality and security,

billing and payments code at KUBRA

Chandgothia says it is important to

is passed through a security tool that

always be on the lookout for the next

highlights potential security vulnerabilities.

great thing. “We want to be at the fore-

“When the developer is tinkering with

front of payments,” he says. “That’s the

new functionalities, they find out about

strategy that has driven us in the last

the vulnerability early and it’s fixed

few years.” Services such as Forrester

before it is released into the market,”

and Gartner help him compare

he says. For additional security testing

vendors, ensuring any technologies

in its billing and payments applications,

KUBRA replaces will only be made

one of KUBRA’s partners, Cobalt Labs

better. “We are continuously evaluating w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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“ While secure delivery of new products is something we will always do, there is no compromise on security” — Tushar Chandgothia, Vice President of Information Security and Risk Management, KUBRA

what makes the most sense from a business perspective, where we have the most flexibility, where we can allow the client to provide for themselves rather than having us be in the middle.

How can we help them help themselves to meet their expectations?”

To focus on process building, KUBRA co-sources its security technology from some of the best security vendors.

“We focus on making solutions that are great when it comes to billing and payments,” he says. “When it comes to security, we’re looking for

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Tushar Chandgothia Tushar Chandgothia is the Vice President of Information Security and Risk Management at KUBRA, a customer experience management solutions provider to some of the largest utility, insurance and government entities across North America. Chandgothia has over 16 years of experience in information security, IT audit, and risk management functions in technology, financial, media, and healthcare sectors. As the first Information Security Vice President at KUBRA, he is working along with his team to strengthen the first line of defence and mature the cybersecurity and technology risk management practice by embedding security controls in KUBRA’s billing and payment solutions.

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

139

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141

a relationship where the partner’s core

automate certain processes. Another

business is to provide that. Rather

way KUBRA has opted for security in

than managing it all in house, we find

technology is through the tokenisation

someone for whom security tech is

of data, which allows the company to

their bread and butter.” Finding the

reduce the footprint of actual credit

correct technology is about econo-

card numbers in its environment by

mising. “We try to solve five problems

registering these as different values.

with one piece of technology,” he

This reduces risk since, if the card

says. This mentality has led KUBRA

numbers are tokenised, it means that

into a partnership with FireMon. It

no client card numbers would be

had the most seamless integration

exposed if the system were compro-

when it came to its firewalls and the

mised. When searching for partners

additional service of real-time review

to do this, stacked functionality was

of security rules and the capability to

once again key. The provider KUBRA w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

KUBRA

C O M PA N Y FACT S

• Today, KUBRA provides digital and software services to 365 clients and their customers.

• KUBRA processes 1.5 billion transactions in a year • KUBRA’s applications are made up of over 600 sub-applications.

142

DECEMBER 2019

chose to work with offers stateless tokenisation, which removes the usual database of tokens, making the data even more secure. It is also speedy, able to tokenise over a million credit card numbers an hour.

Internal methodology is as important to information security as having the right technology in place at KUBRA. Chandgothia has seen major changes in the security team since he joined in 2016. “We have proper pillars now. We centralised a lot of the preventative controls. We don’t want to be just in the detection game, we want to control the first line of defence, hands-on.”

The change, from a client standpoint, has been seamless. “I think for the most part we use common sense.

It’s what we call a Defence-in-Depth approach.” It allows adaptability.

Clients who are switching to KUBRA from a less-secure position can ask to reduce security restrictions temporarily for an initial adjustment period.

KUBRA’s security infrastructure is multi-layered, so the company has the flexibility to do this without compromising safety. Legal security restrictions, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

143

KUBRA

144

“ This legislation has allowed us to promote a security culture. If someone wants to push back, we have a regulation behind us” — Tushar Chandgothia, Vice President of Information Security and Risk Management, KUBRA

DECEMBER 2019

(CCPA) or General Data Regulation Protection (GDPR) have been helpful to KUBRA in maintaining its high standards. “This legislation has allowed us to promote a security culture. If someone wants to push back, we have a regulation behind us. We’ve never seen it as something that has stopped our business,” says Chandgothia.

Looking forward, KUBRA is interested in becoming an omni-channel provider.

“We want to be involved in every facet where client communication is

1992

Year founded

500

Number of employees

145

involved.� Chandgothia says. Security-

KUBRA is looking into adopting

wise, KUBRA is looking to develop

machine learning, artificial intelligence,

a zero-trust environment, in which

and cloud computing, allowing clients

neither external nor internal users

to further self-serve. “While secure

have unlimited access to information.

delivery of new products is something

A 10-year exercise, it has been imple-

we will always do, there is no compromise

mented in parts. So far, KUBRA has

on security.

segmented its production environment, where all personally identifiable data is kept, from its user environment and also segmented its credit card data environment in production from other non-card services. Technologically, w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

146

DECEMBER 2019

State-ofthe-art data centers in Canada WRITTEN BY

WILLIAM SMITH PRODUCED BY

TOM VENTURO

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147

ESTRUXTURE

Todd Coleman, eStruxture’s President and CEO, explains how the company is leveraging its knowledge of the Canadian market for data center excellence

C

anada’s eStruxture provides carrier and cloud neutral data center service across the country. The company is

experiencing rapid growth – this year alone, it 148

acquired its first facility in Calgary and its second in Vancouver, as well as upgrading existing facilities in Montreal and Vancouver.

Behind the company’s success is its keen attention to the specificities of the Canadian market, as Todd Coleman, President and CEO, explains: “What sets us apart from other data center providers is our 100% focus on the Canadian region, our ability to serve a multitude of markets and our willingness and ability to pre-deploy capacity to enable our customers to quickly deploy, even up to multiple mega-watts, in our state-of-the-art facilities.

We are Canadian owned and headquartered, and focus entirely on our region. Our mindset is not diluted with other out-of-region markets; we know how to get things done in the markets in which we operate, we believe in local customer touch at the DECEMBER 2019

149

2017

Year founded

60

Number of employees

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ESTRUXTURE

150 market level and, as data sovereignty

“ Our goal has always been to become the leading data center provider in Canada” — Todd Coleman, President and CEO, eStruxture

DECEMBER 2019

and foreign ownership issues increase, we are very sensitive to the Canadian regulatory landscape and how that may impact our customers.” eStruxture’s portfolio of data centers may be growing, but expansion is always carefully and responsibly considered. “We have a unique set of requirements that we look for in target acquisitions particularly around the facilities, requiring Tier III, concurrently maintainable architecture, redundancy across the electrical and mechanical systems, access to incremental utility

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘ESTRUXTURE SHARES BIG NEWS AT TEX NYC 2019’ 151 power, close proximity to fiber networks

building, formerly a Montreal Gazette

and massively scalable power distribu-

printing facility. “We are confident that

tion within the facility up to 30kW per

this facility is the most scalable, state-

rack,” says Coleman. “The Calgary

of-the-art carrier-neutral facility in

acquisition checked all of our boxes

Quebec – and quite likely all of Canada,”

on the technical requirements and

says Coleman. “We considered every

included highly skilled employees and

detail of the design, architecture,

an expanded customer base. With this

equipment selection and operating

acquisition, eStruxture has positioned

model to enable us to serve our retail

itself as the largest carrier-neutral data

and wholesale customers in ways that

center provider in the market.”

are unique to the Canadian data center

The company is also constructing

industry. The facility was designed

brand new, state-of-the-art facilities in

around the fundamental tenet of high

Montreal and Vancouver. The former,

scalability, efficiency and sustain-

MTL-2, is situated in a repurposed

ability, which translates to 30MW of w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

ESTRUXTURE

152

immediately available, hydro-electric

the area. “We announced earlier this

power; utilisation of free-cooling up

year the development of a new, 55,000

to 8 months a year; a power utilisation

square feet, 10MW data center in

efficiency that is designed for sub-1.2

Burnaby, just on the edge of the City

at load; the latest lithium battery, UPS

of Vancouver. This facility is being

technology; scalable and flexible power

designed and architected around the

configurations that support up to 30kW

basis of design we have developed for

per cabinet and 2N redundancy; and

our MTL-2 facility with focus on scale,

pre-deployed and built-out capacity

flexibility, efficiency and sustainability.

that allows us to deploy a multi-mega-

We are confident that this state-of-

watt customer in less than 90 days.�

the-art facility will be a game changer

The latter, Vancouver facility is being

for the Vancouver market offering

developed to take advantage of the

substantial expansion capabilities for

underserved data center market in

our retail and wholesale customers

DECEMBER 2019

153

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Todd Coleman Todd Coleman is the President and CEO of eStruxture.

Todd brings more than 25 years’ experience in the IT, data center and telecommunications industries.

Most recently, he was the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Cologix. Todd has also held several senior positions at Level 3 Communications, a global telecommunications company, including Senior Vice President of Data Centers, Senior Vice President of Media Operations and President of Level 3 Communications Europe. Todd holds a juris doctorate and a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems.

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ESTRUXTURE

154

“What sets us apart from other data center providers is our 100% focus on the Canadian market” — Todd Coleman, President and CEO, eStruxture

DECEMBER 2019

155

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ESTRUXTURE

with dedicated fiber access to our VAN-1 facility as well as the downtown Vancouver carrier hotel.” eStruxture ensures that a focus on sustainability is built into its facilities from the earliest design stage. “From a design perspective, our engineers work to design and develop the most energy efficient data center possible,” says Coleman. “We are constantly challenging to drive to the highest efficiency possible. Additionally, the customer IT and server equipment produces a significant amount of

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“ Our engineers work to design and develop the most energy efficient data center possible” — Todd Coleman, President and CEO, eStruxture

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘ESTRUXTURE: PTC’19 EDGE CAPABLE DATA CENTERS’

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ESTRUXTURE

C O M PA N Y FACT S

• Constructing facilities in Montreal and Vancouver • In the last year, has acquired data centers in Calgary and Vancouver

heat that we strive to re-use through heat exchangers, either in our own building through uses like heating our office space and/or by providing 158

it to other adjacent buildings or businesses.” It’s also about making sure facilities run as efficiently as possible, with ramifications from both a business and sustainability perspective. “A traditional data center has total energy expenditure for cooling alone of 50% or more of critical IT load – sometimes significantly higher. In eStruxture’s case, we were able to achieve a yearly average power saving of about 70% through the use of air flow management, CFD analysis and air side economisers, allowing us to benefit from the lower ambient temperatures in Canada that enable us to achieve up to eight months per year of free cooling.”

DECEMBER 2019

eStruxture is confident in the path it is taking, while keeping an eye on upcoming industry trends such as edge computing. “With new technologies like AI and autonomous vehicles rapidly gaining traction, companies are beginning to need much more powerful and local compute, storage and networking resources than most current data center providers are used to deploying,” says Coleman. “As a result, interest in facilities located outside of traditional Tier 1 data center markets will continue to surge.

“Our goal has always been to become the leading data center provider in Canada, and we will continue to strive for that superlative,” he adds. “We will continue to expand, both into new markets and within our existing markets, and we will continue to be sure our customers have state-of-the-art technology at their fingertips all while receiving white glove customer service.”

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160

Department of Education and Training: learning through tech WRITTEN BY

WILLIAM SMITH PRODUCED BY

STUART IRVING

DECEMBER 2019

161

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D E PA R T M E N T O F E D U C AT I O N A N D T R A I N I N G

The Department of Education and Training’s CIO, Elizabeth Wilson, discusses the technological approach improving the quality and accessibility of education

T

he Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) is responsible for the Victorian State education system. “The

Department’s remit goes from early childhood through to higher education. For early childhood and higher education, the role is one of govern162

ance, policy development, programme delivery and allocation of funding to service providers. In the Kindergarten to Year 12 area, the Department also operates almost 1,600 schools. We are a large, complex organisation, and we rely on technology and information to support both teaching and learning and evidence-based policy development.”

As CIO, Wilson prizes the role of culture in effecting a successful digital transformation. “We can provide the best technology in the world, but without an inquiring, collaborative culture, it will achieve very little. The role of the CIO should be as much about establishing the right culture as it is about building IT strategies. As CIOs, we have to look more holistically at building capability, and technology is only one component. To do this, we need to have the right mindset, the ability to collaborate DECEMBER 2019

“ The role of the CIO should be as much about establishing the right culture as it is about building IT strategies” — Elizabeth Wilson, CIO, Victorian Department of Education and Training

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D E PA R T M E N T O F E D U C AT I O N A N D T R A I N I N G

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and we need to consider opportunities

The focus on culture has had demon-

for innovation in what and how we do

strable effects, evidenced by employee

things.” For Wilson, the question of cul-

engagement surveys and customer

ture is not one that is separate from her

feedback. An important element in

other responsibilities; rather it plays

changing culture is diversity. “Diversity

into and informs them. “It’s important to

is extremely important to me. There

take a holistic approach when building

is a considerable focus on diversity in

information management technology

the Department. This focus is across

capability. We have four enabling pillars:

the Victorian public service, with the

culture; the technology and information

Workforce Diversity and Inclusion

strategies; people capability; and the

Strategy 2017-2020, which focuses

operating model. You need to look at

on inclusive and diverse leadership,

all four elements – there’s no point in

workforce flexibility, cultural diversity

doing one without doing the others.”

and disability. I always consider diversity

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘EDUCATION WEEK 2019 –RAIL ACADEMY NEWPORT’ 165

in all its forms when recruiting leader-

says. “It’s incumbent on the education

ship roles, and this has probably had

system to incorporate the use of tech-

more impact on the culture of the IMT

nology into the everyday classroom.”

Division than anything. Without diver-

Technology plays a more active role as

sity in our workforce and diversity of

well, such as in the provision of data

thought, innovation is not possible.”

to personalise learning experiences.

All of this is in service of ensuring

“Students learn in different ways and

education in the State is the best it can

the use of technology in formative

be. Wilson sees a pivotal role for tech-

assessment provides the ability for

nology to play in the classroom, with

teachers to understand this and to

one of the key benefits coming purely

respond,” Wilson notes. “In the class-

through its presence. “Students will

room, the use of technology not only

be using technology no matter what

provides engaging, immersive experi-

career they pursue in the future,” she

ences for students, it enables access w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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D E PA R T M E N T O F E D U C AT I O N A N D T R A I N I N G

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to education more equitable than it has

factors and respond by providing the

ever been.

appropriate support. Digital is all about

Information is a big focus for DET, guiding an evidence-based approach

data and the ability to manage information and harness its power.”

to policy making. “We collect a con-

Directly and positively impacting

siderable amount of information that

on learning is gamification, as Wilson

is used to inform policy and to assess

explains. “Learning needs to be engag-

whether specific programmes are

ing and fun for students. Technology in

effective in improving outcomes,” says

the classroom is great for enabling that.

Wilson. “We are also doing more in the

Students will become disengaged with

IoT space now. In looking at schools

their education if they are not able to

that are not using online resources

relate to what they are learning and the

we can help identify whether there is

use of technology has the potential to

a correlation to other environmental

represent what is real life and familiar

DECEMBER 2019

for a student.” DET uses one of the world’s most popular games, in the form of Minecraft, to engage students in learning that provides relevance to them and is linked to curriculum outcomes. “We have a Minecraft Education Edition deployment where one of our virtual learning coaches worked with Minecraft developers in the US to support his development of Minecraft Mini Melbourne and the Archeology Adventure. That was in partnership with the Melbourne Metro Tunnel Project that had all the maps

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Elizabeth Wilson Elizabeth is a change leader with experience working with executive groups and building high performing teams. She is an innovative leader in applying technology as a transformation agent for business change and is passionate about gender diversity in technology and education. Elizabeth’s current role is CIO at the Department of Education and Training, Victoria. Elizabeth has initiated a program to uplift the Department’s technology capability to support new digital teaching, learning and corporate environments. The program incorporates a platform architecture based approach supported by micro services, moving to DEVOPS delivery and transforming people capability and culture.

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POWERING YOUR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

BRAIN POWER MEETS TECH POWER

ENABLING EDUCATION TO BE FASTER & SMARTER

www.asggroup.com.au

“ Technology is able to make access to education more equitable than it’s ever been before” — Elizabeth Wilson, CIO, Victorian Department of Education and Training

to engage with leading digital teaching practice on a global scale, and receive recognition for their use of the technology in the classroom.”

IBM has partnered with the Department to implement the Connected Learners Program. The engagement of a large-scale delivery partner with significant prior experience in IT infrastructure and logistics enabled the programme to successfully deliver

of Melbourne, including subterranean

a large volume of new and enhanced

Melbourne. Initiatives like this help

equipment across geographically

keep students engaged and having fun

dispersed sites. This included the

while they’re learning.”

deployment and installation of addi-

To deliver its technology strategies,

tional wireless access points in

DET has had the support of a num-

schools and the delivery and installa-

ber of partners. Cisco and IBM have

tion of the largest global deployment of

delivered collaboration capability with

Webex smartboards to every Victorian

a five-year adoption plan to support

government school. The partnership

teachers in the use of their technology.

also incorporates a five-year adop-

“We have the largest global deploy-

tion programme to support teachers

ment of Webex Teams in education,

in the use of the smartboards and

which enables virtual classrooms. This

Webex Teamapplication in the class-

improves the equity factor in schools,

room – creating the ability for schools

with rural and regional schools able to

and students to collaborate and cre-

take part in virtual visits to museums

ate a virtual learning environment.

and access additional learning oppor-

Consultancy, Deloitte, has also

tunities such as languages. It also

worked with DET on a capability

provides opportunities for our teachers

review and frameworks to inform w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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DECEMBER 2019

C OM PA N Y FACT S

• DET has the largest global deployment of Webex Teams in education The department operates around 1,600 schools serving Kindergarten to Year 12

the future information management and technology strategies at the organisation. The ASG Group, meanwhile, manages the Department’s Oracle environment that supports Finance, Payroll and Procurement functions. “DET processes one of the largest payrolls in Victoria, with over 132,000 payment summaries issued last financial year. The payroll includes approximately 70,000 teachers as well as staff at two other government departments. ASG, in addition to providing managed services for Department’s Finance, HR, Payroll and Procurement systems, provides the Department with managed ICT services supporting the Department’s core Microsoft based technologies and the Department’s ICT security services.”

And, as DET carries out its cloudfirst investment principle, it is pivoting away from infrastructure investment and management. As Wilson explains: “We’re increasingly moving up the stack from infrastructure as a service through platform as a service, and some software as a service. The Department has recently selected w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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D E PA R T M E N T O F E D U C AT I O N A N D T R A I N I N G

2015

Year founded

$14.7bn+ Revenue in Australian dollars

68,000+

Number of full-time employees

Salesforce as the enterprise platform for customer relationship management.

The first implementation of Salesforce will be to support the Kindergarten Information Management System.

Department staff are currently working with Salesforce to build internal capability on the platform and plans are underway to transition other CRM requirements to the platform.

The Department has also selected MuleSoft, another Salesforce company, to meet its integration platform needs.

The recent acquisition of Tableau by

“ It’s about diversity.

Without this there is no innovation” — Elizabeth Wilson, CIO, Victorian Department of Education and Training

175

Salesforce, which is also used within

children and families. To achieve this,

the Department, means Salesforce is

information from the Department of

one of the largest strategic technol-

Health and Human Services and other

ogy partners for the Department. The

children and family service providers is

Department is excited to be working

being linked to give service providers

with Salesforce to optimise its agility

better insight into that particular child or

and responsiveness across a very

family circumstances.” Initiatives such

complex environment.”

as these are focused on fulfilling DET’s

Currently, DET is leading a pro-

overall mission: “that is making sure

gramme to improve services to children

that Victorians have equitable access

and families through the use of technol-

to quality education and training from

ogy. “This encompasses the linkage

birth to adulthood.”

of information about children to better inform services that are delivered to w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

176

novative solutions to real-world problems WRITTEN BY

RACHAEL DAVIS PRODUCED BY

STUART IRVING

DECEMBER 2019

177

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INLOOP

Payment solution provider InLoop’s central concept is that “technology lets you solve problems that were previously impossible to solve,” as CTO, Zubin Appoo, explains

M

aking the complex simple for businesses, clients, schools, parents, healthcare provid-

ers and patients, InLoop provides simple, effective

and secure payment solutions across three brands: Flexischools, LanternPay and Nuonic.

Zubin Appoo joined InLoop in 2018, following a 178

15-year tenure as Innovation Manager at WiseTech Global. With an enthusiasm for the power of education and the potential for technology to deliver better educational outcomes, he was particularly interested in the work that Flexischools does to revolutionise and simplify payment strategies for educational peripherals, such as school lunches, events and uniforms.

Currently focusing primarily on Flexischools as his area of expertise, Appoo explains that InLoop uses technology to “deliver solutions to the education and healthcare industries that others have not been able to do”. In cutting through the bureaucracy and identifying a problem that needs to be genuinely solved, InLoop’s platforms achieve the vital objective of helping real people with real, everyday issues. For example, says Appoo, DECEMBER 2019

179

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INLOOP

“ With more focus on AI, machine learning, deep learning and natural language processing, more problems that were previously thought of as impossible can now be solved” 180

— Zubin Appoo CTO, InLoop

DECEMBER 2019

Flexischools works to address the fact that parents are busy, and thus do not always have the time to prepare nutritious lunches for their children or purchase bespoke school uniforms when required. “In this sense,” he adds, “it was really born out of making busy parents’ lives easier, and busy kids’ lives easier to manage.”

Flexischools allows parents to store funds, order and purchase from a broad range of suppliers across each specific school campus, provisioning services such as school

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘LANTERNPAY FIXES THE PAIN IN TAC PAYMENTS’ 181 lunches, uniforms, events and ticketing,

and healthy eating content), and much

fundraising and stationery amongst

more. Using the trust already in the

other things. For the last decade, the

brand, Flexischools will be able to

platform has grown to support more

integrate these products and provide

than a million registered users across

parents with access to a much wider,

Australia and is now turning its atten-

and carefully chosen, selection of valu-

tion to enrolling a broader range of

able products and content relevant to

off-campus services to its base.

them via their existing accounts.

Currently in pilot, but rolling out from

With regards to LanternPay, Appoo

the beginning of 2020, Flexischools

explains that it is a solution built around

will allow parents to purchase part-

addressing problems around patients

nered maths and literacy products,

having easy access to the government

e-learning such as coding lessons,

healthcare funding that they are enti-

school holiday programmes, wellbeing

tled to. In Australia, many patients find

programmes (such as anti-bullying

it difficult to use their state-provided w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

Global Research Survey Results: Leveraging Digital Transformation to Enhance the Customer Experience A

s digital technologies dramatically reshape in industry after industry, most organizations are pursuing large-scale changes to capture the benefits of these trends or keep up with competitors. New Relic, in partnership with Vanson Bourne, led a survey of 750 global senior IT leaders at enterprises with 500 to 5,000 employees in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, and the United States. The study found that enterprises are making progress despite obstacles.

IT leaders within these companies are finding that their digital transformations lead to significant challenges, such as increased pressure to prove the business value of said transformations. Interestingly, almost 50% of the global respondents admit that problems in their software are more likely to be discovered by their customers than by their own teams.

Drivers of digital transformation From banks to retailers, donut shops to automotive manufacturers, even traditional business-to-business industries such as suppliers of construction materials are transforming the buyer’s journey along a digital path. Our survey revealed that, overall, business leadership and the C-suite understand and support digital transformations (47%). Satisfaction levels are increasingly high, with 90.7% of respondents saying that the results of their transformations either met or exceeded their expectations. These findings are promising and show that executives are willing to embrace new technology; in fact, on the journey to digital transformation, more than half believe that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)

will make their roles easier. While the general sentiment on AI and ML is still up for debate across various industries, nearly 88% of our respondents agree that artificial intelligence and machine learning are essential to how they run their digital systems. Additionally, according to nearly 75% of the business leaders surveyed, migration to the public cloud is at the core of any digital transformation. Almost half of the respondents (46%) agree that cloud migration provides necessary benefits, but 54% believe that cloud computing does not offer the efficient resource usage it promises.

So, many are harnessing the power of the cloud and AI to fuel digital transformations despite implementation obstacles, but they still recognize that those challenges must be addressed.

Ease the burden of digital transformation and customer experience Global organizations are indeed making significant digital leaps, but undertaking a full-scale digital transformation isn’t easy—especially for long-established companies not traditionally associated with software innovation. Our survey found that such organizations all face similar challenges.

Disjointed teams During transformation, not all parts of the organization move at the same speed. When teams and employees are stuck between using legacy systems and new technology, collective progress is held back and interoperability issues arise.

Overall, 37% of global respondents identified disjointed teams as one of their top challenges.

A shortage of skilled employees According to 35% of respondents, one of the biggest challenges they face is finding the right employees with the right skills to drive their digital transformations. Additionally, if employees feel that a new technology makes their work harder, not easier, they resist its implementation. Training workers to understand how a new technology will ease their workload is of utmost importance for leaders who want to reduce the stress of their teams.

Restricted budgets 47% of technology leaders in our survey said their No. 1 obstacle is restricted IT budgets, followedby resistance to shut down or sideline legacy systems.

More than a third report that they do not receive adequate support from non-tech leadership. Lead the next phase of digital transformation.

What business outcomes do we want to achieve for our customers?

What skills do we need to keep up with a transformation, and with our competitors?

While the challenges that attend a digital transformation vary, the survey indicates that teams who observe and act on insights from data collected throughout their systems will have a far better chance to truly scale and realize the benefits of modern technological advances. It’s inevitable that organizations need to adapt to changes in technology. But assessing why those changes are necessary, keeping the customer in mind, and preparing them selves for challenges along the way is the path to building the foundation they need for a successful digital transformation.

Learn more about the findings in the full press release: Global Survey Reveals Key Challenges and Technologies Expected to Drive the Next Phase of Digital Transformation.

INLOOP

“ We’re not trying to be a bank, or to simply solve banking-related problems, we’re working to eradicate real issues and challenges in education and health, the biggest social sectors in the world” 184

— Zubin Appoo CTO, InLoop

funding to pay for private services

“We’re not trying to be a bank, or to

such as physiotherapy, pharmacy or

simply solve banking-related problems,

psychiatry, due to existing payment

we’re working to eradicate real issues

systems that can often see funds

and challenges in education and health,

take several months to reach the ser-

the biggest social sectors in the world.”

vice provider. Through LanternPay,

Naturally, the nature of the issues

this process is streamlined. Service

that InLoop targets presents several

providers will receive the payment

challenges to the business. To be

within 24 hours, making them far

successful, Appoo maintains, a focus

more likely to accept the funding

on assembling the right team and

as a form of payment.

developing an appropriate manage-

“Our primary goal is to always help

ment strategy, whilst effectively

people manage their lives and deal

implementing the right technologies,

with real-world problems,” Appoo says.

are essential. To this end, he describes

DECEMBER 2019

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Zubin Appoo Zubin is Chief Technolog y Off ice at InLoop, where he has responsibilit y for delivering technical leadership across the Flexischools, LanternPay and Nuonic businesses. Zubin leads agile teams that are building innovative solutions to solve complex problems in the education and healthcare spaces. He prides himself on being ‘hands-on’ — and a leader by example, rather than a manager. he has over 20 years’ experience in the technology sector across a range of businesses — banking, supply chain and logistics, and now education and health. Whilst a technologist at heart, a key passion of his is also to build teams that love doing what they do. He does this by a constant focus on removing obstacles, focusing on their strengths and building an immense amount of trust between team members. Zubin is married to Rakhshandeh, has three kids — Zayden, Rylan and Aleera and lives in Sydney, Australia.

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185

INLOOP

2005

Year founded

HQ

Manly, Sydney Australia

110

186

Number of employees himself as a “hands-on CTO” and encourages close collaboration at all levels within his team. Hierarchies are less important than a good team structure, he believes, and an ethos of mutual respect, trust and leading by example are integral to his, and the company’s success.

“The team at InLoop challenges ideas and brings personal experiences to the table – everyone is expected to bring ideas to the business, and those ideas are always listened to and explored,” he affirms. “Whatever the specific areas of focus, I always DECEMBER 2019

encourage our team members to think ‘what are the core problems we are trying to solve, and how can we solve them in the most streamlined, efficient, usable way?’.”

Harnessing technologies and working with great tech partners has been an essential factor in growing InLoop’s innovative product portfolio.

“Technology allows us to solve issues that people previously haven’t been able to solve or had taken a lot of time to solve, in a much more streamlined, efficient, accurate and high-quality way,” Appoo explains. “With a greater focus on AI, machine learning, deep learning and natural language processing, more problems that were previously thought of as impossible can now be solved.”

InLoop uses several partners to achieve this goal, including cloudhosting by AWS to manage its servers.

Using cloud-hosting negates the need for high-cost, high-maintenance physical servers and allows the team to put more time into the customer experience. The business is also heavily invested in Microsoft technologies.

New Relic is a cloud monitoring and w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

187

INLOOP

analytics tool, which InLoop uses to monitor its systems and ensure that up-time is maintained, performance and order rates are high, and any anomalies are identified.

An integral factor in delivering any InLoop service is cybersecurity. Both the health and education sectors are open to vulnerability and are dealing with vulnerable people, as Appoo explains: “There is an immense amount of focus on privacy regulation and ensuring data is not leaked, including 188

financial information.”

In order to achieve that, InLoop partners with Braintree, a PayPal company, which focuses on providing secure

“ Whatever the specific areas of focus, I always encourage our team members to think ‘what are the core problems we are trying to solve, and how can we solve them in the most streamlined, efficient, usable way?’”

— Zubin Appoo CTO, InLoop

DECEMBER 2019

payment solutions. For example, there is no need to store any credit card information, PayPal accounts, or other financial details within the Flexischools product, as this data is managed by the Braintree payment gateway. This is a seamless service, but ensures that financial information is entrusted with a third party whose expertise is in payment security. Other personal information stored by InLoop is kept secure in databases hosted inside

189

AWS, with strong security protocols

young division that, according to

and reviews undertaken by a dedicated

Appoo, will focus on gaining further

security team.

traction in the market and encourag-

Looking ahead, Appoo continues

ing greater participation from new

to focus on driving InLoop’s service

providers and schemes. In continuing

portfolio forwards. In modernising the

to use technology to deliver solu-

Flexischools programme, for exam-

tions that change lives for the better,

ple, the team is looking to deliver an

InLoop will remain at the forefront of

improved user experience and to be

the provision of innovative answers to

responsive to the growing market

real-world problems.

by rapidly introducing new features.

In contrast, LanternPay a relatively w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

190

Digitally transforming the legal industry WRITTEN BY

GEORGIA WILSON PRODUCED BY

ANDREW STUBBINGS

DECEMBER 2019

191

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J O H N S O N W I N T E R & S L AT T E R Y

Ross Forgione, Chief Information Officer at JWS, discusses digital transformation within the legal industry

J

ohnson Winter and Slattery (JWS) is an independent national Australian law firm with over 60 partners based across five

offices in Australia. JWS advises major Australian and international corporations, investment funds and other clients on challenging transactions and disputes in Australia. “We create value through 192

legal and commercial analysis, pragmatism, the effective application of technology, project management and a collaborative work style,” says Ross Forgione, Chief Information Officer at JWS, who has over 30 years’ experience in information technology engineering.

JWS’ vision is to be a leader in the legal industry, producing high-quality legal work for Australia and its sophisticated commercial clients. Since its founding in 1993, Forgione highlights that JWS’ systems have evolved organically with built up and built out layers. During his time at the firm, Forgione has worked to evolve and modernise the firm’s layered systems through iterative transformation over time, creating a strong foundation for its operations and producing a system that JWS can leverage and extract benefits from.

DECEMBER 2019

193

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J O H N S O N W I N T E R & S L AT T E R Y

“ We create value through legal analysis, commercial analysis and pragmatism, the effective application of technology, project management and a collaborative work style�

Ross Forgione Chief Information Officer, JWS

194

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘JOHNSON WINTER & SLATTERY CASE STUDY’ 195 Driving meaningful change is a

says Forgione. “We collect analytical

primary challenge for Forgione, who

information from the data we ingest,

highlights that JWS is continuously

generate or export to identify how our

looking at its internal processes to find

process are performing internally and

ways to deliver more value to its clients.

externally.” JWS has established key

Forgione also outlines that while JWS

partnerships with Microsoft, VMware

provides Australian legal advice, it has

and Pure Storage to further assist

clients, both domestic and foreign, that

unlocking the potential value we can

conduct business globally. Therefore,

derive from these data. “We have

part of Forgione’s job is to ensure any

worked very closely with VMware and

current or future technology imple-

Microsoft, maintaining a strong rela-

mented by the firm can support and

tionship with both organisations. Their

is compliant with international best

strategic paths help us understand

practice. “Our goal is to identify oppor-

what we need to be thinking about now

tunities to be as efficient as possible,”

for the future.” w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

J O H N S O N W I N T E R & S L AT T E R Y

196

Forgione has recently attended a

he says. “We are currently investigating

number of international legal technol-

how we can use AI and other machine

ogy conferences focused on driving

learning based software tools and

change that will improve the delivery

services to enhance the value of our

of services to clients and create a bet-

data and improve the ways in which we

ter working environment for the firm’s

service our clients.” Although Forgione

people. The conferences also gave

acknowledges that “AI will – for some

Forgione the opportunity to discuss

industries – make the world a better

common challenges, potential goals

place”, in terms of the legal industry, he

and opportunities with his peers in the

sees the application of AI broadening

industry, in particular involving artificial

over time with current applications lim-

intelligence (AI). “I don’t think I’ve been

ited to specific tasks. An area Forgione

to a conference in the last three years

has seen AI benefit the legal industry

where AI hasn’t dominated the agenda,”

is bulk contract review, removing

DECEMBER 2019

“ Our goal is to identify opportunities to be as efficient as possible” Ross Forgione Chief Information Officer, JWS

the need for lawyers to review large amounts of information.

Other areas of innovative technology that Forgione and his team are looking into include leveraging Big Data.

“We’ve got over 25 years of data, which we are now mining and analysing in our innovation incubator to develop useful insights to assist legal practitioners when making decisions,” he says.

JWS is currently working with Pure Storage, building its data warehousing platform. “We hold large volumes of data at JWS, and if our platform is

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Ross Forgione Ross (MBA) is a seasoned professional with more than 30 years’ experience in the design, delivery and integration of IT services and major organisational change programmes. He has extensive senior management, services delivery, strategy & architecture/management, with subject matter expertise in information technologies, IT to business alignment, business process improvement, project management and transformational leadership. His skills have been developed through business and IT consultancy in manufacturing, professional services and broadcasting organisations, combined with active leadership roles held with Austereo and Johnson Winter & Slattery Lawyers.

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J O H N S O N W I N T E R & S L AT T E R Y

INNOVATE WITH THE MODERN DATA EXPERIENCE Pure Storages data solutions enable customers to maximize and deliver powerful data for competitive advantage through quickly adoptable, nextgeneration technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning. At the top 1% of B2B companies, Pure's customers are the happiest in the world.

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199 not able to deliver the performance and reliability we need, it may take too long to receive actionable results, which isn’t practical for a commercial organisation.�

Forgione, however, does explain that the implementation of technology needs to be carefully considered.

Although there are significant benefits

1993

Year founded

HQ

Sydney New South Wales

of new technology, there are challenges to be mindful of too. “As a business you need to identify where the opportunities lie and assess them. If it makes commercial sense to proceed with a technology driven

200+

Number of employees

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J O H N S O N W I N T E R & S L AT T E R Y

200

“ A s a business you need to identify where the opportunities lie and assess them�

Ross Forgione Chief Information Officer, JWS

DECEMBER 2019

initiative – then proceed,” he says. “But, if you can be effective without having to apply new technology, and you can accomplish a very quick resolution with existing technology or people that will stay in place and continue to serve its purpose, then take that route.”

When implementing new technologies firms such as JWS need to consider the following areas: • Is the technology easily implemented and rolled out to the end users (be they lawyers or other employees in the organisation)? Are the costs associated with the new technology, including in relation to its purchase, the training required to use it and the costs of the inevitable disruption caused by most changes in workflow going to deliver an appropriate level of return once the technology is used in the business?

• What impact, if any, might new technology have in relation to the security of our client’s information and the integrity of our systems? To the extent that new vulnerabilities might arise, what steps can we take to remedy or mitigate these risks?

• Can the new technology be widely w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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J O H N S O N W I N T E R & S L AT T E R Y

“ We’ve got over 25 years of data, which we are now mining and utilising it in laboratories to further 202 remove bias and develop useful insights for legal practitioners to use when making decisions” Ross Forgione Chief Information Officer, JWS

used so that the new benefits can be enjoyed at scale?

• What impact will the new technology have on the performance of our existing systems and infrastructure – is this manageable?

When it comes to data protection and cybersecurity, JWS ensures it covers all its bases. The firm not only utilises encryption technology, penetration testing, response plans and real-time monitoring, but also conducts

DECEMBER 2019

203

specific security awareness education

passionate people, who experiment

programmes for its staff members,

both within its innovation incubator and

in addition to carrying out training

in the provision of services to the firm’s

courses and demonstrations.

clients, is what drives JWS’ ability to

Reflecting on the firm’s development,

stay ahead of fast evolving technology.

Forgione believes the firm’s biggest

JWS expects to be among the most

success has been how quickly JWS

innovative providers of legal services in

has been able to adapt and embrace

the Australian market for a good many

new technology in order to introduce

years to come.

innovations to best serve clients.

Forgione believes that networking, attending conferences and the firm’s w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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Creating future-ready learners through an innovative digital transformation WRITTEN BY

RACHAEL DAVIS PRODUCED BY

STUART IRVING

DECEMBER 2019

205

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SWINBURNE UNIVERSIT Y OF TECHNOLOGY

Universities create and stimulate great minds to do incredible things.

Swinburne University of Technology is harnessing this energy in its innovative digital transformation, CIO Sean Elwick tells us

T

oday’s students can forget the days of trawling through library book indexes for specific keywords and frantically

hand-writing notes in unengaging lecture halls.

Technology is at the forefront of academia, from 206

the ways students consume information through e-learning portals and networks, to utilising virtual and augmented reality technologies as a part of everyday life.

Sean Elwick, CIO at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, tells us of the institution’s ongoing digital transformation.

Swinburne is in the world’s top 400 universities, according to the 2019 QS and Times Higher Education university rankings, and “has an international reputation for quality research that connects science and technology with business and the community.” Innovation runs through every aspect of the university, and its progressive agenda with an emphasis on the importance of utilising technology sets Swinburne apart from other institutions.

DECEMBER 2019

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SWINBURNE UNIVERSIT Y OF TECHNOLOGY

208

“ As an IT team, it is important that we have the basics right.

Expectations are rising around how we take that next step” — Sean Elwick CIO, Swinburne University of Technology

DECEMBER 2019

Sean Elwick has only been CIO at Swinburne since September 2019, joining mid-way through a promising digital transformation backed by a progressive mindset with innovation at its core. The university’s 2025 strategy has three key pillars: innovative enterprise, future-ready learners, and research with impact, creating “confident and enterprising learners who create social impact”, with agile strategies at its core.

User experience is at the forefront of the digital transformation led by

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘DATA FOR SOCIAL GOOD CLOUD INNOVATION CENTRE’ 209

Elwick. “In a B2C environment where

holds personalisation and individual-

your main audience is people who

ism at its centre. This includes the

are digitally native, you must be able

ever-changing way that students

to have that intuitive, sticky experi-

interact with learning tools.

ence,” he explains. “As an IT team, it is

Swinburne is beginning to harness

important that we get the basics right.

the potential of virtual reality (VR)

Expectations are rising around how

and augmented reality (AR) to take

we take that next step.”

the student experience to the next

Quality data management is an

level. In partnership with the Faculty

essential step in kickstarting that

of Health, Elwick’s team is piloting

great user experience. Ensuring they

an AR scheme with first-year health

are collecting the right data and using

students on anatomy programmes,

it in the right way is integral, particu-

where instead of having a physical

larly in a technological society which

cadaver to study, they can examine w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

SWINBURNE UNIVERSIT Y OF TECHNOLOGY

one virtually through AR and life-size

students will have access to Adobe

touchscreen displays. “There are

Creative Cloud – a collection of the

many implications of having a cadaver

world’s best applications and services

on site,” says Elwick. “We’re exploring

used for graphic design, video editing,

using augmented reality, so a body

web development and photography.

can be scanned and then students

As an Adobe Creative Campus,

can study it in the virtual world.”

Swinburne has partnerships with

210

Swinburne is now more poised than ever to create future-ready learn-

leading tech companies, most notably

ers. “It’s not just about the academic

Adobe and Canvas. The university

qualifications, but about being able

is the first Adobe Creative Campus

to navigate today’s dynamic world

in Australia, and one of only 20

with digital literacy,” explains Elwick.

worldwide. This status means that,

“Students can experiment with differ-

from November 2019, all Swinburne

ent skills that are essential

DECEMBER 2019

for today’s work, and the work of

“ Students can experiment with different skills that are essential for today’s work, and the work of the future” — Sean Elwick CIO, Swinburne University of Technology

the future.”

Additionally, by transitioning from Blackboard to Canvas as their learning management platform, students can access content across any connected device. Canvas supports group work and collaboration, and is “a very modern platform for us to go forward with,” believes Elwick.

Swinburne also has its own Digital Transformation Centre, the first of its kind in Australia. In partnership with DXC Technology, the world’s

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Sean Elwick Sean is the Chief Information Officer at Swinburne University of Technology. He is a strategic, collaborative and resultsorientated business executive who has successfully orchestrated and delivered lasting change to Australian and international organisations. Sean has provided strategic and tactical solutions while operating as a global CIO since 2012, sits easily with leadership positions held within ‘Big 4’ consulting organisations and has a career that spans 20 years, including owning and running a consulting practice. He is passionate about #modernIT and the benefits that can be leveraged for an organisation, and is often called upon as a thought leader.

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211

SWINBURNE UNIVERSIT Y OF TECHNOLOGY

visit thinkfwd.com.au

Smarter performance drives ambition

“It’s not just about the academic qualifications, but about being able to navigate today’s dynamic world with digital literacy” — Sean Elwick CIO, Swinburne University of Technology

213 leading independent, end-to-end IT

Venture Cup, now in its 20th year. The

services company, the DXC Digital

prize is AU$20,000 in funding for the

Transformation Centre at Swinburne

most exciting startup that addresses

“allows for collaboration between

an unmet need for its target audi-

DXC, ourselves, the government and

ence. Along the way, entrants receive

industries,” affirms Elwick. It not only

bespoke coaching from successful

provides opportunities to students in

founders, including pitching work-

creating a talent pool prime for intern-

shops; 2019’s winning startup, Project

ships and jobs post-graduation, but

Milk, has developed a new breast

also to local businesses and startups

pump design that will improve mothers’

who are offered smart ways to get

experience of expressing breast milk.

competitive on a global scale.

As part of its engagement with

Recognising that “innovation occurs when divergent concepts

startups and the future of innova-

come together to form a solu-

tive tech, Swinburne presents the

tion,” Swinburne has created the w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

SWINBURNE UNIVERSIT Y OF TECHNOLOGY

1908

Year established

19,000+ Number of undergraduates

3,000+ 214

Number of postgraduates

DECEMBER 2019

Innovation Precinct. The university utilises its strong industry ties, rigorous research capabilities and agile approach to change, and has produced “an innovation ecosystem that supports ideas both big and small”.

The precinct’s three pillars of innovation are Design Factory Melbourne, Factory of the Future, and the Digital Innovation Lab – each contributing to a platform for research and experimentation which promotes software engineering competency, virtual reality learning, and “a hub for engaging manufacturing businesses, undergraduate and high school students, alumni and the wider community.”

Swinburne has already achieved so much in its digital transformation.

Using its expertise in industry 4.0 technology, social impact and design thinking, the university has created an inspiring, innovative environment for students, staff, alumni and the community to develop future-proof skills in technology.

“Technology is in our DNA,” said Elwick. “Swinburne University of Technology wants to be known for its innovative tech, and for me that’s w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

215

SWINBURNE UNIVERSIT Y OF TECHNOLOGY

“ Celebrate your mistakes, as you learn as much from them as your successes” 216

— Sean Elwick CIO, Swinburne University of Technology

about setting the bar high and thinking ‘what can we achieve?’.”

Curiosity is key to Elwick’s strategy.

In encouraging a change of mindset among his peers and colleagues, guiding his team to “just imagine” the future of the IT culture at Swinburne University, he encourages them to open their minds to risk-taking in order to achieve the end goal of a transformed, uplifted IT culture in partnership with the university. While there are increasing demands and

DECEMBER 2019

increasing expectations from IT, Elwick maintains that it is important to “celebrate your mistakes, as you learn as much from them as your successes,” and to ‘Just Imagine’ what can be achieved through a transformed IT culture.

During his tenure as CIO, Elwick wants to enable “an outstanding digital experience for our students and staff through our university strategy.” With his agile, thoughtful and curious approach, and a strong springboard created by his peers and predecessors, Swinburne University is primed to create future-ready learners, inspire innovative ideas, and ultimately deliver a “digital ‘wow’ experience.”

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217

218

How STC is leading the digital revolution in MENA WRITTEN BY

MATT HIGH PRODUCED BY

GLEN WHITE

DECEMBER 2019

219

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STC

Haithem M. Alfaraj, Chief Technology Officer at STC, explains how its technology transformation has made it a digital leader

“ T

echnology transformation is a major enabler of our overarching strategy, which is to be a world-class regional digital leader

that provides innovative services and platforms that enable the digital revolution of the MENA region, and enrich people’s lives,” says Haithem M. Alfaraj, 220

Chief Technology Officer at STC Group.

Alfaraj has considerable experience in implementing new technologies and driving innovative transformation programmes. He has been with STC since 2016, assuming his current role in the early part of last year. A key responsibility in this position is the developing and leading of transformation projects designed to improve the organisation-wide deployment of innovative IT and communications solutions.

It has been, he explains, “an interesting and informative experience that required a high learning curve in terms of my leadership, both with regards to technology and the wider company’s ambition and transformation. It also creates an opportunity to develop new digital leadership that can take the company to the next level and support the national transformation of the country’s Vision 2030.”

DECEMBER 2019

221

During Alfaraj’s tenure, STC has been no stranger to innovation. It has pioneered the use of 5G, for example, becoming the first operator to launch a live 5G network in May 2018. In June of 2019, it launched 5G services commercially. These developments, Alfaraj notes, as well as other wider initiatives and technology innovations, form part of the wider transformation he has overseen. “We focused on developing a strong technology strategy that would advance our capabilities and enable our business w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

STC

“ Our customers’ experience and achieving true customer-centric operations have been fundamental principles in our transformation” 222

— Haithem M. Alfaraj, Technology & Operations SVP at STC

to be successful – we knew we always had to be at the advanced stages of development when it comes to technologies covering infrastructure, platforms, cloud, applications, AI and Big Data to maintain our leading position in MENA’s digital revolution.

At the same time, we worked on our operating model to ensure it was both agile and collaborative.”

A key focus for Alfaraj was to ensure that STC’s technology transformation supported the organisation’s wider DARE strategy.

This outlines the key pillars under which the business looks to expand: Digitise by becoming a data driven, technologically agile organisation focused on enhanced experiences; Accelerate core asset performance through cultural and technological change, as well as growing both B2G and B2B market segments to lead the market; Reinvent the customer experience through the personalisation of interactions with technology to create new, attractive journeys; and Expand aggressively by pursuing all opportunities for growth related to services and applications, platforms

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘STC’ 223 and connectivity and infrastructure.

Digital and technology are key

“In so doing, it was apparent that our legacy infrastructure wouldn’t have

aspects of realising DARE, he notes,

been able to meet the requirements

outlining how he focused on certain

of the new services we were looking

domains such as services and appli-

to introduce or meet the expecta-

cation, AI and analytics, platforms

tions of our customers in terms of

and connectivity, and infrastructure.

the quality standards we expect to

However, much of the overall devel-

deliver. As an example of our digital

opment was driven by the desire to

transformation, in the wholesale

reinvent STC’s customer experience.

domain, technology demands and

“Going through this transformation

gaps are covered by digitisation,

provided an opportunity to baseline

which is a result of agile partner-

our current operations and archi-

ships adapted during the innovation

tecture and better understand our

phase of the solution. These part-

business performance,” says Alfaraj.

nerships resulted in improvement of w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

STC

224

time-to-market, cost reduction and

company’s capabilities and create an

automation of processes.

evolution to customer satisfaction.

“If you look at technology and opera-

“Our objective,” he adds, “is to make

tions as a sector of the business, then

customer experience a competitive

our customers’ experience and achiev-

advantage and a true differentiator for

ing true customer-centric operations

us in the market – something we have

have been fundamental principles in

successfully managed to do over the

our transformation,” Alfaraj continues.

last few years.” Key aspects of that

He details how this has been achieved,

success include leading the region in

including through a focus on baselin-

investing in technologies that continu-

ing and reimagining customer journeys

ously measure customer experience,

and stories through in-depth customer

revamping assurance and operational

design thinking with our business

processes to make service and

units to ensure they are in line with the

customer experience the priority,

DECEMBER 2019

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Haithem M. Alfaraj Engineer, Haitham M. Alfaraj joined STC in 2016 and currently serves as Senior Vice President of Technology and Operation. He is responsible for conceiving, planning, operating as well as leading the implementation of transformation projects to improve organisationwide deployment of information technology and communication services and solutions.

Previously at STC, Haitham served as Vice President of Operation Sector, where he led challenging transformation programmes that excelled the technical operational performance of STC communication services. Haitham joined STC in 2016 from Etihad Etisalat, Mobily Company, where he was Chief Technology Operations Officer. He spent 11 years with Mobily in leadership positions for infrastructure and service management operations. Prior to that, he worked at Saudi Aramco for four years.

He holds a Bachelor in Computer Engineering from King Fahad University in Dhahran, and enrolled in multiple executive leadership programmes from Harvard Business School, INSEAD, and other institutes.

Haitham is currently on the board of STC Specialized, STC Solution. He is an experienced technology executive who possesses extensive technology knowledge, strong leadership skills and superb relationship management abilities. Haithem has a well-rounded business foundation with keen strategic insight that allows him to manage relationship building, talent development, and organisation turnaround and realignment activities. He has additional expertise in telecom and information technologies, quality management, infrastructure planning, performance improvement, partner alliances, operations excellence, vendor management, outsourcing strategy, and facility/data center and cloud services.

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225

STC

“ Technology transformation is a major enabler of our overarching strategy, which is to be a world-class digital leader that provides innovative services and platforms that enable the digital revolution of the MENA region”

228

— Haithem M. Alfaraj, Technology & Operations SVP at STC

With regards to specific technologies, connectivity and speed of connection have been a large focus for Alfaraj and his team. STC already has the highest mobile speed and the most reliable network in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, yet it continues to improve this through investment in its ‘backbone’ – data centres, transportation networks and each individual layer of its overall network. “Our new MySTC app has also had a significant impact,” he notes. “This is entirely in line with our digitalisation vision, and facilitates the purchase of smart devices and SIM cards through the

establishing a dedicated service

app store, complete with free delivery.

performance and customer services

It also covers fixed services with intel-

unit, and creating new KPIs and KQIs

ligent customer support capabilities.”

that are aligned with a customer-

On 10 November it was announced

centric approach. To achieve these

that MySTC had received the ‘App

objectives, STC leveraged its data

of the Year’ Golden Award at the

and analytics capability it has built

Network PGs 2019 IT World Awards,

over the years to not only improve

an event organised annually in San

customer experience, but also to

Francisco to recognise excellence in

generate revenue and optimise cost.

technology worldwide.

This capability includes employing

To achieve such significant change

AI techniques such as machine-

requires effective relationships with

learning, NLP and RPA to introduce

key partners and vendors. Here,

efficiency into its operations.

Alfaraj explains that the business has

DECEMBER 2019

229

collaborative platforms at every level

solutions to our customers. For more

of the organisation. “Going through

mature technologies and services, we

this transformation has actually

prefer an ‘off the shelf’ approach that

opened doors for us to have better

is efficient, cost-effective and allows

strategic dialogue with our partners

for faster delivery of products through

and to explore new technologies and

their lifecycle.”

solutions with them,” he says. “For all

STC works with many of the larg-

new or emerging technologies and

est tech and telco brands, including

services, such as 5G, telco-cloud, vir-

Accenture, for digital telco transforma-

tualisation or network transformations,

tion, Ericsson, Huawei and Nokai for

we adopt a collaborative development

5G development and IoT, Redhat for

ecosystem in which we work together

cloud technology developments, and

as partners to identify and deliver

Teradata and SAS for Big Data analyt-

optimal, agile, robust and high-quality

ics. Accordingly, says Alfaraj, STC w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

STC

230

has “vast experience� in managing successful collaboration. To do this, he explains, the business approaches each collaboration with firm guidelines in mind that cover such areas as joint planning and strategising, business alignment and planning, executive engagement, technical integration and field readiness, and more.

Naturally, greater use of technology brings heightened risk, particularly in terms of cybersecurity. Being a digital leader, STC well understands the risks and how DECEMBER 2019

1998

Year founded

51,963mn+ Revenue in Saudi Riyal

13,383 Number of employees

critical they are to a successful technology transformation, particularly with the adoption of cloud and IoT solutions. The company invests in three key areas: people, process and technology. “This includes hiring the best cybersecurity professionals and consultants and training a large pool of Saudi graduates in the latest preventative security technologies, all in line with our vision,� says Alfaraj.

In addition, the company has established a strong cybersecurity governance, risk and compliance capability within its cybersecurity sector. This combines policies, standards and audits for use in the STC partner ecosystem to ensure consistency in all operations. In terms of technology and partnership, STC has invested in security technologies to complement the governance aspect of protection, deploying the largest Threat Intel programme and Anti-DDoS capability in the Kingdom. These two programmes, as well as several others, have protected STC and the Kingdom at large from major globally known cyberattacks, guaranteeing not only STC’s continued service, w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

231

STC

but business as usual for every STC client (Government, Enterprises and Consumers). High-level partnerships with giants like Saudi Aramco, Cybersecurity Center under the World Economic Forum and FIRST. org have been forged to solidify STC’s contribution to local and global Cybersecurity. With the continuous evolution of technology security risks, STC is mandated to sustain and ensure full command around risks mitigations and proper controls.

232

Looking more broadly, STC intends to continue leading the digital revolution in MENA in line with the

“ once the leadership adopted the changes, the rest was a chain reaction right through the organisation” — Haithem M. Alfaraj, Technology & Operations SVP at STC

transformation Alfaraj describes. One example of this is the company’s contribution to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 programme, which includes objectives around digitalisation and extending high speed internet access to all citizens. Steps the business has already taken in this area include streamlining of its vision with that of Vision 2030, adopting a digitalisation framework to significantly lift the nation’s digital potential, improving infrastructure and technology, and upskilling its workforce.

DECEMBER 2019

233

In the latter, Alfaraj is resolute in his

significantly into building our capabil-

belief of the importance of people.

ity across the company, and we were

“Any transformation is about people

fortunate to have a management team

and how we work – we knew from the

committed to driving that change.

start that this journey would be about

That has brought real innovation in

enhancing capabilities, increasing

the way we run our operations, and it

collaboration and developing new

was important to our overall success

ways of working,” he explains. “Our

– once the leadership adopted the

change management was built

changes, the rest was a chain reac-

around three themes; clarity, capabili-

tion right through the organisation.”

ties and commitment. We made sure everyone knew of all the changes every step of the way, we invested w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

234

DECEMBER 2019

Digitally transforming operations at Al Gihaz Holding WRITTEN BY

WILLIAM SMITH PRODUCED BY

MICHAEL BANYARD 235

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AL GIHAZ HOLDING

FATHI MUGHRABI, CIO OF AL GIHAZ HOLDING, ON THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME REAPING REWARDS AT THE ORGANISATION

S

audi Arabia’s Al Gihaz Holding incorporates a group of companies in different domains, from power solutions

contracting/manufacturing and communications, through to security solutions and creative design.

236

The group is actively diversifying and acquiring more businesses to adapt to economic changes in the region.

Digital transformation at Al Gihaz informs – and is informed by – that changing operating model, as CIO Fathi Mughrabi explains: “Before, the company was dependent on projects coming from big companies like the Saudi Electricity Company, Aramco and others. We were not concentrating on marketing and business development. Usually, we were approached by the customer. Now, we are going to the customer through different channels and trying to understand and formalise the requirements to form new projects.”

DECEMBER 2019

237

“DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IS A DIRECTION FOR THE WHOLE COMPANY AND SPONSORED BY TOP MANAGEMENT” — Fathi Mughrabi, CIO, Al Gihaz Holding

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AL GIHAZ HOLDING

238

This ethos manifests in the three

introduced in the market by chang-

pillars constituting the transforma-

ing their offerings. We are working

tion. The changing approach to

towards being a leader in the market,

customer experience serves as the

so we need to change the way the

first, while Mughrabi explains the

organisation’s products and services

other two: “Another is the transfor-

are being offered.”

mation of operational processes. Our

Opportunities for digital transfor-

earlier processes were semi-manual

mation to make a difference have

or partially automated. Now we use

come in different areas. “Digital

technology and industrial best prac-

transformation is a direction for the

tice in addition to automation. Third

whole company and is sponsored

is the business model transforma-

by top management,” says Mughrabi.

tion. Our competitors are benefiting

“We are looking to enhance perfor-

from the new disruptive technologies

mance, minimise costs and improve

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘BELECTRIC SOLAR PROJECTS’

speed and accuracy. In addition,

require data collection and data

we are enhancing our offerings to

analysis in order to give a 360

customers. We need to be ahead of

degree view of the project. We have

others, introducing new digital prod-

multiple systems and solutions that

ucts and new services.”

generate project data, which will

Of particular importance, he says,

then be compiled to generate more

has been making better use of data.

useful information. Data collection

“We are working on introducing

and analysis, therefore, is something

dashboards and advanced reports

that we are focusing on. It’s about

to make decision-making richer and

using more advanced, intelligent

accurate. We would evaluate data

solutions to get more from the data

through statistics, trend analysis,

that we have – because we consider

forecasts, and so on. For example,

data to be a company asset that will

we have projects in progress that

help management to make the right w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

239

AL GIHAZ HOLDING

240

decisions and steer the organisation

an integrated suite from Oracle. “We

towards a better future.”

are currently in the go-live stage for

One area of focus has been on

implementing Oracle Fusion, which

migrating the company’s legacy sys-

includes solutions for human capital

tems to cloud solutions. “We know that

management, finance, supply chain

cloud computing is becoming an indus-

management (including procurement

try standard for business solutions,

and inventory), and planning and

and we know that there are many tech-

budgeting. It also covers projects, cus-

nologies that can give us a competitive

tomer experience and maintenance.

edge over others, thanks to their

In addition to this, we are enhancing

agility, performance, flexibility and the

our project management through

engagement model,” says Mughrabi. Al

integration with Primavera, project

Gihaz has taken full advantage of these

management software that’s now part

emergent technologies, alighting on

of the Oracle suite.”

DECEMBER 2019

Other expert partners are helping Al Gihaz deliver on its digital transformation. “We are also utilising Microsoft

we are working on making use of all the features available there.”

Amid this transformation, Mughrabi

technologies to enhance internal

sees the role of the CIO as one neces-

processes and performance,” says

sitating proactivity. “The traditional CIO

Mughrabi. We shifted from an on-

and IT strategy usually starts with the

premise solution to Office 365, and

business direction and objectives,” he

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Fathi Mughrabi Fathi Mughrabi is a senior management and IT professional possessing 25+ years of experience across diversified national and international business domains in the private and public sectors covering the banking, automotive, construction, trading, utilities, manufacturing and consulting domains.

Mughrabi is well versed in aligning IT with enterprise direction and objectives to enable business excellence by developing, implementing and supporting strategies. In addition, he has hands-on experience in digital transformation strategies.

While commencing his career, Mughrabi gained experience in many aspects of IT, while leveraging his knowledge to management and enterprise strategic dimension.

He holds a BSc. in Computer Science from the University of Jordan, a higher-diploma in business management from NCCEducation/UK, and an MBA from the University of Northampton in the UK.

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241

AL GIHAZ HOLDING

1975

Year founded

HQ

Riyadh, Central

3,000 Number of employees

242

DECEMBER 2019

243

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AL GIHAZ HOLDING

Exceed your vision Leading information Technology Service provider in Middle East, Providing products and services that inspire to make a digital transformation for your business.

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245 says. “After that, IT is aligned to enable the business to achieve its objectives. The fourth industrial revolution has brought disruptive technologies that affect and threaten business existence. This is game changing. I believe the new CIO should be developing a digital transformation model, researching new technologies and how they’re affecting the core business of the organisation, in order to sustain success in the next phase of

“WE KNOW THAT CLOUD COMPUTING IS BECOMING AN INDUSTRY STANDARD FOR BUSINESS SOLUTIONS” — Fathi Mughrabi, CIO, Al Gihaz Holding

digital transformation.”

As for the future, Al Gihaz is looking forward to reaping the rewards w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

AL GIHAZ HOLDING

“I BELIEVE THE NEW CIO SHOULD BE DEVELOPING A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION MODEL” — Fathi Mughrabi, CIO, Al Gihaz Holding

246

DECEMBER 2019

of digital transformation. “The next phase will be focusing on stabilising and utilising the new solutions, so that we can realise the return on investment from what we have done,” says Mughrabi. “Then we will be going into business intelligence, where the data generated from those solutions can help the management to take the right decision through accurate and timely presented reports and dashboards. As part of our transformation, Al Gihaz is also diversifying the products it is offering to the market. We’ve started on renewable energy with solar, and I believe there are other renewable energy initiatives that could be introduced like wind and other sources, in addition to smart solutions.”

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Digitally transforming to shape the future

WRITTEN BY

248

GEORGIA WILSON

© Wikipedia / Roberto Stuckert Filho

DECEMBER 2019

PRODUCED BY

MICHAEL BANYARD

249

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U N I T E D N AT I O N S

Federico Cocchioni, CTO of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, discusses digital transformation within the United Nations

T

he United Nations (UN), founded in 1945 following the end of World War II, is an international organisation that takes

action on issues such as peace and security, climate change, sustainable development, human 250

rights, humanitarian concerns and gender equality.

Federico Cocchioni, current Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, has seen the UN develop over the years into an efficient, innovative, effective, inclusive and transparent organisation that highlights the importance of leaving no one behind. Indeed, within Cocchioni’s office in Beirut the motto is “shared prosperity and dignified lives.”

Over the course of 20 years, Cocchioni has held nine positions at the UN. He began his career in 1999 as an Associate Information Systems Officer, tasked with migrating an old and obsolete email system over to one that was more robust, secure and standardised.

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U N I T E D N AT I O N S

“Innovative technology is helping significantly in various peacekeeping, humanitarian and development operations carried out by the UN” — Federico Cocchioni, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia 252 In addition, Cocchioni utilised his past career knowledge of IBM Lotus Notes to implement a new distributed database system for rapid deployment and secure encrypted data replication. Today, his role at the UN is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, working on technology to support the Sustainable Development Goals in the region.

Within the UN Secretariat, Cocchioni’s division is addressing the digital agenda for technology, which DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2019 AT ESCWA’ 253 can be summarised into four key

has truly ridden the wave of digital

areas: “Deepening the UN’s internal

revolution, with its transformation

capacities, exposure to new tech-

starting in the 1990s. “We moved

nologies, supporting dialogue, and

from analog to digital in the 90s,

enhancing the UN’s system support

embracing the internet and email,

to government capacity develop-

which allowed staff worldwide to

ment.” Cocchioni also highlights the

finally communicate smoothly and

importance of the UN increasing

quickly. At the end of the 90s, we

partnerships within both the public

introduced webmail, coupled with

and private sectors (governments,

the use of Blackberry devices for

academic, private companies and

mobile email.” Moving on to the

civil society) to ensure effective

early 2000s, Cocchioni explains the

engagement on new technologies.

introduction of electronic document

Reflecting on the organisation’s

management. “We introduced scan

evolution, Cocchioni believes the UN

and send devices as well as optical w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

U N I T E D N AT I O N S

254

character recognition in order to

content management (ECM) and

better handle, archive and search

customer relationship manage-

through vast amounts of documenta-

ment (CRM), as well as developing

tion.� Other implementations over

a centralised data warehouse to

the years include, voiceover IP, satel-

build business intelligence solutions,

lite imagery, radio communication,

reduce the number of data centers

data capabilities and global govern-

used by the organisation and reduce

ance of an IT infrastructure

its reliance on local infrastructure.

to improve security.

“Innovative technology is helping

In the last decade, the UN has been

significantly in various peacekeep-

working to centralise and standardise

ing, humanitarian and development

its main systems, including enterprise

operations carried out by the UN,�

resource planning (ERP), enterprise

comments Cocchioni. In particular

DECEMBER 2019

“geographic information system (GIS)

part in the Sudan peacekeeping

technology such as satellite imagery is

mission. We were responsible for

being utilised by military observers for

setting up from scratch the entire ICT

border identification and asset track-

infrastructure including satellite com-

ing, as well as digital radio and satellite

munications, mobile redeployment

communications for staff deployment

vans, and the wide area network for

in areas with no infrastructure.”

voice and data.

In 2006 – following the sign-

“There were major challenges” he

ing of the Comprehensive Peace

notes. “The country was very large,

Agreement in 2005 – Cocchioni took

and procurement of equipment

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Federico Cocchioni Federico Cocchioni is Chief Technology Officer at the UN’s Regional Commission for Western Asia, ESCWA, where he holds responsibility over the current technological transformations taking place in the organisation. Federico leads a dynamic team of IT experts that deliver innovative software solutions to streamline the processes within the UN. He holds over 20 years of experience leading key functional improvements while in the Organisation, updating the IT services and leading the Information Management strategy across New York Headquarters, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Thailand and Lebanon. Currently, UN-ESCWA is undergoing broad reaching changes to use the power of emerging digital technologies to develop the region as well as the Organisation. The role of Federico and his team is integral to the structural and strategic developments taking place across UN organisations today.

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U N I T E D N AT I O N S

1945

Year founded

HQ

New York City, US

46,834

Number of employees

256

DECEMBER 2019

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VANTAGE

REVOLUTIONIZES UNITED NATIONS

PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT Vantage, a trusted partner of the United Nations, is an innovator in Big Data Cognitive Computing, Natural Language Understanding, and Artificial Intelligence. Our tools, including Intellimetric and iseek.ai, support tasks and procedures on a global scale. Vantage technology offers expert solutions to revolutionize and create greater efficiency for personnel management for the United Nations.

See How

and recruitment of qualified people

internet bandwidth. It was important

takes time.” In the year Cocchioni

that we established and installed

was part of at the major operation in

servers within the local area network

Sudan, $60mn dollars was dedicated

to reduce the use of limited band-

to acquiring the infrastructure to

width running through satellites.”

deploy IT and telecommunications

Internally, the UN has come to the

services across the country. “These

end of its 2014-2019 ICT strategy,

operations can be quite expensive

which focused on five key pillars:

because the UN deploys where

modernise, transform, innovate,

there’s no infrastructure and where

govern and optimise. To achieve this,

it cannot rely on existing government

the UN has been working through a

provided electricity, radio and com-

number of phases to restructure its

puter networks. At that time, we didn’t

ICT operations globally. Key projects

have cloud services either, which was

Cocchioni highlights include the

a major challenge alongside limited

UN utilising innovative technology

DECEMBER 2019

“ At this stage I think we are much more solid than before, due to our strong central governance in headquarters” — Federico Cocchioni, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

Other ways the UN is utilising technology is through the use of data. “To work more collaboratively we need to have integrated knowledge portals which allow all UN System partners in each region access to data in one consolidated place and ensure everyone is working towards the same goals (SDGs),” says Cocchioni. The UN has also been looking to reduce its footprint with hybrid cloud technology, building upon its continuous goal of a centralised system. “We created two major enterprise data centers in Europe and we are in the process of developing a cloud

in relation to online collaboration. “We adopted the Microsoft Office 365 platform, which has allowed integration between email, video conferences, document sharing and more

strategy, following our initial move to hybrid cloud.”

In addition to these changes, Cocchioni highlights the importance of innovation and how the UN has been developing its cyber diligence and analytics. “At

– something that

this stage I think

was very much

we are making

needed within

great strides

the organisa-

on the path of

tion to be more

digital integra-

effective and

tion in an effort

efficient.”

to improve w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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U N I T E D N AT I O N S

260

DECEMBER 2019

a clear Sustainable Development Goal – Goal 17 – with a dedicated office for partnerships and innovation labs. “Lately, the UN has been empowered to look for useful partnerships with institutions, the private sector and other UN entities to find the best solutions,” says Cocchioni.

Over the years the UN has partnered with various organisations to achieve its operational goals. “We have worked with IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle as well as Lenovo for desktop and laptop computers, Cisco for network equipment, video conference equipment and network security, HP for servers, Dell EMC for data storage and VMware for virtualisation.” collaboration, reduce the problem

Cocchioni highlights that although

of siloes of information and, thus,

the UN still needs to perfect its

increase our ability to deliver the

operational strategies and further

2030 SDGs agenda. These suc-

digitalise its processes, it’s vision of

cesses are largely due to our strong

working towards a better world and

central governance in headquarters.

its global position as a non-profit

We are now looking to embark on

organisation makes it a strong and

a new strategy for the next five years

constant catalyst for innovation

focusing on emerging technologies,

around the world.

partnerships and increased financial accountability for IT initiatives.”

When it comes to working with partners, the UN has established w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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IPG: building technology, teams and trust WRITTEN BY

HARRY MENEAR

DECEMBER 2019

PRODUCED BY

MIKE SADR

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INTERPUBLIC GROUP

Chris White, Deputy CISO at Interpublic Group, talks about the talent shortage, automation, and how to ensure that cybersecurity is an enabler of creative freedom and business operations

W

e live in an era of unsurpassed connectivity.

The ongoing digital transformation of the global business landscape is bringing

everything from robotic process automation (RPA) to artificial intelligence (AI) out of the pages of science fiction and into the homes and workplaces of billions 264

of people. Nearly every person walks around with a rectangle of glass, plastic and silicon in their pocket that can access nearly the sum of human knowledge, and possesses about 100,000 times the computing power of the thinking machines that put man on the Moon. In seconds, we can convey information, opinions and our innermost thoughts to an audience of millions. We can share memes using a refrigerator now. Never before has information, interaction and human connection been so readily available, but this new world is not without its challenges.

“What I don’t think a lot of people understand is that every single person that owns a smartphone, tablet, smart watch, even a smart fridge, is under attack, every minute of every day,” explains Chris White, Deputy Chief Information Security Officer at Interpublic Group (IPG).

DECEMBER 2019

Below: IPG Chairman and CEO Michael Roth and Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer Heide Gardner

265

1961

Year founded

$9.7bn

Revenue in dollars (2018)

54,000 Number of employees

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INTERPUBLIC GROUP

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“ Every single person that owns a smartphone, tablet, smart watch, even a smart fridge, is under attack, every minute of every day” — Chris White, Deputy Chief Information Security Officer, Interpublic Group (IPG)

“There is a global war going on in cyberspace. There are criminal elements, state-sponsored elements – that classic idea of the kid in the hoodie in his mom’s basement doesn’t even scrape the surface.” Far from attempting to instill mass panic, White’s tone is one of reassurance. “Inevitably people hear that and say ‘well now I’m afraid to go outside’, so to speak. What do we do now? The answer is just to behave normally. There’s no sense in becoming a doomsday prepper, living in a bunker with the phone lines cut, because all the companies that make and support everything you do at home and for work, they understand that cybersecurity is critical to doing business. That’s why they have guys like me who are doing our absolute best to protect you.”

White’s career in cybersecurity started in the US Air Force, working as a signals intelligence operative around the dawn of the internet. Over the course of a 30 year career on the front lines of cybersecurity, he has developed a wide breadth of experience in security automation and telecommunications. He took on his current

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘IPG HOSTS INAUGURAL – FASTFW: AN IPG INNOVATION SUMMIT’ 267 role at Interpublic Group in April 2019,

cybersecurity, to our portfolio of com-

working to support and execute the

panies, which all operate in a culture

security vision of IPG’s CISO, Patricia

of consensus. I’m responsible for

Hinerman, who moved over from her

more than 100,000 endpoints, tens of

role of Corporate CIO in March.

thousands of users across hundreds

Interpublic Group is one of the

of companies supporting thousands

foremost advertising and marketing

of downstream clients. My security

holding companies in the world. With

team is 30 people,” White explains.

offices across the globe, the company

Along with Hinerman, White and his

employs more than 54,000 people

team are facing up to the challenges

specialising in advertising, digital

before them and executing an intel-

marketing, communications planning,

ligent, modern cybersecurity strategy

media and public relations. “Because

that balances the challenges of a con-

IPG is a holding company, my job

stantly evolving threat landscape with

is to provide IT services, including

the unique demands of IPG. w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

INTERPUBLIC GROUP

268

Across global companies, opera-

clients with a marketing campaign

tional functions and departments are

that’s intelligent, appealing – all those

transforming their operations to ensure

things. The upshot is that I can’t just

they not only perform those functions

mandate that people use particular

but also enable, support and add value

tools or software. I need to enhance

to the enterprise as a whole. As IPG, a

my agency’s function, and that means

business fueled by creatives working in

creating an environment that is secure,

the world’s best advertising agencies,

but also not restrictive to the creative

this is vitally important. “We’re ensuring

process.” Constantly finding the solutions

that we’re never, ever ‘the office of no,’”

that provide security, without restricting

says White. “IPG has a creative culture.

freedom or disrupting operations is

The people here are working on how

a core element of White’s role.

to make the next great Superbowl commercial, how to really support their DECEMBER 2019

Even as businesses’ operations become increasingly digital, the

industry-wide emphasis on the human

In addition to a shrinking pool of cyber-

element is only growing more pro-

security professionals, the amount of

nounced, something made even more

data that a modern team handles is

apparent by demand for security per-

growing exponentially, something that

sonnel that outstrips the current supply.

is transforming the way teams like the

“There’s a dire need for cybersecurity

one at IPG function. “The talent short-

professionals. If you can hire them, it’s

age combined with this data increase

hard to hang onto them,” says White.

means there’s no way that you can

“I have to find the talent that’s right for

follow traditional security practices

me in my environment, in my culture,

of identifying a problem, sounding an

and work with them to give them the

alert, prioritizing it through as critical,

things that they need to get their job

high, medium or low, and then tackling

done the way they want to do it. I have

it,” he says. “If you do that, you’re going

to think of creative methodologies.”

to get buried in data.” The answer, in

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Chris White Chris White is a 30 year cyber professional.

He spent 25 years working inside and with the DoD on the design, deployment and operation of cyber offensive and defensive platforms.

He then spent four years working for EY supporting clients across the media & technology, retailing, and manufacturing verticals to establish and operate their security functions. He currently serves as the Deputy CISO/Director of Security Operations for Interpublic Group. When not defending the enterprise he likes to ride motorcycles, play guitar, and enjoy life.

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Interpublic Group Adds Business Value to its Companies Through Security Proofpoint protects users and delivers unmatched insight for continuously maturing security effectiveness.

THE COMPANY Interpublic Group (IPG) is a premier global advertising and marketing services enterprise. Its companies specialize in advertising, digital marketing, communications, media, and public relations—creating customized marketing programs for clients of all sizes. IPG support its agencies with a range of services, including IT and cybersecurity services. But reducing risk and protecting users across a large and complex global federated enterprise is a tall order. Proofpoint plays an integral role in the security team’s success.

THE CHALLENGE IPG and its companies deliver award-winning campaigns for many of today’s world-leading brands. Marketing and advertising strategies, creative work, and brand equity can represent billions of dollars of corporate value to each client. Security is important to win agency clients; therefore, it’s essential for IPG to protect its companies and employees in order to attract new agencies.

“Our mission is reducing business risk,” said Chris White, director of security operations and deputy chief information security officer for IPG. “That’s not easy with massive scope and complexity. We can’t possibly hire enough cybersecurity experts—they simply don’t exist—so we must find other methods to achieve our goals.”

The IPG security team manages more than 100 agency tenants in Microsoft Azure-based Office 365 email. Among tenants, there are huge differences in office size, ownership and work style. The goal is to move the hundreds of IPG companies to Office 365, but meanwhile, the team needs a way to defend multiple email platforms against crimeware, email fraud, imposters, and nonstop phishing campaigns.

“I knew Proofpoint could arm us with the tools and information that enable us to defend our companies and give us the data, automated capabilities, and vendor expertise we needed,” said White. “We chose Proofpoint as our primary tool to support security for one of our most critical business systems.”

THE SOLUTION Building on strength The IPG team built its defenses on Proofpoint Email Protection. With multi-layer threat protection and analysis, it defends IPG employees against spam, bulk email, malware and viruses. It also evolves impostor email and phishing attacks. And by using Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection (TAP), the IPG team can detect, analyze and block advanced threats delivered through malicious attachments and URLs before they reach employees.

TAP also detects polymorphic malware, weaponized documents, and credential theft attacks across cloud and premises-based email systems.

For example, IPG exchanges email with its companies, and each company also exchanges email with external clients. Once, a client’s email was co-opted by a threat actor who inserted a malicious URL—unbeknownst to the client. Proofpoint detected and blocked the email, which enabled IPG to provide the agency’s client with the important data needed for remediation.

“Proofpoint enables us to add value to our companies,” said White. “In turn, they can demonstrate security assurance to their clients. Proofpoint supports our trusted relationships, which are critical to delivering great work.”

Besides detecting advanced threats, the IPG team can automatically remove them from mailboxes with Proofpoint Threat Response Auto-Pull (TRAP). This automation has been a game-changer for IPG. White’s team plans to extend Proofpoint Threat Response automation to other use cases, such as automatically isolating endpoints or correlating data with other security controls.

“There will always be more threat and attack data than security analysts,” said White. “With Proofpoint Threat Response, we can automatically enable protections further down the kill chain. This is extraordinarily beneficial.”

Maturing front-line defenses Knowledgeable employees are powerful front-line defenses. Proofpoint Security Awareness Training with PhishAlarm makes it easy for IPG users to report phishing emails. PhishAlarm Analyzer ranks reported emails in real time by their threat potential, which saves time for the security team. The Proofpoint Attack Index within the TAP Dashboard provides data on IPG’s most attacked people. And it gives them instant visibility into these targeted users and the threats that attack them.

With this insight, White’s team can track changes in the attack landscape over time, as well as improvements in user awareness.

“We can measure how well users recognize phishing attacks and if they take action when they see something suspicious,” said White. “Having users report suspicious emails is a huge step forward in security maturity.”

THE RESULTS Proofpoint enables the team to focus its time on “true positive” alerts and issues with potentially high impact. Now they’re spending their time on the security measures that matter most to their enterprise and its companies.

LEARN MORE For more information visit proofpoint.com

“By improving our companies’ security, we provide a distinct benefit to their businesses and their clients. Proofpoint enables us to bring more value to these relationships and plays a key role in making us attractive to new agencies.”

Chris White Director Of Security Operations and Deputy Chief Information Security Officer Interpublic Group

INTERPUBLIC GROUP

addition to careful cultivation of an existing security team, is to harness cutting edge automation technology.

“You have to apply automation to help direct people’s brains to where they need to be focused. This is one of the reasons why I am very excited about our new companies, Acxiom and Kinesso. When IPG acquired one of the world’s leading data solution companies in 2018, it afforded my team the chance to partner with the incredible expertise they have around the under272

standing and use of data to support automation,” says White, “because the most important tool in your toolbox is people. Period.”

In a world of talent shortages and increased digitalisation, expert help is an essential commodity for White.

“I couldn’t do my job without having supportive partners,” he says, “and I use the word partner intentionally.

A partner is someone you trust implicitly and who is going to do what is right for you. A good partner in business brings new insight and new ways of thinking about what you do.” Early thinking about cybersecurity methodology centred around the maintenance and DECEMBER 2019

“ I couldn’t do my job without having supportive partners” — Chris White, Deputy Chief Information Security Officer, Interpublic Group (IPG)

development of an effective firewall.

Then, in the 2000s, applications added an additional dimension. “Not only do I have to have the network protected, but every application needs its own individual defense in-depth stack,” says White. “Proofpoint exposed me to a new dimension of thinking – a whole new axis. We need to be thinking about identity as a third dimension that needs its own levels of protection.”

Today, as digital identity becomes more dispersed, both inside and outside the enterprise – across a host of different applications – IPG is working to protect its employees’ identities beyond the standard provided by normal identity access management solutions. “That’s something that Proofpoint brings to the table, because digital identity is w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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INTERPUBLIC GROUP

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IPG Chairman and CEO Michael Roth opens the annual IPG Breakfast in Cannes at Cannes Lions Festival 2019

“ Proofpoint exposed me to a new dimension of thinking – a whole new axis” — Chris White, Deputy Chief Information Security Officer, Interpublic Group (IPG)

primarily controlled through email, and they showed us how to harness our data to start protecting the identities of our users more effectively,” says White.

Reflecting on the first few months at IPG, White and Hinerman are still putting their stamp on the department and the team. “With both of us being new to the role, I think our short-tomedium term goal is to ensure that our agencies are confident in us to do the job that they’ve asked us to do, and that comes through in good production results that are based

DECEMBER 2019

275

upon good data analysis, and that’s

for a Fortune 300 company. Never. Not

impactful,” he explains. Looking for-

five years earlier I was working with

ward to the new year, the IPG team

the Department of Defense, and then

has internally branded 2020 The Year

15 years before that I got out of the Air

of Data Quality. In both the short and

Force as a lower-level enlisted member.

long term, though, the most important

This is kind of like being a kid, hitting a

thing that White is working to build

home run and all of a sudden I’m playing

is trust. “I need to increase services

in the Major Leagues.”

efficiently, build trust, and continue to make IPG’s operations more secure without incurring a cost to its ability to do business. I’m really very grateful to IPG for this chance. I never, ever, in my life thought I would be deputy CISO w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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DECEMBER 2019

Automation Anywhere: Rashim Mogha is championing diversity through eWOW WRITTEN BY

AMBER DONOVAN-STEVENS PRODUCED BY

CRAIG KILLINGBACK

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A U T O M AT I O N A N Y W H E R E

Rashim Mogha, Founder of eWOW and Global Head of Education Products, Automation Anywhere, is leading the way in bringing more women into the tech industry and shares how we can too

R 278

ashim Mogha is clearly the woman to watch. eWOW (empowered Women of the World) founder and the The Global

Head of Education Products, Automation Anywhere University, best-selling author, keynote speaker and equality influencer has just been awarded Woman of the Year 2019. This is the third award Mogha has won in 2019 alone, having also been recognised as a Woman of Influence for Silicon Valley, and winning the Women Empowerment: Game Changer Award for her eWOW initiative, which empowers women to be successful, and for her career achievements. “I’ve had the privilege of working at the forefront of cuttingedge technology throughout my career,” says Mogha, a veteran of companies like VMware, AWS and Oracle.

“I led the education program for AWS, including bootcamps at re:Invent, annual AWS conference where we trained over 8,000 people during a three-day event.” AWS provided Mogha with an opportunity to create education solutions that can function in DECEMBER 2019

279

“Say yes to every opportunity and, as you climb the ladder, don’t forget to give back” — Rashim Mogha, Founder of eWOW and Global Head of Education Products, Automation Anywhere w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

A U T O M AT I O N A N Y W H E R E

“ When you really look at it, robotic process automation (RPA) is going to drive how business is done and what the future of work is in the era of the fourth industrial revolution” 280

— Rashim Mogha, Founder of eWOW and Global Head of Education Products, Automation Anywhere

real-time as well as to scale them out.

At Oracle, Mogha built the enablement strategy for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure from the ground up. “Coming to Automation Anywhere was a natural progression as I had the necessary knowledge of how to build products for startup environment, and then to scale them out. That’s what my role involves right now at Automation Anywhere.”

Her main responsibility is developing education products to help accomplish Automation Anywhere’s March to Million mission of educating a million individuals on developing and using robotic process automation and prepare for the jobs of the future. “This goal was very appealing to me because when you really look at it, robotic process automation (RPA) is going to drive how business is done and what the future of work is in the era of the

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘RASHIM MOGHA, AUTOMATION ANYWHERE | WOMEN TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY 2019’ 281 fourth industrial revolution.” She asserts

empower more women to join and stay

the need for upskilling and reskilling to

in the tech industry.”

maintain momentum in this ever-evolving industry, confident that knowledge of

AUTOMATION ANYWHERE UNIVERSITY

RPA will soon be a prerequisite for jobs

“Businesses are missing out on creating

of future just like word processors and

compelling global solutions by not hav-

office productivity tools. Mogha is also

ing diversity at decision-making levels,

passionate about leadership and has

as considerations for women are time

been recognised as a Top 100 keynote

and time again missed,” says Mogha.

speaker by databird and a Top 20

“For example, the health app released

thought leaders by Thinkers 360. She

by Apple in 2015 did not incorporate or

says “Launching eWOW in 2018 was a

take into account women’s reproductive

natural progression. Having held leader-

cycles, and facial recognition algorithms

ship roles at VMware, AWS, and Oracle,

have a success rate of only 33% on

it was now my turn to give back and

darker-skinned women, as opposed w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

A U T O M AT I O N A N Y W H E R E

282

to 99% for white men. The creators of

academic institutions. Mogha shares

the solutions were only thinking of one

that Automation Anywhere’s Enterprise

gender; 49% of the population (men)

A2019 platform offers capabilities to

cannot create solutions for 100% of the

enterprises of all sizes, including: an intui-

world’s population.” It is for this reason

tive web-based interface that simplifies

that Mogha says it is essential to bring

bot development; a cloud-native platform

diversity of thought in the tech industry in

that offers customers RPA-as-a-Service

order to create equal solutions and drive

from the cloud with reduced cost and

the industry forward.

“near-infinite” scalability; AI capabilities

The March to Millions initiative is

to integrate third-party solutions and

helping in opening up opportunities

natural language processing; and new

for everyone and so far has delivered

Attended Automation 2.0, allowing

500,000 RPA trainings to business

greater collaboration between humans

analysts, developers, program managers,

and bots across teams and workflows.

partners, and students. The program is

Automation Anywhere University’s

gaining momentum with its 65 author-

education products play a key role in

ised training partners across 300+

upskilling the citizen developers on

DECEMBER 2019

Automation Anywhere’s Enterprise

Anywhere University, we are making

A2019 platform. Origin Learning and

opportunities available to everybody,”

Newgen are strategic training develop-

affirms Mogha. She shares a phrase

ment partners ,working with Automation

often said by Mihir Shukla, CEO of

Anywhere University to create its educa-

Automation Anywhere: “Talent is equally

tion products. “These training partners

distributed. Opportunities are not.”

have been instrumental in helping us develop educational products for our

EWOW: LEADING BY EXAMPLE

global audience. Our trainings are free,

“The eWOW initiative is my way of giving

engaging and localized, making it easy

back to the community. It is an initiative to

for anyone to learn how to develop and

empower women to be successful, what-

use bots to eliminate the mundane and

ever the definition of success is for them,”

focus on being creative. With Automation

says Mogha.

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E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Rashim Mogha Mogha is a thought leader and women in tech evangelist. A keynote speaker and #1 Amazon best-selling author of “Fast-Track Your Leadership Career” Rashim speaks at conferences around the world, inspiring women and girls to further their career in technology. Her extensive career portfolio includes leadership roles in companies such as Oracle, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and VMware where she built high-performing teams to support over US$2bn businesses. H ​ er thought leadership innovation and women in technology have appeared in publications such as Forbes and ATD and platforms like Linkedin Learning. With a goal to empower leaders in 2018, she founded eWOW: Empowered Women of the World. eWOW is an intellectual platform designed to help women with their technical and leadership skills to be successful and thrive. Rashim is a recipient of ’Women Empowerment: Game Changer, Woman of the Year and Silicon Valley Woman of Influence’ awards.

w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

ENTERPRISE

2003

Year founded

we believe that every woman is a leader in her own way – all she needs is an intellectual platform that can help her navigate the path.” The eWOW platform

1,500,000+ bots and counting

1,750+ Number of employees

In September 2018, Mogha released her book on leadership, Fast-Track Your Leadership Career: A definitive template for advancing your career, which became an Amazon Bestseller within 11 hours of release. “I had goosebumps! It took me a little while to realise the level of impact this was having on people, but many women and men leaders began to reach out, requesting to continue the conversation around empowerment.”

In November 2018, she launched the eWOW initiative: Empowered Women of the World, designed to provide women with the framework to be successful at the workplace. “At eWOW,

offers Alexa skills, podcasts, various online and in-person events, and leadership workshops.

The eWOW podcast has an audience in over 31 countries. “It’s about empowering women, wherever they are, in their journey to leadership. The eWOW initiative is well on its way CO MPAN Y FACT S

• Facial recognition algorithms have a success rate of only 33% for darker-skinned women, as opposed to 99% for white men • The March to Millions initiative is helping providing opportunities to everyone and Automation Anywhere University has delivered 500,000 RPA trainings to business analysts, developers, program managers, partners, and students.

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A U T O M AT I O N A N Y W H E R E

EMPOWER DIGITAL WORKFORCE Accelerate Digital Transformation with our Learning Strategies & Learning Experience Platform

Email info@originlearning.com to schedule a demo

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“ 49% of the 100,000 women globally.”

“10 years ago, women were expected population (men) to act like men to a certain extent to cannot create be successful in a leadership role, as solutions for 100% most of their peers were men,” reflects of the world’s Mogha. “Today, women can own their narrative, bring their whole self to work population” to reaching out and empowering

and become empathetic leaders without having to pretend to be one of the

men in the room.” Mogha believes that while women have more confidence to speak up within these leadership

— Rashim Mogha, Founder of eWOW and Global Head of Education Products, Automation Anywhere

environments than ever before, we are nowhere close to equality. w w w.gi ga bi t ma ga z in e. com

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DECEMBER 2019

BRIGHTER FUTURES Looking to the future, Mogha has one main piece of advice to others looking to move forward in their careers. “Say yes to every opportunity and, as you climb the ladder, don’t forget to give back.” To companies, she suggests: “If you want this world to be an equal place and help solve world problems, make sure that you are truly bringing diversity and inclusion into your workforce and into your thought processes, as opposed to just thinking of it as a token or a box that you need to check.”

Mogha concludes: “The future is bright for women in tech; there has been an inspiring growth in the number of women attending tech events and many companies are also starting to realise build programs to bring and retain women in the workforce.” As the tech industry continues to embark on diversity and inclusion initiatives, there is no doubt that Rashim Mogha will be at the forefront of this drive, continuing to inspire women to challenge bias and push themselves to be empathetic and forward-thinking leaders who create solutions for real world problems.

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HOW THE COMBINATION OF 5G,AI, BIG DATA AND IOT IS SET TO CHANGE EVERYTHING DECEMBER 2019

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GSMA

The confluence of high internet speeds, big data, the Internet of Things, analytics and artificial intelligence will fundamentally alter the way we live and work, intelligently connecting virtually every device, making our cities smarter and our lives easier and more productive

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ntelligent Connectivity enables transformational new capabilities in transport, entertainment, industry and much

more. The combination of 5G, artificial intelligence 292

(AI), smart platforms and the Internet of Things (IoT) form the basis of what we call ‘Intelligent Connectivity’. With more than 5.1bn unique subscribers and nearly 9bn connections globally, mobile is already one of the most widely deployed technology platforms ever. However, Intelligent Connectivity takes this further and marks the beginning of an era of highly contextualised and personalised experiences, underpinned by ubiquitous hyper connectivity. It is set to impact almost every aspect of our daily lives from the way we consume entertainment to the way in which we learn and interact with colleagues. It will give people the information they need in an instant making our lives more productive and efficient. It will impact how entire industries innovate and operate, how societies interact and thrive and how economies flourish.

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“ We will see smart platforms powered

by AI and machine learning will enable us to make improved decisions and deliver higher quality products and services” — Julian Gorman, Head of Asia Pacific, GSMA

DECEMBER 2019

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘GSMA APAC AT MWC BARCELONA 2019’ 295 We will watch live sports coverage in ultra-high definition via Augmented or Virtual Reality headsets and see the game from an athlete’s perspective; our cities will deploy traffic control systems that use 5G connectivity to instruct vehicles when to slow down and when to accelerate removing the need for traffic lights and speed cameras. We will see smart platforms powered by AI and machine learning will enable us to make improved decisions and deliver higher quality products and services.

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GSMA

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘GSMA TECH4GIRLS ICT DAY HK WORKSHOP’ 296 5G is already on the way with commercial launches this year in the United States, China, South Korea and the UAE. GSMA Intelligence forecasts that there will be more than 1.3 bn 5G connections globally by 2025, covering 40% of the global population. 5G networks will underpin this revolution.

It is an opportunity to create an agile, purpose-built network tailored to the different needs of citizens and the economy. It will improve network capacity, throughput and responsiveness. However, it is imperative that all stakeholders work together to ensure DECEMBER 2019

“ It is imperative that all stakeholders work together to ensure that 5G is successfully standardised, regulated and brought to market” — Julian Gorman, Head of Asia Pacific, GSMA

that 5G is successfully standardised, regulated and brought to market.

Underpinned by hyper connectivity and low power wide area IoT networks, the fusion of these groundbreaking technologies will change everything, improving our lives in many different ways and intelligently connecting everyone and everything to better future.

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Julian Gorman Julian is the Head of Asia Pacific for the GSMA, leading a highly experienced cross functional team to advance the impact, growth and sustainability of digital economies by collaboration between the mobile industry, policy makers and ecosystem. He is a global telecommunications executive with over 20 years of commercial and marketing experience across Wholesale, Business, Regulatory, Policy and Digital Transformation. He has pioneered new digital partnerships and business units in mature and emerging markets across Africa, Europe, Australia and Asia with industry leaders including Vodafone, MTN and Ooredoo. As advisor to management executive teams and boards he has extensive insight and relationships to support collaboration and delivery of industry alignment. He has been recognised for his leadership in digital innovation, digital women, health and agriculture services with industry awards and grants. Julian has degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Law from Australia.

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