Gigabit - January 2018

January 2018 EXCLUSIVE

AGILITY THROUGH TRANSFORMATION

TOP 10 TECH UNICORNS

CULTURE SHIFT INSIDE THE PEOPLE-POWERED TECH STRATEGY OF UBS WITH GROUP HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY MIKE DARGAN

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN STARTUPS & BIG CORPORATIONS

FOREWORD WELCOME TO THE first edition of Gigabit for 2018.

The year ahead will undoubtedly see the pace of technology innovation and transformation continue unabated, and this issue of Gigabit sees us digs deep into the change strategies at some globally significant businesses.

UBS, the world’s largest wealth manager, is one year into a digital transformation journey that will reshape its entire business.

We sit down exclusively with Group Head of Technology Mike Dargan, the man most directly responsible for delivering a 20,000 strong tech team into the future. It is, he says, all about people.

We also meet Phil Clayson, CTO at major British telco TalkTalk. His is a company that is transforming itself in order to help other major enterprises do the same.

Tomorrow Street, meanwhile, is a new accelerator established

by Vodafone in Luxembourg that is aiming to institutionalise the ‘human touch’ to help start-ups graduate to major enterprises themselves. We travelled to the company’s stunning European HQ to meet its founder and leader, Warrick Cramer.

Find all that plus much, much more in the pages that follow as we look forward to another exciting year of opportunity and challenge, innovation and rapid change.

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

Enjoy the issue! www.gigabitmagazine.com www.bizclikmedia.com

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New kids on the block – the future of blockchain

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Join the Intelligensia: How the march of digital transformation will disrupt the way we do business

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

TalkTalk – agility through transformation Gigabit speaks with Technology Director Phil Clayson about how TalkTalk can help businesses becomes more agile through digital transformation across broadband, networking, voice and mobile Writ ten by DAN BRIGHTMORE

TALKTALK HAS SPENT the past 12 months replacing much of the legacy infrastructure supporting its business customers across the UK. With plans to upgrade half its estate by the end of 2018, this forward-thinking company is welcoming more agile ways of working to meet customer needs, embracing digital transformation to help them transform.

“We can now offer a more responsive and customised package of services, including broadband, networking, voice and mobile. To do that successfully we’ve had to re-engineer and digitally transform the way our own business works to make sure those services are effective, agile and ready for use by both SMEs and large organisations,” explains TalkTalk Technology Director Phil Clayson. “Part of the journey has been making sure our technology stacks and solutions are ready to support that with the right level of speed and flexibility.”

Clayson believes TalkTalk punches above its weight as an organisation but, though successful in doing that, with such success comes the challenge of moving faster.

“Our legacy is a series of acquired 8

January 2018

1.5mn UK firms will be moving to the cloud over the next two years

companies which are now being properly integrated,” he adds. “In that process we are stripping out old technologies and striving to deliver a better service to our clients.”

Among those services is the provision of cloud migration which, according to Forbes, was the number one enterprise tech trend in 2017 with businesses ramping up efforts to aim for the cloud for critical business IT usage. Research by Ovum

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

“GARTNER PREDICTS THAT BY 2020, 90% OF ORGANISATIONS WILL ADOPT HYBRID INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES” – Phil Clayson, Technology Director, TalkTalk

supports this, showing up to 80% of businesses will be cloud dependent by 2019, which means 1.5mn UK firms will be moving to the cloud over the next two years. TalkTalk advise businesses to consider whether they have the right connectivity to support this radical shift in service delivery before they take the plunge, as the spectre of the cloud forces a re-evaluation of infrastructure. With application performance the ultimate

goal, business critical applications such as voice, document sharing and collaboration tools should be fit for purpose and at least as reliable as previous systems.

Security is also vital: “We undertake a consultative approach to find the right blend of public, private and hybrid network capabilities including our cloud-ready boosts suitable for your business,” assures Clayson.

TalkTalk is also making significant 9

D I G I TA L S T R AT E G Y investment in its business intelligence to help customers navigate the sheer volume of solutions available and find tangible benefits for businesses looking for cloud-ready connectivity, offering a balance between CapEx and OpEx solutions, private and public networks.

Clayson has some sage words of advice for businesses eager to expand their digital transformation: “You can potentially plan to do enormous programmes spanning multiple years aiming for a holy grail solution, but relationships with the partner and customer base can change, the market can diversify and so the business model might need to adapt,” he warns. “It’s a common problem across Telcos and big organisations to stumble with these kind of programmes, so it’s key to tackle change in bitesize amounts to get pieces of the larger puzzle completed before moving on to the next stage of development.”

Clayson also points out the unwanted outcome of this approach means you can end up just doing lots of small things thereby confusing your customer and partner base, so it’s important to communicate a 10

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sequence of changes to them and how they will need to plan. “It’s a moving beast,” he adds, noting that this is an area where TalkTalk itself has had to up its game. “The days of having two to five-year development cycles with products evolving over time via market testing are gone,” he reveals. “So we’ve had to find ways to be more flexible. Equally you need to have your eye on a goal and know where you want to end up.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by TalkTalk Business COO Duncan Gooding, highlighting many paths that digital transformation can take while businesses push to drive growth in connectivity. “For some, it could mean shifting key operations from old, on-premises solutions to flexible, cost-effective cloud computing platforms,” he notes. “For others, it may involve high-definition videoconferencing and fast file-sharing to support collaboration between employees situated around the country. Or perhaps augmented reality and robotics are top of your business agenda. There’s no one answer to digital transformation, but all routes are certain to consume more

Gartner predicts that by 2020, 90% of organisations will adopt hybrid infrastructure management capabilities

bandwidth, require greater reliability and crave faster connectivity,” he adds. With the demand for information higher than ever, there’s more pressure on networks to deliver.

“In real-world figures, TalkTalk processes nearly 52bn web lookup requests on our network every day,” highlights Gooding, along with the fact that this will only increase as more devices come online via the ever-expanding Internet of Things.

To keep its business networks performing efficiently, TalkTalk is

continuing investment in solutions using virtualised software at the edge of the network. This has seen it recognised with the SamKnows industry benchmark as the number one provider in the UK for fibre broadband response times. Allied to the achievement of this benchmark, Clayson believes TalkTalk’s business customers are benefitting from its reduction in technical debt as new and more secure services are deployed.

“We’re pushing forward on cloud connectivity and services that leverage 11

“WE’RE PUSHING FORWARD ON CLOUD CONNECTIVITY AND SERVICES THAT LEVERAGE THAT IN A BIG WAY FOR OUR BUSINESS CUSTOMERS. THIS IS MORE SUCCESSFUL EVERY DAY AS WE GROW OUR USE OF THE NEW WHOLESALE PRODUCTS TALKTALK AND THE MARKET IS OFFERING, INCLUDING NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR INCREASED SPEEDS OVER EXISTING COPPER INFRASTRUCTURE” – Phil Clayson, Technology Director, TalkTalk

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D I G I TA L S T R AT E G Y that in a big way for our Business customers, this is more successful every day as we grow our use of the new wholesale products TalkTalk and the market is offering, including new technologies for increased speeds over existing copper infrastructure,” he says.

Gartner predicts that by 2020, 90% of organisations will adopt hybrid infrastructure management capabilities. How can TalkTalk help businesses prepare for this challenge?

“We use public cloud and our own on-premises equipment to serve our customer base,” reveals Clayson. “We will work further with cloud as that technology and the security around it evolves. Given what happened to us two years ago with the cyberattack (in 2015, TalkTalk suffered with the theft of the personal data of thousands of its customers), we’re very keen to make sure our offering is as secure as it’s possible to be and that quite often means we choose to do things in house rather than in the public cloud. Nevertheless, that day is here, and we’re several years ahead of Gartner’s prediction and good to go to offer enhanced infrastructure options to our business customers.”

Clayson believes that with these

new services come a greater responsibility around implementing security and governance for today’s markets, and with that tech leadership roles and board agendas are quickly changing.

“At TalkTalk we’re very tuned in to security and governance for best practice with regulatory overlays, such as a telco has from Ofcom, especially with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) coming into play in May 2018.”

He stresses these decisions have to be made very early and any organisation that doesn’t have those topics on the board agenda is going to struggle significantly at some point. “Planning is required to achieve security compliance with emerging regulations,” adds Clayson. “Our management team take a long-term view to manage this both internally and for our customer base, working with policy advisors in the business and risk management frameworks to get that compliance in place. IT is no longer something to be kept in the background. The team I run is very business aware and up to speed with policy and governance – they’re not just technical folk.”

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D I G I TA L D I S R U P T I O N

Agility through fintech

BlueOptima CEO, Jason Rolles, shakes up the challenges facing financial institutions as fintech gets disruptive W r i t t e n b y TA M S I N O X F O R D

D I G I TA L D I S R U P T I O N “THE QUESTION THAT banks have to constantly ask themselves today is – how do we become more agile and adept at dealing with the challenges that fintech presents?” says Jason Rolles, CEO of BlueOptima.

“The answer lies in enhancing the operational efficiency and effectiveness of software development operations and retaining the revenue opportunities that support them.”

The market has been fundamentally disrupted by the rise of the fintech.

Software engineers are branching out and creating solutions that are designed to neatly solve holes in the market, and they are taking away significant revenue opportunities from the banks. To resolve this, the sector needs to find new ways of becoming operationally effective in the realm of software development, to shed the skin of legacy and lumbering complexity in favour of agility and capability.

“It doesn’t take many engineers to develop a killer product or proposition and banks have thousands of these engineers working for them already,” says Rolles. “They are in the depths of the institution, tied up in maintaining legacy systems. Today, the term 16

January 2018

‘legacy system’ has a disparaging ring to it, but the reality is that these systems are holding up the financial infrastructure of the globe. They are the pillars of the finance system, and those who maintain them are delivering incremental change across massive infrastructure.”

Software engineers caught up on this treadmill often end up filling their days managing and maintaining these systems and it is easy for them to get lost. The challenge is to hold onto the talent that understands the business without losing the ability to keep the system running. What BlueOptima has done is bring insight into how these software development resources are being used and their levels of efficiency to the attention of the decision maker and executive.

Efficiencies and capacities can be meaningfully interpreted to allow for the organisation to disperse resources more effectively so talent can focus on disruptive new technologies and ideas.

“Banks gain access to the information they need to make relevant structural changes,” adds Rolles. “For example, they can see where they need less people to maintain an enhancement stream

Jason Rolles, CEO, BlueOptima

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D I G I TA L D I S R U P T I O N on an existing system and they can then take that capacity and focus on a new blockchain technology or a feature on a mobile app, or something equally important.”

More than just an idea It is no longer sustainable for the financial institution to just focus on maintaining the status quo, not anymore.

“Banks are inevitably impacted by innovation in the financial services space and need ways of becoming more adept at wielding their software capabilities,” explains Rolles.

“It is essential that they identify where they can find inefficiencies and free up capacity. Our goal is to help organisations identify these high-powered teams and individuals so they can push their resources in the right direction.”

Rolles is quick to add that these teams need free rein to innovate and exhibit excellence in engineering because these are the qualities that the fintech startups possess. If a bank is going to capitalise on an idea or technological innovation, it will be one that has emerged from these teams.

That said, a fresh challenge emerges

alongside these ideas. Given the current funding environment and the technology startup ecosystems that are sprouting up across the globe, it is unlikely that many of these are coming to life inside a bank. Many fintech startups have come from individuals that have worked in the banks or the subsidiaries of banks and have been players in the financial services sector. They come out of these organisations to create their own spaces where they feel comfortable and inspired. It could be that they found the organisation stifling or that their talent wasn’t recognised and banks need to pay attention or these individuals will simply leave.

“It is crucial to identify the top talent in the business and to give them the resources they need to make the impact they want,” says Rolles.

The data key As with almost everything today, data is the golden key that unlocks the doors to success. It is data that forms the backbone of what BlueOptima offers and allows for it to engage with the business effectively.

“We prevent a lot of the arguments that surround investment into 19

D I G I TA L D I S R U P T I O N

“The whole fintech phenomenon is going to become even more dangerous and banks will take risks in acquisitions to stay ahead” – Jason Rolles, CEO, BlueOptima high-performance software teams and disruptive innovation by using hard facts and cold data,” says Rolles. “We plug into the systems, we analyse the data and we provide irrefutable data points around what good looks like in an organisation.

We showcase data round activity, operations and risk. Until now, technology has been perceived as the plumbing of the organisation rather than the driver of marketshare and innovation – and for the bank to thrive, it has to change this mindset.”

BlueOptima uses the data that already exists in the organisation and analyses it over time to quantify output. The results then allow for the bank to determine how productive an engineer is and gives the banks the space to open up conversations around knowledge, understanding and skills. It also provides the banks with the insight needed to understand the quality of what has been delivered on an objective level.

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“The technology market is reaching heady heights and is coalescing to create a period of great disruption for numerous industries and I believe that financial services are going to be one of the first,” concludes Rolles. “I think the pace is only going to increase and the whole fintech phenomenon is going to become even more dangerous and banks will take risks in acquisitions to stay ahead. However, just as banks have to be regulated, so will those fintech disruptors when they reach a certain level and here the banks will have an advantage. They already know how to manage the regulators, they are already compliant and this could see the tables turn.”

Perhaps the future will see the banks turn to the fintechs that shook their massive foundations and say ‘it’s time to sell, isn’t it? Oh, and I want you to give me a discount because the regulator is breathing down your neck and I’m the one who knows what to do next’.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Join the Intelligensia: How the march of digital transformation will disrupt the way we do business

As companies like Dell seek to amplify, enhance and enable human progress through AI, machine learning and IoT, CTO Liam Quinn discusses the implications of ‘intelligent things’

Writ ten by DAN BRIGHTMORE

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Quinn believes IoT will reshape the way business operates 24

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LIAM QUINN GREW up on the west coast of Ireland and was drawn to a career in IT by his curiosity about how things worked.

Taking apart and reassembling his uncle’s radio transmitters, Quinn soon discovered putting together the same components could only take him so far in his quest to improve the way the radio operated. He now believes the key to any improvement is the evolution of technology on all levels, in all disciplines, coupled with that innate curiosity. Today, in his role as Dell’s Chief Technology Officer, Quinn is responsible for looking after the management, security and integration of ever more intelligent personal computer devices. With digital transformation occurring across a range of industries, to many adopters the emergence of ‘intelligent things’ may seem like bolting on a new service to an existing enterprise solution.

However, Quinn feels the opportunities arising from IoT offer a whole new way of thinking about business.

Dell has been in business for over 30 years and during that time the world has gone from huge computing machines like the VAX 11/780, which had large fans and a bulky

power supply, to an iPhone you can hold in your hand with a quad-core processor offering greater power than a computer the size of a small shed. “In the next ten to 20 years that quad core processor will get even smaller,” notes Quinn, who sees technology accelerating to become more integrated, smarter and cheaper.

“In the late 1980s the VAX cost $1mn,” recalls Quinn. “But today the quadcore processor in your iPhone maybe costs less than $60. In 10 years’ time will it be $6? That trend will continue and we will see a lot more capability in things that are non-IT. This is where IoT can bring the internet to the physical world. Right now, you’re sat at a dumb table and chair but in the future, they will be smart. The building will know people are sitting here at this end of the hallway, therefore it will be intelligent enough to know it needs to put more power where the people are, versus an empty conference room next door, so power consumption can be directed where it’s needed.”

IoT is driving the evolution of physical objects into the internet world through the application of sensors and devices. The cars of tomorrow will be even smarter than 25

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE those today which already have dozens of smart microprocessors.

Quinn explains all intelligent things can be connected, allowing blocks of data to be moved from the physical domain into an IT-based system. He maintains the challenge comes with managing, securing and accounting for these devices while integrating them into an existing IT world we have become comfortable with over the past 30 years.

“The lane just got wider so it’s very exciting,” muses Quinn. “Imagine being able to ingest nanotechnology particles to monitor existing conditions and record your vital signs from the inside… This could then be connected with your doctor who can say, maybe you don’t need that coffee or extra glass of wine because I’m noticing things in your liver… You could have personalised medicine for your body’s composition and needs.

That’s the connected world we’re moving to, one of vertical segments applying technology for the good of human beings from machines that can participate positively and make a huge difference to the lives of those living with diabetes, cancer, alzheimers or dementia.”

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Teaching digital skills will be crucial i

Dell ships tens of millions of devices annually, both on the client side and enterprise side while retaining a strong focus on machine learning and analytics. “Wouldn’t it be great if those machines, platforms, notebooks, and workstations became more intelligent?” asks Quinn. “What if they could say, ‘hey, I’m not feeling so good’ to let you know they need a hard drive replacement? This could give a predictive, and preventative, heads up

in years to come

to the IT team or owner of the system.

We’re also working on the adaption of devices to the applications that you run on them: Dell Precision Optimiser has the ability to allow a connected device to adjust its hardware and software capabilities to run a new application. The machines we’re developing now will have that ability to adjust dynamically, optimising your experience. We see this transitioning into an intelligent world for devices

and integration of the physical world to the IT world to aid security, management and productivity.”

So, which area of development is Quinn most excited about and where does he feel intelligent things can make a huge impact? Quinn cites the rapid development of augmented reality (AR) in vertical segments like manufacturing and subsequent maintenance requirements as approaches converge. “In the 27

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

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Augmented reality and virtual reality are already impacting lives

future you’ll bring your car to the garage for inspection and the mechanic will use AR glasses to look at the diagnostics of the car to provide invasive knowledge and an intuitive view of what’s happening inside the vehicle.

Once the technician fixes that, you can drive their capability from a remote location with the expert on the other side of the world available to talk them through which tools to use. This is all connected so now you have this cognitive capability of AR working with the now intelligent, enabled car, with maintenance updates delivered to a database. Nursing, diagnostics… there are so many potential applications here.”

Quinn believes Dell is in prime position to deliver this future for intelligent things via the eight strands of Dell Technologies: Dell, Dell EMC, VMware, RSA, Pivotal Software, SecureWorks, Virtustream and Boomi Inc. “You can’t just go in to a customer a multinational like an oil company, bank or smart buildings construction firm and say ‘hey, I’ve got some sensors, I’m in the IoT business!’ That’s only one element: at Dell, we can say that we not only have the gateways but the connectivity and networking aligned to the cloud with storage, data centres and market ready services. It’s great to be on this team right now given what we can deliver to customers based on their different needs.”

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CLOUD COMPUTING

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK – THE FUTURE OF BLOCKCHAIN It’s now 10 years since the first distributed blockchain was conceptualised by Satoshi Nakamoto. We take a look at five dynamic companies taking the potential for blockchain to the next level, set to disrupt global industry Writ ten by DAN BRIGHTMORE

CLOUD COMPUTING BLOCKCHAIN WAS FIRST implemented in 2009 as a core component of Bitcoin, serving as a public ledger for all transactions.

A distributed ledger database is shared and continuously added to with new records; these are all marked with a timestamp and connected to the preceding block.

With each new record or block added to the chain, information placed within becomes immutable - it cannot be altered or removed.

The nature of the technology makes it highly secure in theory, so it can be used for carrying out real-time, verifiable transactions between two parties. It not only underpins cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but other platforms like Ethereum, providing a way to record and transfer data that is transparent, safe, auditable and resistant to outages. It offers organisations that implement it the ability to be open, democratic, decentralised, efficient and – crucially for business – secure.

Ambrosus Swiss-based startup Ambrosus aims to combine development of its own sensors for the quality assurance 32

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Blockchain underpins cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin of food products and pharma, with a bespoke blockchain tailored for the supply chain aiming to be scalable and work with sensors.

Founder and CEO Angel Versetti told Gigabit about his future plans.

“We have a bolder vision than most for a blockchain with a generalpurpose protocol,” argues Versetti.

“Around this protocol, through the usage of our token (Amber), we have created the opportunity for

developers and other stakeholders in the industry to create software or hardware solutions integrating our protocol into what they’re doing to create a new stream of revenue for themselves. This has become a virtual circle where we have more network participants joining us which starts a chain reaction encouraging others.

With more participants in the network than software, providers become more incentivised. The object is

to scale up globally when our TGE (Token Generation Event) is over.�

Ambrosus has already raised hundreds of millions of dollars, but is known in the blockchain industry as a pioneer due to its rigorous KYC (know your customer) process which has seen the company reject in excess of $35m to avoid nefarious dealings within the space. Ambrosus is an official partner in the Sustainable Food Systems cluster at the United Nations 33

CLOUD COMPUTING

Founder and CEO of Ambrosus, Angel Versetti

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which is targeting new ways to tackle global inefficiencies. The company has also partnered with Trek Therapeutics to develop a pilot project seeking FDA approval to track the quality of pharma transactions. In dialogue with a range of sectors, including energy and health, Ambrosus is committed to broadening its range of public sector stakeholders, widening its network of blockchain capabilities already endorsed at EU level.

Circle Once a Bitcoin exchange, and now a money services and payments platform, Circle is among the most well-funded blockchain startups, attracting $136mn in investment from the likes of Goldman Sachs and Baidu. In September 2015, Circle received the first BitLicense issued from the New York State Department of Financial Services, and in April the following year the British government approved the first virtual currency licensure to Circle. It has since ceased to operate its Bitcoin wallet service (the preferred customer exchange being Coinbase – the world’s second highest funded blockchain platform), stating that it is “now more than ever not a

consumer Bitcoin exchange, and will continue to focus resources on global social payments and future nextgeneration blockchain technology”.

Circle still allows money transfers, with its blockchain focus targeting peer-to-peer payments and no-fee foreign payments services, which it calls ‘free cross border payments’.

However, CEO Jeremy Allaire claims the company is still the “second largest crypto asset trader in the world” using Bitcoin and Ether, directly trading over $1bn in cryptocurrency each month. “We don’t enable direct consumer trading. We market make on all major exchanges and provide OTC (over-the-counter) liquidity services to institutions,” explains Allaire. Circle is experiencing significant growth working with decentralised currencies as a behind-the-scenes player.

R3 R3 is endeavouring to develop distributed database technology for the financial sector while heading up a consortium of major bodies, including some of the world’s biggest banks and other investors. Founding members included the likes of J.P. Morgan, though the group experienced an 35

CLOUD COMPUTING exodus of sorts, seeing some integral members, including the American Investment Bank and Goldman Sachs, leave. Despite this setback, R3 rallied by pulling in $107mn in a funding round and keeping the consortium firmly in the running as a major blockchain player.

Building on the defining characteristics of blockchain systems – consensus, validity, uniqueness, immutability and authentication – R3 has developed Corda for financial applications. CTO Richard G Brown explains R3 is not necessarily building a true blockchain, but utilising key elements to provide a tailored solution. “Unlike other designs, our starting point is individual agreements between firms. We reject the notion that all data should be copied to all participants, even if it’s encrypted.

Secondly, our focus is on agreements: the need to link to legal prose is considered from the start. We know there will still be some disputes and we should specify up front how they will be resolved. Thirdly, we take into account the reality of managing financial agreements; we need more than just a consensus system.

We need to make it easy to write 36

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business logic and integrate with existing code, as well as focussing on interoperability, supporting the choreography between firms as they build up their agreements.”

Now launched, R3’s Corda partner network has grown to include over 60 companies such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel and Microsoft.

SKUChain In 2014 SKUChain’s founders saw a unique opportunity to develop blockchain as a standalone technology, distinct from cryptocurrencies, that could be applied to other use cases in an enterprise context. The supply chain offered a scenario where numerous parties were already accustomed to interacting with imperfect trust.

“There is an incentive to collaborate, but taking out the trust factor was a significant opportunity,” says Ranga Krishnan, Vice President, Technology at SKUChain. “We think of blockchain as a way to make IoT (Internet of Things) actionable. Where before you had sensors on humidity, temperature or location and this data was actively used by companies for informational purposes, you can now

Blockchain enables greater visibility over supply chains

have these signals attached to the blockchain triggering execution of contracts, enabling true automation of your supply chain. We are chairing the new supply chain working group at the Trusted IoT Alliance (an open source software foundation), and we continue to work with other standard-setting bodies critical for adoption of scale to be accelerated.”

Through SKUChain’s Popcodes (Proof of Provenance codes) Tech and Brackets platform for smart contract governance and execution

throughout the purchase cycle, organisations can place their entire supply chain ecosystem onto a permissioned blockchain network.

Staying lean until it’s ready to scale, initial commercial deployments are happening – SKUChain is working with a range of Fortune 500 companies with large supply chains so expects strong growth once its tech is proven.

Swift Swift provides financial messaging services incorporating security 37

CLOUD COMPUTING measures, making it a key influencer in the world of blockchain. It has garnered interest from the likes of Lloyds Bank and JPMorgan to test a proof of concept (PoC) of a Swift blockchain application. This initiative is targeting another area ripe for disruption, the management of international nostro accounts (a bank account held by a UK bank with a foreign bank, usually in the currency of that country) in real time.

There are 27 organisations involved in the testing process including Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank. The stature of the participants is a strong indicator of the weight this new application may carry.

“The distribution ledger technology PoC supports Swift’s goal of making cross-border payments more efficient – a mission we have championed through Swift gpi, which offers customers fast, transparent and traceable cross-border payments,” says Wim Raymaekers, Head of Banking Market at Swift.

Specific challenges to industry-wide adoption include the need to develop unique value propositions in response to the different levels of sophistication, automation and past investments of banks. Swift believes it is crucial that integration with legacy back office applications and co-existence with current processes is taken into account. “Preliminary results from the distributed ledger technology PoC are positive for this use case,” reveals Damien Vanderveken, Head of R&D at Swift. “Significant progress has been made, but it is still early days for the latest generation of blockchain technology, and it will take time before it is mature and scalable enough for mission critical applications.”

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TOP 10

TOP 10 tech unicorns Gigabit takes a look at the 10 highestvalued technology “unicorn” companies, according to Fortune’s Unicorn list Written by OLIVIA MINNOCK

TOP 10

9 PINTEREST

10 DROPBOX

Founded in 2007, Dropbox is a filehosting service which makes users’ files available from any computer or phone, with the option of synching all of one’s devices to a Dropbox account. It enables users to work on projects together or share files with family and friends. The service is currently used by 500mn people worldwide, and 200,000 businesses use Dropbox Business. The company aims to “build simple, powerful products for people and businesses”.

It is available on Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android and comes in 20 languages. Over 200 countries and territories use Dropbox and the company has 13 offices across the globe in nine different countries.

Dropbox is now worth $10bn under CEO Drew Houston.

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Pinterest was founded in California in 2012 by CEO Ben Silberman, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. The media tech company is now worth as much as $11bn and employs over 800 people. Pinterest is available as a web and mobile application which operated a software system designed to make it easier to discover information on the web, using mainly images as well as GIFs and video. It is available in over 30 languages and now has offices in six countries. In 2017, the company raised $250bn and its value raised to $12.3bn in total, so the company is set to climb on next year’s list.

7 FLIPKART

8 SPACEX

SpaceX is a venture set up by South African entrepreneur Elon Musk, who also founded electric vehicle company Tesla Motors and is working with Virgin on Hyperloop. Although Musk nearly went bankrupt when forming SpaceX in 2002, he is now worth $20bn and the company itself boasts $12bn in value. SpeaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp, is an aerospace manufacturer and space transport series company, and in 2012 it became the only private company to ever return a spacecraft from low-earth orbit. The company was founded with the aim to “revolutionise space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets”.

Flipkart, an Indian ecommerce business, was founded in Bangalore in 2007 by two ex-Amazon employees. Under CEO Sachin Bandal, the company now reports a worth of $15bn and has over 33,000 employees. India’s biggest online retailer offers a range of products including electronics, clothing, furniture, books and beauty products.

Flipkart now has a 60% market share of mobile commerce in India and serves about 50mn customers.

Sachin states the company’s dream was “creating world-class Internet company from India; a brand that can compete at a global level”. Last year, the company merged with eBay which injected $500mn as part of a $1.4bn funding round.

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TOP 10

5 SNAPCHAT 6 MEITUANDIANPING Meituan-Dianping, or China Internet Plus, was founded in Beijing in 2003.

Dianping is currently the leasing Online to Offline (O2O) platform in China and provides such services for urban areas. Under CEO Wang Xing, the company is now worth as much as $15bn. It was the first website in the world to provide independent consumer reviews on local services, but has since expanded its offering greatly. It now offers online platforms for merchant information, customer reviews, group buying, online restaurant reservation, takeout service, e-coupons and much more.

The platform has around 200mn registered users of which 75mn are active monthly users. There are 28mn reviews and counting featuring over 6mn local businesses. Around 2,300 cities across China are covered by Meituan-Dianping.

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Snapchat started in 2011 in California.

It is now operating under the holding company Snap, which includes the app service Snapchat and “spectacles�, glasses which can take photos and synch with the app. Under CEO Evan Spiegel, the company is now worth $16bn. The app was originally created by Spiegel along with Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brow, and is a mobile platform for instant messaging and multimedia sharing.

Its USP is the fact that photos, videos and messages shared via the app can only be viewed for a limited amount of time. The app reportedly has 178mn daily active users.

3 PALANTIR

4 DIDI CHUXING Formerly known as Didi Kuaidi, Didi Chuxing is one of two ride-hailing tech firms on our list. It currently provides transport for more than 450mn people across 400 Chinese cities. Having been founded in Beijing in 2012, the company is now worth $16bn. The firm offers a range of transport options in app form, including taxi hailing, private car hailing, social ride sharing in the form of Hitch, chauffer services, DiDi Bus, DiDi Test Drive and DiDi Enterprise Solutions. In 2016, the company became the second largest online transaction platform in the world after Alibaba.

Palantir was founded in 2004 in California and provides software and services, specialising in big data analysis. It is currently worth $20.5bn according to Fortune. The company produces software used by the US Intelligence Committee and the US Department of Defence in the form of Palantir Gotham, and also serves private businesses like hedge funds, banks and financial service firms with Palantir Metropolis. Its cofounder and CEO, Alexander Karp, is currently said to be worth $1.6bn. The firm says that in making “products for humandriven data analysis of real world data”, its main focus is “creating the world’s best user experience for working with data”.

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2 XIAOMI

Fortune puts Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Xiaomi’s value at $45bn. The company was founded in Beijing in 2010 by current CEO Lei Jun, whose net worth totals $6.9bn.

He founded the company on the basis that “high-quality technology doesn’t need to cost a fortune”. Offering hardware, software and internet services, the company became a unicorn very quickly due to a gap in the market for more reasonably priced smartphone and was rated top valued startup in the world in 2014, having sold more than 62mn handsets. It declined in 2015 having failed to meet shipment targets but in 2017 made a comeback to be placed as the fifth largest smartphone provider in the world. It currently has a 6.2% market share worldwide.

Recently it announced plans to focus on India, predicted to be home to 1.4bn mobile subscriptions by 2022.

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1 UBER

Uber is valued on Fortune’s list at $62bn and has a current revenue, according to Forbes, of $6.5bn.

The company, which offers ridehailing via an app, was founded in San Francisco in 2008 and is now present in 632 cities all over the world, employing a total of 12,000 people.

That’s not to mention the drivers it claims to offer “a flexible new way to earn money”. Under CEO Travis Kalanik, the company is going from strength to strength in pursuing its goal of using “technology to give people what they want, when they want it”. It has more recently launched a food delivery service, UberEATS, which is currently fast expanding across the UK. Despite some regulatory issues in some cities and complaints from local transport companies, Uber maintains that “we help strengthen local economies, improve access to transportation, and make streets safer”.

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E V E N T S & A S S O C I AT I O N S

Events The biggest and best events and conferences from around the world‌ Writ te n by A N D R E W WOO DS

E V E N T S & A S S O C I AT I O N S

Mobile World Congress (#MWC18) Fira de Barcelona, Spain 26 February - 1 March

The event is billed as the world’s largest mobile world congress with over 100,000 attendees. The MWC also stages the Global Mobile Awards 2018. Speakers will include leading figures from Accenture, BT Group, Deutsche Telecom, Ericsson, IBM, Microsoft and Telefonica. The schedule will cover a diverse program including cyber security, IoT and sustainability. There will be 2,300 exhibitors including VISA, NetNumber, ESET and Parellel Wireless. www.mobileworldcongress.com

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IOT World, USA

The Hilton San Diego Resort & Spa, USA 7-9 March 500+ senior executives and leading professionals will join in the discussions regarding the Fourth Industrial Revolution and how to define the future of the industrial IoT today. Over 80 international experts will be sharing their expertise on how the industrial IoT is changing every aspect of business as we know it. They will also share experiences. Forecast trends in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, present best practices, evaluate best-in-class projects and explain development in recent projects. www.cebit.de/home

EmTech Digital 2018

St Regis Hotel, San Francisco, USA 26-27 March Aimed at senior executives, EmTech Digital – organised

by MIT Technology – will focus on the dawn of AI and how it impacts every industry. Speakers from IBM, Cambridge University and Google will cover topics including such as: which technologies are making significant progress? How does their commercialisation affect your business? What do you need to know, right now, to stay ahead of the curve? events.technologyreview.com/emtech/digital/17

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CIO Summit Europe Paris, France 14-15 March

C-level executives from companies such as PepsiCo, Renault and Barclaycard will be attending CIO Summit Europe, which is a chance for CIOs and IT executives to meet with their technology peers from various industries, including health care, finance, insurance, government, telecom, utilities, education and more. Industry leaders and IT executives from companies such as Philips, UBS, EDF and Shell will be speaking. www.ciosummit.eu

Webit Festival Sofia, Bulgaria 26-27 June

The Webit Festival is the European edition of the Global Webit Series. Speakers include representatives from European Commission, WTO and the Global Commission on Internet Governance as well as many tech and business leaders. Topics of discussion will include smart cities, cyber security and AI. The winners of the Webit Awards 2018 will also be announced. www.webit.bg

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CeBIT 2018

Hannover Fairground, Hannover, Germany 11-15 June CeBIT is the largest and most internationally represented computer expo with 100,000+ attendees and 3,000 exhibitors. CeBIT is a show and a conference programme for professionals – CeBIT defines the latest trends, presents talks by high-calibre speakers and forward-looking panel discussions, and showcases product innovations from all over the world. Artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be in the spotlight: “AI is certainly one of the most exciting developments of our times, and one that is on the verge of revolutionising our personal and professional lives. In fact, AI literally has the potential to change the world – reason enough for it to be featured in a big way at the upcoming CeBIT,” said Oliver Frese, the Deutsche Messe Managing Board member in charge of CeBIT. www.cebit.de/home

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Culture Shift: PeoplePowered Digital Transformation at UBS Written by Romily Broad Produced by Kiron Chavda

Mike Dargan has just finished one year as Global Head of Technology at UBS. We delve into the technology strategy that aims to deliver the world’s biggest wealth manager into bold digital future

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wiss banking giant UBS has recently opened its new office building in the heart of London. A vast groundscraper tucked under the capital’s scrupulous height restrictions, it’s an all-new 12-storey, 700,000 sq ft City landmark that appears as if hewn directly from a single giant slab of polished steel.

Its design aims to reflect the enduring solidity of the 155-year-old institution, but simultaneously broadcasts a message of technological momentum.

A prominent node integrated with the City’s elaborate network of streets and alleys, the building carries the look of London’s own personal server rack.

We make our way through a vast lobby constructed much like a small mall - its outlets there to serve the needs of the building’s 5,000+ workers - and up to sumptuously appointed client meeting spaces. We’re there to talk to the man most directly responsible for delivering UBS into a singularly technological future.

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Mike Dargan, Group CIO, UBS

UBS

The Global Head of Technology Mike Dargan has not long celebrated his first anniversary as Global Head of Technology at UBS. He joined from Standard Chartered in October 2016 after a whirlwind recruitment process involving around 20 interviews. From headhunter call to contract it took just four weeks.

“When we want to move quickly, we can move quickly!” Dargan recalls.

But he’s used to moving quickly.

Dargan earned his stripes at consultancy Oliver Wyman after graduating from Oxford, working with many of the world’s top financial institutions. He then took a position at Merrill Lynch and made managing director by the time he turned 30.

The global financial crisis of 2008 could have stalled him mid-flight, but he helped weather the storm there, playing a significant role in the integration of Merrill with Bank of America, before a judicious move to Standard Chartered in 2009. Standard Chartered had ridden the storm rather better than most, and Dargan’s trajectory remained unbowed.

But while he had risen to occupy

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positions of huge strategic importance, at no point thus far had Dargan entered the technology arena specifically.

He did just that after four years at Standard Chartered, when offered the role of CIO for Financial Markets.

“I was asked to step in to improve the relationship between the business and technology and operations, and take things in a different way,” he says.

“My background, through most of my career, was not technology.

It wasn’t something I was thinking about doing. But I fundamentally believe the underlying nature of

Mike Dargan with Business Chief Europe’s Romily Broad at UBS’s striking London HQ.

banking is technology and that the world would move to tech and to the automation of operations, and so it intrigued me. I decided to do it.”

And he hasn’t looked back since.

After initially inheriting a team of 2,500 and a $250mn budget, by the time he left to join UBS three years later he was CIO of corporate and institutional banking with a $1bn budget and accountability for staff of 11,000.

Now, at UBS as Global Head of Technology, he manages a budget of 10% of the bank’s revenues and looks after a tech workforce totalling more

than 20,000. It’s a team loaded with talent and spread around the globe, tasked with enabling UBS and its core business areas – wealth management, retail banking, investment banking and asset management - to seize the opportunities of a rapidly digitising world.

Cultural Revolution “It was an intense first year, shall we say,” says Dargan. He says that while he found a committed, talented and stable organisation,

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it was one burdened by many of the usual issues of legacy infrastructure, layers of process and a patchwork of applications.

He set about changing all that, and as he describes to us the approach he took, a consistent theme quickly emerges: Dargan’s deep commitment to a people-first tech philosophy.

There’s a difference between ‘management’ and ‘motivation’, he says, so among of the first of his actions was for he and his team to hit the road.

A lot.

“I think there’s a change in what people are looking for in terms of leadership. I think people are craving a more personal style than we have in larger or more regulated institutions. So my management team and I do what we call coffee corners. Coffee corners have 20, 30, 40, 50 people in them,” he says.

The small, intimate coffee corners reflect his belief that being as open, accessible and transparent as possible is one of his greatest responsibilities. It’s a personal and very direct means of communicating

the honest views of management and to involve every member of a huge, diverse team in what’s happening.

Dargan left his Zurich base to conduct 62 coffee corners and team events in his first year – more than one per week.

“I’ve done Singapore three times, Hong Kong three times, New York four, London four or five, India two or three, Poland two or three, different parts of Switzerland… because it’s the only way.”

He also regularly blogs for internal consumption, covering topics as varied as techniques for ruthless prioritisation and achieving a sustainable work-life balance. It’s a dedication to communication aimed squarely at motivating his organisation around its purpose at the heart of the bank. He says it’s about building a collaborative culture rooted in empowerment, business alignment, customer centricity and strong technical excellence.

“For me, there’s a big piece around what that intersection is between the business and technology. How do you bring those two sides together as much as possible? Only when you’re

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Facts & Figures

Number of Employees 61,000

Bank Revenue $28 billion

working that intersection of business and technology do you bring things together. There’s a connectivity that we’re trying to build up.”

Underpinning Dargan’s culture shift as well is a desire to create a work environment fit for the needs of a modern workforce. UBS isn’t just competing with other banks for tech talent, but a galaxy of start-ups, Facebook, Google, and the like.

On that basis he says enabling a highly-regulated environment like a bank to shrug off some of its more

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Employees in Tech 20,000+

Tech budget 10% of bank revenue

prescriptive work habits is key to creating a desirable place to work, and to help foster collaboration and liberate effective decision making.

Hugely reducing the burden of inflexible KPIs was one step – it’s down from more than 100 to just 20 for the technology team. Or, at its most basic level, down to just two: 1) Identify and deliver desired outcomes; 2) do it on budget.

“If you are definitely hitting your budget, you are doing it within the parameters of risk, you are defining

“Only when you’re working that intersection of business and technology do you bring things together. There’s a connectivity that we’re trying to build up” – Mike Dargan, Group CIO your outcomes in partnership with the business… If those were your only two metrics and you understand, internalise, interpret them in the right way, that enables you to run your business.”

A diverse workforce is an empowered one, too, stresses Dargan.

His logic is straight forward - if the human population is 50-50 malefemale, then a technology organisation with too few females probably doesn’t have the right level of talent. As if timed to make the point, a few days

after we speak Dargan is joining colleagues at base in Switzerland for a week-long series of events aimed at furthering the cause of gender diversity in tech. UBS also marked International Day of the Girl recently, and has an ongoing Women in Technology initiative.

“I look at the world through many lenses. One is that I’m a father to two young daughters. Another is my job and what that means.

There’s been a big piece for us in terms of what diversity means.”

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UBS

Mike Dargan

Global Head of Technology, UBS

A five-point plan Dargan doesn’t need to digitise banking. As he points out, banking has been digital for decades.

“If you distil banking down to its essence, banking is nothing other than the digital transportation of data. But we’re in the process now, I think, of waking up to how we need to re-digitalize banking. I think there’s an increasing realisation that everything will be underpinned by technology.

“UBS actually has a very strong infrastructure; its stability is very strong. The piece that we wanted to focus on was how we reconnect the organisation with the business in a much stronger way. How do we focus on what people do, the type of people we have, how we interact with our vendors, and the underlying outcomefocused culture we wanted to develop.”

To tackle that challenge, Dargan has circled the technology team around five operational pillars of digital transformation at UBS, coffee corner by coffee corner.

First has been defining the core vision – the ultimate objective of UBS’ technology journey: “Not just for the

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technology organisation itself, but what does technology mean at UBS? How do we keep UBS competitive as the world increasingly digitises?”

Second is harmonising the ‘how’.

Dargan has placed a premium on the development of clear, business-aligned technical roadmaps. The aim is to end a pattern so ubiquitous in large organisations of siloed operations where applications and services tend to be developed in a vacuum, their outputs inconsistent and poorly integrated.

“What do we do, how do people develop technology, architecture?

So we have an efficiency strategy of standardised road maps for each area.”

The third pillar has seen the remapping of the technology organisation structure itself, from top to bottom, which in turn relates to a fourth pillar dedicated to defining and simplifying as far as possible the operational processes, KPIs and financials against which the organisation’s performance is judged.

“There’s no doubt at all that automation is a trend. Is it clear the path we’ll take? Is it clear that it’s robotics or AI? Not really...”

Read more from Mike Dargan at Gigabitmagazine.com

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Mike Dargan’s

Journey Educated Oxford (MA 1st class, Philosophy, Politics & Economics)

1999 Head of CIB, Asia-Pacific, Oliver Wyman. Leadership in Asia of management consultancy’s corporate and institutional banking arm.

2005 Managing Director, corporate strategy and M&A, Asia/EMEA/PacRim, Merrill Lynch. Aged just 30, oversaw acquisition activity including a ‘host’ of banks across Asia and the purchase of India’s largest investment bank. Helped lead Merrill Lynch-Bank of America merger during global financial crisis.

2009 Managing Director, Strategy Global Markets, Standard Chartered Bank. Strategy leadership.

2013 CIO, Financial Markets, Standard Chartered Bank. New role bridging the “very difficult relationship” between the business and its operations and technology back office. Later added wealth, security services and private banking business, before becoming CIO for corporate and institutional banking.

2016 Group CIO, UBS. Leads a 24,000-strong tech team to deliver services underpinning all the Swiss banking giant’s businesses.

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Finally, the fifth pillar articulates workforce and vendor strategy. Or, as Dargan puts it, “how we actually get stuff done”. Simplification and efficiency is the key: “I inherited a workforce that was much more vendor than permanent staff. So we made some changes and continue to make changes on that, as well as vendors. We were operating with too many vendors. We’ve exited tens so far and we have more to do by the end of the year.” Crucially, they need their vendors and partners to meet not only technical requirements but also that they share similar values and support their cultural evolution.

think of what are the five things we do.”

A is for Automation: “So automation, how do you automate processes or manual work to get the best possible outcome. So that may be AI, it may be robotics, it may be simple software, it may be unstructured [data], and so on. But: automation.”

B is for (un)Bundling: “Unbundling is really two aspects.

How do you move to an open API type environment and/or blockchain?

Embracing those sorts of technologies to drive things in a different way.”

C is for Cloud: Innovation Outcomes While Dargan’s five vision-orientated operational pillars will power the engine of continuous improvement for UBS’ technology group, another five focus points help him communicate what the outcomes of all that effort will actually look like. They are his A,B,C,D, and E of innovation.

He explains: “I think the simpler you make things, the better it is. So the ABCDE is, for me, the simplest way to

“What do I see as the biggest change we all see? I think it is banks embracing cloud as one of the core areas of what we do. Two years from now I’d expect 75 percent of our apps to be cloud-enabled.”

D is for Data: “Banking is data. As a client you identify a number, generate a transaction.

That transaction is data - it goes to an execution platform, a pricing, a trading,

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UBS

a risk, a settlement, a confirmation.

And that routes back to you as an identified number and you have done a trade. Banking is essentially just the transportation of data.”

E is for Experience: “User experience or client experience. I think more and more we need to think back from the client journey and how we design in that way, and I don’t think historically we have done. Do I think that people are going to entrust an AI bot to give them advice about their wealth and their mortgage and their children and their schooling for example?

Not really. But I do think the greater data, the greater analytics, the more technology-enabled the clientrelationship management, all can serve to better help people with what they want to do with banking.”

The future Twelve months in, Dargan has helped UBS’ vast technology team find a sharp focus to its purpose as the essential enabler of the company’s future. It’s a period that’s already

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1862

The year UBS was founded

seen the roll-out begin of a $1bn unified tech platform for UBS’ flagship wealth management business, called the One Wealth Management Platform.

It’s succeeded in rationalising a historically fragmented infrastructure globally into one centralised system.

And work continues apace on what Dargan calls the “Client Experience 20/20” (or CX2020), UBS’s strategy for constant improvement in client experience up to 2020 and beyond. It focuses on the digitalisation of endto-end processes in personal and corporate banking in Switzerland.

He’s simplified the core mission, the process by which it will be accomplished and measured, and set about facilitating 24,000 talented people to be first-rate partners to the business around the globe.

The pace won’t slacken over the next 12 months and beyond, however.

He’s quick to admit that, as with many

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large institutions racing to embrace a digital destiny, an existing, highly competent workforce will need to be supplemented by new skills.

“Do we have enough skills of the right type or the right sort? No. So this is a great plug that we are out there hiring engineers and other deeply technical people and we want them to come to UBS because it’s a great place to work.

Do we want to supplement what we have with skills as we move toward our ABCDE? Yes, we have already started down that path,” he says.

A continuous stretch towards true agility is also a goal. Agile is a methodology that demands appropriate development toolchains, automated testing, and so on, but systems mean little without the right partnership mindset, insists Dargan. True agility, and the ability to quickly provide transformative technology to the whole business, will ultimately depend on developing a collaborative organisational culture empowered to deliver it.

With every cup of coffee and with every blog post, it’s clear that maintaining the human side of technology is a mission he’s taking quite personally.

TOMORROW STREET

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN STARTUPS & CORPORATIONS Written by Laura Mullan Produced by Richard Durrant 73

A JOINT VENTURE BETWEEN VODAFONE AND TECHNOPORT, TOMORROW STREET IS LOOKING TO TAKE BUSINESS-READY STARTUPS ON A JOURNEY TO REACH THE WORLD

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he CEO of Tomorrow Street, Warrick Cramer, is all too aware of the challenges facing startups today. In 1999, he took a leap and set up his very own mobile payment security company and, like many startups today, he faced many hurdles before he found entrepreneurial success.

“If I reflect back on my personal life to when I was developing my own tech startup, it was really hard,” Cramer says. “I got so many rejections before I actually found someone that believed in the product and after that, the product went on to be implemented worldwide.

“Everyone said that it was impossible, that it would never work, and a lot of startup companies that I meet today are going through something very similar,” he notes. “A lot of founders have put everything on the line and have had to make a lot of sacrifices to get to where they are. Therefore, I really wanted to create an environment where startups could come and bring their aspirations to life.”

From networking with foreign companies to understanding international laws, Cramer has

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WARRICK CRAMER CEO of Tomorrow Street

Tomorrow Street: Bridging the gap between start-ups and big business

TOMORROW STREET

first-hand experience of the obstacles tech startups face. He is keen to help startups expand their global footprint and this is one of the many reasons why Tomorrow Street, a Luxembourgbased innovation centre, was born.

Helping businessready tech startups Harnessing the power of both the Vodafone Procurement Company (VPC) and Technoport,

Tomorrow Street is an ambitious innovation centre that strives to help business-ready tech startups to grow and expand globally.

Incubators and accelerators typically support early stage startups with everything from product concept to product launch. However, after that, startups often struggle to take the next leap to grow their business worldwide.

Striving to make a meaningful difference in the tech space,

Warrick Cramer, CEO, Tomorrow Street

Xavier Bettel, Prime Minister of Luxembourg

Deputy Prime Minister Eienne Schneider with Prime Minister Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg and VPC CEO Ninian Wilson

The Luxembourg Prime Minister on Tomorrow Street

Deputy Prime Minister Eienne Schneider with Prime Minister Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg, Ronald Schellekens – Vodafone Group Director and Ninion Wilson, CEO VPC inaugurating the Tomorrow Street innovation centre

Tomorrow Street fills a gap in the global innovation scene.

Specifically targeting late-stage startups, the innovation centre helps tech businesses expand globally in a low-risk way.

“We look at small tech startups and we say, ‘Can they scale?’, ‘Are they able to grow outside their home market?’, and if the answer is yes, then we want to bring them to Tomorrow Street,” explains Cramer. “We surround them with all the right people

to help them to achieve that and to make their idea really come to life.

“In this way, Tomorrow Street completes an entire innovation ecosystem, which does not exist anywhere else in the world,” Cramer adds. “If you’re looking at Silicon Valley, Asia or even Europe, there are plenty of accelerators and incubators.

However, there’s no-one that really does what we actually do - and that’s really about helping companies scale up and promoting disruptive

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Tomorrow Street’s signing on LB Networks

technologies across the world.”

Providing a platform for 16 different late-stage startups, Tomorrow Street is particularly interested in businesses that focus on the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and security.

“If you look at these three areas, they’re actually all interlinked,” observes Cramer. “If you are looking into IoT you’re going to need security, and if you’re pulling data out of those billions of devices, then you will need something that can actually crunch the data and make it useful and so this where AI comes into play.

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“The world is moving very quickly,” Cramer adds, “and having those three pillars of focus is important because that’s where we think the world is going.”

Harnessing the power of Vodafone As a joint venture between the Vodafone Procurement Company and Technoport (Luxembourg’s national startup incubator), Tomorrow Street leverages the resources and talent of both organisations to create something far beyond anything else in the innovation sphere.

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“Tomorrow Street completes an entire innovation ecosystem, which does not exist anywhere else in the world” Warrick Cramer CEO, Tomorrow Street

Targeting late-stage business-ready tech companies, selected startups enjoy free access to Tomorrow Street’s facilities, Vodafone’s supply chain, and will have up to three years to grow.

Situated on the top floor of the Vodafone Procurement Company (VPC) building in Luxembourg, the Tomorrow Street Innovation Centre leverages the international network and skillset of the VPC to drive and manage massive growth.

“The Vodafone Procurement Company is a very powerful engine,” Cramer says. “The reason why I say that is because we have suppliers coming in here every single day. The startups get access to all the different type of roadmaps in the world and get to really see in advance what’s going to happen in this space over the upcoming years.”

The VPC is, by all means, an immense operation. It centrally manages close to 80% of Vodafone’s global spend, looks after 14,000 supplier relationships, and works closely with internal business partners to deliver the company’s procurement strategy across more than 450 product categories.

By utilising this engine for growth, Tomorrow Street allows startups the opportunity to build bridges between some of the most exciting companies in the world as well as Vodafone’s customer base of more than 500mn people.

“Within the Vodafone Procurement Company, you have a really deep level of knowledge that is

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all together in one location, which doesn’t happen in other parts of the business,” comments Cramer.

“What that means for a startup is that they can meet people and other suppliers that can actually make a difference to their business.

From a connection or networking point of view, it’s very powerful.”

A public-private partnership Luxembourg’s national startup incubator, Technoport, works alongside the VPC to give selected tech startups the chance to grow their global footprint. This publicprivate partnership will support up to 16 tech startups so that they can grow and foster talent in the country.

Technoport has been supporting entrepreneurs since 1998 as a public, national startup incubator for Luxembourg. Over the past five years, it has approved 42 new companies in the incubator with 24 leaving successfully. With this proven experience in the startup world, Technoport offers a hands-on mix of support and services.

Alongside VPC, the pair are hoping

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to make a lasting impact on the tech sector and the country at large.

“I think this joint venture is a really fantastic opportunity for Vodafone, Technoport and the Luxembourg government. It really shows how public and private partnerships can work together and co-exist so it’s a win-win model for both of us,” observes Cramer.

“From a Vodafone perspective, the Innovation Centre brings new companies and new technologies to our customers. We get to see what trends and disruptive technologies are entering the market and I think that really gives us great insight because a company doesn’t have to be big anymore to make a difference. From a Technoport point of view, as Luxembourg’s national startup incubator, it’s really about creating jobs in the economy, creating new industries, and fostering talent in Luxembourg.”

Digital Luxembourg Located in the business hub of Kirchberg, Luxembourg, Tomorrow Street is strategically positioned

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in what is widely regarded as a ‘startup nation.’

Geographically located in central Europe, the country is pushing digitisation and is making its mark as an epicentre for digital disruption.

“There’s so many big, corporate organisations based here in Luxembourg and the beauty of it is that you can actually go and talk to them because they’re your neighbours or you’re closely associated.

The ability to have those conversations without the red tape or hierarchy that normally exists in a bigger country doesn’t happen here and I think that’s what makes Luxembourg so powerful.”

Ranked 9th in the world for both IT readiness and global innovation, Luxembourg is widely recognised as a driver for innovation. Cramer believes this is largely due to the government’s ability to adapt and openmindedness to new technological advancements.

“The Luxembourg government is great because they are very forward-thinking,” he says. “Historically, if you think about where they’ve come from, they went from the steel industry to banking, and now to ICT. I think Luxembourg is a very dynamic country with a dynamic government. Now they’re doing a lot of work in the innovation sector and they’re really helping to foster growth in the sector.”

Initiating human connections With a professional and culturally diverse team, the talent and expertise of Tomorrow Street’s workforce

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2017

The year that Tomorrow Street was founded

25

Number of employees at Tomorrow Street

16

The number of startups that Tomorrow Street will support

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are integral to its success. Boasting over 20 languages and experience across corporate, entrepreneurial and technical fields, the staff at Tomorrow Street work closely with startups towards a mutual goal of driving growth in the tech industry.

“From my perspective, the team is the most important thing at Tomorrow Street,” observes Cramer. “They are more important than me or anyone else. They all bring different specialised skills to the table and they add value to a lot of the startups that are coming to the centre. I might have a vision, but I need a fantastic team behind me to make it really come to life.”

Indeed, whilst digital technology is the core focus of Tomorrow Street, Cramer believes that the way in which the centre initiates human connections is what gives it a competitive edge.

“Tomorrow Street is really about human connections,” he says. “It’s about being supported, being able to bounce ideas off people, and it’s about when you are having a bad day, you can know that there are people around

you that can connect and understand exactly what you’re going through.

“Technology is fantastic in the way it can connect people across the globe, but it’s still not the same as physically being there with someone and being present,” Cramer adds. “I think that’s where the human aspect is very important and we should never lose sight of that as we develop these digital ways of communicating. I think, equally, if not more important, that the technology is the human aspect.”

Collaboration and Partnership Collaboration is, by all accounts, an integral part of Tomorrow Street’s DNA. Since its launch in September this year, the company has garnered support from major players in the digital technology sector. These partnerships are extremely advantageous to the startups involved as they provide networking opportunities, resources, and leading industry knowledge.

“Tomorrow Street is all about collaboration and partnership,” says Cramer. “I think the founding principles

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Break out space inside Tomorrow Street offices

of the centre and its core values revolve around how we can actually work with our partners and people in the future. We’re very lucky to have the support of our partners and to have an environment where we can all work together under one roof on new and exciting technologies that could potentially change the world.�

Tomorrow Street Life changing for small businesses

Making a difference Overlooking the bustling business hub of Luxembourg city, it seems that Tomorrow Street is truly at the epicentre of something extraordinary. It offers both a professional and creative environment, with themed pods and sleek boardrooms on-hand for the selected startups. Combined with the expertise and resources provided, it is easy to

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visualise the ground-breaking startups that will soon occupy this space and transform the tech sector.

“I think we’re at the start of something really great here,” reflects Cramer. “I’ve travelled around the globe and talked to many governments and large corporate organisations and a lot of the feedback that I get is that we’ve got something that can really make a difference. I think the next five years will be very exciting for the innovation centre. I think we are going to grow exponentially, to be really honest with you.”

The tech industry is often preoccupied with finding a silver bullet or a so-called ‘unicorn’

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“Working in a big organisation, we can sometimes forget that some of the small gestures that we can make can have a big impact on small startups and companies.

We can really make a difference and that can be lifechanging” Warrick Cramer CEO, Tomorrow Street

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company, however, Tomorrow Street is about more than that – it’s about taking business-ready startups to a global stage, helping disruptive technologies enter the market and, most importantly, truly revolutionising the tech sector.

“For me personally, one of my core missions is trying to make a difference,” says Cramer. “It’s not always about looking for that unicorn or that silver bullet because, although

we’d love to find it, it shouldn’t be our main focus point. Working in a big organisation, we can sometimes forget that some of the small gestures that we can make can have a big impact on small startups and companies.

We can really make a difference and that can be life-changing.”

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ENGIE ELECTRABEL: DIGITISATION LEADING TO CUSTOMER SATISFACTION Written by Laura Mullan Produced by Andrew Lloyd

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As an environmentally-conscious, customer-focused energy provider, ENGIE Electrabel is going back to basics to ensure its IT systems are a solid foundation for innovation

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o one is on course for the energy revolution quite like ENGIE Electrabel. By championing the so-called ‘three Ds’ – decarbonisation, decentralisation, and digitalisation – the Belgiumbased subsidiary of ENGIE is leading the way towards a low-carbon future.

Yet, the company’s digitisation strategy is not only helping it take up the fight against climate change, it is also aiding ENGIE Electrabel’s efforts towards operational excellence and customer satisfaction.

At the heart of the company’s digitisation is Chief Information Officer Marc-Grégoire Lallemand.

IT is, by all accounts, a driver of business at ENGIE Electrabel Marketing & Sales activities, and Lallemand is confident that

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digitisation will be crucial in making its low-carbon, customerfocused vision a reality.

“At ENGIE, we’re really transforming the business,” Lallemand observes.

“We have positioned ourselves as a company that goes beyond the standard sale of energy. We’re looking to produce more creative tools to make progress in the world, whether that’s for the environment or for our customers, and certainly, in my world of marketing and sales, it is extremely IT-driven.”

Silence in IT Not only is Lallemand a CIO, he also describes himself as a Chief Silence Officer and is keen to promote a dual strategy based on silence in IT to enable a move

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Marc-GrĂŠgoire Lallemand Chief Information Officer, ENGIE Electrabel

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“It’s very encouraging to see that we are moving the needle, we are really changing the company from an industrial company that only produces and sells energy to a more creative one, that is working for progress in this world” Marc-Grégoire Lallemand Chief Information Officer, ENGIE Electrabel

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to Business 4.0. With a strong presence spanning six continents and 70 countries, thousands of activities happen at ENGIE Group every day. For Lallemand, if the basic IT systems can run efficiently, silently, and at a reasonable cost, then his team can focus on projects that add value for its customers.

To meet the demands of Business 4.0, Lallemand and his team improved the company’s operational excellence whilst reducing its operating expense.

Between 2011 and 2016, the firm reduced its IT operational costs by 40% and it intends to reduce it further thanks to its lean 2018 programme.

By streamlining the basics and getting silence in IT, ENGIE Electrabel has gained the freedom and resources to focus on disruptive digital tools.

“You cannot move to Business 4.0 if you can’t sufficiently free up your resources and if don’t have silence in IT,” Lallemand explains.

“Until your current IT systems are up to scratch, your team don’t have the time to work on the next phase, the next developments.

It is extremely ineffective and costly if your resources are busy tackling past issues instead of focusing on future innovations and that’s why we have been focusing on silence in IT to start with.”

Customer-centric Since 1905, ENGIE Electrabel has evolved to become more than just an energy provider. As part of the ENGIE Group, it has honed its vision and become a customerfocused company that offers a spectrum of innovative ideas and digital tools. By overhauling its system architecture and offering personalised services, ENGIE is empowering its customers and raising the bar in the energy sector.

“There is a lot of IT-intensive activity at ENGIE and its very customer-focused,” says Lallemand.

“We’ve been busy developing new products and services to empower our customers because whilst having energy is important, what we really want to offer is comfort, as well as energy.”

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Digitally disrupting the energy sector Thanks to digital trends such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, ENGIE is gaining a 360-degree view of its customers, building intelligent applications, and creating a dialogue with its customers. In this way, ENGIE Electrabel is not only providing energy, but also providing peace of mind.

“Big data is extremely important in today’s world and so it is clear to see Number of employees why ENGIE wants to become a dataat ENGIE Electrabel driven company,” comments Lallemand.

“Certainly, in order to provide added value to the customer, we need to be able to get and crunch the data for our customers and offer personalised solutions that make sense for them.

Customers were accustomed to just getting energy from us in the past but now what we really provide is services. That is where big data comes into play.”

Robotic process automation is another area of focus for the Belgian firm. “The main purpose of our RPA project is to reduce the repetitive, low value-adding tasks that our staff often have to do,” notes Lallemand. “This gives our workforce more time to serve the customer and they are happier because they can focus their efforts on more meaningful, customer-focused jobs.

“As well as this, we have also just launched a messaging platform so that we can speak

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directly with our customers using the everyday tools they use to talk with their family and friends.”

Continually evolving As a customer-focused energy provider, a responsible producer of electricity, and a committed societal player, ENGIE Electrabel is striving to be top energy supplier for Belgium.

Boasting around 2.8mn customers,

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the firm is leading the transition towards a low-carbon future.

However, ENGIE Electrabel doesn’t underestimate the challenges that lie ahead and is keen to evolve and grow.

“We are in the midst of a big transformation programme that has been very successful for ENGIE,” says Lallemand. “It’s very encouraging to see that we are moving the needle, we are

“It all comes back to the ‘three Ds’ – decarbonisation, decentralisation, and digitisation” Marc-Grégoire Lallemand Chief Information Officer, ENGIE Electrabel

really changing the company from an industrial company that only produces and sells energy to a more creative one, that is working for progress in this world.

“This is a big shift in our mindset and it all comes back to the ‘three Ds’ – decarbonisation, decentralisation, and digitisation,” he adds “This shift is about much more than the IT, of course, but the company’s

digitalisation strategy is crucial to making these changes a reality.”

Whether its creating new, innovative digital tools or working closely with partners it seems that agility and customer centricity has been key to ENGIE Electrabel’s success – and, of course, this has all be achieved silently with IT.

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CDLAN’s Caldera21 puts Milan on the colocation map Written by Tom Wadlow Produced by Lewis Vaughan

CDLAN SRL

Having opened in June 2016, company Founder and CEO Corrado Del Po gives the inside track on the state-of-the-art Tier IV data centre

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passion for IT and growing fascination of the internet while studying in Milan led Corrado Del Po to found CDLAN in 2000, a company which today boasts a $20mn turnover and has elevated the city’s reputation for high quality data services.

Last year, the business opened its most impressive asset to date, Caldera21, a Tier IV equivalent colocation data centre in the heart of Milan’s data district, Caldera Park.

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“The Italian colocation industry has been historically dominated by telco data centres while the internet core was growing in Caldera Park, a private campus and the most network dense area in the city,” Del Po explains.

“It is only in recent years that massive data centres have been launched around Milan, sites managed by large international companies.”

CDLAN certainly competes with the global players that have moved into town, no better demonstrated

than by the recent awarding of ISO 27001: 2013 and ISO 9001: 2015 quality management certifications.

Its clients can be rest assured that their data is safe when housed in one of its facilities.

Caldera21 This rings true at the company’s newest colocation data centre, Caldera21. A purpose-built data centre, as opposed to the other facilities on the Caldera Park

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ITALIAN COOLING SOLUTIONS HiRef develop innovative and high technology cooling solutions for Data Centers and telecom shelters with the highest reliability. HiRef offer the most effective solutions for end user needs through continuous R&D and clear customerorientated philosophy. All the strategic phases are carried out inside HiRef premises, based in Italy: research and development, design, assembling, performance tests

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“High resiliency, high power density, high security level and redundant connectivity – having all of these qualities meant that our data centre was natively born without a competitor” CORRADO DEL PO, FOUNDER AND CEO, CDLAN

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campus, it is also the site’s only exclusively colocation facility.

“With a multi-year experience operating in the business campus and a good understanding of what new and existing customers wanted from their co-lo provider, we have simply built up a data centre whose features were unique compared to the existing campus data centres,” Del Po says.

“High resiliency, high power density, high security level and redundant connectivity – having all of these qualities meant that our data centre was natively born without a competitor. Essentially, we built a five-star hotel on the last piece of land available in a city with only three-star hotels.”

Being a 3,100 sqm building with an initial 400 rack capacity and 1,400 sqm of whitespace, Caldera21 is physically sizable as well as technologically future-proof.

Del Po also points to the sustainable credentials of the data centre, which include energy efficient lighting and an effective, bespoke cooling system.

The latter in particular is emphasised

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by Del Po as key to cutting energy use. The 800mm raised floor allows breathing space for wiring and helps to distribute heat, while the internal mechanics of the building permit hot and cold aisle containment which helps to eliminate hotspots.

Despite the constraints of operating in a business campus, which limits the size of the cooling system that can be installed outside of the building, Caldera21 still achieves a 1.35 annualised power usage effectiveness (PUE).

with speed and a personal touch, key components that Del Po is eager to maintain.

“Human relationships define our customer service and support,” he says. “CDLAN is a 30-people company and even if we implemented a full suite of self-provisioned services through our customer portal, we still prefer to maintain a personal contact between our customers and staff.”

Another crucial factor in ensuring customer happiness for Del Po is offering value, and CDLAN has greatly

Customer-centric CDLAN’s team handle all technical and customer engagement operations, allowing it to operate

CORRADO DEL PO Founder and CEO, CDLAN

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diversified its portfolio of services in order to become more relevant to its clients. As well as providing fibre optic, ADSL and XDSL, wireless and transit IP internet solutions to businesses in Milan, CDLAN also provides a number of Voice over IP services. This is on top of the cloudbased staples like disaster recovery, virtual servers, remote backup, data storage and ecommerce functions.

As well as the ISO certifications, the company has other accreditations that demonstrate its ability to deliver its ever-widening suite of services. It has achieved Level 3 Master Italian Reseller status, a testament to the quality and cost-effectiveness of its broadband provision, and has also been awarded professional service provider status by VMware.

With the global colocation data centre market set to grow from $31.52bn this year to $62.30bn by 2022, growing at over 14.5% a year, CDLAN is well placed to take advantage of businesses in the Milan region looking to reap the advantages on offer.

Del Po concludes: “Our goal will

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“CDLAN is a 30-people company and even if we implemented a full suite of selfprovisioned services through our customer portal, we stillw prefer to maintain a personal contact between our customers and staff” CORRADO DEL PO FOUNDER AND CEO, CDLAN

be to leverage from co-lo and cloud services and to grow our value-added services. The premium position of our state-of-the-art data centre in the heart of the Italian internet, the technical capabilities to tailor customised solutions and the smart way we move compared to larger enterprises, will help us achieve this.”

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Pride of Norway: How Green Mountain is impacting the global data centre industry Written by Nell Walker Produced by Lewis Vaughan

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Tor Kristian Gyland, CEO of Green Mountain, describes the wealth of competitive advantages offered by his business in its quest to be the greenest data centre business in the world

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ounded by the Smedvig family, a group well-renowned in Norway since 1915, Green Mountain – an exceptionally sustainable co-location data centre business – is perfectly placed in the most prolific hydroelectric hub around. The Smedvig family had spent decades in the oil and gas industry, even implementing the first Norwegian-owned oil rig in the North Sea, before exiting that market in 2006, and buying a great deal of property with which to make smart investments. One such investment was Green Mountain.

Tor Kristian Gyland has around 25 years of experience in the industry and joined the Green Mountain team in 2010, a year after its inception.

Within his former Chief Operating Officer role, Gyland was focused on operational and technical responsibilities, as well as establishing the two data centre sites Green Mountain currently operates. Now, he has taken the helm as Chief Executive Officer, and leads the business in its drive to be the greenest data centre business in the world.

Thanks to investor faith in the Smedvig family to make the right decisions, Green Mountain found its feet quickly, and is now a major player in the local and international data centre market.

“Norway is in a unique position thanks to the amount of hydro power being produced,” says Gyland. “A lot of countries in Europe are quite envious of that, and it was one of the reasons behind the decision for the Smedvig family to invest in a data centre in Norway. They were following that industry, and saw that Norway had a unique potential to take a huge part of the co-location market.”

Sustainability was a vital ingredient for this project. “The first data centre location we were able to get hold of close to Stavanger, was a former NATO ammunition storage facility inside a mountain and has a fjord next to it that enables natural cooling. The goal was then to build the greenest data centre in the world, and we are certainly a market leader for that. We are setting the green standard.”

While using hydroelectric energy and cold water for cooling is nothing new in Norway, Green Mountain has

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Design a platform for the future Your data centres must stand up to current and future demands for increasing capacity, performance and uptime. Our Infrastructure as a Platform solutions address the key building blocks of agile, scalable data centres: risk management, network migration, power optimisation, thermal efficiency and data centre infrastructure management enablement. Deployment is planned to your site, schedule and budget specifications.

For more information, contact your Anixter representative or visit anixter.com/datacentre. anixter.com/emea

Products. Technology. Services. Delivered Globally.

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upscaled those natural resources heavily to the extent that no competitors have an identical solution.

With the Stavanger data centre successfully opened in 2013, customers were soon requesting another in a different region with zero redundancy. Thus, Green Mountain opened a second data centre at a brownfield location in Telemark a year later. This data centre has no real limitation on land, ensuring the business can continue to grow, and is proving to be of particular interest to international customers.

The mistake some people make, says Gyland, is thinking that Norway is in the middle of nowhere, but those in the know are aware of Norway’s exceptional latency.

“We’re quite close to London,” he explains. “The latency from the Stavanger location to London is 6.5 milliseconds, and the cost of operating a data centre within London compared to Norway is incomparable. We are able to deliver capacity at a much more competitive price, especially when you add in that the power cost in Norway is a third of what it is in

the UK. As a result, we have a lot of interest from the UK market moving outside of London and seeing the benefit of our data centres.”

The advantages of Green Mountain’s location are unending, and while the business always keeps its eye on the market elsewhere, Gyland and his management team have yet to find another nation that even remotely compares.

“Our belief that building where the power is and using fibre cables to transport the data communication, rather than transporting power, has proved a successful model for us – but we are always looking into opportunities, both inside and outside of Norway,” he states.

Some of the highest levels of sustainability in the world are not all Green Mountain has to offer customers. The business offers two solution models depending on the volume of data the customer needs to store; for a smaller volume, Green Mountain can create and fill a hundred-rack room in around three months using trusted contractors who are used to establishing new

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“We are able to deliver capacity at a much more competitive price, especially when you add in that the power cost in Norway is a third of what it is in the UK” – Tor Kristian Gyland, CEO

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infrastructure. Thanks to the cooling system, the business is able to go to a high capacity per rack, meaning that space and temperature are not issues.

Larger companies needing over two megawatts of data space can expect to have the space they need created within six months, and while Green Mountain is unable to be quite as flexible with this option, it is still one of the most efficient choices.

This level of flexibility is made simple thanks to Green Mountain’s grasp of advanced IT. After identifying early on that the business required a DCIM (data centre infrastructure management)

Sustainability is key to Green Mountain’s operations

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Inside a Green Mountain data centre

solution for its customers, Green Mountain originally used a standard vendor service, but quickly realised that it wasn’t good enough.

“There were a lot of limitations,” Gyland explains. “The cost of consultants was exploding, there were licensing issues, and problems with integration. So, three years ago, we decided to develop our own system.

“The one thing about us operating as a co-location facility is that we’re not that involved in what’s happening in the rack – that’s the

customer’s responsibility – and a lot of the DCIM products cover the entire range of rack information, so we were able just to take what we needed for our requirements and built it into our own system.”

One major advantage of the service Green Mountain has ended up with is cutting down on administrative work, due to the system itself generating reports for the customer. The customer can see the overview of what is happening with their servers in real-time, but on top of that, Green Mountain creates PDF reports and automatically bills clients for power.

“We wanted a solution where we could automatically match the agreed SLA [service-level agreement] with the achieved SLA. We had that as a goal and spent half a year developing our own solution. Having gone live in October last year, this solution has revolutionised the market. A lot of our competitors see what we’ve done and are envious of it. We have even received several awards for it.”

So where can Green Mountain go from here? Gyland is currently focussed on further improving sustainability within

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the business, despite having most elements of that ticked off thanks to the location. But on top of that, waste management is a priority, and also the waste management of the company’s customers. It stands to reason that a business fiercely proud of its lack of environmental impact would hold standards for its clients too.

“We have KPIs on the amount of waste being recycled, and if our customers are not recycling within our KPIs, we let them know,” Gyland states.

Green Mountain’s other focus is continuing to be competitive and connected. It has worked extensively on Norway’s connectivity as it has historically been an issue,

due to the size of the land mass compared with a small population.

As such, the business has invested heavily in fibre to the point that its connectivity is now competitive within the European market.

“Having all those elements in place, my main focus will be bringing that message out in the international market and attracting more clients,” Gyland says. “We have an employee in Toronto working on the American market, where the focus is moving to the Nordics, and two sales people employed in the UK, with more to come internationally.

“It is now being noted that Norway is special and I want to keep that awareness growing.”

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MANAGING ENERGY THE SMART WAY The CIO of NAES has spent a hectic couple of years getting the company ready for a future defined by growth and efficiency Written by John O’Hanlon Produced by Andy Turner

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n 2001, NAES was acquired by industrial giant Itochu, a Global 250 trading company – second in size among Japanese companies only to Mitsubishi.

Energy is one of its key sectors, which made NAES the leading independent operator of powergenerating facilities, a strategic target for the company. Today, NAES is recognized as the go-to partner across the industry, providing clients with operations, maintenance, fabrication, construction, engineering, asset management, technical/financial advisory, energy management and technical services.

With the financial backing of its parent company, NAES has pursued an aggressive program of acquisition during the last five years.

Recent additions include Gridforce Energy Management (July 2017), which ensures that clients’ power flows reliably while enhancing their profitability and reducing their risk exposure; and PurEnergy (June 2016), an asset management firm that frees power plant owners and lenders from day-to-day operational

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duties while optimizing the economic performance of their assets.

These and three other acquisitions have helped to expand the Issaquah, Washington-based company into a $750mn enterprise. As CIO Jim Dionisio sees it, NAES cannot merely keep pace with the digital world; it needs to be led and enabled by IT at every stage, from its office infrastructure right though to customer relations. “If you don’t have a strong relationship with technology in your business, you are probably going out of business,” he says.

In his 30-year career, Dionisio has created IT solutions for Fortune 500 companies and many state and local government agencies. When he joined NAES in July 2015, he found that the infrastructure was not entirely ‘enterprise standard.’

The relatively new leadership team presented him with the challenge of transforming NAES into a leaner, more agile organization while retaining the core values that had made it the industry leader – and not forgetting today’s top businesscritical concern, cybersecurity.

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James ‘Jim’ Dionisio CIO

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This was no small ask. “It required serious agility from an IT perspective to reform the business in short order and bring people up to speed,” Dionisio says, “so I’ve been very busy.” He started by replacing an aging infrastructure, working with key business partners to standardize things corporate-wide. For basic

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but essential document copying and control, he called in Pacific Automation as part of a complete top-to-bottom update. For the infrastructure rebuild, he partnered with Cisco to support the growth that was taking place.

Considering how small and lean a team he was working with, Dionisio knew that routine business processes

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should not be managed in-house.

The people he hired needed to focus on strategic management of data – not back office maintenance.

“Key to my success here is having great people managing the data,” he says. “That’s been critical.”

Since he can’t afford dedicated people for functional roles such as web development or IT procurement, he now turns much of this work over to third parties like CDW. He hired

a few essential people: a project manager, a database administrator and someone to manage the critical SharePoint platform that supports all of NAES’s power plants. A business intelligence analyst will complete the team for the time being.

“I brought in people who understood what building an enterprise business is all about,” Dionisio recalls. “I now run the smallest IT shop I have ever had, but we do more with less. I’m a big

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“Key to my success here is having great people managing the data” – Jim Dionisio, CIO, NAES

believer in surrounding yourself with the brightest people you can find.”

With his team in place, he set about shifting platforms such as MS Office, Email, SharePoint and Storage onto the cloud. His vision was to add hyper-convergence across NAES’s subsidiary firms to ensure that all the back-end systems would be easy to manage as resources expanded. To help achieve better tracking of incidents, tasks and changes, he brought in cloud computing specialist ServiceNow. Dionisio took a moment to enthuse about the current cloud-based Office suite. “Microsoft has done an

excellent job on the cloud services side, and we consider them a strong partner,” he says. “We love tools like Skype for Business, which is great for videoconferencing and IM’ing. I can be on a call at my desk, transfer to mobile and continue it on a train if I have to.”

The bread-and-butter business for NAES is still its work in the energy sector, in which it operates and maintains some 160 power plants.

Because these facilities are spread across the United States, Mexico and Canada, robust communications is a key enabler for the enterprise and its 4,200 employees.

Acquiring a new company and its

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Engaging customers?

Optimizing operations?

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Adopting new technologies can be a daunting task. Hear from others who are leading their industries in digital transformation.

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staff, in Dionisio’s view, should never be just a matter of absorbing it. “We give them time to settle in,” he adds.

“My job is to manage migrating them into our systems, moving them into our domain, getting them onto our e-mail system, and so on.” While every acquisition is unique, the process has gotten smoother, he believes, because he’s had his team write and discuss lessons learned after each one. They then do a gap analysis to improve their next migration. “The excitement of IT,” Dionisio adds, “is that there’s always something new and positive from which you can learn.”

Analytics and business information will be his team’s main concerns going forward. It is currently working with company leaders to select a single ERP platform to replace the assorted systems used by various units across the enterprise. “We need to be on a unified system rather than continue to manage the legacy systems our acquisitions bring with them,” Dionisio says. “For example, we’re currently managing six different accounting systems that we want to consolidate into one centralized ERP.” A vendor

will be chosen shortly, with the implementation slated for Q1 of 2018.

Dionisio is also moving NAES from the Salesforce CRM platform to Microsoft Dynamics. He has no basic criticism of the existing system except that it takes too big a bite out of his budget. “Since we’re doing so much of our work on the Microsoft cloud already,” he explains, “I was able to bundle MS Dynamics and get my costs down to almost a quarter of what a Salesforce renewal would have cost me.”

Migrating to the cloud in itself has yielded a direct saving of more than $2mn. “I like saving money – that’s the other half of the CIO hat,” he quips. “To keep doing that, we not only have to continue to innovate, we must consolidate. Every part of the business depends on technology to make it as effective and as affordable as it can be.”

A case in point: NAES recently changed over to Gensuite as its dedicated program for managing safety, training and compliance across its extensive fleet of plants.

This replaced a motley assortment

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“I need the wherewithal to know the business and identify the problems. If I kept my head in the sand, I’d miss the next new thing that’s just around the bend” – Jim Dionisio, CIO, NAES

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of products, each of which needed to be supported separately. “I was faced with having to hire another person,” says Dionisio, “but by consolidating everything into Gensuite, I avoided increasing my headcount.” While the new program has brought immediate benefits by standardizing training, he points out that change has to be managed sensitively. “Nobody likes being asked to abandon the thing they’re used to, even for a better system!”

Jim Dionisio loves his work, regularly arriving at the office at 5:30am and often extending his workday even beyond his 7:00pm arrival home. He’s a great believer in reading the latest literature and attending as many conferences as he can. “As CIO, my job is to understand how IT tools can solve problems,” he says. “So, I need the wherewithal to know the business and identify the problems. If I kept my head in the sand, I’d miss the next new thing that’s just around the bend.”

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A STORY OF

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION

AT RUBIE'S COSTUME COMPANY

Rubie’s Costume Company is the largest designer, manufacturer and distributor of Halloween costumes and accessories in the world. Chief Information Officer Greg Tsirulnik explains how the familyowned company is using new software systems to stay ahead of the competition Written by Fran Roberts Produced by Andy Turner

R U B I E ’ S C O S T U M E C O M PA N Y

“R

ubie’s has been, and still is a family owned company,” reveals Greg Tsirulnik, Chief Information Officer.

The three principles of the Beige family continue to be intimately involved in the day to day operations and the growth of the company.

“They’ve created an environment that allows the employees to be creative and come up with a variety of interesting and out of the box ideas, designs for the products, as well as ways to improve already an excellent customer service. It’s clear that they put their heart and soul into everything that they do. They don’t just create a product for the sake of creating a product,” Tsirulnik states. “They take pride in what they do. It’s not just about the bottom line but also about the customer.”

This sense of pride and family involvement is seen throughout Rubie’s, which today employs over 2,000 people worldwide. “What I find remarkable is that there are several generations working in the company. It is not uncommon to see an individual with the company for 25, 30 years,

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“We’ve been here for 66 years, and I don’t really see us slowing down” – Greg Tsirulnik, Chief Information Officer and their offspring continue the tradition working for the company in various areas of business. It’s kind of cool and refreshing to see that type of love for the brand. Today there are several next-generation Beige family members that work in various departments: production, sourcing, sales, marketing and ecommerce.

The company is still young and growing and it’s evident of the younger generation impact on its growth.”

M A N U FA C T U R I N G

“RUBIE’S HAS BEEN, AND STILL IS A FAMILY OWNED COMPANY” – Greg Tsirulnik, Chief Information Officer

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R U B I E ’ S C O S T U M E C O M PA N Y

‘Rubie’s Costume Company is the largest designer, manufacturer and distributor of Halloween costumes and accessories in the world’

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Embracing ecommerce Despite being nearly 70 years old, Rubie’s has moved with the times and embraced modern technology and industry trends to stay ahead of the competition. “I believe that the online industry is going to continue its growth. We’ll have to adapt to that to stay competitive. The industry is taking its direction from the online consumer. We are seeing more and more sales by marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay which we are actively working with,” explains Tsirulnik. “Ecommerce shopping is becoming more of a standard.”

The popularity of online shopping has also changed the way that consumers purchase products from Rubie’s. “People usually try to order as far ahead as possible using the online sites,” Tsirulnik reveals. “The trend has been that in the retail stores – whether it’s the several of our flagship stores located in New York or the customer stores throughout the world – it seems that customers order online and go to the store when it’s much closer to Halloween time so they can see the product, touch the product and buy

costumes when online stores can’t offer the shipping methods to get it in time.”

Enhancing its hardware is also key to keeping Rubie’s ahead of the competition. “We are working on advancing our business continuity planning as well as disaster recovery. A lot of solutions have already been implemented, but as you know technology’s always evolving,” acknowledges Tsirulnik.

“We’re now looking to the cloud and outsourcing to partners like Microsoft to better enhance the solutions that are already in place.”

Partnering prowess Rubie’s has already collaborated with some key software partners to more effectively manage the company’s operations. “One of the partners that we work with is NCG. We utilize their web PLM [Product Lifecycle Management] system. Through the partnership that we have developed, we use the system to create designs.

It’s an entire lifecycle, so from the concept to the actual design, to style adaptation, through different technical specifications, license approvals,

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timelines and more,” details Tsirulnik.

All that information is entered into the collaborative PLM system that is being utilized across all the Rubie’s products – costumes, accessories, wigs, masks, hats – and across multiple brands as well. “The PLM system allows us to control the production approval process, designs, and standardize, as well as centralize, all that in one particular

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system,” comments Tsirulnik.

“The second partner that we utilize is Simparel. Simparel provides us with an enterprise resource planning system, an ERP.” Through that system, Rubie’s is able to control and track the entire sales, production, purchasing, and financial aspects of the business. Sales orders go into that system and production orders are placed against the

M A N U FA C T U R I N G

demand or as part of replenishment, allowing orders to be tracked.

“We’re able to see what state the sales orders are in, what the demand is, what the top sellers are, and then respond to those demands accordingly,” Tsirulnik remarks. “We’re able to forecast and plan certain lines ahead of time and create the production orders against those and in a specific manner. It’s an

intelligent tool that allows us to run our business much more effectively.”

Exploring new territories While much of the company’s business occurs in the run-up to 31 October, Rubie’s offers a vast selection of products that extends well beyond Halloween, helping people around the world celebrate holidays and special occasions from

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“We’re able to see where sales orders are, what the demand is, what the top sellers are, and then respond to those demands accordingly” – Greg Tsirulnik, Chief Information Officer

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RUBIE’S WORLDWIDE

Rubie’s is the world’s leading costume designer and manufacturer with offices around the globe.

Easter to Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day to Christmas, New Year’s Eve to bachelorette parties and everything in between. As an exclusive license holder in the US, Rubie’s has many of the most popular collections within its portfolio, including Star Wars and Harry Potter.

But what does the future hold?

“We will continue exploring new territories, partnering with different

businesses and seeing which markets we can penetrate, creating different partnerships with a variety of different companies, and just accumulating in the industry. We’re not going anywhere,” advises Tsirulnik.

“We’ve been here for 66 years, and I don’t really see us slowing down.

Rubie’s is Halloween, we are the trend and the pace setters.”

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INNOVATION THROUGH DIGITISATION Rick Hassman, Pella Corporation’s Chief Information Officer, discusses the company’s adoption of integrated technologies to drive further growth Written by Catherine Sturman Produced by Andy Turner

P E L L A C O R P O R AT I O N

“I

nnovation is a key component for us. As we look at what products we have, the quality and the breadth of products and services we offer, being a national brand, is a distinguisher for us,” remarks Pella Corporation Chief Information Offer Rick Hassman. Passionate about the company’s leading ambitions to remain ahead of the curve and cater to an ever-changing customer demand, Hassman has been behind Pella Corporation’s internal digital transformation, which has seen it drive positive customer experience and business growth at every step.

With a growing number of Pella window stores across the United States, Hassman explains the importance of housing a customer-direct business model, which has seen it gain an edge over competitors. “We’re one of the very few companies that has a direct sales network,” he says. “Between our vast network of direct sales showrooms, the Pella Certified Contractor Program to help consumers with installation to our own customer service teams within the corporate office and within our sales location, we can support the customer, every step of the way. That’s a key differentiator, for Pella.”

Evaluating the distinct stages of customer interaction throughout the industry, the subject of reliability continued to be a theme. Thus, Pella has transformed its processes to continuously develop trust with its customers, which is now supported through the implementation of enhanced data

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“We can support the customer, every step of the way. That’s a key differentiator, for Pella” – Rick Hassman, Chief Information Officer

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analytics. This has further allowed the business to better understand customer needs and requirements.

“Throughout the building industry, when you start thinking about the experiences that a lot of people have with contractors, with delivery, with building materials, reliability plays in all of those touchpoints,” comments Hassman.

“Thus, through our data analytics, we adjusted our own customer processes for more communication on when we’re going to arrive, when the product’s going to be there and to step up and troubleshoot any issues. That is really what customer experience has become for us.”

Gaining deep insights Adopting a new ERP system, Pella has been able to centralize its core

systems and integrate its data technologies, enabling it to remain competitive, create a seamless service and retain its position within the window and door market. By working at Pella for nearly 20 years, Hassman has witnessed how the industry has deepened its focus from building relationships, to investing in digital technologies to drive long term savings and allow for increased efficiencies.

“There is a dependency on data, on ease of ordering, information being fed,” observes Hassman.

“The whole service experience from a digital perspective is where the construction industry lags.”

Pella has developed a ‘built-toorder’ environment, overhauling its traditional systems which became unable to support the changes within

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its service delivery. Pella’s longstanding partnership with Oracle has seen the company counteract such complexities and transform its IT infrastructure to guarantee increased flexibility and scalability for future growth. This has also filtered into a complete transformation of several of Pella’s departments; from manufacturing, order processing and finance to its CRM and customer service systems.

Disruptive technologies The implementation of a continuous improvement culture (CI) at Pella in the early 90’s, mixed with the data analytics and customer feedback provides a multitude of strategic advantages and feeds into Pella’s overall brand strength. “It allows us to be more agile and react to the industry needs, and provide a deeper and more service focused experience,” reflects Hassman.

Pella’s partnership with Munich-based B2B SaaS startup Celonis

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will also help enhance its CI capabilities. The use of process mining within the project will enable Pella to get even more out of its data and provide key insights as to how the business can be improved long-term.

“Celonis extracts our data, which includes time stamps, system flows, work flows and all the data that comes within the applications and creates an accurate view of how processes occur within our systems,” explains Hassman.

“For example, it maps out

“The whole service experience from a digital perspective is where the industry lags” – Rick Hassman, Chief Information Officer

exactly how a purchase order is created, how requisitions created it, and how a purchase order is then evolved from the requisition. It also details how it’s released, how it’s received and how it’s paid.

“It creates an encompassing view of our efficiencies. When we deviate from a process, it shows what’s causing that. It’s a ‘lean systems’ view of where we have inefficiencies

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in our process and it allows us to quickly get to those points.

“It’s very exciting because it’s a complete circle. We started with CI, which mapped out our process and we then moved to this integrated system. Now, this integrated system is feeding the data back as part of the CI, allowing us to develop even more efficiencies.”

Setting a precedent Pella adheres to the highest possible standards across its manufacturing operations, even testing many products beyond their required

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industry caliber. Nonetheless, this has presented a number of challenges for the business. From a windows perspective, the minimal standards within the building industry vary from region to region across the US, creating a number of complexities for manufacturers.

“Window and door styles are different across the US,” notes Hassman. “We have to balance between business priorities and building codes and industry trends, almost daily.

“It is something we’re always trying to determine, from a sustainability and

USA

compliance standpoint, where can we expand and grow and what steps do we need to implement to do it,” he continues.

Additionally, desired styles and materials used in the manufacturing of Pella’s products tend to differ depending on region, especially within new homes and buildings.

“Historical designs are coming back,” observes Hassman. “While there is also a contemporary style trend where customers want a minimal frame and large expanses of glass.”

Despite such challenges and slow growth within the window and

door industry, Hassman expresses confidence in increased innovation and energy initiatives within the sector. “Aluminum will be a preferred material in some parts of the country, and in other regions, vinyl will be preferred, as well as a love for the versatility and timelessness of wood,” he concludes. “The sizes of windows continue to grow. People are really looking at the window as a wall in many areas, highlighting where the industry is headed.”

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

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

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

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

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BNP Paribas Cardif head office

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

was with customer experience.

That started our transformation.”

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

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Inside a Cardif office

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

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

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

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

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they’re built into the new architecture.

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

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

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

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

BNP Paribas Cardif utilises data to

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

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

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

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

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

As such, the business organises its own

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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“We want to be in the first group.

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

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

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

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

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BMMI Group: Empowering employees with innovative IT Written by Laura Mullan Produced by Craig Daniels

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With global operations spanning 10 countries, BMMI Group is one of the fastest growing companies based in the region, with a history that goes back over 130 years. Aiman Alorayedh, Head of Information Technology, discusses how BMMI is striding ahead of its competitors and empowering its people with IT systems

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MIDDLE EAST

I

n today’s digitally adept business world, IT management is no longer about computers and printers. It’s about acting as custodians of data and information for both a company, its employees and its customers.

BMMI Group is all too aware of the importance of enriching its IT and e-commerce services and therefore, system management is an integral part of the company’s business plan.

“People, processes and technology all form part of our performance strategy,” explains Aiman Alorayedh, Head of Information Technology.

“My job is to essentially execute this strategy and ensure that IT is aligned with our business needs because technology is such an important, integrated part of our business.”

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION Based in Bahrain, BMMI is a diversified retail, distribution, contract services, hospitality, logistics and supply group. Specialising in the wholesale, distribution, retail and production of food and beverages, the company represents a leading portfolio of renowned external global

bands, in addition to its own brands.

With such a broad range of operations and expertise, BMMI Group is using technology to empower its staff and drive efficiency.

“Being in logistics and retail, our employees and customers expect services to be online and reachable at all times,” explains Alorayedh.

Therefore, BMMI invested heavily in their fully-integrated Oracle ERP back in 2007, and again later in 2013. This year the company has been focusing on further enhancing their ERP solution and expanding into the e-commerce market through two of its divisions, Alosra supermarket and BMMI Shops.

“Our senior leadership recognise that technology and digitization are not optional in today’s economy,” Alorayedh notes. “Expectations have changed in the past decade, and BMMI has gained a competitive edge over its competitors by investing in its people and technology early on.”

DRIVING EFFICIENCY The group also offers a comprehensive range of contract based services

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MIDDLE EAST

10

The number of countries where BMMI has a presence in the Middle East and Africa

(warehousing, distribution and shipping) as well as sourcing and supply options. Therefore, the company is keen to drive efficiency by using state-of-the-art logistics, supply chain infrastructure, and human resources development.

“With our technology systems, we’re looking to drive efficiency,” Alorayedh adds. “You can have disruptive technologies but, at the end of the day, we’re still a business.

What’s most important is efficiency in our time and our employees’ time.”

GLOBAL REACH WITH A LOCAL FOCUS Spanning across 10 countries in the Middle East and Africa, BMMI also offers fully-fledged end-to-end supply chain solutions. Although it has a global reach, the group is keen to champion a local focus by streamlining its operations in each country it operates in.

“We are an international business with offices in countries across countries in Africa, such as Djibouti, Kenya and Ghana, and in the GCC, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and

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Qatar. However, we’re really trying to streamline and centralise our technologies, our people’s skills, and their experiences to drive efficiency in our operations.”

With over 130 years of success, BMMI is reaping the rewards of its innovative strategy. Since its creation, the group has mobilised into new markets, diversified into new sectors, and is boasting strong fiscal results.

POSITIVE WORK CULTURE However, the key to the company’s success not only lies it its technological advancements, says Alorayedh, it also lies in its people.

“Being a diverse group, our competitive edge would be our culture and our people,” he notes. “BMMI’s core mission is ‘Winning the hearts and minds of our customers by delivering exceptional service’ and so at BMMI, we adopt a performancedriven, customer-focused business approach.”

Today, more than ever, harnessing the right culture in an organisation is

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critical to success and this is something which BMMI truly appreciates. With a multicultural workforce representing over 40 different nationalities, the company uses IT to empower its staff and users. It has been a winning tactic, however, Alorayedh doesn’t underestimate the work that lies ahead.

“New technologies come out every other day,” he says.

“Our main challenge is to keep up with the innovations that are happening around us because, if you don’t have the technological advancements that separate you from your competition, then your competition has the advantage.”

MIDDLE EAST

AIMAN ALORAYEDH HEAD OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Aiman Alorayedh is a Bahraini who has been passionate about electronics and computers since a young age. Aiman holds a degree in Computer Networking and Security Systems, as well as a Masters of Business Administration. Aiman is currently the Head of Information Technology at the multinational BMMI Group, headquartered in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Since he joined BMMI in 2010, Aiman’s career saw rapid growth. He developed from Technical Support Officer, to System Administrator, Assistant IT Manager, and then IT Manager, and now he heads the entire IT department for the whole BMMI Group. Prior to joining BMMI, Aiman previously worked for Microsoft as a Technology specialist between Bahrain and Oman, and has also worked in Jordan with an international bank.

MIDDLE EAST

NEW OPPORTUNITIES The need to keep up with everevolving technologies is a challenging prospect, but it is one which also offers new opportunities in the sector. Therefore, Alorayedh and his team are excited about what new innovations could bring to BMMI. “In this dynamic environment, I see Business Intelligence (BI) and cloud services gaining more popularity in the region, along with robotic process automation (RPA),” notes Alorayedh.

“These new trends are helping to reshape business models, create new opportunities and reduce risks, as well. While BMMI has already begun with BI, cloud and RPA are another two trends that we are looking into so that we can get a competitive edge over our competitors. The way I see it, the next few years are going

to be more challenging and exciting with new technologies and services being introduced into the group.”

With a performance-driven, customer-focused approach, BMMI Group has enjoyed significant growth and promising sales. Together, with a significant investment in its infrastructure and technology systems, the group has cemented itself as a dynamic international company with a promising future in the Middle East and Africa.

“BMMI has continued to pursue its ambitions of growth and expansion by upholding its existing initiatives and investments,” reflects Alorayedh. “We are improving and streamlining our operations year on year, with a focus on our talent and people. This positions BMMI for a promising future filled with success and achievements.”

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IBM Watson and the cognitive computing revolution

Written by Laura Mullan Produced by Craig Daniels

Driven by analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, IBM’s Watson IoT platform and its new personal assistant could be poised to change your life

“

Mr Watson – come here – I want to see you.” Famously spoken by inventor Alexander Graham Bell, these were the very first words ever said on the telephone. Since then, speech has become the natural mode of conversation across the globe. Even as technological advancements have seen the rise of written messages via text, email and social media, humans still gravitate towards natural conversation.

IBM’s Watson didn’t gain its name from the invention of the telephone, but rather from IBM’s first CEO, industrialist Thomas J Watson.

Founded in 1911, the tech giant is world-renowned for its continual innovation. Yet despite the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), IBM hasn’t lost sight of what’s important – the human connection.

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IBM’s Watson, has made it possible for computer systems to understand natural language. Driven by analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, the cognitive computing system is built to aid decision making, reduce costs and optimise outcomes by simulating human thought processes. With its sophisticated reasoning capabilities, Watson seeks to augment human abilities by ingesting immense amounts of data, learning at scale, understanding the context of this data, and answering questions in real-time – all whilst using natural language.

From traditional programming models to the new cognitive computing era, IBM has seen a dramatic change in the way systems and humans interact.

However, Gabi Zodik, Director and CTO of Development for Watson IoT Consumer Business, says that this

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IBM’s solutions serve a great number of industrial applications

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is just the beginning of the journey.

“People no longer want to interact only by touch-screen because, really, the most natural thing is to speak to each other,” says Zodik. “That’s what’s different about what we’re doing at IBM. We are heading towards what we call cognitive IoT, which is much more people-centric. It’s driven by analytics, AI and machine learning, and it offers real-time insight and reasoning capabilities that can’t be done in any other way.”

The ability to understand natural language and its nuances has made IBM’s Watson a gamechanger for diverse areas, such as health, hospitality and transport.

The ability to understand natural language and its nuances has made IBM’s Watson a gamechanger for diverse areas, such as health, hospitality and transport.

For example, the Watson Assistant is being used in hospital rooms to allow voice control that can activate the room’s air conditioning or lights, answer questions about upcoming treatment procedures, or even provide general information

about the hospital, such as dinner menus, visiting hours, or stores.

“The solution uses the Watson platform to continuously gain data about factors like upcoming treatments, physician rounds, or physical changes in the room,” explains Zodik. “It gives the patients insight about their surroundings and procedures, which is something that can go a long way towards keeping the person calmer and better informed, in addition to saving the time of hospital staff.”

On a mission to help people in everyday life, IBM’s Watson is also helping to revolutionise workplace safety through wearable technology.

According to the International Labour Organisation, every 15 seconds, 151 workers will have a work-related accident. By tapping into IBM’s Watson IoT technology, the tech giant has produced the IBM IoT Safer Workplace solution that helps employees stay safer in dangerous environments. The solution uses embedded sensors to gather and analyse data on workers’ activities and surroundings to help prevent

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overexposure to heat, injury from falls, overexertion, or other accidents.

“Today’s workers receive a limited amount of protection through basic safety equipment like a hard hat, but not much more than that,” observes Zodik. “We realised that if we could equip workers’ personal safety equipment with sensors, we could analyse their activities and surroundings and prevent many of the accidents that unfortunately happen today. Work-related accidents are a big financial issue for many companies, but even more important than the financial aspect are the hundreds and thousands of people who are injured or killed in workrelated accidents every year.”

Although wearable sensors exist to provide individual pieces of data, the IBM solution extends the power of cognitive computing to collect and analyse information from a group of many sensors. Watson then brings the information together, analyses it to understand what is happening in the environment, and detects hazardous combinations that might be overlooked if they were

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detected individually. For example, a combination of high skin temperature, raised heart rate, and no movement patterns for several minutes could mean a person is suffering from heat stress. Each of these signs individually would not be a cause for alert, but together they indicate a serious situation that warrants intervention.

IBM’s cognitive computing platform can be applied to a broad spectrum of industries, but it can also be harnessed to make simple, everyday life more enjoyable. To this end, IBM has invented a unique voice-enabled personal assistant platform called the Watson Assistant.

Unlike other voice-powered apps that respond to a standard set of commands or questions, the IBM platform is highly personalised, as it can recognise the user and continuously learns about them.

It’s portable and can show up in mobile apps, connected devices, cars, conference and hotel rooms; and it is proactive, as it can make suggestions or take actions on your behalf. Powered by IBM’s Watson, the general-purpose assistance goes

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Watson was named after former IBM CEO, Thomas J. Watson

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beyond triggered responses and zombie skills - and it does so using conversational, natural language.

“The way I like to describe it is this: think about famous people or celebrities. They get VIP treatment throughout the day,” notes Zodik.

“No matter where they go, there is always somebody in their team who makes sure they go to the type of restaurant they like, who schedules transportation for them, or books their hotels.

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“Now, imagine that we could create a digital, virtual assistant that you could have throughout the day,” he continues. “It would be a conversational device, but unlike other solutions on the market, it would be highly personalised and would continuously learn your behaviour and preferences. The Watson Personal Assistant would be with you wherever you go, whether that’s at home, in your car, at your office, and it will continuously think ahead of you and

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“We thought if workers could wear safety solutions and sensors, we could analyse their surroundings and prevent many of the accidents that unfortunately happen today” – Gabi Zodik, Director and CTO of Development for Watson IoT Consumer Business

offer insight to make your life easier.

The system is unique in its ability to offer proactive suggestions and to maintain privacy for personal data.”

IBM’s Watson Personal Assistant could wake you up earlier during a spell of bad weather so that you’re not delayed for your commute or it could reschedule a meeting that you are going to be late for.

In doing so, it aims to transform how we go about our daily lives.

The innovation is a testament to the company’s commitment to R&D, notes Zodik, who also serves

as the Department Group Manager of the IoT and Cloud Technologies department at IBM Research - Haifa.

“IBM is a world-renowned technology company and as part of our research, we really strive to experiment with new, upcoming technologies. There’s a saying ‘the world is our lab’ and indeed, at IBM, we are coming up with ideas, such as the Watson platform, that our customers have never even thought of. We have shown them added value and a new way of thinking they had not even perceived to be possible.”

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OpenSooq: Online searching in the Middle East made easy Written by Dale Benton Produced by Craig Daniels

OpenSooq is an online platform tailored to the Middle East and North African regions, providing ease of access to more than 155 million users

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n 2017, Arabic is currently the fourth most spoken language in the online digital space. Over the last seven years there has been a surge in online traffic across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and with more than 155 million Arabic users today, there needed to be a platform that could cater to this significant volume of users.

This is where OpenSooq comes into play. Founded in 2013, OpenSooq is a classified marketplace to sell, buy and advertise online goods and services across the MENA region.

“Despite being the fourth most spoken language, which will only continue to grow, nobody was focusing on it or providing solutions that could cater for it,” says Ramzi Alqrainy, Head

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of Technology at OpenSooq.

“But the numbers don’t lie and we have to focus on the Arabic language. Its what I do for the company and its what I’ve specialised in for my entire career.”

Alqrainy is one of the most recognisable names in the information retrieval and artificial intelligence (AI) space. Having worked on search engine optimisation and back end solutions for a number of leading technology companies throughout the Middle East, Alqrainy’s first task was to build a search engine system that could facilitate Arabic content.

“I started by building an analytic system that utilised machine learning, artificial intelligence and image and text recognition in order to ensure that when a user

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accesses OpenSooq, the post that they seek is in the right place under the right category and is clear and understandable,” he says.

One of the biggest challenges with the fourth most spoken language in the digital space is text recognition. The Arabic language, when written, has more than one thousand rules and variations all while using the same letters.

For Alqrainy, this was the first hurdle that needed to be cleared and as the company serves all across the MENA region, it is a challenge that persists even now.

“To put it simply, the characteristics of the Arabic language are very, very hard,” he says. “The way that Arabic is written, the same shape and word formation can be used but with only the slightest of alterations and suddenly it’s a completely different meaning or understanding all together.”

“It continues to be our biggest challenge because, when you consider localisation and where we operate there are different dialects to factor in. Egypt has

a different dialect to Jordan, which has a different dialect to Iraq, and Syria for example.”

To that end, Alqrainy can call upon his significant experience in dealing with this exact challenge, particularly his time working on the Apache Solr program. Apache Solr is a highly reliable, scalable and fault tolerant indexing and configuration tool that powers the search and navigation features of many of the world’s largest internet sites including eBay, Netflix and Disney.

But Alqrainy couldn’t possibly be able to do this alone, especially with more than one and half billionpage views per month. In this regard, OpenSooq pools together the thought process of everyone, from management to customer service teams right through to the technology team and for Alqrainy, he feels this really is key to the success of the company.

“We all head into one room and we brainstorm together and we identify the challenges or the solutions collaboratively,” says Alqrainy. “OpenSooq’s technology

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“I started by building an analytic system that utilised machine learning, artificial intelligence and image and text recognition in order to ensure that when a user accesses OpenSooq, the post that they seek is in the right place under the right category and is clear and understandable” – Ramzi Alqrainy, Head of Technology, OpenSooq

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and innovation comes as a direct result of this mentality as the management is a firm believer in our technology and what we are doing, rather than focusing solely on the market.”

Alqrainy is keen to stress that despite OpenSooq’s incredible growth over the years, there is still a company-wide mindset that continues to think like a start-up.

By this, Alqrainy refers to the way in which the company registered to an online portal in which staff members all across the company can access. This platform is called GitHub. Github is a development platform inspired by the way companies work, allowing users to host and review code, build software and infrastructure all alongside millions of other developers.

This, Alqrainy feels, is crucial for OpenSooq to continue to grow as the user base continues to grow.

“So, with GitHub, we can to develop open source projects and share both our knowledge and the knowledge of others in order to think outside the box and share in our successes,” he says. “When you are growing exponentially, with 400-page views per month becoming one and half billion page views per month, this growth cannot be accomplished without thinking outside of the box.”

Operating across the MENA region, OpenSooq’s market base is undoubtedly dynamic. To achieve this, Alqrainy must continue

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to push the localisation for every country and every market to push users to the website.

“When the product is growing, you need to take every function inside the product and we need to change the architecture of the product in order to scale, and give us the flexibility to add more changes and more features in the future,” he says.

As OpenSooq continues along this growth path, one which may very well expand the product offering beyond the Middle East and North Africa, Alqrainy keeps one key element at heart.

“It’s about the user at the end of the day,” he says. “As we continue to grow and continue to develop our product, be it AI, be it machine learning and information retrieval, it’s about helping the user get what they want.”

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