16 minute read
Dell Technologies
SECURITY IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
We hear how security and digital risk management have only become more necessary for digital transformation in 2020
WRITTEN BY:
WILLIAM SMITH
PRODUCED BY:
BEN MALTBY
In a fast-changing world, the imperative for digital transformation has never been clearer. Effecting that change while managing digital risk and prioritising security requires expert assistance. “Our intention is to be a strategic partner to our customers, an essential technology vendor and a one-stop shop for organisations as they undergo digital transformation,” says Arash Ghazanfari, CTO (UK), Dell Technologies.
“Events in 2020 have proven that every business has to become a technology business in order to survive the unique operating environment we find ourselves in. The need for digital transformation is stronger now than ever before. We’re finding that our customers have had to accelerate their digital transformation projects to take advantage of the emerging digital economy,” says Ghazanfari. “Our clients have recognised the need to leverage technology to create best-in-class experiences for their customers. Additionally, they need to empower a diverse, and in most cases distributed but connected workforce to collaborate on digital platforms with the ability to create value regardless of where they are. All of this means the amount of value you unlock from your data can
Digital Transformation Index 2020
directly contribute to your competitive differentiation. It is now more important than ever before to consider your cyber resiliency and enterprise security as a matter of board level priority.”
One of the major transformational megatrends is the adoption of cloud, an area in which Dell Technologies specialises as an essential infrastructure provider. “As organisations think about adopting cloud operating models, it’s really important they understand the cost and operational implications of where they place their data,” says Liz Green, Cyber Security Specialist UK, Dell Technologies. “We help our clients to make sure they’re mitigating risks and costs and are able to understand what workloads fit best in the cloud.” The cloud landscape entails many choices, but that needn’t be an issue as Ghazanfari explains. “Businesses are increasingly adopting a multicloud strategy and we help our customers by delivering a consistent software defined enterprise architecture, so that workloads can be deployed in the empowered edge, or in existing on-premises and distributed private cloud environments, or in the public cloud ecosystem. Our multicloud strategy delivers a consistent software-defined architecture underpinned by a consistent and platformagnostic operating model helping IT departments deliver consistent value
LIZ GREEN CYBER SECURITY SPECIALIST UKI, DELL TECHNOLOGIES
added services to their lines of businesses and achieve unparalleled flexibility, control and choice. We believe this is the most optimum approach to maintain the security of and keeping control over application and data supply-chains.”
The number of subsectors experiencing digital transformation has led to a security landscape that is something of a headache for companies. “The security market is highly fragmented and there are many point solution providers out there. Historically, businesses have also made tactical and reactive investments in cybersecurity,” says Ghazanfari. “The result is a proliferation of disjointed security controls that don’t necessarily talk to each other - adversely impacting the security posture of the enterprise. The approach that we take within the Dell Technologies ecosystem of capabilities, with VMware technology being at the heart of it all, is to focus on delivering more foundational and proactive security measures by delivering security by design intrinsically within our pre-validated solutions. Building security controls intrinsically into our software defined capabilities reduces the need for bolt-on, threat centric and siloed approach to security.” Among the trends in the transformation
ARASH GHAZANFARI
TITLE: CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER (UK) COMPANY: DELL TECHNOLOGY (UK) INDUSTRY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
AND SERVICES
Passionate about transforming great businesses in the digital age, experienced in start-ups and large corporations. Currently serving as a Chief Technology Officer, supporting the overall go to market strategy across the full breadth of the Dell Technologies Ecosystem in the United Kingdom.
EXECUTIVE BIO
of security is virtualisation. “We’re seeing big transformations in network security, specifically in virtualising networks,” says Green. “Going from a physical to a software-defined network presents a lot of opportunities for greater levels of visibility and security. Micro-segmentation as an example, is a great way to prevent lateral progression of advanced threats,
LIZ GREEN
TITLE: CYBER SECURITY SPECIALIST UK COMPANY: DELL TECHNOLOGY (UK) INDUSTRY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
AND SERVICES
ADVERT PAGE GOLD Data Protection and Cyber Recovery Strategist helping organizations to safeguard their most important asset, their data. Passionate about helping drive human progress through technology. Enthusiastic technical and financial sales leader that loves to work collaboratively towards common goals to drive positive outcomes for our clients. “GOING FROM A PHYSICAL TO A VIRTUAL NETWORK PRESENTS A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES EXECUTIVE BIO FOR GREATER LEVELS OF VISIBILITY AND SECURITY” LIZ GREEN CYBER SECURITY SPECIALIST UKI, DELL TECHNOLOGIES
a common trait seen in modern destructive attack patterns.”
The fintech industry has kept up one of the fastest paces of transformation. “Programmability, extensibility and visibility have played a major role in the success of open banking. What’s going to make organisations even more successful down the line is how they secure data and how they make sure that their customers understand how their data is being used and how the data is secured. We’re going to see a huge focus on security and resilience for the fintech industry, but also as a huge catalyst for change across every sector.”
All of this has only been accelerated by the pandemic, which has served to catalyse new approaches and new understanding of security, with Dell Technologies offering a Work Redefined pathway for the new normal. “We’re seeing fundamental shifts in operations, and how we talk to customers and clients in all industries. As part of our Work Redefined programme, we focus on three key areas: productivity, trust, and safety,” says Green.
TRUSTMARQUE AD
Bearing those tenets in mind allows businesses to thrive, as Ghazanfari explains. “It’s about assessing the risk of adoption of new digital technologies and providing a consumer-like, persona-driven experience
that effectively makes the complexities around delivering a digital workspace disappear and enables businesses to focus on delivering business value.” Having that increased awareness of risk can then lead to better outcomes. “Organisations didn’t always have a comprehensive digital strategy. Now, it’s essential that they do. With that comes a need to look at how risk is being mitigated and managed effectively, but this can actually be a really positive thing. The more that we assess and evaluate digital risks, the faster and better organisations can transform digitally.”
From this viewpoint, security acts as a catalyst for, rather than a barrier to, innovation. “In order to achieve that outcome, you need to have visibility of your threat landscape and your risk profile,” says Ghazanfari. “We can help our customers understand every aspect of their business architecture so that they have the end-to-end visibility
ARASH GHAZANFARI CTO (UK), DELL TECHNOLOGIES
ARASH GHAZANFARI CTO (UK), DELL TECHNOLOGIES that they need to maintain and manage risk, and then make calculated decisions around the steps that they need to take towards innovation. Fundamental to all of this is the recognition that we can’t secure the future in the same way we secured the past. Modern applications can have several cross platforms and complex lateral dependencies, a connected digital workspace can and will lead to the erosion
of traditional perimeters and a distributed data consumption model. This requires a context centric and unified approach to security transformation.”
Dell Technologies will continue to help companies make the most of technology in more flexible ways, as Ghazanfari explains. “We are seeing many businesses value and embrace consumption models. We recognise our customers are looking at consolidating, simplifying and de-risking their vendor relationships. Our broad ecosystem and open approach, as well as our diverse and inclusive consumption models, has put us in a position to serve the needs of our customers and the unique challenges they face in 2020.”
Datorama: AI-powered marketing intelligence
Salesforce Datorama enables marketers to optimise their marketing budget for maximum efficiency and business impact
WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE
PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO
Marketers are always looking at ways to improve the impact of their campaigns and drive business growth which is why they are turning to
Salesforce Datorama.
Created a decade ago by marketing professionals for marketers seeking to gain a competitive edge - especially in today’s commercial landscape shaped by uncertainty and the Covid-19 pandemic - Datorama is the leading cloud-based,
AI-powered marketing intelligence and analytics platform for enterprises, agencies and publishers.
Datorama is the only intelligence platform that helps marketers connect all of their data, uncover deep marketing insights and better understand campaign performance.
With Datorama, marketers can also create, distribute and access powerful marketing analytics apps with speed and ease.
“Our goal for the past 10 years is being able to help our customers automate their data and digital insights to transform their business,” said Boaz Ram, Head of
Technology Partnerships at Datorama.
BOAZ RAM HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS, DATORAMA
Founded in 2012 in Tel Aviv, Datorama was acquired by Salesforce for a reported $800 million in 2018. The high-profile purchase promised marketers, ‘one unified view of data and insights… to optimise engagement at scale’.
Datorama enables more than 3,000 leading global agencies and brands - including PepsiCo, Ticketmaster, Trivago, Unilever, Pernod Ricard and Foursquare - to optimise marketing campaigns, automate reporting and make data-driven decisions faster.
Datorama marketplace
The Datorama marketplace extends the power of the Datorama’s marketing intelligence capabilities by enabling developers to create custom apps that marketers can discover and use on their platform.
The marketplace features prebuilt apps from partners, like Xandr, Brandwatch and Pinterest which helps
to improve marketing analytics and democratising them.
Ram said that Datorama set out to simplify the process for marketers who have more than 3,0000 platforms to choose from when looking to reach the alldigital customer across every touchpoint. “Every Platform has its own data set, usually they work in silos and then it becomes extremely hard for marketers to understand. There is too much data to choose from and understand how they impact on each other, what's the return on investment (ROI) or the efficacy of a specific campaign,” he said.
“So that's what Datorama is built for. The purpose is to help marketers ingest all these different data sources from all these faces, all these platforms into a single coherent data model. It then enables marketers to create reports and dashboards to drive cross channel real time insights which helps optimise their marketing.”
BOAZ RAM
TITLE: HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS
COMPANY: DATORAMA
INDUSTRY: SOFTWARE
Boaz is currently the Head of Technology Partnerships at Salesforce Datorama, and is part of the Datorama Management team. In his current role he manages all types of technology partnerships, including building an ecosystem of partners around the Datorama Marketplace. Prior to joining Datorama, Boaz served in different product leadership roles for the past 15 years, in Adobe, Yahoo, and Mediamind/Sizmek/Amazon. Datorama is Boaz's third acquisition in his last four companies. Boaz specializes in Product Management, Product Strategy, Partnerships and Marketplaces, Marketing Technology, Advertising Technology and B2B in general, and has vast experience in building growth products and acquisitions.
EXECUTIVE BIO
Salesforce acquired Datorama for a reported $800mn
Enables more than 3,000
global agencies and brands to optimise campaigns
Founded in Tel Aviv in 2012
BOAZ RAM HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS, DATORAMA
Artificial Intelligence (AI) gives Datorama the power to drive the marketing platform giving it a competitive edge as it is able to map, model and harmonise data at speed. This enables it to make smarter decisions for clients.
“We are built by marketers for marketers, and we understand marketing - other platforms are more generic. That means we have a model that is structured for marketing,” commented Ram.
He pointed out that AI-driven technology allows Datorama to look at data and highlights different aspects that can help customers optimise their data. “These insights can advise a marketer on the best regions or times to run their campaigns for a better ROI.”
Value of ecosystems
Ram emphasises the importance of ecosystems to Datorama comparing their
BOAZ RAM HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS, DATORAMA
successful business model to how Apple evolved their iPhone.
“Ecosystem is my favorite subject. I like to use the iPhone analogy. When the iPhone was launched in 2007 it did not have an app store. When it came out, it was just a smarter phone,” he said.
“Although it introduced the internet to the palm of your hand, it couldn't extend its capability to do other things. The app store only came out in the third generation of the iPhone, which was in 2009.
“Think about how we use the smartphone today - very little for actual phone calls or texting and more for banking or shopping which comes from other vendors and partners that built apps for the iPhone.
“And that's really the concept of Datorama’s Marketplace ecosystem. It's basically to democratise the platform and help our partners and customers build solutions, using our technology and really expand the capabilities and the breadth of the solutions that we have beyond what we thought was possible.”
Ram said that although Datorama has an “awesome engineering and product team”
Be Certain About Every Marketing Decision | Salesforce Datorama
BOAZ RAM HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS, DATORAMA
2012
Year founded
519
Number of employees
$75.3mn
Revenue USD (2019)
they're limited in resources. “Partners that can think beyond our spend and resources and expand the capabilities of the platform to help our customers leverage their solutions - so that's the power.”
Datorama has an app with Brandwatch which allows marketers to understand the reach of paid campaigns, not just organic, which is a major benefit for anyone on social media.
“We have an ecosystem of consulting partners and system integrators, like Accenture and Deloitte and smaller companies like Nabler, which help us sell Datorama as an extension of our sales and customer service teams which will help us scale. And that's something that we've expanded and learned a lot.
Solutions for ecommerce
The restrictions imposed by the COVID19 pandemic from remote working and lockdowns has seen marketers turning to Datorama to focus their online sales.
“Everyone's turning to ecommerce and now there's a need for a lot of website analytics, a lot of ecommerce solutions and integrations with ecommerce sites like Shopify, Amazon and Walmart,” said Ram.
“A lot of the things that we saw happening in small steps during the past eight years really accelerated in a way that no one thought was possible during the first eight months of the pandemic. I think ecommerce will stay and grow stronger.”
Salesforce acquisition
When Salesforce acquired Datorama three years ago it opened up global markets and took it to the next level. “It brought in massive scale to roll into the Salesforce machine and that changes a lot of our processes,” commented Ram.
POWER OF THE DATORAMA DEVELOPER PORTAL
Datorama’s Marketplace includes Salesforce apps, as well as apps from customers and partners that have been built using the Datorama Developer Portal. These include:
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud Cmail:
Offers customers interactive analytics that help benchmark and measure the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns • Xandr Invest Essential Monitoring:
Identifies ad server discrepancies and surfaces KPI performance trends for marketers to optimise campaigns and budgets more effectively • Workspace Health: Monitors data quality across every marketing source in one actionable view • Social intelligence: Compares brand presence for competitive insights across
Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter • SmartLens Apps: The following apps deliver improved reporting for top marketing sources by displaying KPIs, trends and instant analytics
BOAZ RAM HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS, DATORAMA
“We've grown in size with the acquisition and in relation to the global resources open to us. Salesforce is an amazing company to work - as I think, it has the right heart in place - especially with its involvement in philanthropy.”
Looking ahead, Ram says the proliferation of marketing solutions is ever-changing. “It's a very dynamic industry, Apple recently announced that, as part of the iOS 14 update, it will be giving users the choice to block the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) identifier at the app level.
“This is going to kill the option to track campaigns using their Apple phones. And that's a major change in the industry.”
According to reports, Apple has taken the strategic stance that privacy is a user right and is currently taking steps to grant users more ability to opt-out of any type of targeting or tracking the change is expected to occur across Apple’s entire product portfolio.
IDFA is a unique identifier for mobile devices and is used to target and measure the effectiveness of advertising on a user level across mobile devices.
Looking ahead how technology will shape the industry in the near future, Ram predicts cryptocurrency will take off - not just as a speculative financial tool - but as an actual currency to be used in retail and marketing. “I think it's, it's getting to the point where it's mature enough and safe enough for some of these currencies. I'm excited to see how the GameStop drama pans out.”
