The 10 most successful companies to watch 2018 by Insights Success Media

www.insightssuccess.com March 2018 The

10 Most

SUCCESSFUL

Companies To Watch

2018

Tom Kennedy Co-founder & CTO

Mentorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Insights Backend-As-A-Service for Payments-As-A-Service Digi Transformations Decoding Digital Transformation For Utilities

Trish Kennedy Co-founder & COO

Revolutionizing Enterprise Software with No-Code

Omnichannel Agent and Customer Engagement Solutions Simplify and personalize the customer experience, empower agents and achieve business success with one workspace for all channel interactions, application integrations, and CX reporting.

Editor’s Note

A Game-Changing Idea that Powers Everything

veryone knows that being a successful entrepreneur is not a cake-walk. It requires some highly admirable qualities like strong leadership skills and a knack for hiring exceptional talent. Most successful entrepreneurs are calculated, clever, collaborative, composed, conﬁdent, and creative. These traits give them the character they need to overcome a number of challenging business obstacles, but at the same time, they also utilize these timeless business-building methods to achieve long-term business goals. However, an uncanny ability to generate game-changing ideas is the most essential skill that powers everything. Having an incredible idea and a resolute belief is something that inspires these entrepreneurs to put-in their best eﬀorts, even in adverse conditions.

Konosuke Matsushita’s is an enlightening example to point out the same. Back in 1917, a 23-year-old Japanese apprentice at the Osaka Electric Light Company with no formal education came up with alight socket. The idea was quite innovative but his boss denied materializing it. This further motivated the young genius, and subsequently started making samples in his basement. After rigorous efforts for four long and tiring years, Matsushita managed to find his own small company. He later expanded his portfolio of innovations with battery-powered bicycle lamps and other electronic products. Matsushita Electric, Until 2008 when the company officially changed its name to Panasonic. Till 2008, the company was known as Matsushita Electric, until the name was changed to Panasonic, a brand which we are all fondly aware of in this day and age. The young boy had almost nothing under his belt; no money,

no real formal education, and no connections. Yet, his small firm Matsushita Electric Appliance Factory flourished. Today, more than 20,000 employees work at Panasonic, and the overall worth of the company stands at a whopping $66 billion. Matsushita’s success made him Japan’s biggest yen billionaire. He has also made himself the most widely admired businessman in Japan. When an interviewee asked him what was the empowering factor behind his success he noted that it was the belief in his idea and its potential that kept him going. New and successful entrepreneurs are no different; the extremely passionate individuals put-forward their best efforts and take their company to unmatchable heights. In this issue Insights Success has listed “The 10 Most Successful Companies to Watch, 2018,” which are dominating their respective verticals with their innovative products and service offerings. Featuring as the Cover story is Zudy®, a company which is making waves with its revolutionary no-code app development platform, VINYL. A dream team of solution architects at Zudy® create or transform enterprise solutions in days, not months or years. The magazine also includes, Proactive Worldwide Inc.; a global decision support, research and consulting firm that provides evidence-based strategic intelligence; Canvas InfoTech Inc., which is a company that has been fulfilling staffing needs efficiently; Approyo, a leading global SAP HANA technology solution provider; Midwest Restoration, which is a full service property damage restoration company that offers restoration and reconstruction of residential and commercial properties; Analytic System Ware, which designs and manufactures power conversion products like Battery Chargers, Voltage Converters, Inverters, etc.; and Allgress, which is a leading Integrated IT Risk, Compliance and Security solutions provider that enables organizations the ability to cost effectively reduce and manage their business risk with less complexity and cost. Also, make sure to flip through our articles, written by our in-house editorial team; as well as CXO Standpoints of notable industry personalities. Let’s start shall we?

Kedar Kulkarni

08 ZudyÂŽ: Revolutionizing Enterprise Software with No-Code

Digi Transformations

Inside Entrepreneurship from Emerging Markets Emerging Tech, Revolutions & Crisis for Entrepreneurs:

Decoding Digital Transformation For Utilities

Industry Insider DevOps - Bridging the Gap between Dev and Ops

Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Viewpoint How Technology is Driving Procurement?

SalesChoice: Leading Insights to Become the Most Successful Person This Year

Insights from a true Globe Trotter

Mentor's Insights

Backend-As-A-Service for PaymentsAs-A-Service

Allgress: An Elite Risk and Compliance Management Solution Provider

Analytic Systems: Electrifying Your Business with Power Conversion

Approyo: Purpose-Driven Cloud Solutions

Canvas InfoTech Inc.: Fullling Stafng Needs Efciently

Midwest Restoration: A Brilliant Emergency Platform Built by a Great Team

Proactive Worldwide: A Global Leader in Strategic Intelligence Services

Pooja M. Bansal Anish Miller Kedar Kulkarni Jenny Fernandes Sourav Mukherjee Assistant Editors Brian Smith Kaustav Roy Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Associate Designer Tejas Kulkarni Co-designer Shweta Ambilwade Art & Picture Editor Paul Belin Jayant Khanna Senior Sales Manager Passi D. Business Development Manager Peter Collins Marketing Manager John Matthew Business Development Executives Steve, Joe, Alan, Aniket Sales Executives David, Kevin, Mark, Prashant Technical Head Jacob Smile Technical Specialist Amar, Pratiksha Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza Online Marketing Strategist Alina Sege, Shubham Mahadik, Vaibhav K SME-SMO Executives Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Irfan Research Analyst Chidiebere Moses Circulation Manager Robert, Tanaji Database Management Stella Andrew Technology Consultant David Stokes Editor-in-Chief Senior Editor Managing Editor Executive Editors

sales@insightssuccess.com

March, 2018 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

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Revolutionizing Enterprise Software with No-Code

‘‘

We help our customers to develop

‘‘

business applications that make a signiﬁcant improvement for their business and revenue.

Cover Story

Tom Kennedy Co-founder & CTO

Trish Kennedy Co-founder & COO

rom global tech giants to small enterprises, every business wants robust, versatile systems to respond to customer and business needs. However, lengthy development cycles of traditional enterprise software simply cannot keep up with the pace and complexity of evolving modern requirements. The months and years of hard-coding needed to implement new modern systems means your developments become obsolete while still in the pipeline. An entirely different, reliable and agile software development platform was needed, and the answer came in the form of using no code at all. This revolutionary alternative is finding widespread appeal. A no-code system can fulfill business requirements without the need of cumbersome, traditional hard coding methods used widely today. It effectively makes robust enterprise application development possible with more of a fill in the blank and true or false method. Even a novice, with little to no coding knowledge, can learn to use it within a few days. For the tech industry, which has always been driven by software development teams, the rise of no-code has been a dream evolution, or has it? One company making waves with its revolutionary app development

Let Zudy® experts teach you how to build apps, Do more than catch up… get ahead!

platform is Zudy®. The ingenious vision of their No-Code platform, VINYL™, along with a dream team of solution architects at Zudy® create or transform enterprise solutions in days, not months or years. In fact, Zudy® has developed the world’s only no-code end-to-end Enterprise grade AppDev platform, VINYL™. The platform has gained widespread recognition in the business world. Zudy® has expanded to a new headquarters in Miami Beach, Florida and currently works with more than forty global companies: including Amazon, Stericycle, JCrew and the New England Patriots. A Game Changer Zudy®’s VINYL™ platform has the ability to digitally transform any company with its game changing NoCode AppDev platform. It can mobilize and modernize any legacy system with seamless integration, with any data source in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods. All applications built in VINYL™ are optimized for both mobile and web. The dynamically responsive design and easily configurable UI make for a pleasing, immersive and effortless user experience. All of this is achieved while removing high cost technology barriers and leveraging the existing systems of the client. The end-to-end platform is focused on providing guided agile development with powerful cross-platform-CRUD, automated workflows, built-in lifecycle management, and enterprise security. Even the largest most complex Enterprises can quickly and painlessly digitize every business processes with VINYL. VINYL™: Promising Potential Conventional software and app development teams take months to build one usable application. Zudy®’s solution gives enterprises the ability to build highly configurable ‘Enterprise Ready’ apps in weeks. These apps are designed to integrate seamlessly into

all existing and future data sources and systems. VINYL™’s architecture is the key to Zudy®’s ﬂexible design and build environment. It consists of three main layers: Design, Business Logic and Data Access. Ÿ

Design Layer: VINYL™’s design layer is extremely easy to use and oﬀers completely customizable UI/UX. The presentation layer allows complete design control so enterprises can maintain their branding and speciﬁc look and feel without coding.

Business Logic Layer: VINYL™ automates business processes in minutes. This includes everything from simple to complex business logic, and user-defined workflows that support notifications via email and texts.

Data Access Layer: VINYL™’s patented universal translator allows all development to occur in a single environment across all data sources. VINYL™ can securely read and modify enterprise data without moving data from your enterprise systems.

VINYL™’s Lite Integration relates and displays data at the UI level in minutes without aﬀecting source systems. It enables cross-platform CRUD across multiple data sources at the same time. It also allows users to create beautiful yet powerful applications, and charts from multiple data sources, which facilitates complex analytics on the same screen without the need for a single line of code.

VINYL™ can be utilized by any enterprise in any industry, regardless of size or location. The platform has been used to build applications for hundreds of clients ranging from large media and

Cover Story

telecommunications organizations to global pharma and biotech firms. Part of its appeal is that VINYL™-designed applications are easy to modify and maintain. This efficiency and versatility has resulted in unprecedented revenue within a year of Zudy®’s establishment. Zudy®’s Cofounder and COO, Trish Kennedy reveals that VINYL™ has been very well received in the market. She added that the company grew over 1000% from 2016 to 2017 with forecasts of another exponential growth year in 2018. A Perfect Pair Tom Kennedy, Co-founder and CTO of Zudy® has over thirty years of experience building rapid application development platforms. From his role as Director of Application Development at TOM Software in the 1980s to Kennedy & Associates and then BackOffice Associates, Tom has architected and sold four commercially successful platforms over the last 30 years. The culmination of his work is now VINYL™, the most advanced Enterprise ready application development platform in the market today. Tom, after spending years solving the most complex Enterprise system issues has built a technology that incorporates his learning across hundred of Global Enterprises. Tom built industry changing data migration and data governance solutions prior to envisioning VINYL™. His work with data quality and data governance led him to understand the need for Enterprises to more fully take advantage of the data that exists across their system landscapes, and of course available data sources outside the Enterprise that can enhance and bring powerful capability into an Enterprise. “Tom has been a geek-at-heart technologist and has built many customer-oriented, successful applications throughout his career,” Trish says, “Tom never called himself a

“If you are falling behind, change your path or change your speed.”

visionary, he calls himself a ’listenary’, he emphasizes listening to customer problems and actually solving the problems they have, not inventing solutions to problems that don’t exist.” At Zudy®, Tom works on developing technological solutions while Trish focuses on delivering customer success. She has successfully handled the sales and marketing departments of the company since its launch and catalyzed revenue by working with several global giants, like Amazon and the New England Patriots to utilize this amazing platform. Her passion and enthusiasm help drive the Zudy® team to success. This pair of two extraordinary visionaries is driving a promising platform with their inspiring commitment to innovation. Unlimited Applications, Unlimited Users VINYL™ can begin digitally transforming any business within a week. Conventional technologists who are accustomed to app development that can take years are skeptical of this claim. To allay such reservations, Zudy® provides a one-week proof of concept which allows prospective clients to develop their first app using VINYL™. “I believe many of our prospects take us up on this challenge believing we will fail.”, said Trish. “However, the ensuing success plays a significant part in building Zudy®’s long-term customer base.” Feedback from satisfied clientele reveals that they are especially impressed with VINYL™’s capacity to drastically increase the ability to purse new revenue models and new business models, many times achieving remarkable increases in revenue. Clients are also enticed by VINYL™’s very attractive pricing model, featuring unlimited apps unlimited users. The average company develops and deploys one or two applications per year but customers using Zudy®’s No-Code solution develop 30-50 apps per year. This unprecedented

‘‘

It’s not about us, it's about what we will do for you.

“Fast is good but quick is better.”

facilitation of innovation and agility is further reason for companies to take the leap into no code. Seamless Integrations VINYL™ Users enthusiasm is evident when you take a look at their overwhelming adoption of the technology once they get a taste. The adoption rate of No-Code in companies that use VINYL™ soars once they experience a new found ability to develop and deploy at such a low risk and low cost . Many users declare the VINYL™ platform is ten years ahead of the curve. Zudy® has thrived within a short span of time by continuously focusing on customer needs and developing solutions that exceed customer expectations. “We have thrived over the years by making sure every customer is wildly successful with our technologies. We don’t plan on stopping now!”, said Trish Kennedy. Zudy® plans further expansion and growth in its workforce so customers everywhere can experience the incredible beneﬁts of No-Code app dev for their digital transformations. The company plans on adding over 100 resources by year end.

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Company Name

Management

Brief

Allgress allgress.com

Gordon Shevlin CEO & Co-founder

Allgress is a leading Integrated IT Risk, Compliance and Security solutions provider that enables organizations the ability to cost eﬀectively reduce and manage their business risk with less complexity and cost.

Analytic Systems Ware analyticsystems.com

James Hargrove CEO

Analytic System Ware designs and manufactures power conversion products like Battery Chargers, Voltage Converters, Inverters, etc.

Approyo approyo.com

Christopher Carter CEO

Approyo is a leading global SAP HANA technology solution provider.

Canvas Infotech Inc. canvasinfotech.com

Alok Bhatia Co-founder & President

Canvas Infotech is company that has been fulfilling staffing needs efficiently.

Maine Pointe mainpointe.com

Steven Bowen Chairman & CEO

Maine Pointe, LLC is an operations management and implementation company that provides supply chain services.

Midwest Restoration mwrestoration.com

Coyne S. Borree CEO Jennifer Rottier COO

Midwest Restoration is a full service property damage restoration company that oﬀers restoration and reconstruction of residential and commercial properties.

Proactive Worldwide, Inc. proactiveworldwide.com

Gary Maag Co-founder & CEO

Proactive Worldwide is a global decision support, research and consulting ﬁrm that provide evidence-based strategic intelligence.

TempoQuest tempoquest.com

Eugene P. Pache Jr President & COO

TempoQuest is the worlds fastest, most advanced weather forecasting software.

Vindicia vindicia.com

Kris Nagel CEO

Vindicia provides enterprise subscription billing, consumer entertainment, and enterprise software.

Zudy® zudy.com

Tom Kennedy Co-founder & CTO Trish Kennedy Co-founder & COO

Zudy® is revolutionary no-code software and application development platform that develops enterprise software and applications in the matter of week.

Digi Transformations

assive technology changes, never seen or experienced before are revolutionizing the businesses with advent of the new wave of digital innovation. From cloud computing to mobility, to big data analytics, IoT, machine learning, and artiﬁcial intelligence, these technologies have completely transformed the business landscape irrespective of the industry— banking, retail, telecom or utility alike. The pace of this technological advancement is growing exponentially, establishing new business models and creating tectonic shifts in market dynamics. The technology-savvy and digitally connected customers of today are further forcing businesses to take cognizance of their preferences, expectations and consumption trends. Unless business aligns their approach and processes with this customercentric approach, survival may be thwarted in the competitive landscape. Today, the energy and utility industry grapples with its unique set of challenges comprising aging infrastructure, workforce retention and recruitment, widening demand-supply deﬁcit, evolving regulatory mandates,

stricter environmental compliances, need to increase grid resilience, and economic and social ramifications. Ultimately, utilities face the risk of disintermediation of their relationship with the customer, allowing new entrants to capture the value, while they are left holding the costs. For utilities to meet these challenges while delivering quality service and sustaining their financial viability, it is paramount to reexamine their approach technology and digitalization. While the traditional energy and utility industry had been a relatively slow adopter of technology compared to other sectors, nonetheless, it has picked up pace in last couple of years. The energy and utility companies today are beginning to comprehend the value of digital innovation and its impact on improving their operational efficiencies, boosting service levels, reducing costs and most importantly on increasing customer satisfaction. This has led them to explore the opportunities extended by adopting latest technologies such as cloud, mobile, big data, predictive analytics, IoT, machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics and others. The industry is now quick to leverage latest

innovations to modernize processes, gain efficiencies and gain customer confidence. By adopting a “mobile-first” strategy, the utilities can enable real-time connectivity with customers and their workforce alike – from anywhere, anytime and using any device. This has empowered customers who can easily manage or monitor their real-time and historic usage, and make better choices based on data-backed insights. They can conveniently plan and manage their bills and payments with increased ease and flexibility. The utilities can use mobile technology to become proactive in sending alerts, notifications and personalized communication to the customers. It can also boost the workforce productivity and efficiency by equipping them with on-the-go updates using mobile devices. Driving customer engagement can help utility increase customers’ adoption for energy efficiency and water conservation programs. This in turn is a win-win for both – the customers who save on resources as well as on bills, and even the utility which is able to manage peak loads and optimizing resources; thereby also meeting the state mandates.

|March 2018|

About The Author Eric Dresselhuys is the President at Smart Energy Water (SEW). He has been contributing in the energy, utility and infrastructure industry for 20 years. With his domain know-how, technical expertise and business acumen, Eric is responsible for the overall strategic outlook and business development at SEW. Over the years he has played a leading role working with utilities across 5 continents to help guide their digital transformation . Eric is a well-known speaker thought leader across the energy, utility and infrastructure industries.

Eric Dresselhuys Smart Energy Water

However, this digital shift poses another set of complexities for utility industry – huge quantum of customer data, lack of in-house technical expertise, implementation risks, integration complexities and ongoing support concerns. Thus, for utilities, the adoption of technology and solutions necessitates a strategic outlook rather than tactical detours focused on quick fixes. The industry must carefully assess and evaluate the “build vs. buy” adage to be able to deploy technology or solutions which are a best-fit for their business requirements and are also cost-effective and efficient. They must look for solutions that can easily integrate with existing legacy systems, require minimal deployment cost and can deliver faster returns on investment. Since, customers today are prime drivers of change; another important consideration for the utility industry must be customer adoption rate. The customers are doubtlessly more technology savvy today, but adoption rate depends upon how user-friendly a platform is, and does it offer self-service capabilities. Similarly, how quickly and easily the utility workforce can familiarize with the solution and can use it address customer concerns. Carefully weighing these considerations can help the industry truly leverage the emerging technologies and thrive on the wave of digitalization. |March 2018|

The acceleration of digital transformation in the utility industry has predictably driven an upsurge in the number of service providers oﬀering technologies to address these needs, each with their unique value proposition, but generally focused on only a small sub-set of the overall challenge. Thus, the utility companies must be cautious while identifying their digital transformation partners’ basis not just the technical competencies but also ensures both are aligned in terms of long-term architectural compliance and are driven by a shared goal to build the utility’s primacy with its customers. As more and more utilities adapt and adopt emerging technologies, CIOs have an important role to play as they must carefully balance long-term and short-term deployment decisions. With the evolving utility-customer relationship, they must probe areas where digital can help them strengthen relationship with customers, while improving operations, bridging organizational siloes, and developing topline opportunities. Indeed, digital transformation opens arrays of opportunities for utilities, but, success will require a signiﬁcant investment in new talent and capabilities, and careful prioritization.

Allgress: An Elite Risk and Compliance Management Solution Provider

s the term exclaims, Risk and Compliance Management is the coordinated integration of all governance, risk management, and compliance activities within an organization. Governance refers to the coordinated processes and strategies established by the management to meet their risk management objectives. Risk management is the management of uncertainties within the risk appetite of the company, and compliance refers to the company complying with policies,, laws, regulations and partner requirements. The integrated components should complement each other and also have a positive impact on the eﬃciency of the organization’s people, process, and technology. However, many of the risk and compliance activities are complex which extends the time to indemnify risks to the business. The Allgress Insight Risk Management suite provides a platform that reduces the complexity by automating the risk management process by integrating workﬂow, visual reporting and mitigation from a single console. Their solution overcomes redundancy, poor visibility, non-consistent processes and lack of accountability by providing ease-of-use that is comprehensive in identifying and reducing business risk in less time. Allgress is an example of an innovative technology leader, specializing in Integrated IT Risk, Compliance and Security solutions.

Since its inception in 2008, Allgress has empowered many organizations with an innovative risk, compliance and 3rd party management solution which allows organizations to meet requirements, regulations, best practices and obligations, and drive them towards success. Automating Risk Management with Desired Business Outcomes Allgress has exclusively focused on providing integrated Governance, Risk and Compliance, management solutions, to a wide variety of global organizations across multiple vertical markets. The solutions of the company enable organizations and their partners to automate their entire risk management lifecycle by bringing ease-of-use, automated assessment, advanced visualization, remediation, and the integration of existing data feeds in an integrated solution. This facilitation permits customers to derive value in less time with reduced complexity eliminating the need for an army of consultants. The vision of the company is to address its customer’s challenges by adapting to continuing changes of technology like cloud computing, processes and people by delivering solutions that are easier to use, modular and quicker to implement. These objectives allow the Allgress platform to provide quick-time-to-

value to its clients and prove its value through its foremost advancements. Such adaptive transformations allow clients the desired functionality in solutions that help customers reduce their risk which intern results in less potential impact to the bottom line. Powerful Combinations Streamlining the Risk Management Process The company has recently announced a visionary and powerful solution called ’ComplianceVision’ (CV). CV is a comprehensive compliance solution for rapid automated compliance mapping, assessment, reporting and remediation that reduces business risk with less complexity, consulting and cost in a fraction of the time compared to manual processes. This efficient risk and compliance management solution identifies the controls that need to be mapped to meet regulations, best practices and third-party requirements then populates those controls with machine intelligence for the relivent controlled data from existing thirdparty solutions. It identifies risks in less time with more accuracy and consistency, and substantially reduces the man hours to complete an assessment. Driving the Advancements Relentlessly With Passionate Leadership Allgress is successfully driven towards their desired destinations of efficiently automating more of the taxing risk

|March 2018|

We provide full featured Integrated Risk Management solutions that reduce Business Risk with less complexity that provide value on day one. Gordon Shevlin CEO & Co-Founder

management processes. The prime proponents behind Allgress’ advancements are Gordon Shevlin, CEO/Cofounder and Jeff Bennett, COO/Co-founder. Gordon Shevlin has a career spanning experience of twenty-five years and has successfully co-founded many organizations over the years. Prior to Allgress, Gordon cofounded SiegeWorks a digital defense services firm. He grew the company, built a strong international presence, and managed its successful acquisition by FishNet Security (now Optiv), the nation’s leading reseller of information security solutions. Jeff Bennett brings more than two decades of business leadership, product development, and IT security and compliance industry experience to the company. A serial entrepreneur, Jeff has led several companies including Cofounding digital defense services firm SiegeWorks. Following the acquisition of SiegeWorks, Bennett served as executive vice president of services at FishNet (now Optiv). He has also served on the advisory boards of other leading security providers. Gordon and Jeff, both have a relentless drive to help customers reduce the complexity of identifying and mitigating IT risk in less time with reduced complexity. They continuously interact with customers and partners to |March 2018|

discuss risk management challenges and innovative ways of expanding the Allgress solutions. True to their passion, their efforts of keeping pace with the rapid change have leveraged the platform to its highest level. Expansion of Features and Value Added services with Innovation Allgress continues to innovate by interacting with its customers and partners to expand its ease-of-use, reduce time-to-value and automating associated tasks, thereby reducing business risks accordingly. Its product ComplianceVision is a prime example of such innovation, the company aims to advance in innovation and make it more efficient. It plans to further streamline the entire IT risk and compliance process and make it easier for customers to deploy multiple solutions from different providers with integrated integration and packaging. In addition to this, another differentiating factor has been its ease of use. The ability to craft just the right integrated IT Risk, Compliance, and Security management platform to meet an organization’s specific risk management challenges provides the flexibility to build out an end-to-end solution if required or a minimal deployment deployed in the cloud or on-premise.

Analytic Systems Electrifying Your Business with Power Conversion

lectriﬁcation of our world is continuing at an ever accelerating pace. In addition to traditional sources of electricity, new sources such as wind, solar, tidal and geothermal are all developing quickly; so is the demand for that electricity which is projected to grow 25% annually for the foreseeable future. Demand for devices that convert the source energy into a form required by the user is growing at a similar pace. Global companies such as Siemens and ABB are investing heavily in energy storage and conversion, serving high volume customers. However, there are many demands the global players cannot service, creating opportunities for smaller companies. Analytic Systems is one such leading organization meeting the needs of this market.

Groundbreaking Products and Commissioned Designs Analytic Systems oﬀers power conversion solutions including Power Supplies (AC to DC), Voltage Converters (DC to DC), Inverters (DC to AC), Frequency Converters (AC to AC), Battery Chargers and Solar Charge Controllers along with a wide array of accessory products. High frequency pulse width modulated

battery chargers and pure sinewave inverters are primary products in high demand by Marine, Industrial and Military markets. Their extreme environments demand rugged construction using anodized or powder coated aluminum enclosures, stainless steel fasteners, and conservative design for high reliability. The company also uses its advanced design and manufacturing capabilities to create customized solutions for their clients upon request.

Captain Catalyst and Motivator The company was founded in 1976 by Lloyd Hargrove, P.Eng. He had a long career in electronics, starting from Computing Devices of Canada, where he helped design the Heads-Up Display (HUD) for the infamous Avro Arrow. In the early 1970s he also served as the Chief Civilian Engineer in the underwater acoustics section of the Canadian Navy’s ‘Anti-Submarine Warfare’ department. When he founded his own company, Lloyd wanted it to have the ASW acronym, and coined the name Analytic Systems Ware Ltd. From its founding in 1976 until 1993 the company developed more than 360 unique electronic products including the world’s ﬁrst digitally controlled marine automatic pilot.

Stepping into the Shoes of Great Legacy James Hargrove P.Eng, CEO of Analytic Systems, is a University of British Columbia trained electronics engineer. He started his career with Analytic Systems in 1981 working on the automatic pilot project. In 1983 this project was spun oﬀ into ComNav Marine Ltd. with James as VP of Engineering. James left ComNav in 1993, rejoining Analytic Systems as CEO at the young age of 36. He immediately launched Analytic Systems onto a path leading from just three employees to almost 100 today. Apart from being CEO, he also oversees Marketing and R&D. He boasts an extensive 35+ years in the industry and has taken giant strides in the shoes of his father. Early Impediments and Remarkable Emergence James invested $50,000 in 1993 for a majority share of the company and immediately initiated the design of the world’s ﬁrst pure sinewave inverter, intended to run computers in the hostile commercial marine environment. Of course that money quickly ran out, forcing him to remortgage his personal property multiple times to keep the company |March 2018|

Whether you need Power Conversion for marine, industrial, telecom, COTS or full MilSpec, one unit or a thousand, we can do it. James Hargrove P.Eng. CEO

growing. His remarkable passion and persistent determination steered him to work long hours during his initial years in the company. He did sales and marketing during the day and designed products at night. This routine of working into the wee hours eventually declined as the sales began to grow and the company emerged with a bright future in sight. James believes that for any company the primary asset is its people. He states that today Analytic Systems has a dedicated staff with a mix of both long term experienced and enthusiastic young employees. This combination of experience and enthusiasm is the key factor that helps the company find the best, most cost-effective and innovative solutions for its customers.

Protected Preciosity of Products Analytic Systems has invested heavily in its infrastructure and manufactures all products in its own Vancouver, BC based facilities that include; electronic and mechanical design, assembly for both surface mount and through-hole technologies, wiring harnesses, transformer winding, automated conformal coating, and CNC machining of enclosures and components. In-house testing including radiated and conducted emissions, electrostatic |March 2018|

susceptibility, temperature and vibration are all available and utilized during design and testing (particularly for high reliability products). All processes are ISO9001 quality certiﬁed and the company is certiﬁed compliant with the Canadian Controlled Goods Directorate so they can do business with international companies registered with ITAR (International Treaty for Arms Reduction).

Progressive Digitalization to Improve Power Density and Product Reliability Today Analytic Systems focuses predominantly on Digital Signal Processor technology, utilizing it to design products that are innovative, ﬂexible and meet the needs of a worldwide customer base. The IoT (Internet of Things) means that new products must integrate into the digital world, providing information on their operation and taking operational commands from a wide variety of sources while at the same time providing more power in less space. Visit analyticsystems.com for more information.

or centuries, humans have had a propensity to pit two or more teams with distinctive functionalities against each other – even when they are on the same team. This dynamic can be witnessed even in traditional business enterprises, between software developers and operational staﬀers.

The rivalry between Dev and Ops has been prevalent for decades causing one of the most prominent challenges for organizations to manage their IT capabilities. Overcoming from this rift and identifying each other as partners rather than rivals, can be crucial for a business to attain success. But due to opposing priorities, a friction gets created when they are combined, making it even harder for dev and ops to communicate in an efficient manner. Conflict between Development and Operations Although there isn’t any doubt concerning the various technical as well as business advantages that an organization can reap upon combining Dev and Ops, but they comprise of entirely unique goals, metrics, and approaches. Development primarily lays focus on producing new systems and applications and ensures that customers get to use the same as fast as possible. On the contrary, operations look from a different aspect altogether; wherein they primarily focus on ensuring a speedy and bug-free stable system. Additionally, both dev and ops strive towards achieving a similar goal of making their customers feel happy and satisfied, yet they utilize completely contradicting approaches to reach that purpose. On one hand, development aspires to impress its customers with their new enhancements. Whereas on the other hand, the operational team wants its customer base to use a stable and tested system – free from bugs and operability inconveniences.

|March 2018|

Industry Insider The Battle Scenario – Before and After the Advent of DevOps Before DevOps came onto the scene, both Development and Operations worked in an isolated manner. The only time they crossed-paths were during the release phase. The development team, already notified about the release date, intended to interject some new and additional features before the time of release. Whereas the operational team knew from beforehand whether the current release version had any new or additional features interjected. This way, before deploying the release to the customer’s site, the Ops team performed rigorous testing to be satisfied with its stability and operability and only then permitted its deployment. The arrival of DevOps and its rise in adoption led to a paradigm shift from this culture. Developers now no longer need to wait for a release date to bring-forward new and enhanced features. Instead, they have the capability to release new features on a regular basis by using the concept of Continuous Integration and Delivery. This has prompted developers to emphasize that the operation team must manage this regular flow of new features imperatively before it gets deployed to the customer’s site. But this approach gave rise to a new problem, as Ops have to deal with a pipeline of releases at a regular interval due to this. They now need to be extremely attentive and careful about the quality testing of the systems as the deployed builds on the customer site may or may not be entirely free from bugs. The Resolution The most feasible and obvious solution to this opposing friction is the synchronization between Dev and Ops, popularly termed as DevOps. Coined by Patrick Debois, known as “the father of DevOps,” DevOps is an operational philosophy that helps to bridge the gap between Development and Operations by emphasizing upon integration, collaboration, and communication.

|March 2018|

It is the most salient methodology through which an organization can check and assure a balance between development and quality. In order to reach an equilibrium point in this resolution, both Dev and Ops need to embrace the DevOps methodologies by modifying their outlook and their way of working, as follows: From the Operations Perspective Ÿ Extensive monitoring of all running environments such

as staging or production, so as to react and prevent any issues from cropping up and spreading, respectively. Ÿ Operations need to be much more ﬂexible in their approach in accepting regular or frequent changes. Ÿ Operations should facilitate an eﬀective and healthy collaboration with the Development team. From the Development Perspective. Ÿ Sound engagement needs to be performed to assess the

quality metrics that Ops emphasizes on, to track customer production systems and quality. Ÿ Dev need to be more involved with the testing of their own code in the production phase instead of leaving out from the field after writing the system or application code. Ÿ Developers should facilitate an effective and healthy collaboration with the Operations team. Hence, it can be safely exclaimed that both Dev and Ops team need to change substantially in their functioning and outlook to successfully adopt the DevOps methodology. Adapting to DevOps culture is by no means a silver bullet, as it brings with itself a considerable amount of changes. But upon successful communication between developers and operators, an organization will be able to reap significant advantages through the same. The battle between Dev and Ops may continue for years, but DevOps has the distinct capability to bridge the gap between the two.

Approyo: Purpose-Driven Cloud Solutions

hristopher Carter, CEO of Approyo recognized the need for a company that could provide cost-eﬀective strategic solutions using the best of SAP, cloud and big data analytics. This motivation led to the inception of the company back in 2011. Approyo is a leading global SAP solutions provider that creates customized cloud environments for its customers by revolutionizing the way SAP and SAP HANA solutions are adopted. It works with customers to help realize business potential that drives growth, improves ROI and lowers risks. Setting up an Approyo platform is quick and easy, a key factor in its popularity. Since its inception, Approyo has become one of the largest U.S.-based SAP HANA ﬁrms. Today it employs a large number of SAP HANA experts, with over 200 SAP S/4 HANA and SAP HANA worldwide cities. The company headquarters are located in Wisconsin, and it maintains Data Centers in Columbus, OH, Atlanta, GA, Palo-Alto, CA, as well as a Latin American HQ in Sao Palo, Brazil and a European base in Brussels, Belgium. Approyo working strategy is based on the platform eco-system trend, which has become the tech world’s prevalent

facilitator. This solution has attracted many tech giants to its solutions; Approyo’s client portfolio includes Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, and Salesforce’s Force.com. Supporting Enterprises with Innovation Approyo supports firms which are looking for the knowledge to grow through current business process, where an increase of just 1% translates to millions of dollars in business flow. It supports clients in making the shift to the SAP HANA platform by developing ready-to-deploy and secure predictive analytics solutions. Using this solution for the HANA platform gives a business the ability to fit structured and unstructured data directly into the system without the hassle of massive hardware deployment and the resulting costs. It also allows its customers to choose a pay-as-you-go model or a monthly subscription. Approyo brings Big Data and SAP HANA to everyone in a quick and efficient manner. Its SAP HANA Solutions are typically up and running within two to five days. The SAP HANA solution condenses HANA’s various components into a single neat and easy package. Companies have the freedom to either use the entire package or individual components.

This versatile approach makes it one of the best solutions in the market. The company’s support team manages over 200 SAP landscapes in its cloud platform and offers 24 x 7 support to its clients which further aids efficiency. Shaping Cloud Solutions CEO Christopher Carter works with many businesses around the globe. He assists cloud solution providers with the usage of big data in the forms of Hadoop (Cloudera and Hortonwork’s) and SAP HANA. Chris has been in the SAP industry for almost 25 years. He has been nationally recognized by The American SAP Users Group, SAP Hadoop World and by many other globally-recognized researchers. Primary Growth Factors Approyo main focus is essential simplification, and this has been the prime driving factor for the company’s success. Network - Chris Carter and his team bring a wealth of relationships into the SAP ecosystem, and this further accelerates business and partnerships. Expertise - Chris has over 25 years of Big Data and technology expertise. He was the creator of the first customer SAP HANA Cloud Environment. His team has worked with over 100 SAP |March 2018|

We can bring our SAP HANA cloud offerings to our customers faster and more efﬁciently than anyone in the SAP ecosystem, and we have the experience to back it up.

Christopher Carter CEO

HANA customer cloud environments. This resourceful experience has created unbeatable agility and adaptability in solutions. Global Connectivity - Approyo has cradled across the globe and provided its solutions across unexplored territories. This global connectivity has been crucial for the company’s credibility. Team - The Approyo team is dedicated in helping its customers realize the business beneﬁts of big data, the Internet of Things, and cloud computing. Technology - Approyo believes it helps customers achieve their dreams. The solutions are tailored to the customer’s business needs. Hence, every cloud environment is built from the ground up for SAP HANA, S/4HANA, Hadoop and other technology solutions.

Revolutionary Solutions with a Purpose Approyo recently launched SAP S/4HANA Ignite that gives companies an organized SAP S/4HANA sandbox that can be utilized in minutes. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the SAP world with the most economic production grade sandbox which costs just $3,000 per month with a secure network. The technology is a game changer for SAP customers who want to try SAP S/4HANA and need to test how they can migrate. Carter stresses that all current and upcoming products of the company are made with one purpose: To help companies succeed. He adds, “We help companies have a better, stronger more cost eﬀective solution at their ﬁngertips, one that supports their needs and high standards.”

Additionally, the ﬁrm is helping its partners uncover new business opportunities through the use of big data and SAP HANA. The utilization of best-in-class technology partners in the SAP ecosystem has seeded consistent growth and the empowering features constructive strategizing, uniqueness, and agility created product popularity.

|March 2018|

Emerging Tech, Revolutions & Crisis for Entrepreneurs: Insights from a true Globe Trotter

Photo Courtesy: Daniel Lopez-Paullada

By AlisĂŠe de Tonnac, CEO of Seedstars

|March 2018|

Inside Entrepreneurship from Emerging Markets

ompared to Silicon Valley, the markets we operate in are eager to keep up by creating environments for entrepreneurs and startups. This is driven by investments in institutions and infrastructure, however, in general, the countries still lag behind when it comes to the number of opportunities (even worse when it comes to the “entrepreneurship culture”). In terms of having the right institutions and infrastructures, all regions are doing well except Africa. Countries from Central and Eastern Europe have been specifically successful here. Asia is definitely the most developed region concerning entrepreneurship. One of the biggest challenges I observe is that, unfortunately, many of these countries are confronted with brain drain, although startup hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong are able to attract outstanding minds. Fortunately, investments start to flow to these countries now, as many companies, business angels and venture capitalists already see them as opportunities: entrepreneur hubs like Mexico, Bangkok or CapeTown are attracting more funding every year. On top of infrastructures and institutions there’s another difficulty: training and mentoring habits are missing in many places. Nevertheless, we can see some hubs emerge while accelerators and investments in training schemes are created: Singapore, Shanghai, HK, Santiago de Chile, Nairobi, Mexico City, Cape Town, Belo Horizonte, and others. |March 2018|

The one thing that is really diﬀerent for those countries is that entrepreneurship is just starting to hit their culture now. Nowhere in the world are there as many self-declared entrepreneurs as in San Francisco. For emerging markets, culture seems to be the biggest challenge, with notable exceptions: Singapore, Nairobi, Lagos and Cape Town.

with entrepreneurship in these markets: the opportunities for innovation are wider. I am talking, for example, about drone companies who work with the Rwandese government to change aerial regulations, in order to allow the ﬁrst national drone airport in the world to reside in their land of a thousand hills...

What is interesting about these frontier markets is that out of their challenges rises the opportunity to disrupt the status quo and even sometimes be the test market for new innovations. We witness in more and more industries that phenomena of leapfrogging through which you would skip one technology movement directly to the next - less costly, more efficient and usually more sustainable one. From their weaknesses comes also the advantage of maybe less regulation, less lobbying and a lesser hurdle of consumer habits to change. The most obvious example is that of skipping land lines directly to mobile phones. It is predicted that by 2020, over 80% of all smartphones will be located in emerging markets! When you think about businesses in these markets you consider a mobile economy from day 1. The opportunities of disruption in the financial sectors with mobile payment (50% of Kenyan GDP passes through M-PESA mobile payment application), healthcare sector and others came from there. You also see the rise of solar powered or electric powered energy solutions for remote areas due to the inefficiencies of the national grid.

Talents are everywhere What I see throughout all regions and countries though, is that no matter what the diﬃculties are, passion and dedication always make things happen.

There’s a reason for the collaboration of European or American companies

I like to shout out that talents are everywhere. No one’s potential is linked to an environment. It’s true that a good education and a secure context help, but the good “seed” can be in anyone, regardless of the social environment. Anyone can build anything great from scratch if you give them time, resources, patience and help. I agree that motivations diﬀer according to circumstances. Some have no choice and are entrepreneurs out of necessity, some fundamentally believe it is their mission to change the status quo in their local communities and countries, whilst others are born with that DNA of wanting to build something new and involve others in their journey. I wonder if it is also generational. We, millennials, see life diﬀerently and do put a lot of emphasis on our personal purpose. We’re very much attracted by the nomadic lifestyle that, many times, a digital entrepreneur can give. I think the previous generation did not realize or

plainly abused of the way we treat our planet and entrepreneurship became something very relevant to solve the major challenges of today. Do one thing that scares you everyday In the end, I think that entrepreneurship is more a lifestyle and a mindset, rather than a position. What really moves the needle is then courage and capacity to go out of your comfort zone. I was working for a big luxury company in cosmetics and I had this feeling of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. I needed to ﬁnd a project which made me feel complete and useful. I felt it was a shame not to work for a product capable of changing the world. I came across a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Do one thing that scares you everyday.” I realized I was deeply in my comfort zone and not doing this at all, so I decided to go out of my comfort zone and tour the world from Nigeria to Colombia in 2013, with the goal to meet the best entrepreneurs in those countries. That’s where Seedstars World was born, a startup competition focused only in emerging markets. Now that we’re turning ﬁve, one can surely say it is our main tool to impact millions of lives through technology and entrepreneurship! Today I work hard to be comfortable... being uncomfortable. I wouldn’t say it’s an easy thing to do and that I excel at it everyday, but it’s with a good attitude towards it that you will get there. This is what we call the “Growth Mindset” at Seedstars. We focus particularly on that one while recruiting.

J.K. Rowling gave it all it’s meaning when stating that “some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default”. For all entrepreneurs and professionals, I’ll advise to: Surround yourself with great talent and more generally in your life, cut out those who pull you down; keep the best of hearts, minds and laughs.

Cut out the noise (reality is not what you read on tech magazines) and stay focused.

Don’t underestimate the time to deﬁne and build the culture within your organisation. Someone once said, “culture is management at scale”.

Measure, measure, measure.

Choose your core team because you align with the values, not because you align in terms of skills.

Coach - don’t micromanage (most diﬃcult experience when going from founder to manager).

And ﬁnally, make your dreams reality. It’s all in the doing. Until death has been cured/resolved/augmented, we need to respect the time we have and be content of what we achieve on our day to day.

Advice for entrepreneurs The most important thing for an entrepreneur is that you know yourself. You need to understand yourself to be able to deﬁne what kind of entrepreneur you are (and yes, this can evolve over time and experiences). Are you the kind that builds/creates? Are you the type that follows and scales? Are you the kind that manages and leads? This has been the most challenging and overwhelming journey I have lived to date. But it is, by far, the “healthiest of insanities”, one with a purpose that makes the whole journey great and worth it. A lot is linked to the number of failures you will live, your ability to master these moments and build agility and resilience.

|March 2018|

Canvas InfoTech Inc.: Fullling Stafng Needs Efciently

taffing industry is one of the most well-known, exciting and diverse industries around. It has flourished from a fairly narrow sector, specially known for providing office personnel to replace sick or vacationing workers, to a major industry which now provides a full range of human resource services to virtually every type of business and employer. Nowadays, it is believed that the industry is responsible for employing close to three million people, and is generating revenues of more than $125 billion, contributing to a payroll in excess of $90 billion. With the target of helping people get their dream job, Canvas InfoTech Inc. a minority owned staffing and solutions company started its journey. Headquartered in Fremont, CA., Canvas InfoTech Inc. has been one of the leading provider of professionals to the Fortune 500 clients in United States since 2006. With a commendable experience of more than eleven years, the company has the massive network and resources to fill wide variety of positions. Canvas works across a wide zone spanning over senior level positions, such as C-level Executive search, to junior individual contributors. Canvas offers contract staffing services, full-time staffing services, and pay-roll services as well. Additionally, the company provides

immigration assistance, by filling H1Bs and Green Cards for its employees who are working at the company’s client’s site on a project that it got for them. As per the company, it is a consortium of seasoned consultants with great experience, working together in delivering success in ERP implementation, detailed business requirements gathering, creating SRSs, developing Web Based Applications, and building robust test cases for ERP implementations. Technology Staffing Solutions at its Best Canvas provides professional technology staffing solutions to various respected companies such as Xerox, Visa, Verizon, The Walt Disney Company, Toyota, T-Mobile, Symantec, Tata Consultancy Services, Levi’s, Red Bull, Motorola, Nokia, Logitech, Kia Motors, HP, HSBC, HCL, eBay, Dell, etc. With more than decade of experience, Canvas also branched into providing professional certifications and working with Scrum Alliance to provide CSM and CSPO training to IT professionals. Canvas also provides ITIL training with special training in MS Project and SAFe Agilist and SAFe Practitioner training. The

company also provides trainings like PMI ACP, PMI, PMP, PMI PgMP, and PMP PfMP. Canvas specializes in various sectors including,Technology: All aspect of Software Development and implementation and infrastructure development and Support. Business Operations: Product Managers, Project managers, Analysts, Communications. Finance and Accounting: Controllers, Assistant Controllers, Junior Accountants, Senior Accountants, Credit Managers, Oﬃce Managers, Payroll, Cost Accountants, Financial Analyst. Marketing and Sales: Account Managers/Executive, MarCom, Director of Sales, and Communications. The Forerunner of Canvas Back in 2006, Canvas was Cofounded by Mr. Alok Bhatia, who is also the President of the company. Over the period of last 6 years, he has provided more than 800 consultants to Fortune 500 companies. Alok was also involved in multiple process improvement projects which includes IT based software development projects. With over 21 years of experience in the IT industry, he has

|March 2018|

Our Mission is partnering with clients to provide robust Information Technology Alok Bhatia Co-founder & President

picked up several certiﬁcations including PMP, CSM, CSPO, PMI-ACP, CBAP, SAFe Agilist and SAFe Practitioner, ITIL, and MS Project 2013. All these training has helped him build the needed skills to help a group of people progress from ‘forming and storming’ towards the goal of becoming a great performing, continuously improving, and self-organizing scrum team. Working for Fortune 500 companies early in his career helped him understand the huge market and the potential for a business in this ﬁeld. This in turn led Alok to build Canvas InfoTech Inc.

Solutions.

communication, a clear organizational mission, careful hiring, work life ﬂexibility, competitive pay and beneﬁts. And lastly, not to forget – fun that includes multiple team events throughout the year. Tackling Rough Patches and Future Planning Just like most other organizations, Canvas too had its own share of initial struggles. However, due to the hard work, persistence, and perseverance of the extremely dedicated team, the company eventually tackled all the initial struggles.

When Clients and Employees are First Priority Canvas always takes pride in serving its client’s needs to the best of its ability. Fulﬁlling its client’s needs gives the organization an immense satisfaction and each of the success is the organization’s motivation, which adds to all the excitement.

Thanks to the solid team of the company which is missiondriven and understands the constant market change and adapts to all these changes accordingly. Canvas is hoping to be the number one staﬃng agency in the bay area and also the best training institute for certiﬁcations training in the near future.

Canvas always believes employee friendly workplace culture is a key to a company’s success and winning workplace culture doesn’t happen by chance, nor it can be forced. According to the management of the company, workplace cultures should include open lines of |March 2018|

|March 2018|

Editor’s Viewpoint

cquiring or buying goods, services and work often via tendering or competitive bidding process is known as procurement. Corporate and public sectors unit seeks it to be a fair and open competition process of trade for their business with minimizing risks, such as exposure to fraud and collusion. Procurement process include business affecting factors such as marginal benefit, shipping, delivery and the fluctuating prices of many goods and services. Conventional procurement process generally consumes a certain amount of resources such as employees, time and money of an organization, which is counted in general as the non-liable assets and it affects the growth of an organization in the current tech-arena. The advancement in technology has given a boom to the procurement process and for the leading procurement organizations; it does not just act as quick decision enabler but also a key driver of next-level performance and results. Procurement teams are now capitalizing on innovative sources of technology to optimize processes, building trust, and to enrich relationships to improve their strategic reach and deploy cutting-edge procurement resources. Technology is continuously driving improvements in processes, data, insights, and as all technologies are ultimately implemented to savings. Following are the current market driving technology, which are affecting procurement processes:

|March 2018|

Cloud Services

Expenditure Management

The ease in buying, selling and getting the right resources across a full array of business services and goods are the natural needs for the young generation of tech-professionals to drive into budget management roles. This has now become possible due to cloudoriented services available in the market for procurement professionals. Leading to a quickening pace in cloud services, the companies are now looking to ditch clunky, in-house systems and are replacing it with accessible cloud solutions to avoid being lumbered with rapidly superseded systems. Cloud is proving to be very helpful in determining services such as supply chain, a process to pay, purchasing, and much more.

Many organizations are strong at expenditure analysis but still, this only proves to be a little aspect of expenditure management. Even this task is full of difficulties, with no set of particular standards to define how much and what goes into which category during operations. Once an organization starts looking at the details across its budgets, it gets really difficult to understand its level of expenditures and whether the best value is achieved. With the availability of technology, organizations are improving their view on future expenditures.

Online Global Access to Marketplace Technological advancement in procurement processes is helping to recede geographical limitations, resulting in greater participation of organizations to access global pools of suppliers for business services and resources. With this advancement, larger enterprises will achieve greater eﬃciencies and can easily identify hidden cost savings factors across the wider areas of their business, particularly within their indirect spending. Online platforms are streamlining their purchasing potential and helping them to get quick access to high-quality suppliers while ensuring in-house compliance.

Artificial Intelligence & its Future Scopes AI is gaining trust across different sectors in almost all leading organizations and will continue to evolve till we adopt more consumer buying behaviors at different workplaces in leading procurement organizations. The area of expertise, locations, size and the credit score requirements of almost every supplier is required to get clarity over project deliverables. Organizations are getting support from AI platforms to increase the spectrum area of search, speeding up their processes and avoiding the risk of bias, fraud and error rectifications produced by humans. AI is proving to be a boon for Procurement organizations but still, there is a long way to go in advancement. AI can help in

submitting e-bidding of tenders or in purchase of material by relocating resources according to requirements, the arrangement of data and sheets in array fashion, special dedicated software’s and many more things will get lined-up in accordance to time evolution.

tight timeline and data from Apps will improve measurement of each step on procurement journey. Mobile applications are also helping in the transfer of data through secured channel, cost-cutting and better resources utilization. Summary

Mobile Applications Mobile channels are helping microservices like raise of purchase orders, approvals & continuous checks on delivery times, and billing especially for procurements goods to get faster and reliable. These services will continue to adopt lighter client-side mobile apps. Apps also help with measurement. Business goods are on

Technology has provided the ability to deploy spend management platforms that will help in automating or enable employee self-service for tactical procurement activities and due to it, procurement organizations will ﬁnd mundane supplier activities waning. This will provide procurement professionals with extra hands-on time to focus on higher value-add from

suppliers. Further, technology will continue to evolve over the medium to longer term to a mode with a core “container” with a myriad of transactional apps. Companies will see the impact as they start to control a much larger percentage of indirect spend. With the integration of sources, purchasing and procurement technology, and its interface, into wider and specialized business applications, has been single-handedly transformational for every organization that has had the acumen to implement it to date. If organizations haven’t done it yet, it is imperative for them to start today!

|March 2018|

Midwest Restoration: A Brilliant Emergency Platform Built by a Great Team

team is formed when individuals with a common taste, preference, liking, and attitude, shares a common goal. Team plays a vital role in organizations as well as in our personal lives. Henry Ford once said “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” An organization requires an adequate team that works curiously to draw the succession. A great team starts with a great leadership team. Midwest Restoration is a full service property damage restoration company that has initiated such a leadership team. The capable leadership of Coyne S. Borree, CEO and Jennifer Rottier, COO of Midwest Restoration has successfully formed a specialized team which has enhanced the company’s solutions. The firm is privately owned and an expert company that facilitates the restoration and reconstruction of residential and commercial properties damaged by fire, water, storms, vandalism, or any other incident. Established in 2008, the company has restored many properties with noticeable utility across the country. Restoring the Residential and Commercial Properties CostEffectively The organization restores and

reconstructs several residential and commercial properties with an unparalleled efficiency. It utilizes top of the line equipment in the field and a software and communication/documentation systems that sets the bar of services very high. The platform also provides carpet cleaning, hazmat/trauma cleanup, general remodeling, roofing/siding, ultrasonic cleaning, and other essential services related to restoration. Although the industry expense standards are very high it is a tough task to provide 100% paperless operations cost-effectively. Midwest Restoration has made the course possible and expertly delivers one of the best full circle restorative operations available to their clients. Midwest Restoration works for the homeowners and focuses on their customer being happy with a great product at the end of the day irrespective of the budget and profit margins. Delivering the Services Passionately Both Coyne Borree and Jennifer Rottier are extremely passionate about the vertical and strive to provide their best to deliver a credible restoration platform.

Mr. Borree has year of experience in both the insurance claims industry as well as a restoration background. When you couple these two ﬁelds together you have a recipe for success in the property damage arena. After working for large national corporations, he realized the need for a local company that had its local client’s best interests in mind and formed Midwest Restoration accordingly. He mentions “We provide all the services, but, at the end of the day, seeing all of my clients around the area and knowing that I have helped them out in a time of need while knowing that it was done in their best interests.” In his position of President of Midwest Restoration, Coyne oversees all day-to-day operations of the organization with an emphasis on his clients, building a successful team of employees, and being a good corporate citizen. Coyne is active in numerous Fox Valley business associations, and charities including the local Chamber of Commerce, Police and Fire Departments, NARI, The BBB, Home Building Associations, The Red Cross, and Habitat for Humanity. Jennifer Rottier, COO of Midwest Restoration has an Associate’s degree in Arts & Science from the UW Fox Valley, alongside being a graduate of |March 2018|

YOUR Emergency is OUR Priority.

Coyne S. Borree

Jennifer Rottier

CEO

COO

the EMT program at Fox Valley Technical College. She has held a number of management and executive positions throughout her career. Before joining Midwest Restoration, Jennifer was directly involved with Theda Clark’s ICU and Intermediate Medical and Stroke Unit. Prior to that, Jennifer earned the title of the number one sales associate for seven years straight at one of the largest risk management and workplace compliance organizations in the nation. Jennifer joined Midwest Restoration in December of 2015, serving as the Vice President of Business Development. Due to her massive success in business development, with her adding 1.2 million dollars in revenue during her ﬁrst year in the company created numerous positions that streamed to continue delivering a quality product to its customers. In January of 2017 Jennifer took on a challenging role of a project manager to curb large losses. Unsurprisingly, Jennifer completed several projects over the course of 2017 and did it so well that the company re-wrote the process of its project management based on how she managed her projects. She was promoted as the Chief Operations Oﬃcer in 2018, with the ultimate goal of creating a duplicable system being able to have franchisees across the country, giving |March 2018|

others the opportunity to provide the same quality service and deliver the same quality product that was started in January of 2008. The astuteness of Coyne and Jennifer as a team, together, simpliﬁes the further progressions with deliberate swiftness. Handpicked Associates with Insightful Abilities Rising as the market dominator within a small amount of time is not an easy task. Midwest Restoration has proved its reliability within no time receiving multiple local and national awards. The prime reason behind the success is insightful abilities of the company’s handpicked employees. It has very low associate turnover and puts-in massive amounts of continued education and constant training to keep them within the company with real-time industry insights. Jennifer states “We believe in treating our associates and clients with the same level of value and respect that we provide to our customers.” The company understands the importance of trusted advisors to get out of a tough spot. Thus, it aims to deliver a leading restoration and reconstruction platform to selective regional and national franchises, with the solid team of its facilitators at the helm of aﬀairs.

Backend-As-A-Service for Payments-As-A-Service T

he growth of the Fintech ecosystem brought with it an inﬂux of Payment Service Providers (PSP). These new arrivals are changing the way the industry is serving and interacting with its customers.

Growth Triggers Fresh Challenges It doesn’t matter if you are a B2C or a B2B company, you are now facing a more informed, savvier Customer/Merchant who is looking not just for the best pricing but for the best value for their money. This evolution of the customer required the service provider to evolve as well, simply to keep up. Providers have had to consider additional services as part of their value proposition – not always an easy task for companies with limited resources and legacy systems. The market became more accessible to young, fresh brands oﬀering agile and innovative approaches to payments. Many veteran players have been left to follow their lead or risk losing business. Customers today are looking for faster onboarding, fewer questions and more services oﬀered instantly, from “one-click-checkout” to the ability to login with social networks and even easy ways to share expenses on the go. Square Gets it Right Payment Service Provider Square is an excellent example of a PSP who acted quickly to respond to customer demand. Square started out with their card reader and MPOS, then quickly expanded their services to ecommerce, scheduling and many more options designed to help SMBs (Small Medium Business) expand and scale their own enterprises. Square’s ease of use has helped thousands of merchants improve revenues and take control of their day to day activity. At Coriunder, we have been focused on the PSP-As-AStartup (PAAS) approach, where the PSP is changing their strategy and allocating their budgets to become more

competitive with newer, more agile providers; this led to another PAAS approach. This one has been around for a while but wasn’t considered as an alternative; PaymentsAs-A-Service. This option paves the way for white label gateway providers that have been enabling the quick setup of a Payment Service Provider without the need of a large technical team and the security certifications that come with it. The majority of providers are focusing on the large network of acquiring banks and alternative solutions instead of on the flexibility needed for the PSP to build his client base. But it’s not just about the payments. Our Solution for the PAAS Dilemma Our approach is slightly different; we built a BAAS (Backend-As-A-Service) model that gives our clients tools to manage Customers (Card holders/Users), Merchants, Affiliates and even their own employees. This provides our clients with a way to build apps and services as part of their offering and to manage the billing and “standard” services all within one, PCI Level 1 certified, management suite. This approach made Payments an “Add-on” to the PSP’s service and not the main service; we see some clients expanding our Merchant Management Portal to allow scheduling and invoicing. Other users are building risk and fraud tools to extend the KYC checks and transactions monitoring they have in place. We serve as a hub that provides the PSP with the options they need to integrate to every service provider they wish to. Together, they can create intuitive workflows that better serve their business logic. BAAS and Fraud Prevention An evolution of a customer comes hand in hand with the evolution of the “Fraudsters”. In many cases, the PSP is left exposed on both fronts; they need to both cater to the |March 2018|

Mentor's Insights

About Eliad Saporta Eliad Saporta is the Managing Director of Coriunder. With a background in law and an MBA in finance, Eliad has always been drawn to product management and design. He worked as a consultant for various companies, assisting them in their efforts to build products in the payments ecosystem. Today, he helps entrepreneurs not only by assisting them, but also by offering the right tools and services for building their vision.

Eliad Saporta

Managing Director Coriunder

customer and combat fraud. Clients adopting BAAS are using the Backend solution to manage both transactions and customers, so they now have the ability to integrate Risk and Fraud tools. In many cases, they can even build their own custom tools to define workflows that help them better mitigate risk and more effectively fight chargebacks and fraud. We see the struggles of our customers as a shared challenge, so we offer a C2C (Client-to-Client) integration as part of the core functionality, brands can help one other find solutions more quickly. With C2C integration, additional revenue streams can be established, as clients developing new services or expanding to new territories can assist one another with growth and opportunity.

helping clients create innovative custom solutions, BAAS can resolve the dilemma faced by the average PSP. About Coriunder: Coriunder is a Backend-As-A-Service platform for ﬁntech and ecommerce companies. Whatever your services might be, Coriunder provides you with reach management tools to monetize your solution and enables you to expand globally with our Payment optimization tools and a single point of integration for all of your services. With over 300 available integrations to acquiring banks and service providers, Coriunder is the logical Backend-As-AService for the Payment Service Provider.

When we launched our service we aimed it at startups looking to build their idea on top of our Backend; we soon we learned that the PSP market was in dire need of a service like ours. We are now serving Payment Service Providers globally, with partners based in Hong Kong, the United States, Cyprus, Malta, Costa Rica and more. By addressing the needs of this rapidly growing industry and

|March 2018|

Leading Insights to Become the Most Successful Person This Year

xperiencing a seamless growth is not a miracle, but an appeal in actionable process. Success is a universal concept and not solitude for a certain people, class or origin. So, with this idea, success is actually open for everybody, living anywhere at any time. If you want your provisions to be most preferred over another, you need to put more preference in providing non-horizontal line of solutions in the industry. Provide, people with what they have never heard of, and they will seek for you even in the most hidden places. When you gain such attention, and after a long strive, happiness, and long lasting joy will ﬁlls your heart then this is what success is all about. To stand out unique and be more successful than you have always been, exploit the action plans mentioned below. You may not be able to implement each and every-one, but attempting them with a discipline can help you to improve in unparalleled manner. Self-Control and Discipline You are mature enough, but the future is wiser than you. So, if you want to reach the desired future in a more eﬀective way then learn to organize yourself, and arrange line of action with a time consciousness. Always remember that, time gone will not come back. One must optimize his daily activities to be more organized. The hard works will surely payback with a huge success and a worthwhile ROI. Listen to the Inner Voice A wise man will not fell into the trouble that a smart person would come out of. Learn the people around you. The society is not your home, but your extra person in multitude. If you can control how these multitudes

interact with your inner person and never be distracted by them, you will succeed in almost everything that has to do with people. Remember, you will not always be successful in everything, but you can be mentally successful, when your first step was taken with high degree of optimism. So always be positive and do not allow the bad happening of the now, to distract the possibilities of the future. Be the Leader of Your Today Although you failed once, it also means you tried, and you have the chances to be successful. If you never tried a new thing, you will never know how far you could have gone in life. In all, just learn from your failures and always try to climb up. Never regret anything, just learn from your mistakes and become a better version of you. When you meet new challenges in 2018, always face it with confidence because you might be just a step behind the green pasture at the other end. Let your actions be leader-oriented, with clear goals and budded with pure passion and allow yourself to fly high. Learn in Bits, Grow in Bulk Do not try to learn everything once, you will always make a lot mistakes. As long as you live and interact with people in 2018, always find something new to add to your knowledge store. Learn from the digital platforms, the crowd, but in all; learn to optimize what you have assimilated. Observe each and every action taken by you and have an ability to understand the right one. It will help you to stay ahead of the masses. If you know what every other person knows, and add your own extra knowledge, your actions will stand as reference point for the generations. So continue learning to continue earning. |March 2018|

SalesChoice

|March 2018|

Proactive Worldwide: A Global Leader in Strategic Intelligence Services

t first glance, business research and consulting firms seem somewhat similar. True, their staff qualifications, capabilities, presentations, and fee structures don’t appear to vary much. However, the devil’s in the details. These firms can differ greatly in philosophy, processes, tools, and overall success rates in facilitating a client’s business outcomes. Proactive Worldwide is a case in point. Unlike most other consultants, PWW specializes in serving clients through its expertise in strategic intelligence research and related services. Proactive Worldwide has leveraged the power of Big Data as the catalyst for innovations in evidence-based competitive intelligence and market intelligence. To achieve these ends, PWW works with software partners and emphasizes research and development (R&D). As a result of these innovative strategies, PWW has become a global force in integrating data analytics with cutting-edge expertise in primary market research to deploy more constructive strategic intelligence solutions. Providing Trailblazing Solutions In today’s volatile market economy, any firm needs to take advantage of the best business strategies to survive and prosper. Proactive Worldwide excels in

this arena. The PWW experts help customers from a wide range of industries to outdo the competition through the use of Intelligence-Based Strategic Planning, Competitive Intelligence, Market Intelligence, and Customer Insights. The PWW cultural and operational approach has been honed through many years of experience in developing customized evidence-based solutions to address market, customer, and competitive challenges. Proactive Worldwide shares its expertise by presenting workshops that always have an enthusiastic following. Among the most popular workshop topics is a discussion of ROI and the way that is aﬀected by using evidencebased intelligence when making business development decisions in emerging markets. Meeting the Man at the Helm Gary Maag is the Co-founder and CEO of Proactive Worldwide. With more than 25 years of experience in competitive intelligence (CI) research and consulting, he directs all of Proactive’s global business development, sales, and marketing activities. For his achievements, Maag has received the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals’ (SCIP) Catalyst Award as well as Northern Illinois University’s

Distinguished Marketing Alumnus Award. Partnering with Software Developers More than most strategic intelligence professionals, Proactive Worldwide’s executive leaders engage in significant R&D with their software partners to develop new innovations. The organization’s advanced rapid response service, “Ask an Analyst,” is one typical endeavor. “Ask an Analyst” was developed to help organizations quickly authenticate their positions on any number of strategic/competitive/marketing/custo mer benchmarking metrics to provide insight and direction toward more profitability and growth. Developed by PWW’s President David Kalinowski, the firm also offers a highly strategic War Gaming service. As Kalinowski sees it, “War games are particularly relevant in a fluctuating global marketplace, and when done right, can expose more predictively reliable pathways to help businesses tactically strengthen their position among their competition.” Staying Ahead of the Pack Proactive Worldwide works incessantly to incorporate new technologies as they arise and to build more inclusive models around exponentially increasing volumes of available data. |March 2018|

Strategic intelligence is like oxygen in the corporate environment—if enough gets to the heads of executives, it becomes easier to think clearly. Gary Maag Co-founder & CEO

To do this requires a highly trained and knowledgeable staff. Fortunately, its stellar reputation has made PWW a mecca for both attracting and retaining high caliber people who share the firm’s vision, professionalism, and respect for each other’s talents. Proactive Worldwide credits its team mindset with formulating a positive growth strategy and intentional direction within the organization. Every member of the team brings to the table a unique skill-set that contributes to the firm’s overall expertise and to the knowledge base. As a result, the firm has grown and prospered. Providing Specialized Tools The team at Proactive Worldwide never rests on its laurels. Now they are taking evidence-based findings to a higher level, particularly through strategic simulation, competitive response modeling, and scenario planning. The organization’s leading practitioners are well-known for their development of standard practices in Competitive Intelligence (CI), and they provide information to those in the CI space at prominent forums, workshops, and conferences throughout the year. Proactive Worldwide’s proven service model stresses collaboration with clients to increase their ability not only to gather data, but also to organize, categorize, and |March 2018|

disseminate information efficiently. Proactive Worldwide creates customized intelligence web portals to make this easier for their clients. These web portals are a highly effective way to sort and share critical intelligence with those who can most benefit. These customer-specific web portals help customers make critical business decisions in near-real time. Stepping Up to Aid Growth Industries Changes in technology and methodology occur so rapidly today that many industries find it difficult to keep pace. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the burgeoning healthcare industry. Proactive Worldwide has solutions. Currently, the organization is developing cutting-edge technological innovations that will have an impact on decision making in various areas, including insurance coverage, mergers, and patient compliance. One of Proactive Worldwide’s newest product entries, “MedForecast™,” is a subscription-based model that tracks new drug-treatment solutions as they go through the approval process. Emerging markets around the world are also on the horizon. The PWW team looks forward to these new challenges.