The 30 Most Innovative Companies to Watch 2018 by Insights Success Media

www.insightssuccess.com August 2018

The Imparting Wisdom Successful Personality to Learn from Elon Musk

Digi Connection Beneď&#x20AC; ts of Blockchain in the making of Smarter Energy Grids

Paul Black

Most Innovative

COMPANIES to Watch 2018

CEO & Board Member

A Global Leader in Healthcare IT

www.aetna.com

Innovation : The Pathway to a New World

he term â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Innovationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has driven the industries to open up a new world. Therefore, the innovations that we see day-to-day are meant as discoveries to change the things around us. Additionally, the products and solutions designed through innovative ideas have the potential to disrupt the market by changing the status quo and replacing what already exists with something totally unique. Numerous organizations including start-up companies are generating innovative solutions, techniques and services in order to stand ahead on their respective industries. Further, organizations are transforming every sector to satisfy the needs and expectations of the customers. Nowadays, innovation which is meant as a key is spread across every corner of the world and has taken it by storm. This has led to the development of new solutions to problems that humans have inherently faced. So far, practically every sectors present on the earth have met with some form of challenges, but these innovations have touched on every aspect including medicine, science, engineering and social life. In other words, most of the companies have started to understand this concept and have also achieved through their observation, imagination and thinking out of the box. Without these, everything around us would have been common with just basic ideas. According to the independent researchers, for decades, scientists have focused on the concept of being able to teach machines how to think and eventually learn. These breakthroughs have led to the revolution of artiďŹ cial intelligence where computers are trainable by following a recognizable pattern. This technology is even poised to make electronic devices like computers and smartphones think proactively and undertake sensitive activities. In the near future, technological innovations involved in self-driving cars, genetics and delivery drones can make life easier by the end of the day. New innovation can take the stages of the work towards making

human life easier, efficient and integrated in nature. With progressive research into the technologies and other prototype technologies which are still being conceived, the world is undoubtedly bound to become a better place. Keeping this in mind, Insights Success Magazine has shortlisted “The 30 Most Innovative Companies to Watch 2018”, which have spotted the unique dots to discover new things through notion, unexpected connections and ideas. On the cover, we have encompassed Allscripts, a leader in healthcare information technology with a 30-year history of excellence. The company has a vision to build open and connected communities of health that advance clinical, financial and operational results. Further, we have shortlisted AppZen, the leader in offering artificial intelligence solution for business processes. Auxenta, an innovative software engineering services and technology product consulting company who work with enterprises, independent software vendors (ISVs), startups and not for profit organizations. CoreAxis provides a unique combination of high impact business performance consulting, coupled with custom training development and delivery. Ensygnia, a UKbased technology company specializing in delivering a good customer experience combined with invisible security. Kaaspro is a futuristic organization that believes web apps are destined to make the world more communicative and easier to access. MES, Inc. a full-service provider of global manufacturing and supply chain management services. In this Issue we have also enclosed MHG Systems Ltd, a pioneer in management solutions for forestry and bioenergy supply chain and logistics. PACK’D a rapidly growing startup that is on a mission to fuel potential. Procurify is a cloud-based procurement software company offering a cloud-based procurement solution which can be used to manage company spending. TechR2, a Global Solution Provider for Enterprise Onsite Data Eradication & IT Asset Retirement Services. XTIVIA creates smart Information Technology solutions for companies in every industry. Zappi is the world’s most powerful automated consumer insights platform. Apart from this, we have covered few articles contributed by industry experts, “Future Technologies with a Special Focus on AI and Logo Maker” by Rahul Aggarwal and “Be Smart – or Vanish Why Utilities need to actively develop smart Micro-Grids” by Dr.Karl Kolmsee So, let’s start flipping the pages of the Magazine to acknowledge the innovative ideas spotted!

Kaustav Roy

Cover Story

A Global Leader in Healthcare IT

10 Articles

Imparting Wisdom Successful Personality to Learn from Elon Musk

Digi Connection Beneď&#x20AC; ts of Blockchain in the making of Smarter Energy Grids

Future-Bots Catching-up with the Robotics for Better Future

CONTENTS Insider’s Viewpoint Be smart – or vanish Why Utilities need to actively develop smart Micro-Grids

Tech Evolution How VideoAmp Evolved The Company Culture And Process To Increase The Number Of Engineers EmployedBy Dave Gullo, Co-Founder & CTO, VideoAmp

Director’s Viewpoint

Why Supermarkets Need To Talk To Millennials In Their Language

Aktrea: Transforming the World of Education through Gamication, Simulations and Social Networks

Allgress: Protecting Enterprises through Compliance and Business Risk Management

AppZen: Combining Computer Vision, Deep Learning, and Natural Language Processing

Auxenta: An Unparalleled Expertise Driving Innovation

CoreAxis: A Corporate Training and Leadership Firm

Diversiď&#x20AC; ed: Addressing the Technical Needs of Multiple Market Segments

Ensygnia Ltd.: Executing Uniď&#x20AC; ed Mobile Technology and Security Solutions

Kaaspro: Providing Affordable Cloud-Based Solutions

MES: Delivering Disruptive Innovation in Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management

MHG Systems: Offering Next Generation Smart ICT Solutions for Forest and Biomass Management

Natterbox: Transforming the Telephony Experience within Salesforce

Optimizt Technologies: Consulting Industries through Engineering Design & Simulation Platform

PACK'D: Innovating Nutrition and Fueling Potential

Procurify: Understanding Your Spending, Easily

Spark Compass: A Contextually Intelligent Communications Platform of Platforms

TechR2: IT Security Solutions with On-site Data Eradication

VOX: Leading Provider of Converged Voice and Data Solutions

XTIVIA: Perfecting Innovative Solutions

Zappi: A Leading Automated Consumer Insights Platform

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Executive Editor Assistant Editors Contributing Editors Visualiser Art & Design Director Associate Designer Co-designer

Pooja M. Bansal Anish Miller Kaustav Roy Jenny Fernandes Abhishaj Sajeev Hitesh Dhamani Shubham Khampariya David King Amol Kamble Tejas Kulkarni Poonam Mahajan

Art & Picture Editors Paul Belin Jayant Khanna Senior Sales Manager Passi D. Business Development Manager Peter Collins Marketing Manager John Matthew Business Development Executives Steve, Joe, Alan, Vishal Sales Executives David, Kevin, Mark, Manish Technical Head Jacob Smile Technical Specialists Amar, Pratiksha Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza Online Marketing Strategists Alina Sege, Shubham, Vaibhav K SME-SMO Executives Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Irfan Research Analyst Patrick James Circulation Managers Robert, Tanaji Database Management Stella Andrew Technology Consultant David Stokes sales@insightssuccess.com

August, 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

Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Off. No. 513 & 510, 5th Flr., Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017 Phone - India: +91 7410079881/ 82/ 83/ 84/ 85 Email: info@insightssuccess.in For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.in

www.facebook.com/insightssuccess/

www.twitter.com/insightssuccess

We are also available on : Copyright © 2018 Insights Success, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights Success. Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success.

A Global Leader in Healthcare IT

Cover Story

Paul Black CEO & Board Member

are a team of more than 7,000 devoted “toWefullling your needs today and creating the

“

healthcare IT architecture of tomorrow.

“

We are the original open, connected health platform. A true healthcare IT innovator, Allscripts introduced the concept of an open platform connecting all points of the care community back in 2007. For you, that means evolved, rock-solid and client-focused solutions you can trust.

“

llscripts is a leader in healthcare information technology with a 30-year history of excellence. The company has a vision to build open and connected communities of health that advance clinical, ﬁnancial and operational results. Its innovative solutions connect people, places and data across its vision of an Open, Connected Community of Health™. This connectivity empowers caregivers to make better decisions and deliver better care for healthier populations. Allscripts creates tools that address virtually every aspect of population health, an each of these tools facilitates real-time analysis and action. They enable healthcare organizations to analyze and act – right at the point of care – to empower change, improve health, and reduce costs. CareInMotion™ is the company’s comprehensive population health platform. It brings together care coordination, patient engagement, connectivity, data aggregation, and analytics at the point of care. A Veteran Leader Paul Black currently serves as a Board Member and the CEO of Allscripts. Paul leads the company in its commitment to build open, connected communities of health. Prior to joining Allscripts in 2012, Paul spent more than 13 years with Cerner Corporation in various executive positions and retired as its CEO in 2007. During his tenure, he helped build the company into a market leader in healthcare information technology with more than $1.5 billion in annual revenue.

Paul also spent 12 years with IBM Corporation in a variety of leadership positions in sales, product marketing, and professional services. He has served on the boards of several private companies and nonprofit organizations involved in healthcare information technology, healthcare services, and consumer Internet marketing. He is currently the immediate past chairman and an officer of Truman Medical Centers, a 400-bed safety net academic hospital in Kansas City, MO. Paul holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Iowa. Committed to Client Success Allscripts is the original open, connected health platform. Thousands of the top hospitals, health systems, physician’s practices, and healthcare facilities use the company’s EHR, financial management, and population health management solutions. As a true healthcare IT innovator, Allscripts introduced the concept of an open platform connecting all points of the care community over a decade ago in 2007. The organization provides advanced, reliable, client-focused solutions that enable smarter care to be delivered with greater precision. This makes for healthier patients, populations, and communities. The organization contributes to its clients’ success by: Strengthening their IT foundation through the most comprehensive and user-friendly clinical and financial solutions available today. Ÿ Providing insights and innovations so they can meet the operational, regulatory and quality demands of Ÿ

today’s - and tomorrow’s - healthcare environment. Connecting everyone across the healthcare community through open and interoperable solutions that empower communication, collaboration, and coordination for better outcomes. Ÿ Innovating to improve the practice of medicine and the process of care delivery. Ÿ

greater say in the treatment they receive. With Allscripts, healthcare organizations have at their disposal the critical tools required for ongoing communication, eﬀective education, and regular interaction with patients. These tools make it easy for caregivers to engage and quickly respond to consumers while also oﬀering them full, immediate access to their healthcare information.

Superior Patient Engagement Evolving and Overcoming Challenges Allscripts believes that healthcare doesn’t begin and end with just providers and patients, and it is the only company that brings all healthcare stakeholders together. By collaborating with payers, health plans and programs, pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, and employers, Allscripts has gained a wider view of the care process. It uses that perspective to create innovative tools that lower costs and improve care.

When Allscripts was founded in 1986, its primary business was repackaging medication for point-of-care distribution. In the 1990s, Allscripts started transforming the doctor’s oﬃce with comprehensive practice management and electronic health record (EHR) solutions.

Allscripts oﬀers the industry’s only vendor-agnostic patient engagement platform. With the advantage of open access across the care community, providers can communicate eﬀectively and engage patients directly, creating game-changing improvements in patient outcomes and operational performance.

To address fragmented care delivery, Allscripts merged with acute-solution leader, Eclipsys in 2010. In 2013, Allscripts took several signiﬁcant steps to solidify and advance its population health management solutions. This included the acquisition of dbMotion, a leading supplier of community health solutions, and of Jardogs, the developer of FollowMyHealth, a patient engagement solutions provider.

Allscripts believes that the patient is at the center of everything it does. Modern healthcare consumers understand the beneﬁts of engagement, and they expect to be active participants in their own care. The organization partners with providers to deliver an improved patient experience where individuals have a

Looking to the future of healthcare, Allscripts launched a wholly-owned subsidiary, 2bPrecise, a genomic and precision medicine platform, in 2016. In October 2017, the company acquired Enterprise Information Solutions (EIS), the McKesson Corporation’s hospital and health system IT arm.

“ “

Allscripts tools facilitate real-time analysis and action. Our solutions enable healthcare organizations to analyze and act – right at the point of care – to empower change, improve health, and reduce costs.

“We offer the industry's only vendor-agnostic patient engagement platform. With open access across the care community, providers can communicate effectively and engage patients directly, creating game-changing improvements in patient outcomes and operational performance.

“

This transaction signiﬁcantly expanded their client base in U.S. hospitals and health systems, and diversiﬁed its solutions portfolio. Today, Allscripts is a team of more than 7,000 devoted to fulling the needs of providers today and creating the health IT architecture of tomorrow. The healthcare IT industry is extremely competitive and Allscripts distinguishes itself by creating tools that facilitate real-time analysis and action. Its solutions enable healthcare organizations to analyze and act – right at the point of care – to empower change, improve health, and reduce costs. In addition, the company addresses virtually every aspect of population health. Allscripts provides a comprehensive population health platform, brings together care coordination, and promotes patient engagement, connectivity, data aggregation, and analytics at the point of care.

pre-populate information based on these patterns and deliver preference reminders. By constantly tracking user, organization, and region trends, it creates opportunities for more efficiency. The power of artificial intelligence reveals information relevant to a patient-provider encounter in real time, and this helps improve the quality and speed of interaction with the patient. Ultimately, this reduces the amount of time spent on documentation, helping address the problems of “EHR fatigue” and physician burnout. Allscripts is incorporating EHR-agnostic, precision medicine, and genomic capabilities within providers’ workflows. This will help capture and store genomic data from a range of sources, harmonize clinical knowledge and genomic research to identify relevant information, and then push the resulting insights to the point of care to better determine the most effective regimen for the patient.

The Future Roadmap Allscripts acknowledges that it is becoming increasingly difficult to retrofit EHRs to take full advantage of new innovations such as the Cloud, artificial intelligence, and mobility. The organization believes that machine learning will be a critical element in the evolution of EHRs. Allscripts built its latest EHR from the ground-up using human-centered design. This platform is set to transform the way physicians experience and interact with technology, as well as improve provider wellness. Machine learning capabilities incorporated into the system identify client treatment patterns. It can Allscripts receiving an award from Black Book Research

Proven Protection from Water and More Gore helps manufacturers meet this demand by making vents that reliably protect mobile devices from liquids, dirt and dust. Consisting of housing, a substrate and a thin ePTFE membrane layer, our vents provide a reliable protective barrier to water and other types of particles.

www.gore.com

READ IT FIRST

TODAY Never Miss an

Issue

Yes, I would like to subscribe to Insights Success Magazine.

Global Subscription 1 Year ......... (12 Issues) .... $250.00

6 Months ..... (06 Issues) ..... $130.00

3 Months ... (03 Issues) ....

1 Month ...... (01 Issue) .....

$70.00

$25.00

Date :

Name : Address :

Telephone : Email :

City :

State :

Zip :

Country :

Check should be drawn in favor of: INSIGHTS SUCCESS MEDIA TECH LLC

CORPORATE OFFICE Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone: (614)-602-1754,(302)-319-9947 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

Company Name

Management

Brief

Vetri Selvan Manager & Team Lead, Lokesh Dhanasekaran Engineering, Head of Operations, Dinesh Kumar Head of Customer Relationships

Aktrea helps make corporate learning fun. It create an empowered workforce by improving employee learning & engagement and making them agents of change.

Allgress allgress.com

Jeﬀ Kushner CMO

Allgress is a global provider of automated next-generation integrated Compliance, IT Security and Risk Management Solutions to eﬀectively and eﬃciently manage the business risk of their organization and partners.

Allscripts allscripts.com

Paul Black CEO & Board Member

Allscripts is leading the healthcare IT movement into the value-enabled world of tomorrow.

AppZen appzen.com

Anant Kale CEO

AppZen’s patented AI examines expense reports, finds red flags, and ultimately helps clients rediscover up to 5% of their T&E spend while finding 10x more issues than manual reviews.

Auxenta auxenta.com

Prasath Nanayakkara Chairman and CEO

Auxenta Inc. is an innovative software engineering services & technology product consulting company.

Blue J Legal bluejlegal.com

Ben Alarie CEO

Blue J Legal makes Tax Foresight and Employment Foresight. Its software analyzes data drawn from common law cases to help you conduct better, smarter, more eﬃcient research.

Blue Whale Apps bluewhaleapps.com

Pathik Jayani CEO

Blue Whale Apps develops professional mobile iOS apps for businesses.

BRUNSWICK CORPORATION brunswick.com

Mark Schwabero Chairman & CEO

Brunswick is a market leader in the marine, ﬁtness and billiards industries.

Cloudwords cloudwords.com

Michael Meinhardt Founder & CEO

Cloudwords is an American software company based in San Francisco, California, specializing in Software-as-a-Service technology.

CoreAxis coreaxis.com

Mark Zides President & Founder

CoreAxis is a provider of learning services to clients across industries on a global-scale.

Aktrea aktrea.com

Management

Brief

CoreDial alvopetro.com

Corey C. Ruttan President & CEO

CoreDial provides white label communication services to help their partners successfully sell, deliver & manage cloud communications.

Databricks databricks.com

Ali Ghodsi CO-founder & CEO

Databricks provides a Uniﬁed Analytics Platform that accelerates innovation by unifying data science, engineering and business.

Diversiﬁed diversiﬁedus.com

Fred D’Alessandro Founder & CEO

Diversiﬁed was formed in 1993 as a full-service systems and media technology integration company, originally addressing the technical needs of the broadcast, audio-visual, IT and RF market segments.

Ensygnia Ltd ensygnia.com

Richard H. Harris Founder & CEO

Ensygnia Ltd is leading company prominently providing secure online transaction process.

Extreme Networks extremenetworks.com

Ed Meyercord President & CEO

Extreme Networks (EXTR) delivers customer-driven enterprise networking solutions that create stronger connections with customers, partners, and employees.

Kaaspro Enterprises kaaspro.com

Kumar Subramaniam Founder & CEO

Kaaspro has a vision of harnessing technology to build and synthesize economical, cloud based IT and ITES products and solutions, to address the challenges faced in Healthcare and Education.

MES mesinc.net

Hiten Shah President & CEO

MES, Inc. is a full-service provider of global manufacturing and supply chain management services.

MHG Systems mhgsystems.com

Seppo Huurinainen CEO & Founder

MHG Systems Ltd is a pioneer in management solutions for forestry and bioenergy supply chain and logistics.

Natterbox Limited natterbox.com

Neil Hammerton CEO & Co-founder

Natterbox enables organizations to deliver class-leading service levels to their customers through eﬃcient and eﬀective integration of voice into their digital customer communications.

Optimist Technologies netshieldcorp.com

Ed Wall CEO

Optimist Technologies oﬀers agentless access control, protection from malware, phishing & ransomware and vulnerability assessments.

Company Name

Management

Brief

PACK’D packd.co.uk

Luke Johnstone Co-founder

PACK’D is rapidly growing startup that started with Frozen Smoothie Kits, the ultimate shortcut to a homemade smoothie – in under a minute.

Procurify procurify.com

Aman Mann CO-founder & CEO

Procurify is helping organizations from around the world understand their spend cultures to get the most out of spend, so that they can understand the why behind each spend decision.

SOMADETECT somadetect.com

Bethany Deshpande CEO

SomaDetect measures every critical indicator of dairy quality (fat, protein, somatic cell counts, progesterone) from every cow at every milking.

SPARK COMPASS sparkcompass.com

Erik Bjontegard Founder

SPARK COMPASS has developed a fully integrated, contextually intelligent mobile communications platform.

STORBYTE storbyte.com

Steve Groenke CEO

Storbyte designs and manufactures a family of all-ﬂash & hybrid ﬂash enterprise storage arrays, spinning disk storage systems, JBods, JBofs and GP/GPU storage servers.

Strategic Micro Systems stmicro.net

Ted Passalacqua President & Founder

Strategic Micro Systems provides managed network support services, technology equipment sales, and Web development.

TechR2 techr2.com

Sepehr Rajaie President & CEO

TechR2 is a leading IT security solutions company with a portfolio of data eradication solutions, sound experience, industry best practices, and resources to support you.

Vox verizonwireless.com

Lowell C. McAdam CEO

Vox, is an American telecommunications company which oﬀers wireless products and services.

XTIVIA xtivia.com

Dennis Robinson CEO

XTIVIA innovates, integrates, implements and creates customized quality technology solutions for B2B enterprises across industries.

ZappiStore zappistore.com

Steve Phillips Founder & CEO

Zappi is a market research automation platform that helps global brands make better decisions to drive business growth, shape product development, and enhance their advertising and branding eﬀorts.

Company Name

You are the front lines of health care. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be your wings

www.cardinalhealth.com

Aktrea: Transforming the World of Education through Gamiﬁcation, Simulations and Social Networks

ngagement has evolved into a substantial aspect of learning, now more than ever, as can be seen by the increasing interest of people towards game-based learning. Millennials are entering the workplace at a swift rate and are expected to comprise a signiﬁcant part of the workforce by 2020. To cater to the needs of the millennial audience, organizations are deploying training programs that are engaging, on-demand and digital. This has led to a huge growth in innovative corporate training. Meanwhile, organizations are trying to tackle the growing challenges of skills-capability gaps. Capacity building is a common theme across corporate management, governments, regulators and the social sector and there is an increasing expectation that new companies will step up and generate scalable digital tools to address these challenges.

Gamechangers have worked together to create magic - in cross-functional teams with various areas of expertise. The key to this is that everyone is aware of the bigger picture of the project and contributes across the board, rather than only focusing on their roles as individuals. Being one of the pioneers to adapt online games for corporate learning, these experts communicate, collaborate and work together to deliver value for customers. Aktrea’s four divisions - Operations, Customer, Engineering and Innovation lab – work through its product cycle which revolves around the customer. Each department - design and delivery - hands over seamlessly to the next. Diving more into the working of the company, the Operations team comprises of design, creation and delivery teams. The Customer team comprises of marketing and sales professionals. The Engineering team has design, development, and quality assurance teams. Finally, the Innovation lab comprises of data and analytics experts and engineers who are building artiﬁcial intelligence into learning and simulating real-life experiences across industries.

Our solutions blend learning, engagement and technology.

Powered with a mission to create a knowledgeable and empowered workforce, Aktrea was founded in 2009 at the heart of the global financial crisis to help customers improve their practices and processes around the world. The company’s aim is to change the way professionals learn and share knowledge around the world. Aktrea’s expertise spans various areas, including finance & markets, sustainability, compliance, design thinking, and diversity, creating programmes using gamification, simulations, and social learning. The company is headlining the usage of digital tools to create learning communities whose members can share knowledge and solve problems.

An Inception Tale & Professional Team Since the inception of the company, the team at Aktrea has placed customers at the center of all its work and Aktrea’s

The Magical Gamechangers of Aktrea Dinesh Kumar, Head of Customer Relationships, Lokesh Dhanasekaram, Head of Operations and Vetri Selvan, Manager & Team Lead in Engineering, are the trailblazers of the company. Together, they focus on sustainable learning & problem-solving tools. These tools help corporates and inter-governmental organizations and other entities involved in sustainability, strategy, products and day to day work. Further, the company’s social learning August 2018|

Vetri Selvan

Lokesh Dhanasekaran

Dinesh Kumar

Manager & Team Lead, Engineering

Head of Operations

Head of Customer Relationships

platform can help connect people and teams that are geographically spread to share stories, engage in activities together and collaborate using design thinking. Addressing Challenges through Innovative Strategies CEOs around the world face challenges in engaging their employees during their journey with the company, and keeping employee skill levels current. Aktrea worked with senior leaders to get their people to be engaged, attend, actively participate and follow through their learning journey. When an organization is global or geographically spread, it increases the difficulty of providing consistent training because of geographic limitations, increased costs and language barriers across borders. Aktrea addressed these challenges by delivering consistent training across the globe. Measuring training effectiveness and evaluating how an employee is paying back the learning to the organization were other challenges that Aktrea helped solve. The company faced difficulties in figuring out which metrics to use, how to get data, when to intervene, and how to ensure future training was consistent with company values and employee needs. Traditional training methods need not work with the current audience and constantly evolving workplace and business dynamics. Leaders believe that the present and coming generations are technologically proficient, but have lower attention spans and need training tools that engage them. How an organization can provide training that spans multiple generations is another important challenge faced by the industry. |August 2018

To overcome these challenges, Aktrea worked on the latest technologies and innovative techniques. Today, rather than being just a training organization, it works as a partner through each customer’s journey and not just as a vendor or service provider. It also works closely with leaders such as the CEO and the heads of HR, Sales, Operations and Businesses and designs learning programs with high ROI. In addition, Aktrea helps organizations address the need for rapid development and roll-out of content and training to a large audience. Unfolding the Future Techniques “Our vision is to change the way people engage and learn in this digital world.” asserts Dinesh. Aktrea is striving to be professionally the best in the world, and also creating leaders for the future. Some innovative releases by the end of 2018 include an intelligent authoring tool which can help anyone create a gamiﬁed online learning module in minutes using existing content, and a unique design thinking simulator that helps teams to work together virtually across locations and solve customer, process and work-related challenges.

Allgress: Protecting Enterprises through Compliance and Business Risk Management

ince the inception of the company in 2008, Allgress, Inc. has been a leading global technology company that provides integrated business risk management solutions to manage compliance, IT security and third-party vendor risk effectively. Allgress helps enterprise security, compliance and risk management professionals to automate the process of assessing, understanding and managing corporate risk in a single comprehensive platform. The Allgress Insight Risk Management Suite (IRMS) provides the ability for organizations to manage their business risk posture to align with top business priorities for effective investment decisions and use of resources. The suite allows operational efficiency in complying with regulations, policies, partner requirements in less time and with reduced complexity then manual methods or other solutions. Allgress empowers stakeholders to analyze and address business risks with the least amount of complexity, time and cost. Empowered with Unified Compliance and Risk Management The IRMS is an integrated modular risk management platform that is comprised of services that automate the data collection, assessment, workflow, reporting, exception and incident management process. It also correlates relevant data across regulations, assets, policies, controls, processes and business elements of their organization and partners to clearly identify potential business risk. The modular architecture of IRMS allows its customers to deploy functionality in order to meet their specific use-cases when they need it and expand the solution easily over time without any retraining. Allgress’ patented visualization and reporting engine provides an immediate, intuitive & easily understood view of organization’s business risk, information security and third-party risk posture by every stakeholder and executive

management. This enables stakeholders to visually see their risk posture from a business perspective for immediate prioritization and remediation. Helping Prospects Buy IT Management Solutions Jeff Kushner leads marketing at Allgress as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and has been with the company since July 2012. As CMO, he is responsible for the global marketing strategy, branding, positioning and market communications. Jeff brings over 30 years of experience in a variety of leadership roles in technology marketing and business development. Before Allgress, Jeff has held positions that increased revenue and market penetration with market leaders including BindView (now Symantec), BMC Software, Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) and consulting to many organizations. His efforts have been instrumental in advancing the development and adoption of application, compliance and risk management. The Overwhelming Task of Identifying Compliance and Risk Management Solutions Today, many companies are facing the challenges associated with the uncoordinated siloed approach of risk management. A abundance of IT management solutions claim to manage risk and compliance but only address a fraction of what a comprehensive integrated risk management solution should provide. Then there is the tedious task of figuring out which components you must purchase and the resources and time to implement a solution. To overcome this, Allgress delivers a focused innovative modular integrated risk management solution that grows with your business to provide quicker time-to-value while simplifying the complexity and cost that is usually associated with business risk management. They offer a platform focused on managing risk for compliance, risk and security professionals to identify and prioritize business

August 2018|

We enable enterprise risk, security, and compliance professionals to efciently manage their business risk posture.

Jeff Kushner CMO

risk. The organizations along with its business partners can continually assess and validate the effectiveness of their risk & compliance program for continuous improvement. Achieving Risk and Compliance Management in the Cloud Allgress was the first solution provider to introduce a continuous monitoring solution to comply with regulations in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud using their API and solutions in AWS Marketplace with a offering called RPM, (Regulatory Product Mapping). RPM is designed for customers with AWS environments who want to reduce the complexity, increase the speed, and shorten the timeframe of achieving compliance with minimal human involvement. RPM for AWS helps security and risk professionals assess, understand, and manage corporate risk by analyzing controls against the requirements of common security and compliance frameworks. Allgress RPM allows customers to map their regulatory frameworks including but not limited to ISO, NIST, HIPPA, CJIS, FISMA and PCI-DSS.

extends mapping controls to frameworks to comprehensive automated assessment for compliance and risk oversight. The solution can be further expanded with the IRMS suite to address more encompassing functions like comprehensive policy, incident, exception, third-party vendor management risk analysis and advanced reporting. Future Expansion Allgress is always expanding innovation by interacting with customers and participating with industry organizations and business partners to understanding their continuing challenges to manage business risk. That input contributed to many recent updates extending already encompassing functionality including a portal for every user to customize their experience to achieve speciﬁc risk and compliance management goals. Other new functionality consists of an enhanced user interface and streamlined workﬂow, risk exception management, smart surveys for vendor management, updated and new standards content and more out-of-the-box visual reporting.

Allgress recently introduced ComplianceVision that builds on RPM leveraging the Allgress mature IRMS Suite, which |August 2018

Insider’s Viewpoint

Be Smart – or Vanish Why Utilities need to actively develop smart Micro-Grids

he energy market is changing rapidly. This is true not only for the USA and Europe but on a global level. Possibly the most important change is the one towards more decentralized systems. This is challenging the utility industry. Utilities historically have developed by integrating small microgrids which grew around mills and other small-scale generators (today we would say prosumers). This is why utilities developed along the entire value chain: They integrated these micro distribution grids in a more stable larger (Transport) grid and replaced decentralized generation by more cost-efficient central power plants. This highly efficient centralized system was allowing industrial development as we know it. At its time it was possibly the only way to serve large, strongly energy depending production like steel, paper or the upcoming chemical industry. The centralized energy system did not result from an oligopolistic market, but the industry structure derived from an efficient technical design. There are several reasons why this formerly beneficiary system is challenged today. Not all apply in all markets but some of them do, so decentralization of energy markets is a global trend. Specifically, in most

industrial markets the new energy regime is driven by politics favoring small scale, decentral renewable generation. Subsidies on renewables devalue existing large thermic power plants. Even large-scale hydropower plants do not easily pass strict environmental and social feasibility analysis. But independent of any political setting there is another more fundamental reason for the growing competitiveness of a decentralized energy design. While the ﬁrst phase of industrial development is known for its industrial clusters (often grown close to energy sources like coal or water) which shaped many geographic areas for more than a century, later phases are much more dynamic and do less depend on geographic proximity. Within a dynamic industry setting where businesses are set up and closed or moved somewhere else on a regular basis a static centralized infrastructure loses competitiveness. In many emerging markets this dynamism as well expands towards those areas which are today not connected to the central grid but oﬀer inexpensive land or new agricultural products which can be sold abroad at high prices. Finally, the political will and the industrial demand for decentralized systems today encounter renewable generation even at small size at competitive costs

compared to large size thermic power plant. For the most prominent renewable technology photovoltaic in the North (with less radiation) this competitiveness is given only as grid parity, meaning central generation plus transport is as expensive as photovoltaic on site. In the Southern hemisphere photovoltaic is already a competitive source empowering decentralized energy infrastructure. While decentralized generation has caught up with centralized generation plants, distribution systems with a large portion of decentralized renewable generation capacity are often inefficient. There are basically four reasons for this inefficiency: (1) Missing price mechanism supporting grid operations, (2) high costs to operate such a system stable, (3) large amount of excess energy (exported or not being used at all) and (4) sub-utilized interface between microgrid and its feeder system. These are basically the same reasons that in the last century supported the centralization of the grid system. What is needed is an intelligent or smart decentralized distribution system. An intelligent distribution system with mainly decentralized generation requires more than smart meters and it is different from today popular so August 2018|

About the Author Dr. Karl Kolmsee the CEO of Smart Hydro Power, studied agricultural and philosophy at the universities of Hamburg and Goettingen, Germany. After his PhD he has spent most of his professional career in the energy business – ﬁrst as consultant at A.T. Kearney later as manager at E.ON, Europe’s largest private utility, and member of the board at Schmack biogas, one of the pioneers of the biogas market in Europe. In 2009 Karl Kolmsee has been nominated professor for energy management at Applied University of Kufstein, Austria. His main areas of academic work are international energy markets and renewable energy. In 2010 he founded Smart Hydro Power to focus on design and commercialization of kinetic pico hydro power systems with main focus on rural electriﬁcation for emerging markets like India, Latin America and Eastern Africa. Today Smart Hydro Power offers complete solutions for off grid solutions and micro grids.

|August 2018

called smart home or home storage solutions. These offer photovoltaic, battery and basic load management for the individual household. Some providers of home storage solutions integrate customers in a community model to allow exchange of autogenerated electricity. But these communities are barely more than contract partners within a fixed price net metering model. Individual home solutions – even within sales-and-purchase communities – do not solve any inefficiency issues decentralization faces. These systems are either completely self-sufficient – in this case they are expensive – or they rely on central grid services like a parasite of its host. Sustainable decentralization requires an intelligent control and steering mechanism between the households which build a microgrid. While there are possibly different steering mechanisms, establishing a local market with the price as variable that guides demand and supply according to the aggregated demand function and the aggregated cost functions seems promising. Technically this does require a dynamic forecasting and load management (at least for major loads which are used in a price-sensitive manner). At first glance a market model would solve the four major issues shown above. It would set a price for photovoltaic and battery storage which would control demand and thereby reduce necessary installed reserve storage and generation capacity. This mechanism would

as well be consistent with the functioning of the feeder grid and could therefore supply itself services to this grid which would be valued with the same “currency”. Technically this steering mechanism might be completely decentralized based on individual processors in each household like the blockchain technology (once necessary processing capacity comes down to acceptable limits) or it might work between a central unit and individual processors. In either way it steers the local market place towards an efficient optimum given generation, demand and battery storage capacity at a defined point in time. Micro grids do open (within a given legal framework) a possibility for traditional utilities to re-define their role using some of their traditional strengths. But new entrants can equally well enter this space and perform wherever the incumbent does not adapt. This gives room to numerous co-operations between new entrants or between new companies and the incumbent offering their services or developing new business models along the value chain. Incumbent utilities may be smart – or vanish.

August 2018|

EOG focuses on rate of return to create superior shareholder value EOG Resources, Inc. is one of the largest independent (non-integrated) crude oil and natural gas companies in the United States with proved reserves in the United States, Trinidad, the United Kingdom and China. EOG Resources, Inc. is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is traded under the ticker symbol â&#x20AC;&#x153;EOG.â&#x20AC;?

www.eogresources.com

AppZen: Combining Computer Vision, Deep Learning, and Natural Language Processing

espite the tremendous pace at which technology has surged into virtually every aspect of our daily lives, certain areas seem to be perpetually ignored and overlooked. Up till very recently, the enterprise back oﬃce domain seemed to have been relegated to that category.

In addition, the solution automatically audits and assigns risk scores to every expense, protecting the company from expense misuse and regulatory non-compliance. This approach helps clients rediscover up to 5% of their T&E spend while ﬁnding ten times as many issues as manual assessments.

But not anymore. AppZen is here.

Complementary Leadership AppZen was co-founded in 2012 by Anant Kale, who is its CEO and Kunal Verma, who performs the role of CTO. Their collaboration on AppZen is simply another part of a decades-old friendship.

AppZen is a company that has developed the world’s first back office automation solution driven by artificial intelligence (AI). This breakthrough technology incorporates computer vision, deep learning, and natural language processing to automatically detect both accidental errors and deliberate fraud. The speed and accuracy with which the platform performs means that companies can now achieve realtime compliance with FCPA regulations, IRS rules, and their internal policies. With AppZen, every expense report, invoice, and contract can be verified in seconds. Red flags trigger alerts which are delivered to designated personnel for further action. AppZen also automates expense report creation, compliance, and audit.

Anant has spent over 15 years developing complex software and he previously served as the VP of Applications at Fujitsu. He is responsible for product vision and the execution of the company’s mission. Kunal previously worked as a Research Lead at Accenture Tech Labs. He has led global R&D engineering teams in developing tools that are currently used by hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. At AppZen, he is responsible for product development and engineering, technology architecture, and developing the IP for AppZen’s AI technologies.

Kunal earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science with a focus on semantic technologies. This background and expertise is the basis of AppZen’s unique technology stack and robust AI system. Under Anant and Kunal’s stellar leadership, AppZen is witnessing phenomenal growth. In 2018 alone, it has quadrupled its customer base to 290+ medium-sized and large brands, including several Fortune 500 name. The company’s client list features some of the world’s most recognizable names - Amazon, Citi, Comcast, Intuit, Salesforce, DHL, Hitachi, Airbus, Orange, Intuitive Surgical, FireEye, Arthur J Gallagher, Zimmer Biomet, and Mortenson. The AppZen Diﬀerence The days when every item on every receipt had to be cross-checked against dozens of vendors and databases is now over. Depending on the number of employees, this process could take weeks or months. AppZen’s platform is designed to drastically reduce the reliance on manual processing of expenses, which are a signiﬁcant drain on resources and still prone to error and August 2018|

“ We provide the world's #1 expense report audit solution.

“ Anant Kale CEO fraud. It runs every expense report through a veriﬁed series of checks in seconds and produces real-time expense report audits.

Startup and Bezinga Award for Best in Artiﬁcial Intelligence and Machine Learning Solution.

Artiﬁcial intelligence transforms the sheer volume of information from a liability to an asset, learning and comparing at a rate and at a level not possible with a human auditor. Potentially erroneous or fraudulent expenses that would never be ﬂagged through manual checks have nowhere to hide.

Future Zen AppZen is fortifying its reach and eﬃcacy by building robust partnerships with major expense platforms like SAP Concur, Oracle, and Coupa. It is also teaching its AI to read Mandarin so it can fully integrate into the Chinese market where English is not widely used or understood.

Previously, time and resource limitations meant that companies could only really verify between 10 and 20 percent of their total expenses. AppZen takes that ﬁgure straight to 100%. It creates a system where a single-day review and payment cycle is possible despite needing only a tenth of the human workforce required before.

An unexpected challenge has been thrown up by how eﬀective AppZen is at detecting anomalies - the uncertainty of follow-up when fraud is detected. Because many ﬁrms were unable to identify such occurrences in the past, they struggle to deal with the discovered misconduct.

The amazing utility of AppZen’s platform and the peerless capacity it has demonstrated in revolutionizing the way businesses deal with expenses has not gone unnoticed.

AppZen is continually improving and streamlining its platform to align with the varying and evolving needs of its growing number of clients. As the AI component learns and becomes increasingly self-suﬃcient, the company expects its customers to be able to devote their human resources to more productive endeavors.

The company secured $3 million in funding in 2016, and an additional $13 million at Series A in November 2017. In 2017, the company was recognized as The Best AI Startup and IOFM Game Changer. This was followed up this year with the TiEInﬂect Award for Most Innovative |August 2018

Auxenta: An Unparalleled Expertise Driving Innovation

n the path of conquering the challenges entailing the opportunities to rapidly adapt to and evolve technologies such as machine learning and AI, is Auxenta Inc. The company invests into unique frameworks, so that it can directly contribute to the accelerated go-tomarket while reducing Total Cost of Ownership. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, USA, Auxenta is an innovative software engineering services and technology product consulting company. It works with enterprises, independent software vendors (ISVs), startups and nonproﬁt organizations. The ethos of the company is to enable digital transformation by leveraging a focused set of service oﬀerings. The company’s global clients are distributed into multiple industry verticals including Telco, Financial Services, Logistics, Security, Capital Markets, Apparel and Manufacturing. It believes in a core set of values which is an intrinsic part of each of their team members. The Technopreneur Prasath Nanayakkara is the Chairman and CEO at Auxenta. He has extensive experience in delivering and managing global organizational transformations through technology. After completing his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at MIT, Prasath did his MBA at INSEAD, France. He started his career in the USA, where he worked as a Senior Consultant at Cambridge Technology Partners and Kenan Systems. Prior to founding the Silicon Valley startup, he was the former Head of Project Delivery at Virtusa, Sri Lanka. He founded Auxenta with Shahani Markus, a global technology executive and entrepreneur, back in 2013. Subsequently, two other co-founders, Chandana Ranasinghe and Nuwan Dehigaspitiya, joined Auxenta. With Prasath’s consulting

Our ethos is to enable digital transformation by leveraging a focused set of service offerings.

and management experience of over 20 years, he, along with the rest of the leadership team, successfully propelled Auxenta into a sought-after technology partner for many large global corporations. Accelerating Strategic Processes The conventional methods of managing workforces have ceased to function. The companies are reinventing ways and means of improving engagement across these groups. In other words, the IT services have become highly

August 2018|

Team Auxenta with Global Innovation Index Founder, Professor Soumitra Dutta

commoditized and the companies in this space must constantly innovate and reinvent their key differentiators. Even the access to talent is becoming harder with the increase in demand of skilled and qualified talent. In addition, it is imperative to broaden a company’s spectrum of technologies to arrive at creative client solutions. In sequence to overcome the situation, Auxenta invented frameworks, reusable assets and accelerators to constantly gain a strategic edge over its competition. It also uses its widespread geographic coverage as part of a radiation strategy covering all key countries globally with targeted sales presence. The company achieves this with the help of a strong leadership team which has many years of experience in delivery, client services, and sales formerly representing large established product and services companies. Client solutions are further enhanced by the influential C-level advisory panel representing companies such as Google and Shutterfly. Auxenta also provides rigorous internal training and development through established certifications within all key technology areas. Auxenta’s healthy internal competition and gamification encourages their employees to voluntarily reach their fullest potential. A Glorious Voyage During the first few years of its journey, Auxenta has been focusing on creating a platform of successful client references across multiple industry verticals and technology areas while building reusable IP. At this point in time, the company has been recognized through numerous awards which include the Best Startup of the Year in 2016 by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka. Auxenta has also received key client accolades such as the Innovation Award at the Fleet Transport Awards in Dublin, Ireland. The company has also formed partnerships in the |August 2018

areas of Cloud, CRM and testing that can propel the company more and enable it to gain an upper hand in acquiring large enterprise clients for the future. Auxenta recently hosted Professor Soumitra Dutta, the author of the Global Innovation Index. His visit was centered around an inaugural Innovation Conference organized in partnership with the Sri Lanka Association of Software Services Companies (SLASSCOM). The company offers state-of-the-art software engineering, cloud services, cross platform mobile app development and digital transformation expertise to its clients, while maintaining a pristine focus on cutting edge QA services. Auxenta’s services enable their clients to focus on their creative insights and business goals while the company manages their innovation initiatives with a high degree of creativity. Envisioning the Future Auxenta’s goal is to come up with cutting edge innovative products and services to the market by incubating them within Auxenta Innovation Labs. A good example of a rapidly growing disruptively innovative product is MillionSpaces, an output of Auxenta Innovation Labs. Based on the success of its launch in Sri Lanka, Auxenta plans to take the product global starting with Singapore. They also plan to become a key contributor to academia by influencing curriculum in trending technology areas. Moreover, the company is nurturing and proving internal talent through best-in-class customer solutions and significantly investing into its training and development. It is also generating innovative IP in the areas of Cloud, CRM, machine learning and testing.

The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s travel platform

Our Partners:

Bringing the world within reach

www.expediagroup.com

CoreAxis:

A Corporate Training and Leadership Firm

oreAxis Consulting, LLC (CoreAxis) is a leading provider of outsourced training and eLearning solutions for Fortune 500 companies. Its team of experienced learning consultants, instructional designers, HR professionals, e-learnings/content developers, and training facilitators averages over 15 years of experience. CoreAxis partners with its clients to develop and deliver high impact learning solutions that are customdesigned to deliver engaging learning experiences. These experiences are tied to solid learning objectives which maximize employee retention and promote the practical application of knowledge and skills. Struggles at the Beginning CoreAxis has been very fortunate through the growth of its industry and company. Its clients are what drive its passion for success. Its consulting and delivery team continue to push the envelope, as it relates to delivering just-in-time solutions for its clients. The primary goal has always been to serve as a trusted advisor for its clients. As part of its oﬀerings, CoreAxis builds upon transformational initiatives and programs to deliver impactful training and development solutions. Throughout the past 18+ years, CoreAxis has seen signiﬁcant success, even when the market was not ready for innovation and scale. When the

economy struggled in 2009, CoreAxis adapted its business to meet many of its clients’ needs as they were retracting their workforce. That adaptation allowed CoreAxis to work with its clients on the reskilling of talent and knowledge management. That was a challenging time in its journey but through its agile business model, CoreAxis was able to thrive. An Experienced Leader Mark Zides, President and Founder of the company, is a strategic growth leader with over 20 years of experience in optimizing businesses and inspiring individuals. In the past two decades, Mark has transformed CoreAxis Consulting into a premier management consulting ﬁrm focused on talent, leadership, and training in the global marketplace. His entrepreneurial foundation and unique ability to provide insight, innovation, and experience has enabled him to implement best-in-class solutions developing top talent and elevate organizational eﬀectiveness. Mark’s business knowledge, expertise, and strong network bring value to a vast group of companies and leaders in the industry.

Strategies to Tackle Competitors CoreAxis is successful in exceeding the needs of its clients through the managed services approach and a virtual operational model. Its competitive edge is rooted in its commitment to be agile, efficient, and impactful in every engagement including custom eLearning development, leadership development, rapid content conversion, or staff augmentation. This model allows CoreAxis to sustain its work within large organizations and continue to build upon its strong collaboration within these companies. Contribution in the Industry There is incredible fragmentation in the Learning & Development marketplace. Many companies cannot offer a managed services solution for their clients and that makes it a challenge for companies to manage several vendors where they can receive incredible, cost effective consulting from a company like CoreAxis. Additionally, from a delivery aspect, appealing to a multi-generational audience is a challenge as well. With the workforce comprised of Baby Boomers to millennials there are many effective methods to deliver training. Accounting for multiple backgrounds, experiences, age groups, etc. corporate training must be agile and adaptable. Learning & Development (L&D) top challenges are tied to demonstrating

August 2018|

Empower your employees with best in class learning and leadership solutions.

Mark Zides President & Founder

business impact. Learning professionals must show what they can deliver to the business. The tangible benefits of L&D innovation and technology transformation can be difficult to quantify but it’s about staying relevant and ensuring organizations are equipped to succeed in the modern business world. CoreAxis approaches each engagement with the goal of helping our clients meet their business objectives. Furthermore, the CoreAxis team believes that the L&D learning community should strive to become strategic business partners contributing significantly to, and aligned with, the business outcomes of clients. They must not get left behind by the rate of technology change and should rely on their own knowledge of technology and products, not just defer to IT, becoming more fluent in the language of digital and technology.

|August 2018

Looking to the Future CoreAxis continues to innovate and build impactful solutions for its clients and continues to expand its client base through delivering custom solutions. Ahead of the industry curve, CoreAxis is collaborating with its clients to provide VR/AR solutions and believes that large global firms will soon integrate these technology solutions into their offerings & culture as a matter of course. CoreAxis continues to hire the top talent and consultants in the marketplace to increase the ‘bench strength’ of its instructional designers and content developers, ensuring that they are highly skilled in the latest technologies and learning trends. This allows the company to remain an innovator when it comes to delivering custom solutions that include gamification, virtual training, & microlearning. In 2018, CoreAxis saw an increase in requests for virtual learning along with more sophisticated eLearning. This trend has allowed the company to take the innovative

approach to developing solutions that can easily be adapted to diﬀerent modalities, as the client’s needs evolve. Finally, the Leadership Development oﬀerings continue to scale to provide world-class custom programs for its clients. Achievements Earned CoreAxis has been recognized for many awards and recognitions including INC5000 winner, CEO Award Winner by BPI, one of the 50 Smartest Companies of the Year by The Silicon Review, and several awards from Training Industry as a top provider of Content Development, Health & Safety, and Training Outsourcing. CoreAxis’ commitment to success is important to its associates, consultants and clients. Its focus and determination to deliver world-class solutions, is what drives the CoreAxis team very day.

Diversiﬁed: Addressing the Technical Needs of Multiple Market Segments

apid changes in the technology industry represent the biggest opportunity for today’s business leaders. The speed at which things are changing can provide a leg-up on the competition if an entrepreneur is innovative and stays ahead of the curve. Diversified is a leading global technology solutions provider, delivering a comprehensive suite of solutions that connect today’s leading enterprises to the global marketplace. Its team of industry experts partners with clients from diverse markets, helping them to achieve the highest performance levels, enhance their operations, increase productivity and drive ROI. Whether it is about connecting organizations with effective collaboration, media networks with viewers, fans with the game, brands with their audience, facilities with peace of mind, or enterprises with reliable technology infrastructure, Diversified is a dedicated technology solutions partner committed to connecting clients with their technology objectives. A Deliberate Pioneer In 1993, Fred D’Alessandro, Founder and CEO of the company, set out to build a world-class technology integration firm offering specialized solutions that allow organizations to communicate more effectively, streamline workflows, collaborate seamlessly and realize a greater return on technology investments. Coming from modest means, D’Alessandro draws inspiration from the work ethic of his father, whom he doesn’t recall ever taking a day off. This instilled work ethic, coupled with a broadcast engineering background and innate desire to innovate and provide quality service to others has driven D’Alessandro from the founder of a startup to the CEO of a 1700-person company with more than 30 offices worldwide and revenues exceeding $700M.

Hurdles that Jumped-Out A key challenge for any organization is to find employees who share a common work ethic, cultural values and desire to innovate for successful outcomes. Diversified has maintained a strong team through strategic recruiting, effective training and acquiring companies with similar cultures and building a reputation as the best company to work for with opportunities limited only by ambition and dedication. Diversified began as a broadcast integration firm and has grown into one of the top technology solution providers in the world. Reaching this point wasn’t easy, but the vision for a company positioned at the forefront of technology drove D’Alessandro to take risks and reinvest in the business to keep up with growing demands. Around the year 2000, Diversified began to seek opportunities in AV integration, a new market in which the team saw a great value for diversifying the company. Diversified had found a lucrative home in enterprise broadcast but to be the best, it had to provide more than just one piece of the puzzle. Learning AV was a challenge but even more was building a credible name against competitors who had been in the industry for some time. Diversified took every job which its clients gave, even worked as a subcontractor for big players to earn credibility. Then, to level the peaks and valleys of the integration business, the company started the Digital Media Group, an early adopter of digital signage and managed services, a differentiator that would provide recurring revenue and additional value to its clients.

August 2018|

Stepping Ahead of the Competitors The company’s vision is steadily centered on being the best and providing clients with one trusted partner to meet all their technology needs. Furthermore, it has taken a creative approach to the types of services offered. Unopposed to stepping outside the box or contradicting industry expectations, Diversified constantly seeks the next big thing that will change the game and keep them ahead of customers’ needs. One of Diversified’s recent ventures into a new industry focuses on delivering unique and innovate solutions to healthcare organizations. Recognizing the expected growth for this market, the company is designing and deploying medical integration solutions, including CORIS® that optimizes workflows and enhance patient care. This expansion of offerings has allowed the company to sustain growth, even in the toughest markets. If one industry doesn’t perform as expected, another picks up the slack. This advantage became clear in the 2008 recession, when many singularly broadcast or AV firms were struggling while Diversified remained safe, not letting a single employee go. This advantage has also become the driving force behind D’Alessandro’s vision for the future, which is continuing to grow vertically as well as horizontally, adding complementary services that provide value and solve virtually any customer requirements through unique, hybrid technology solutions.

|August 2018

Through openly sharing his philosophy of being the best and establishing a robust customer base with repeatable business, D’Alessandro has seen another major emerging differentiator—Diversified’s engineering-centric operations. True to its tagline, Imagination Engineered, Diversified takes great pride in the execution of projects and empowering its engineering staff to be creative and innovative in their designs. Each industry that Diversified serves is different, requiring custom solutions tailored to each client’s unique needs. Overall, new sales will keep the door open but strong engineering and delivery will bring the customer back and again, allowing growth beyond what anyone expected. Fortune Insight With a well-established domestic footprint, Diversified now focuses on international expansion to serve a growing global clientele, expanding their managed services portfolio in digital media, security and “day two” support, and transitioning from hardware integration to software-based integration to meet trending technology demands. Together these initiatives will allow the company to maintain its leadership position and continue double-digit growth.

Ensygnia Ltd: Executing Unied Mobile Technology and Security Solutions

nsygnia Ltd is a UK-based service provider company with a mission to help provide a secure environment for online transactions. The company is already working with major market leaders to help deliver innovation, trust and security into online transactions in order to boost revenue-generation. Its solution focuses on a simple user interface to smooth the customer journey and increase customer satisfaction. The company’s vision is to make consumers’ digital lives easier and safer. Ensygnia’s unified business solution centers on the key sales point in the customer journey – the point the marketers refer to as the ‘call-toaction’. Ensygnia’s solution makes it easier to take that action – it allows the customers to make one-touch purchases without the need for detailed form-filling and multiple checkpoints. It can do all this while boosting the security of the transaction and reducing the risk of fraud. Of course, it gives the customer the opportunity to confirm the sale and the final price being paid, but it can make buying goods or services from almost any website simple, secure and friction-free. Ensygnia believes companies should be able to close sales quickly, with a brilliant customer experience, best compliant security, and easiest payment method. The company’s expertise in both the security market and in mobile technology has helped to create a safe, secure mobile device transaction process with bank-grade

security that users can trust. The company believes that great usability and world-class security should come hand-in-hand. Unified Product/Services Offered for Easy and Secure Solutions Ensygnia’s flagship solution is called Onescan. The Onescan solution compromises a cloud-based secure platform, a mobile app, and a Software Developer’s Kit (SDK) that enables companies and webstore owners to integrate secure Onescan transactions into their customer journey. Onescan can turn a call-to-action into a sale in a matter of seconds – whether online, instore, or on-the-go. Ensygnia’s Onescan solution enables companies to create a truly omnichannel sales solution, allowing customers to make purchases or interact with a brand online, from printed advertising, from billboards, through store windows or within the store itself. Consumers know that Onescan gives them instant, secure transactions – whether it is to buy a product, register for a service or enter a competition – from wherever they are and whatever they are doing. Ensygnia’s solution ensures fast service, secure transactions, and a trusted consumer environment. Foreword of the Founder/CEO Richard H. Harris is the Founder and CEO of Ensygnia and started the company in 2010. Since then he has been working on and implementing his ideas to make it easier and safer to buy things online – both for the consumers and the suppliers.

Richard graduated from London University in the early 90s, with a degree in Theoretical Physics and set about trying to predict and monetize industry trends through innovation. Richard’s approach has led him to generate millions in revenues for multiple companies. With Ensygnia, his approach evolved to focus on how retailers could instantly sell anything, anywhere, anytime – and how consumers could securely buy anything, anywhere, anytime with minimum eﬀort and total peace of mind. Richard explains: “We create an environment where the Call-to-Action can instantly become a transaction. And it really is ANY call to action on a customer journey that we can facilitate. It can be as focused or as multi-layered as our customer requires – for the consumer it stays simple and is delivered instantly and securely by Onescan. per their need. Our customer’s prospective business will only be limited by their imagination.” He added: “Whether Consumers are buying a product, registering or transferring information, entering a competition, completing a survey, ﬁlling in and registering a warranty card or just proving their identity online – the same, simple Onescan process can deliver all of these transactions instantly and securely from any location.” In his spare time, Richard enjoys Ceroc and scuba diving, is a campaigner for the rights of vulnerable adults and August 2018|

mental health issues when possible, working with Mental Health Research UK. An Enlightening Journey Ensygnia was established in 2010, and its services are covered by a range of international patents covering the payment and interaction processes including the scanning of QR codes. In 2013, the company received its ﬁrst investment, and delivered its ﬁrst product to the market in the following year. Since then, the Ensygnia platform has delivered 100% uptime on its systems and processes and continued to grow its customer base considerably. It is now processing more than one million interactions per month. Battling with Challenges Richard believes that, from a retail perspective, Ensygnia’s biggest challenge – and indeed the biggest challenger to any company looking to sell online is Amazon. The retailing giant has nailed every part of the process: The buying experience is quick, simple and secure, customers can easily compare reviews, and the delivery service is quick and reliable. What’s more, the company continues to innovate with drone deliveries, pick-up lockers, re-order buttons, voice ordering, and subscription-based purchasing etc.

Richard says: “Other retailers rely heavily on habit and brand loyalty which will only go so far. They need to be innovative to survive and they need to innovate well to thrive.” Surviving Competition Ensygnia has faced many approaches to challenge its competitive place in the market, but the technical excellence of its platform and the strength of its worldwide patent portfolio, has seen oﬀ many imitators. Richard explains: “There are competitors who burn through tens of millions trying to copy just to follow the same platform. But why waste years and millions when the customer can buy a secure, compliant and reliable solution from Ensygnia and gain its market in days or weeks.” Ensygnia has established its credentials and proved its longevity in a fast-developing market. The company spent years building its platform and ensuring its compliance with industry standards. It now processes more than one million interactions per month and has maintained has 100% uptime since its launch in 2014. What’s more, using the Ensygnia platform dramatically reduces the risk and cost to companies of security and compliance as the platform meets the regulations and standards for data protection, privacy and security such as PCI DSS, PSD2, and GDPR. Reframe to Achieving zeniths one step at a time. At present, the industry remains fragmented which means Ensygnia |August 2018

Richard H. Harris Founder & CEO

“Our mission is to make consumer’s digital lives easier and safer.

“

Ensygnia is working hard to help make that simplicity of the buying experience available to every retail website so that companies can look to compete with the Amazon experience.

expects to see market consolidation and approaches from other companies over the coming years. There is also the rise of cryptocurrencies and blockchain to consider as this is creating new decentralized and currently un-regulated opportunities. Ensygnia is watching and preparing for these developments and is focused on working with a few key partners to expand its list of clients and users. Ensygnia is excited by all the market opportunities that are developing and by the expansion of its global market presence.

Imparting Wisdom

Successful Personality Traits

to Learn from

Elon Musk egends never need an introduction. They tend to be victorious despite of their uneventful histories. They stick to captivating traits such as Discipline, determination and self-belief which help them accomplish wonders in the long run. One such example of an extraordinary person is Elon Musk, a South African Business Magnate, Investor and an engineer.

Strong Risk Tolerance Founding a start-up involves a great deal of uncertainty and risk. A study found that after 10 years of being in business, 96 percent of the start-ups fail. Going by the statistics, Musk must have faced the same odds against him, when he had decided to leave an otherwise comfortable life to start a risky and uncertain business venture.

Musk is the founder, CEO, and chief architect of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product designer of Tesla Inc.; and co-founder and CEO of Neuralink. As of February 2018, he is the 53rd-richest person in the world and has a net worth of $20.8 billion, which is far more than the net GDP of Greece taken into consideration.

For instance, Musk left his PhD program at Stanford University to find a company called Zip2 with his brother in the year 1995. Later, the company was sold to Compaq computers, profiting Musk a bit over $20 million. Following this, Musk once again took a great risk by investing millions of dollars to found a company called X.com, one of the world’s first online banks.

While each entrepreneur possesses a unique set of traits that makes him/her successful, this Tech founder has a few traits much diﬀerent from any other ordinary CEO, which has allowed him to build some of the world’s most respected and innovative organizations. Musk once quoted, “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”

‘Always Be Learning’ Attitude An astounding and less-known fact about Elon Musk is that he is self-taught in programming and in many advanced level subjects. He read and understood a variety of books, which helped him gain endless and persistent knowledge and understand diverse concepts.

Let’s have a look on these personality attributes and characteristics that make him a contender for the most innovative intellectual entrepreneur of the century alive.

The best piece of advice on learning and implementation is to constantly think about how things could be done in a better manner and question self to seek the answers.

Hard-work and Characteristic Work Ethics Elon Musk is a hard-working innovator, working for about 100 hours a week, and has been productive since many years. He may even be considered as the hardest working employee of the company, setting standards for his colleagues to follow and implement. Since the ﬁeld of work lies inside his radius of interests, he enjoys it to every moment and bit when it comes to learning and execution.

Feedback Loop It is of prime importance to recognize the present symbol or otherwise ‘status quo’ in the market as an organization and re-position accordingly. Musk solicits constant feedback of the companies and executes ‘self-analysis.’ He induces eﬀorts and divergent strategies to improve customer feedbacks and strives towards perfectionism.

August 2018|

For example, he seeks out his critics and tries to converse with them. This habit of self-reﬂection at regular and considerable periods is pivotal for any entrepreneur or organization to succeed in the long run. Tendency for Vertical Integration Vertical integration is a strategy where an organization or a ﬁrm acquires business operations within the same product vertical. Both Tesla and SpaceX embrace this concept. For example, Tesla not only produces electric cars; they also generate public awareness about their cars via Tesla showrooms across various countries. And SpaceX does not only have the primary goal of rocket propulsions; they develop their own rocket architecture as well. Faith in Self and the Founding Team Musk undoubtedly possesses a profound belief in his own capabilities

|August 2018

as well as the potential-seeking factor of its founding team. He does not hesitate to gamble on large scale unless he is genuinely aware of the expected end-results. It is equally essential to maintain clarity of doubt in any large scale organization. Under his supervision, Musk encourages in creating a positive and comprehensive environment across his ﬁrms. Preferring to Stand Out From the Crowd Musk elects to bring up innovation at every level of his understanding. He tends to impart theoretical knowledge at the base level, applying changes and executing the same on the practical level. He relies more on transitional aspects such as research and development, thereby increasing the probability of ground-breaking inventions.

Tesla Motors, a far headed firm headed by Elon Musk, is anti-ordinary. Its compelling marketplace has become a one-stop destination for potential buyers where they can interact about product specifications. They also have video testimonials that far outperform in the sales-dominated industry. There is no ambiguity that Musk, by far, has been a pillar of inspiration for budding entrepreneurs and investors because of his prolific and optimistic approach towards life All these traits possessed by Musk, in some manner or the other, coincide with most of your habits. The only thing that stands as a potential barrier between these two is identifying your strengths and working on them on a continual basis. Go on, apply these traits into your daily life, and you may become the next big CEO the world is in need of today!

Kaaspro: Providing Affordable Cloud-Based Solutions

owadays the medical world has started acknowledging the beneﬁts of digitized medical documentation systems and is clamoring to adopt the most suitable one for them. Legal mandates and medical compliance requirements are also providing a vital thrust towards the same. Thus, with a vision of harnessing technology to build and synthesize economical, cloud based IT and ITES products & solutions, and to address the challenges faced in two ﬁelds, namely Healthcare and Education, Kaaspro underwent its conception. The organization started its journey by building 75Health, a comprehensive Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software, which ensures that all the critical health information of a patient are available within the application and also enables the medical professional to access any information that they require in order to address a patient’s health needs. 75Health facilitates easy and accurate patient records management and hence, minimizes the consequential errors arising out of document loss, mismanagement, or omission. An Undisputed Leader Kumar Subramaniam, an alumnus of P.S.G. Institute of Technology, India, is the Founder and CEO of Kaaspro. He is also the co-founder of Kumaran Systems, heading the Internet Products and Services division. Drawing from his wide gamut of technical experience as a cofounder of Kumaran Systems, Mr. Kumar was inspired to start Kaaspro by developing 75Health when he handled the cumbersome processes of safely keeping

medical records, lab test reports, and prescriptions for his wife who was unwell. At that point, he felt the need to build a better, simpler, and safer way to handle patient related documents, so as to help medical professionals take quick and secure decisions related to a patient’s health. A Distinctive Organization Kaaspro is always evolving and leveraging technology to enhance its products and solutions. Innovation based on clients’ needs is one of the prime motives and the organization believes that this will help it to tackle competition eﬀectively. The ﬁrst product 75Health remains a one of its kind in terms of simplicity of use and the sheer magnitude of information being available to a medical professional. 75Health is cloud based, built on robust technologies, and customized to not only suit the needs of the customers but to also go a few steps ahead by providing them with complete access to all the necessary records as well as facilitating interaction with other doctors. Furthermore, 75Health is free, compatible with all mobile devices, does not require any additional hardware, and a user just needs a web browser to access the digital medical records. Kaaspro also strongly believes that blending technology with convenience will always help the organization to stay ahead of its competition. Tackling Uneven Roads Inspired by a need, Kaaspro has always believed that August 2018|

“

Our ultimate aim is to provide affordable cloud based-solutions for enterprises ranging from single users to multi users. Kumar Subramaniam Founder & CEO

Innovation will be the fuel for its growth. As mentioned earlier, the organization has kick-started its journey with 75Health. Kaaspro has always used every challenge as an opportunity to enrich its product. The following two instances elucidate this point: During the years in which 75Health was being built and tested, Kaaspro’s clients had requested for additional features which Kaaspro added in order to make 75Health the most comprehensive EMR in the market. For example, one client wanted to have connectivity with their patients even when they travel. They wanted to be accessible when an emergency arises for their clients. Hence the video-conferencing facility was integrated within the app in order to ensure that distances do not come in the way of patient care.

Beholding New Horizons When it comes to the future, Kaaspro is in the ceaseless process of building a complete EMR package. The organization is also developing an AI product which will provide vital inputs to health care professionals by using a regional and global database. At the same time, the organization is focused on becoming a global leader for EHRs and is looking to take the footprints of 75Health across major geographies. Currently, it is free and Kaaspro is looking to partnering with like-minded individuals or investors who can help in the expansion of the product’s reach. The company is also in the process of white-labeling this product for its clients. Lastly, apart from EHRs and EMRs, Kaaspro is undergoing the spadework for practice management system, which will soon hit the markets.

Some of Kaaspro’s doctors felt the need to have a facility to refer a patient to another specialist within the app, instead of having to rely on another medium of communication such as say, emails or phone calls. They felt that this facility would ensure that the other specialists will also have complete access to the patient’s EMR and it would also make the process hassle-free. This led Kaaspro to develop a referral module built within 75Health to facilitate doctors to refer and be referred using only the app, and documenting the process internally, thereby keeping all the doctors and patients in loop. |August 2018

MES:

Delivering Disruptive Innovation in Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management

eadquartered in Columbus, OH, MES, Inc. is a full-service provider of global manufacturing and supply chain management services. The company works in the verticals of lighting, agriculture, automotive and specializes in the manufacturing and supply of metal components including casting, forging of machine parts and assembly of rubber and plastic parts. MES helps develop customized engineering solutions by utilizing global manufacturing resources and applying complete supply chain solutions. The company achieves this by following five distinct steps including finding and auditing suppliers, developing their quality systems, consolidating shipments at various ports, performing domestic value added operations and warehousing near customers and shipping. A Leader Exemplifying Compassion Hiten Shah, the CEO and President of MES, believes in building business and people with values. These values include, creating win-win solutions for customers creating an exciting and challenging work environment for associates, and developing suppliers and partners globally. Hiten holds an MBA in International Business from Franklin University, Ohio. He founded MES in 2007 and has been since been the driving force of the company’s progress. Hiten possesses a global business experience and sternly believes in being persistent and committed, which in turn, has built MES’s worldwide outreach. He is currently an Inc. 5000 entrepreneur and an investor. “If you have a winning business idea and passion to work, I can help develop the business plan as well as provide financial investment,” Hiten expresses. Hiten advocates the fact that failing aids the development of one’s core competence. “To grow, you must learn to fail,” is what Hiten believes.

Hiten has been adorned with numerous accolades and honors in his entire career. A few of these are being featured in the 2018 issue of Columbus CEO Magazine; being elected as a panelist of the 2017 AACG Economic Summit; and being elected as a panelist of the 2017 Diversity in Business Awards. Hiten was also selected as the honoree of C-Suite awards and Smart 50 awards in 2017, he was the finalist of Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2016. According to Hiten, the benefit of this reputation underlines the sharing of his perspective within the organization as well as with outsiders, which would instill a sense of inspiration among his followers. Hiten also comprehends that this commendable experience and reputation also enhances MES’s credibility while potential customers wish to know about the organization. Delivering Reformative Services Great Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a strategic science that goes into improving the way your company sources component parts from manufacturers. MES has developed proven strategies for each phase of the Supply Chain Management process. MES benchmarks every aspect of our Supply Chain Management services against best-inclass metrics. We focus on quality, efficiency, and costsavings in every step. The company’s outstanding sourcing-to-delivery solution allows it to pass on savings to its customers. The company achieves this, not just in component costs and shipping rates, but also by lowering lead times in tooling and the manufacturing process. MES provides contract manufacturing in India, China, Taiwan, Malaysia & Vietnam. Its supplier management process utilizes sourcing agents and quality engineers. The company sources manufacturing suppliers based on quality, delivery time and price. All of its suppliers must be ISO-certified and pass a August 2018|

stringent audit for manufacturing. MES’s criteria for suppliers include ISO certiﬁcation, advanced manufacturing facilities, proven ability for the competence promised, engineering resources, QA, and on-time production. MES utilizes project management tools & APQP to track every step of the tooling & manufacturing process. It monitors and controls the tooling development and PPAP submission process with its suppliers. The company reviews critical specs with customers, relays information to suppliers at tooling kickoﬀ, performs supplier inspections to insure accurate method and measurements. It performs third Party checks of raw materials at independent labs also monitors & communicating delivery timelines and also provides customerapproved tooling design.

“Many customers have custom requirements which require domestic manufacturing operations to facilitate special orders. MES offers a range of operations domestically to streamline your component requirements,” states Hiten. Parts communization, special E-Coating, painting or powder coating, addition of part features such as holes, markings, assembly to reduce customer costs etc. are a few requirements which MES caters to MES has enhanced its order processing, billing, inventory management, ERP, and EDI systems, which allows it to mirror a customer’s warehousing solutions. The company manages inventory processes and provides JIT shipping of parts and components. MES’s warehousing facilities are located in US-Los Angeles & Ohio; MXMonterrey, Juarez & Tijuana; Europe- Poland. Strategizing Global Competency MES’s organizational strategy is to be more efficient and competitive by focusing on key business methods viz, on-time delivery, quality testing methods, inventory management methods, etc. The most significant aspect that creates a distinctive position for MES in the global market is the automation of the company’s processes. Customer support and documentation, extensive quality management throughout a project, and other vital processes are automated at MES using a heavy dose of contemporary technology. MES has developed a unique phone application for its in house as well as customer-side engineers to report quality analysis and issues as well as for its warehouses to report shipping issues. |August 2018

Hiten Shah President & CEO

“

Our mission is to deliver top-quality components in a timely and efﬁcient manner.

“

MES carefully manages the global logistics process to save time and money on international shipping. It selects the provider, consolidating orders in containers wherever possible. It manages import/export procedures. The company monitors port conditions and re-routes shipments, if necessary and also expertly navigates customs requirements, paperwork, and fees.

The company comprehends the volatile trends in the Supply Chain Management industry and thus advocates the attitude of ceaselessly embracing change and constructive competition. Hiten personally believes that while continuing to grow as an organization, taking chances and making mistakes is what makes up for improved decision making, team development and managerial skills. Committing to work and enjoying it plays as a catalyst for MES’s growth into new geographies, industries and new commodities. MES’s future endeavors include addition of new local manufacturing capabilities, realizing business opportunities in the UK, and expansion of local warehousing facilities across the globe.

MHG Systems: Offering Next Generation Smart ICT Solutions for Forest and Biomass Management

HG Systems Oy Ltd is a Finland based company involved in offering next generation smart ICT solutions for Forest and Biomass management. The company innovates by integrating open software technology with years of field experience in the forestry and biomass business behind its back. The combination of innovation and experience results in agile and userfriendly IT services, aimed at facilitating flexible and resilient business models in the rapidly changing business environment. Its portfolio of services includes, but not limited to, remote sensing services for forest asset management, mobile solutions, and field work management. It offers the below-mentioned solutions: Wuudis: Full range service in digital forest property management platform, connecting forest owners with local contractors, timber/biomass buyers, and authorities. MHG Biomass Manager: The complete solution for Bioenergy production, procurement, managing, harvesting, and logistics. MHG Mobile: Mobile real-time management of forest assets, biomass, and human resources enabling more productive business models.

MHG Bio-Plant Optimizer: Feasibility assessment service including bankable reports for Bio-energy Investment. MHG Systems’ vision is to become one of the world leaders in ICT solutions segment for forestry management, timber/biomass procurement, and to possess all the required data that boost any stakeholder business in the forestry industry. This can be enabled by digitalizing the global forest resource and all biomass flows through MHG Systems services. The Success Saga Mr. Huurinainen was suffering from a problem of managing his more than 1000 hectares of forest property in an easy and profitable way. Almost 13 years ago, the vision named MHG Systems started developing in Mikkeli, Finland to kill this problem and revolutionize the forest and biomass supply chain business through digital services. According to Mr. Huurinainen, his forest property works as a ‘sandbox’ to test MHG’s ICT services. Today, MHG Systems is one of the most innovative and fastest growing SMEs in the EU with 5000+ commercial users in Wuudis service, dedicated SaaS account of Wuudis with Finnish Forest authority, several

active accounts of MHG Biomass Manager Service as SaaS and dedicated SaaS, consultancy projects and participating in several EU and international projects. The MHG Systems committed a team of 10 multidisciplinary professionals to make this challenging journey possible. About the Leader Seppo Huurinainen, the Founder & CEO, has a cumulative experience of 35 years in forestry, entrepreneurship, and information technology. He holds a broad academic experience in GIS, IT, and silviculture with ﬁve university level degrees. He founded MHG Systems in 2005, which currently oﬀers pioneering ICT solutions for forest and biomass management. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, he held several development and research positions within the forest and agriculture industry and has worked for organizations such as the Finnish Forest and Park Service, Metla, Finnish Forest Centre, Metsäliitto, Stora Enso, and the National Board of Education. Focus on Sustainable Management Globally over 2 billion people rely on forests entirely or partially for their livelihood, creating a market of 246 August 2018|

“

We are committed to revolutionize the forest and biomass business through meaningful and usable digital and big data based solutions.

“

Seppo Huurinainen Founder & CEO billion USD from the global exports of forest-based products. Despite this huge number, there are very few digital solutions available for sustainable forest management. The reason lies in the usage of old-fashioned business practices for performing daily routines in the sector. However, MHG Systems is taking advantage of the forest digitalization boom in Finland to produce next generation tools and services for the sustainable management of forest and biomass ﬂow.

images and thereafter standardize, process, and visualize those images in its Wuudis platform solution to make usable information for forest owner, forest association, and forest companies. This solution will bring significant benefit in improving forest health due to data on every single tree. Another innovation under development is tailor-made forest data to the forest contractors, timber buyers, forest companies etc. with a view to improving their profitability. Industry Scenario

Tailored Solutions “We understood that innovation is the key strategy to become competitive in today’s market. In our company we realize innovations via our participation in the EU research projects, where EU wide best stakeholders from the sector are collaborating with each other to develop the most innovative and useful services and products. Till date, we have raised a total of 1M€ from EU Commission for our research and innovation activities” asserts Mr. Huurinainen. MHG System’s current services have a competitive edge over existing solutions, as it covers all forest management and biomass ﬂow in one place. This means all forest data and information into one solution, analyzes and visualizes it and shows it, tailored to the user’s role.

Globally, the importance of forest-based industries is slightly overlooked due to many reasons. For example, many private forest owners live in cities and are not aware of the economic potential of their forest assets. The reason is lack of forest management tools and services which can enable forest management right from their living room. Moreover, the traditional value chain of forestry business is dominated by big industrial players and thereby hindering the growth of forest-based entrepreneurs. So, there is a need of neutral solution, which supports the growth of overall forest sector including private forest owners, forest industries, forest entrepreneurs, and contractors.

Future Outlook MHG Systems is in the process of developing accurate forest inventory management solutions utilizing drone technology (from third party) to capture high quality aerial |August 2018

Natterbox: Transforming the Telephony Experience within Salesforce

or a long time, the telephony industry has been dominated by organizations based on-premise and aimed at the enterprise space. Companies bring them on board to create bespoke, expensive solutions that come with associated redundancy and backup. Natterbox, a UK telephony company founded in 2010, was set up to change this traditional way of thinking about the telephone and the customer experience by embedding voice at the heart of business communications and development strategies. When first founded, Natterbox built its own platform in-house and is currently the only company out there able to provide a platform that sits directly within Salesforce as a unified Salesforce PBX system. This means that customers can improve and transform their phone system without it becoming a massive infrastructure project, which is how most companies view telephone systems. Natterbox enables organizations to deliver market-leading service levels to their customers through the efficient integration of voice into their digital customer communications. The company aims to transform the telephony experience of organizations and their customers. It’s re-defining a long-standing business model with an offering built around a cloud telephony CRM platform embedded entirely within Salesforce. This proposition is revolutionizing the customer’s interactions over the phone and providing them with a more streamlined, informed and personalized experience. Beyond the improvement of customer service experiences, Natterbox’s aim is to help businesses make the most of the insights and data generated by voice communications. This customer data can indeed provide invaluable insights vital to sales, product development and staff training.

Since its inception, Natterbox has seen exponential growth year-on-year and is working with over 250 companies around the world. Customers rely on Natterbox to set new standards in customer experience to drive measurable increases in sales efficiency, competitive advantage and organizational success. A Serial Entrepreneur Neil Hammerton, CEO and Co-founder of Natterbox has spent most of his professional life in the IT sector. He began his career in security software sales, where he recognized the importance of listening to customer requirements and businesses access to a telephone system that gives their customers and staff the most efficient, flexible and enjoyable experience possible. The idea of establishing Natterbox occurred to him when he realized how poorly a big company he was working for dealt with incoming phone calls. Though he had limited knowledge of the telecommunication sector prior to setting up the company, Neil and his partners taught themselves about the market with the help of an industry veteran. Neil is passionate about the telecommunication industry, technology and the potential power of voice to transform the relationship between businesses and their customers.

August 2018|

Natterbox is always one step ahead of the game and makes voice work for business.

Talking about business opportunities in the telecommunication industry, Neil says: “I realized that there are a huge number of companies missing out on new business opportunities and the ability to provide personalized customer service because they don’t offer the same experience over the phone that they do via email or apps. Whilst many brands are able to track customer activities and preferences online, there wasn’t a way to collect this same information from a phone call – which is still many people’s preferred method of communicating. It became obvious to me that there was a market gap in there waiting to be filled – and that’s how Natterbox was born”. An Advanced Voice Cloud System Natterbox was set up to disrupt the traditional way of thinking about the telephone. The impact of this new cloud telephony technology can shape organizations competitiveness by maintaining personalized services and speed of engagement by integrating telephony within the service cloud. Natterbox offers a complete business phone system and contact center 100% natively embedded in Salesforce; meaning that administrators can personalize caller journeys and authorize numbers through Salesforce. Available from the Salesforce AppExchange, Natterbox advanced voice services provide a complete Cloud PBX with contact centre for Salesforce. The app is designed to either replace a customer’s existing phone system with one that is 100% embedded natively in Salesforce or can be integrated with the existing phone system.

Neil Hammerton CEO & Co-founder globally. Natterbox is available worldwide, serviced by its global network of data centre infrastructure providing quality of service, reliability and reduced complexity at great value. Tracking the Future Natterbox is one of the fastest growing companies in the industry with has the lowest churn rate of customers. It’s now on track to achieve the founding aim of becoming one of the world’s biggest telecommunication companies. It’s focused on taking advantage of emerging technologies such as AI - looking to integrate it into the platform to analyze sentiments and identify the good customer service calls from the bad ones, which can help support companies while training customer service agents. Additionally, other areas of development for Natterbox include research projects focusing on the application of emerging technology such as universal translation in real time and the possibilities it oﬀers business organization to overcome language barriers and expand global operations.

The system allows administrators to create and manage their entire end to end phone system and contact centre

|August 2018

Tech Evolution

Dave Gullo

Co-founder & CTO VideoAmp

August 2018|

How VideoAmp Evolved the Company Culture and Process to Increase the Number of Engineers Employed

ideoAmp turns 4 years old this month. So many memories, and so much growth. Let’s reflect on some of the worst decisions and associated learnings that have been fundamental to our growth. Why the worst you say? Because when you accelerate your learning rate in a fail-fast environment, it then allows you to make fast decisions vs. the analysis paralysis predicament. Ref lection One of my favorite wildcard interview questions for managers is: “Describe the failure you’re most proud of.” This sometimes catches people off guard, so I’ll share mine first to get the conversation going. Inevitably it comes down to choosing because there are so many.

“Promoting out of hand” is another variation of this where you don’t put someone through the normal due diligence because they already present. In our case, individual contributor (IC) engineers don’t go through the rigorous reference checks that new managers do.

“Hiring under duress”, or lowering your bar simply to meet headcount goals. I strongly advise to hire fewer “full-full stack” senior engineers vs. a bunch of junior or mid-level career developers who require more time, nurturing and precious attention units from your senior staﬀ.

Process You can’t talk about growth and success without talking about these failures. Unless you’re some kind of hybrid AIrobot-space-alien who’s absolutely perfect, there’s going to be mistakes. What’s important is that as a leader you own your mistakes and be transparent about them.

This is a moving target, and one which has deﬁnitely been an ongoing series of blogs. In the early stage, we “over prescribed scrum.” Something that a very early stage company can do, along with too much agile processes too soon.

Hiring Finding the right people is the single most important aspect of growing a startup. The biggest mistakes in hiring have been: Ÿ

“Hiring out of hand”, or short cutting the normal processes because the candidate is well known by other engineers in the group. |August 2018

For example, prototypes and proof of concepts should not have a rigorous deﬁnition of done, with endless unit, functional, and end-to-end tests because the product’s requirements will probably zig-zag wildly. Conversely, having too little process when you are supporting enterprise customers can also be a problem. I spent my prior days as an IC and

contractor retroﬁtting and scaling CI/CD pipelines and training engineers how to write better tests. The challenge is right-sizing this all along the way, and the trigger points on when to change may not be obvious. I say this because we grew headcount by 22 engineers from Oct 2017 to Feb 2018, and in the process we did not modify our simpliﬁed Kanban approach to a prescribed Scrum process quickly enough. Growing pains emerged, to say the least. Now we’re in a spot where we can withstand a magnitude scale of growth with roughly the same squad and tribe-level process.

When doing initial contact with a candidate, I often ask “why are you in market?” I have seen countless folks who are looking because their current management does not have their growth and career pathing in mind. In extreme cases, they can do a day’s work in four hours, feel like they are under-challenged, and have not learned anything in years. They work in an environment like the movie Oﬃce Space. Taking an opposite approach is to engage in the growth and pathing of every individual. We do this by: Ÿ

aligning the growth of the individual with the company’s growth.

having management check in frequently on the success of this, and

setting up formal quarterly check-ins on measuring these goals. Google adopted this early on from John Doerr in the form of OKRs, and there are great platforms out there which can formally measure and track these objectives.

Management Riffing off rapid growth of Brains in engineering, we didn’t scale management fast enough. Almost all startup engineering orgs start very flat, with all ICs and no management. You have “tech leads” who may split their time doing light managerial functions, but they all write code and dive into the operations. The biggest fail here in scaling the ICs was not scaling the org and management structure to follow. At ~44 engineers and data scientists, we have a duty to deliver on our mission to provide an environment where they have the opportunity to do the best work of their lives and be worth more in the marketplace. Without this vital management structure, there is a vacuum. Do not bolt this on later, build it as you go. We took inspiration from Spotify’s model of engineering organizational scaling. Growth & Career Pathing We’ve talked about all of these fails, how about something that has worked well for us?

Career pathing is a longer-term concern. I ask candidates from the start “so what’s the next job after VideoAmp?” This often catches them oﬀ guard, then after careful thought most reply with a role 1-2 levels beyond where they’re at now. It’s our goal to help steer them in whatever path they currently see. Many earlier-career engineers think management is their ultimate path, but I have found that many will stay on a tract of engineering excellence. Whether it’s a Principal Engineer or a VP of Engineering, the goal is to orient the new challenges in a manner which grows them in that direction, even if we can’t fully realize their ultimate pathing goal while at the company. By paying careful attention to these details, we have found our annual retention rate in the high 90%.

August 2018|

Optimizt Technologies: Consulting Industries through Engineering Design & Simulation Platform

t present time, industrial advancement is elaborating with consulting engineering platform which provides professional services that define independent expertise in engineering, science, industries, developers, governments and construction firms. Optimizt Technologies is a multidisciplinary engineering consultancy firm mainly engaged in providing engineering design & simulation services like Product Design, Validation, Prototype & Staffing services. The company majorly focuses on Industry sectors including Automobile, Off Road Vehicles, Machinery, Medical Equipments, Energy, Process Industry (Oil & Gas) and Civil Structures. Optimizt Technologies was founded in 2010 at Pune, India, with qualified and experienced professionals. It was formed with the core objective of providing high level technical and value-added business solutions and focusing on its customer to get a quality service at the end. The firm has a strong experience in designing a Final Product, Engineering Product Simulation services, Prototype & Testing services, and the Project Management. Today, the company has many success stories & clients from across India, US and Europe. Alfa Laval Ltd, Atlas Copco Ltd, Behr Hella Thermocontrol, Forbes Marshall, Emerson, GE Oil & Gas, Johnson Controls Ltd, TATA Consultancy Services, Putzmeister are few of its clients to whom it has been providing design & simulation services. In short time span, Optimizt Technologies has strengthened its footings in the domestic & overseas market. The firm has received a couple of awards & appreciations as International Arch of Europe Award in 2015 at Frankfurt by BID Group, Spain. Also in 2012, it was awarded for West India’s Best Technical Centre by PTC, USA by its Indian counterpart. It has been highly appreciated in recognition of commitment to Quality, Delivery & Technical Expertise by its Clients. In recent time, Optimizt Technologies has been continuously getting nominations for many other national awards under new startups in India by various market research organizations. Optimizt Technologies strongly believes in giving back to the society and has started an innovative way to contribute

to the field of mechanical engineering community. It has been training more than 100 students every year, in the field of design tools studying at a less privileged engineering college in India. Exemplary Leader with Technology Expertise Jitendra Jagtap is the Founder and CEO at Optimizt Technologies. He is a Mechanical Engineer with more than 13 years of rich industrial experience. He has versatile experience in multidisciplinary engineering domains & has successfully executed many International & National projects for Automotive, Aerospace, Off Road Vehicles, Oil & Gas Industry. In early 2010, Jitendra started his own consulting firm as a freelancer and then gradually formed a scalable organization named as Optimizt Technologies. Jitendra is an innovative thinker, ethical, subject matter expert with sound technical and project management skills. He is also certified professional in CAD/CAM/CAE technology tools by USA based software OEMs. He has served world-class organizations as designations including Manager R&D, PLM Consultant & COO. Confronting Industrial Paradigm Today, the industrial paradigm has a major shift because of the need of the market & consumerism. There are many technologies which are upbringing the industrial evolution along with unified engineering functions. Jitendra asserts about industrial challenges as, “Today key challenges up fronting industrial aspects are, advancement of technology, automation, cutthroat competition, skilled talent & its retention, environment changes & related norms, local presence & closeness to clients, along with the tight delivery model.” The firm is also focusing on Engineering Services Industry which provides innovative & value-added solutions at a competitive cost. The firm utilizes its functionalities with the proper blend of planning & coordination, operational efficiency control, time management, and skilled resource utilization. It has expansion plan is to reach out to cater to demands in international market by collaboration & grow business model. August 2018|

Consulting versatile engineering services globally.

Jitendra Jagtap Driving Growth through Technological Traits Optimizt Technologies is diligently in the process of developing new concepts, proven designs with smart technologies for the products of its existing clients by using simulation, value engineering, optimization and testing tools. In collaboration with giant IT company, it has recently completed thermo mechanical simulation of Battery Pack for medium duty Electric Vehicle, which is under development by USA based Electric Truck Manufacturer. Thus, the company entered into Electric Vehicle (EV) engineering services domain and is continuing to enhance this area of service in the upcoming years. “The role of engineering service providers (ESPs) is changing and driving the industry’s growth substantially. Unlike earlier typical model of providing limited degree of complexity services, need is to gradually becoming value added stakeholder in Customer’s product development process & timeline. We are strengthening our core competencies & spreading wings to serve new growth sectors like Electric Vehicle, Energy, Automation, Medical Devices, Composites etc.” asserts Jitendra further. Present Industry Scenario Optimizt Technologies is a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) that overcomes challenges introduced in the new industrial era. It drives greater growth with a competitive advantage by going up the value chain and building an ecosystem with highly-skilled and employable talent.

|August 2018

Founder & CEO “In my opinion biggest potential would be in Disruptive Innovation Business Model. Designing smart products of the next generation with cutting-edge technology integrated engineering disciplines, environment-friendly and for the welfare of humanity will bring revolution in the market as well as in the society,” adds Jitendra. Pioneering Innovation based on New Technologies Optimizt Technologies has always approached its technologies with unified innovation base including the market analysis & market research which involves execution of the design model to change the pricing strategy. The firm has decided to focus on niche areas of engineering services like Value Engineering, Design Optimization and Simulation services using FEA & CFD technology. Jitendra states that, “As our business has grown & client demands also increased, we had expanded our infrastructure, team & other business assets to meet these demands. I would like to express my highest gratitude to our esteemed clients for their continuous support and confidence reposed in us & the team members for their tireless efforts and hard work.”

PACK’D:

Innovating Nutrition and Fueling Potential

” Luke Johnstone Co-founder

We create Functional Frozen Smoothie Kits, designed with nutritionists for a targeted health hit.

nnovation is the essence of a revolution conceived from reformative ideologies. It can change the course of development of an individual, a society, an industry or a nation. There have been occurrences of eminent ideas in various industrial sectors since ages. Some perished through the passage of time, while some stayed proliﬁc. PACK’D is one such specimen of an innovative idea, now emerging to glorious heights. It is on a mission to fuel potential. The organization believes that people should have the tools & opportunities to reach their personal best. It comprehends that right nutrition is the key to a healthy and ﬁt life. Its vision starts with nutrition, but ultimately is determined to make a positive and lasting impact worldwide.

Inventive Zeniths The Frozen Smoothie Kits by PACK’D are the ﬁrst of their kind with 100% natural, whole fruit, vegetables & superfoods to provide a targeted health hit. These kits are designed with an assisting expertise of the elite sports nutritionist, Matt Lovell, as antidotes to unhealthy bottled drinks, and a ﬁtness enthusiast’s natural performance enhancers. Each kit – Energy, Detox, Defence, contains perfectly portioned chopped fruit & vegetables with superfoods &

August 2018|

organic protein for savoring the ultimate smoothie in less than 1 minute. Each retail pack contains 2 Smoothie Kits. The ingredients and their benefits of the Energy Kit are as follows: The Fruit and Vegetable Pouch contains chopped strawberries, banana, blueberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and spinach leaves. The Superfood Sachet containing milled flaxseed, maca, cacao, and guarana powder. This kit helps reduce tiredness and fatigue, supports energy-yielding metabolism, and helps to maintain healthy bones. The ingredients and their benefits of the Detox Kit are as follows: The Fruit and Vegetable Pouch containing chopped pineapple, apple, kale, ginger, spinach leaves, and lemon zest. The Superfood Sachet containing spirulina, chlorella, wheatgrass, and barleygrass powder. This kit helps protect cells from oxidative stress, to reduce tiredness and fatigue and to maintain healthy skin. The ingredients and their benefits of the Defence Kit are as follows: The Fruit and Vegetable Pouch containing chopped pineapple, mango, papaya, banana, ginger and goji berries. The Superfood Sachet containing milled flaxseed, sunflower seed, pumpkin seed and baobab powder. This kit helps enhance the function of immune and nervous systems and helps protect cells from oxidative stress. PACK’D is now available in 2,000+ stores nationwide including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Iceland, Costco, Ocado, Whole Foods and Planet Organic, and has been voted as the ‘Best New Health & Wellness Product’. It is soon to launch a direct, to consumer offering via its website. Redefining Leadership Luke Johnstone is the Co-founder of PACK’D and holds a pivotal position in the organization. He holds a BA Honors Degree in History from the University of Nottingham. Prior to co-founding his brainchild along with Alex Stewart in 2013, he has worked with BBC as a researcher with roles inclusive of researching for a widely acclaimed live TV show, produced by the BBC Natural History Unit.

nutrition remained. After working at the BBC & Groupon, he teamed up with school friend Alex Stewart to develop his idea of creating healthy smoothies to suit a busy lifestyle. Alex also holds a BA Hons in International Relation and Modern History, and before co-founding PACK’D, he worked at Deloitte as a Senior Case Handler. Like every other innovative leader, Luke quit his job & moved into a shed to work on the project, a tough few years followed. Alex and Luke worked multiple jobs including Tennis Coaching and selling PACK’D kits at market stalls in Hackney backed with loans from The Prince’s Trust. A Voyage towards Glory While imparting insights over the evident challenges faced by PACK’D, Luke says, “Being a start-up in an industry dominated by big businesses is one of our biggest challenges at the moment. We’ve been very fortunate to receive funding from The Prince’s Trust & Virgin, and ensuring we’ve got the funds and team to achieve our mission is something we’re working towards.” The company was the first to launch Frozen Smoothie Kits in the UK and thus takes pride in pioneering the way for others to follow. It comprehends the emerging number of competitors but only envisions this as category expansion and a positive step for the future of healthy frozen nutrition. “We designed our Smoothie Kits with nutritionists to ensure they’re the best product they can be so are very confident in our concept and everyone at PACK’D is united behind a desire to help fuel potential. This is what makes us unique and our approach to competition will always be to stay authentic to ourselves,” states Luke. Beholding the Future PACK’D started with its targeted nutrition range of Smoothie Kits in 2014. The company later expanded in October 2017 with the first Protein Smoothie Kits, with no synthetic flavors, sugars or sweeteners. The company realized that to lock in the nutrition without using preservatives freezing was the ideal method. “Everything we do starts with nutrition, and we are always working on exciting innovation,” says Luke. The organization strives to have a huge impact worldwide, helping to fuel people with the right nutrition. “Nutrition is only the start, whether fueling young athletes or helping alleviate youth unemployment we are passionate about making a positive and lasting impact worldwide,” he adds.

Luke grew up on an estate in Peckham and was selected for a tennis scholarship. Though forced to give up the future of a sports career aged 15 due to injury, his passion for |August 2018

Digi Connection

Smarter Energy Grids

August 2018|

uman beings have always looked up to nature and made efforts to learn from its basic principles. Sonars were inspired by dolphins, light bulbs by fireflies, suction cups by octopus and robots itself to replicate human beings. One such instance that has been enthused by microorganisms is distributed ledger technology (DLT), widely known as blockchain. “The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.” -Don & Alex Tapscott. It records transactions between two clients without any third party authentication which is an efficient process when it comes to stable data. Blockchain provides data management without the threat of unauthorized access or manipulations. It is proving to be a solution for frequent problems in various fields. Blockchain technology has the capability to disrupt approximately every industry ranging from finance, to education to power.

Smart Meters Smart meters are used to record electrical usage. These meters enable us to monitor our electrical consumption more precisely which will help consumers make better energy choices. Through blockchain, clients can directly get the amount spent which eradicates middleman thus saving money. This creates a more resilient network for gadgets to run on. Smart meters can also provide accurate data to the provider without needing a direct link to the meter of particular users. With the help of blockchain, producers of smart grids do not have to invest a humongous amount. Here the producers get paid instantly, which leads to less capital expenditure. Besides this, blockchain can play a serious role in adjusting power ﬂows through the amalgamation and optimization of local grids measured by the public or consortium modes. It can aid in the maintenance of permanent records by servicers, giving a ﬂawless view of a particular object or part of infrastructure at any given time. This information can be retrieved easily as the structure is built on a shared platform, while retaining the authenticity of the record.

Blockchain Technology in Smarter Grids One of the areas in the energy industry where blockchain technology can disrupt the market is smart grids. Lately, blockchain has been well-thought-out as one of the developing technologies that can be used for developing decentralized grid topologies and revising the distributed management of energy businesses. Blockchain database is shared by all the nodes in the system. A node is an active device which can be connected to internet and has an IP address. Examples of devices include computers, tablets, phones and even printers. The job of a node is to upkeep the network by maintaining a copy of the blockchain and process transactions. Beneﬁts of Blockchain in Smarter Grids Blockchain can aid numerous utility industry requirements. It can act as a foundation stone with the possibility of disrupting the prevailing ecosystem. With the promotion for e-vehicles and individuals shifting to electric cars, supply and demand of energy needs to keep pace. Here blockchain comes in the scenario with its peer-to-peer interconnectivity and sharing. This balances the demand from several foundations and makes the grid smarter by directing sharing. As there are small and compact smart grids, consumers with the help of blockchain can simply trade energy with one another thus saving time and earning a few dollars. In the power industry, blockchain technology can ensure a 5D Impact: decentralization, digitization, democratization, distribution and deregulation. |August 2018

While the possible benefits of the Smart Grid are usually discussed in terms of renewable energy goals, economics and national security, it has the potential to help save money by managing your electricity usage and choosing the best times to purchase electricity. Consumers can save even more by generating their power with the help of blockchain. Lately, due to the speedy growth in the deployment of DEPs the smart grid organization problems can no longer be proficiently addressed using centralized approaches, thus, the necessity for visionary decentralized methodologies and architectures is widely recognized. It is assessed that the blockchain technology will add another $3.1 trillion by 2030. Lately, due to the speedy growth in the deployment of DEPs the smart grid organization problems can no longer be proficiently addressed using centralized approaches, thus, the necessity for visionary decentralized methodologies and architectures is widely recognized. Lastly, blockchain technology may eventually fast-track the evolution to what the power industry calls a “distributed world.” It is the sum of both small and large powergeneration structures for communities, businesses and home. To prosper in capitalizing the potential of distributed generation and supervising less foreseeable and more capricious renewable power sources, the trade's infrastructure must first become more agile and less centralized.

Procurify: Understanding Your Spending, Easily

anaging ﬁnances is never easy. Not for individuals, and it is inﬁnitely more tedious and complicated for organizations. But do things necessarily have to be that way? One company does not think so. Meet Procurify. Understanding the ‘Why’ Procurify is on a mission to reinvent the way organizations spend, and help them gain a greater understanding of the ‘Why’ behind their expenses. By familiarizing themselves with this crucial element of the purchasing and procurement process, they are able to inculcate a culture of responsible spending and fully capitalize on each of their investments. The company’s Co-founder and CEO, Aman Mann stresses on helping organizations understand their ‘spend culture’. This term refers to the collection of beliefs, attitudes, and actions a collective group has towards spending resources, and how they manage those resources. Every organization wants to grow and progress, and they evaluate their success by managing and measuring their top line. However, the bottom line is often neglected and many organizations do not understand their spend culture.

“

Our mission is to reinvent the way organizations spend. — Aman Mann Co-founder & CEO

Without knowing the reason behind each spending decision, it is diﬃcult to decide whether or not that decision is worth the investment. Procurify is helping organizations from around the world understand this and get the most out of every outlay.

August 2018|

Essential Change Aman developed the concept behind Procurify over many years as he worked at numerous jobs in different companies. He noticed that despite the diverse offices, company cultures, and organizational SOPs, inefficient business processes were a constant feature of the workplace landscape. The greatest barrier to better efficiency and conducive work environments was a resistance to change. However, Aman also saw that it was always possible to further streamline business processes even at the most progressive organizations. With their diverse range of spend cultures, companies were erring by using legacy systems and ERPs which are all inherently rigid. These all-in-one spend solutions offer multiple features and tools for finance professionals and executives like the CFO, but are neither user-friendly nor versatile enough for the average worker. Their desktop-bound or server-limited options have disproportionately lengthy onboarding and training times. In today’s world of convenient mobile apps for virtually every task, such impractical solutions inspire less use, not more. Ultimately, the fact that these traditional systems come with extended implementation timelines and hefty fees have created an atmosphere ripe for change. Procurify is perfectly placed to exploit it. Versatility Wins One of the chief challenges to widespread adoption of Procurify is the presence of legacy financial management products that dominate the market. However, the platform’s ability to be customized to every organization’s unique work and reporting cultures, the appeal of error-free records, and the drastic reduction in procedural timelines means that Procurify is attracting extraordinary attention. Some of the world’s fastest growing companies, including A³ by Airbus and Samumed, the world’s largest biotech start-up, have already implemented Procurify. Aman’s vision goes beyond just dominating the purchasing management segment of the market. He intends to transform Procurify into the Smart Spend |August 2018

Hub™, where all purchases and spending can be captured on one platform. The company made the ﬁrst step to this goal in March 2018, when it acquired VendorBase, an independent online buyer-supplier platform. Under the acquisition, VendorBase was rebranded to Procurify Exchange (Pex), an RFQ (Request for Quote) solution. It is currently available for free as an add-on feature to current Procurify users, or as a free standalone platform. Procurify is already working at improving the platform’s capabilities by incorporating AI and machine learning into its future feature sets. This will create a system that can more easily be tailored to each unique end user. Downs and Ups Despite its obvious utility and vast potential for practical application, Procurify has had anything but a smooth journey. When its co-founders travelled to San Francisco to seek Series A funding, they were so strapped for cash that they crashed on Airbnb couches and ate cup noodles to save money. The team had pinned their hopes on the hundreds of emails that they had sent to potential investors. They did not receive a single response. It was in the very last few days, when they had just about lost all hope, that a call came through. That led to a meeting with an investor who has gone on to become one of their most valued mentors. The company has also had to deal with human resources issues, particularly in terms of hiring the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Painful lessons have been learned about how the right people are what make a company great. However, the team has incorporated both the positive and negative into a repository of experiences on which they rely to do a better job every day. It helps them tackle every new challenge with excitement rather than fear which, in turn, transforms uncertainty into opportunity. Aman believes in celebrating small wins, and in the value of teamwork and courage. This empowering mentality has allowed Procurify to grow not just as a company, but as the sum of the people within it.

Spark Compass: A Contextually Intelligent Communications Platform of Platforms

he Internet of Things (IoT) has brought the vision of a more connected world into reality due to an emerging volume of sensors, devices and numerous services that are connected and delivering data via heterogeneous access networks. Correspondingly, cloud computing has emerged to provide enormous storage, computing facilities, and data sharing opportunities. Moreover, the convergence of IoT and connected cloud can provide new opportunities for both technologies, particularly when connected in an intelligent manner. It can open a new horizon for ubiquitous sensing, interconnection of devices, service sharing, data storage and provisioning to support better communication and collaboration among people and appliances in a more distributed and dynamic manner. Thus, such convergence can enable the development of innovative applications and new solutions in various emerging areas to improve all aspects of life. Powered with a vision to create a better world, Total Communicator Solutions, Inc. has developed a fully integrated, contextually intelligent mobile communications platform, Spark Compass ™. The solution leverages real-data analytics with realtime actions and events based on the collected data, combined with location, user, and activity knowledge, to deliver curated experiences on mobile devices and other associated IoT connected devices. The company’s patented, contextually intelligent communications platform, integrates numerous smart city sensors, smart home sensors, proximity

beacons, NFC, augmented reality, and IoT sensors in the environment, in equipment – even in cars. Spark Compass is used by enterprises such as airports, hospitals, university facilities, sport venues, and convention centers. Total Communicator Solutions is headquartered in San Diego, CA, with its branches located in USA, Spain, Mexico, UK, Norway, and New Zealand. A True-Grit Leader Erik Bjontegard is the Founder of Total Communicator Solutions, who has over 30 years of experience in areas ranging from aerospace to retail. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University Of Salford, UK Erik began his carrier as a rocket scientist with NASA and later as a Corporate R&D Executive at Qualcomm Corporate R&D. He holds patents at Qualcomm and is the inventor of the patented Spark Compass platform with numerous additional patented patents ﬁled across the globe. He, along with a team of industry experts architected and developed the one-of-a-kind Spark Compass platform as a service which connects existing sensor networks, devices and their users. As an innovator and multiple patent holder, Erik has been awarded and won recognitions from Red Herring to awards at the White House, he has been a speaker at events from large investor meetings to Mobile World Congress and has been showcased by conglomerates and trusted

organizations like Qualcomm and Samsung at CES, MWC and numerous other technology industry events. A Comprehensive Communication Platform The Spark Compass platform™ collects data from user devices, wearables and sensor networks, enabling the delivery of smart content based on the user’s context. This is performed by analyzing data patterns, setting speciﬁc rules and combining existing data sources. Powerful analytics on collected performance data, real-time behavior and actions provide granular visibility in a centralized platform ensuring the right curated content is delivered to the right user at the right time and place, on the right device. The Spark Compass™ mobile proximity platform is the ‘brains’ that is enabling a wide range of experiences. Based on its patented technology, it takes advantage of the latest innovations in proximity beacons, sensor integrations, geofences, augmented reality and virtual reality to name a few, to enable businesses and organizations drive dynamic marketing, services and communications. The end result is the ability to easily bring real-time, contextually intelligent experiences to people in places like convention centers, universities, airports, medical centers and hospitals, events, convention centers, oﬃce buildings and tourist destinations. In addition, the platform was designed to deliver compelling relevant content

August 2018|

Lofty goal, yes, but we are proving it can be done - by doing it!

Erik Bjontegard Founder

within a unique localized experience to the user, while capturing relevant userbehavior data for platform stakeholders. Today, Spark Compass is covered by an awarded US patent with numerous patented patents in USA and worldwide with providers and partners, channel partners. It has also been endorsed by leading system integration partners ranging from ATOS, Qualcomm, CGI and Samsung to smaller local BOT (Build Operate Train) partners. Erik asserts “We are ﬁnally out of stealth mode and are deploying with some powerful brands and partners. The Spark Compass platform has been tested and validated in real commercial enterprise deployments, across multiple vertical markets. It drives conversion and result, now endorsed and promoted by our channel partners globally Next generation of intelligent storage of real world data is being deployed with the patent patented Spark Compass Intelligence of Every Thing blockchain platform. This advanced distributed ledger data storage platform enables select data such as information |August 2018

across a product procurement and distribution process to be captured eﬃciently and cost eﬀectively via the Spark Compass IoT Platform and stored safely and securely in the blockchain for future use along the supply chain by authorized users. He continues: “Integrating our advanced data storage options as option to traditional cloud storage enables our clients to be future proof and store their data securely. Our platform turns the data into actions. We then verify that the results of those actions are the desired outcomes, thereby ensuring conversion and desired results” Unfolding the Forthcoming Mission Spark Compass enables innovation and leadership in using technology to drive outcomes and conversion to be delivered based on intelligent use of data. It leverages and combines the best from others under one umbrella and by being ‘inclusive’ while respecting each partner’s ownership, the best solutions are integrated, leveraging legacy with new technology

to deliver the best combination. The company’s vision is to create a better world by enhancing end user’s interactions in the real world by intelligently delivering curated content and enhancements to their daily interactions with the real world. “When it comes to the future of technology, it’s clear that artificial intelligence (AI) is the final frontier. However, as major tech companies have begun creating various AI-driven technologies and capabilities, they’ve started to think about AI in an entirely new way. Rather than viewing AI as systems with the goal of replicating and surpassing human intelligence, experts in the field and leading research companies understand AI is better represented and produced as ‘Augmented Intelligence,’ since these systems will instead enhance and augment human capabilities – this is our AI vision, Augmenting the human intelligence.” Erik states.

Future-Bots

Catching-up with the

ROBOTICS for

Better

FUTURE R

obots have always been pictured as a man-made advanced technological creativity, which do and will favor the human species for future. As robotics is vibrantly globalized, soon it will be mainstreamed in various fields and sectors. Currently, there are numerous enterprises worldwide which are implementing robotics into industrial, healthcare and commercial use. Whereas, robotics have experienced a lot of up’s and down’s during this tenure, but with the time, it held a stronghold in the digital world. Whenever the discussion arises about the applications of robotics, the industrial sector has bespoken benefits’. Robots have become more affordable, smart and productive over the years. The sectors like agriculture, construction, warehousing and logistics, and customer services. By investing more in robots, an enterprise

August 2018|

will be solving certain problems more accurately and efficiently. Meanwhile, utilizing robots will help enterprises to push their limits in order to fill up the productivity voids. With each slippage of time, the technology is upgrading so does the robotics. The advancements in robotics field will be a boon to the enterprises in order to increase growth and productivity rate. There are certain parameters that should be considered while implementing robotics in the enterprise, such as Following up Parameters before Reaching the Depth of Robotics Modifying; as per the user’s need Generally, robots used to require advanced training in order to operate comfortably. It’s not an issue for the big enterprises as they acquire the skilled people to deal with, where the small enterprises are not so gifted with |August 2018

loads of assets initially. But, with the new advances in robotics technologies, it has become easier for small ventures to invest in robots for increasing the productivity generating more revenue. Just by giving wireless commands from an IOT, demonstrating tasks to the robots gets easier. Nowadays, there are numerous varieties of robots to carry out multitasks, thus as per the user’s need, one can invest in robots for the industrial purpose. Easily Compatible Unlike the big manufacturing robots in huge industries, there are various collaborative robots which are specially designed to work alongside and to assist human workers in a variety of tasks. Earlier it was sort of stressful for an enterprise to allot speciﬁc man-power for certain task, but by implementing co-bots such issues are resolved. As the size and shape of co-bots are getting more

compact, it may benefit the enterprises in various terms. Easy to Develop Earlier robots were not able to program easily due to the incompatibility between the user interface and hardware. But, now Robotic Operating System (ROS) is dominating the industry by providing solutions for varied robots in order to perform the task without lagging. It’s an opensource framework which helps developers to redirect the programming in different ways. This open-source framework is dominating the growth towards the constructive direction. Amplifying the Range of Applied Robotics The 21st century—is the era of implementing new ideology and technologies in various sectors. While technological disruption has collectively affected every possible

sector, robotics is still unaﬀected. From past few years, the technology, as well as its implementation, has increased substantially. Have a look on such few areas for possible applications. Obliging Enterprises through Robotics Cobot’s: Assisting Humans Unlike big manufacturing robots, collaborative robots are designed to work with employees in enterprises and corporates. The design is smart enough to assist humans and also, compact enough to handle. Generally, the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are slightly boon by implementing co-bots in day to day life, as they are easily adaptable, easy to process and most importantly it’s aﬀordable. According to some experts, there’s a possibility of enormous growth in the business, if Co-bots are implemented widely. The main motive of industrial robots is to the prioritized safety of employees and workers, yet the chances of accidents are always at high risk. Whereas, co-bots works as a service robot; they come in various shape and sizes easing the workability and reducing the liability of employees. In order to get sanctioned as service robots, any co-bot has to pass certain testing parameters by robot manufacturing companies, factors such as easily compatible with other devices and programs, safe in use, easy to command, and processing at a faster rate. Currently, co-bots are used for processes like machine tending, packaging, and material handling. In spite of industries, co-bots are used in various sectors such as in farming, hospitals, healthcare and facilities, and labs. It does come under robot-as-aservice format.

with personal robotics cloud which will help robots to take and give information directly. Depending on the robot, it can process various functions such as lifting, leveraging, handle vision, object recognition and other, thus certain robots acquire such skills and will provide information to the cloud. Then, this information helps other robots to get enlightened. In simple words to say, robots will teach other robots for the better good of the enterprises. On the other hand, as robots are getting more and more evolved, ﬁltering of essential information from rest will get much easier. This will comfort both big and small enterprises to manage big data more precisely. With the emergence of advancement in robotics, they are on the verge to touch skies already. If considering the above possible factors, this evergreen era of robotics is less likely to get saturated due to technological disruption. As the technologies are growing faster, the enterprises must to catch-up with them accordingly. It’s high time to implement new technologies especially of the robotics as its utilization is not only subjected to warehouses but also, towards the inhouse enterprise work. Hopefully, there’s a possibility of robot-oriented industries in the future.

Cloud Robotics Imagine an enterprise with robots that are totally independent to the user commands, in other words, no external programming may require in order to process robots for the various tasks. In accordance to that, a User Interface to be exact might not be needed in the future, as machine learning is already on its verge to get explored. Currently, in order to carry out certain tasks robots are been told to what to do using the interface whereas, cloud robotics directly twitch compatible code from the clouds which are required for the tasks. To work alongside with humans, robots must be deep learning the subjects simultaneously able to point out problems and provide solutions right away. Meanwhile, it will be a boon for the enterprises if the employees will get to interact with robots as a personiﬁed object rather than a machine. Soon, there

August 2018|

DELIVERING ON OUR PROMISES THROUGH MEDICAL INNOVATION

Most Advanced StealthStation For Neurosurgery: The StealthStation S8 technology includes a new and improved software interface, a two-cart platform design, and electromagnetic technology to complement the surgical workï¬&#x201A;ows.

www.medtronic.com

TechR2: Sepehr Rajaie CEO & President

major challenge for many businesses today comes in the form of the exponential growth in the quantity of information that is generated and has to be stored. This data faces a multitude of threats and its protection is imperative. TechR2 is a leading secure media retention solutions provider with a portfolio of on-site data eradication solutions which can be deployed within any enterprise scenario. It is backed by twenty years of experience with industry best practices and the resources to support any type of business data. Established in 1997, the TechR2 headquarters is located in Columbus, Ohio, and the company serves clients across the United States who themselves have a global presence. Its mission is to protect enterprise and

IT Security Solutions with On-site Data Eradication brands from the very real threat of data breaches. TechR2 is proud to have a completely untarnished record of keeping 100% of its clients protected from data breaches in its twenty years of operations. The company is currently one of the fastest-growing businesses in the industry. TechR2’s senior management has over sixty years of collective experience in the data security industry. TechR2 meets all required compliances such as GDPR, NIST, HIPAA, HITECH, PCI, SOX, and GLBA as a leader of the IT security solutions marketplace. A Determined Leader A true visionary, Sepehr (Sepp) Rajaie is the CEO and President of TechR2. He immigrated to the United States as a student from Iran. Upon graduating from North High School in Columbus, Ohio, Sepp continued his education, matriculating to and graduating from One Tech (now known as Devry University), Ohio Dominican College with a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, and ﬁnally Franklin University with a Master’s degree in Engineering. He then embarked upon his professional career, successfully building three multinational companies before turning his attention to the

August 2018|

technology industry. His perseverance paid oﬀ in early 1991 when Sepp was chosen to attend the IBM Business Partners Wharton School for Executive Education Program. His career has now come full circle with TechR2 being named an IBM Partner world member, oﬀering its Tear-a-byte (TAB) process and solutions to IBM customers worldwide. Sepp holds US Patent 9430654, which is the basis for TechR2’s TAB process. While specializing in on-site data eradication, Sepp also built a data retention powerhouse. The company provides IT asset tracking through RFID technology for data-bearing media such as storage devices, tablets, and mobile phones.

Secure media retention, tracking, containment, destruction and VERIFICATION of the previous steps within the data center premises.

Overcoming Complicated Regulations TechR2 adheres strictly to best practices and high standards. Its patented TAB process is a manifestation of best practices for disposition of data-bearing assets at the end of their lifecycle. Obtaining approval of the patent for registration was the first challenge. The company wanted to meet the requirements of the world’s most stringent standards regulating data and its disposition. Secondly, obtaining a method patent and to become ISO-certified was incredibly difficult. TechR2 submitted itself to ISO auditors so that it could guarantee best practices to its customers. Today, it is the only secure media retention solution provider that operates under the ISO 27001, 9001, 18001, 14001 and, soon, 32001 certifications. Proprietary Services TechR2 continues to perfect its own state-of-the-art solutions for an ever-changing market. The company dedicates considerable resources to educating and training employees so they remain on the cutting edge of technology. On each project, it collaborates with its customers’ compliance departments, conducts a risk assessment, and then implements their solutions based on the individual client’s needs.

|August 2018

TechR2 is backed by the globally-recognized International Standards Organization (ISO) certifications (IS0-27001, ISO-14001, ISO9001, and soon ISO-32001) and other standards (OHSAS-18001). This allows the company to provide independent certification of data destruction backed by the most powerful insurance policy for risk mitigation, offered by Lloyd’s of London. Future Expansion Sepp says, “We have continued to expand our services - security for data-bearing devices from cradle to the grave with our RFID IT Asset Tracking and further innovations regarding risk management.” TechR2’s patented process of TAB (Tear-AByte) is soon going to become the industry standard and many OEMs are participating in use of its process globally.

VOX

Leading Provider of Converged Voice and Data Solutions

he adoption of next-generation technologies is a dire necessity for companies to stay competitive. Technologies such as cloud, data analytics, internet of things, blockchain, virtual reality, augmented reality, analytics & measurement, workforce management, quality assurance and knowledge management have become a key for driving customer success and retaining. Therefore, in order to achieve this, VOX Network Solutions - A modern technology company was launched in 2006 which truly aim at making a diďŹ&#x20AC;erence in the world. It embraces innovation & creativity and dares to think about change in terms of monumental paradigm shifts. The companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approach of creating a change in the industry sets them apart from others. VOX is infusing a deep-seeded belief in creating committed partnerships, engaged communities and empowering individuals to have a stake in the process. It creates a collaborative prosperity that can positively support the people, businesses and the world.

Scott Landis Chairman, President & CEO

At its core, VOX is driven by a diverse team of consultants, entrepreneurs and technologists. The company has six fundamental technology practices such as Consulting, Contact Center, Collaboration, Network, Security, and Managed Services. By using a prescriptive process methodology, it seeks to empower its clients, partners and employees to create something better. As a result of this cooperative approach, VOX has been

August 2018|

An Engaging Business Communicator Scott Landis is the Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of VOX Network Solutions. At the start, Scott worked for six years in sales and sales management at Nortel Communications Systems having received a BS in Business Administration & Marketing from San Diego State University. Prior to VOX, Scott co-founded United Telecom in 1997. During that time, United Telecom experienced tremendous growth which was later on sold to NetVersant Solutions in December 2000. And Scott continued to play a role as the President of Telephony for NetVersant from 2000-05. A Journey through Adversities Founded in 2006, VOX has been through a number of challenges including economic downturn, key partners going bankrupt and increased technology complexity. In other words, the company has fallen into Value Added Resellers (Resellers) category. Since, its greatest challenges are providing value to its existing clients and separating itself from competitors through this attention to value. Over the last 24 months, the company has worked to evolve their organization into a powerhouse Consulting Services company. It was also focusing on helping customers to create and execute the right technology strategies and tactics in order to drive positive business outcomes. Since its inception, VOX is driven by a diverse team of consultants, entrepreneurs and technologists and has evolved to become a leader in Consulting, Contact Center, Collaboration, Network, Security and Managed Services. Today, it has been able to weather the storms and grow an average of 25% year over year. Organizationally, the company has converged every business unit and department into a fully integrated alignment. Additionally, it has implemented new systems, processes and a robust customer engagement methodology named VOX Enterprise Lifecycle. Employees, Community and Partnerships The evolution of VOX into a Consulting Services company is a key diﬀerentiation strategy. It has propelled through the company’s proprietary, consultative framework, VOX Lifecycle Program. Through the VOX Lifecycle Program, it guides clients through a true business journey. The

|August 2018

“

We live in a world of too much information and too little context.

“

named as one of the fastest growing companies in the United States and has strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Cisco, Avaya, and Microsoft.

company’s comprehensive framework provides multidimensional insight into business goals / strategies, staffing, processes, technologies, finance and risk management. VOX is driven by a greater vision which believes that business is more than the pursuit of profit. The company is a part of a global community, through conviction, compassion and force of will; it has both the opportunity and privilege to change the world. To that end, VOX is committed to their Employees, Community and Partnerships. The company respects the talents, experiences, and values the employees by bringing them to the table and provides opportunities for personal and career growth. It engages in the community by investing in the time & resources by promoting and enabling volunteerism to make a meaningful difference. Additionally, it also develops healthy & dynamic value partnerships through steadfast commitment, superior communication and a sense of urgency Future Endeavors VOX continues to invest heavily in the people, offerings and infrastructure. VOX is committed to being an innovator with their consultative services and are constantly working to increase their value to the clients. As organizations find it difficult to find talented people who are both business savvy and technically astute, the company will continue to build its team of experts and develop it through on-going education. In the future, the flagship Contact Center Practice of the company will continue to spread its wings with innovative technologies, broader assessments and more services. Further, the industry awarded Managed Services Practice will also continue to exemplify superior, human-centric service, real-time management, and comprehensive coverage.

www.tysonfoods.com

Food Innovation At Tyson Foods, our renowned chefs, culinologists, sensory experts, and researchers are working to reimagine the possibilities, seeking new ways to make more and better food.

XTIVIA Perfecting Innovative Solutions

he world of technology is driven by innovation. Enterprises must survive the impact of growing competition in saturated markets. Companies are pushing their boundaries to create products and services that deliver maximum value to their customers; innovative technology is the fulcrum that this shift rests on to deliver stellar customer experience. The demand for expert service providers is, accordingly, on the rise to help companies achieve their goals more effectively by leveraging these technology innovations and, additionally, by enhancing performance of legacy technology investments. XTIVIA is a premier technology innovation and integration company known for delivering leading-edge solutions to meet customers’ specific requirements, regardless of project complexity. XTIVIA aims to deliver customized, quality technology integration and innovation solutions through long-term relationships with the B2B enterprise customers. It brings next-level business operations to reality through Application Development, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, Database Support & Management, Enterprise Information Management, Digital Experience Solutions and Enterprise Resource Planning. The company believes its success is derived from a demonstrated ability to deliver deep expertise via professional services; this deep expertise empowers customers to leverage their chosen technology successfully, competitively and profitably. A Leading Edge of XTIVIA Dennis Robinson is the CEO of XTIVIA, leading the company since 2001. He has more than 25 years of experience with an emphasis on P&L performance, financial management, marketing strategy, strategic business planning and development of information systems

and technologies. His philosophy of assisting customers in achieving their performance targets through technology, regardless of project nuances, has become a hallmark of XTIVIA’s success. This has also led to recruiting and retaining the most qualified workforce available, making XTIVIA’s breadth and depth of technical expertise unparalleled. Personally, he is a husband, father and a fan of ‘all things steampunk’. Prior to XTIVIA, Dennis was the Vice President of Worldwide Xceed Group, Inc. He held the same position for technical sales in Sterling Carteret, Inc., where he worked for three years. Dennis was the Director of Operations for Walmart, where he established the first UNIX operations for 24/7 availability for 35 distribution centers. Previous to that, he was with FoxMeyer Drug. Dennis held several roles in IT, including establishing a new data center for FoxMeyer customers and partners. As a result of his personal experience, he understands technology from frontline accountabilities through complex integrations and maintenance. Building Bridges Technology is a dynamic and ever-evolving industry. The only competitive differentiator for companies in today’s digital business landscape is delivering a unique, seamless and delightful customer experience. In order to deliver that level of personalized customer experience on a mass scale, companies need technology. Enterprises use more than 1,000 applications in their IT architecture today - simply to run their operations - and all of them need to be implemented, integrated and maintained. A minor change in any part of the system can lead to consequences. Taking these factors into consideration, XTIVIA helps B2B August 2018|

enterprise customers bridge their current and new technology with their business goals. The in-house experts in XTIVIA take on and deliver technical projects to its customers, working with the nuances they ﬁnd ‘under the hood’ of the current IT architecture, so their customers can deliver greater value and a personalized experience to their clients and users. XTIVIA goes the extra mile for customers by delivering on projects and making deep expertise accessible as needed. Special areas of focus that support XTIVIA’s success include SEO, cross-selling within the existing customer base and being strategic in all aspects of digital brand presence and marketing. Dennis coined the term “Stop, Drop and Dial” to prioritize form submissions that come in through the website and/or social channels.

Dennis Robinson CEO

“

Agility is the Key According to XTIVIA, agility is the key for companies to meet dynamic customer needs and conversations. The complexity involved in designing today’s technology platforms requires deep expertise in multiple areas. Companies need to have technical skills available and demonstrate success in implementing digital solutions. XTIVIA believes customers not only need access to these skills but also for technical experts to understand their business goals and speak their language. Service vendors like XTIVIA must be able to speak about technology as well as how potential solutions suit their customers’ needs, connect with disparate systems, and ensure cohesive data ﬂow for a uniﬁed view of the customer journey as well as provide robust business intelligence.

Your brand experience rests on the technology that delivers it. Enhance your competitive advantage through the right technology. The future of your business depends on it. wants and requirements. Ultimately, XTIVIA’s passion is around making customers successful, through not only quality project implementations but also through building trust, loyalty and relationships that stand the test of time.

Embracing Changes Constant Support In XTIVIA’s early days, the CEO handled marketing and sales while the CTO focused on projects and customer relationships. Everyone wore multiple hats to get to the point where XTIVIA could attract and afford the right talent to build its infrastructure. The projects during startup were smaller in size as the company built its customer base and references. Over time, everything changed - the size of the projects, the number of staff, the breadth of services and more that comes with healthy company growth. However, the philosophy of the company did not change because the focus is on doing right by XTIVIA’s customers. It’s about meeting customers where they are with their specific needs, |August 2018

XTIVIA is committed to creating the solutions that customers need to achieve their business goals. Inherently within that commitment is XTIVIA’s consistent and reliable support to innovate, implement, integrate and troubleshoot technology within the customers’ IT landscape. Future growth of the company will depend on this focus as well expansion into new technologies and services through company mergers and acquisitions. For more information, visit : www.xtivia.com

Zappi A Leading Automated Consumer Insights Platform

ontrary to popular perception, it is a very hopeful time to be a market researcher. Although time and budgets are squeezed, an opportunity has presented itself to embrace innovation. Tech is already enabling researchers to do more, think more, and do analysis that wasn’t possible in the past. Business leaders need to watch out for the synergy between AI and data integration. Here lies the future of many developments that could change the business landscape as we know it. One company building the future of marketing research by using AI technology is Zappi. Zappi is built for marketers and insights professionals who respect the voice of their consumers as the most influential part of their decision-making process. Zappi automates the collection and modeling of data using proven market research methodologies; from audience configuration to reporting. It understands data at a semantic level, and drives meaningful analysis in realtime via an intuitive interface. Zappi learns the business goals of clients in a cumulative manner, growing more strategic with more use. Ultimately, the platform envisions a more intelligent future. According to Steve Phillips, CEO, “Our mission is to help clients build more effective brands, produce stronger products, and develop the ability to adapt in

ever-changing markets utilizing the best consumer insights.” Steve has lived in and worked across four continents with a focus on international research. His work on Consumer Purchase Journeys has won multiple awards and he has been a regular speaker on this topic at industry events. He has become a devotee of Behavioral Economics and his work on the impact of this thinking won the ESOMAR Best Paper award in 2011. He has also won the ‘Best New Thinking’ award at the MRS Conference, and became a recipient of both the ARF Great Minds certiﬁcate and the industries Innovation award. When Steve is at work, he is known to be many things. Most importantly a technology enthusiast and forwardthinker, his dedicated pursuit doesn’t take away from who he is and everything he loves about life! In his spare time, Steve also runs a local cricket team. We asked Steve about the biggest threat looming in the sector of market research and his views were insightful. Steve said, “There is a perception that technology is one of the biggest challenges for the market research industry. However, market researchers are in dire need of faster, simpler, and more economical research in order to keep a seat at their companies’ tables. Technology, August 2018|

We revolutionize the way companies gather and utilize consumer insights to build great brands, strong products, and adapt in ever-changing markets.

Steve Phillips Founder & CEO

especially around AI, can help - only if it’s truly accepted as valid.” His views are echoed in the industry and the latest research supporting the need for a quality big data solution to uplift the market research industry. Recently, AMA research titled, “The 2017 Q3-Q4 GreenBook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) report” stated that “technology and innovation are the biggest challenges facing the market research industry. Market research suppliers report feeling threatened by the pervasiveness of fraudulent survey respondents, disillusionment with the actionable value of Big Data, skills shortages in advanced statistical modeling, and the looming threat of AI eliminating research jobs.” According to Steve, the future of research automation will take place on one of the few major platforms. Steve envisions Zappi to be that platform. Under his leadership, Zappi engineers are building new capabilities and getting clients to conduct their research and collect data at one place. The company hopes to make clients realize that using a single platform is more beneﬁcial as opposed to using an array of limited and unconnected providers. Additionally, the Zappi team hopes to provide a clear understanding of their extensive capabilities to clients via proven results.

|August 2018

The groundwork for Zappi’s progress and vision was laid out in 2010 when Steve identified that there was little demand for further methodological innovation in market research and spotted an opportunity for new thinking around tech instead. In 2013, he imagined an automated ‘app store’ for buying and selling self-serve research solutions. He founded Zappi and shortly thereafter, Intellection Software CTO, Dave Birch, saw the value in this proposition and joined as technology partner. Ahead of launch, his newly found team spent a year in development, testing new research tools, reporting software, and the website. The following years were spent establishing meaningful partnerships with research providers leveraging their IP. Zappi has now built the world’s most power consumer insights platform, capable of simplifying complex metaanalysis projects. The company frequently speaks of its ethos around machine learning: augmented intelligence trumps artificial intelligence, and infusing advanced tech with codified human expertise to deliver exceptional results.

Director’s Viewpoint

Why Supermarkets Need To Talk To Millennials In Their Language About the Company

he word millennial has been thrown around carelessly for a while now but only a few have understood the signiﬁcance of what this means. They are not the loud and self-absorbed demographic that the media has made them to be, but rather a highly intelligent, welleducated, multitasking generation with a spending power of close to $3.39 Trillion in 2018, according to Oracle. So who are they, and why do they matter? Millennials are those born between 1977 and 2000. 1 in 4 millennials are parents today, and are 2.5 times more likely to adopt a new technology compared to their older counterparts. Millennials are a generation of smartphone wielders, and the growth on the reliance of mobile applications that save time is on the rise. According to Edelman Digital, 42% of millennials have already made purchases using their smartphones.

Instashop is the easiest way to order groceries and have them delivered to the customer’s doorstep in less than 30 or 60 minutes average time depending on the location. The organization oﬀers a convenient and seamless grocery shopping experience that frees its clients from the unavoidable chore of heading to the supermarket with all the challenges they may face there. The result? Customers get much more time to enjoy doing the things they love the most with the people they love the most!

How you communicate is as important as what you communicate A conversational tonality that is accessible and human is what connects the millennials to a shop and brand. By taking a more personal approach ad campaigns, customers can feel more valued. Rather than just talking to the masses, brands that have started using social media networking pages to advertise their products are able to communicate directly with individuals. Intelligently persuasive content will inevitably attract an audience. It’s this type of audience that will also be interested in future content pieces and accept the brand as a trusted and informative source of wanted information. This long term relationship can then be dotted with compelling reasons to purchase and convert readers to buyers.

August 2018|

About the Author

John Tsioris Founder & CEO

Mobile grocery shopping is now the next big trend A 30-year old working mother comes home to a crying baby, and remembers that she needs to purchase milk. She quickly whips out her phone and places an order from the nearest online grocery shop without the hassle of calling, communication mishaps, and cash withdrawals. To connect with this rising smart demographic, brick and mortar supermarkets cannot simply rely on traditional industry techniques that were prevalent in the 1990s and the 2000s. In that period, marketing was done through conventional techniques of leaďŹ&#x201A;et distributions, and general word of mouth. But this has shifted slowly but surely. A reputation of a brand or a supermarket may in fact be dictated solely based on whether they have an online presence or not. A trending on-demand app culture has been taking over the millennial generation. In 2015, online grocery sales in US alone amounted to $7 billion, and is expected to rise to $18 billion by 2020. Convenience and reliability is the critical factor that keeps this generation loyal. InstaShop, a UAE based online grocery delivery app backed by Souq.com, Jabbar Internet Group, and Venture Friends who partner with local supermarkets and brands, noticed that those who have downloaded the apps order at least once per week. |August 2018

John Tsioris is the Founder and CEO of Instashop, the leading on demand grocery shopping app in the GCC, operating in the region since 2015 and having been nominated for two consecutive years as one of the most promising startups in the Arab world by Forbes. Instashop is present in 4 countries & expanding. The platform allows users to access their nearby supermarket directly through their mobile app and shop for groceries with delivery straight to their door in 30 to 60 minutes depending on location. in 2016, Souq.com invested In Instashop.

Limited push notiďŹ cations on phones with regular discounts has been quite successful in increasing grocery purchase. However, too much of that, and the user may uninstall the app. At the end, brick-and-mortar groceries and supermarkets need to build a new content strategy and partner with online delivery shopping applications that will help to transition to this new era of digital delivery options to ensure existing demographics are not missed out on.

The 30 Most Innovative Companies to Watch 2018

Articles inside

The 30 Most Innovative Companies to Watch 2018