The Companies with Most Disruptive Innovation by Insights Success Media

www.insightssuccess.com JUNE 2018

The

Companies with Most

DIS

Innovation

Industry Insider An Insight on the Opportunities in the Big Data Industry

Future-Bots Catching-up with Robotics for Better Future

Graciela Chichilnisky Co-founder & CEO

Un-demonizing Carbon: Global Thermostat and its Vision of a Carbon Negative Planet

Disrupt or be Disrupted

ack in 1997, a professor of Harvard Business School Clayton Christensen coined the term ‘Disruptive Innovation’. Nowadays most of the startups often use disruption to label their strategies or apply it to their products when it comes to pitching investors. However, the term is now overused to the extent that it has almost lost all the meaning. So, the term disruptive can not be applied for the sake of a trend or just to pitch investors, it simply doesn’t make any sense. Disruptive guides, products and even projects have nothing to do with innovation but have a lot of common when it comes to hype. Disruptive innovation is such a process by which organizations which technologically straightforward services and products target the bottom end of an already established market, and then move their way up to the chain until they overtake the market leaders or create an entirely new market segment. Clayton’s theory never gave a guidance on how to start or establish a disruptive company. However, it described an impact and consequences disruption has on the already established players. Disruption happens when there’s a gap in the market, mostly when the already established organizations starts to ignore their low-end clients in favor of more proﬁtable opportunities, consequently, putting themselves in a vulnerable position. So, Clayton’s target audience is not those startups who runs for the glory of Airbnb or Netﬂix but established organizations who often forget how easily they can be eliminated by bigger companies and works for a better future.

So, with great enthusiasm Insights Success has shortlisted “The Companies with Most Disruptive Innovation,” who are changing their respective industries with their innovative products and services. Featuring our cover story Global Thermostat, which is commercializing its advanced, multipatented technology to transform Carbon Dioxide from a global liability into an immense profit center. This issue also includes organizations like, MLG Blockchain Consulting, Ltd, a global leader in blockchain development and consulting; Moblize, a trusted name applying Big Data Analytics for the oil and gas industry to improve the daily life of enterprise knowledge workers; LaptopsAnytime, which is “shaking up” the Public Access Computing Market by taking selfservice laptop/tablet lending, loans, checkout and borrowing to the next level. No longer do facilities have to settle for incomplete solutions; Observit, which supplies professional video surveillance solutions in close collaboration with the world-leading supplier of security cameras, Axis Communications; Starwest Tech, which is Starwest Associates’ technology division, Starwest Tech, was established in 1992 to develop the technologies and systems needed to support Starwest Associates’ EMS operations and public fire systems; Trisotech, which provides new and revolutionary ways for digital enterprise knowledge workers to collaborate and succeed in this increasingly global and connected world; Vortal, a leading company offering worldwide eSourcing and eProcurement solutions. Using its Cloud eMarketplace, thousands of public and private buyers connect every day with an international community of qualified suppliers to do business; WGroup, a management consulting firm with a peer-to-peer approach to IT optimization and transformation. Happy Reading!

Kaustav Roy

Un-demonizing Carbon: Global Thermostat and its Vision of a Carbon Negative Planet

Articles

Virtuosoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vision

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

Why Buying for

and our Sanity

Leaderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Talk

New Opportunities Big Data-Driven Enterprises Must Catch-Up with New Drifts

lifewill Save the Environment

The World as we know

it, does not Exist Anymore

Industry Insight

Expert's Viewpoint

An Insight on the Opportunities in the Big Data Industry

How to be more

DISRUPTIVE

CONTENTS 22

All Aces Promotional StafďŹ ng, Inc.: Helping Organizations Staff and Execute Flawless Events

LaptopsAnytime Making Technology More Accessible For All

MLG Blockchain Consulting: Building Decentralized Applications using Blockchains

Moblize: Using Disruptive Innovation to Transform the Oil & Gas Industry

Observit C3: Providing Excellence through Mobile Video Surveillance as a Service

Starwest Tech: Continuity of Care through Accurate Communication and Documentation

Trisotech: Disruptively Innovating and Empowering Clients

VORTAL: Connecting Businesses Since Inception

Wgroup: The Premier IT Advisory Firm for Crossing the Digital Chasm

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

Pooja M. Bansal Anish Miller Kaustav Roy Jenny Fernandes Sourav Mukherjee Abhishaj Sajeev Hitesh Dhamani David King Amol Kamble Shubham Mahadik Sapana Shinde

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

June, 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

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Cover Story

Un-demonizing Carbon: Global Thermostat and its Vision of a Carbon Negative Planet

ew people remain unconvinced of the dire need to reduce our carbon emissions. Most governments and world bodies acknowledge that global warming is a consequence of elevated atmospheric CO2 levels and is wreaking irreversible or near-irreversible damage to our climate. The UN and thousands of the world’s scientists say what is needed now it to remove the CO2 that is already there, and in massive amounts. The lack of consensus on how exactly to tackle the problem means that - while those in power hold meetings, discuss commitments, and debate an unending list of disputes, the precipice edges ever closer. Spurred by this inaction and lack of progress, one company has decided to act now and let the world catch up later. That company is Global Thermostat. Who are Global Thermostat? Global Thermostat (GT) is a company on the brink of transforming carbon dioxide from a global liability into an immense proﬁt center. It has already developed and proven functioning multi-patented technology to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere and produce pure CO2 gas in a concentrated form at low cost.

These industries represent enormous commercialization potential for a company that can produce and deliver CO2 quickly, reliably and inexpensively. Global Thermostat can do all three. Global Thermostat was founded by Graciela Chichilnisky, an A list star mathematician and economist that is Global Thermostat CEO and Peter Eisenberger, a world leading physicist and material scientist. Graciela and Peter coinvented the technology that Global Thermostat commercializes. There is no doubt about credentials - Chichilnisky is former lead US author of the UN IPCC and the creator of the carbon market of the Kyoto Protocol which became international law in 2005. Her concept of Basic Needs has been adopted by 150 nations as the cornerstone of the deﬁnition of sustainable development, which was selected by the G20 as the world’s main indicator of economic development. Graciela has been awarded the UNESCO Chair at Columbia University, the Keynes Chair at the University of Essex, and the Salimbemi Chair at the University of Siena, Italy. She is a professor at Columbia University and a Visiting Professor at Stanford University and contributes frequently to academic publications of the world’s leading universities.

What does this mean for the world? Firstly, it has given us a way remove carbon dioxide cheaply and easily from the air, essentially combating the root cause of global warming directly. Secondly, the fact that the CO2 can be sold for proﬁt gives individuals, enterprise, and governments the most effective motivation to participate in ﬁghting climate change – economic progress.

Graciela has also created and trademarked the concept of Carbon Negative Technology which won her the Hero of the Environment award from Time Magazine.

The viability of GT’s business approach is due to the fact that carbon dioxide is used in a wide range of industries; a global commercial CO2 market already is worth about a trillion dollars. Some of the largest consumers of industrial CO2 are plants that manufacture carbonated beverages, wine, food, plastics, ﬁre-extinguishing products, biofertilizers, synthetic fuels, and polymers and carbon ﬁber. The gas is also used in water desalination and for refrigeration and enhanced oil recovery.

Graciela’s long and intimate involvement with the carbon economy led her to conclude that taking carbon dioxide from the ambient air was a potential game changer. After an exhaustive search for the best way to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, they discovered that the ideal supporting device had already been invented – the catalytic converter used in automobiles, known as a ‘monolith contactor’.

It is this unique combination of in-depth physics, chemistry, and economics knowledge that gives Global Thermostat a solid basis in science, and the vision to transform it into a business plan with enormous transformational power.

Each GT monolith contactor is coated with GT’s own proprietary sorbent and 640 of them are arranged in an array to create a single Global Thermostat plant at SRI. Fans force air through the array and, as it passes through the porous monolith contactors, the sorbent absorbs all the carbon dioxide but none of the other gases. Clean air emerges from the other side of the array and returns to the atmosphere. However, this extraction phase constitutes just the ﬁrst half of GT’s process; the CO2 then has to be released from the sorbent. This is achieved with the application of heat at 185°F (85°C), less than it takes to boil water. The beauty of GT’s system is it uses very little electricity running on low temperature heat (85C) and can use the residual waste heat from many industrial processes. In fact, waste heat is generated by every single industry, even the ones which consume CO2 This is a remarkable opportunity. to cut costs and close the carbon loop at the source of contamination. The entire technology is new; it and each of its parts are covered by GT’s own 50 patents. Untapped Possibilities The trillion-dollar commercial CO2 market is currently dominated by large chemicals companies like Linde Gas Air Liquide and Praxair.

“

We are a part of a very healthy competitive landscape and admire the companies in the space for the work they are trying to push forward.

These companies address the industrial CO2 needs of manufacturers but employ the traditional approach where the gas is created in large plants by burning fossil fuels which themselves require huge amounts of energy and also create massive volumes of waste products and heat including CO2. The CO2 then has to be packaged and transported by truck over what can be vast distances to their customers’ locations. This usually makes transportation the single largest component of their costs. Ironically, transportation is itself a major contributor to carbon emissions. Compare that to Global Thermostat, whose strength of approach lies in its incredible versatility and low cost. Because the concentration of carbon dioxide all over the world is virtually constant, they do not need to dig deep into

the ground nor travel to distant, dangerous regions to obtain it; the CO2 far above in the atmosphere is exactly the same as CO2 concentration in Moscow, Sydney or New York. This means that a fully-functional Global Thermostat CO2 plant can be built on-site and can pop up anywhere that is most convenient and suits the customer. Real estate costs are not an issue – a GT plant has a small footprint and can even be situated in the cheapest areas where no one wants to live or work. “We can reduce production costs by using waste heat from industrial processes that is just lost into the environment. With its capability to be set up at any location and to remove CO2 from industrial gases or directly from ambient air, we can situate them right next to the biggest sources of waste heat and beneﬁt from an endless supply of heat to fuel our CO2 extraction process,” explains Graciela. Another option is to locate Global Thermostat’s CO2 extractors right at a

“

client’s location. The waste heat from their own production processes can be cycled into the array to fuel extraction, closing the carbon cycle. Not only does this eliminate transportation costs, it significantly reduces waste and is easier to manage in terms of both oversight and logistics. This multifaceted range of benefits is responsible for the incredible buzz building around the Global Thermostat brand. The combination of massive cost savings in CO2 production and a market hungry for it mean that a vibrant, lucrative carbon economy is just around the corner. As Graciela says, “I see the whole world’s economy based on carbon now; not petroleum, but CO2.” Resistance to Change Graciela says that one of the most common questions posed to her is that if such a thing were possible – to literally make money from the air – why has it not already been done? As an answer, she relates the story of the Wright brothers who, in 1903, made the first aerial flight in a heavier than-

Our focus is on reliability of supplies, quality, and the lowest cost anywhere.

air craft. There was widespread doubt that such a thing was possible before their flight, but the amazing thing was that the disbelief persisted after it occurred! “People have the tendency to consider anything transformational unrealistic. The Wright brothers said, “Let’s just fly!” And they did.” In the same way, Graciela and GT take the pessimistic naysayers in their stride. Instead of engaging in debate with them and trying to repeatedly prove the science behind it on paper, they have already started building commercial CO2 extractors and begun the process of cleaning the planet’s atmosphere. A Mammoth Task Humanity has delayed reducing carbon emissions for so long that we have crossed the point where that tactic alone can effectively fight climate change. The only feasible option for the survival of the planet is for us to find a way to remove the approximately 40 billion tons of CO2 that humans yearly have already put in the earth’s atmosphere. “It is the only way can we prevent catastrophic climate change now,” admits Graciela, but she is optimistic, “Carbon negative power plants like those produced by Global Thermostat grow the economy, create jobs and exports, and simultaneously clean the atmosphere of the planet.” Global Thermostat projects a need for between 30,000 and 40,000 extractor

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

We offer reliable and practically unlimited supplies of CO2 anywhere in the world and at low cost.

initiatives by governments helped boost the solar power industry in the 20th century, a CO2 revolution may be just around the corner. The US government in February of 2018 passed a law that provides tax credits for the removal of CO2 at $35 per ton, called the FUTURE Act a bipartisan federal law. Securing Our Future Global Thermostat is taking a very active public role in changing the industry and, in turn, changing the world. They offer a worldwide licensing scheme to make their technology very accessible, particularly in developing nations, at competitive costs. Their focus is on nations with the lowest incomes who have the greatest need for the technology and also the best markets to offer.

units to achieve signiďŹ cant change. If full-scale production were to start today, not just by GT but also other companies, it would still take between 20 and 30 years to achieve that goal. The delay so far can be attributed in large part to the lack of economic viability. However, just like direct investment and

The company is steadfast in its commitment to reduce harmful emissions and foster economic development while cleaning the planetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s atmosphere. It is scaling up steadily to combat climate change while offering economic advantages to underprivileged groups as it works towards a carbon negative world works towards a carbon negative world.

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Management

Brief

ALL ACES PROMOTIONAL STAFFING, INC. acespromo.com

Lauren Raimondi Founder & CEO

All Aces Promotional Stafﬁng opened its doors with one goal: help top marketing, media, advertising and PR companies execute ﬂawless events that build bonds between customers and brands.

Global Thermostat globalthermostat.com

Graciela Chichilnisky CEO

Formed in 2010, Global Thermostat (GT) is commercializing its advanced, multi-patented technology to transform Carbon Dioxide from a global liability into an immense proﬁt center.

LaptopsAnytime laptopsanytime.com

Matthew Buscher CEO

LaptopsAnytime is “shaking up” the Public Access Computing Market by taking self-service laptop/tablet lending, loans, checkout and borrowing to the next level. No longer do facilities have to settle for incomplete solutions.

MLG Blockchain Consulting, Ltd mlgblockchain.com

Michael Gord Founder & CEO

MLG Blockchain Consulting is a global leader in blockchain development and consulting.

Moblize moblize.com

Amit Mehta CEO

Moblize is a trusted name applying Big Data Analytics for the oil and gas industry to improve the daily life of enterprise knowledge workers.

Observit observit.se

Lars Floden CEO

Observit supplies professional video surveillance solutions in close collaboration with the world-leading supplier of security cameras, Axis Communications.

Starwest Tech starwestassociates.com

Bob Ramsey Founder & CEO

Starwest Associates’ technology division, Starwest Tech, was established in 1992 to develop the technologies and systems needed to support Starwest Associates’ EMS operations and public ﬁre systems.

Trisotech Trisotech.com

Denis Gagne Co-founder & CEO

Trisotech provides new and revolutionary ways for digital enterprise knowledge workers to collaborate and succeed in this increasingly global and connected world.

Vortal vortal.biz

Rui Dias-Ferreira Founder & CEO

VORTAL is a leading company offering worldwide eSourcing and eProcurement solutions. Using its Cloud eMarketplace, thousands of public and private buyers connect every day with an international community of qualiﬁed suppliers to do business.

Wgroup thinkwgroup.com

Jeff Vail CEO

Wgroup is a management consulting ﬁrm with a peer-to-peer approach to IT optimization and transformation.

Company Name

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

Why Buying for life will Save the Environment and our Sanity O

ur relationship with stuff is broken. The world is constantly telling us that we need to have the next great thing, but at the same time the quality of products has gone down. This has led to houses full of clutter, stressed out people who shop for the sake of shopping and get into debt. Most of the world’s scientist agree that we’ve got an environmental crisis. All of this can be solved with more mindful shopping of the things that we need long term, but the products themselves need to meet that challenge.

It isn’t often talked about but buying for the long term can save a huge amount of energy & pollution and it’s so easy to do. E.g. if you buy a T-shirt that can last 2 years instead of 1 you save 24% of the CO emissions. If you buy once and buy well it means less mining, less factory pollution, less truck pollution and less waste. There are also many personal beneﬁts to buying for life. When you buy for the long term you naturally think more deeply about what you want from your life which leads to better decision making. You have less stress because the things around you let you down less often. Everything you do own brings you joy so you are surrounded by things that

nourish you, serve you well and reﬂect your values. You also save money in the long term because you have to replace things less often. Brands are beginning to realise that people want more from them than just cheap and cheerful goods. When companies build great products that last they become classics, the products that are bought as wedding presents or gifted on special birthdays. They inspire customer loyalty generation on generation which in turn helps the company to last longer. People are looking for reasons to trust brands and there is a lot of marketing spin out there which is not backed up by the strength of the product. People are looking for authenticity and good brand stories and increasingly these are coming through platforms such as Kickstarter where the engineers and manufacturers with a real passion can talk directly with consumer. These companies are able to deliver a better product than if they had gone down a traditional retail route where the marketers and buyers putting them under pressure to reach certain price points. I believe that people will do the right thing if it’s made convenient and it’s clear what the beneﬁt is to them. By

June 2018

Virtuoso’s Vision doing all the research and finding the longest lasting and most sustainable products my company BuyMeOnce are making it easy for people to shop in a more sustainable way. We find amazing brands that shoppers may not have heard of and at the same time we campaign to get other companies to up their game and be less short sighted. Buying for life is the first and arguably most important step towards what is called the circular economy. While governments have focussed on recycling very little effort has been put into the real causes of our environmental crisis which to a large degree is over consumption. Governments don’t want people to stop spending, but our economy must shift in order to become sustainable. Encouraging people to buy long lasting things that can be upgraded and fixed or repurposed should be the focus of environmental and economic policy. Already some countries such as France and Sweden have made great strides. France, with its laws against planned obsolescence and Sweden with its tax breaks on mending show that there is another way for business and the environment to co-exist. Unfortunately, with people used to paying bottom dollar for goods it is hard to persuade them that higher prices are fair. The growing movement in ethical fashion has started to open people’s eyes to the true cost of cheap clothing and the exploitation of garment workers and this is opening the way to a more ethically aware consumer. At the same time being able to communicate the cost savings of long-term buying is important. As an example, the average British person buys 1.1 umbrellas a year at a cost of around 10-15 pounds. This means that buying one lifetime umbrella could save a person hundreds of pounds over their lifetime. The data on how long products lasts is hard to come by and often kept close to the chests of companies. Therefore, it’s hard to make this calculation across all categories.

Tara Button

CEO & founder BuyMeOnce

I believe that for companies to be able to compete on quality and longevity rather than being forced to take part in the race to the bottom on price, it’s important that longevity become a part of the buying decision. This can only happen if there is the information available. I am therefore campaigning for all appliance companies to have standardized life-cycle labelling. Imagine going into a shop and being able to tell at a glance how long a kettle can last you… now wouldn’t that be good.

June 2018

All Aces Promotional Stafng, Inc. Helping Organizations Staff and Execute Flawless Events

ll Aces Promotional Staffing, Inc. opened its doors in 2007 with a clear vision to help companies execute events and manage the staff that strengthen their bonds with their customers. Focusing on PR, experiential marketing and advertising companies, as well as food and beverage companies, the organization quickly developed a reputation for providing the most friendly and reliable talent in the industry. Its event experiences include demos and sampling programs, guerilla marketing, mascots and characters, street teams, staff for trade show booths, program logistics assistance and more. All Aces’s commitment to top tier event staffing has also caught the attention of more conservative businesses, and conferences now make up a huge portion of its work. The company believes that one event experience can influence a consumer for a lifetime, and works to ensure all of its staff interactions are nothing less than spectacular.

The company provides event staffing and logistics solutions throughout the USA, the UK, Europe, and Canada. The Enthusiastic Leader Lauren Raimondi is the Founder and CEO of All Aces Promotional Staffing, Inc. While studying to be a brain surgeon, Lauren started staffing and managing marketing campaigns from her dorm room at Boston University. More than just an experiential marketing staff expert, she is a professional problem solver who is always exploring ways to adapt campaigns to maximize their impact. Lauren is a true leader and banks on her 15 years of experience in promotional marketing, event staffing, and brand management to lead her project managers. She believes that passion, creativity, efficiency and a network of top promotional talent are key to creating successful events and client relationships. She is an expert at reading people and situations, a skill she learned through playing poker.

Coincidentally, that is how All Aces got its name! Tackling Challenges and Competitors All Aces Promotional Staffing, Inc. works with clients and talent, which means keeping both sides happy in the unpredictable confluence of events and people. The work experience for its brand ambassadors is every bit as important as its clients’ satisfaction. Large, busy events come with their share of unforeseen obstacles. The organization’s main job is to create a win-win situation where customers can focus on their event knowing the staff management is taken care of. All Aces believes that there is enough room in the industry for everyone to prosper. That might seem like a cliché, but All Aces Promotional Staffing, Inc. has recently formed a referral-based relationship with a number of agencies, and combined that with strategic partnerships with vendors to provide greater value to clients.

June 2018

‘‘

Like poker,All Aces is about reading and understanding the people we’re playing with. That’s why we’re successful. And that’s why our clients and brand ambassadors alike always come back to play at our table. Lauren Raimondi Founder and CEO

All Aces Promotional Stafﬁng does offer competitive rates as well as services that minimize client risk, such as a W2 system where the organization takes on the employment liability for its staff and eliminates co-employment risk. The company’s technology and talent portal allow it to work efﬁciently while streamlining the process for clients.

As states became stricter about employment misclassification, All Aces decided to partner with a company to hire all field staff as W2 employees throughout the country. As a small business, this has allowed the organization to operate like a large agency and has greatly streamlined the HR and payroll process. This gives it a huge competitive edge over other event staffing agencies.

When the Going Gets Tough Lauren started the company when she was 24 with no experience working a “real” job. It took a few years of trial and error to ﬁgure out what a functioning company looked like and establish various components, like a robust talent database, and a payroll partner with back-ofﬁce solutions once she had employees. Since Lauren was focused solely in the beginning on getting clients, there was no foundation on which to scale once things really started to pick up. All Aces has had to change its operational procedures a number of times in order to keep up.

June 2018

All Aces now can focus on its core business and go after bigger clients and companies, always meeting their requirements, as well as offering perks to its brand ambassadors that most other agencies cannot. The company has scaled its business signiﬁcantly as a result of professional afﬁliations, awards and its CEO’s participation in the coveted, game changing Goldman Sachs 10.000 small businesses program.

events for nonprofit organizations, retail, and natural, healthy snack and beverage brands. The organization has also been providing more assistance with logistics at the request of its clients and plans to expand its services in this field. All Aces is currently in the process of launching a wellness program that will offer breathing and meditation guidance via online streaming. It already provides its employees this service. Now that All Aces Promotional Staffing has the award recognition and WBE/WBENC certifications to go with its solid foundation, it is planning to expand its client base to include the government and highlevel corporations and advertising agencies.

Now, All Aces Promotional is in a position to pursue projects that really resonate with its core culture and ethics. It will be shifting its focus to

Making Technology More Accessible For All LaptopsAnytime was founded in 2008 with the vision to provide facilities with a convenient turnkey way to transform their space while enhancing technology access. The Company’s automated dispensing kiosks provide access to the right technology at the right time.

have spent the last 30+ years deploying millions of desktop computers and have more recently begun questioning how to smartly move beyond desktops to take advantage of the bene ts of mobile devices such as laptops. While some organizations rely upon individual ownership of mobile computers, when it comes to ensuring that everyone within a group has convenient access to technology all the time, or at least when people need tech access, this is a challenging task. Not everyone can have their mobile device with them all the time. Sometimes devices are being repaired. Manual circulation counters are simply a staff burden and inefficient time-waster and are not cost-effective over the long-term. Furthermore, organizations have a responsibility to meet the demands of their members, patrons, employees and users. There is a growing acknowledgment that automation, especially with a “1-to-Many” focus is the answer to these long-term challenges.

Accountability is paramount. Space and staff time are limited. The mission is to help facilities “Move Beyond Desktops” and transform old and antiquated computer labs, libraries and device-checkout areas no matter the environment – office, industrial, educational, government -- into modern and inviting cafe-style atmospheres, with comfortable multi-use seating and innovative access to “self-service” mobile technology at its core. No longer does a facility need long rows of tables, chairs and desktops or manual circulation counters with long lines that never seem to grow shorter. Using the selfservice kiosks, facilities can be eco-friendly, efficient and allow for staff members to focus on serving patrons with value-added services rather than being constantly tied to the never-ending checkout process! Manual device checkout programs too often end up being a support nightmare and morale killer even when planned for large user populations. Don’t make the mistake of overburdening your circulation and support staff. Instead, use LaptopsAnytime automated dispensing kiosks to meet the needs of large user groups. Facilities around the United States and around the globe

LaptopsAnytime’s singular focus on automated dispensing kiosks that allow for the checkout and return of technology devices brings it a leadership position within the market. LaptopsAnytime’s magic is automating the process such that when the laptop (or tablet or portable power charger) is pushed back into the bay (yes, this is all end user needs to do!) to the locked position, (a) the laptop is docked to power and so is able to recharge automatically and (b) even if laptop is returned in oﬀ state, it can be turned back on, (c) device can be returned back to pre-set state, (d) each laptop communicates its battery life to LaptopsAnytime central server so that it is only checked out when it exceeds minimum battery threshold set by administrator, (e) each laptop communicates its presence via RFID card and RFID card reader in every bay where it is docked. Unlike other products in market (think lockers and carts and cabinets), there is nothing for end user(s) to do but push laptop into bay. Everything else is automatic, including sending noti cations out to end users and administrators and authenticating to local databases (ILS and/or LDAP/Active Directory being most common).

June 2018

LaptopsAnytime CoFounders Matthew Buscher and Jonathan Ruttenberg were inspired by their own experiences with mobile computers, which while generally an improvement over desktops, are not always easily accessible within both public environments and some private facility settings. LaptopsAnytime continues to expand the devices that it dispenses from its kiosks including wide range of enterprise laptops from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Apple and Google, Apple iPads and even Portable Power Chargers (see chargersanytime.com) that include 110V outlets. It is important to move beyond desktops to make mobile devices easily accessible. It has been said that all beginnings are diďŹ&#x192;cult as it takes time to prove that a new approach is superior to the status quo. LaptopsAnytime now does more than 2+ Million Automated Checkouts annually at kiosks deployed across the United States and on ve continents around the globe. LaptopsAnytime looks forward to continually expanding its reach and helping more and more organizations with their self-service device checkout needs to move beyond desktops and to increase accessibility to technology devices.

June 2018

A mechanical engineer by training with a background in kiosk development, Matthew Buscher is Co-Founder and CEO of LaptopsAnytime. In 2002, Matt successfully oversaw the startup of the Powerport, which oďŹ&#x20AC;ered a variety of technological connection solutions for the traveling user, e.g. laptop rentals, internet connected walk up computer stations, cell phone and laptop battery charging stations and more. Matt was involved in leading the company as it expanded to several prominent airport locations. In 2008, Matt joined with fellow Co-Founder Jonathan Ruttenberg and LaptopsAnytime was born. Matthew Buscher, CEO

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MLG Blockchain Consulting: Building Decentralized Applications using Blockchains

he blockchain industry is drawing immense interest as a disruptive way of driving growth across startups, enterprises and governments. One global leader focusing on building decentralized applications using blockchains and smart contract technology is MLG Blockchain Consulting.

With headquarters in Toronto, Montreal and New York City, Major League Growth (MLG) has a distributed team across North America, Europe and Asia. It aims to become the premier organization to help businesses enter the blockchain ‘major leagues’ through its specialized team and global network of strategic partners. MLG also helps ambitious university students and young professionals enter the Blockchain industry by hosting blockchain hackathons and collegiate case competitions that companies use to recruit top talent. An Experienced CEO Michael Gord, founder and CEO, is the mastermind behind MLG Blockchain Consulting. Michael

holds a degree in Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Information Systems from the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. There, he founded the McGill Cryptocurrency Club and co-founded the McGill Students Fintech Association. His goal was to grow awareness and thought leadership for blockchain within the university and in the city of Montreal. Michael also founded Bitcoin Canada while at McGill to scale and connect the operations of the clubs established across Canada. He then joined forces with the College Cryptocurrency Network and helped rebrand it to the Blockchain Education Network. After graduating, Michael made the ﬁrst donation of bitcoin to the McGill Alumni Association. He then founded MLG Blockchain Consulting to focus his energies fulltime on digital currency and blockchain. Michael has launched several global annual events, including Bitcoin Airdrop, Blockchain Education Month, Blockchain Madness, Blockchain Gauntlet and

BlockHacks. These events introduce thousands of people global each year to digital currency and to the disruptive potential of blockchain technology. Michael has developed a reputation as being at the center of the global ‘cryptokid’ movement to which global enterprises are eager to gain access. Turning Hurdles into Triumphs The blockchain space is incredibly fast-paced and this brings uncertainty to the table while discussions on regulations impact clients’ prospects in both the short and long term. However, MLG believes that the industry’s biggest challenge is also its biggest opportunity and aims to excel in the same space. In Michael’s ﬁrst year in the blockchain industry, he lost 15 Bitcoins after mislaying his cryptowallet’s private key, a lesson worth around $150,000 at today’s Bitcoin price. It was then that he learned the importance of proper security measures for both personal and organizational usage.

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We are excited to pioneer best practices that push frontiers in the blockchain industry. Michael Gord Founder & CEO

With the demand for blockchain projects skyrocketing, MLG Blockchain Consulting is now receiving well over one hundred requests weekly for its array of services. The ﬁrm is in a great position within the industry and wants to become the premier blockchain venture creation and consulting company in the world with cutting-edge case studies across multiple industries. Beyond the Competition MLG Blockchain has built a culture of ‘intrapreneurship’ with a ‘get-itdone’ mentality. The entire team is aware that they can run with projects without being micromanaged.

representation for clients all around the world. The company’s partnerships are a primary driver of consistent growth for MLG Blockchain. It is always open to collaborating with the top firms across the world who can add value to its clients’ businesses and help in growing the global blockchain ecosystem. MLG is eager to position itself strongly in the changing industry landscape and has launched new companies such as Crypto Media Global which offer complementary services and expand their offerings to ensure that the firm remains an industry leader in new lines of business. Infinite Potential

Its team of young and passionate professionals who are hardworking and ﬂexible and who thrive at being responsive and planning for multiple scenarios. From Holland to Canada, the United States, India, Vietnam, Mozambique and among others, the team members are all over the world and represent many different cultures and nationalities. By being in many places at one time, the global MLG Blockchain team is able to provide

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As the blockchain industry booms around the world, large enterprises, public companies and even governments are beginning to invest into Blockchain solutions, in addition to the hundreds of new startups entering the industry. Scaling solutions for Blockchain protocols, such as Raiden for Ethereum, Lightning for Bitcoin and

Trinity for NEO are being deployed into production. These solutions have the potential to quickly increase the number of transactions per second to a number far greater than what even Visa, the historical leader in this category, can handle. There is a huge demand from universities to offer classes and degrees in Blockchain technology while high school students are going to hackathons and building next generation applications. This seems to be a great time for the industry. MLG Blockchain is building the foundation of the 21st-century economy and is at the forefront of a technology paradigm. It aims to pioneer the blockchain revolution and launch some of the most exciting businesses to take the Blockchain ecosystem mainstream. As long as MLG Blockchain continues to grow in the same direction and at the same speed it has so far, the young blockchain ﬁrm is well on its way to making this a reality.

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

June 2018

Future-Bots

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

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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

June 2018

Moblize: Using Disruptive Innovation to Transform the Oil & Gas Industry

he term ‘disruptive innovation’ refers to a new entrant in a market who disrupts and outperforms established players. When disruptive innovation is executed successfully, it is a force to be reckoned with. Such a strategy is not for the faint-hearted but choosing to ignore it can be fatal. The process begins with a new company addressing a gap in the market where a segment of the population has traditionally been overlooked. By offering an alternative product or service that is usually more convenient and affordable, the new company is able to reach consumers who had previously been ignored. Over time they build a foothold in the market and, through a process of continuous improvement and innovation, break into the competitive market with which they were previously not involved. Usually equipped with a better product and understanding of customer experience, the company is able to push established players out of the market. A great example of successful disruptive innovation is Moblize, a trusted name applying Big Data Analytics in the oil and gas industry to improve the daily life of enterprise knowledge workers. The Inception Story Headquartered in Houston, TX, Moblize is committed to helping the oil and gas industry exploit software to

simplify and streamline everyday operations. The industry is very good at hardware innovations but falters when it comes to software, especially in terms of using it as an enterprise platform. Moblize recognized that the oil and gas vertical was in a prime position to be disrupted via data analytics software. They studied the gaps and limitations that existing service providers had chosen not to address, and then created a product from scratch which tackled those issues. The end result was a revolutionary Software As A Service solution that eliminated pain points that had previously been ignored while integrating innovative features that greatly simpliﬁed everyday management. An Adept CEO Amit Mehta, CEO of Moblize Mr. Amit Mehta has been featured in numerous magazines such as Voyage, Forbes, CIO Magazine, JPT, World Oil, Hart E&P, Oilvoice, Oilman, Mixergy, Entrepreneur to name a few. Under his leadership, Moblize was ranked as one of the best Entrepreneurial Companies in 2016 by the Entrepreneur Magazine. Amit graduated from University of Cambridge, UK with degree in Design, Manufacture and Management. As part of the curriculum he visited 50 plus manufacturing plants across the globe and worked in the manufacturing plants of Peugeot, Jaguar and Boeing

implementing lean manufacturing principles. Amit says that while everyone else is focused on applying big data or AI to make machines smarter, Moblize is focused on making enterprise users smarter. He cites the company’s maturity in data aggregation and data preparation services to enable true data analytics as a huge advantage. Unique Products Moblize has developed a SAAS growth platform to create a consumerlike experience for enterprise users. The typical enterprise user in the industry is overloaded with work because of inefficient enterprise workflows. Due to time constraints, decisions are often made on intuition instead of facts and this can lead to potentially expensive failures like overlooked opportunities and risk underestimation. The ProMPT platform was designed to use data analytics to make humans smarter first, not machines. It is a technological breakthrough, an all-inone analytics platform that gives enterprise users a single source of facts for all daily tasks like well planning, daily operations, and post-well analysis. Detailed reports are available anytime, anywhere. This platform collapses all inefficiencies into daily workflows so individuals can spend time where it is truly needed – engineering. It applies machine intelligence on incoming raw

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Our mission is to develop an integrated platform to improve the daily lives of enterprise users in E&P companies. Amit Mehta CEO

data to provide actionable facts and support big judgment from big data to make humans more productive and capable of smarter decisions. Client Base The platform strategy of Moblize is driven primarily by its large customer base. Their first project was so successful that they signed over 40 E&P Clients in less than 18 months. Today, the platform created ROI in less than 60 days with no upfront cost to the client. This has helped in shaping the adoption of current products and in the creation of the new products like ProFRAC and ProWISE as part of “ProMPT” Platform. ProWISE is a private knowledge platform for an enterprise that can learn over time to help unlock human potential. ProWISE allows enterprise users from any discipline to effortlessly share contextual insights from ProACT, ProFRAC, or any third-party applications through their mobile phones or PCs, making it an Integrated knowledge platform holding both structured and unstructured data. Over time, ProWISE “learns” things about users through posts, decisions, discussions, pictures, videos, and more. Then, it mines that data to in future give recommendations, generate reports, and simplify workflows, enabling big judgement in the era of big data. ProWISE also aims to reduce the knowledge insight deficit which

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frequently plagues enterprises as they add new talent. From Early Obstacles to Growth Strategy Moblize’s greatest initial challenge was hiring the right talent, and this was exacerbated by Houston’s standing as a very hardware-centric market with a scarcity of good software talent. Adoption was the other major challenge because Moblize was not a known brand; it was an uphill battle to establish a reputable presence. However, when the market did recognize their value, growth happened so quickly that internal processes were stretched thin. Balancing growth while maintaining superior service was not easy. Some of the factors which the organization considers it to be its biggest assets are: Ÿ

Implementation of best practices from Silicon Valley on how to run software as a business

Its team of talented people who are self-driven, self-motivated and push each other.

Demanding clients who have them constantly pushing the edge

An international presence which helps in ensuring competitive prices and sustaining healthy margins

Delivering Fast-Paced Success The crash of the oil and gas market in 2015 was a key contributor to Moblize’s success because every E&P organization began to focus on operational efﬁciency and business agility, functions which are at the heart of the company’s products. Moblize is growing by applying the fail-fast concept of rapid experiments, rapid learning, and rapidly adopting success while moving on from failure just as quickly. The company gives its customers the advantage of the latest technology in cloud-based services and analytics. It plans to expand their capabilities and services to offer these concepts to a much broader range of industries and users. Aiming to Thrive Moblize has already marked its presence in the Oil & Gas drilling market and looks forward to expanding its reach and providing its solutions and services in new ones. In the near future, they see themselves expanding rapidly into other oil and gas segments like completion and production. The aim is to become a leader in providing big data analytics to oil and gas enterprises and then replicating that success in other capital-intensive markets.

Observit C3: Providing Excellence through Mobile Video Surveillance as a Service

bservit was started in 1994 when its founders left the Telecom R&D wing within the Swedish Telecom, and started, as pioneers, developing products and services using Internet as a strategy. The ﬁrst hosted video service, VSaaS, was released in 2000 and the brand “Observit” was thus registered.

“We built IP connections to cameras that had no IP back in 1995. We have been developing products that connect things for 20 years. Today, it is called the Internet of Things or IoT. But with 20-years of experience we know that the connection itself is not the hard thing to do. The challenge is to make small units of hardware, the cameras and peoplecounters, a stable, reliable and accessible enterprise system, all put together as a service. Let the customer use the system instead of conﬁguring and managing,” said Lars Flodén, CEO. In 2006, the ﬁrst IP based Video Management System for public transport. The system was, and still is, a unique product on the market where the technology and the processes are combined with the Enterprise design from telecom solutions. Designed to be the best solution in this particular transportation market using the unique experience from telecom to build Enterprise Mobile services with thousands of units and cameras.

C3, disruptive video surveillance for the mobile fleet With Observit C3, the company has completely changed the prerequisites for video surveillance systems in the transport sector. C3 brings this to a whole new level through long-term lifecycle management, business model and technical architecture that effortlessly and effectively minimizes complexity and creates simplicity for different kinds of internal and external stakeholders. The objective of the Observit C3 is the niche of mobile fleets in the transport sector. The Connected Camera Cluster, C3 Onboard mobile video surveillance can be a complicated business, from keeping hardware functioning and upto-date to making sure that authorized stakeholders have access to the evidence they need. Yet there is an easier way to manage it not just on a single bus or vehicle, but on every bus in a complete fleet. With a unique, cloud-connected subscription service, customers can achieve a costeffective management of the onboard surveillance. No matter how many vehicles or how wide the area to serve, customers can experience high reliability and a low cost of ownership. With extreme low complexity to install

and establish locally in vehicles and centrally managed in the cloud, Observit C3 is truly a disruptive solution in this market and ready to be used anywhere, anytime, without any hurdles or limitations. Using well-proven unique technology, no geographical limitations and in a partnership with the leading IP camera supplier Axis Communications, Observit C3 will be a success in the fragmented market of enterprise solutions in the transportation market. Lifecycle management and low TCO In public transport vehicles are often running for 10 years or more. With C3, it is equally easy to manage surveillance equipment across your fleet, regardless of the age of the vehicle. With C3 as a service all devices are automatically updated with new functionality when available, regardless of the age of the vehicle. Devices are configured and updated remotely, having the same settings and functions fleet-wide, even if the business operations change, increase or decrease. The C3 service will adapt to the customers actual business. Each installed vehicle and system behaves in the same way, no matter what the age of the vehicle or camera, depot or geography. Better still, each

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Our service and product development is based on a trusted partnership with a broad customer base. Lars Flodén CEO

system checks its health and reports this via the cloud. Systems are always monitored without having to check them in person.

to access video and limit the resource needed for management and support.

Best-in-class Solution Offerings

The Observit C3 makes it easy to expand within all segments of transportation including all kind of mobile units that need enterprise remote management capabilities, not only surveillance video system. Observit have already expanded the concept to also include people counters. The C3 system also include support for advanced event management, making external signals from the vehicle, GPS or telematics be a part of the video. Event management making actions such as alarm buttons, indicators, speed, driver behavior etc. all available as metadata in the video. Still all managed within the C3, Connected Camera Cluster.

The Result

With Observit C3 and the cloud service there are no limitations, the company is able to expand its presence geographically worldwide. In the ﬁrst phase of expansion, Observit already have partners reselling the service in the western world which comprises all European countries and the US.

Knowing the CEO

C3 focus is in transport, a niche market, where Observit has built the system to be best-in-class. A centrally monitored and managed cloud service where it is easy to monitor and get an actual status of all units and access recordings and real-time streaming. The C3 service does not require any resource intensive specialist competence to manage the system, the company has put a lot of work and development to make C3 extremely easy to install, use and manage. C3 reduces the large number of hardware components used in normal video surveillance systems. No other recorders or rugged PC’s etc are needed in the vehicle. Just connect the C3 cameras to the network and it will be up and running. Less hardware, smarter software is making the solution much more ﬂexible and independent of future changes in technology. No expertise is needed to use or install C3, no training to users needed. Easy to access recorded video, audio and real-time video. Designated resources could be granted access. E.g. Police, insurance companies or other stakeholders, which speed up the time

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Future Expansion

Nobina Case Study - Public Transportation Nobina chose Observit, together with Axis network cameras. The solution had to be simple to conﬁgure and manage while also satisfying Nobinas

requirements for quality and reliability. More than 10,000 cameras installed on buses in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Nobina was able to increase safety and security for both their bus passengers and their drivers. The system is easy to install and monitor centrally, eliminating the costly requirement for engineers to manually retrieve data from each individual unit. The new high-deﬁnition surveillance system also makes it easy for police to immediately and remotely access highquality image material in real time and for forensic review, enabling an effective and timely response. The image material in vehicles can be obtained in real time or downloaded via the network for further analysis.

Lars is a great relationship builder and is able to see the bigger picture in terms of strategy using his in-depth technical as well as business understanding. He deals with anything and everything with calm and has an open mind to ﬁnd positive solutions to difﬁcult situations, whether they be locally, regionally or globally. Before helming the CEO role at Observit, Lars held several positions at Steria, Sun Microsystems and Capgemini.

The World as we know it, does not Exist Anymore

he myth of the game changing power of “Digitization” has outgrown the garages in Silicon Valley and the classrooms of Tech driven elite universities. It is a driving force behind change and growth in many parts of the economy. Private Equity and Venture Capital investors are aware and notorious to seek for the best ideas and equip some lucky founders with funding, surreal to managers in traditional industries. Technologies – such as Internet of Things, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Artiﬁcial Intelligence or Industry 4.0 – give basis for business model innovation and future disruption. Ramping up digital competencies and setting a CEO agenda for the digital transformation is imperative for any given business, in order to protect the competitive proposition in tomorrow’s hyper-connected economy. By 2020 at least 50 billion devices and a trillion sensors are expected to connect individuals with economic processes. The whiteboard drafts in research labs around the globe will be available to consumers as devices and applications even faster. Innovation to come will change all the rationales of any business model in any given industry. Observing the accelerating speed of innovation over the past years, disruptive business developments will be the

Kolja A. Rafferty Practice Lead Strategist

Leverage Experts

About The Author

Kolja A. Ra erty is practice lead strategist at Leverage Experts, a mid-market strategy and corporate finance consulting firm with a focus on start-up, scale up and turnaround cases in the technology field. e Leverage Experts team is operating out of Zurich, Switzerland and Frankfurt, Germany, with outposts in Toronto, Canada and the Californian Bay Area, USA, covering Europe and the Americas. Kolja serves as executive and advisor to companies in distress and turnaround situations. He is a certified non-executive director and renowned author and spokesperson on conferences. His personal view on various business subjects, he is publishing on his private blog. He concluded a legal education, holds an US MBA degree from a renowned business school and received his non-executive degree from INSEAD. June 2018

Leader’s Talk major reason for businesses to fail. This is leading to three elemental rules: Do-or-die - excel on Digital Transformation For existing industries - focusing on the digital transformation is imperative. Companies failing on digitization, as well as industries, with a low level of digitization, will be prey to disruption. An example is provided by the current digitization in the healthcare industry. Digital champions like Apple, Google and Amazon are launching their health-initiatives and create new business models as new-be’s to the industry. Second will be first looser Digital business models work are poised to scale. According to the textbook, success is subject to technical proficiency, speed of go to market, fast scaling of the organisation. From the perspective of a turnaround executive; authors and academic lecturers are disregarding a simple, yet brutal fact: Creating growth with investors’ money is exposing entrepreneurs to a brutal reality. Only one in 10 start-ups is considered to survive. Among those only one in 10 meets the investor’s goals. Consequently, leaders from legacy industries, face fierce attackers from the start-up economy. Highly motivated, eager to enter and disrupt their target industries, trained at top universities, masters of the very latest technologies and equipped with sufficient funding, they have nothing to lose but a lot to win. These entrepreneurs have become a true nightmare for “old school” managers. The truth is simple. No one is really “too big to fail”. A brand like Kodak disappeared practically overnight. Many companies are just existing in a transitional phase, the digital death is waiting just around the corner. Managers of the automotive industry may relate to this very well. The sound of the V8 engine might get you goose bumps, but the soft sound of an electric car, serves as soundtrack industry’s future. Business is local? No way! Business, hence competition, is global. The good news is: It is easy, to address a global market from the remotest location on earth. The cloud, available payment solutions and logistic service providers take care of the rest. Yet there is a bad message included: Chances are the same for everyone else. Capital, goods and services are moved almost without limitations around the globe. Competition can hit at any point of time, from any direction. It is no longer sufficient

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to engage with the local business community or visit the national conferences to keep an eye on the competition. Borders, taxes, tariffs and protectionism are out-dated. With borders diminishing, it is a battle of the brains and the talent for execution. As distances are irrelevant in a digital world, the next disruptor might be working right now in her lab on the other side of the globe, just to enter the local market and provide highly competitive and well thought through offers to the local customers by tomorrow morning. Digital disruption is not the website or online store, serviced out of China for customers e.g. in the US. Evolving technologies like block chain and 3D printing, are taking the mobility of funds, information and services to the next level. Very few business owners and even less representatives of regulatory authorities have yet understood these technologies. Whereas this is opening doors for a vast number of new business models, it is also exposing new, as well as established business initiatives to uncertainties, as the legal situation remains unclear in many cases for the time being. Learnings & Conclusion · No promises made: A digital business model, plus being on top of hype is no guarantee for long-term survival. Digital heroes of their time like AOL or mySpace, to just name two, have already left the business community again and remind us, that even the disruptors themselves are very vulnerable to competition and change. ·

Expect the unexpected: Globalization and technology are tearing down the walls of protection. Even the unthinkable will become a technological reality. As an example, chatbots are considered to fully capable to subsidize human customer service operators within the next two years. Quantum computers will reshape the world of IT and put a big question mark behind todays security standards, protecting vital infrastructure, but also open gateways to a new dimension of science. The world as we knew it already doesn’t exist anymore.

“Three words: Tempo, tempo, tempo” (Lt. Col. Stephen (Godfather) Ferrando) The evolution of technology is ever accelerating. For executives and business owners, this creates the urge to adjust, test, innovate, deploy and constantly re-invent, in order to maintain their market position and command a relevant competitive proposition. This is a global race for the best business models and the fastest execution. Traditional industries, with hierarchies in place and legacy issues, to deal with, have often difﬁculties to catch with the speed and agility of the new world order.

Starwest Tech: Continuity of Care through Accurate Communication and Documentation

t was in 1979 that the need for development and implementation of new design models with a focus on integrated delivery systems and public/private partnerships for EMS and ambulance services gave the birth of Starwest Associates. Across the southwestern United States, Starwest Associates built a variety of companies focusing on integrating public/private partnerships in municipalities and healthcare in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and California. Starwest Associates’ technology division, Starwest Tech, was established in 1992 to develop the technologies and systems needed to support Starwest Associates’ EMS operations and public fire systems. Since 2006, Starwest Tech has focused exclusively on improving pre-hospital care through Zoi ePCR solutions and real-time or near realtime active management technologies. Starwest ePCR systems have been used in EMS and fire department operations to replace many other first-generation ePCRs.

The company has already had an impact on the landscape of deep data capture and information exchange. Its Zoi ePCR system provides prehospital care, web-based clinical content management, and information retrieval for QA and reimbursements. Zoi ePCR allows Fire Departments and Health & Medical Organizations and Agencies to contribute to local, regional, and national databases and improve patient care across the country. It itself can contribute datasets to the Prehospital Information & EMS Registry System, National Emergency and Medical Services Information Systems (NEMSIS), and the National Incident Management System (NIMS). among others. Starwest ePCR data systems have contributed in excess of 2.6 million Arizona charts over the last three years from ﬁre departments and ambulance services to AZPIERS, SHARE, EPIC, ROC including areas of behavioral health and crisis, cardiac, stroke, and TBI.

The Experienced Leader The Founder and CEO of Starwest Associates, Bob Ramsey has founded companies in various fields, including ambulance services (in Arizona and across the Southwest), EMS, medical supplies, air transportation, information technologies, management systems, real estate, and avionics. He pioneered, designed, and implemented one of the first public/private partnership EMS models in the U.S in the early ’80s. Many of those high-performance fire department models are still used today by various municipalities in Arizona and across the nation for dedicated 911 emergencies, out-ofhospital health, and “Treat and Refer” response services. Bob’s success can be credited to his dedication to serving the needs of others and his ability to design, implement, and innovate highperformance and clinical EMS services.

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EMS and healthcare is a right for all people. Bob Ramsey CEO and Founder

Entering the Industry and Tackling Competition Starwest Associates began in the early days of modern EMS and ambulance services to develop and implement new design models with a focus on integrated service delivery to improve patient care. Through public and private partnerships in municipalities across Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and California, Starwest Associates built a variety of companies to improve service delivery, improve care, enhance technologies, and for better reimbursement services. Starwest Tech was established in order to meet the needs of the Starwest Associates family of EMS companies and ﬁre models. The division was able to create agile, more intuitive, and easy-to-use solutions that set the standard for quality data collection. Unreliable, rigid, and cumbersome products can have a negative impact on patient care and achieving the best

June 2018

possible outcome for the patient. Starwest also believes that no one wants to see a software tool hinder patient care due to weak factors of ease of use and speed. Starwest focuses on cultivating adaptability, interoperable behaviors in strong relationships with experts in patient care who are familiar with workflow timeframes and the tools used in the field. Starwest takes pride in itself that the customer is it. Taking the feedback and ideas that come straight from the field and shaping it into a flexible solution for any department any operation. Teething Problems and Future Plans Starwest Tech and its data solutions were established in order to meet the needs of Starwest Associates’ family of companies. As is the case when developing any new technology solution, this required quite a bit of forward thinking and careful planning in order to hit a “moving target” involving changing state and

national protocols, regulations, standards, and technological developments. Starwest will maintain its steady progress towards the vision of robust active management systems for fire departments and EMS. Starwest Tech is focusing on data solutions beyond ePCR - iOS and Android native-hosted SaaS solutions, web-based clinical content management systems, operations and resource control, expanded interfaces and integrations with third-party technology which give first responders the tools to provide the best outcome for any incident. The organization has just completed its robust fire reporting, Treat and Refer Health information systems, which will take the industry to new heights.

June 2018

New Opportunities

June 2018

Trisotech: Disruptively Innovating and Empowering Clients

ndustries appear to change more quickly and drastically than ever, and in many ways, that pace of change is accelerating. Thus, there is an evident uproar about exponential evolution of technology adoption, competition, and most importantly, consumer behaviours. At present, most organizations are not agile enough to adapt and reconﬁgure their business model as quickly as consumers’ expectations and business environment demand. This is one of the main triggers engaging businesses of all sizes into the digital transformation revolution. Based in Montreal, Canada, Trisotech provides new and revolutionary ways for digital enterprise knowledge workers to collaborate and succeed in this increasingly global and connected world. With its broad cloud-based SaaS offering, Trisotech helps enterprises realize their business transformation goals by analyzing, modeling and continuously improving how things get done. Trisotech’s innovation is at the center of its DNA. On one hand, it offers a toolset called the Innovation Suite to clients in need for speed at creating and planning the execution of innovative strategies. On the other hand, its Decision Management Suite, a ground-breaking decision automation

solution, is disrupting the industry of business process technology. A Tech-Tuned Leader Denis Gagné, the Co-Founder and CEO of Trisotech, is the visionary who leads the company and has guided it to becoming a global success and a driving force in international BPM standards for over a decade. Denis is a technologically intuitive and professionally acute individual, with a M. Math degree in AI from the University of Waterloo and a BSc in Computer Science from the Collège Militaire Royal (CMR) de St-Jean. He is a member of the international technology standards consortium Object Management Group (OMG), where he serves as the Chair of the BPMN Interchange Work Group (BPMN MIWG) and is a member of the BPM standard notations teams. Denis is also involved with steering committees in workﬂow management and business process simulation. Tools that Foster Innovation The contemporary era is a time where it is more important than ever to create an environment that stimulates innovation and facilitates the implementation of new strategies. If one is a business person who’s

experiencing difﬁcult times of change, the chances of being involved in multiple brainstorming sessions with other subject matter experts are obvious. This traditional approach to addressing strategic issues usually includes using a whiteboard and sticky notes to try and ﬁnd the next revolutionary idea. Whilst a myriad of books has been written on methodologies to capture and structure ideas, documenting and communicating new strategies remains a problem for many organizations. This is exactly the pain point that Trisotech is addressing with the Innovation Suite, a set of tools that enable creative thinking methods and provides crowdsourcing tools for capturing and communicating strategies. With this offering, Trisotech lets organizations of all scales leverage best practices of existing methodologies in a fully digital world where documenting and socializing innovative strategic intent and tactical decisions is one click away. Businesses around the world are now using the Trisotech Innovation Suite on their pathway to digital transformation. Imminent Business Challenges in the Digital World Still, becoming digital does not solve all problems. That is because digital

June 2018

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Trisotech is on a continuous path to nd new ways of doing things and helping organizations worldwide to quickly capitalize on insights from the market and the business environment. Denis Gagné Co-founder & CEO businesses are insights driven: they rely on their ability to make the right decisions in time to turn insights into action. The challenge is that business decisions require real-time processing of hundreds of calculations and data sources. Being able to automate and optimize operational decisions is critical to a successful digital transformation. While decision automation has traditionally relied on Business Rules Management Systems (BRMS), recently, numerous businesses are turning to artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) and machine learning systems. However, the complexity and pace of change in business rules and the current inability for AI systems to explain their decisions demand a new era in business decisions applications and platforms. Conceiving Innovative Solutions from Demands At Trisotech, functionalities of every solution are diversiﬁed for overcoming challenges. For the company, transparency and explicability of decisions, are must-haves to enhance businesses in the digital world.

introduced the concept of ‘Explainable AI’ with its Decision Management Suite,” states Denis while expressing his insights on the company’s innovation. The Decision Management Suite rests on the bedrock of an international standard called Decision Model and Notation (DMN), an approach for describing and modeling repeatable operational decisions. “The idea is that, by creating a clear structure of how decisions are made, organizations can minimize the standard deviation of outcomes and gain in consistency,” Denis adds. The consistency, ﬂexibility and traceability of this method now offer an innovative approach to combining both AI and BRMS into an effective way of addressing the digital business needs for decision automation. With the Decision Management Suite and its one-click user experience design focus, Trisotech is delivering on the promise of clear decision automation that can be orchestrated in any sort of applications, enabling the digital business of the future to capitalize on its key insights.

Lately, Denis has been working to democratize the Decision Management approach so that more and more companies can start leveraging both the technology and the methodology behind it. He has been working both behind the scenes reﬁning the technological solution and on international stages presenting this disruptive approach to enterprise leaders. The culture he established at Trisotech is bolstering innovation on two fronts. First, the company provides a technological environment where generating, capturing and sharing quality ideas makes it easy to foster strategic and tactical innovation. Second, Trisotech brings disruption to a market that previously had organizations choosing between complexity and opacity of business decisions. The company is on a continuous path to ﬁnd new ways of doing things and helping organizations worldwide to quickly capitalize on insights from the market and the business environment.

A Culture of Continuous Innovation “Companies must be able to explain stakeholders how automated decisions were attained. This is why Trisotech

June 2018

The quality of a leader is reﬂected in the standards they set for themselves.

VORTAL:

Connecting Businesses Since Inception

global leader in offering eSourcing and eProcurement solutions, VORTAL possesses a cloud-based eMarketplace, where thousands of public and private buyers are connected with an international community of qualiﬁed suppliers to make everyday business. VORTAL has grown in stature to support customers globally with ofﬁces in Portugal, Spain, Germany, Italy, UK, Mexico, and Colombia from small Public Bodies (like small municipalities), large Public Bodies (large Cities, Regional Governments in different countries, National Central Procurement Bodies), to the entire public administration of several Countries, as well as from SMEs to large multinational corporations. VORTAL is rated regularly by Gartner in the Magic Quadrant for Strategic Sourcing Suites and mentioned by Forrester and Spend Matters as a top player in the market. The company has also been consecutively distinguished as one of “100 best companies to work for in Portugal” in a survey carried out by “Everis” and “Exame” magazine.

VORTAL is an international leading eSourcing and eProcurement platform for the public and private sector, which connects thousands of buyers with an international network of qualiﬁed suppliers. VORTAL is part of the project “ESPDint – Interoperable ESPD (European Single Procurement Document) and VCD (Virtual Company Dossier) services inside and between European Countries”, ﬁnanced by the European Commission to develop native integration of ESPD in VORTAL’s platform. With the ESPD and VCD implementation pilot, VORTAL will make available to all users these instruments integrated in the platform so that it becomes a step in the process taking advantage of all previous documents and information inserted. Once the Economic Operator answers the ESPD questions, it can be reused seamlessly.

the Engineering and Construction sector. At Accenture, he worked on a wide-range of projects involving medium-sized and large companies in Portugal, UK, Spain and Italy. A regular guest speaker at seminars and conferences, Rui holds a degree in Engineering and has a postgraduate diploma in Production Management from APICS – The Educational Society for Resource Management. He has also completed an Advanced Managing Program from IESE, Universidad of Navarra.

The Visionary Leader

Rising Above Imminent Industry Changes

Rui Dias-Ferreira, Founder and CEO of VORTAL, is the visionary who has led the company to what it is known as today. Prior to founding VORTAL, he served for 12 years as an Associate Partner at Accenture, managing Supply Chain projects in

Additionally, Rui boasts an impressive proﬁle in the public sphere with his involvement in the development of entrepreneurship as a mentor of several start-ups at Startup Lisboa and as a promoter of the Junior Achievement award and is extensively involved with social initiatives like working for the homeless.

When it comes to tackling competition, VORTAL always prefers to focus on innovation. Now the organization is working very hard to create an ecosystem that is completely innovation driven,

June 2018

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We help buyers to buy better and suppliers to sell more. Rui Dias-Ferreira Founder & CEO

repeatable and scalable for turning creative ideas into proﬁtable business models.

Aiming to Reinforce Co-operation with Integrations and Consulting Partners

to explore and develop innovative products and services as well as new business models.

“We want to stress our innovation methodology, our focus on integrating the best of breed technologies with a great focus on usability and user interface excellence.” asserts Miguel Sobral, VP of VORTAL.

For several consecutive years, VORTAL has been growing at twodigit levels and will continue to develop the most innovative services for buyers and suppliers, both in private and public sectors. Soon the organization will also be leading the interoperability movement and will position itself as one of the most complete providers of services to suppliers.

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The organization also believes that the biggest challenge now is rising above the imminent industry changes. “Procurement platforms will be much more dependent on supplier communities than before. This means that users are increasingly looking for dynamic solutions to discover and qualify suppliers that avoid searching the web for potential suppliers without references or credentials. Standalone solutions where a buyer is closed in a silo with the suppliers they are used to working with for years will lose the perspective of the market and will become less competitive in the medium term.”- added the CEO.

June 2018

The organization is also aiming to reinforce its co-operation with integration and consulting partners to be able to deliver new services and innovative solutions to deal with corporate and public-sector spending. VORTAL is now advancing its approach to Research & Development and Innovation through:

Re-designing the R&D and Innovation process in a multidisciplinary and open environment. Reinforcing its workforce with 40 new and highly talented personnel.

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Employing an R&D and Innovation Coach reporting directly to the company’s CEO to lead the innovation programmes at VORTAL and guide the internal teams and external partners in their innovation efforts.

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Creating a brand new 400m2 “VORTAL Innovation Lab”, a stateof-the-art workspace, fully equipped

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An Insight on the Opportunities

BIG DATA INDUSTRY

n this era of changing technologies, the Big Data domain has evolved in a very short period of time. It plays the most pivotal role across all industries. The ability of Big Data to mine critical data has radically altered the dynamics of the way businesses function, drive sales, and attract customers. It has become an essential component of business strategy nowadays. A business tastes success by uncovering insights locked inside data. The overlaying trends will examine the evolving ways enterprises can realize better business value with Big Data and how improving business intelligence can help transform organizational processes and the customer experience. There is a demand for better data management from most of the business executives for compliance and increased conﬁdence to steer the business. It will help them in more rapid adoption of Big Data and innovative and transformative data analytic technologies.

analytics which will become a major area of investment and will grow swiftly. It is necessary for the enterprises and the government agencies to upgrade their security systems to next-generation software which can address ultra-modern security threats.

Insight-driven Organizations In this present year, businesses will move beyond just data handling to leveraging the insights that Big Data uncovers. As understanding, managing, and manipulating Big Data has now become fairly ubiquitous, most of the companies have the ability to deal with it. Mining data will be the center of attraction and it will help effectively to meet organizational requirements and for precise targeting of products and services. An insight-driven approach will facilitate an evolved customer experience, competitiveness, advanced security and operational efﬁciency.

Bridging the talent gap If the demand expands further, the talent gap in data analytics will soar. It is expected that organizations and academic institutions will collaborate closely to generate skills and talent to meet the demand for data engineers. The functions of all corporate employees will be expected to understand, appreciate and work with analytics since it emerges as one of the key instruments in every organization. The academic institutions are also looking forward to put together degree programs in data science.

Cyber security Applications Today, everyone is dependent on the digital technology and our dependence has reached an unprecedented level. Cyberattacks have also become much more prevalent. An increased occurrence of ransomware has been registered across the globe and cyber criminals are now targeting personal data and devices. Concerning the prime industry, cyber security can only be possible through big data

Analytics across the enterprise It can be said that the analytics will not remain isolated to a few departments like marketing and risk management. On the other hand it will infuse the entire enterprise. To understand the dynamics of business operations, data analytics will be utilized and will also reveal ways and means to increase efﬁciency. Hence to derive overall business strategy, insights from multiple departments will be integrated and redundant processes will be eliminated. It will also help the departments to increase efﬁciency, growth, and productivity.

IoT and People There will be a transition from Internet of Things (IoT) to Internet of People (IoP). Interactions, predictive analytics around human behavior, and other subjective areas will grow and start to ﬁlter all industry verticals. For example, hospitals will increasingly deploy machine learning techniques to predict the likelihood of the relapse of a disease. This will enable them to work out a patient’s readmission precisely at the time of the initial discharge.

June 2018

Industry Insight

Business-science collaboration Businesses will have to learn and deploy traditional, scientific techniques of pattern-matching and artificial intelligence for analytics use cases. For example, techniques to analyze gene sequences in DNA are being used in text-matching algorithms to process bulk emails. It is expected to see very close collaboration between data scientists and the scientific community. For example, image processing is widely used in ‘tagging’ in social media, while voice recognition is used in apps. Technology There will be brisk moving in the organizations from on-premise platforms to cloud and hybrid environments. Around 44 percent of applications used by Fortune 500 organizations are already on the cloud, and more than 50 percent of IT applications will move to the cloud by the end of the year. There will be a rise in demand for analytics tools that are simple, flexible, and capable of handling a variety of data sources. Hadoop enables to store an extremely large volume of data at a significantly lower price point and hence it will continue to become increasingly popular. The share of unstructured data in the data warehouse will continue to increase, which will further cause for Hadoop. Hadoop, now, is past the business relevance and scalability assessment phase and its adoption is expected to accelerate strongly. We are advancing towards a completely new era in the domain of analytics. Big data is disruptive and it has paved the way for pioneering ideas and innovative techniques across industry verticals. It is now driving the stream of disruption and expanding the scope of opportunities for previously untouched market segments. Organizations need to leverage Big Data analytics to its full capacity so as to thrive in this competitive world.

June 2018

WGroup: The Premier IT Advisory Firm for Crossing the Digital Chasm

Group is a management consulting ﬁrm with a peerto-peer approach to IT optimization and transformation. A disruptor in the management consulting industry, WGroup is known for its outcome-driven, service provider-agnostic approach that optimizes IT operations and minimizes costs. The ﬁrm employs seasoned professionals with a strong track record of getting results. The WGroup team is composed of consultants who average more than two decades of experience as former CIOs and IT leaders, and its client roster includes many large and midsized companies across a wide range of industries.

The experienced leader Jeff Vail, CEO of WGroup, is a business leader with over 20 years of executive experience working with companies such as Unisys, SAP, Siemens/Unify, and Quintiq/Dassault Systèmes. Prior to WGroup, Jeff served in several leadership roles where he played a pivotal role in strategy development and execution. These roles include Chief Commercial Ofﬁcer at Quintiq, which increased in value from $120 million to $340 million during his twoyear tenure; SVP of Global Corporate Marketing at Unify (formerly Siemens

Enterprise Communications); VP of Enterprise Marketing at SAP Americas, and General Manager of Infrastructure Solutions at Unisys. Jeff is an avid golfer and ﬁsherman. He is a Philadelphia sports enthusiast, has a passion for California cabernet wines, and resides in Phoenixville, Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Entering the segment WGroup was founded in 2004 by Harry Wallaesa, the former CIO of a multi-billion dollar global packaged foods company. As a CIO, Harry

WGroup believes that every IT leader is on a path of digital transformation, but there is a signiﬁcant digital chasm preventing the realization of their digital strategy due to legacy technology, inefﬁcient processes, technical debt, and skill debt. WGroup is regularly retained by leading organizations to develop and execute modernization programs that accelerate the achievement of an organization’s digital agenda.

June 2018

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We are experienced advisors, guiding our clients in their IT transformation journey from lowering costs to increasing speed. Jeff Vail CEO

became fed-up with consulting firms that either had a bench of career consultants or a leveraged model where the partner was seldom present and junior consultants who followed cookie-cutter methodologies did the work. Harry decided to create a consulting firm composed exclusively of former CIOs and IT leaders—a firm of individuals with decades of operational, practical, and leadership experience that could advise other CIOs and IT leaders on a peer-to-peer basis.

WGroup believes that every IT leader is on a path of digital transformation, but there is a signiﬁcant digital chasm preventing them from advancing their digital strategy. That digital chasm is created by the legacy-centric IT functions that lead to the following challenges: Ÿ

Immature IT processes

On-premise-centric delivery models

High legacy technical debt

Unconsolidated M&A environments

Signiﬁcant skill debt with skills that don’t match the needs of the business

Tackling competitors and challenges WGroup utilizes a unique stafﬁng model, and it focuses on practical advice that will produce a tangible impact on business performance. The organization believes that the singular mission of IT is to create value for a business, and that value is deﬁned narrowly by initiatives that will increase revenue, decrease cost, or mitigate risk. If an initiative doesn’t meet one of those three objectives, WGroup would question whether it is worth executing.

June 2018

Not enough separation of core vs. context/commodity work via an insourced/outsourced hybrid delivery model

Vendors supporting the IT function through transactional relationships vs. strategic outcomes-based partnerships

IT costs that are out of bounds

Imbalance of run vs. grow activity where 80% of costs and effort may be spent on run

Strategy for future growth WGroup began aggressive investment in growth to build a foundation for a premium-tier consultancy in 2012. Jeff Vail believes that the team with the best players is a team that wins and that the company’s hiring strategy addresses that requirement. WGroup has experienced talent in every key position, from all of its consulting roles through to WGroup’s back office of finance, marketing, sales, recruiting, and operations. The WGroup team consists of some of the most experienced and well-known IT leaders in the industry. By continuing to maintain this talent profile, the organization has been able to tackle the challenges it has faced both inside its business, and for its clients’ IT functions.

Expert's Viewpoint

How to be more DISRUPTIVE F

rom blockchain to AI, technology is being used to disrupt existing business models and create new ones seemingly overnight. This evolving landscape is shaping our attitudes and values, challenging the very purpose of a company, and presenting a massive opportunity for those with the vision and means to act. So how do we as individuals become more disruptive? How do we create a network and take our ideas to market? And what will the advancement of technology mean for the future? Entrepreneur and disruptor Lulu Laidlaw-Smith shares her thoughts and experience with the next generation of brand owners. How to cultivate a disruptive attitude My opinion is that you’re born with a disruptive attitude. For many years, I was told that I was disruptive (in a negative way). I would ask questions because I could see solutions that were not yet applied. There is a naivety to asking what might seem like obvious questions and ﬁnding out why things happen in a particular way. Some people give up their disruptive attitude and stop asking questions as they accept the status quo out of politeness and socialisation. It’s difﬁcult to stand up against this, especially for people who have the ideas but don’t have the funding or the connections to make them happen. This is one reason why I founded Rip It Up, Start Again. I wanted to create a community to promote discovery and connection. It’s hosted at Runway East in London, UK and live-streamed to audiences globally. The platform enables entrepreneurs to share their business ideas and demonstrate how they have developed unique technology-driven solutions that disrupt the status quo.

The difference between innovation and disruption These terms are often used interchangeably. However, innovation is a consequence and a delivery of something that needs to change, while disruption creates that change. Disruption is much more dramatic. It’s looking at an existing business models and wondering how to deliver it more succinctly rather than refining what is already there. This is a large part of my work with Collaborate²; transforming good ideas into smart business, leading business transformation on an actionable scale through defining the message for multiple user groups. I recently spoke to a young entrepreneur who is working to eradicate food waste. I remarked that he will no longer have a business if he is successful. He looked at me like this was an archaic way of thinking and then explained how he would simply do something else. He was right. Times have changed and the disruptive attitude is to create a business model that serves a purpose now, regardless of how it might develop in the future. What makes us human: Imagination, communication and collaboration Humans are brilliant at imagination, communication and collaboration. But we are bad at compliance, planning and organisation. These are the areas where entrepreneurs can use technology to make a difference. When people say that technology will take away our ability to create, this feeds the fear and leads to resentment. In my opinion, the most exciting change with the strongest potential for delivery is blockchain. Instead of being only a ledger for finance, I believe it will deliver so much more: it will remove friction from our interactions, allowing us to spend time doing what we are good at and automating the

June 2018

About the Author Lulu Laidlaw-Smith is an experienced sales and commercial director. She is the Founder of Rip It Up, Start Again, a platform that gives a voice to disruptors and innovators. She is also working with the video storytelling platform Binumiand is a partner at Collaborate, a business strategy and transformation agency that accelerates growth for this ever-evolving landscape, implementing strategy into real solutions.

Lulu Laidlaw-Smith Founder

rest. It will fundamentally challenge how companies are structured and will help us to build true civilizational wealth. Find people to inspire you along the way One of my main inspirations is my friend and mentor Steve Kelsey. He understands emotional engagement as well as having an aptitude for technology, which is unusual. I am inspired by Elon Musk for the same reasons. I am also in awe of the many entrepreneurs that I have met through Rip It Up, Start Again. Tom BlomďŹ eld from Monzo was one of our early speakers. I respect him for taking on the banking industry having never worked in mainstream banking. His journey of getting a banking license also illustrates how disruptive companies can still succeed against all odds. Technology has the answers, but the problem for many start-ups is compliance. As long as you keep ahead of the game, things will happen regardless. I think we will see technology disrupting areas like politics, economics and law in a more signiďŹ cant way that we imagine. I believe technology will ultimately allow us to use our imagination and ability to communicate by taking away the tasks that we as humans are not good at. It will give us the freedom to be who we are without making apologies or excuses. How can you prepare for these changes? Attend events, read articles, talk to disruptive people, keep an open mind â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and, above all, keep asking questios.

June 2018