SOLVE Q3 2014 by ⌘ ⇧ ⌥

Keeping Customers Loyal pg 06

Finding Tech Talent pg 08

Embracing Cloud Adoption pg 10

MAKE THE

SUMMER 2014

TOUGH CALLS THE CHOICES THAT CHANGE YOUR COMPANY

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LOOKING TO USE CLOUD TECHNOLOGY?

THIS IS YOUR TAKEOFF. Simplify your IT with comprehensive solutions from TIME WARNER CABLE BUSINESS CLASS featuring NAVISITE’S CLOUD SERVICES. At Time Warner Cable Business Class, we know that your business needs are always evolving. That’s why we offer NaviSite®, a full suite of enterpriseclass, scalable solutions that allow you to seamlessly outsource your IT infrastructure – all while reducing operational costs, enhancing security and improving network performance. NaviSite® provides enterprise-class Cloud and Managed Services in a personalized and high-touch service model, including: MANAGED AND HOSTED SERVICES • Managed Application Services • Managed Hosting

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CLOUD SERVICES • Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) • Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) • Remote Storage Service

Ranked #1 in Customer Loyalty INTERNET | VOICE | TELEVISION | NETWORK SERVICES | CLOUD SERVICES Customer Loyalty claim based on 2012 United States Business Connectivity Services User Survey, Frost & Sullivan. Products and services not available in all areas. Subject to change without notice. Some restrictions apply. Time Warner Cable Business Class is a trademark of Time Warner Inc. Used under license. ©2014 Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC. All Rights Reserved. NaviSite ® is a trademark of Time Warner Cable Enterprises etc.

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SUMMER 2014 | VOLUME 1 | NO.3

Features

IN SEARCH OF TECH TALENT

Departments L ETTER TO THE RE ADER

02 Helping You Make the Tough Decisions PRODUCTIVITY

05 Too Busy to Lead? Tech tools can help manage your time. MARKETIN G

3 SIMPLE STEPS TO CLOUD ADOPTION

MAKE THE TOUGH CALLS Anatomy of a Hard Decision | Analyzing Trends to Make Critical Choices

06 A New Way to Think About Customer Loyalty The content that keeps your customers coming back SUCCESS IN ACTION

Chief Talk: Business Leaders Share Key Lessons They’ve Learned 16 Cyrus Massoumi, ZocDoc: Scaling New Heights 17 Gretchen Shugart, TheaterMania: Leading For Growth GUIDE TO GO

20 Smart Strategies for BYOD How a comprehensive plan helps your company F IEL D REPORTS

04 International Excess Alliance: Bandwidth Drives the Business 07 Buckeye State Credit Union: Connectivity They Can Bank On 19 Green Dot Public Schools: Fast Times and Young Minds Summer 2014

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LETTER TO THE READER

Helping You Make the Tough Decisions WELCOME TO THE SUMMER 2014 ISSUE OF SOLVE MAGAZINE! Here you’ll find solutions and ideas from business leaders who, like you, are coping with the challenges of a fast-changing business environment. As industries everywhere are being disrupted, leaders confront big, business-changing decisions that can’t be put off. Starting on page 12, you’ll find ideas and inspiration for making your own tough calls. One of the biggest questions facing most companies is the one about how, and when, to enter “the cloud.” As consumers, most of us have already made that transition, including the use of mobile banking, backing up our digital music and photos, upgrading our software, and more. We’ve benefited from the cloud’s ease of use, security, and boosts to productivity. Now more and more businesses are making the same transition and seeing tangible gains. Starting on page 10, we provide proven, simple ways to start your company’s journey to the cloud. From cover to cover, you’ll hear from executives who have found solutions to challenges like the ones you may be encountering—from managing time to finding tech talent to retaining customers. We hope they’re useful for you as you SOLVE your business issues. Drop us a line and let us know!

SUMMER 2014 | VOLUME 1 | NO.3 RSL MEDIA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Robert Levin SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR

Lee Lusardi Connor ART DIRECTION

Jim Nissen DESIGNER

Marisa Bigler

TIME WARNER CABLE BUSINESS CLASS CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER

Stephanie Anderson GROUP VICE PRESIDENT – MID-MARKET, CHANNELS AND ALLIANCES

Jeff Greenberg SENIOR DIRECTOR – CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE MARKETING

Orlando Betancourt

Jeff Greenberg Group Vice President – Mid-Market, Channels and Alliances

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK Talk to us! How did you like this issue, and what should we cover next? Write to SolveMagazine@twcable.com. See the previous issue at www.solvemagazine.com. And if you've worked with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology challenges, we'd like to hear about it for future issues. Visit business.twc. com/nomination to share your story.

All rights reserved. Time Warner Cable and the Time Warner Cable logo are trademarks of Time Warner Inc. Used under license. All trademarks remain the property of their respective owners. Material in this publication must not be stored or reproduced in any form without permission. This publication includes references to websites created and maintained and services provided by third-party entities not afﬁliated in any way with Time Warner Cable Inc. Time Warner Cable provides this information solely for our Business Class customers’ convenience. Time Warner Cable does not control or guarantee the accuracy or completeness of information contained on any third-party website nor does it endorse the views expressed or products/services offered by the third parties. All users accessing any website referenced in this publication will be subject to the policies of the owners/sponsors of the third-party website. Time Warner Cable assumes no responsibility of any kind for damages that might result from use of the third-party services or websites.

Summer 2014

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ENHANCING PRODUCTIVITY

CONNECTING MULTIPLE LOCATIONS

PLANNING AND PROCUREMENT

REDUCING CAPITAL EXPENSES INCREASING COLLABORATION

ROUTER SETUP

CONTROLLING COSTS

ONGOING MAINTENANCE

TRAINING STAFF

ROUTINE ADMIN

SOFTWARE UPGRADES AND PATCHES

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

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Products and services not available in all areas. Some restrictions apply. Subject to change without notice. Time Warner Cable Business Class is a trademark of Time Warner Inc. Used under license. © 2014 Time Warner Enterprises LLC. All rights reserved.

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FIELD REPORT

CHARLES LARDOMITA CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, IEA

THE RESULT: The new service has driven

Bandwidth Drives the Business

IEA, a fast-growing insurance wholesaler, had no time to wait for slow downloads.

THE CHALLENGE: International Excess Alliance (IEA), a national insurance wholesaler and program manager headquartered in Richmond Heights, Ohio, was growing fast. It was also fast outgrowing its T-1 service. IEA has 20 offices and a thousand independent agents nationwide, so moving large digital files, fast, is critical. “We are a paperless organization, meaning we do almost everything with digital imaging,” explains Charles Lardomita, IEA’s chief technology officer. “But our bandwidth shortage was exacerbating a common insurance-industry technology hurdle: email-attachment bloat.”

Our bandwidth shortage meant waits of 5 to 10 seconds to click to a new page. Employees were losing valuable time as they waited for ﬁles to transfer. In addition, when a 4

client wanted to send a large attachment, such as a 25MB PDF, IEA had to say that it simply couldn’t accept ﬁles of that size. Clients had to use FTP or online ﬁle-sharing sites instead. As the business grew, the addition of more remote users increased the load on the T-1 circuit, leading to company-wide performance issues. These problems, coupled with unsatisfactory voice service, prompted Lardomita to begin a search for a new service provider.

THE SOLUTION: IEA moved from its outdated T-1 service to an up to 100 Mbps Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) circuit from Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC). The quick, hassle-free installation process meant IEA experienced no downtime and was up and running with its new TWCBC service in a matter of days. “I was promised our service would be implemented within two weeks, which is unheard of in this industry,” Lardomita says. “Sure enough, they delivered.” IEA also began to run its voice services over its powerful new DIA circuit.

major productivity gains, including: • Dramatically reduced downtime. “Employees who used to wait minutes to download and upload policies are now doing it in half the time,” Lardomita says. • Seamless review of PDF documents with remote-office agents. “Our prior T-1 service required waits of 5 or even 10 seconds to click to the next page,” says Lardomita. “With our new TWCBC DIA service, there’s virtually zero lag. It’s click, click, click, as if everyone is working in the same office.” • The ability to accept large files directly, omitting the extra step of using file-sharing sites. • Reliable voice connectivity with coworkers, customers, and partners. “There’s no more static, echo, or jitter. The connectivity is as clear as day,” Lardomita says. Along with increased productivity has come increased satisfaction. “Once we moved to the 100 Mbps DIA service, my phone rang, I got emails; everybody was just thoroughly pleased with the upgrade,” Lardomita says. “It was like night and day—a 100 percent improvement across the board. We couldn’t be happier with the service and support we receive from Time Warner Cable Business Class.”

SHARE YOUR STORY!

How did you partner with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology issues? Share your company’s story for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue of SOLVE. Visit business.twc.com/nomination to share your story.

Summer 2014

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PRODUCTIVITY

Too Busy to Lead? A bogged-down boss can’t see the big picture. Technology tools can free you up.

WHERE THE DAY GOES

THE TRUTH ABOUT DAILY EXECUTIVE INTERACTIONS

BY LEEROM SEGAL

or CEOs and C-level executives, the time crunch that affects all business professionals is especially acute. After spending the bulk of our days meeting with our teams, we’re thrown curveballs— unnecessary emails, superfluous approval processes, and more—that prevent us from spending time on thought leadership, long-term planning, and high-level strategy. Through research and personal experience, I’ve found that it is possible for top executives to course-correct and reclaim time in order to lead more effectively. Here are some ways to do that:

QUANTIFY HOW YOU’RE SPENDING YOUR TIME. How often are you interrupted or called upon to switch gears? Our research shows that businesses typically don’t understand or analyze how work time is used, though it’s a key metric. In contrast, high-performance companies such as Amazon, Google, and Whole Foods use intelligent tools, such as ticketing systems for workflow and cloud-based solutions for document management, to gauge how time can be spent more effectively. On an individual level, you can use time-management software, such as RescueTime, to help you visualize, via charts and graphs, how frequently you’re switching context. It can help you track time away from the

UNPLANNED computer, keep a log of accomplishments, set goals, and more.

RUTHLESSLY REDUCE DISTRACTIONS.

15%

INTERRUPTION PLANNED

43%

Block out time on your calendar in two- to four-hour chunks that you can use for uninterrupted planning and thinking. Download any required materials in advance, then cut yourself off from the world. You can temporarily restrict your Internet access with a tool like Freedom, set your phone to Do Not Disturb, and tell your assistant you can only be interrupted for emergencies.

USE TECHNOLOGY AS A “COACH.” Intelligent task-management apps can help you prioritize, and also provide accountability and better consistency in how work is orchestrated. These technologies use data to decode your preferences and provide predictive, personalized recommendations. The best ones function as a coach to guide you and anticipate when you might need feedback, rather than as a rules-based referee who yells at you. Try OmniFocus, the context-based, task-management iOS software that

42%

SOURCE: 2013 EXECUTIVE SHADOWING STUDY, INSIGNIAM QUARTERLY

lets you generate a list of what you should be working on based on your location and changing priorities. A popular program called Remember the Milk has similar functions and is also available for the Android and Windows platforms. Leerom Segal is co-founder and CEO of Klick Health, a leading digital media strategy company. He is co-author, with Aaron Goldstein, Jay Goldman, and Rahaf Harfoush, of The Decoded Company: Know Your Talent Better Than You Know Your Customers.

Summer 2014

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MARKETING

A New Way to Think About Customer Loyalty How great content keeps your customers engaged BY DREW NEISSER

ontent” has been the belle of the ball for marketers in recent years. Pundits praise content marketing— the concept of creating and distributing relevant content—as a cutting-edge customer acquisition tool that can radically improve organic search performance. In response, marketers big and small are scrambling to publish articles, videos, newsletters, webinars, and more. Lost in all of this is the simple reality that creating great content is hard, and it is made harder still when there is not a clear target audience in mind. To resolve these dual challenges, I recommend you focus your initial content programs in a new way: on your current, not your prospective, customers. When most people hear about customer loyalty programs, they think of coupons, discounts, and VIP treatment. Don’t overlook the ways in which customercentered content can be equally powerful. Here’s how it helps build loyalty:

KEEPS YOU AND YOUR COMPANY TOP OF MIND

A well-crafted e-newsletter may not be a new idea, but it’s still a thing of beauty. Start by asking what information you can deliver to customers that will be of value to them. Even if this information is not about your business speciﬁcally, it will serve to remind your current customers that you care about them and their success. (TIP: monthly is ﬁne for most business newsletters.)

REINFORCES PERCEPTIONS OF EXPERTISE

Make every effort to publish your content, not just on your own website, but in a wellrespected publication (online or offline). Your customers are actually more likely to see this than prospects and more likely to respond favorably simply because they know you. Aim to enlighten these customers with news they can use or information that can help resolve their speciﬁc challenges. (TIP: don’t be shy about sharing your articles with your friends, customers, and business associates on LinkedIn and other social channels.)

EXPANDS THE WAY YOUR CUSTOMERS THINK OF YOU

Lots of mid-size companies struggle to get their customers to consider them for other products and services beyond the ones initially provided. Content programs, particularly webinars and events, can be an effective means of getting your happy customers to broaden their perspective on your ﬁrm. Again, the key here is to craft content that is not you-focused but rather addresses a genuine problem your customers would like to have solved. (TIP: consider bringing in a thirdparty expert to add impartial credibility to your expanded offering.)

This is a lost opportunity, since a new customer is very likely to share his experience with peers early on in the relationship. A well-timed video can keep a customer excited about his purchase decision and even get him to share his enthusiasm with a friend or 10! (TIP: don’t skimp on video production quality if you want customers to watch more than one.)

HELPS PROMOTE YOUR CUSTOMERS, TOO

One of the ﬁrst sources of content should be your customers themselves. These stories need not be about how the customer interacted with your company but can focus on something inspirational, either business-related or personal. By telling their stories, you are not just flattering them; you are helping them look smart and gain exposure for their personal or professional endeavors. (TIP: regardless of the content format, avoid the seeming blatantly self-serving by ﬁnding the humanity in each story.) Drew Neisser is founder and CEO of Renegade, a leading-edge social media and content

MAINTAINS EXCITEMENT AFTER THE DEAL IS DONE

Many companies put a lot of energy into wooing customers, but then move on to the next conquest without a thought of keeping the previous “romance” alive.

marketing agency in New York, that works with TWCBC on loyalty program implementation. Neisser’s writing can be found on FastCompany.com, Mediapost.com, SocialMediaToday.com and TheDrewBlog.com.

Summer 2014

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FIELD REPORT

CHARLES STANFIELD, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, BSCU

Connectivity They Can Bank On

As Buckeye State Credit Union tripled in size, its technology had to keep pace.

THE CHALLENGE: Buckeye State Credit Union (BSCU), which began as a member-owned financial cooperative in 1933, has tripled in size over the last 15 years. With six locations in northeast Ohio, BSCU’s need for fast, reliable connectivity has also ramped up significantly. For BSCU, customer confidence is paramount. “Reliability in real time is a key factor in the banking industry,” says Charles Stanfield, chief information officer for BSCU. “If members can’t get online to view their money, they think about putting it somewhere else.” BSCU was also focused on ensuring that data would be secure and readily available in the event of a disaster or emergency.

THE SOLUTION: Already a Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) high-speed Internet service customer, BSCU knew it could expect reliably high performance from the company. Now, the credit union turned to TWCBC for a variety of options phased in over several years. In 2008, Stanﬁeld upgraded to TWCBC’s up to 50 Mbps point-to-point

Ethernet Private Line (EPL) circuit to connect its headquarters to a centralized disaster recovery site. Two years later, Stanﬁeld added up to 50 Mbps Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) at the headquarters location. To help BSCU’s branch ofﬁces keep up with growth and expansion, he also replaced each location’s T-1 line with up to 10 Mbps DIA circuits.

We have to provide the best value for the people who put money in our institution. THE RESULT: Installation throughout the process was smooth. Experienced technicians arrived right on time with the required equipment. This was a welcome change for BSCU, which had experienced service issues with a former provider. Signiﬁcant beneﬁts from the upgrade include: • Increased security. Because EPL moves large amounts of data quickly and securely,

it is an excellent choice for enterprises like financial institutions. In the event of an emergency or disaster, live data will always be accessible from BSCU’s disaster recovery site, providing peace of mind for customers and potentially saving BSCU hours of recovery time. • Ease of use. In addition to being a costeffective and high-capacity alternative to traditional TDM private line service, EPL is built on standardized, MEF-compliant Ethernet, making it easy to manage. The additional DIA service gives BSCU a continuously protected link between its local area network (LAN) and the Internet. It works seamlessly with the same Ethernet protocol used for LAN. • Cost saving. The up to 10 Mbps DIA circuits provide branch locations triple the bandwidth at a cost more affordable than the T-1s. • Scalability. Because TWCBC’s fiberrich network can scale up to 10 Gbps+, BSCU has the ability to add additional bandwidth without the overhead cost of adding equipment. BSCU is now maximizing the cost savings it has realized with TWCBC to upgrade internal personnel computers and network equipment, while also partnering with third-party providers to enhance its financial services portfolio. Stanfield is keenly aware of the responsibility that comes with managing a member-owned credit union. “We have to provide the best level of service and the best value for people who put money in our institution,” he says. “Time Warner Cable Business Class has been able to meet those needs.”

SHARE YOUR STORY!

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IN SEARCH OF

TECH TALENT

When it comes to recruiting workers with technical skills, companies are getting creative BY LEE LUSARDI CONNOR

s technology becomes embedded in all industries—now, as one CEO puts it, not just a slice of the pie, but the actual pan in which the pie sits—a mismatch between tech-related jobs and technical talent becomes a problem for companies of all sizes. And the need continues to grow: jobs in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) ﬁelds that require post-secondary education will increase 26 percent between 2010 and 2020, according to a June 2013 report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. How do we increase the number of US workers with the appropriate technical skills? Think tanks, commissions, 8

and task forces are churning out ideas at a great rate. At the federal level, the US Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to improve the quality and reach of STEM education. Out in the marketplace, companies can’t wait for long-term strategies to bear fruit. So what are business leaders doing today to ﬁnd the technically skilled workers they need?

THEY’RE PARTNERING WITH EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS Many companies are cultivating likely prospects in high school, college, and beyond. IBM, The City University of New York, the New York City Department of

Education, and the New York City College of Technology created the Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) in Brooklyn, New York, in 2011, and IBM also partners with the Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy in Chicago, Illinois. After a six-year course of study, graduates will receive an associate degree that qualiﬁes them for entry-level IBM tech jobs. The Amgen Foundation has created an Amgen Scholars program in conjunction with top universities to provide research experiences to undergraduates interested in science or engineering careers. Companies like Hulu, Moz, and Amazon Web Services partner with Seattle-based Code Fellows, a digital trade school and technical recruiting agency

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that offers eight-week courses in software development. Companies tell Code Fellows what skills they require, and Code Fellows incorporates those needs into its programs. Nationwide, county vo-tech schools and local businesses are collaborating on internships and job shadowing.

THEY’RE GOING WHERE THE TALENT IS That can mean opening a location in another city, preferably one with a great quality of life and access to students from good universities. Dropbox recently opened a second office in Austin, Texas, in part for that reason. One New York–based financial firm, finding it couldn’t compete with deep-pocketed employers like Google and Goldman Sachs, opened an office in Boulder, Colorado. When ForceX, Inc., a contractor in the security and defense industries, had difficulty recruiting software engineers to Clarksville, Tennessee, it opened a new office in Brentwood, near Nashville, to take advantage of the vibrant tech community in the area.

THEY’RE DEVELOPING THEIR OWN TRAINING PROGRAMS Technologies change so fast that the slower-to-evolve university curriculums can’t keep up. “When we hire somebody just out of school, they’re not even close to knowing what we do as an organization,” says Ed Solomon, cofounder and copresident of Net@Work, a New York– based business consultancy. “They have little idea what business applications are or how technology helps businesses to grow.” For candidates with a lot of promise, and also a lot of learning to do, the company has developed Net@Work University, a comprehensive, in-house training program. For the same reason, Autocam, a West Michigan–based automotive and medical manufacturing facility, has developed the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP), a learn-and-earn program in which participating companies pay for the

PLUGGING STUDENTS

INTO THE EQUATION

In recent international standardized tests, US students lagged behind 29 countries in math scores and 22 countries in science. And student aptitude in and interest for STEM subjects has remained flat over the past decade, according to the U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index. With statistics like that in mind, the White House launched Educate to Innovate, a major STEM initiative, in 2009. One of its priorities was to build a CEO-led coalition to leverage the unique capabilities of the private sector in improving STEM education. Time Warner Cable (TWC) responded with Connect a Million Minds (CAMM), a five-year, $100 million cash and in-kind philanthropic initiative. With CAMM, TWC can use its media assets to create awareness and inspire students. CAMM produces original PSAs; a unique website, www. connectamillionminds.com; and The Connectory, an online resource that helps parents and students find science and technology learning opportunities in their communities. In addition, TWC employees help organize science

schooling required for employees to earn various engineering credentials.

THEY’RE RETHINKING THEIR NEEDS “There’s a gap in the hiring process between what companies perceive they need and the types of people who could actually ﬁll the role and do a good job,” says Patrick Gray of the Prevoyance Group, an IT consultant and the author of Breakthrough IT: Supercharging Organizational Value Through Technology. “Their job descriptions will list every highly technical tool that was ever used

fairs and fun STEM-related events such as the recent Greater Kansas City FIRST LEGO League Championship, the Einstein Project Science Expo in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and a STEM in Sports event with the Buffalo Bills. “We focus on middle school and help get kids started early in thinking about STEM careers,” says Leah Gutstadt, manager of the CAMM initiative. “We’ll have engineers and other professionals come to talk about what it means to work in cable. Kids have their eyes opened to careers they never even thought were relevant to them.” CAMM also reinforces the importance of community and family support with its “Take the Pledge” campaign, in which signees pledge to connect kids to handson learning opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math— activities that can be as simple as signing a child up for a robotics class, or taking a child to visit a science fair or a local discovery museum. To sign up, visit connectamillionminds.com/pledge.

in the position and also ask for 10 years’ experience. Then they throw it in the screening software and suddenly it’s, ‘We can’t ﬁnd anyone!’” Instead of hiring based on a checklist of skills, says Gray, smart companies are focusing on candidates who have shown a demonstrated ability to learn and be adaptable. “They are asking whether the candidate has worked on teams and solved complex problems, and drawn on a broad background of experience, rather than, ‘Do you know 86 percent of this tiny body of content knowledge?’” Summer 2014

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3 Simple Steps to Cloud Adoption

b p s t w

Use these best practices to begin to leverage cloud technology for business growth BY CHRIS PATTERSON

F in c a

w N p b t S w a s

c u r n e A im o in w

I o t in 10

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s businesses look to leverage cloud technology to drive growth, the question IT leaders most often ask is, “Where do I start?”

The answer is: with one small step. Building a cloud infrastructure to help a business grow, reduce costs, and run more effectively is not a one-time, all-or-nothing proposition. The decision becomes easier when teams focus on incremental adoption, starting with small, low-risk applications that can be tested easily and improved through an iterative approach before they are fully launched. Here are some simple ways to begin the process of cloud adoption.

Identify the true problem

First, identify the greatest pain point in a company’s IT ecosystem. The cloud solution can then be targeted and architected to ease that pain point. For example, NaviSite® recently worked with a company in Syracuse, New York. The company’s IT team perceived its infrastructure as the biggest challenge, and was eager to deploy a full Infrastructure-as-aService (IaaS) solution, in which they would outsource its IT management as well as the equipment used to support operations. However, as the IT team took a complete and objective inventory to understand their challenges, they realized that what the business needed most urgently was an enterprise-class file-sharing solution. As a result, the team was able to get immediate relief for a major portion of their business challenge with less investment than a full IaaS solution would have required.

Think in terms of out-tasking

It can be helpful to view the process of cloud adoption as a matter of outtasking (as opposed to outsourcing, in which an entire IT function is

managed by an external provider). IT leaders should look at cloud computing as a loosely integrated suite of complementary services, such as IaaS, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS), and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS). When a business challenge is defined, an IT leader can take that problem, or task, and solve it with a cloud solution. An IT leader can then take on a second challenge, or a broader area with high potential to drive efficiency, and out-task that function of the IT system. The benefits of out-tasking are significant: in addition to pinpointing specific challenges, time and money are saved because companies don’t have to manage and pay for unnecessary aspects of a cloud infrastructure. Further, out-tasking allows companies to see a faster return on investment.

Customize your cloud

One global retail brand that NaviSite® worked with identified its pain points in several different areas. First was managing its workforce, which was mobile, highly innovative, and flexible. The solution was to implement DaaS, a virtual desktop infrastructure that makes company

desktops widely available and easy to use. From there, the IT team identified a second pain point: the need to store and manage large image files for their design and branding work. In response, the company expanded its cloud infrastructure to include storage. Next, the retailer needed to make certain that its files and virtual desktop were secure and built to continue operating no matter what. Using BaaS, the team designed a disaster recovery plan that would meet the needs of its global workforce to have uninterrupted access to their virtual desktops. The team was also able to ensure that the images stored and shared were secure according to the highest compliance and regulatory standards. This gave the retailer the assurance it needed to continue to migrate increasingly larger workloads onto the cloud. Ultimately, the most important thing for IT leaders to do is to take the first step in their company’s cloud journey. That way, they can find the best solutions to business challenges—one task at a time. Chris Patterson is vice president of product management for NaviSite®. Summer 2014

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THE

MAKE

TOUGH CALLS

Anatomy of a Hard Decision BY TED MYERSON

In an age of disruption, business leaders in every industry are facing major decisions. Here is how to stop stalling, find your course and move forward. 12

THE CHEAPEST MEETING SPACE WE COULD FIND THAT SUMMER DAY IN 2006 WAS A ROOM IN A CALIFORNIA AIRPORT, SET UP AS A CHILDREN’S LOUNGE. Perched on our kid-sized chairs, my business partners and I faced the investor who had staked $10 million on our technology venture, and this is what we told him: “It’s not working.” Why did that scene of seeming failure lead to a huge success and a nine-ﬁgure

business deal just a few years later? Because my associates and I did two drastic things that many executives do not do: we challenged assumptions and we embraced change. Let me back up. I had been working in finance and technology for about three years when I came up with an innovative financial trading platform I believed could revolutionize trading in global financial markets. I named the start-up company

Summer 2014

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THE BRUTAL TRUTH When it comes to a big, business-changing decision, it’s usually easier not to make a decision—to defer it, to delay it, to hope that more time or money or some outside force will solve the problem. If a company is the kind that measures and rewards success in the short term, it’s easier to kick the can down the road for the next management team to deal with. On the other hand, if the decisionmakers own or helped build the company, they may simply be unwilling to consider another option beyond doing the same thing they’ve been doing for so long. Either approach gets you to the same place, which is, you’re screwed. Companies everywhere are seeing their business models disrupted overnight. By failing to challenge assumptions and readjust, you are putting your company on the path to going out of business. After a quick, hard look in the mirror, we at FTEN decided to face the music. That is how we wound up in the airport lounge, on the child-sized chairs, telling our investor the brutal truth and offering him three options: One: we could shut down tomorrow and return the remainder of his investment. Two: we could keep the existing strategy and plow on despite our misgivings. Or three: we could shut down our technology, stay in business, and rebuild toward the future of the industry.

Our worldly-wise business friends had said we would be crazy to bare all to the investor. But when we offered to shut down immediately, our investor could see that we were not just selling him or trying to save our own hides. He believed in us, so right then and there, he told us to rebuild. Those same friends also warned us against telling our clients and potential clients what was happening. We ignored that advice, too. Rather than put clients through one implementation now and another later, we hit the brakes and told them exactly why. We pulled the product from clients, formed a new development team, and started all over. The clients with whom we were so honest became our best advocates and references, and some even became investors. We had embraced the need for big change, and told the truth about it—and that paid off. FTEN’s new software was a gamechanger. In three years, the company grew more than 4,500 percent, and revenue climbed from $447,033 in 2006 to $20.7 million in 2009. By the time NASDAQ acquired the company at the end of 2010 for $110 million, that technology was processing more than $150 billion in daily risk calculations around the globe. All the ﬁrms that once were FTEN’s competitors have gone out of business. If we had continued to follow that pack, our fate would have been the same. Instead, we listened to our instincts and apprehensions about the course we were on, and we made the hard choice to course-correct despite the risks and costs. By taking that approach, we were able to break away from convention, rewrite the rules, jettison ideas that no longer held promise—and get to where the real opportunities were. Ted Myerson is managing partner at Triangle Ventures, which creates its own business and technology inventions for markets impacted by fragmentation or stuck at a point of inflection.

MAKE THE TOUGH CALLS FEATURE CONTINUES ON PAGE 14 >>

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Whether you are talking

RULES FOR DECIDING

FTEN, after the F10 key on the computer, and I ﬁled papers to incorporate in 2001. By 2006, we had 35 employees and had raised millions from investors. We had a major global bank testing our system and several more clients in the pipeline. However, we had come to a sickening realization: though our product was still functioning, we could foresee how it would fail. In a year, we’d be stuck repairing this technology instead of innovating and creating what the market really did need. We could ride out that year, keep collecting our paychecks and then fold—or we could do something drastic.

ONE Present options. to your boss, board, or investors, know that nobody wants to hear only problems—they want to hear solutions. Present multiple options and the likely outcome of each. This allows meaningful discussion and leads stakeholders to be invested in the ultimate decisions.

TWO But don’t overanalyze. That is a way of avoiding the situation. If you spend six months analyzing, you have lost six months. Your options could be sketched out on the back of a napkin, then presented to your board or investors for narrowing down.

THREE Expect opposition. There will always be people who do not like your plan. In fact, if everyone is buying in to an idea, you should worry whether it is a mediocre one. The issue is not getting complete buy-in. It is doing what’s right for the business in the long term. Summer 2014

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<< MAKE THE TOUGH CALLS FEATURE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

Analyzing Trends to Make Critical Choices BY ALAN BEAULIEU THE BEST CEOS ALWAYS HAVE THEIR HEADS OUT OF THE TREES, looking forward. They look past this quarter’s results, or next quarter’s results to where the market is going to be and where their company needs to be. Should they sell or hoard their money? Should they buy a company, or close a division? These kinds of decisions are not only potentially make-or-break for the company, but fraught with pressure and second-guessing. That’s where economic trends come in. Information about the economy is readily available, if people would just look. And determining these trends is not a matter of political spin. Events in the world are shaped by many forces, and you can see changes developing up to a year in advance. You can work on a plan for the following year with a high degree of conﬁdence about what will unfold. Here’s how to get started: DETERMINE YOUR OWN COMPANY’S YEAR-OVER-YEAR GROWTH RATE. Every business goes through cycles, has a history and has trends. You can use your own data to develop an internal metric that will allow you to see where you are going. Use readily available data from your business—sales, orders, cash received, backlog, or inventory levels—whatever is easiest to get your hands on, or whatever you are most interested in analyzing. To achieve the best results, use seven years of historical data. Calculate your year-over-year change for the last three months (eg, January-March 2014 as compared to January-March 2013). Then do it again the next month (eg, FebApril 2014 as compared to Feb-April 2013). 14

Do the same thing, but with 12 months of data: the 12 months ending December 2013 divided by the 12 months ending December 2012. Do this again for the 12 months ending in January 2014 as compared to the 12 months ending January 2013, and so on. (This is a very easy exercise as you just need to update the prior month’s numbers on a spreadsheet.) Quarterly data gets rid of month-tomonth volatility; 12-month data helps spot cyclical trends. A pattern will become apparent, and you have now unlocked a key performance measure that can help you see into your own future. What should interest you most is not the numbers themselves, but the direction in which the year-over-year comparisons are taking you. The resulting information is not based on what your marketing department is saying or what your salespeople are feeling: this is math, totally unbiased. COMPARE YOUR YEAR-OVER-YEAR RESULTS TO KEY MEASURES OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY. CEOs often don’t like to do this because it means that a company’s success is not all about them. However, it is important to know whether a company’s healthy growth was tied to an economic upswing, or whether the company perhaps did not even keep pace with economic growth. This comparison is a strong management tool to help us measure how we were actually doing as opposed to how we think we were doing. A favored measurement of the economy’s movement is US Total Industrial Production, information provided by the Federal Reserve (www.federalreserve.gov). When one of our clients, a machine supply company, sees the yearover-year growth rate for this indicator swing up, it uses accumulated cash to make strategic acquisitions, taking advantage of the change in the general direction of the economy. FIND OTHER LEADING ECONOMIC INDICATORS THAT APPLY TO YOUR BUSINESS. These will tell you when there’s a change coming to your business

based on economic factors. When two of your leading indicators go up or down, pay attention; when ﬁve leading indicators reverse direction, take action. For example, one of our clients, a transport company, used economic forecasting in 2007 to decide against expanding into the warehouse business and the container business, both of which subsequently tanked along with the economy. It also decided to become more involved in the alternative energy market and grew that segment of the company from 3 percent to more than 10 percent of its total business. Every business will have different indicators, of course, but here are some indicators that we consider top-notch: • Corporate bond prices 12/12 rate of change. This information can be obtained from Moody’s Investor Services, Bloomberg, and other ﬁnancial services. • Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Purchasing Managers index (www.ism.ws) • US Composite Index of Leading Indicators compiled and issued by the Conference Board (www.conferenceboard.org) • Nondefense Capital Goods New Orders, reported by the U.S. Department of Commerce (www.census.gov) The best CEOs take all this information—company trends, market trends, leading indicator trends—and share it with everyone: the bank, the board, their direct reports, and middle management. The result: a better understanding of why decisions are made, and better buy-in all around. Alan Beaulieu is president and principal of ITR Economics, an economics forecasting company. He is co-author with his brother, Brian Beaulieu, of Make Your Move: Change the Way You Look at Your Business and Increase Your Bottom Line and Prosperity in the Age of Decline.

Summer 2014

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SUCCESS IN ACTION

CHIEF TALK BUSINESS LEADERS

share KEY LESSONS THEY’VE LEARNED

INTERVIEWS BY LEE LUSARDI CONNOR

ZocDoc has been in hyper–growth mode, adding medical specialties and health care systems, expanding to new locations, and debuting additional features and services. Today, it covers 40 percent of the population in 2,000 cities and towns, and 5 million patients log on each month. Recently, the company announced plans to bring its service to every state in the contiguous United States by the end of 2014. Cofounder and CEO Cyrus Massoumi talked about his strategies for maintaining high standards while growing fast.

Focus Drives the Future

CYRUS MASSOUMI, ZOCDOC SCALING NEW HEIGHTS

ocDoc was founded in 2007 with the mission of tapping the “hidden supply” of health care in the United States— appointments that are cancelled at the last minute. The online service, free to patients, allows these slots to be refilled promptly. The result: a better use of time for both doctors and patients, with appointments booked within 24 to 72 hours, on average, compared to the typical average wait time of 18.5 days. Practically since day one,

Over the past year we’ve hit an interesting milestone, which is that we passed 500 employees. And just as we did a few years back when we hit 100 employees, we took time to reflect on how we manage the business at this stage of growth. If you don’t have the right process in place, you’re not going to be able to focus 500 people on the highest and best need for the business. What if I had a magical power and could pause time and sit back and talk with every employee about what he or she could do in a speciﬁc area to move the needle for the company? Is there a way to replicate that experience in the absence of that superpower? What we came up with is MONSTER goals. The acronym stands for Measurable, Optimistic, Noble, Speciﬁc, Time-Bound, Executable, and Relevant. Each person in our company is assigned to a team, and each team sets one to three quarterly goals. For example, it could be rolling out a new product to X number of patients by

the end of the quarter. Whatever it is, the team puts a stake in the ground. Then we make sure resources within the company, such as technical support, are aligned to help fulﬁll the goal. And this is literally how we’re running the company. When I meet with a team, I discuss MONSTER goals, when I’m talking with top management we discuss MONSTER goals. It’s a very important focusing mechanism for the entire company.

Technology Adoption Proceeds from a Win-Win Health care is the largest sector of the global economy, yet it’s so fragmented, with 1,400 different technology systems used by doctors to manage their ofﬁces and calendars. Some people say doctors don’t like to adopt technology, but that’s not true! Doctors are very smart and have speciﬁc ways in which they want to manage their professional lives, so they choose technologies based on that.

We just want to solve patient problems. —CYRUS MASSOUMI

It’s super important that we communicate to doctors that everyone beneﬁts from our product. Patients like us because they get better access to doctors. Doctors like us because they get more optimal utilization of their time. Employers like

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us because we allow employees to find doctors who can see them in the evening or on a weekend, thereby reducing absenteeism. Insurance companies like us because we keep people out of emergency rooms—one in five of the appointments we book is urgent in nature. Now, we have so many people using our product that there’s a social validation to it. It’s become easy to get doctors to standardize on the ZocDoc platform. When I was first pitching ZocDoc, I got thrown out of more than a few doctors’ offices. Many people in health care questioned whether online booking was the future. Now the only question is when—not if—all appointments will be booked online.

SHUGART AT THEATERMANIA'S HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK CITY'S THEATER DISTRICT

Serve Only One Master Every year or so, we build a new business on top of this marketplace we’ve developed. A couple of years ago we introduced Check-In, which fills out patient information forms online before an appointment. Now we have ZocDoc for Business, a premium version that enables employees to get more out of their company-provided benefits. Employees who use this service don’t have the complexity of figuring out what doctor is seeing new patients and who takes their insurance; it’s all pre-loaded in the system. Also, they get regular nudges about preventive care; for example, letting them know that it’s time for their annual physical, or they should get a skin cancer screening. Not only are we helping keep people healthy, we’re keeping health-care expenses for businesses down—and potentially saving lives. How do we choose the next product or service for our company? It’s simple. Going back to focus, a business can only have one master, and our master is the patient. What will make the most meaningful impact on patients? That is the thing that we’ll do, even if there’s not a business there yet. We’re longterm oriented. We just want to solve patient problems. Patients reward us with their loyalty, and we build businesses around that.

GRETCHEN SHUGART, THEATERMANIA LEADING FOR GROWTH

hen Gretchen Shugart joined TheaterMania as CEO in 2001, the organization faced big challenges. The company’s robust website helps consumers across the country decide where they want to spend their entertainment dollars; meanwhile, its proprietary ticketing system, OvationTix, serves event producers by integrating sales (phone, box office, web) with CRM and fundraising. In 2001, the company was coping with the bursting of the dot-com bubble. And the events of 9/11 triggered a

steep decline in attendance at performing arts events. Shugart, a seasoned advisor and financier to media and technology companies, rose to the challenge. TheaterMania is now the leading source for theater tickets in the United States, with over one million visitors to its site per month. With the recent acquisition of UK-based WhatsOnStage. com, TheaterMania has created the first transatlantic digital theater media group. The CEO’s focus is now on a new set of challenges—not related to staying afloat, but to managing growth, leading, and planning the future. CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 >> Summer 2014

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SUCCESS IN ACTION

<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

Technology Never Sleeps Our clients are always hungry for more tools and technology, so there is an ongoing capital investment in our ticketing and fundraising products and services. Once you build something, you can’t stop. Technology needs to be maintained, it needs improvements, and sometimes you have to scrap a product and go on to the next version. So we build, we launch, and we recalibrate constantly. To stay ahead, it’s important for me to listen to the managers in the company who read constantly, who get training, and who go to seminars and talk to people in the marketplace to do their own research. I don’t have to be able to code, but I do need to always think about what’s coming next and ask questions, such as, “Could this be done more cheaply? Faster? Is this the right platform? Why?”

entertainment industry while serving consumers. And we keep our mission in mind, but we’re revising strategy on an ongoing basis. Twice a year we have a companywide offsite. We start with a quick look back to where we’ve been, then spend most of the time on where we’re going. Sometimes I bring in facilitators, board members may attend, or staff members may make presentations. All full-time employees attend and are very involved in setting strategy. The biggest lesson is that the general can’t do everything. You’ve got to have leaders and an army to be a winner.

“I’m not a big believer in the once-a-year, here’sour-strategic-plan method.

the product, and so on. Over time, the CEO becomes the leader and has the managers and staff doing more. It’s a hard and ongoing transition, because some areas of the business may be more developed than others. The trick is in knowing when to let out the rope, what to ignore for the time being, what you need to be moderately involved in, and what requires your deep involvement. To be an effective leader, you have to be very self-aware, to ask yourself, “Am I doing this because it’s the right thing for the company, or is it my own ego coming to bear?” It helps to get outside perspectives. For years I was involved in an organization, Vistage, where you engage in intense peer-to-peer coaching. These days I have a great board of directors; individuals who are strong leaders in their areas. I also spent 20 years in banking and ﬁnance, so I have loads of business contacts in media, technology, ﬁnance, and marketing. I’m a great believer in talking to experts.

--–GRETCHEN SHUGART

Why Hiring Is Like Dating

Plan, Then Revise Because technology and client needs move so quickly, we have to constantly look at our roadmap and revise it. That’s why I’m not a big believer in the once-a-year, here’s-our-strategicplan method. Our mission is to provide tools and technology services to the live

SHUGART SPLITS HER TIME BETWEEN THE US AND THE COMPANY'S NEWLY ACQUIRED UK OPERATIONS.

Leadership: Go Outside to Get Perspective In the early years, the CEO is involved in all aspects of the business—inventing the product, selling the product, reﬁning

The other thing that’s crucial for a leader is to hire highly experienced, highly effective leaders to run departments. There’s no magic to hiring. I approach it the way I think a person should approach dating. It takes time to really get to know people and see who they are. Rather than the old model where a candidate would meet with various players in the company for an hour each, I think it’s important for the same interviewer to meet the candidate over and over again. It’s when people get really comfortable and off their script that you begin to understand and know them. For higherlevel hires, I like to meet with them three, four, even ﬁve times. When there is the right chemistry, people tend to be very collaborative and enjoy being around each other, and wonderful things happen. As far as our culture goes, I’m looking for people who are respectful. People who have empathy are usually better business people anyway.

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FIELD REPORT

DR. KEVIN KEELEN CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, GREEN DOT

Fast Times and Young Minds

Green Dot Public Schools needed speed and reliability to best serve students. THE CHALLENGE: Green Dot Public Schools set out on a mission to rejuvenate schools in the highest-need areas of Los Angeles, California, with a focus on web-based learning tools and preparing students for college. To do so, Green Dot needed a robust IT and communications network for its 22 schools to accommodate new Common Core standards and to expand access to online learning resources. However, its T-1 circuits were slow and the network was unreliable. In addition, the cost was burdensome. It was time for a change.

THE SOLUTION: The Green Dot school system turned to Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) for an Ethernet Wide Area Network (EWAN) solution on the company’s wholly owned, ﬁber-rich network. The EWAN has up to 1 Gbps of broadband connectivity to each of the system’s schools and the centralized data center, and is providing signiﬁcantly more speed and reliability than Green Dot had been receiving from its previous T-1 service. Teachers, students, and staff immediately noticed a vast

quality improvement. “When it comes to learning tools, we’re a bandwidth-hungry organization and dependent on the Internet like never before,” says Dr. Kevin Keelen, chief information ofﬁcer for Green Dot. “[TWCBC’s EWAN] is just really super-reliable.”

When it comes to learning tools, we’re dependent on the Internet like never before. THE RESULT: A win for twenty-ﬁrst-century education! Green Dot was able to hit the ground running with the bandwidth-intensive learning tools it needs—not only for implementing the Common Core standards, but for online benchmark testing, YouTube for classroom research, email accounts for all students, cloud-based applications such as Apex Learning, Carnegie Mathia, Read 180, and many more. Other beneﬁts include:

• Cost savings. Because EWAN offers scalable bandwidth options, it enables users to increase their bandwidth capacity without investing in new hardware. For additional cost savings, TWCBC was able to help the school system apply for E-rate funding, a federal program that provides discounts to US schools and libraries for telecommunications and Internet access. • Enhanced administrative functions. The security and reliability of EWAN also enables efﬁcient administrative functions such as the use of the BloomBoard application, a cloudbased teacher evaluation and observation system. • Support for IT planning and more. The Ethernet network monitoring portal that provides trend reporting and system alerts helps Keelen and his team anticipate demand for bandwidth growth. Keelen also appreciates the level of attention provided by TWCBC’s local sales and support teams in providing network solutions that adhere to E-rate and California Teleconnect Fund (CTF) standards. He notes a recent situation in which he received advice from a billing coordinator about how to get CTF savings for his phone lines. “He didn’t have to tell me that, but it shows that Time Warner Cable Business Class understands what it is like to operate in a public environment.” Keelen knows that as Green Dot grows and evolves, its network will need to expand, too. He is conﬁdent that the scalable EWAN solution from TWCBC will easily adapt: “As the need grows, we don’t have to look for another provider.”

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GUIDE TO GO

B I

Smart Strategies for BYOD

Allowing employees to use their own devices is a win-win. BY JOSEPH BRADLEY

THE TO-DO LIST Apple aficionados. Windows fanatics. Android advocates. They may argue about whose laptops or smart devices are the best, but on one point there is strong agreement: they prefer not to part with their gadgets of choice—ever. That is especially true at work, where many believe the familiarity, simplicity, and mobility of their own devices can bestow deep benefits, including the ability to stay up to speed on work matters even when they are far from the office. To prove it, workers even started a movement: Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD. And while BYOD has been largely employeedriven, it offers solid advantages from an enterprise or business perspective. Indeed, Cisco Consulting Services surveys show that BYOD adoption is expected to increase 105 percent between 2013 and 2016 in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, China and Brazil. The main survey of 2,400 mobile users across 18 industries and six countries, along with 135 IT decision makers, showed that BYOD benefits employees and companies. That is, if it is executed with the right degree of planning and support. Employees don’t just want BYOD; they pay for it. Mobile employees spend an average of $965 on their devices, and use an average of 1.7 personal devices for work. They are also willing to use the personal voice and data plans that they are already paying for out their own pockets. In general, companies react to their employees' device demands with fragmentary capabilities and policies. We recommend a strategic response—creating a comprehensive implementation policy—that will enable them to reap the full benefits of BYOD.

Embrace Comprehensive BYOD Only 26 percent of companies surveyed have implemented anything that comes close to Comprehensive BYOD. These capabilities include: the ability to monitor and remotely “wipe” corporate data; automatic application and enforcement of corporate access and use policies; the ability to move among networks or multiple devices seamlessly and securely; corporate collaboration tools that work on all end-user device types and brands; and simple and user-friendly authentication for all devices.

Free the Workers, Lock Up the Data

THE AVERAGE US EMPLOYEE SAVES 81 MINUTES PER WEEK THANKS TO BYOD.

and the complexity of managing devices on multiple platforms could outweigh the beneﬁts. Indeed, in this model of Source: Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group decentralized control, Horizons surveys, 2012-13 information security becomes crucial. Thus, an effective BYOD policy does not just mean employee choice; it must ensure that through virtualization, cloud applications, and other technologies, the company controls where and how its data is stored and accessed even if that data is spread across multiple devices, clouds, and networks. The most secure way for an organization to lock up data and protect against cyberattacks is on the network level, not the device level.

Determine the Amount of Your Investment. A typical company will require relatively low investments to facilitate Comprehensive BYOD. The main cost areas include software (primarily collaboration tools), network and operations, access policy and security, and wide-area network telecommunications costs. These costs are remarkably consistent across countries. An architectural approach to BYOD—developing a step-by-step approach to supporting mobile computing across the entire network—will reduce costs and increase security in the long run, making BYOD worth the investment, at whatever maturity level a company begins its journey. Most companies will ﬁnd that BYOD pays for itself. Through BYOD, companies save on hardware costs (employees purchase their own devices); support costs (streamlined support options such as user communities, wikis, and forums); and telecommunications costs (migrating some mobile users from corporate data plans to self-funded plans). By “doing BYOD right,” companies can lower costs while gaining happier employees. A true win-win. Joseph Bradley is the managing director of the Internet of Everything Practice for Cisco Consulting Services.

Employees will innovate and collaborate best when they are given the freedom to work their way. Yet some fear that security risks

Summer 2014

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BIG DATA BIG DATA Is a Big Deal: Is a Big Deal: Is your Network Ready?

Is your Network Ready?

Big Data is redefining business management, marketing and operations principles, and also transforming network performance Big Data is redefining business management, marketing and requirements. operations principles, and also transforming network performance Smallrequirements. and medium businesses have already deployed or plan to deploy Big Data projects: Small and medium businesses have already deployed or plan to enterprises deploy Big Data of projects: 70% of SMBs 56%70% of enterprises Source: IDG Enterprise 56% of SMBs

They understand the power of Big Data analytics to: Source: IDG Enterprise • Fine-tune product and service offerings They understand the power of Big Data analytics to: • Enable more personalized interactions with • Fine-tune and service offerings customers and product prospects • Enable more personalized interactions with • Enhance fraud detection customers and prospects • Improve regulatory compliance • Enhance fraud detection Improve regulatory compliance However,• not all organizations are ready to handle the surge of Big Data traffic across the wide area network (WAN). However, not all organizations are ready to handle the surge of Big Data traffic across the wide area network (WAN). Learn what it takes to get your network ready for big data success. Read our new white paper, Learn takesIsto getNetwork your network ready for Big Data Is awhat Big itDeal: your Ready? big data success. Read our new white paper, Big Data Is a Big Deal: Is your Network Ready? VISIT BUSINESS.TWC.COM/BIGDATA VISIT

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Products and services not available in all areas. Some restrictions apply. Subject to change without notice. Actual speeds may vary. Time Warner Cable is a trademark of Time Warner Inc. Used under license. ©Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Products and services not available in all areas. Some restrictions apply. Subject to change without notice. Actual speeds may vary. Time Warner Cable is a trademark of Time Warner Inc. Used under license. ©Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC. All Rights Reserved. Solve Magazine Q3 2014 9b.indd 21

6/30/14 12:16 PM

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SOLVE Q3 2014

Articles inside

Gretchen Shugart, TheaterMania Leading For Growth

Green Dot Public Schools Fast Times and Young Minds

Smart Strategies for BYOD

International Excess Alliance Bandwidth Drives the Business

A New Way to Think About Customer Loyalty

Cyrus Massoumi, ZocDoc Scaling New Heights