Business Chief USA August 2020

NORTH
AMERICA
businesschief.com
AUGUST 2020
ELEVATING HUMAN
POTENTIAL THROUGH
AUTOMATION
RESILIENCE
IN FLEXIBILITY
MOST VALUABLE
DIGITAL
TECHNOLOGY
BRANDS
Jeff Richardson, CDO on its state
of the art cloud infrastructure

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FOREWORD
W
elcome to the August edition of
Business Chief North America.
This month’s cover features Jeff
Richardson, CDO at Bentley Systems,
on the state of the art cloud
infrastructure which benefits internal
and external stakeholders. “Living in
a cloud-focused world, security is huge
for us,” he tells us. “Our CIO, Claire
Rutkowski, came on board in October
2016 and has been heavily focused on
integrating a robust and industry-leading
cloud security platform. Along with
instituting a security office, we have
beefed up our security staff and
infrastructure by around 800% in the
past five years.”
Other leaders we speak with in this
issue include Sankar Krishnan, EVP
and Industry Head, Banking and Capital
Markets at Capgemini, who discusses
the investor management landscape
prior to and post COVID-19, “Since
World War II, I would say we have never
had a situation like this where it has
been very difficult to predict outcomes in
terms of where the world is going. These
are unprecedented times and investor
management is front and centre.”
Elsewhere, we explore the HR
technology trends of 2020 and look
more closely at the benefits they can
provide an organisation that is looking
to digitally transform its HR operations.
In addition, we speak to Max Cheprasov,
Chief Automation Officer at Dentsu
Aegis Network on why developing an
AI and automation strategy is essential
to modern enterprises’ future, and our
Top 10 ranks the region’s most valuable
digital technology brands.
Do you have a story to share?
If you would like to be featured in an
upcoming issue of Business Chief
North America, please get in touch at
georgia.wilson@bizclikmedia.com
Enjoy the issue!
Georgia Wilson
03
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PUBLISHED BY
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Georgia Wilson
EDITORAL DIRECTOR
Matt High
CREATIVE TEAM
Oscar Hathaway
Erin Hancox
Sophia Forte
Sophie-Ann Pinnell
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Owen Martin
DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS
Kieran Waite
Sam Kemp
MARKETING DIRECTOR
Leigh Manning
DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER
Shirin Sadr
DIGITAL MARKETING EXECUTIVE
Kayleigh Shooter
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Mike Sadr
Jake Megeary
Nicholas Bochmann
Ryan Hall
MEDIA SALES DIRECTOR
James White
DIGITAL MEDIA DIRECTOR
Jason Westgate
CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER
Stacy Norman
PRESIDENT & CEO
Glen White
PRODUCTION DIRECTORS
Georgia Allen
Daniela Kianicková
PROJECT DIRECTORS
Arron Rampling
Craig Killingback
businesschief.com

CONTENTS
12
30

HR operations
and platform
technology
trends
60
44
74
88
AI:
ENTERPRISE
CHALLENGES &
OPPORTUNITIES
102
MOST VALUABLE
DIGITAL
TECHNOLOGY
BRANDS

122
AltaMed Health Services
150
Digital Realty
136
COLOTRAQ
166
Interstitial Systems
International Inc

198
Estruxture
Data Centers
176
McDermott
International Inc.
212
WSIB
236
SAP Global Center
of Excellence
252
NIH STRIDES
Initiative

You see a shipping terminal.
We see the missing container
that will shut down production.
C3.ai transforms
Manufacturing.
© 2020 C3.ai, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
is a mark of C3.ai, Inc.

268
SMC
286
Bentley Systems
300
World Vision
314
Mastercard
328
MSU Federal
Credit Union
342
OTIP

12
Dentsu Aegis:
elevating human
potential through
automation
WRITTEN BY
WILL GIRLING
PRODUCED BY
MIKE SADR
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
13

DENTSU AEGIS NETWORK
Max Cheprasov, Chief Automation
Officer, explains why developing
an AI and automation strategy
is essential to modern enterprises’
future
14
D
entsu Aegis Network prides itself on being
a company with a talent for innovativethinking
and being thoroughly in-tune with
the technological zeitgeist. When we last spoke with
the global marketing group which operates in over
145 countries, we learned how a highly client-centric
approach was defining its mission to introduce
digital transformation and lay the foundations for a
next-gen way of operating. Despite the discussion
occurring at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Dentsu Aegis demonstrated the confidence and
optimism that only great teams guided by visionary
leadership can achieve under such duress. Now, we
revisit the company to explore one of the prevailing
tech trends in modern business: artificial intelligence
(AI) and automation.
Having spent six years (2011 to 2017) as Senior VP
and Head of Operations and Technology at iProspect
– a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dentsu Aegis – Max
Cheprasov took on the role of Chief Automation
Officer for Dentsu Aegis Americas in November 2017.
Considering himself a “digital native”, Cheprasov says
that his transition into the role was a natural one and
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
15

DENTSU AEGIS NETWORK
16
“There’s always a
need for creativity
and ingenuity
when designing
your own unique
and differentiated
business strategy”
—
Max Cheprasov,
Chief Automation Officer, Dentsu Aegis
was a decision guided by a long-term
mission: “I transitioned into this new role
to focus on acceleration of intelligent
automation solutions and to promote
best practice across Dentsu globally.”
In a career clearly defined by his commitment
to finding new and better ways
to service clients and enable employees
to do their best work, Cheprasov is a
believer in going beyond convention and
working out cutting-edge tech solutions
to everyday problems. “There’s always
a need for creativity and ingenuity when
designing your own unique and differentiated
business strategy,” he says. It is
this attitude that he brings to bear on his
daily activities at Dentsu Aegis.
An early enthusiast of AI’s potential
in business, Cheprasov embarked on
his first automation-related project in
2016 by experimenting with natural
language processing (NLP) and natural
language generation (NLG) technology
for data analysis reports and insights.
It was because of this project that he
and Dentsu Aegis’ leadership team
became convinced that it was an avenue
worth exploring with high priority.
Certain that AI could lead to a dramatic
boost in business performance and
AUGUST 2020

The future of AI and your business
CLICK TO WATCH | 2:26
17
customer experience, Cheprasov
established an eight-year road map
(2017 to 2025) and the company formally
established the Dentsu Aegis
Automation Centre of Expertise
(CoE). “Today, we have over 400 people
engaged with the CoE as part of
our global community of automation
champions and experts. But, as far
as I’m concerned, this is still only the
beginning; the future of automation
should be placed in the hands of every
single employee,” he states. With the
goal of making teams as efficient, productive
and happy as possible, the CoE
functions to optimise the working lives
of a company’s employees. Capable
of augmenting workloads by automating
a boring or repetitive task, Dentsu
Aegis can help mitigate or eliminate
the laborious strain caused by routine
tasks, approval turnarounds and bottlenecks.
“We can automate a process
end-to-end and give that time back
to employees to handle more critical
tasks that cannot be automated, such
as creative, critical, strategic thinking,
complex problem solving and more.
Our mission is to elevate human potential,”
says Cheprasov.
businesschief.com

DENTSU AEGIS NETWORK
18
AUGUST 2020

“Our mission is
to elevate human
potential”
—
Max Cheprasov,
Chief Automation Officer, Dentsu Aegis
19
www.businesschief.com

DENTSU AEGIS NETWORK
20
Of course, this aim would be very difficult
without a suitably agile workforce
behind the scenes at Dentsu Aegis,
and this is exactly what Cheprasov
says the company has. “I think we have
a unique workplace culture. One word
to describe everybody in the business,
across 65,000 professionals, is that
we’re ‘entrepreneurial’ by the nature of
how we’ve grown.” Having expanded
rapidly over the last five years due
to a fast-paced M&A (mergers and
acquisitions) strategy, the company
has continually rejuvenated itself by
incorporating the trend-setting new
ideas of the startups and other firms
it has acquired. “We operate without
borders and limitations as one enterprise
across 145 countries, where highly
collaborative teams of highly intelligent,
optimistic and passionate people are
working together and willing to take
calculated risks to achieve impressive
results for Dentsu Aegis and our
clients,” he continues. Indeed, with over
150 acquisitions made and a growing
capacity for innovation, talent and scale,
Cheprasov’s observation that “there’s
AUGUST 2020

no future in staying the same” certainly
rings true.
As well as its robust internal collaboration,
Dentsu Aegis also prides itself
on working well with other companies
which share its vision and mission.
With regard to the company’s pursuit
of automated superiority, Cheprasov
highlights FortressIQ, Catalytic and
UiPath as essential partners: “We used
Catalytic’s AI-enabled platform to
design an automated RFP (request for
proposal) workflow, in combination with
NLP and ML (machine learning). As a
result, we reduced the time it takes to
compile the initial draft of the response
from two weeks to just several minutes.
Our most recent project with UiPath
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Max Cheprasov
Title: Chief Automation Officer Company: Dentsu Aegis Network
Industry: Marketing & Advertising Location: New York
21
As Chief Automation Officer at Dentsu, Max Cheprasov leads the Automation
COE on a mission to “Elevate Human Potential”. Dentsu, with its 65,000+
employees, is a global media and digital marketing communications company
focused on innovating the way brands are built. The COE
harmonizes Operational Excellence with AI and Automation
to create the never-before digital exoskeleton for the enterprise.
Max has 20+ years of experience within the Digital Economy,
specializing in digital transformation, operational excellence,
and AI-powered automation. Prior to his current role,
Max served as the Senior Vice President of Operations,
PMO, BPO, and Technology for iProspect between
2011-2017. Max holds an MBA degree from JWMI and
professional certificates from Stanford University,
MIT, and PMI, among others.
businesschief.com

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“I think we have a unique
workplace culture.
One word to describe
everybody in the
business, across 65,000
professionals, is that
we’re ‘entrepreneurial’
by nature of how we’ve
grown”
—
Max Cheprasov,
Chief Automation Officer, Dentsu Aegis
required a deeper partnership with
their Professional Services group, as
we needed to temporarily add 10 RPA
(robotic process automation) experts
to our team to help us build 60 bots in
six weeks. As a result, the software
bots have automated 157,000 hours
of work during their first deployment,
completing over 600,000 tasks. Finally,
FortressIQ helps us accelerate process
mining and process discovery, exponentially
improving our ability to identify new
use-cases for automation and process
reengineering. Additionally, the time
and motion analyses led to improved
23
FORTRESSIQ
Founded in 2017, FortressIQ is the
creator of a cognitive automation
platform which is capable of
accelerating digital transformation
through a combination of ANN,
NLP and ML, as well as OCR. Able
to quickly grasp the fundamentals
of a business’ operations, the
platform enables the collection
of swift insights which can be
used in the development of
an automation strategy.
Commenting on the relationship
that Dentsu Aegis shares with
FortressIQ, Cheprasov praises the
company’s technology and states
that without its partnership
“it would have taken over 30
business analysts to gather the
same level of detail and insight
that [FortressIQ’s] AI was able to
capture if it was done manually.”
Pankaj Chowdhry,
Founder & CEO, FortressIQ
businesschief.com

DENTSU AEGIS NETWORK
24
SOPs, compliance and training. Using
FiQ’s artificial neural network (ANN),
NLP, and ML models, in combination
with advanced computer vision (OCR),
we automatically mined, modelled
and documented data for over 2,200
processes in five months with just two
people operating the system.”
On the subject of automation,
Cheprasov is evangelical about its growing
importance, not only for Dentsu Aegis
but for its clients and modern business
generally. “Automation is just a natural
evolution from operational excellence,”
he explains. “Traditional operational
workflows are no longer sustainable; the
workforce is changing rapidly, yet very
few global companies are ready to manage
their workforce with people, bots
and AI working side by side.” He asks
every company to consider the subject
of advancing technology seriously; it
is an aspect of business which is both
exciting and intimidating – staying on top
of it and processing the large amounts
of data accessible requires automation
integrated into every process. It
was because of this that Cheprasov
formulated his seven-year roadmap.
“It’s in response to client demands for
AUGUST 2020

The transformation of AI & Automation
CLICK TO WATCH | 2:11
25
businesschief.com

DENTSU AEGIS NETWORK
2013
Year founded
50,000
Number of
employees
26
Covid 19 and the impact of technology
CLICK TO WATCH | 3:01
AUGUST 2020

27
higher levels of agility and consistent
operational excellence,” he explains.
As such, Dentsu Aegis plans to go
beyond traditional forms of automation
(AI, ML, RPA, etc) to fulfil its quest
for ever-greater heights of operational
efficiency. This brings the conversation
back to the importance of
collaborating with startups in the sector:
“We continue to monitor who the
emerging players are; there’s a lot of
new startups that have fantastic ways
of applying AI to different problems
in business,” he says.
When considering the future, not just
of Dentsu Aegis but also automation
generally, Cheprasov identifies two
key trends: hyperautomation and the
democratisation of AI. The former,
a term with Industry 4.0 connotations,
imagines an operational state which
combines digitisation with connectivity
and AI to create a supremely automated
system capable of seamless
interoperability; regarding the latter,
he adds this: “The future of automation
should be placed in the hands of
every employee, giving them access
businesschief.com

DENTSU AEGIS NETWORK
28
to low-code or no-code platforms and
providing the necessary training and
support.” This, Cheprasov anticipates,
will lead to unprecedented efficiency
gains for workers and unlock the human
potential in a way which was unfeasible
previously. As the post-COVID-19 world
continues to make companies re-examine
their relationship with technology,
Dentsu Aegis is already expanding
into the less overt considerations that
furthering automation entails, such as
its CSR activities with AutonomyWorks.
“Their goal is to create new job opportunities
for individuals with autism and similar
disabilities. At Dentsu, we recognise
society as one of our key stakeholders
and one of our key objectives right now
is to upskill the organisation’s workforce
with the necessary automation skills to
AUGUST 2020

“Automation is just
a natural evolution
from operational
excellence”
—
Max Cheprasov,
Chief Automation Officer, Dentsu Aegis
accelerate the work that they currently
do for their clients.”
Considering what the rest of
2020 might hold for Dentsu Aegis,
Cheprasov summarises its goal as
continuing to help its clients win, keep
and grow their own customer bases.
If the COVID-19 disruption has taught
the company anything, it’s that close
collaboration, an agile mindset and
an innovative attitude will help Dentsu
Aegis navigate the lingering aspects
of disruption, which, in turn, will help its
clients. “Every business today needs
to have an AI and automation strategy
and plan,” Cheprasov concludes. “By
2025, AI-powered companies will be
10 times more efficient and hold twice
the market share over organisations
that fail to embrace the technology
today. I think we have reached a point
in the evolution of intelligent automation
when you can no longer delay
this decision.”
29
businesschief.com

LEADERSHIP & STRATEGY
32
AUGUST 2020

33
COVID-19:
THE CHANGING
LANDSCAPE
WRITTEN BY
GEORGIA WILSON
OF INVESTOR
MANAGEMENT
businesschief.com

LEADERSHIP & STRATEGY
Sankar Krishnan, EVP and Industry
Head, Banking and Capital Markets
at Capgemini, discusses the
investor management landscape
prior to and post COVID-19
34
“
S
ince World War II, I would say we have
never had a situation like this where it has
been very difficult to predict outcomes
in terms of where the world is going. These are
unprecedented times and investor management is
front and centre. In some ways it has taken a beating,
but in others it’s trying to correct itself,” states
Sankar Krishnan, EVP and Industry Head, Banking
and Capital Markets, Capgemini. Over the last
four months, the entire investor management ecosystem
has been significantly disrupted which is
creating new challenges for organisations and how
they effectively maintain open communication with
shareholders relating to company performance
and guidance for the future, as well as providing
a deeper understanding of the industry.
THE BEST STRATEGY FOR EFFECTIVE
INVESTOR MANAGEMENT
Prior to COVID-19 Krishnan believed that the
best strategy for effective investor management
was “transparency, followed by leaders providing
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
35

LEADERSHIP & STRATEGY
36
a consistent strategy, followed by a
measurement process that gives a
true representation of how an organisation
is doing compared to what was
discussed in the previous shareholders
meeting. This approach has an
effective impact on an organisation’s
valuation and velocity in the stock
market. I believed that this was a very
good model because you could easily
compare a company’s performance
based on previous history. This was
a good system across many sectors
that brought together the consumers,
the asset management industry,
the wealth management industry and
investment management industry,
and from an investor management
perspective, the better CEOs, are
also the better communicators.”
However, post COVID-19 Krishnan
details that, although “due to nobody’s
fault, there are a lot of unknowns.
We don’t know much about this virus
in terms of when it will disappear or
when there will be a vaccine. As a
AUGUST 2020

“I think overall it is
about finding out
how traditional
companies can save
a lot of costs as they
get called upon
to invest more and
more in digital for
the rest of the year”
—
Sankar Krishnan,
EVP and Industry Head, Banking
and Capital Markets, Capgemini
37
result it is very difficult to predict the
future of any organisation or industry
at the moment. Therefore, from an
investor management perspective
we are witnessing on average a 95%
to 97% work from home raito, as well
as a lot of organisations unable to
predict with any accuracy the future
cash flow, with COVID-19 costing
them between 10 and 25%, as well as
entire economies being propped up
by their governments - the US alone
has announced close to US$2.3trn in
the first phase with more to follow. As
a result, it is very difficult to predict
business outcomes, therefore some
have decided that to give this guidance
after a time of total economic
uncertainty would be wrong due to
there being so many variables.” Giving
examples of these variables Krishnan
explains that “we do not know when
a vaccine would be ready, in a country
like the US even if a vaccine is
developed, what will be the process
to reach over 250 million Americans?
businesschief.com

LEADERSHIP & STRATEGY
38
We also don’t know if there is going to
be a variation of the virus that comes
in winter and what the retail sector is
going to look like. A lot of the traditional
companies have fallen down
due to being replaced by technology
companies that can meet the change
in customer behaviour and demands.”
Ultimately, Krishnan highlights
that all of these inputs in the investor
management models would provide
outputs, which would be shared with
the entire investment community,
fostering good investor relations.
However, “the models are not able
to produce the outputs with a high
degree of probability. At best you can
give a range or a best guesstimate,
because investor management is
facing global impact that crosses
industries, companies, consumers
and governments. While the virus
may affect regions differently, there
is no doubt that each country and
industry will be impacted considerably,
unfortunately a lot of the survivors will
depend on having at least an 80% to
90% capacity utilisation. This creates
AUGUST 2020

What is investor management/
investor relations?
Investor management/investor relations (IR) is defined by the National
Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) as “a strategic management
responsibility that integrates finance, communication, marketing and
securities law compliance to enable the most effective two-way
communication between a company, the financial community, and other
constituencies, which ultimately contributes to a company’s securities
achieving fair valuation.”
—
Source: Institute for Public Relations
39
What the average investor should be doing
during the coronavirus economic crisis
CLICK TO WATCH | 3:33
businesschief.com

LEADERSHIP & STRATEGY
“We don’t know much
about this virus in terms
of when it will disappear
or when there will be
a vaccine, as a result
it is very difficult to
predict the future of any
organisation or industry”
40
—
Sankar Krishnan,
EVP and Industry Head, Banking
and Capital Markets, Capgemini
AUGUST 2020

problems for the investment management
industry, because you are faced
with the challenges of not being able
to give guidance on any aspect of it,
but life must go on. You have to make
some assumptions and carry on, and
I’m sure the public will understand if
you’ve got some elements wrong. But
I think we’ve got to deal with fighting
the virus at the moment and I have no
doubt that things will get better however
this is the current landscape for
the investor management industry.”
EMERGING TRENDS AND INNOVATIONS
AS A RESULT OF COVID-19
Krishnan believes that “every cloud
has a silver lining”. First and foremost,
Krishnan highlights that the drive to
digital has been extremely fast. “I
think a lot of the industries due to
COVID-19 have become digitally savvy
and responsible. A record number
of people have begun to use digital
apps - at Capgemini we conduct a lot
of research reports relating to retail,
banking and fintech - interestingly 80%
of people surveyed do not want to go
into a bank, and will not choose a bank
if they are not able to use a digital way
41
businesschief.com

LEADERSHIP & STRATEGY
42
“I think a lot of the
industries due to
COVID-19 have
become digitally
savvy and digitally
responsible”
—
Sankar Krishnan,
EVP and Industry Head, Banking
and Capital Markets, Capgemini
to access the bank’s products. As a
result we are seeing new business
models are emerging, such as massive
organisations moving to a 95% to
97% worked at home situation which
was not easy to achieve. I believe we
are also seeing improvements in business
contingency planning, as people
return to work we are seeing a lot of
new technologies emerging as well as
ways of working. It is interesting to see
different sectors adapting to the current
environments such as restaurants
becoming drive thrus or takeaway only;
AUGUST 2020

What makes a leading investor
relations team?
To ensure that an investor relations department provides value to the organisation,
those within the team need to ensure that they are consistent, clear
and honest with their communication. However, leading experts within investor
relations explain that while these are the fundamentals to drive true value
within an organisation, it is vital for a investor relations department to:
Have a financial orientation
“15 or 20 years ago, you could probably successfully work in IR with a strictly
communications background. Now, though, you must have that financial
background,” explains Regina Nethery, VP of Investor Relations for Humana.
Foster deep knowledge of the company, industry and sectors,
as well as constructive dissatisfaction.
43
“You should never assume that what’s worked in the past is appropriate for the
present or future,” says Chris Jakubik, VP of Investor Relations at Kraft Food
Know who the go-to sources are
“Don’t worry about organisational layers or protocol and deal directly with
the people who have the information you need,” comments Dexter Congbalay,
VP of Investor Relations at Mondelez International.
Know the three Ts:
Timeliness, transparency and trust, “The investment community values
an IR organisation that demonstrates its commitment to building relationships
based on trust and candor,” says Charles Triano, SVP of Investor
Relations at Pfizer
–
Source: Deloitte
businesschief.com

LEADERSHIP & STRATEGY
“These are
unprecedented
times and investor
management is
front and centre”
—
Sankar Krishnan,
EVP and Industry Head, Banking
and Capital Markets, Capgemini
44
the healthcare industry adopting 3D
printing capabilities to mass produce
personal protective equipment (PPE);
the insurance industry using drones
to survey damages; and the finance
industry using chatbots to continue its
services to customers. Across each
industry, we are seeing these kinds
of deployment, resulting in business
operations, as we know them, evolving
very quickly and out of this will come
new business models.”
With digital innovations and implementations
on the rise, Krishna
believes that this increase in use of
digital solutions for investor relations
due to COVID-19 is an interesting
concept to see how these disruptive
technologies will be used in day to
day operations. “Given the fact that
2020 is pretty much written off, it is
not going to be so much about 2020,
it will be more forward looking at 2021
and beyond. One of the good things
that have come out of the virus is the
lowering of interest rates. So even
though you may lose 2020, 2021 and
beyond will have low interest rates for
AUGUST 2020

45
discounted cash flow, the challenge
however is to show this in your digital
model. I would also say that now
digital channels are the single largest
revenue channel for most organisations,
it will be very interesting to
see from an investor management
viewpoint, the impact that this has on
an organisations performance, and
whether a more digital approach will
be a model of choice post COVID-19.
Then there are aspects such as negotiation
of contracts for office space
where companies have been vacant
for the last four months and how that
shows on the balance sheet. These
are some of the things I see from an
investor relations perspective - how
will the investor management teams
be able to digitally communicate with
the shareholders and how you can
make the information digitally available.
I think overall it is about finding out
how traditional companies can save a
lot of costs as they get called upon to
invest more and more in digital for the
rest of the year.”
businesschief.com

HUMAN CAPITAL
HR operations
and platform
technology trends
020
46
AUGUST 2020
WRITTEN BY GEORGIA WILSON

usinesschief.com
47

HUMAN CAPITAL
Business Chief explores
the HR technology trends
of 2020 and the benefits
they can provide an
organisation looking to
digitally transform its HR
• • • • • • •
48
Over the last five years, digital transformation
has redefined the ways in
which organisations operate and seen an
increasing number of companies deploy digital
solutions rapidly and at scale. As a result
of this shift in mindset towards a digitally led
culture, talent management and the need for
new skills is changing how ‘traditional’ HR
systems operate.
“In a recent survey, two-thirds of business
leaders told us that if their company does
not digitalise more by 2020, it will no longer
be competitive. But in HR, digitalisation is
changing everything, from core functions
like the way we hire and develop talent, to
introducing new burdens such as raising
performance. We found that 88% of chief
HR officers say they need to invest in three
or more technologies over the next two
years. It’s a huge undertaking and it’s no
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
49

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50
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Accenture Software: Simplifying HR
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51
surprise many executives feel completely
lost,” says Brian Kropp, Group
Vice President at Gartner.
With organisations facing being left
behind if they do not ramp up their
efforts to digitally transform, here are
the top HR technology trends that
could help them do so.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) AND
ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION (RPA)
Whilst it may sound conflicting to suggest
that implementing more technology
can make operations increasingly
human, Emily He, SVP of Global
Marketing at Oracle, states that “the fascinating
part of this AI revolution, is how
automation is actually pushing the workforce
to become less techy and more
human.” Agreeing with He, Ben Eubanks,
an HR industry analyst and influencer
believes that “Every time work has been
automated in the past, the resulting jobs
and tasks have been more human in
nature as we automate the less human
aspects. These core human skills are
important today, but they’ll matter even
more in the future.”
businesschief.com

HUMAN CAPITAL
Top 10 benefits of
Cloud platforms for
HR operations
• Reduced paperwork
• Real time and accurate analysis
• Increased employee engagement
• 24/7 access to information
• Fast deployment
52
• Cost effective solutions
• Improved security and GDPR
policies
• Easier to innovate, a more flexible
solution
• Ensuring that HR operations keep
up with innovation across the
organisation
• Predictive analytics
Source: TrustRadius
AUGUST 2020

Key areas within HR that have
benefited from AI include analysis
of employee surveys - known as
voice of employee (VOE) analytics
- and removing human bias. “Our
new research shows that AI tools
are better than humans at analysing
employee surveys,” comments
Eubanks, while IBM states that “as we
work to develop AI systems we can
trust, it’s critical to develop and train
these systems with data that is unbiased
and to develop algorithms that
can be easily explained.”
When it comes to robotic process
automation (RPA) the technology
encompasses the likes of chatbots,
natural language processing (NPL),
machine learning, and AI. These capabilities
can improve communications
and increase productivity via access to
the right data at the right time. Future
trends for RPA within the HR sector
include chatbots, with predictions that
HR chatbots will be implemented at
more than 50% of companies by 2022.
Common questions asked to chatbots
relate to payment, holiday leaves,
social benefits and employee general
rights. By having the technology
53
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HUMAN CAPITAL
54
answer these simple questions companies
can help to alleviate the burden on
HR departments. “These bots can act
as self-service platforms that allow the
HR personnel to focus on responding
to more complex and urgent questions
that warrant their attention,” comments
Jeremy Nunn, Forbes Council Member.
VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY AND
WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY
One technology gaining momentum in
the HR sector is the use of virtual reality
(VR) and augmented reality (AR).
The technology can help recruiting and
onboarding processes by establishing
simulated environments that test a
candidate’s job-specific skills, sharing
a virtual tour of your office space and
bolstering recruitment efforts.
According to a study conducted by
Dr. Candice Lanius of The University
of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), Dr.
Lanius recorded more than 140 students’
speeches while monitoring their
heart rate via wearable technology.
AUGUST 2020

“In a recent survey,
two-thirds of
business leaders
told us that if their
company does
not digitalise more
by 2020, it
will no longer be
competitive”
• • • • • • •
55
Brian Kropp,
Group Vice President, Gartner
Based on the data, Dr. Lanius adjusted
the curriculums to better prepare
students to combat public speaking
anxiety. This trend is predicted to
emerge within HR to track heart rate,
body temperature, pupil dilation and
other factors to provide an insight into
employee stressors.
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE, HR GUIDANCE
AND REAL-TIME PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK
It was reported by Gartner that
among HR professionals in 2019,
employee experience was one of the
most important aspects of their initiatives,
and will remain as a top priority
through 2020 as they look to drive
engagement and foster employeecentric
cultures.
“Put systems, tools, and processes
in place that enhance, not limit,
their employees’ daily tasks and
schedule but beyond the tools the
most important is the value of the
relationship and the respect to your
people. Your employee is your first
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HUMAN CAPITAL
56
customer,” noted François Bornibus,
the President of Lenovo.Such tools
can include the use of real time performance
feedback to allow employees
and employers to receive regular,
consistent feedback in real-time. This
allows managers to have meaningful
forward-looking conversations relating
to employee development, which can
increase engagement and productivity.
The concept of HR guidance
via an Organisation Guidance
System (OGS) is also predicted to
grow. Dave Ulrich, speaker, author,
professor and thought partner on
HR, leadership, and organisation
sees “HR delivering value by offering
more ‘guidance’ rather than
simply scorecards, dashboards or
predictive analytics.” Such systems
would identify not only the desired
outcomes of organisation investments
but the roadmap to reach the
outcomes and the requirements for
sustainable progression. An OGS
allows an organisation to identify
desired outcomes relating to talent,
organisation, leadership and human
resources allowing HR professionals
to provide a framework for solutions.
AUGUST 2020

Digital HR saving
facts and figures
• Organisations can save 40% of
their data load time when using
a data conversion and migration
extension to reduce errors during
mass uploads
• US$80,000 can be saved with a
test data and optimisation extension
to secure personal data,
avoiding penalty payments
57
• US$100,000 can be saved with a
data validation and monitoring
extension for defensive reporting
efforts due to reducing the number
of queries
• A document creation extension
can help users to build and manage
templates easily
Source: Accenture
businesschief.com

HUMAN CAPITAL
“88% of chief HR
officers say they
need to invest in
three or more
technologies over
the next two years”
• • • • • • •
58
Brian Kropp,
Group Vice President, Gartner
NEW WORKING MODELS
AND GENERATION-Z
New working models are changing
the way in which organisations adopt
technology. While more flexible
working environments and remote
working is not a new concept with the
outbreak of COVID-19, the increase
in remote working has been exponential.
As a result, organisations are
looking to rapidly adopt remote working
capabilities such as cloud and
digital communication technologies
like Zoom and Microsoft Teams,
as well as ensuring they have the
correct policies in place to effectively
support their remote workers. This
new style of working is only further
being driven by the technologically
savvy, Generation-Z which are beginning
to enter the workforce.
INTEGRATED SYSTEMS AND
CLOUD TECHNOLOGY
With the average HR function using 11
different systems just for recruiting,
AUGUST 2020

59
and the continued rise of digital
transformation, the importance
of integrated systems to maintain
accuracy and efficiency continues
to grow. In addition to integrated
systems, high quality software is also
critical. The ability to process large
amounts of data via the integrated
system is a valuable capability for
HR professionals in order to save
time and resources. This capability is
driven by having a robust and reliable
software solution that is adaptable
as the company grows, which will ultimately
improve a HR team’s reporting
and analytics capabilities.
However, “from an HR perspective,
any changes to existing systems
must be carefully considered and
skillfully executed,” highlighted Venky
Seshadri, Senior Sales Director and
Product Manager at Accenture. While
some capabilities will be more critical
than others and will vary depending on
the business, one thing is for certain,
that when digital technologies are
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HUMAN CAPITAL
60
“From an HR
perspective, any
changes to existing
systems must
be carefully
considered and
skillfully executed
• • • • • • •
Venky Seshadri,
Senior Sales Director and Product
Manager, Accenture
AUGUST 2020

effectively adopted the capabilities
bring value to organisations to drive
sustainable and efficient operations.
Within HR innovative technologies
can help to better deliver an
organisation’s HR, services. “Digital
technologies remove some of the
mystery behind HR processes,” adds
Seshadri, by involving the workforce in
recruitment, onboarding, performance
review, learning and career development
procedures, as well as opening
up the ‘anytime-anywhere’ services
with the use of mobility, social media
platforms and smartphones.
While HR platforms can be built inhouse,
utilising a cloud platform is a
more cost and time effective solution.
The technology also provides flexibility
and control for HR professionals to
effectively customise applications to
suit requirements, as well as the ability
to make better decisions, improve
efficiency, improve employee experiences,
and improve HR compliance.
61
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DIGITAL STRATEGY
62
DESIGNING
A DIGITAL
STRATEGY
AND
THE IMPACT
OF COVID-19
Business Chief takes a look at
McKinsey’s 10 factors for a successful
digital transformation strategy
and the impact of COVID-19
WRITTEN BY GEORGIA WILSON
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
63

DIGITAL STRATEGY
When it comes to designing a digital
transformation strategy, McKinsey
explains that “clear targets, management
buy-in, and targeting easy wins
early are just some of the key aspects of
a successful digital transformation. Firms
should also look to rapidly up-skill the digital
expertise of their workers, and deploy agile
ways of working.”
64
REALISING DIGITAL POTENTIAL
– 10 FACTORS FOR A SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION FRAMEWORK
While it is no secret that digital transformation
and industry 4.0 are providing organisations
with a multitude of opportunities for customer
experience, growth, innovation, optimisation,
transparency and agility, to drive sustainable
and efficient operations.
“However, mounting evidence shows that
digital transformations are easier said than
done, with more than half of all UK projects
estimated to fail at realising their desired
goals,” says McKnisey. To help organisations
navigate the challenges of developing
a successful digital transformation strategy,
McKinsey outlines 10 factors that can help
an organisation realise the digital potential
for an effective strategy.
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
65

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First on the list is senior management
buy-in. When it comes to budgets
and decision making, having executives
onboard and taking a proactive
approach will drive quicker decision
making and gain support across the
entire organisation, as well as a smooth
transition process and clear priority
focus. “The CEO cannot simply sanction
a digital transformation; he or
she must communicate a vision of
what needs to be achieved, and why,
in order to demonstrate that digital
is an unquestionable priority,” states
McKinsey, this clear communication
is crucial to maintain momentum and
reduce failures when digitally transforming
operations, which leads to
the importance of identifying key milestones
and targets to aim for, with a
clear roadmap and regular progress
updates. “Targets are needed for
each source of value creation – cost
savings, revenues, improved performance
of agents, and satisfaction
of employees and customers—and
for new ways of working and the new
capabilities required,” adds McKinsey.
Another key element to designing
a digital transformation strategy is
investment. When it comes to investing
in a digital transformation strategy,
McKinsey explains that “investment
is likely to result in lower profits for a
while. But without it there is a serious
risk to profits in the longer term”.
Organisations willing to truly commit
to the investment needed will be able
to pull off a digital transformation
strategy. While investment is a core
element of designing a digital transformation
strategy, resources are not
unlimited and particularly in the current
climate it is important to manage
the risk when investing in projects.
McKinsey therefore, highlights the
importance of sequencing initiatives.
As the more value a digital transformation
captures, the more it becomes
self-funding and builds great support.
67
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DIGITAL STRATEGY
68
“A company’s financial pressures
will shape the sequencing to some
degree. So will its IT, if legacy systems
restrict initial choices. Companies
must be more flexible. It could prove
hard to recruit the particular people
needed, while technology and customer
behaviour will continue to
evolve. When initiatives are successful
and deliver the intended financial benefits,
the board and top team should
be emboldened to push to achieve
more,” states McKinsey. As a result
the establishment of ‘easy win targets’
in order to build the momentum for
the projects – known as a ‘lighthouse
project’ – could be a key way to build
support. These short term and well
defined projects act as a measurable
model for projects going forward that
are perhaps more broader.
As an increasing number of organisations
look to design a digital
transformation strategy, there has
also been a rise in the need for skilled
talent, in particular a Chief Digital
Officer (CDO) to lead the digital
disruption and innovation. Recent
statistics show that 19% of top global
companies now have a CDO – 60%
AUGUST 2020

How Coronavirus is Impacting Big Tech
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:03
69
of which have been hired since 2015.
“The importance of securing a highcalibre
launch team, often under a
CDO, cannot be overstated. A CDO
can prove invaluable in co-ordinating
a transformation – avoiding duplication
by devising a methodology for
the redesign of customer journeys
that can be replicated across the
organisation as digitisation efforts
are extended.”
With this in mind, the importance of
having a central launch team managing
the overall operations leads into
the need for agile ways working. With
speed and autonomy at its core,
agility as a process is defined as the
division of tasks into short phases
of work and the frequent reassessment
and adaptation of plans. CDOs
and executive leaders can help to
promote new ways of working within
an organisation that are essential for
digital success, including: agile product
development, maintaining focus
on customers, and cross-functional
teams. McKinsey does however, highlight
that “separating a digital component
from the rest of the organisation is
not entirely the answer. They can start
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DIGITAL STRATEGY
70
to create channel conflict, particularly
if innovations threaten to cannibalise
revenue streams. The digital unit
therefore needs to be reintegrated at
some stage, and that becomes more
difficult as time passes. Whatever the
choice, the ultimate goal has to be to
enmesh the old and the new.”
A recurring theme within these key
factors is the need for a digital mindset
to maintain momentum. It is
important for organisations designing
a digital transformation strategy to
encourage a digital culture. One way
to develop such culture is through
education. It is important for employees
to understand the changes that
are happening within the organisation
and how the changes will impact their
way of working. It is also important
when it comes to education to boost
the skills and system. The success
of a digital transformation strategy
requires the ability to acquire and
develop competencies relating to
digital skills, technologies, processes
and operating models to avoid skill
gaps and shortages.
Ultimately, “whatever structures
a company chooses initially, it will
reach the stage when only a fundamental
organisational redesign will do,”
comments McKinsey. Organisations
will need to redesign many fundamental
aspects of its operating model
in order to realise the true potential
of a digital transformation strategy.
“Silos drawn along functional lines
have always been a drag on collaboration
and performance in large
organisations. In the digital age, when
companies need to reinvent the way
they work on the fly, an inability to connect
all parts of the organisation to
AUGUST 2020

71
share data, expertise, and talent can
be crippling,” concludes McKinsey.
THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON
DESIGNING A DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION STRATEGY
When it comes to the future of digital
transformation, organisations, when
asked ‘who led your digital transformation?’
will answer, ‘COVID-19’.
It is no secret that since the outbreak
of COVID-19, organisations all over
the world have had their operations
impacted by the virus. While 70% of
organisations had a digital transformation
strategy in place, most were
not far enough ahead to make the
impact of COVID-19 a non-issue.
As a result, organisations have been
forced to drive rapid digital transformation
in order to adapt to new
working constraints as a result
of lockdown measures.
“This is certainly a before-and-after
moment in the history of the economy
and the digital transformation,” noted
Andrew Filev, a Forbes contributor.
“Even when the COVID-19 outbreak
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DIGITAL STRATEGY
72
is contained, it’s unlikely things will
return to normal. Instead, we’re seeing
the forced acceleration of previously
slow-moving trends that are likely to
shape the future for the long haul.”
Accelerated adoption of digital
trends as a result of COVID-19 include:
TELECOMMUTING
While remote working is not an unfamiliar
concept, a recent survey revealed
that 49% of workers have never worked
from home. As a result, telecommuting
technology has been the most widely
adopted change due to the outbreak
of COVID-19. “Whatever objections
businesses have previously had to
telecommuting, COVID-19 may be
the moment that brings it into the
mainstream and shows leaders that
with the right technology, culture,
and expectations, employees can
be just as productive and effective
from home,” says Filev.
ON-DEMAND FOOD AND SERVICES
With thousands of businesses due
to social distancing guidelines forced
AUGUST 2020

to close, the on-demand economy
has further reinforced its importance
as part of digital transformation. With
the likes of Uber Eats and Just Eat,
digital delivery apps are providing
revenue for those who had to close
their brick and mortar stores.
“If it works for restaurants, we may
see new aggressive adoption of driveup
or on-demand local delivery of
essential goods as a result. Some
businesses might even find this model
provides lower costs, helps manage
inventory, and makes revenue more
predictable,” believes Filev. However,
“communities and surrounding businesses
may need to compensate
for a decrease in foot traffic in certain
anchor locations, and it could also
mean the painful loss of jobs in the
retail and service sector.”
73
FIVE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FACTS
• 70% of companies have
a digital transformation strategy
in place or working on one
• Top industries for digital-first
business strategies include:
services (95%), financial services
(93%) and healthcare (92%)
• Top benefits of digital transformation
include: improved
operational efficiency (40%),
faster time to market (36%)
and the ability to meet
customer expectations (35%)
• 27% of organisations believe
digital transformation is a matter
of survival
• 55% of organisations without
a digital transformation
strategy believe they have
less than a year before they
begin to lose market share
Source: Forbes
businesschief.com

DIGITAL STRATEGY
WHAT DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
MEANS TO
ORGANISATIONS
• 52% believe it enables worker
productivity, via tools such
as artificial intelligent (AI)
assisted processes
74
• 49% believe it has the
ability to better manage
business performance with
data availability
• 46% believe it helps
meet customer experience
expectations
Source: FinancesOnline
VIRTUAL EVENTS
Events is an industry hit particularly
hard due to the impact of COVID-19,
alongside the travel and hospitality
industry that supports it. As a result,
conferences and trade shows have
been cancelled or postponed due
to mitigate the spread of the virus.
However, some of these events are
turning to technology, transforming
their physical event into a virtual one,
something “which in the end may not
just be a 2020 phenomenon but the
new standard for experiences,” highlights
Filev. It is unknown yet as to
whether virtual events will drive business
to the same extent that a
physical one can, “but if they can, their
appeal may be lasting. With lower
costs for attendees and promoters
AUGUST 2020

75
and more flexibility in content formats,
I wouldn’t be surprised to see some
events remain virtual in the future.”
THE CLOUD
The cloud is the driving force that
has allowed organisations to rapidly
adapt their operating models as the
disruption of COVID-19 impacted
their operations. Cloud technology
provides organisations with instant
communication from any location.
Ultimately, “digital transformation
has already saved millions of jobs,
helped slow the spread of the virus,
and allowed businesses to maintain
a level of normalcy amidst a chaotic
situation,” concludes Filev.
businesschief.com

TECHNOLOGY
76
AI:
ENTERPRISE
CHALLENGES &
OPPORTUNITIES
WRITTEN BY MARCUS LAWRENCE
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
77

TECHNOLOGY
AI and machine learning pose
major questions for nations at
all stages of development we
look at some of the challenges
and opportunities AI provides
78
A
rtificial intelligence (AI) has no
universal definition, though its
applications are perhaps its best descriptors.
As computing speed and power rise
while purchasing costs fall, the accelerated
development of AI systems, those capable
of completing actions typically reliant on
human cognition to be accomplished accurately
or at all, shows no signs of slowing
down. Businesses are integrating technologies
capable of automating simple tasks
across their operations, from data collation,
entry and analysis to payroll systems that
can accurately and securely calculate an
employee’s earnings against the myriad
factors that could affect them month
to month. The desire to work smarter
rather than harder, repurposing existing
staff freed from repetitive tasks so
that they can contribute to value-added
activities, is steering global business
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
79

TECHNOLOGY
AI & Manufacturing in Asia — Opportunities,
Challenges and Solutions: Microsoft Asia
CLICK TO WATCH | 3:02
81
“BOTH SKILLED
AND LOW-SKILLED
ROLES ARE UNDER
PRESSURE AS AI’S
CAPABILITIES GROW
AT AN EVER
ACCELERATED RATE”
towards a mindset that, if something
can be automated, it should be.
This is a stance that’s not without
its problems, of course, and in Asia
the challenges of AI adoption are
perhaps more stark than elsewhere.
McKinsey Global Institute’s (MGI)
‘Artificial Intelligence and Southeast
Asia’s Future’ report from 2017 cited
earlier research which found that 50%
of work activities conducted across
the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia
and Indonesia could be automated.
This work, cumulative across the four
businesschief.com

TECHNOLOGY
FACTS
“For their part, most of the companies across ASEAN will need to
make fundamental changes in management culture, including
adopting a data-driven style of decision making, and most
importantly, striking innovative partnerships with specialist firms
to incubate the scarce skill sets needed for AI efforts; a thoughtful
approach to strengthening the data infrastructure is also needed
to prioritise effort and investments”
—
McKinsey Global Insights
82
AUGUST 2020

iggest Southeast Asian (ASEAN)
economies, accounted for around
US$900bn in wages in 2017. On the
one hand, companies across those
four economies could stand to save
almost a collective $1trn by adopting
AI and automating those processes.
On the other, workers across those
companies, industries and economies
may either find themselves reassigned
or made redundant as the
money is invested elsewhere. In developing
economies such as those in
the ASEAN region, the threat to lowskilled
work from AI is compounded
by the nature of those economies:
delivering quality education and inclusion
at all levels is a challenge across
these populations and substantial
swathes of the countries’ poorest
stand to be left behind.
Both skilled and low-skilled roles
are under pressure as AI’s capabilities
grow at an ever accelerated rate.
McKinsey’s 2017 report found that
at least 30% of activities carried
83
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TECHNOLOGY
84
out across 60% of all occupations
could be automated, though it
noted: “Because automation applies
at the task level, AI seems likely to
change more occupations than it
will eliminate outright.” And, while
the aforementioned automation of
around 50% of tasks at a cost saving
of $900bn is staggering to consider,
“this does not mean that companies
will replace workers with machines
overnight just because it is technically
feasible to do so. The pace and extent
of automation will be determined by
how companies view the business
case, weighing considerations such
as the cost of these technology systems,
their ease of use, labour market
dynamics, the value that could be created,
the customer experience, their
own capabilities and regulatory and
social acceptance.”
The latter points made here are
perhaps the most vital impediments
to the potential havoc that AI could
wreak on labour markets ill-prepared
for its introduction: it won’t happen
immediately and there is time to
integrate the technology thoughtfully
across economies. In short, as has
AUGUST 2020

“WHERE AI’S
IMPLEMENTATION
COMES WITH RISKS,
IT ALSO COMES
WITH THE PROMISE
OF BENEFITING
INDIVIDUALS AND
SOCIETIES IN WAYS
BEYOND EFFICIENCY
IN BUSINESS”
85
been typically accomplished during
previous industrial and technological
revolutions, societies, government
spending and education can adapt to
the new normal as productivity rises
and wealth blossoms through gradual
adoption. What sets AI apart from
previous technological overhauls
of working life is its propensity to
extend beyond automation of repeatable,
predictable tasks. Where AI’s
implementation comes with risks, it
also comes with the promise of benefiting
individuals and societies in
ways beyond efficiency in business.
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TECHNOLOGY
86
McKinsey highlights some of the
key areas in its report, with the ability
for machine learning to “enhance
credit models and financial inclusion”,
as well as its applications for
healthcare, having clear and direct
benefits to populations across
developing countries. Preventative
and remote healthcare will be
supercharged by machine learning’s
ability to cross-reference medical
records and observations of physical
changes caught on camera to assess
whether a disease has taken hold
or progressed. Ophthalmic care, for
example, is limited for people in geographically
remote areas by the need
for specialist equipment and limited
availability of doctors specialising in
eyecare. Bangladesh is one example
where a patient may only need to
have photos taken of their eyes and
AUGUST 2020

FACTS
McKinsey highlights five
McKinsey highlights five
elements that must be tackled
elements that must be
for AI adoption within
tackled for AI adoption
enterprises:
within enterprises:
• Clearly defined use cases or
• Clearly defined use cases or
sources of value
sources of value
• Robust data ecosystems
• Robust data ecosystems
•A workforce that is adept at using
•A workforce that is adept at
systems and tools
using systems and tools
• Clear integration with workflows
• Clear integration with
in the core business
workflows in the core business
• An open culture that embraces a
• An open culture that embraces
‘test and learn’ approach
a ‘test and learn’ approach
87
have them uploaded to a machine
learning-enhanced platform for a
diagnosis to be made based on learnings
from other patients. Changes
over time may be minor and difficult
to detect by a human being, but such
signs can be caught and flagged by
the system as new images are supplied.
But, of course, for such ideas
to become reality, “most of the region
will need to build foundational digital
infrastructure and data ecosystems to
realise these types of opportunities,”
McKinsey says.
It is clear that Asia and the
ASEAN region is both replete with
opportunity and risks that must be
addressed when it comes to the
implementation of artificial intelligence
and its technological brethren,
machine learning, deep learning, and
RPA. Governments and enterprises
businesschief.com

TECHNOLOGY
“THE SKILL SETS NEEDED FROM
WORKFORCES WHOSE TRADITIONAL
ROLES HAVE BECOME AUTOMATED
MUST BE DELIVERED BY BOTH
BUSINESSES SEEKING TO UNLOCK
THE POTENTIAL FOR ABSTRACT HUMAN
INPUT AND VALUE-ADD ACTIVITIES”
88
AUGUST 2020

must face down considerable
challenges in order to unlock its
capacity for accelerated efficiency
and economic growth, improved
availability of credit and financial
inclusion, enhancements to healthcare
and more. The skill sets needed
from workforces whose traditional
roles have become automated must
be delivered by both businesses
seeking to unlock the potential for
abstract human input and value-add
activities, and governments who
stand on the verge of enormous
potential for growth and prosperity.
As the dust settles on a global pandemic
that has called computational
power to arms like never before, it
will be interesting to see how the
likes of the Philippines, Thailand,
Malaysia and Indonesia shift to take
advantage of AI.
89
businesschief.com

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
90
AUGUST 2020

DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
IN CORPORATE
FINANCE
91
WRITTEN BY HARRY MENEAR
businesschief.com

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
From AI and RPA
to advanced data analytics,
digital transformation in
the corporate finance sector
is poised to reach maturity
92
There’s no denying it: we’re in the midst of a digital
revolution. From remote telemedicine to blockchain
apps that stop blood diamond smugglers, and artificial
intelligence (AI) that verifies the freshness of
high-grade tuna, nearly every aspect of our lives is
becoming more and more saturated with technology.
Digital transformation is affecting every vertical
in every market across the globe. While some industries
have moved faster than others, each transformation
has followed an inflection point: the
technologies required to power significant transformation
reach a level of maturity and availability that
allows for change. The companies that are able
to embrace these technologies and successfully
use them to drive their operational and digital
transformations will gain a critical advantage over
their peers.
“The technologies needed to reimagine finance
are here and they will only get better,” observes
a recent report by global consultancy and accounting
firm Deloitte. "Plus, we can learn a lot from other
business functions. Modern factories give us a
AUGUST 2020

93
“The technologies needed
to reimagine finance are here
and they will only get better”
—
Deloitte
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“[Automation applications] are
evolving from simple individual task
automation to full process automation
that could improve the accuracy
of financial analysis and forecasts”
—
Gartner
glimpse of what automation can deliver.
Smart contracts show us new ways of
tracking assets. The lessons are out
there. We don’t have to reinvent the
wheel. We can focus instead on adapting
and adopting.”
The report continues, however, to
note that although the technologies
necessary to effect seismic change
across the industry are appearing (typically
in the form of pilot programs and
localised trials) there has yet to be
much evidence of scalable transformational
change. “The roadmaps to that
future are still being drawn.” This month,
Business Chief breaks down three of
the key trends affecting the relationship
between digital transformation and
the finance operation, and looks at how
companies can best adapt and thrive
under these new conditions.
INCREASED AUTOMATION
From manufacturing to supply chain
and logistics operations, automation is
the technological trend that is shaping
up to define the century. In the finance
sector, robotic process automation
(RPA) has the potential to reshape
the role of the finance professional,
as well as dramatically increasingly
the potential for value creation across
entire businesses.
It’s estimated that financial planning
and analysis (FA&P) professionals
spend as much as 80% of their workdays
95
businesschief.com

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
96
on manual data gathering, consolidation,
verification, and formatting, leaving
just 20% for high-level analysis and
strategic planning. Significant RPA
adoption across the industry could
change all that. RPA uses AI to train
software bots to perform increasingly
complex yet repetitive digital tasks,
from processing claims and transactions,
to monitoring compliance and
auditing processes.
This technology is primarily manifesting
through a phenomenon known as
“co-bots”. Rather than removing humans
from the equation, the goal of a co-bot
deployment is not to replace the human
worker, but rather to augment that
worker’s abilities through repetitive
task automation, superior analysis, and
workflow management. For example,
“The modern CFO is evolving from being
a backwards-looking number collector
to a trailblazing strategic leader who uses
data and emerging technologies”
—
Marc Linden,
EVP, GM of Medium Segment
Native Cloud Solutions, Sage
AUGUST 2020

97
process automation is having a significant
impact on invoice management.
According to Manoj Shroff, MD,
Finance and Accounting Business
Process Lead at Accenture, using
AI-powered predictive technology,
finance departments are now able
to know with almost 95% accuracy
when a particular invoice will get paid.
Automation in finance is gaining
a good amount of traction in some of
the more developed markets. In the
US, for example, a report released
in June by ISG found that around 83%
of enterprise finance functions have
deployed RPA in some way, and
around 95% are experimenting with
or have deployed machine learning
businesschief.com

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
98
technologies in their finance and
accounting processes.
Automation in finance has almost
unlimited potential to increase efficiency,
agility and ROI. As the technology
increases in sophistication, its applications
are “evolving from simple individual
task automation to full process automation
that could improve the accuracy of
financial analysis and forecasts,” according
to Gartner’s report on automation in
finance. Gartner also notes, however,
however, that the finance industry still
faces pressure to increase ROI from
automation deployments, adding that
“at the same time finance robotics must
be scaled out of shared services and
into other finance sub-functions such
as procurement and tax".
POWERFUL ANALYTICS
A technological trend that remains
closely linked with the increase in automation
deployments across the sector
is the growth and changing nature of
analytics. The ability for finance departments
to shift their energies away from
back-office reporting, and towards
forecasting and predictive analysis,
has powerful implications for industries
Digital Finance – Finance Transformation
at Deloitte
CLICK TO WATCH | 3:55
AUGUST 2020

like insurance and investment. The
power of data analytics to harness
and draw insights from vast pools of
data (that would simply not be feasible
for humans to manually evaluate) is
a game changer for the industry.
However, the game hasn’t been
changed yet. A report released earlier
this year by FSN, a mere 14% of financial
organisations are successfully harnessing
the large volumes of transaction data
they accumulate. These organisations
are either laden down by too much data,
constrained in accessing their data,
or hindered by the technology they are
using to analyse the data. The stakes
are high, as well; Gartner estimates
that each incorrect decision regarding
finance analytics can cost a business as
much as 1% of its revenue, a figure that
can mount dramatically over the course
of an unsuccessful transformation.
“CFOs must ask what technologies
will enable finance to deliver on-demand
reporting, how should data be governed
as reporting expands to integrate
financial and nonfinancial data,
and what skills finance will need to
deliver insight in an on-demand reporting
environment,” commented Craig
Wilton, Senior Director, Advisory,
Gartner. “Finance must balance the
need for accuracy with the need to
make a huge volume of data available
for decision-making, which is a new
muscle for many finance teams.”
99
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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
THE ERA OF THE DIGITAL CFO
100
As digital transformation touches
every aspect of a business’
organisation, the need for digitally
forward-thinking executives is
extending beyond the CTO, CSO
and other, traditionally techfocused
roles.
A report from January of this year
by Sage found that 98% of CFOs
say their job has significantly
changed in the past five years,
with around 75% claiming that
they now play a critical role in
driving digital transformation
across their organisations.
“The modern CFO is evolving
from being a backwards-looking
number collector to a trailblazing
strategic leader who uses data
and emerging technologies, like
artificial intelligence and predictive
analytics, to create a vision for
the future of their business,” said
Marc Linden, Sage EVP and GM
of Medium Segment Native Cloud
Solutions, in a press release.
“The digitalisation of business
is fundamentally changing the
way finance leaders work and
embracing technological evolution
will separate the leaders from the
laggards in this new era. However,
a lack of cultural readiness in
the office of finance may slow
adoption of new technology and
hinder achieving optimal results
with any digital transformation.”
Simply being a tech-savvy leader
is not enough for the modern
CFO; the most successful
executives in this area need
to be drivers of both cultural
and digital transformation
throughout not only their own
finance departments, but the
entire company. “Company
culture plays a vital role in the
effective integration of any
technology,” cautioned Nancy
Harris, Managing Director, Sage
North America. “As CFOs are
driving digital transformation
forward, they must not overlook
the critical role they play in
ensuring teams have the skills
necessary to optimise these
solutions and allaying any
misperceptions and fears about
AUGUST 2020

101
AI and automation across the
wider organisation.”
However, if the modern CFO
can combine cutting-edge digital
adoption with smart, agile strategic
decision making, while working
to successfully create cultural
change and readiness for Industry
4,0 throughout their organisation,
they can be a formidable agent
of change. “CFOs have access to
the most important data in the
business and the insights pulled
from this data are critical to
driving the company forward,”
commented Marie-Helene Simard-
Brown, CFO, Costa Farms. “Data
such as inventory management,
compliance changes and financial
forecasting must be set up and
gathered properly in order to glean
the right insights and operational
efficiencies. This creates a real
opportunity for CFOs to be
innovation ‘change agents’ in
the digitalisation journey of
the business.”
businesschief.com

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
“Finance must balance the need
for accuracy with the need to make
a huge volume of data available for
decision-making, which is a new muscle
for many finance teams”
—
Craig Wilton,
Senior Director, Advisory, Gartner
102
THE CHANGING ROLE
OF CORPORATE FINANCE
As automation and analytics steadily
take on a more mature role in the operation
of corporate finance divisions,
the roles of those business units, and
the finance professionals working
within them, is set to change dramatically.
This trend can best be described as
an upstream migration. As functions
like budgeting, processing and reporting
begin to approach full automation,
finance professionals will fulfil new
roles for their partners and clients.
According to Deloitte, with digital solutions
compensating fro routine workloads,
finance departments will have
increased opportunities to proactively
create value and direct strategy.
These new roles will include functions
like “scenario planning, advanced
forecasting, and better visualisation.
Teams of business partners will come
together to focus on the most complex
commercial decisions, moving around
the business as needed”.
AUGUST 2020

103
In essence, the digital transformation
of a finance department’s more
mechanical functions will create a
world where the lines between the
finance discipline and other business
functions like leadership, supply chain
and HR are increasingly blurred. This
interdisciplinary world will require
a shift in both attitude and training
focus for these departments, but has
the potential to promote agility and
cross-company communication.
“With operations automated, finance
will double down on business insights
and service,” predicts Deloitte.
“Whether Finance continues to direct
the resources currently under its
control will be dependent on its ability
to add value. That will require quality
insights and exceptional customer
service. Some finance organisations
will evolve into full-fledged business
service centers.”
businesschief.com

TOP 10
104
Most valuable
digital
technology
brands
WRITTEN BY GEORGIA WILSON
Business Chief North America ranks
the region’s top 10 most valuable digital
technology brands
WRITTEN BY WILL GIRLING
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
105

TOP 10
CEO
SAFRA CATZ
1977
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
REDWOOD CITY
CALIFORNIA
Photo © Oracle PR
106
10 Oracle
US$32.2bn
Founded in 1977 by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates, Oracle
began its journey under the name Software Development
Laboratories. Between 1977 and 1982 the company took on one more
name – Relations Software Inc. – before becoming Oracle Corporation
in 1982. In 1986, the company went public and became one of the
largest database management companies the following year in 1987.
Oracle provides multiple industries with products and services that
address a wide variety of aspects in the corporate information
technology environment. Its expertise include cloud infrastructures,
cloud applications, on-premise infrastructure, data clouds and
on-premise applications.
AUGUST 2020

09 General Electric (GE)
US$34.3bn
Founded in 1892, General Electric (GE) has over 125 years of
experience in innovating and pioneering technology. Reflecting on
its heritage, GE highlights four areas where it has led the way for
technological transformation over the years.
• Transportation: “For over a century, GE’s creations have powered
vehicles in the air, at sea, and on land.”
• Power: “GE’s co-founder Thomas Edison created the first electrical
grid in 1882. Ever since, GE has played an integral role in generating
and delivering power.”
• Devices: “Our revolutionary breakthroughs have fundamentally
changed aspects of industry and daily life in manufacturing,
healthcare and materials science discoveries.”
• Environment: “We know that our company’s future success depends
upon our ability to create safer, cleaner, more efficient power,
products, and processes.”
107
CEO
H. LAWRENCE
CULP, JR.
1892
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
BOSTON
MASSACHUSETTS
businesschief.com

TOP 10
CEO
CHUCK ROBBINS
1984
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
SAN JOSE
CALIFORNIA
Photo © Gunawan Kartapranata
109
08 Cisco
US$34.5bn
Since its founding in 1984, Cisco has been striving to “seize
the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things
can happen when you connect the unconnected. An integral part
of our DNA is creating long-lasting customer partnerships,
working together to identify our customers’ needs and provide
solutions that fuel their success.” Cisco works to build
technological bridges to solve business challenges via network,
security, collaboration, internet of things (IoT) data center
and service provider capabilities.
businesschief.com

TOP 10
CEO
ROBERT SWAN
1968
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
SANTA CLARA
CALIFORNIA
110
07 Intel
US$38.8bn
Founded in 1968, Intel strives to shape the future of technology, by
creating “world-changing technology that enriches the lives of every
person on earth.” With the rise of devices, data, artificial intelligence
(AI), 5G and intelligent edge, Intel is focused on “unleashing the
potential of data to unlock Brand value for people, business and
society on a global scale.” Intel strives to “create world-changing
technology that enriches the lives of every person on earth. We believe
technology must constantly evolve to make more things possible and
all things easier, smarter, and more connected than ever before.”
AUGUST 2020

08 AT&T
US$41.3bn
Since 1876, AT&T has been striving to transform the way people live,
work and play. AT&T’s journey started with Alexander Graham Bell’s
telephone. “Since then, our legacy of innovation sparked the invention
of the transistor, as well as the solar cell, the communications satellite
and machine learning.” Throughout its history AT&T has been driving
innovation, but today, the company is striving to shape the future with
“premium content, high-speed networks, direct-to-consumer
relationships and an advanced ad technology platform. AT&T and its
employees are united by a shared desire to inspire progress and
change the world for the better.”
CEO
JOHN STANKEY
1876
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
DALLAS
TEXAS
111
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TOP 10
CEO
MARK ZUCKERBERG
2004
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
MENLO PARK
CALIFORNIA
Photo ©Anthony Quintano
05 Facebook
US$88.9bn
113
Co-founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook is
“committed to building technology that helps people find ways to
be together.” Facebook is built on five core principles: giving
people a voice; building connections and communities; serving
everyone; keeping people safe and protecting privacy; and
prompt economic opportunities. Facebook’s mission is to “give
people the power to build community and bring the world closer
together.” It is a key reason why the company constantly iterates,
solves problems and promotes collaborative working to connect
people all over the world.
businesschief.com

TOP 10
04 Amazon
US$97bn
114
Founded in 1994, Amazon strives to have a positive impact on customers,
employees, small businesses, the economy, and communities. Guided
by its four principles; customer obsession rather than competitor focus;
a passion for invention; commitment to operational excellence; and
long-term thinking, Amazon operates in a variety of sectors including,
ecommerce, logistics, cloud technology and web services. As part of its
commitments, Amazon is striving to make big changes to protect the
planet. Its commitments to the Paris agreement include: 100% net zero
carbon by 2040; 80% renewable energy by 2024; 100% renewable
energy by 2030; and 50% shipments net zero carbon by 2030.
CEO
JEFF BEZOS
1994
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
SEATTLE
WASHINGTON
AUGUST 2020

CEO
ATYA NADELLA
1975
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
REDMOND
WASHINGTON
03 Microsoft
US$125.3bn
115
Since its founding in 1975, Microsoft has been striving to transform
the way that people live, work, play, and connect through technology.
“We are inspired every day by the genuine belief that we can change
the world for the better”, it says. Microsoft’s journey began in
Albuquerque with Bill Gates and Paul Allen developing software for
the Altair 8800, under the name Micro-Soft, for microprocessors and
software. In 1980, Gates and Allen struck a deal with IBM to provide
the operating system for the company’s first personal computer. In 1985,
Microsoft released Windows and by the late 1980s, the company was
one of the world’s largest personal-computer software companies.
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TOP 10
Grow stronger with Google
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:22
118
CEO
SUNDAR PICHAI
1995
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
MOUNTAIN VIEW
CALIFORNIA
AUGUST 2020

02
Google
US$167.7bn
In 1995, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin – at Stanford
University – built a search engine that used links to determine the
importance of individual pages on the World Wide Web, giving it the
name Backrub. Soon after ‘Backrub’ was renamed Google – a play
on the mathematical expression for the number 1 followed by 100
zeros. Today, Google’s mission remains the same as it did in 1995,
“to organise the world’s information and make it universally
accessible and useful.”
119
businesschief.com

TOP 10
ACCENTURE’S TOP FIVE TECH TRENDS IN 2020
• Personalisation
“Redesigning digital experiences with new models that amplify
personal agency, transforming one-way experiences into true
collaborations.”
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and human collaboration
Business operations will be reimagined with human and artificial
intelligence (AI) collaboration. Taking “a new approach that uses
artificial intelligence to bring out the full power of people.”
• Moving away from the beta stage
“Overcome the ‘beta burden’. Addressing the new reality of product
ownership in the era of ‘forever beta.’”
• Moving beyond the walls of the enterprise
“Companies in every industry will unlock new opportunities by
introducing robots to the next frontier: the open world.”
• Innovative DNA
Accenture sees organisations building upon their capabilities and
ecosystem partnerships to assemble a unique innovative DNA.
Source: Accenture
AUGUST 2020

USE CASES OF TRENDING TECHNOLOGY – IOT,
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND BLOCKCHAIN – IN
GLOBAL SECTORS
• Automotive
• Education
IoT: crash avoidance, fleet
management and smart factories.
Artificial intelligence: autonomous
driving, driver assistance and
vehicle-to-vehicle communication.
Blockchain: vehicle title
management, counterfeit detection
and origination identification.
• Manufacturing
IoT: service monitoring,
production monitoring and
product insights. Artificial
intelligence: predictive
maintenance, intelligent
manufacturing and demand
sensing. Blockchain: compliance
management, IP management and
product traceability.
• Communication
IoT: connectivity, delivery and
monetization of iot services and
asset tracking and remote workers.
Artificial intelligence: network
maintenance and troubleshooting,
dynamic resource allocation and
customer experience. Blockchain:
roaming charge settlement, media
and game streaming, and security
and fraud.
IoT: facilities management,
personalized student experience
and student security. Artificial
intelligence: student enrollment,
personalised learning plans and
student success. Blockchain:
student records, digital rights
management and learning
marketplace.
• Finance
IoT: wearable technology,
insurance as a service and trade
finance. Artificial intelligence:
risk management, financial
planning and fraud prevention.
Blockchain: cross border
payment, identity management
and settlement trading.
• Healthcare
IoT: remote patient monitoring,
asset management and
medication adherence. Artificial
intelligence: fraud detection,
pattern based cybersecurity and
virtual nursing assistant.
Blockchain: claims management,
medical traceability and
credential validation.
Source: Oracle
businesschief.com

TOP 10
01
Apple
US$205.5bn
122
Founded in 1976, Apple is a multinational technology company that
designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer
software, and online services. “We’re a diverse collective of thinkers
and doers, continually reimagining what’s possible to help us all
do what we love in new ways. The same innovation that goes into
our products also applies to our practices — strengthening our
commitment to leave the world better than we found it.”Driving
business growth under one common goal – to create the best
customer experience, it explains that, “every new product we invent,
service we create, or store we open is the result of people working
together to make each other’s ideas stronger.”
CEO
TIM COOK
1976
YEAR
FOUNDED
HQ
CUPERTINO
CALIFORNIA
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
123

124
AltaMed’s digital
healthcare
transformation
AUGUST 2020

125
WRITTEN BY
LEILA HAWKINS
PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
businesschief.com

ALTAMED HEALTH SERVICES
Raymond Lowe, Senior
Vice President and Chief
Information Officer at AltaMed
Health Services, discusses
clinical system transformation
and remote working
126
N
on-profit healthcare company AltaMed
Health Services was founded as the
East Los Angeles Barrio Free Clinic in
1969, with a mission to provide healthcare to the
underserved Latino and multi-ethnic population
of east Los Angeles. There was a lack of healthcare
available in this area and today they’re one
of the largest community health centres in the
country, serving nearly 300,000 patients with
more than 1,000,000 visits a year.
AltaMed serves everyone and anyone independent
of their ability to pay or their immigration
status. “We welcome everyone at AltaMed and we
are here to help them with primary care and their
health concerns, providing quality care without
exception” Lowe says. “At our core is social justice.”
Lowe joined AltaMed in January 2018. The
company had been going through a decade of
“explosive growth”, with the number of patients
they serve having increased tenfold.
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
127

ALTAMED HEALTH SERVICES
128
“Through our digital
transformation our
patients will have
access to healthcare
through mobile devices,
when and how they
want it”
—
Raymond Lowe,
Senior Vice President and
Chief Information Officer,
AltaMed Health Services
He launched its digital transformational
journey with a focus on
healthcare’s quadruple aim: improving
quality, improving patient experience,
improving provider satisfaction, and
lowering costs. In order to do this
Lowe set about developing a comprehensive
plan that was rapid, agile
and included input from business
stakeholders in clinical and financial
operation areas. “A DevOps initiative
or technology without operational
buy-in will likely not deliver the right
outcomes,” Lowe says. “I always
keep in mind what the corresponding
workflow is and what the KPIs are that
we need to meet for the organization,
thinking not just in terms of technology,
but from an operational perspective.
“Digital transformation is not easy,”
he adds. “Aligning the organization
requires flawless delivery of operations.
Good IT requires detailed planning and
strong operations to ensure the organization
will be successful. Ultimately,
I think IT needs to run like magic.”
The last two years have certainly
produced many benefits. AltaMed
has hardened core services, particularly
uptime and critical services,
AUGUST 2020

AltaMed Health Services
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:00
129
implementing cyber solutions to
address threats that arise with
increased remote working and telehealth
solutions. The company has
further been able to extend meeting
services so remote workers can collaborate
seamlessly regardless of
location and the number of attendees.
As well as managing televisits
and increased traffic to their patient
portal, they’ve deployed the Epic
electronic medical record system, a
new managed care software solution.
Virtualization has also been a
key element. “We’ve been able to
make our data centre to UTI tier III,
and we’ve added 350 new virtual
machines and 33 hosts in the last
two years within the VMware environment,”
Lowe explains.
To upgrade its network and cybersecurity
AltaMed has relied heavily
upon its partners. Lowe explains that
there was technical debt when he
first joined, and he needed to bring
the corporation to an enterprise class.
“Fortunately I have a good partner
network with Cisco and Presidio,
having worked with them previously
at Dignity Health, and Red8 is an
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ALTAMED HEALTH SERVICES
130
existing partner at AltaMed. We
did a baseline gap analysis to plan
how to correct the environment so
we could be at an enterprise level.
This involved collaborative working
both with my technology team and
my partners, and through that we
developed a remote multi-phase
programme. Ironically, most of it was
actually completed prior to COVID-19.
“The partnership with Cisco and
Presidio allowed AltaMed to transform
the network, switch route,
hyper converged infrastructure and
cybersecurity. My entire digital, video
and telehealth strategy is built upon
this framework and we are able to
work fast - taking the time to lay the
proper foundation allows you to move
fast and perform transformation at
the speed of light. We also entered
into enterprise licensing agreements
in the Collaboration (Webex) and
Cisco’s Security Umbrella.”
A partnership with NetApp and
Red8 allowed AltaMed to simplify data
management and non-disruptively
scale capacity, while cost-effectively
AUGUST 2020

supporting its general-purpose business
applications. Red8 also worked
with Lowe’s team consolidating
fragmented infrastructure, allowing
it to stabilize and grow the core of
its managed care business. They
also assisted in overall design and
deployment of data protection,
retention, and encryption.
“Partners really help to shorten the
time to market. No organization has
all the talent that’s necessary, and
great organizations are built on great
opportunity. I’ve been very fortunate
to have a very strong partner network
that has been an extension
of my team.” Lowe says.
The COVID-19 outbreak has substantially
changed the way the company
works. In keeping with social distancing
guidelines, AltaMed has
expanded video and telephonic
appointment it opened nine outdoor
testing sites including in some places
where there was no power or network
services. “We had to figure out how
to deploy corporate wireless out
into a parking lot to support a clinic,”
Lowe explains. “From an application
and DevOps perspective, in days
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Raymond
Lowe
Title: Senior Vice President / Chief
Information Officer
Company: AltaMed Health Services
Industry: Healthcare
Location: Los Angeles, USA
Ray Lowe serves as the Senior Vice
President / Chief Information Officer
of AltaMed Health Services. Ray
started at AltaMed Health Services in
January of 2018. Ray currently resides
in the Greater Los Angeles Area.
131
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ALTAMED HEALTH SERVICES
132
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
133

ALTAMED HEALTH SERVICES
“Taking the time to lay the
proper foundation allows
you to move fast and
perform transformation
at the speed of light”
134
—
Raymond Lowe,
Senior Vice President and
Chief Information Officer,
AltaMed Health Services
AUGUST 2020

we deployed a brand new build for
COVID-19 to support the testing sites”.
We needed increased infrastructure
uplift for virtual meetings to provide
rich video experience for our
patients, providers and employees.
For social distancing and remote
work we deployed 800 laptops
over a three-week period. Working
with Cisco and Presidio helped us
accelerate the implementation of
a thousand remote workers, which
happened in a matter of days.”
Lowe says this was a real test as to
nimbleness and agility. “Our teams
excelled during this crisis, meeting
the needs of our employees and continuing
to care for the underserved
population of Southern California.”
Looking ahead, he says some
of these changes will remain in place.
“Social distancing is now the norm,
and certain jobs may not return to
the office. From a technical perspective
we need to ensure that we
have a highly reliable network, connected
in a secure manner, allowing
employees to be productive either
on site or remotely.”
“From a patient perspective, many
135
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ALTAMED HEALTH SERVICES
136
people are very concerned about
being in crowds, so we are looking at
shifting the way we provide care with
a much heavier emphasis on video
and telephone services.” We are
deploying patient-centric care with
flexible walls, meaning our patients
won’t have to come to a clinic to see
a provider. They will be able to obtain
care from their location on their
schedule. Also for COVID-19 testing
we are deploying temperature kiosks
that prompt patients and employees
to answer CDC guideline questions
to ensure the safety for everyone.”
AltaMed’s digital journey has already
“A DevOps initiative
or technology without
operational buy-in will
likely not deliver the
right outcomes”
—
Raymond Lowe,
Senior Vice President and
Chief Information Officer,
AltaMed Health Services
seen it expand into these areas and
they are prepared to continue this
digital transformation. For patients
enroute to an appointment, AltaMed
has enabled them to check in to their
appointment on their phone, and wait
in their car until someone is ready
to see them. They will then receive
a text message reminder to let them
know when to enter the medical
building. To improve the quality of
care in the home for chronic disease
AUGUST 2020

1969
Year founded
3,170
Number of
employees
137
management, AltaMed is also working
on remote patient monitoring
for people with chronic diseases, for
instance by sending out glucometers
to track weight and blood pressure
in patients with diabetes, congestive
heart failure, hypertension and
COPD. For moms, it is deploying an
application that will provide education,
tracking and support during their
pregnancy journey.
AltaMed Health Services is an
organization that lives its mission
and values providing healthcare
to the most vulnerable and underserved
communities. “Through our
digital transformation, our patient
will have access to their providers
from their mobile device or home
when and how they want it.”
businesschief.com

138
Data center
sourcing made
simple
WRITTEN BY
JOHN O’HANLON
PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
139

COLOTRAQ
Dany Bouchedid, CEO of
COLOTRAQ, on his vision to
provide colocation, managed
hosting, cloud, network and
data center services globally
140
G
reat businesses often spring from very
small seeds: the seed that grew into
COLOTRAQ was a lecture, one of a
series, from an early .com entrepreneur to a final
year ‘ecommerce’ class at NYU’s Stern School of
Business in 1999. The internet was largely unexplored
territory to the students of management
including Dany Bouchedid, who approached the
entrepreneur at the end of his talk, expressing his
interest and asking him for a tip. After a moment’s
thought, Jeff Bezos (for it was he) answered:
“Infrastructure.” The class hadn’t yet tackled this
subject but Bouchedid was sufficiently interested
to ask his professor for a reading list. “I never looked
back,” he says. After thoroughly acquainting himself
with the data center infrastructure that supports the
expanding internet, he founded COLOTRAQ as a
full-service consultancy to help companies and institutions
source data center colocation.
This proved a winning business model, and today
COLOTRAQ uses a global network of data centers
from over 400 service providers and has helped
more than 10,000 clients, giving them access to
AUGUST 2020

COLOTRAQ Covid Switchover Tech
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:30
141
businesschief.com

COLOTRAQ
142
“When it comes to the
whole as-a-service
concept, where does
the rubber meet the
road? It’s in the data
center”
—
Dany Bouchedid,
CEO, COLOTRAQ
upwards of 3,000 colocation and
managed hosting facilities. Its custombuilt
cloud-based software DCITRAQ
allows them to instantly identify, with
granular detail, the best data center
infrastructure (DCI) to deliver their
business goals. It also lets them compare,
in real time, the technical specs of
the different options facing them.
DCITRAQ was launched five years
ago, and has evolved since then with
new features. It is available to customers,
their consultants or agents
to dynamically compare and source
data center services such as physical
or wholesale colocation, managed
hosting, cloud and cybersecurity,
he explains. “You can have multiple
vendors compete for your business
through DCITRAQ.”
Essentially, DCITRAQ is a reverse
auction model for the data center
industry, costing the client nothing to
gain a transparent view of the physical,
virtualized and hybrid offerings
available from a huge pool of providers.
It gives the client all the information
they need about a provider from their
physical facilities to their software
capabilities and carriers. “The power
AUGUST 2020

COLOTRAQ Main Services Tech
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:29
143
of DCITRAQ lies in 21 years of experience
and thousands of projects. All
this information is collected to an intuitive
dashboard – all your deal history,
communications all fully integrated
with COLOTRAQ’s cloud based enterprise
accounting platform – and that
information is always up to date.”
Though the rise of the internet was
clearly going to drive demand for data
center services and be the basis for his
business expansion plan, Bouchedid
did wonder at first how someone who
seemed no more than a clever online
bookseller should have set such a
store on infrastructure. “It wasn’t till
Amazon launched AWS almost a
decade after Bezos gave that talk that
his master plan became clear: he had
been the retail king but now he was the
infrastructure king!”
When the corporate flight to the
cloud started, Bouchedid heard people
say the colocation business might
suffer as people started to abandon
on-premise solutions and put their
data and their operations in the hands
of AWS, Oracle, Azure and the like.
businesschief.com

COLOTRAQ
144
Far from it, he soon realized: “When
it comes to the whole as-a-service
concept, where does the rubber meet
the road? It’s in the data center!” For
COLOTRAQ, the effect has been that
the lower value, high churn business
did reduce as small business clients
moved to the cloud, but that was good
news. Its biggest market is now among
mid-market to large enterprises as well
as the providers of services over IP, such
as VoIP, UCaaS, IaaS and a host of services
driven by technologies like IoT or
blockchain. Large enterprises do tend to
favor a hybrid approach: good news for
COLOTRAQ, which is uniquely placed to
help them navigate these waters.
For 21 years COLOTRAQ has been
pitching digital transformation, virtualization
and outsourcing. Suddenly the
arrival of a global pandemic has meant
that instead of a phased introduction,
corporations are faced with an
urgent need to move to a distributed
workforce and off-prem systems as
an immediate survival strategy. As an
example, he cites telecoms: “You’d be
surprised at the number of organizations
that still retain PBX systems: we
are seeing an unprecedented take-up
of UCaaS.” For 10 years COLOTRAQ
has maintained its core systems
including its DCITRAQ platform in the
cloud so it experienced no disruption
whatever when lockdown came in.
Many businesses were totally
unprepared for the pandemic. One of
COLOTRAQ’s biggest projects currently
involves digitizing a large law
firm’s entire caseload and building
an enterprise portal enabling them
to virtualize all the complex information
that litigation requires, work on
the case and present it at a Zoom
AUGUST 2020

court session through screen sharing.
“Law is just one vertical that is
still quite archaic in many ways, with
lawyers showing up at court with
piles of papers – that is not much use
at a Zoom meeting. The many firms
who have not done so will be urgently
virtualizing their entire value chain.”
So called ‘traditional’ industries like
law or real-estate may be racing to
catch up, but the need of tech-based
verticals is just as pressing, for slightly
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Dany Bouchedid
Title: CEO
Company: COLOTRAQ
Dany Bouchedid is a relationship-driven entrepreneur, leader and visionary with
a proven track record of success in building, growing and managing multimillion
dollar enterprises. In 1999, he founded and is currently CEO of
COLOTRAQ, a full-service sourcing and consulting firm that helps companies
and institutions source data center colocation, managed hosting, cloud
computing, network infrastructure and other related telecom services in 140
countries. Dany has been published and quoted in various industry publications
and has been a speaker at several industry conferences. He has served on several
boards for both non-profits and corporations. Dany is the founder and president
of The Bouchedid Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable
organization whose mission is to identify and evaluate thousands of
charities and non-profit service organizations and rank them using a
proprietary algorithm to determine which causes to fund directly.
The foundation considers a multitude of variables including the
focus of the charity, the urgency and direness of their cause, and the
level of disenfranchisement and vulnerability of the group
they service. The ultimate goal is to fund the most
immediate and worthwhile causes that are affecting the
most underprivileged and neglected groups.
145
businesschief.com

Data center
and colocation
providers like
Equinix are
investing in
expanding their
footprint to meet
the demands of
their consumers
and changing
technologies.

Equinix and Colotraq:
joint data centre pioneers
Jules Johnston, Vice President, Americas Partner Sales
at data centre company Equinix, discusses the
company’s collaborative approach to interconnection.
Jules Johnston is Vice President, Americas Partner
Sales at data centre company Equinix. Having joined
in early 2016, she has overseen a move to new sales
channels as part of the company’s work. “The team
we’ve put together in the last few years has helped
the company go from what was single digits in terms
of partner-connected selling to something greater than
30% of our bookings globally,” she says. “We’re on a
path and committed to do the majority of our business
with partners, so it’s been very exciting to be part of
that. The team I lead today is the 40-person Americas
partner sales organisation, and our job is to work with
partners so that we can help our field and inside sellers
meet at the customer.”
While Equinix is renowned as a co-location and data
centre organisation, Johnston is clear that the company
takes a broader view. “We really think of ourselves as
an interconnection company and as the global platform
for digital business. So when companies build their
digital infrastructure and platforms within Equinix, what
they’re able to do is dynamically connect to the world’s
largest ecosystem of clouds, data, suppliers and
customers.” Constructing such an ecosystem has
required a significant amount of infrastructure. “Equinix
has invested in over 210 data centres around the world,
or international business exchanges, IBXs, as we call
them. That allows Equinix to be able to meet the needs
of any company today with global aspirations.”
Equinix works closely with colocation broker Colotraq,
with the organisation having been one of Equinix’s
master agents for around five years. “Colotraq is a
fellow pioneer in the data center space,” says Johnston.
“As one of the oldest master agents in telecom, they’ve
intersected with us naturally. Equinix started as a place
for the world’s networks to come together in a neutral
fashion and Colotraq also prides itself on being
network neutral.”
“One of the places that we intersect is in helping
customers in their network optimisation strategies,”
says Johnston. “We have the largest collection of
networks in the world in Equinix data centers, and
Colotraq advises companies on optimising their
network strategies and spend. We’ve had a really
long, productive association given that overlap.”
Incoming trends such as 5G, AI, IoT, blockchain
and more all signal a bright future for Equinix and
its cloud offering, with the company continuing
to prove invaluable for customers even during the
COVID-19 pandemic. “Equinix was able to help
a global financial powerhouse stand up 120,000
employees remotely in three days. In this current
climate, companies have a real need for that.
We’re able to use our digital platform to help
companies make those kinds of moves.”
Learn more
Jules Johnston @ Equinix
The partnership extends far beyond the
surface level, with Colotraq agents and
Equinix solutions architects jointly
meeting with customers to
advise on digital edge
strategy briefings.

COLOTRAQ
148
different reasons. Another big current
project involves a very popular
online gaming company: “They are
expanding their footprint like crazy,
and they need to get to the edge. Edge
computing has been a huge driver: any
business where there’s consumption
of streaming content or which is bandwidth-intensive
like streaming media,
music or online gaming needs to push
its network out to the edge, closer to
its end users and subscribers. That
is good news for colocation because
with edge computing you need to
control the location of your data center
equipment.” The mantra of ubiquity,
where it no longer matters where the
physical equipment is as long as you
have access to your application, does
not work for edge computing architecture
he noted. “Many businesses of this
nature are moving towards hybrid models
now. 20 years ago it was all about
location, then it shifted to the notion of
ubiquity: now we’ve come full circle.”
Blockchain is another major disruptor,
he continued. “You can’t have
your blockchain nodes on a public
cloud platform: the whole point is to
have the controls in place for all the
“It’s vital for any
entrepreneur to make
sure he is not outpaced
by the market he is in”
—
Dany Bouchedid,
CEO, COLOTRAQ
AUGUST 2020

different blockchain nodes, and the
only way to do that is by having racks
in each of your key markets, with georedundancy.”
Edge computing and
blockchain are developments where
a one-size-fits-all approach won’t
answer in the post-Covid world.
Looking ahead the company is
keeping a close eye on the internet of
things (IoT), in particular industrial IoT or
IIoT. “We have seen only the tip of the
iceberg: as manufacturing and logistics
really starts to implement IIoT devices
throughout the supply chain it will create
so much big data, for storage and to
have the computing power at the edge,
to be able to feed back data in real time
to those devices. This will escalate the
demand for colocation, create more
‘sprawl’ and get us closer to the edge,
where customers and subscribers
actually live and work. Many data center
providers to my knowledge are investing
in expanding their footprint.” The
industry has come full circle when even
AWS and VMware have gone physical
for the first time ever with their recently
launched Outposts, an integrated hardware
rack that seamlessly connects to
Amazon’s public cloud.
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COLOTRAQ
150
COLOTRAQ is a company that
thrives on change, and nothing drives
change like a pandemic. Every client he
speaks with is scrutinizing its IT infrastructure
and architecture like never
before, and that presents opportunities
in every aspect of the IT value chain
from their data center infrastructure
to their communications and their networks.
Security is again at the forefront:
“Hackers are having a field day thanks
to the lockdown, where businesses
secured their offices but not their
employees’ home networks, so we are
seeing cybersecurity projects coming
in relating to the post-pandemic world.”
“Over 21 years I have
been blessed by
having rock stars for
my employees and
that makes it really
easy to lead the
company”
—
Dany Bouchedid,
CEO, COLOTRAQ
The terrible economic and human cost
of the crisis will accelerate the pace of
change. Already the data center industry
was predicted to grow at an annual
rate of 25% over the next five years. “It’s
vital for any entrepreneur to make sure
he is not outpaced by the market he is
in. For COLOTRAQ, if we feel we can’t
handle demand at this scale we may
raise a capital growth round and staff
up – it will be a great problem to have!”
It would be nice if the realization
that IT consumes far more energy
AUGUST 2020

COLOTRAQ DCITRAQ Tech
CLICK TO WATCH | 2:19
151
worldwide than any other activity
would drive the greening of the
industry, but in Dany Bouchedid’s
opinion that goal will more probably
be reached though economic pressure.
“All operators are under pressure
from their shareholders to lower their
operating expenditure, and energy is
the biggest part of that. And that OpEx
is passed on to customers. There’s
a direct correlation between better
energy management and competitive
pricing.” All of these metrics are made
visible by DCITRAQ – it’s a good case
where the triple bottom line is driven by
profitability as well as social pressure
to combat climate change.
Meanwhile COLOTRAQ is happy to
share access to its platforms with the
many entrepreneurial players entering
the colocation space, and work with them.
“There will be more than enough space for
everyone, and I see new entrants as coopetition
rather than competition.”
businesschief.com

150
Digital Realty:
the global data
centre ecosystem
platform
WRITTEN
BY
MATT HIGH
PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
151

DIGITAL REALTY
Chris Sharp, CTO at Digital
Realty, on powering data centre
digital transformation with
a global ecosystem platform
152
“
F
orget data lakes, we’re now talking about
some of the largest data oceans ever
created,” says Digital Realty’s Chris Sharp,
discussing the seismic evolution of data – and how
enterprise and hyperscale customers use that data
– towards a series of interconnected global, digital
ecosystems capable of supporting even the most
complex digital transformations.
Digital Realty, at which Sharp holds the role of
Chief Technology Officer, Executive Vice President
and Service Innovation, is a key enabler of those
transformations. The company supports the
global data centre, colocation, and interconnection
strategies of leading organisations worldwide
with a fit for purpose global data centre platform,
PlatformDIGITAL. This comprehensive solution
offers a model built around network, control,
and data hubs, and has been created to enable
the ever-changing data, security, and networking
demands of these global enterprises as they grow.
AUGUST 2020

153
2001
Year founded
$3bn+
Revenue in
US dollars
1,500
Number of
employees
businesschief.com

DIGITAL REALTY
154
“We are really focused on
supporting our customers
in their enterprise journey,
and a crucial aspect of
that is not only focusing
on what they need today,
but what they’ll absolutely
need tomorrow”
—
Chris Sharp,
Chief Technology Officer, Executive Vice
President and Service Innovation
The pace at which the global digital
economy has evolved has changed the
way enterprises in every sector create
and deliver value. Now more than ever
data, technology and an effective IT
strategy are essential to enterprises.
Equally so, is operating on demand,
ubiquitously and in a manner that is
augmented by real-time intelligence
at every point of business globally.
Yet, with that growth comes challenges.
For example, as data creation and
consumption rises, so too does the
need for effective tools, networks and
infrastructures to access and analyse
it. This creates data gravity – a point
that many enterprises reach as they
scale in a digital environment.
THE GLOBAL DATA TRANSFORMATION
Sharp is a seasoned technology leader,
with more than 20 years’ experience
and a proven track record of evolving
businesses to meet the most complex
and demanding technology trends.
From the countless enterprise organisations
that he and Digital Realty work
with, he identifies an overarching trend
driving change: as enterprises scale,
they deploy globally and need access
AUGUST 2020

to their data and public cloud-based
systems in a different way, yet they also
all need help managing the complexity
from this shift. “This is where, in my
experience, Digital Realty is really able
to differentiate itself from others in the
market,” he says. “We are dedicated
to supporting our customers in their
enterprise IT journey and a crucial
aspect of that is not only focusing on
what they need today, but also what
they’ll absolutely need tomorrow.
“It’s essential to recognise that all
enterprises and businesses – not just
the hyperscalers that we deal with – are
often going through significant digital
transformations,” he continues. “Part
of that, in terms of their data, is about
being able to deploy globally consistent
infrastructure to manage efficient
data exchanges, rethink data flows to a
broader set of partners, and build these
ecosystems of community interest.
Providing those organisations with an
innovative and market-leading platform
that’s exactly the same whether they’re
in Silicon Valley, Chicago, London,
Osaka, or any other location worldwide,
allows access to revenue and ecosystems
in a very repeatable fashion.”
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Chris Sharp
Title: Chief Technology Officer,
Executive Vice President and
Service Innovation
Location: Menlo Park, California
Chris has more than 20 years’
experience and a proven track record
of evolving businesses to meet the
most complex and demanding
technology trends. He has a strong
understanding of technology and its
business impact with a deep network
of relationships in the internet,
telecommunications and IT industry.
During his career, Chris has led
acquisition and integration for seven
successful companies since 2003,
valued over $3bn in managed network
services, colocation
and security
services.
155
businesschief.com

Good for Water.
Good for Business.
Ecolab and Nalco Water turn
real-time intelligence into actionable
insights that data centers can use
to optimize costs, maximize uptime
and meet the goal of
net-zero potable water use.
ecolab.com/nalco-water
Ecolab, Nalco Water and the logos are Trademarks of Ecolab USA Inc.
©2020 Ecolab USA Inc. All Rights Reserved 05/20

BUILDING A GLOBAL DATA CENTRE
PLATFORM
This approach, Sharp explains, is the
driver behind PlatformDIGITAL, which
he says is “about being entrenched
in what each customer needs and
truly supporting them on a global
basis. This is what directly drove our
recent announcement of expanding
PlatformDIGITAL with Interxion, adding
more value to our customers and deeper
reach into Europe and beyond. We have
a very different ethos at Digital Realty,
where we want to empower our customers
and be a true open platform.”
That ethos, as Sharp explains, mirrors
the broader evolution of the data centre
sector, as well as how companies –
indeed, all of us – use data. “We’ve
seen a shift wherein customers don’t
want to be siloed into different products
or different services – so, the
differences between collocation and
scale, for example. Typically, particularly
with how rapidly the landscape
is changing, you’ll see customers may
go into collocation and outgrow it very
quickly because the economics and
the sheer infrastructure they need just
can’t be provided through a collocation
model. From our perspective, it’s about
building out a robust platform that can
manage all of those different fields in
a seamless fashion. It’s why you’ll see
us stop talking about collocation and
scale, and just talk about ‘the platform’.
“That shift is really dictating the direction
of PlatformDIGITAL,” he adds. “You
don’t go to Hertz to rent a car for three
years, you know? It’s economics. So, for
us, it’s always about understanding a
customer’s requirements around sizing
157
businesschief.com

DIGITAL REALTY
Digital Realty:
PlatformDIGITAL
CLICK TO WATCH | 0:59
158
so we can work on an environment
that lets them ‘land and expand’. The
other critical challenge enterprises
face today beyond that blended set of
services, is really around what it means
to be open, so that they can get the full
value from the broader landscape that
they need access to.”
The last major challenge in the shift
to a global ecosystem is data gravity,
which Sharp describes as fundamental
to successful enterprise infrastructure.
By 2025, it is estimated that 463 exabytes
of data will be created daily worldwide.
And while that data was typically
created in a centralised place, the
proliferation of digital technologies,
smartphones, cloud, mobile analytics
and more means it is now being
created everywhere. That data must
still be aggregated in order to analyse,
understand, and learn from it.
When it collects, a growing number
of services and applications use it —
against this proliferation of devices,
data gravity interacts. This can result
in data that is near impossible to
move and, according to Digital Realty,
“unfavourable complexity when factoring
business locations, proximity to
AUGUST 2020

users, regulatory constraints, compliance
and data privacy.”
To grow globally, businesses must
use the global open platform approach
offered by Digital Realty to mitigate
the data gravity barriers created by
digital transformation. “Some of the
enterprises we work with aren’t fully
aware of the issue, or that they should
deploy in proximity to where all of this
data is burgeoning or being built, and
this is where PlatformDIGITAL brings
huge value,” Sharp notes. “So, we can
procure a cabinet in close proximity to
a customer’s data – say they are looking
to carry out some data analytics
and want to stand up an AI farm with
several GPU processors, for example –
which is a real game changer for many
of those enterprises we’re working
with. They’re all trying to work with data
analytics, to use multi-hybrid cloud
architectures and our platform does
that — when that data doesn’t have
to travel far because the customer is
immersed right in it, that’s probably
the most optimal architecture that an
enterprise could hope to achieve.” 159
Solve data gravity challenges and
scale digital business by implementing
the PlatformDIGITAL solution model
businesschief.com

DIGITAL REALTY
160
CONTROL, CONNECT, OPTIMISE
There is also a notable trend of enterprises
looking to move away from
running their own data centres and
data locations, Sharp reveals. He
explains that, in this context, solutions
like PlatformDIGITAL enable those
businesses to get ahead of the curve
before their footprint is too difficult to
move, adding that “we can expose the
benefits of having that fit-for-purpose
platform that’s heavily interconnected.
Believe me, I don’t run into any customers
that tell me they want to continue
building their own data centres.”
PlatformDIGITAL allows enterprises
to leverage full interconnection capabilities
across Digital Realty’s global
ecosystem, including cloud service
providers, partners, networks and
customers, that will drive their business.
According to the company, the
core benefits of the platform revolve
around three distinct opportunities: be
in control, be connected, be optimised.
In the case of control, for example,
standardising deployment and operations
on a single platform simplifies
infrastructure and reduces risk, while
the greater connection of a global
AUGUST 2020

“Forget data lakes,
we’re now talking
about some of the
largest data oceans
ever created”
—
Chris Sharp,
Chief Technology Officer, Executive Vice
President and Service Innovation
platform improves business performance
through participation in global
digital ecosystems; it also shortens the
time to connect with markets and other
players in that ecosystem.
The platform tailors infrastructure
deployments and controls matched
to specific business requirements,
irrespective of data centre size, scale,
location configuration, or ecosystem
configurations. In line with the scaling
of modern, digital enterprises, it lets
customers operate deployments as
part of a seamless extension of any
global infrastructure, says the company,
thus enabling global, distributed
workflows at centres of data exchange
to remove data gravity barriers.
CONNECTION AND SX FABRIC
“To embark on a digital transformation,
the first thing an enterprise needs is
storage,” Sharp says. “They need their
own data store, and that’s where the
IP for a lot of our customers comes
from, the ability to have that data store
and run analytics against it. You’re
no longer talking just about owning
land, but the ability to deploy high
power density infrastructure in close
161
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DIGITAL REALTY
162
proximity to that data store once you
factor in things like AI. There’s not an
industry out there today that isn’t looking
to up its data analytics capabilities
and it’s the proximity element that
PlatformDIGITAL enables in a very
efficient way.”
After storage, says Sharp, connectivity
is crucial. It is here that Digital
Realty’s Service Exchange (SX)
Fabric on PlatformDIGITAL proves
crucial. SX Fabric, which is powered
by Megaport’s multi-cloud and ecosystem
connectivity, is an automated
global exchange of data centre cloud
and connectivity solutions that enables
interconnected global workflows, the
integration of cloud and B2B ecosystems
with virtual interconnections,
and the ability to virtually connect
clouds and digital ecosystems both
locally and globally. “It essentially lets
enterprises click and procure,” says
Sharp. “They’re afforded a portal within
which they can pick any one of the
150-plus cloud on-ramps from all of the
top cloud providers globally through
SX - all without ever having to use an
AUGUST 2020

engineer, or even understanding the
level of complexity behind it.
“The work that we collaborated on
with Megaport on SX is really at the
highest level,” he continues. “It’s very
technically challenging to achieve
because it revolves around the hybrid
multi-cloud approach that a lot of
enterprises are taking, wherein they
need to establish a location to stand
up their private infrastructure and then
access multiple public clouds. From our
perspective, it was really about aligning
our enterprise customers in the market
and giving them as open a platform
as possible. We really like to invest
in our partners, not to compete with
them, and have those best-of-breed
relationships that let us deliver the best
capabilities to our customers.”
GLOBAL FOOTPRINT
SX Fabric is just one aspect of the vast
PlatformDIGITAL capability roadmap.
For example, the platform offers coverage
from more than 265 Digital Realty
data centres in 20 countries and 44
metropolitan areas. Connections are
offered through physical and virtual
cross-connects and includes more
than 2,000 ecosystem participants
— the company plans to extend this to
more than 10,000 in the future.
More recently, the business has
completed projects in Frankfurt,
Dublin, and Tokyo, locations that
Sharp describes as “hotbeds for
enterprise customers trying to access
revenue opportunities”. Take the new
Clonshaugh data centre in Dublin,
which forms part of an existing portfolio
in the Irish capital. Ireland’s data
centre economy is growing rapidly having
already contributed 7.13bn euros
163
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DIGITAL REALTY
164
to the nation’s overall economy in the
last decade. Digital Realty has invested
more than 200mn euros in Ireland
to date, with the latest Clonshaugh
development designed to underpin the
importance of data-led technologies
to Dublin’s economy.
The company has also expanded
PlatformDIGITAL in Germany, purchasing
1.35 acres of land in Frankfurt to
address increasing customer demand.
The new campus, purpose built for
those enterprises looking to exploit the
opportunities that PlatformDIGITAL
provides, will add an additional 6MW
of power to the company’s existing
28MW; it offers solutions from Network
Hubs through to Data Hubs.
“With our size and our balance sheet,
there’s rarely an opportunity in the
market that we don’t see,” says Sharp.
“If there’s an asset that will trade or
customer demand around an area
then we’ll spend a lot of time assessing
that prospect. We already have
one of the most robust platforms to
serve Europe with the recent expansion
of the Interxion assets, we’re
constantly watching for opportunities
in the Middle East and we also have an
eye on some of the deeper elements
of the African market. It’s also worth
AUGUST 2020

noting that we’re always looking to go
deeper into existing markets. That’s
particularly the case in terms of new
technologies, such as 5G or edge
computing, both of which will still
need efficient access back to the core
infrastructure we have today.”
Those new technologies aside, Chris
believes that the global ecosystem
model enabled by PlatformDIGITAL
will continue to dominate. “If you
would’ve told me 15 years ago that I’d
still be going to work in a data centre,
I’d have found it hard to believe,” he
states. “But what continues to draw
me in is my passion for those secular
trends we have discussed, as well as
other emerging trends like the personification
of the data centre becoming
a critical asset. Every industry and
every customer out there, regardless
of size, will need to have a fundamental
foundation like PlatformDIGITAL that
allows them to increase in power density,
increase interconnection, increase
in square footage or footprint, and
increase in global presence.”
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166
Interstitial
Systems: flooring
for data centre
efficiency
WRITTEN BY
WILLIAM SMITH
PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
AUGUST 2020

.businesschief.com
167

INTERSTITIAL SYSTEMS
William Collier, owner
of Interstitial Systems,
on what the company’s
electromechanical raised
floor distribution system
offers data centres
168
I
nterstitial Systems is a manufacturer of
multilevel electromechanical raised floor
distribution systems for data centres.
William Collier is the company’s founder and owner,
bringing his extensive 42 years’ of industry experience
to the firm.
Collier emphasises both the simplicity of
Interstitial Systems’ TIER E/A electromechanical
raised floor distribution system offering, and the
enormous impact it can have. “It’s remarkable that
something as simple as dividing the underfloor
horizontally into two levels for wires and air can
have such a huge impact on the way a data centre
is designed, serviced and maintained.” Traditionally,
data centres have been built with conventional
raised flooring or on concrete. “That’s basically
the two options that are available,” says Collier.
“We’re the third option that nobody knows very
much about – what we refer to as an electromechanical
distribution system.”
AUGUST 2020
Pyramid floor structure
design to meet seismic
requirement

Remove unlimited number of floor panels without affecting structural integrity
169
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INTERSTITIAL SYSTEMS
Interstitial Systems:
Ventilation Effectiveness
CLICK TO WATCH | 0:19
170
Compared to conventional flooring,
Interstitial Systems’ approach comes
with a host of benefits for data centres.
“The beautiful part about our system is
you can open up an unlimited number
of floor panels for as long as you want
and never lose air pressure.
This is untrue for a traditional
raised floor. The
opening created when
four floor panels are
removed permits all of
the air produced by a
30 ton air conditioning
unit to escape. So if you open up four
floor panels, all of the cabinets in that
air handling unit’s zone downstream
from the opening are going to be
starved of air. Because of our pressurised
plenum, we’re able to distribute
air over a 200 foot area, meaning
we can push air 200 feet across the
room, whereas a typical raised floor air
conditioning unit can do no more than
30 to 35 feet at best. That allows us
to reconfigure the design of a room to
better optimise the space and improve
efficiency for the user.”
AUGUST 2020
William Collier

“White space
is gold and
cabinets are
diamonds”
—
William Collier,
Owner, Interstitial Systems
171
“It is our belief that in data centres,
white space is gold and cabinets are
diamonds,” says Collier. Accordingly,
the company emphasises achieving
maximum efficiency for its clients,
with clear examples of improvement.
“In a typical room, of around 10,000
square feet, the owner’s plan was to
put in 418 cabinets. With Tier E/A, the
owner could put 512 cabinets in that
room. That’s 22% or so more cabinets
in the same space. Every one of those
cabinets increases revenue. So if I
can put 94 more cabinets in the same
space, I have a compelling story to tell.”
Another crucial element of the data
centre puzzle is uptime, with redundancy
therefore being critical. “What
data centres typically look for is N+1
redundancy. So for every four or five
air handlers, designers add another for
redundancy. But this does not provide
effective redundancy unless the extra
unit is adjacent to the unit that goes
down. We, on the other hand, build a
central mechanical equipment room
and, by providing a mixing box, are
able to provide true N+1 redundancy
businesschief.com

Returning to work with chemical free disinfection.
Staying at work with a UVC air cleansing systems.
Sales And Installation Services
For Interstitial Systems
www.TekLightUVC.com
www.TekCleanUSA.com
770-383-1946
PARTNERS
“One of our methodologies when doing business is that we work
in a very lean and mean way,” says Collier. “We’ve been doing this
for a long time and we’ve always believed in working to the best
optimisation.” Consequently, the organisation chooses its
partners carefully, such as TekClean. “They’re in the data centre
cleaning business down in Atlanta. We teamed up with them
a long time ago thanks to their good reputation. I need a rep that
has responsibility, loyalty, is smart, savvy and just down to earth.
People that make good relationships and want to bring good
things to their customers.”
AUGUST 2020

“We’re the third
option that nobody
knows very much
about – what we
refer to as an
electromechanical
distribution system”
—
William Collier,
Owner, Interstitial Systems
for the entire room with a single extra
air handler. This is because of the Tier
E/A’s pressurised plenum’s superior
air distribution capabilities. We’ve just
planned a project where the original
design called for 32 air conditioning
units. We redesigned the room and did
the same with 26 air conditioning units.
Taking six air conditioning units out of
the equation for around $250,000 a
piece provides huge savings, and also
saves a great deal of energy.”
The company is continuing to
develop its capabilities. “Something
that we did with the trading pits for the
Chicago Mercantile Exchange is build
a terraced, raised floor for control
and command centres. Thanks to our
two-level approach, we can ensure
consistent air distribution in that pressurised
bottom plenum and allow
for the rapid change, relocation and
reconfiguration of power and structured
cabling underneath the floor.”
Achieving high tech solutions doesn’t
itself require anything too revolutionary
for Interstitial Systems, instead it
leverages technology smartly. “We’re
obviously big users of AutoCAD
because we typically receive a set of
plans, where the client says: ‘this is the
direction we’re going in, how would
you optimise the facility using your system?’
Then there’s computational fluid
dynamics analysis - again not a new
technology - but when used correctly it
is a powerful tool to head off any shortcomings
that might occur in a facility.”
Like all businesses worldwide,
Interstitial Systems has not been
unaffected by the ongoing COVID-19
pandemic. ButCollier is an eternal
optimist believing that this challenge
will eventually result in a better world.
“I can’t tell you how many people I’ve
talked to in the last 90 days that have
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INTERSTITIAL SYSTEMS
Generous Cable Cuts
–no need for gaskets
174
“It’s remarkable that
something as simple as
dividing the underfloor
horizontally into two levels
for wires and air can have
such a huge impact”
Power Wiring installed
in Wireway
—
William Collier,
Owner, Interstitial Systems
AUGUST 2020

said: ‘Oh my God, I pick up an extra
three hours a day not having to commute
to the office.’ That’s found time.
That’s family time. That’s quality of lifetime.
That’s exercise time. That’s all
kinds of time that allows people to do
things for themselves. And at the same
time, it’s helping the planet because
we’re not putting out all the emissions
from commuting back and forth.”
As for Interstitial Systems’ future,
Collier is confident it is treading the
right path. “We’re going to keep plowing
ahead, one job at a time. That’s what
we’ve always done and that’s what we’ll
always do. We want to bring the best
value to our customers. Everything’s
about relationships. You build networks,
you find like-minded people. And when
you find the people that appreciate
what you do, you love doing work with
them, you become a team. You become
partners. You even build friendships.
That’s how we like to do business.”
175
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176
AUGUST 2020

177
TRANSFORMING
OPERATIONS
THROUGH
DIGITISATION
WRITTEN BY
SEAN GALEA-PACE
PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
businesschief.com

MCDERMOTT INTERNATIONAL INC
Mark Lowman, Vice President
of Operations at McDermott,
discusses the impact of COVID-19
in the oil and gas industry
178
M
cDermott is a premier, fully-integrated
provider of technology, engineering and
construction solutions to the energy industry.
Operating in over 54 countries, McDermott’s
locally focused and globally integrated resources
include more than 42,000 employees, a diversified
fleet of specialty marine construction vessels and
fabrication facilities worldwide.
Mark Lowman is Vice President of Operations
at McDermott. Having spent his early career as
a Submariner in the Royal Navy, Lowman worked
his way through the ranks to advance to Lieutenant
Commander, before spending a further four years
with the Royal Australian Navy. In 2000, Lowman
left the Navy and joined the oil and gas industry and,
over the next few years, gained experience as a
Project Manager delivering projects in the Subsea,
Offshore and Onshore business segments. In 2012,
he joined McDermott to oversee company fabrication
operations in Asia and to manage the Batam
Fabrication yard. Two years later, he stepped into
his current role as Vice President of Operations
and is now based in Houston, Texas. “I loved my
career with the Royal Navy, but I always knew I was
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
179

—
Makes operations and asset
optimization easier than it looks
ABB Ability Genix Industrial Analytics and AI Suite
In today’s trying times, we need every angle to solve business challenges faster. Analyzing data
can give us an edge. But deciding which data and how is a whole different game. As a leader in
digital technologies that help customers improve operations, we developed the ABB Ability
Genix Industrial Analytics and AI Suite. Genix takes data from distributed control systems and
devices, and combines it with data from information and engineering systems to provide multidimensional
analytics that help you increase production, optimize assets and streamline
business processes. Artificial Intelligence helps you produce predictive and prescriptive actions
to improve. The Genix platform is augmented with easy-to-use applications and supplemented
with expert ABB services to help you find the right solution to solve business challenges faster.
abb.com

ABB: accelerating digitalisation with McDermott
ABB is a leading global engineering company
that energizes the transformation of society
and industry to achieve a more productive,
sustainable future. By connecting software
to its electrification, robotics, automation and
motion portfolio, ABB pushes the boundaries of
technology to drive performance to new levels.
Heather Cykoski is the Group Vice President at ABB.
Having worked for the organisation since 2005 in
several different leadership positions, she has a
comprehensive understanding of the industry and
has observed her organisation’s digital
transformation journey first-hand. “It’s incredibly
interesting to be where we are today. Digitalisation
has been at the core of what we do for many years;
however, the acceleration of implementation today
is truly transformational,” explains Cykoski. “Now
is the time for those who lead in this space to
transform and deliver digital value to both our
own operations and to our customers. Today’s
challenging economy makes this more urgent than
ever. There is so much more to deliver, and we
need to deliver fast.”
Rajesh Ramachandran is the Chief Digital Officer
for ABB’s Industrial Automation business.
He joined ABB in February 2019 and brings over
three decades of experience in technology and
business leadership to ABB, having helped to
transform world-class multinational organisations
such as Oracle, Siemens, PayPal and more.
“Different customers are at different points of
their digital transformation journeys,” says
Ramachandran. “This is even true with the solution
providers as they are learning along with the
customers on what the real value of digital is to
drive business outcomes. In today’s highly
competitive landscape, industries are able to
embrace digital technologies — to address their core
challenges, while striving for operational excellence
and output of the highest quality. Digital
transformation has become a high priority due
to its promise of addressing strategic business
imperatives. Many companies are struggling with
how to leverage this potential. We believe the
industry must adopt a clear roadmap of how to
address digitalisation, from enabling it to
implementing it through focused solutions,
keeping in mind the longer digitalisation journey.
At ABB, we can help our customers effectively with
these challenges.”
“Having established a key, strategic business
relationship with McDermott, Cykoski affirms that
this collaboration is influential to mutual success.
“The partner ecosystem has changed. The
combination of a technology provider like ABB, and
an EPC like McDermott, supporting the end user,
is the trifecta that creates the perfect project,”
says Cykoski. “We know how important an EPC is:
80% of large projects go through an EPC. When
you look at digitalisation and partnerships, what it
truly means is that you trust one another and
collaborate to provide value. McDermott and ABB
both have very similar outlooks and values, and
that is key.”
“With the future in mind, Ramachandran has
a clear idea of what the partnership with
McDermott could hold. “We’re actively working
on how to build solutions together that have a
lifecycle value for customers, from design through
operations through continuous improvement,” he
says. “The trusted relationship that we have with
McDermott is important to ensure projects are
delivered on time at the right cost. There is now a
new normal in the industry following the pandemic.
It’s the right time for partners to come together
and develop, test and implement new technologies
that challenge traditional ways of working. We’re
confident that by working together, we will ensure
safer, smarter and more sustainable operations
across the industry. “It’s a great opportunity to
bring the combined power of domain knowledge
and leading technology to our customers. We’re
confident this joint value proposition will help our
customers succeed today and tomorrow .”
Learn more
ABB Partner Video
Makes operations and asset
optimization easier than it looks
ABB Ability Genix Industrial Analytics and AI Suite
In today’s trying times, we need every angle to solve business challenges faster. Analyzing data
can give us an edge. But deciding which data and how is a whole different game. As a leader in
digital technologies that help customers improve operations, we developed the ABB Ability
Genix Industrial Analytics and AI Suite. Genix takes data from distributed control systems and
devices, and combines it with data from information and engineering systems to provide multidimensional
analytics that help you increase production, optimize assets and streamline
business processes. Artificial Intelligence helps you produce predictive and prescriptive actions
to improve. The Genix platform is augmented with easy-to-use applications and supplemented
with expert ABB services to help you find the right solution to solve business challenges faster.
abb.com

MCDERMOTT INTERNATIONAL INC
182
“MCDERMOTT HAS
CREATED AN
ENVIRONMENT WHERE
EMPLOYEES ARE
ENCOURAGED TO
ENGAGE AND PROMOTE
THEIR IDEAS AND
WE HAVE A MANTRA
TO ‘TAKE THE LEAD”
Mark Lowman,
Vice President of Operations,
McDermott
going to move jobs eventually because
there comes a time when you can no
longer serve at sea,” explains Lowman.
He studied at Deakin University and
was awarded an MBA in Law, Finance,
Human Resources, Economics and
Marketing in 2001. He points to that
experience as vital in providing a network
of like-minded individuals. “That
programme had a big influence on me
as I got introduced to a number of senior
executives from other companies and
those conversations about opportunities
really drove me to switch my career.”
Lowman believes the oil and gas
industry has been slower to adopt new
technology than other industries, but
recognises that digitalisation is beginning
to have a greater influence on
operations. “When I started, digitalisation
was in its infancy in the industry,”
he explains. “McDermott was still working
in the same way it always had with
adequate systems and processes while
not fully understanding the benefits
of digitalisation. We have created our
Digital and Project Innovation Group who
are supported by resources across the
organisation. This allows us to educate
our employees and the leadership as
AUGUST 2020

Ship-to-Ship Motion
Measurement System
CLICK TO WATCH | 2:48
183
we prepare to evolve to a digital culture.
Digital disruption is very likely to upend
the way we operate.” Pointing to his
organisation’s ongoing digital transformation
journey, Lowman acknowledges
that there has been a combination of
small point solutions as well as longer
running programmes. “We’re leveraging
cloud technology in certain areas, such
as our ERP and utilising technology
platforms like PLM from the aerospace
and automotive industries,” he says. “We
have tried to ensure that we don’t have
an ‘only invented here’ mentality and are
always looking to leverage the best that
we can find. Going forward, our focus
is heavily on technologies which help
us improve collaboration, expand our
project predictability through analytics
and automate repetitive activities to free
up our people.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic
impacting businesses across the globe
during the first half of 2020, Lowman
recognises how difficult the challenge
of transforming operations rapidly was.
“There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has
had a significant influence on the way
businesses operate now,” he explains.
“Almost overnight, we had to switch
businesschief.com

MCDERMOTT INTERNATIONAL INC
184
AUGUST 2020

185
“THE KEY IS UNDERSTANDING
THE CUSTOMER’S DRIVERS”
Mark Lowman,
Vice President of Operations,
McDermott
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ServiceNow: driving digitalisation with McDermott
Kevin Galloway, Director of Enterprise
Sales, and Sunny Mahato, Advisory Solution,
Consultant at ServiceNow discusses their firm’s
partnership with McDermott.
ServiceNow is an industry leading SaaS
provider, helping to make the world work
better for people and has a mission to
improve the overall employee experience.
ServiceNow has formed a key, strategic
relationship with McDermott and helps the
organisation with their digital strategy. Kevin
Galloway is a Director of Enterprise Sales at
ServiceNow. Having been with the company
since February 2019, he has operated in the oil
and gas industry over the past decade and
has observed the rise of digital transformation
first-hand. “Before McDermott brought in
ServiceNow, they had a very manual process,”
he explains. “If there was an issue, it would
have to be passed around different employees
until it reached the right person. With
ServiceNow, we automate that process.” Sunny
Mahato is an experienced technology leader
with experience in strategic account software
sales cycles, advanced enterprise software
applications, business process optimisation,
solution development and consultancy. He
believes that ServiceNow’s solution is of
significant value to McDermott as it streamlines
the process considerably. “McDermott doesn’t
have to worry about maintaining or managing
the servers or having people go into the office
to look after it. It’s all driven from the cloud.”
Prior to joining forces with ServiceNow,
McDermott had no way of tracking inventory
or streamlining their HR processes. Galloway
believes that upon the beginning of the
partnership with his organisation, the cost
savings have been considerable. “McDermott
went from 100% manual intervention and
spreadsheets to now running our platform
which they now use as ERP,” he says. “They
track millions of dollars of assets automatically
through our platform and their onboarding
process has transformed from a manual
process to a workflow which streamlines that
process. Sometimes, people don’t realise
ServiceNow
the cost involved with some of these manual
processes and the cost savings are in the
millions.” Mahato affirms the importance
of displaying a compassionate and
understanding approach to customers and
employees alike. “Our mission is all about
showing compassion to not just employees
but also our customers, particularly in the
current challenging environment,” says Mahato.
“We want our employees and customers to
know that we stand with them.”
Looking to the future, Galloway has a clear
idea of the next stage of the partnership
with McDermott. “As we continue to grow our
relationship with McDermott, we want to begin
to leverage AI into our platform and machine
learning to help McDermott further automate
their environment,” explains Galloway.
“The world is going more mobile, particularly
because of COVID-19. Working from home isn’t
going to go away so being a cloud-based
mobile platform provider has become more
important than ever. The ability to connect
mobily and through an automated fashion is
vital.” Mahato adds that he believes in an agile
and lean approach in order to drive success
in the market. “We’re hopeful we can continue
to help McDermott with project management
and introducing greater technology such as AI
and ML,” adds Mahato. “It’s crucial to be as
proactive as possible instead of reactive.”

MCDERMOTT INTERNATIONAL INC
188
from a normal office environment to
virtual working. Travel restrictions meant
that we haven’t been able to visit our
customers face to face and as we’re a
global operation, travel was an essential
element to remain connected. COVID-
19 has forced us to make the switch
to online communications as well as
encouraged us to find innovative ways
of working together.” Lowman recognised
the importance of reassuring
employees while undergoing significant
disruption and change to everyday
operations. “Our employees needed
reassurance,” says Lowman. “We have
fabrication operations where we have
thousands of staff that work in close
proximity to one another and we need
to be able to communicate and reassure
them, while ensuring they understand
the evolution post-COVID-19.” Despite
the unprecedented challenge of the
coronavirus, McDermott managed to
keep all sites fully operational globally.
“From the beginning, our QMW
Fabrication operation on the Qingdao
coast, Shangdong province, Central
China, was able to respond quickly and
AUGUST 2020

EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Mark Lowman
Title: Vice President of Operations
Industry: Oil & Energy
Company: McDermott
Location: Texas, USA
Mark Lowman is an accomplished, highly resourceful Executive Management
professional with a wealth of experience in managing multi-billion dollar
construction projects in the Oil and Gas industry from inception to delivery.
Prior to his career in the oil and gas industry, Mark had a successful naval
career moving from the ranks to Lieutenant Commander.
Mark has been with McDermott International Inc. for seven years in a variety
of roles, including as the Director of Fabrication in Batam, Indonesia, Senior
Director of Commercial Asia Pacific, and Vice President of Project Execution
in both Asia Pacific and in Houston. Prior to McDermott, Mark held
leadership positions at Technip Oceania Pty Ltd. Marks holds a Master of
Business from Deakin University and has degrees in Nuclear Engineering,
Naval Science and Operational Studies, from Britannia Royal Naval College
and Royal Naval College Greenwich.
189
Mark has a proven track record leading global
operations, building business and setting
up operations in new geographical areas and
countries. He is a results-driven business
leader who creates shared vision and leads
from the front, to build, empower and motivate
multi-cultural, cross-functional teams
to achieve goals.
businesschief.com

MCDERMOTT INTERNATIONAL INC
ONE MCDERMOTT WAY
Customers rely on McDermott
to deliver certainty to some
of the most complex projects,
from concept to commissioning.
To help provide consistency
and assurance of delivery,
McDermott has established the
“One McDermott Way” which
means the same vision, values and
processes are always observed.
“This particularly helped when
we combined with CB&I as we
put a huge amount of effort in
working as coming together
as one team,” says Lowman.
“McDermott has created an
environment where employees
are encouraged to engage and
promote their ideas and we have
a mantra to ‘take the lead.’”
190
AUGUST 2020

Our Vision is One
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:53
191
proactively by introducing control and
mitigation measures well in advance
of Government restrictions,” explains
Lowman. “This has also been the case
for all our fabrication yards including
Dubai, Indonesia and Mexico, as well as
our project construction sites in the US
and across the world.” McDermott took
the pandemic seriously from the outset
and quickly established global and local
area Crisis Management Teams. “We
very quickly and efficiently developed
procedures and processes to manage
our response to the pandemic, but more
importantly to keep our employees safe.”
McDermott currently has a backlog
of US$16bn worth of projects to execute
over the next few years. “This is a great
position to be in, particularly at a time
when market conditions are so uncertain,”
affirms Lowman. The projects
in question include BP Cassia – Cassia
C Greenfield and Gulf Coast Joint
Ventures – MEG project. “In terms of BP
Cassia, McDermott is undertaking the
procurement, construction and fabrication
of a 7,250 MT topsides and a 3,400
MT four-legged jacket and piles. That
project is progressing well and our fabrication
yard in Mexico has remained open
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“WHEN I STARTED,
DIGITALISATION WAS
IN ITS INFANCY
IN THE INDUSTRY”
Mark Lowman,
Vice President of Operations,
McDermott
during the pandemic and has responded
with remarkable productivity,” explains
Lowman. “With the MEG project, we’re
fabricating large modules in two of our
global fabrication yards. The first modules
were delivered in early April and they
are now in Texas where the construction
site is putting together and creating the
plant.” Despite the seismic shift in the
scale of projects, Lowman believes the
core foundations remain the same. “The
key is understanding the customer’s
drivers,” explains Lowman. “This will help
execute the project successfully and
provide a level of assurance to the customer.
As a project director, I would want
to build a project management team with
a high-level of experience. With some of
these larger multi-billion dollar projects,
you can’t do it as a one- man band.
You need a series of experienced,
industry professionals whom you can
trust to build the team and empower
them to align to the project goals.”
McDermott places considerable
value on sustainability and has established
several CSR initiatives. McDermott
holds an Annual Batam International
Golf Tournament which has been able
to raise over US$1mn to fund the building
of orphanages in Batam Island in
Indonesia, providing health kits to children,
digging wells for a nearby island
and offering a range of other events.
“We have a series of sustainability goals
that we’ve been developing over time,”
explains Lowman. “We like to engage
with the communities to ensure we
provide the support that is needed and
make sure that McDermott as a business
is conscious of the worldwide effort
to reduce carbon footprint.” Those goals
that Lowman mentioned centre around
developing sustainable solutions that
support energy transition, contributing
to sustainable growth, reducing
operational environmental footprint and
promoting workplace and community
wellbeing. Having previously focused on
193
businesschief.com

MCDERMOTT INTERNATIONAL INC
194
developing natural gas power technology
that produces low cost electricity
while providing zero carbon emissions
with NET Power, Lowman says that
McDermott remains well placed to keep
sustainability at the fore. “Everyone
understands that climate change is an
area that needs to be considered in
planning,” he says. “Clean Fuels and
NET Power have generated interests
and we’re still providing customers with
the opportunity to become engaged.”
Lowman recognises the importance
of partnerships and believes developing
key, strategic business relationships are
vital to success in the oil and gas industry.
“Due to the sheer size of some of the projects,
it means that you have to share the
risk and one partner may have a higher
level of expertise in a particular area
“DIGITAL DISRUPTION
IS VERY LIKELY
TO UPEND THE WAY
WE OPERATE”
Mark Lowman,
Vice President of Operations,
McDermott
than another,” he explains. “However,
by working together, this allows for
more confidence in delivery and we rely
on partners and vendors across the
globe.” Lowman points to McDermott’s
relationship with Baker Hughes and ABB
as particularly important. “We’ve been
working together on Subsea production
solutions in conjunction with Subsea
AUGUST 2020

195
umbilical rises and flow lines (SURF)
and by collaborating we’ve been able
to offer solutions to the market that can
deliver savings to the customer that are
potentially in the millions,” says Lowman.
“ABB is a great supporting company
that provides technical solutions to help
us position ourselves to win work. ABB
offers switchboard equipment for our
Onshore and Offshore business and
is extremely supportive. They’re also
involved in some of our management
discussions with customers in terms of
providing the best lower cost solutions
that the customer is always looking for.
The relationship is really built on aligned
goals and the ability to communicate
and work together effectively.”
businesschief.com

MCDERMOTT INTERNATIONAL INC
Striving to make the world better,
for everyone
To help solve the biggest flow-control challenges, customers worldwide
rely on the product brands, engineering, project management and service
expertise of Flowserve.
We help our customers lower operating costs, optimize performance,
prolong equipment life, mitigate risks and drive higher productivity.

“I BELIEVE WE WILL
EVOLVE AND BECOME
A DIFFERENT KIND
OF COMPANY, BUT WE
WILL ALWAYS BE HERE
TO DELIVER PROJECTS
TO OUR CUSTOMERS”
Mark Lowman,
Vice President of Operations,
McDermott
197
Having been around for almost 100
years, McDermott has significantly
evolved over the years. Following the
merger of McDermott and CB&I in
2018, the organisation has matured
into a company that has a presence
both Onshore and Offshore. “Despite
the challenges, we’ve adjusted and
grown,” affirms Lowman. “We continue
to be a company that prides
itself on technology-led solutions
and we have secured a partnership
with Lummus Technology for the
longer term. This relationship will
enable McDermott to remain at
the forefront of technology and the
ability to continue to offer project
concepts to final delivery to our
customers both upstream and downstream
from Petrochemical and LNG
plants, Storage Tanks and Offshore
and Subsea. I believe we will evolve
and become a different kind of company,
but we will always be here to
deliver projects to our customers.”
businesschief.com

198
eStruxture:
Canada’s
leading data
centre provider
WRITTEN BY
LEILA HAWKINS
PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
199

ESTRUXTURE DATA CENTERS
Todd Coleman, eStruxture’s
President and CEO, explains
how a strategy of staying
local is resulting in more
locations, more capacity
and better connectivity
200
“
W
e believe in staying very local, providing
local knowledge and a local customer
touch,” says Todd Coleman, the founder
of eStruxture Data Centres. “We don’t believe in
being headquartered in different parts of the world
and running the business from afar.” This is a key
aspect of the operations of eStruxture, the data
centre company he established in 2017 in Montreal.
It’s an approach that’s served them well, as in
the three years since then it’s grown to encompass
six facilities in total, each serving specific
requirements.
MTL-1, the flagship site in downtown Montreal,
is housed in the former Montreal Stock Exchange
building. “That is a connectivity and cloud-neutral
hub, with 30,000 square feet and 5 MW of power”
Coleman explains. “We have a lot of customer
ecosystems here that require access to a large
and diverse meet-me-room from a telecom carrier
fibre perspective, but also rely on us to deliver
significant amounts of power density.”
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
201

ESTRUXTURE DATA CENTERS
202
“We’ve not only
survived, we’ve
thrived during
COVID-19”
—
Todd Coleman,
President and CEO, eStruxture
MTL-2 is 7 km away, and is a brand
new, state-of-the-art hyperscale facility
encompassing 190,000 square feet
and 30MW of power, while MTL-3 is
on the south shore of Montreal, and
was the first Uptime certified Tier III
facility in Quebec. “Regardless of the
customers’ needs, we can meet their
requirements,” Todd says. “If they want
to be in the central business district
and have extraordinarily low latency
and access to a diverse group of carriers,
we can offer that in our downtown
facility. If they want the ability to significantly
scale their space and power
requirements at hyperscale economics,
we have that opportunity in MTL-2,
and then all our facilities are directly
connected by our own dedicated,
diverse fibre ring.”
Additionally, there are two sites in
Vancouver, and a facility in Calgary
that the company recently acquired
in August 2019, ensuring eStruxture
has a presence in three of the top
data centre markets in Canada. They
remain focused solely on the Canadian
market. “We believe there is significant
benefit in being focused and knowing
a market, and having your sales
and operations staff based there,”
Coleman says. “Our Calgary employees
are from Calgary and understand
the Calgary market well, same with
Montreal and Vancouver. The people
we hire are industry veterans, and
that resonates with our customers,
they know that they can turn to us as
a trusted advisor.”
AUGUST 2020

eStruxture Data Centres Overview
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:24
203
2017
Year founded
360,000+
Square feet of own built
and operated facilities
65
Number of
employees
Montreal’s data centre market has
grown significantly over the last five years
due to the low cost of power and the
abundance of hydroelectricity. “It took a
large hyperscale cloud provider to come
into the market and really put Montreal
on the map. Our belief from early on was
that the customer power densities were
going to continue to grow, which they
have. When we entered the Canadian
market, it was still fairly nascent and we
had a belief that data would continue to
localise and customers that were largely
present in the US would find their way
north of the border.”
businesschief.com

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in a phased approach — balancing capacity with demand.
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While every precaution has been taken to ensure accuracy and completeness here, Vertiv Group Corp. assumes no responsibility, and
disclaims all liability, for damages resulting from use of this information or for any errors or omissions. Specifications are subject to change at
Vertiv’s sole discretion upon notice.

When Coleman founded eStruxture,
he was still an investor in Cologix, a
data centre company he co-founded
in 2010. While that business focused
on telecoms and interconnection,
with sites within or near large carrier
hotels, the aim with eStruxture was
to develop Tier III, enterprise class
data centres with massively scalable
space and power in major Canadian
markets. Today, its standard offering
allows customers to go to 30 kW per
rack without stranding space requiring
re-engineering of the cooling system,
something Coleman says is practically
unheard of in North America.
eStruxture aims to provide its customers
with the best service at the
best cost. “We work with our manufacturers
to understand what they’re
rolling out and drive them towards better
and more enhanced technologies
at the best cost performance. We’re
about consistency, control and proven
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Todd Coleman
205
Title: President and CEO
Location: Montreal, Quebec
Industry: Information Technology & Services
Todd Coleman is the President and CEO of eStruxture. Todd brings
more than 25 years experience in the IT, data centre and
telecommunications industries. Most recently, Todd was the Chief
Operating Officer and co-founder of Cologix. Todd has also held
several senior positions at Level 3 Communications, a global
telecommunications company, including Senior Vice President
of Data Centres, Senior Vice President of Media Operations
and President of Level 3 Communications Europe.
Todd holds a juris doctorate and a bachelor’s degree
in computer information systems.
businesschief.com

ESTRUXTURE DATA CENTERS
206
AUGUST 2020

207
“I’d say that’s the biggest innovation in
the thought process that we’ve adopted
in the last few years – not viewing our
customers as one-size fits all”
—
Todd Coleman,
President and CEO, eStruxture
businesschief.com

ESTRUXTURE DATA CENTRES
208
quality and stability. Most importantly,
we understand where our customers
are going. I’d say that’s the biggest
evolution in our thought process that
we’ve adopted in the last few years –
not viewing our customers as one-size
fits all. We work to better understand
our customer requirements at the
application level and design our data
centres to ensure maximum flexibility
to meet our customers’ requirements.”
Having strong partnerships with
companies that understand their business
needs is critical for eStruxture to
be a trusted advisor to its customers.
“We often receive zero financial benefit
when we work with customers as a
trusted advisor, but that’s part of our
AUGUST 2020

“The people we hire
are industry veterans,
and that resonates
with our customers”
—
Todd Coleman,
President and CEO, eStruxture
value proposition, to steer and advise
them as to who our partners are and
provide details on their offerings,
so our customers are able to be put
in direct contact as we hand them off
in a very warm and relationship-driven
way. That’s been hugely beneficial to
both our customers and partners alike.”
The company has a number of key
partner relationships, including with
Belden, a provider of network and
connectivity solutions, JAVCO, a
specialist in mission critical design
and engineering, and Vertiv, a mission
critical equipment manufacturer, many
of whom have been key partners since
the company was founded. “These
types of relationships speak volumes
to the partners that we bring in and
in how we value them, because they
enable us to stretch the rubber band
and grow indirectly, bringing people,
resources and technology to bear
to an opportunity that we might not
have had access to otherwise.”
Like so many organisations globally,
eStruxture has been touched by the
COVID-19 pandemic. In the early days
of the outbreak the company took
a step back to reevaluate its position
in terms of investments, customers
and key metrics. “Along the way, we
proved to ourselves that the business
was very resilient in these types of
economic downturns. Frankly, we’ve
not only survived, we’ve thrived during
COVID-19. Our sales funnel has never
been more robust than over the past
few months.”
Understanding that people’s needs
may have changed during COVID-19,
209
businesschief.com

ESTRUXTURE DATA CENTERS
“When we entered the
Canadian market it
was still fairly nascent”
—
Todd Coleman,
President and CEO, eStruxture
Belden Is a
Proud Partner
of eStruxture
Watch how Belden helps
eStruxture manage high ber
density while saving space with
the new DCX Optical Distribution
Frame (ODF) System.
Speak to Sales

211
they’ve offered incentives to customers
who need to quickly migrate
their IT and network infrastructure
or require immediate expansion of
capacity, and to encourage customers
to take advantage of eStruxture’s onsite
technicians to enable customers
to deal with issues remotely, in a bid
to protect both the facilities and the
customers’ and eStruxture’s employees
while the pandemic is ongoing.
Ultimately, to be successful,
Coleman says you need investors
that believe in you, as well as intimate
knowledge of the marketplace. “The
data centre market is a bit of a ‘build
it and they will come’ market, so you
need confidence in how it’s evolving,
and where new markets could turn into
data centre-centric markets that otherwise
weren’t previously. You really
need your finger on the pulse of the
marketplace and their localised nature
to truly understand them.”
businesschief.com

212
Combating
COVID-19
with rapid
digitalisation
WRITTEN BY
GEORGIA WILSON
PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
213

WSIB
Samantha Liscio, Chief
Technology & Innovation
Officer at WSIB, discusses
industry trends, digital
transformation and the
impact of COVID-19
214
W
ithin the insurance industry, Samantha
Liscio, Chief Technology and Innovation
Officer at Workplace Safety and Insurance
Board (WSIB) has seen the sector mirror what the
organisation itself is experiencing internally. “It’s
that customer focus,” says Liscio. “Our customers
want to be able to deal with us anytime, anywhere
and however they want, so we need to ensure that
our products and services support that. This trend
is one of six key drivers for our 2020 IT strategy at
WSIB, to develop new channels and a sustainable
operating model that are digitally focused as well
as digitalising our core services and developing
our work-from-home operations. The other five
elements of our IT strategy include business intelligence
and analytics, cyber and digital security,
modernising applications, providing digital infrastructure
and modernising our operating models,
all with the customer experience in mind.”
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
215

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WSIB
218
“Our customers want
to be able to deal
with us anytime,
anywhere and
however they want,
so we need to ensure
that our products and
services support that”
—
Samantha Liscio,
Chief Technology and Innovation Officer,
Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)
Expanding on the industry trends
emerging within insurance, Liscio
explains that rapid digitalisation is posing
challenges for insurance companies.
“Insurance companies tend to be older
companies that have been around a long
time and have been built on a foundation
of processes developed over decades,
sometimes centuries, which can be
longstanding and hard to change. These
longstanding business models however
do need to change to be flexible and
adaptable if they are to continue to
meet customer expectations.”
AUGUST 2020

Accessing your WSIB data
just got easier
CLICK TO WATCH | 0:50
219
businesschief.com

Leadingthrough
extraordinary
times
Thelast3decadesofTCSCanadahasbeenanepic
journeypartneringwithTopBanks&Insurancerms,
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Corporations,Retailers,Manufacturingrms,Energy-
Resource&Utilitymajors.Wehaveparticipatedin
innovationwithmarqueeacademicinstitutionsand
excitingntechs.Wehavecontinuedtoevolveasa
leadingjobcreatoronITservicesandhavemade
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Thelast3monthssawapronouncedeffectacross
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oftruth,activeemployeeengagement&well-being
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ADAPTABLE
Weareactivelyparticipatingin
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addressingthechanging
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Topivotthischangemanagementandorganizational
WeareprivilegedtobeakeypartnerforWSIB,whohas106years’
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workingremotelywithinrst2weeksoflock-down.Weaccelerated
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registration,administration,andreturn-to-work.
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223
When it comes to its own IT strategy,
Liscio explains that WSIB adopts an
agile approach for rapid innovation
which encompases three key areas
working together to develop a minimum
viable product (MVP). “These key areas
include service design with a human
centered design approach, followed
by product owners identifying friction
points. Finally the DevsOp group takes
a scrum based approach to developing
MVPs to target customer pain points.
With this ‘digital factory’ approach you
can get about 80% of those immediate
needs met within the first MVP. Before,
that would have taken us more than
a year to develop a solution, by gathering
requirements, working on those,
developing, testing, and then putting
into production. With our new approach
we have been able to bring projects
live within three months of starting an
MVP which immediately addresses the
key customer pain points, and provides
a base for opportunities to build additional
functionality incrementally. This
approach has become our foundation
for the future.”
businesschief.com

“There are so many
opportunities for
IoT in the worker’s
compensation
space, especially
as it relates to
health and safety”
—
Samantha Liscio,
Chief Technology and Innovation Officer,
Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)
Many of WSIB’s new digital products
are the outcome of this approach,
which it has engaged with key partners
for its agile-based solution development.
“Within the last few months,
partners such as Wipro and others
have helped us develop a new service
that provides secure digital access to
claims information for injured workers.
TCS – Tata consulting services – is our
strategic partner and have been instrumental
in transforming our end-to-end
quality assurance process with industry
best practices and innovations
in the area of Automation, AI, Cloud
Testing and Test Data Management,
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Samantha
Liscio
As Chief Technology and Innovation
Officer at the Workplace Safety and
Insurance Board, Samantha leads
digital transformation, leveraging
technology to streamline processes
and modernize the business, helping
the WSIB provide responsive services
to customers. Samantha drives IT
service excellence and directs
innovation while ensuring value from
technology investments. Samantha
has over 20 years of experience in IT
leadership roles in eHealth Ontario,
Accenture, and the Ontario Public
Service. Currently Samantha serves
on the Ryerson University IT Business
Management Program Advisory
Council and the Toronto CIO
Governing Body. She is a past board
chair for Cornerstone Family Violence
Prevention and a past board member
of the CIO Association of
Canada and the Institute for
Citizen-Centred Services.
Samantha holds a
Bachelor of Science
(Honours) and a PhD
from Queen’s
University in
Belfast.
225
businesschief.com

WSIB
226
which has meant that we’ve eliminated
95% of the defects from our projects by
implementing the optimized approach
and methodology that TCS has helped
us with. In addition to this we are also
looking into opportunities to harness
RPA, within our operations which
is also something that we are working
on with TCS.”
As part of the company’s digital strategy
to drive digitalisation in the heart
of its operations, Liscio details the
company’s adoption of cloud, internet
of things (IoT) and AI-enabled analytics.
CLOUD
“For the WSIB, cloud is an opportunity
to significantly accelerate the delivery
of value, both to our internal business
and to our end customers. From an IT
perspective, cloud deployments can
help to reduce risk. It’s complicated and
expensive to host, deploy and maintain
software that’s at the core of your business,
and so increasingly big vendors
offer those types of services better
than we can ourselves. They can help
us to use cloud native capabilities and
drive innovations. WSIB’s cloud strategy
focuses on the implementation
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
227

How CGI helped WSIB
transition to a fully remote
workforce
When Ontario Public Health declared a ‘Work From Home’
policy due to COVID-19, the WSIB, like many organizations,
faced an unprecedented challenge: How to quickly transition
to a fully remote workforce while maintaining service levels
for employers, and payment continuity for injured workers.
WSIB engaged CGI to support their transition
to the new working reality by providing tailored
end user computing and service desk solutions.
WSIB and CGI mobilized and united the resources
necessary, including senior management, technology,
and expert personnel. With highly collaborative and
creative thinking, WSIB and CGI were able to overcome
conventional limitations and transition 4,300
WSIB workers and their IT devices into a remote
workforce.
Careful planning and crisis management from the
deployed CGI service teams paid off when each
team readily handled the spike in call volumes and
increased handling times as WSIB workers moved
home. It was imperative that WSIB data remained
secure outside the traditional working environment,
and that end users experienced no service degradation
despite the increased load on technological
infrastructure.
Together, WSIB and CGI rapidly implemented a
range of risk management approaches to preserve
the customer experience of the WSIB workforce.
This included digitizing document handling, remote
desktop re-configuration, creating a new toll-free
helpline, and redeploying a number of support
teams. WSIB and CGI were subsequently able to
guide WSIB workers through the challenges of
setting up their workstations from home while in
parallel CGI quickly configured and issued over a
1,500 new laptops.
In just over 3 weeks, WSIB and CGI demonstrated
resiliency in crisis by transitioning all WSIB workers
to remote work arrangements while maintaining
critical service levels and uninterrupted payments
to injured workers.
“
CGI’s exceptional support enabled the WSIB to maintain critical services to injured
people from distributed locations while transitioning from a traditional bricks and
mortar operation to facilitating employees working from home. I look forward to
continuing this partnership and working collaboratively together.
– Samantha Liscio, WSIB Chief Technology & Innovation Officer
“
ABOUT CGI
Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest IT and business consulting services firms in the world.
Operating across the globe, CGI delivers end-to-end capabilities, from strategic IT and business
consulting to systems integration, managed IT and business process services and intellectual property
solutions, helping clients achieve their goals, including becoming customer-centric digital enterprises.

of a hybrid cloud service model using
both public and private cloud, with
partners such as Microsoft Azure and
IBM. As a result we have a specific
software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution
approach that’s aligned to our application
strategy. We also have database
and integration-as-a-service offerings
and we are introducing other platformas-a-service
capabilities and providing
Windows and Linux virtual machines as
an infrastructure-as-a-service offering.
This is all underpinned by a restructured
network architecture and cloud management
platform.
“When the emergency
was declared in Ontario
in the middle of March,
the WSIB saw its
remote workforce
increase from about
2% to more than 99%
of the workforce in the
space of about 10 days”
—
Samantha Liscio,
Chief Technology and Innovation Officer,
Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)
We’ve been thinking very carefully
about what our infrastructure needs
to look like when it comes to the cloud
and we are now underway with our
key partners.”
INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT)
“With the internet of things (IoT), it’s
an interesting point on our innovation
radar right now. There are so many
opportunities for IoT in the worker’s
compensation space, especially as
it relates to health and safety. So our
innovation lab is exploring things like
connected devices that can detect
fatigue. Devices that can be connected
to the wearer or the dashboard
of a truck — or both – that can detect
if they’re falling asleep and can alert
them. We’re also looking at things like
proper posture and biomechanics
which are especially important in the
construction industry where people are
lifting and bending and moving. Having
those kinds of devices that can be connected
to people or the surroundings
to provide real-time feedback rather
than corrective action after, this is
something really interesting that we are
working on in the lab relating to IoT.”
229
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230
AI ENABLED ANALYTICS
“On the analytics side, being an insurance
organisation, WSIB relies on predictive
analytics for things like risk scoring, case
based reserving, claims segmentation
models, anomaly detection and text mining.
As a result, business intelligence and
analytics is a key pillar for our IT strategy
and we’re investing in the capabilities,
the tools and the backend infrastructure
to be able to make decisions better and
faster. Currently we extricate data from
various data marts to create diagnostic
and predictive models. We’re in the
progress of creating a central data store
and intend to leverage in-database
analytics that will allow us to execute
extensive analytical workloads directly
against our data. That’s going to be really
important to us in increasing our decision
making speed.”
CYBERSECURITY
While innovations are revolutionising
the insurance industry, it is important
to remember that progress comes
with challenges, in particular cybersecurity.
“At WSIB we operate a 24
hours a day, seven days a week, 365
days a year security operation center,”
“Longstanding business
models however,
do need to change
to be flexible and
adaptable if they are
to continue to meet
customer expectations”
—
Samantha Liscio,
Chief Technology and Innovation Officer,
Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)
AUGUST 2020

comments Liscio. “We keep track of
all of the security records we receive,
these are essentially all of the potential
hits on our perimeter from a security
perspective, and between January and
September last year we had more than
85 billion security records. Of those 85
billion we sent 19 billion to our security
information event monitoring system
for a second look to determine if they
are events that need to be monitored,
events that are relevant, events that are
possible threats or events that become
incidents. So in total that 85 billion was
whittled down to roughly 150 incidents
requiring action.” In order to combat
these potential threats, WSIB has a
cybersecurity strategy and strong governance
in place. “We’ve assessed our
main maturity across security and we’ve
taken an inventory of all of our critical
data and assets, so we know where
our crown jewels are and how those
are protected and we’ve applied the
appropriate controls to those protections.
We also conduct regular testing
via the likes of audits and penetration
testing, as well as monthly vulnerability
assessments.” In addition to harnessing
technology to maintain security, WSIB
has also established a breach response,
as well as awareness and training
programs in place, cyber security intelligence
and cyber security insurance.”
THE IMPACT OF COVID-19
“When the emergency was declared
in Ontario in the middle of March,
the WSIB saw its remote workforce
increase from about 2% to more than
99% of the workforce in the space
of a few weeks. With that sudden shift
to over 4,000 employees working
231
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from home, a host of issues can arise,
from inadequate video conferencing
capabilities due to connectivity at
the employee’s homes or additional
challenges in maintaining security
of confidential information outside the
office. But we’ve been able to effectively
direct the company on how best to
work remotely using our virtual private
network which is robust and secure.
We also have multi factor authentication
to ensure secure logins so that
those working from home can connect
to the WSIB systems and our
corporate collaboration tools such as
Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams
and OneDrive, as well as encrypting all
hard drives so that we could protect
and manage data remotely.”
In addition to these changes, Liscio
explains that provisions have also
been made for specific job functions
such as call centers. “You can imagine
that within a large company like WSIB
there is a large call center and our
service reps need to be able to answer
the phone. So even though they’re at
home, they still need to be in that call
233
Your next clearance
will be simple
CLICK TO WATCH | 0:21
businesschief.com

WSIB
234
center environment. To achieve this
we turned the WSIB computers into
soft phones, rolling out on-screen dial
pads to place and control calls from the
desktop. In addition we have deployed
more than 400 mobile devices in
a couple of weeks since the state of
emergency, so that end users working
from home could maintain critical
business services.”
Without the support of its partners,
Liscio emphasises, “would not have
been able to get more than 4,000 people
productively working from home
within a few weeks without the support
of our partners, especially CGI and RCI
Rogers who helped us expedite equipment
provisioning across their supply
chain and provide after-hours support
for our IT and front-line staff.”
While this has been a huge change
for WSIB, Liscio explains that now
they are effectively and productively
work from home, “the new normal
for us will be one where we probably
won’t be returning to our offices in
the same way as we worked before
and things like phones and desktop
computers will be retired and laptops
and cell phones will be the new
standard technology, providing that
kind of flexibility for mobile work. We
are also quickly digitising hard copy
mail and things like access requests.
When our customers ask for access
to their file, we would typically go find
all of the paper, scan all of that paper
and then send them boxes of paper.
With digitised access requests we can
share that information back with them
through encrypted email, making the
need to do these kinds of paper-based
processes again obsolete. In addition
AUGUST 2020

1914
Year founded
$2,165mn
Total comprehensive
income in US dollars (2018)
5,000
Approximate number
of employees
235
we are pivoting to accelerate the delivery
of online services for people with
claims, as well as identify additional
rapid-fire digital transformations and
we have adopted an electronic signature
solution to ensure we can still
procure, approve and authorise things
in a virtual way.
“Looking ahead, I see the key drivers
for change in the InsurTech sector
and for the WSIB being very similar.
Post COVID-19 there will be changes
in the workforce resulting in revenue
changes, premium deferrals, lower
interest rates, volatile investments.
Guided by our digital strategy, the
WSIB will respond by: Creating new
digital channels and digitizing our core
services, fully implementing a sustainable
IT operating model to support
the new digital WSIB and continuing
to support remote and flexible work.”
businesschief.com

236
The intelligent
enterprise driven
by 5G
WRITTEN BY
MATT HIGH
PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
237

SAP SE
Frank Wilde, Vice President
Global Center of Excellence at
SAP, on the power of 5G and
data to enable digital change in
organisations
238
“
W
ith 5G, our business technology platform
and our IoT capabilities, we can
fundamentally change how our customers
operate and go to market, it’s an exciting
prospect and represents a step function change
for enterprises,” says Frank Wilde, Vice President
of the Global Center of Excellence (CoE) at SAP.
Wilde is a seasoned technology leader responsible
for driving innovation with SAP’s customers
using the latest technologies to digitally transform,
create enhanced customer experience as
well as unlock new revenue streams.
Given such an approach, Wilde and his Global
CoE colleagues work closely with customers to use
data and technology effectively, to think outside the
box and to innovate in a customer-centric fashion.
“We help them think differently about SAP, and think
differently about technology,” he explains. “We
take a data-driven approach, in doing so we bring a
team of data scientists and platform architects, and
we help the customer think about their data differently.
It’s like a test-drive - we’re not simply driven
by a particular technology, for example. Rather, we
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
239

SAP SE
240
“It’s a level of intelligence
and responsiveness that
we can bring to life that
we haven’t been able to
do before”
—
Frank Wilde,
Vice President, SAP
show how responsive our platforms
and technologies can be, how rapidly
we can change their business models,
and demonstrate how exciting the
possibilities are. Mentally, we really
change the dynamic.”
Central to this work with customers
is a blue sky approach to innovation
that runs through SAP, and is
a particular passion for Wilde. “It’s
the centerpiece of how we’re able
to instigate change,” he explains.
“Whatever the size of the customer
or the project, we work closely and
collaboratively to drive success. I love
solving problems - we all do - and
working together on the strategy, the
process and technology. An example
is work we recently launched with
Duke University in North Carolina.
They asked for our help to innovate,
and when we sat down together they
were unaware of our offerings and had
little idea we could support data science
and analytics, or that we used a
platform-based approach to support
innovation. And that’s where open
and honest conversations are crucial.
Often, we see that our customers
don’t always know what they need, or
AUGUST 2020

SAP 5G and Edge Services Tech
CLICK TO WATCH | 2:34
241
what is available, so that collaborative
approach we utilise is key.”
Change is an underlying driver of
our CoE’s work, in particular helping
organisations to better understand
technology so as to navigate a successful
digital transformation. “We
now have the ability for business
models on demand to come to life,”
Wilde says. “Look at an Uber or a
Lyft, and you’ll see the shift towards
a platform-based approach opposed
to relying on a dedicated application
or system to influence change. We
base our work around a platform that
- in its most basic form - is like Lego
blocks. We can create new businesses
or concepts in a very short
period of time with predefined and
pre-built services, or microservices.
“The acceleration of moving from
a mainframe environment to being on
the cusp of edge services and edge
computing, makes it exciting when
you can weave together the fabric of a
company in short order,” he continues.
“You just have to look at the Fortune
500 as an example; a third of those
businesses are slated to disappear
from that list in five to seven years
businesschief.com

5G
CONNECTIVITY
L e AD
SPORT TECH
ACCELERATOR
GUIDEWELL
INNOVATION
CENTER
CISCO
SMART &
CONNECTED
CITY
WHIT
SMART
HOME
AUTONOMOUS
SHUTTLES
GIGABIT
FIBER
LAKE NONA
IMPACT
FORUM

AN ecosystem FOR
COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION
Lake Nona is a 17-square-mile community built on the premise that a collaborative effort can spark
profound innovation. Designed and built from scratch, Lake Nona is anchored by clusters of excellence
in wellbeing, sports & performance, education and technology.
This fast-growing, neo-urban environment was created with the building blocks for the future, and is
pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a forward-thinking community. Connectivity, both physical
and digital, is the main engine that powers Lake Nona’s innovation ecosystem and is inspiring
businesses, institutions and individuals to thrive.
From its technologically rich and innovative infrastructure to its globally recognized clusters of excellence,
Lake Nona was created with a foundational strategy that guides not what is needed today, but
what is going to be required decades from now to remain a healthy, vibrant and innovative community.
JUAN SANTOS @ TAVISTOCK
DEVELOPMENT COMPANY

SAP SE
SAP Where to Start Tech
CLICK TO WATCH | 2:49
244
- there’s a rapid escalation of new business
models coming to life enabled by
technology, and it’s really the key trend
that’s dominating right now.”
In terms of technology, Wilde and
SAP drive customers to innovate
and use technology in a customercentric
way. To do this, he explains,
the company leverages its 49 years
of experience. “It lets us look at our
customers through a unique lens,” he
states. “When you marry data management,
analytics, and digital supply
chain services into a holistic platform,
it forms a powerful proposition that
can bring new technologies and business
models to life.” This proposition
is the result of a partnership between
SAP and Verizon that was announced
in October of 2019. The collaboration
sees Verizon’s network and platform
capabilities married with SAP’s software
and services.
Through this work, customers are
able to benefit from new technologies
such as 5G, software-defined networking,
and Verizon’s Intelligent Edge
Network capabilities. The former is an
AUGUST 2020

“With 5G, our business
technology platform and
our IoT capabilities, we
can fundamentally change
how our customers
operate and go to market”
—
Frank Wilde,
Vice President, SAP
exciting proposition for both Wilde and
SAP. SAP launched its 5G Council in
2018, for example, as a cross-industry
collaborative council of SAP customers
to better understand the changes
necessary to adopt 5G.
“5G represents a step function
change in terms of capability, it’s like
jumping from a bicycle to a race car,”
says Wilde. “You’re able to pull together
various aspects - data, AI, machine
learning and edge services - and build
a true hub and platform for innovation.
The 5G Council represents a 5G
245
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Frank Wilde
Title: Vice President Company: SAP SE
Industry: Software Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Frank Wilde leads data and data science innovation
focused on telecom & high tech as a Vice President
for SAP’s Global Center of Excellence. In this role,
Frank’s teams of data scientists and platform
architects spark innovative thinking with SAP’s
customers through a combination of data science
and design thinking.
businesschief.com

Throughout history,
there have always been problems.
No one likes them.
But problems inspire us
to make things better.
Smart loves
problems.
From skills gaps to blackouts,
city traffic to ocean plastic.
They even took us to the moon and back
on a single tank of gas.
Problems actually move the world forward.
And the people who dare to take them on
work with us every step of the way.
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“We can create new
businesses or concepts
in a very short period
of time with predefined
and pre-built services,
or microservices”
—
Frank Wilde,
Vice President, SAP
ecosystem comprising our customers,
partners and companies such as
Verizon and Ericsson, that addresses
new business models and monetisation
strategies. Also, we have worked
closely with Deloitte Consulting LLP to
create 5G ‘playbooks’ that show what
can be brought to life with the power of
5G in specific industries such as retail,
manufacturing and oil & gas.”
The technology may still be in its
relative early stages, but Wilde sees
enormous potential to fundamentally
change how businesses approach
innovation. In particular, he explains,
private deployment of 5G will likely gain
significant traction over the next few
years. “You look at manufacturing, for
example,” Wilde says. “We’ve worked
on an Industry 4.0 approach for several
manufacturers whereby we have created
a 5G environment that can support
innovations like autonomous vehicles,
augmented reality technology that
allows work to be digitally tracked as it
flows through the shop floor, and so on.
“Similarly, there’s huge potential in
the retail sector,” he continues. “For
example, 5G gives us the ability to use
video analytics at scale as well as mixed
reality to scan product contents or
look for drug interactions; you can also
introduce autonomous checkout and
247
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SAP SE
“Where current wireless
networks enable a 2D world,
5G and edge computing
coupled with SAP’s software
platform enable 3D,
immersive experiences for
consumers and employees”
—
Frank Wilde,
Vice President, SAP
248
AUGUST 2020

other innovations. As I said, 5G forms
an entirely new platform upon which we
can adopt these technologies for each
customer and sector across the value
chain. It really is an exciting prospect in
terms of transforming business.”
Where that prospect becomes truly
innovative, relates Wilde, is when 5G
is coupled with edge services. “If I can
have the processing occur on an IoT
sensor or on a vehicle, then I can create
a new experience or service,” he
explains, “which means you remove
any delays, any latency. It’s a level of
intelligence and responsiveness that
we can bring to life that we haven’t been
able to do before. There are productivity
changes there, too - you remove that
complexity from the shop floor and
change the experiences and effectiveness
of workers and you immediately
improve output. You’re going to see
significant change over the next five to
eight years as 5G rolls out, so we are
bullish on our predictions in that regard.”
Of course, many of the approaches
to business and digital strategies have
been disrupted as a result of the COVID-
19 pandemic. While the impact of a shift
to remote working has been felt by many
249
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SAP SE
SAP Centre of Intelligence Tech
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:31
250
“5G represents a stepchange
in terms of
function and capability;
it’s like jumping from a
bicycle to a race car”
—
Frank Wilde,
Vice President, SAP
industries worldwide, from a technology
perspective there is a general sentiment
that such a shift will focus many organisations
on technology adoption.
For Wilde, 5G and its associated
technologies could play a significant role
in a post-COVID environment. “It offers
a significant opportunity, particularly on
the retail side to remove contact or friction
from the experience. So, you could
introduce technology that shows optimised
routes through a store based on
previous shopping trips, or mixed reality
AUGUST 2020

1972
Year founded
$28bn+
Revenue in
US dollars
101,150
Number of
employees
251
technology that lets you identify the
contents of products with an immersive,
3D experience. Upon that is the capability
to build AI and chatbots, or a level of
dynamic content that satisfies consumer
needs without requiring face to face
interaction with a store’s employees.”
While no one is able to fully predict
the ‘new normal’ we face, when it
comes to 5G Wilde feels that SAP is
well placed in rolling out the technology
and working with customers to
remain ahead of the curve. “In the next
36 months you’re going to see a watershed
moment for 5G,” he states. “If I
look to 2021-22, when customers are
able to visualise the proof points we
have put in place and the potential of
edge services, data management and
5G woven together, then I see a strong
case for why they should all have it high
on their agenda ”
businesschief.com

252
WRITTEN BY
WILL GIRLING
PRODUCED BY
ARRON RAMPLING
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
253

NIH STRIDES INITIATIVE
Thomas Shaw, Senior Project
Manager, NIH STRIDES Initiative,
discusses the transformative
ability of cloud and how the
project fosters collaboration
254
I
t was in July 2018 that the first National
Institutes of Health (NIH) Science and
Technology Research Infrastructure for
Discovery, Experimentation and Sustainability
(STRIDES) Initiative was established. Partnering
with Google Cloud and then, two months later,
with Amazon Web Services (AWS), STRIDES was
conceived as a method for the NIH to fully engage
with cloud computing and explore its potential for
collaborative data sharing. Part of the NIH’s wider
strategy for digital transformation (the Strategic
Plan for Data Science), STRIDES has and will
continue to play an integral role in making the
organisation’s biomedical data easier to access,
use and integrate, as well as deliver a more costeffective
form of data management.
Joining as a Senior Project Manager in October
2018, only one month after the AWS partnership,
Thomas Shaw came from a highly experienced
technical background: graduating in 1986 with a
BSc in Computer Science from the University of
North Dakota, Shaw gained experience with the
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
255

Nereus Systems is an integral partner to
the success of the National Institute of
Health’s cloud migration, inclusive of our
award-winning engineering team and
program managers. The National Institute
of Health engaged with Nereus Systems to
provide logistical support as a partner for
their migration of cloud data into the
Google cloud (GCP) as well as providing
project plans, timelines, and timeline
projections on training through both
in-person and remote learning for their
scientist and researcher communities.
LEVERAGE YOUR GOALS

INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY
SOLUTIONS FOR A NEW WORLD
Cloud ATO
Nereus Systems is a next-generation partner and
integrator that works with the nation’s most important
government customers to help them realize their goals
while mitigating their risks. We do this by providing
insight into the threat landscape while also working
to provide XAAS or anything as a service. Our
customers include the Department of Defense,
Intelligence Community, Department of Energy, the
Civilian government, and many of their Subcontractors.
As additional support to our customers, we offer
Agencies the ability to fully automate their Authority
to Operate within multiple cloud environments.
We are able to meet and fully automate all 6 Steps of
the National Institute of Standards and Technologies
Risk Management Framework (NIST RMF) while
maintaining the continuous monitoring of step 6.
AI/ML
As we continue to innovate with our customers and
partners, Nereus Systems is investing heavily in AI/ML
in real-world applications to be able to utilize the
benefits of these developing technologies while being
realistic around their limitations. There will never be
a Silver Bullet to any problem set, but there are ways
in which a holistic approach to IT and Cyber will utilize
the best out of leading-edge systems. Deception,
lateral spread, and time to remediation through log
correlation are areas that we continue to focus on,
and provide real value to our customers while being
conscious of their IT budgets. Our eyes are on the
horizon, and we continually look for innovative
partners and solutions so that we can advise and
consult as opposed to being “a partner” that bothers
their clients.
Cyber Security and NIST
We understand that any customer moving into a cloud
environment is looking to be able to leverage a multicloud
environment for both cost savings as well as the
ability to utilize the technical advantages of their
prospective cloud providers. But to be truly efficient in
the use of cloud and next-generation tools a customer
must have confidence in their security and their own
compliance posture. At Nereus, we take both of these
as the backbone of our mission with our customers.
We continually innovate with our vendor partner
community to bring leading-edge security technology
to meet the ever-changing landscape. We also overlay
this with our NIST 800-171 compliance services that
bring our subcontractor community up to the
necessary DoD standards required to be able to
continue to support their customers. We do this by
Nereus
Innovative Cloud Navigation
utilizing the best and most efficient tool sets available
to assist in remediation as well as supporting you with
your compliance needs. Our goal here is to bring you
up to speed as quickly and as painlessly as possible
so that you are able to focus on your mission objective
and not your compliance posture.
I own a small aerospace engineering services business, and
Nereus has been invaluable for helping us get our arms
around how to secure and maintain our IT environment.
Before engaging with them, I really didn’t have a clear path
for how to successfully verify and maintain compliance to
the NIST SP 800-171 requirements. The deep bench of
experience that Nereus was able to assemble for me,
between their in-house employees and the personnel at
their partner network of companies, was impressive and
ensured that my system was in good hands. The team
members were able to provide us a solid System Security
Plan (SSP) update, Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
manual, and a vulnerability assessment that identified a
number of areas for improvement followed by an easy-tofollow
guide for shoring up these vulnerabilities. Nereus
was able to provide this much-needed service for us at a
price point that was far better than anything else I could
find - anywhere (and I’d been very thorough in my searches
in the year leading up to our engagement with Nereus).
They have taken a huge weight and worry off of my
shoulders, and I’m very happy that I’ve found the
to work within securing my company’s systems.
Tim Read, CEO T4 Engineering
We take great pride in the clients that we service
and adopt their missions as our own. Our collective
backgrounds, histories, and work ethic speak for
themselves and we hope we can leverage that
for your goals.

NIH STRIDES INITIATIVE
258
“When it comes
to healthcare in
the US, I’m always
curious about how
we can advance”
—
Thomas Shaw,
Senior Project Manager,
STRIDES Initiative
American Red Cross, the National
Center for Biotechnology Information
and even NASA. His career has been
an intermingling of technology and
healthcare, but this is no coincidence:
Shaw claims that the challenges of the
former and the inherent significance
of the latter made it an ideal combination.
“What’s most important to me is
‘what am I doing? What’s the project in
mind?’” he explains. “When it comes to
healthcare in the US, I’m always curious
about how we can advance.”
Recognising the NIH as an organisation
devoted to positive change and
making a difference in people’s lives,
Shaw became the first project manager
brought onboard for the STRIDES
Initiative and appreciated the team’s
open workplace culture: “You can go to
anybody and ask for help and people
will, regardless of what the issue is,”
he says. “At the same time, all of the
cloud service providers we are working
with display an identical attitude and
commitment: It’s not ‘we can’t do this’,
rather ‘how can we do this?’ and that’s
a wonderful environment to be in.” This
aspect has proven particularly crucial
because of STRIDES’ sheer scope:
AUGUST 2020

Next Generation Biomedical
Research using AWS
CLICK TO WATCH | 53:13
259
integrating data from across 2,700
NIH-funded Institutes and organisations
comprising research on topics
ranging from tooth decay to vaccines),
the amount of information necessary to
carry out the project is truly immense.
Offering support services to assist
in the utilisation of cloud resources, the
STRIDES Initiative covers consultation,
structured coordination between
the STRIDES team and the recipient’s
project or programme, a flexible project
billing setup regardless of how the
research is NIH-funded, cloud training
(both in-person and online resources)
and a variety of reports. Regarding
the latter, these can take the form of
monthly spend reports, supplementary
information and account monitoring
which will send timely alerts to possible
over-spending.
The fundamentals of the Initiative
rest on three pillars: access, collaboration
and innovation. However, large
volumes of data require a simplified,
integrated, easy-to-access platform
in order to be readily accessible and
cloud computing was the vital ingredient
which pulled STRIDES together.
According to Shaw, the move to cloud
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was “a big step forward” in the sense
that it liberated the sharing of information
whilst simultaneously maintaining
granular control over it. Making the
information accessible to research
staff without the need to download
it mitigated the need for substantial
investment in servers to house the
NIH’s collective data, thus saving costs
significantly. Indeed, Shaw states that,
without cloud, such a monumental
task might have been too expensive
to execute. “There have been prior
attempts to do what we’re achieving
with STRIDES, but, at that time, some
of the technology just wasn’t there for
it.” Now that communicating between
teams is easier than ever before, a
digital, cloud-powered NIH community
can explore each others’ work in new
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Thomas Shaw
261
Title: Senior Project Manager
Location: Burke, Virginia
Thomas Shaw is a Senior Project Manager on the NIH STRIDES Initiative.
He received a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of
North Dakota and a minor in Mathematics. Along with the over 20 years at
NIH, he has been the Director of Test Engineering and Configuration
Management at the American Red Cross and worked in many
different industry sectors including Secure Communications,
Industrial Automation and Medical Devices. He brings his
wealth of knowledge from these different arenas to the
forefront to foster highly functioning teams and is valued
for his ability to think outside the box to apply concepts
and ideas to solve complex problems in unconventional
ways. By seeing the big picture while being able to focus
on the details helps mitigate many risks by
addressing them ahead of time.
businesschief.com

NIH STRIDES INITIATIVE
262
and interesting ways. “We have an ecosystem
where people with access are
collaborating which will lead to innovation.
I think it’s really going to excite
people,” adds Shaw.
STRIDES’ ability to remove or lower
barriers to seamless collaboration and
data sharing is what Shaw calls “the
golden ticket” for working in cloud
space. “At this time, incurring egress
is the only way to move data from
one CSP (cloud service provider) to
another. Resolving the barriers of
CSP data-sharing will take research
to the next level,” he says. Shaw even
postulates that a future pandemic on
the scale of COVID-19 could be dealt
with more effectively within a mature
STRIDES ecosystem. The ability to
get quick access to cloud resources,
NIH-funded datasets and the ability
to work closely with fellow researchers
would be highly advantageous
in the fight against a new virus. “No
longer will that vital research remain
only in the domain of major universities
or organisations,” he continues.
“Instead the playing field will shift to a
more level place for research: large
funded institutes, researchers at
AUGUST 2020

underserved organisations, post-docs,
doctoral candidates and even retired
researchers with inspired insights
could contribute towards a solution.”
Although there is no way to predict
when a similar pandemic might occur
again, one thing appears certain: the
power of cloud as a binding agent for
coordinating a response will form the
basis of any effective plan.
The liberating potential of digital
transformation is exemplified by NIH’s
decision to pursue the STRIDES
Initiative, something Shaw claims was
the result of upper management’s
realisation that its legacy systems
would no longer be functional in the
modern digital era. Whilst 10 years ago
the Initiative’s aims would have been
difficult to execute, modern technology
has accelerated capacity beyond
imagining. “You would not have been
able to move 20 petabytes of data up
into the cloud in less than a year previously;
it would have probably taken a
couple of years at best,” he explains.
Such dynamic leaps make the team’s
open style of workplace culture even
more valuable, as their expertise and
receptiveness make them ideal for
263
businesschief.com

guiding others through the change.
Taking the time and effort to organise
training for NIH staff is something
Shaw takes pride in, particularly for
those who do not properly understand
the cloud. As such, he considers
STRIDES to be merely the latest iteration
of a project which will continue to
improve over the years: “The goal is to
maintain STRIDES and allow it to continue
in one form or another.”
Navigating the future successfully
will depend on partners as forwardthinking
as NIH itself. Key areas of
focus include data protection and
monitoring software for multi-cloud
data centres and providing STRIDES
with an effective and simplified method
for eliminating IT issues before they
become problematic. From infrastructure
assessments, security reviews,
access management, training and
many other services, STRIDES needs
collaborators who are as intrepid and
inspired to expand the frontiers of biomedical
research as it is. Successful
partners will be those companies that
are agile, free flowing and committed to
265
NIH STRIDES Cloud overview:
Key Concepts
CLICK TO WATCH | 11:10
businesschief.com

NIH STRIDES INITIATIVE
PARTNERSHIPS
266
The STRIDES Initiative’s first
partnership was with Google
Cloud in July 2018. Joe Corkery,
MD, Director of Product,
Healthcare and Life Sciences
at Google Cloud, said, “We’re
committed to working with the
NIH to create the best
environment possible for
biomedical research to flourish
across the country and across
the globe. Together, we’re
eliminating barriers to
accessing and making meaning
from the most important
datasets: the ones that have the
potential to advance science
and human health.”
Andrea T. Norris, CIO at NIH,
added: “By launching STRIDES,
we clearly show our strong
commitment to putting the most
advanced cloud computing tools
in the hands of scientists.
Beyond our partnership with
Google Cloud, we will seek to
add more industry partners to
assure that NIH continues to be
well poised to support the
future of biomedical research.”
Furthermore, “teaming with
AWS will give NIH researchers
powerful cloud-based resources
to more efficiently collaborate
and analyze data,” added Norris.
“AWS’s long standing leadership
in the cloud space will help
bolster the innovative research
being conducted through
NIH support.”
“We’re committed to providing
those researchers participating
in the STRIDES Initiative with
access to high-value NIH
datasets, enabling them to
further their research to study,
treat, and prevent the most
devastating diseases,” said
Teresa Carlson, VP at AWS.
AUGUST 2020

“The goal is to
maintain STRIDES
and allow it to
continue in one
form or another”
—
Thomas Shaw,
Senior Project Manager,
STRIDES Initiative
the STRIDES Initiative’s mission, whilst
also bringing cutting edge biomedical
information solutions to the cloud
space for NIH-funded research.
Looking ahead to the end of 2020
and the short-term future of STRIDES,
Shaw is optimistic that over 100 NIHfunded
institutions will have signed
up and enrolled in the Initiative, citing
a substantial uptick in the usage of
cloud resources since the beginning
of spring. The reason, he presumes,
is the exponential growth of data
being generated by facilities within
the NIH ecosystem: “The amount of
data has quadrupled in the past year
as interest has increased. I don’t see
much changing as far as our cloud is
concerned, apart from an increase in
usage as more and more people use
it.” Shaw intimates that the ‘new normal’,
or the revised attitudes to work in
the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,
could mean that STRIDES has come
along at the perfect time. With remote
working and a focus on the practical
convenience of digital, organisations
have awoken to the benefits of operating
in a cloud-based system. Now
that the collaborative ecosystem, of
which STRIDES anticipated, is starting
to become essential to the future of
research, Shaw adds that his team’s
mission will be to optimise and make it
as affordable as possible. “I think, if we
develop a superior model, other universities
will pick up on the idea and buy
into the STRIDES programme. Then,
down the road at some point, maybe
even corporations will do the same.”
267
businesschief.com

268
AUGUST 2020

SMC Corp of
America: delivering
competitivity
through IT
269
WRITTEN BY
MARCUS LAWRENCE
PRODUCED BY
MIKE SADR
businesschief.com

SMC CORPORATION OF AMERICA
Michael Loggins, Global VP of IT
at SMC of America, discusses the
strategic and technological shifts
driving the pneumatics leaders’
performance
270
S
MC, founded in Japan as Sintered
Metal Corporation in 1959, is one of the
world’s foremost pneumatic technology
developers and manufacturers with operations
in 81 countries. In 1972, the SMC Corporation
of America subsidiary was founded on the basis
of providing local delivery and strategy for the
American market, with that expertise yielding
a considerable degree of autonomy as the business
grew over the following decades. In recent
years and owing to shifts in customers’ technological
capabilities and expectations, that localised
strategy has changed.
“Every subsidiary was focused almost solely
on the customer base within their country,” says
Michael Loggins, Global Vice President of IT at
SMC USA. “Over the last several years, more and
more companies have become unbound by geography
- they work and get things done wherever
they need to. We’ve created programmes to deal
with the largest of those companies that have
become global in nature to understand how
we can be a better seller to them, to coordinate
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com

SMC CORPORATION OF AMERICA
272
“We want to make sure we continue to understand
our local market, but our customers are expecting
us to be and act like a global company”
—
Michael Loggins,
Global Vice President, IT,
SMC Corporation of America
our efforts from a manufacturing
standpoint and so on.”
These moves towards supporting
global customers were only the
beginning of a considerable shift in
the way SMC operates. “Those major,
globalised companies represent a
small fraction of our customer base.
We want to make sure we continue
to understand our local market, but
our customers are expecting us to
be and act like a global company so
we’ve been trying to figure out the
best way to do that. With changes
made over the last year, we’re ready
to pivot into fully becoming a globally
operating company.”
Recirculating chillers and heat exchangers
are installed to provide thermal stability for
applications in industrial and applied sciences
from laser cutting, welding, marking and plastic
injection molding. Lab science and analytical
equipment applications include:
mass spectrometry, gas chromatography,
MRIs, CT scanners, radiation therapy machines
and other medical equipment
AUGUST 2020

SMC Corporation Overview
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:58
273
Loggins joined the firm in 2006
as Manager of IT Operations and
progressed through a handful of
roles within the organisation before
becoming Global VP of IT in December
2019. The newly-created position is
an expansion of his recent role as
Director of IT from 2012 to 2019 which
was overlapped by an additional position
as European Director of IT from
2017 to 2019. With this experience and
understanding of IT that transcends
borders and SMC’s traditional model,
Loggins’ leadership is well placed
to ensure the necessary shifts from
an IT perspective will be thorough,
considered, and effective. The crux
of his projects and strategies, he
says, is to use IT as the differentiator
that supports SMC’s strategic
competitiveness.
“The responsibility we’ve taken
in IT is to build the infrastructure on
technological, operational, staff, policy
and procedural levels; whatever it
takes from an IT standpoint to ensure
we can share data and work with each
other geographic boundaries in a
productive manner,” he explains.
“We want to make sure that we’re not
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SMC CORPORATION OF AMERICA
276
The CQ2 compact cylinder is the world’s bestselling pneumatic cylinder and is supported globally.
The CQ2 is available in 15 bore sizes from 12mm to 200mm. It comes standard with male or female
piston rod threads. 42 standard options make it one of the most versatile cylinder series on the market.
For mounting flexibility, it is possible to mount auto switches on any of the 4 surfaces
a global company as a facade, but that
we actually operate as one in front of
our customers and other subsidiaries
whilst enabling SMC to maintain its
status as the world leader in pneumatic
manufacturing components.”
Loggins highlights the infusion
of tech capabilities with sales and
marketing, the use of authentically
produced YouTube videos showcasing
the firm’s offering, and the need to
react to the growing scope of smart
technologies such as IoT, automation,
and the data streams that tie operations
together as other major triggers
for the transformation. “Our customers
are changing,” Loggins notes.
“You’re not just solving a mechanical
problem any more, you’re also solving
a data problem, a connectivity problem,
a whole range of technological variables.”
Throughout the transformation,
SMC has ensured that its product
delivery meets the full suite of these
AUGUST 2020

“The cool thing,
especially from an agile
cultural standpoint, is
that we’re not leading
RPA’s implementation,
the other areas of the
business are guiding it”
—
Michael Loggins,
Global Vice President, IT,
SMC Corporation of America
needs, maximising value to customers
by providing a single source of
solutions that operate as moving parts
of SMC’s product ecosystem, cutting
the need for multiple vendors exerting
influence on process success.
Enacting change began with assessing
and understanding value at a
cultural level, guided by the need from
a company standpoint for IT to add
value both internally and externally.
“One of the hardest questions from
a cultural standpoint has been: how do
you determine value without inherent,
277
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Michael Loggins
Title: Global Vice President of Information Technology
Industry: Industrial Automation Location: Indiana
Michael Loggins is the Global Vice President of
IT at SMC Corporation of America. Having joined
in 2006 as a Manager of IT before rising to the
Director of IT position in 2012. In 2017, this
position was coupled with an additional role
as European Director of IT, with both
concluding in 2019 so he could assume
his new and current position.
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MOSERIT.COM
CONCENTRATED ON TECNOLOGY
FOCUSED
ON RESULTS
LEARN MORE
quantifiable indicators of this given to
us for specific projects? How do you
deliver against that value? We’re not
picking tasks apart or doing large, epic,
seemingly endless projects. We’re
trying to break that down and ensure
value at the point of delivery.”
Loggins says that implementing
KPIs to measure deliverable value is
a key project and a considerable challenge,
particularly as the traditionally
structured and mechanically-minded
organisation has operated for many
years on the basis of metrics relative
to those qualities. The introduction of
1972
Year founded
1,160
Number of
employees
new metrics, he says, can be a point
of friction, but they are essential to
effectively communicating the value
that SMC delivers. “Uptime, delivery
and lead-times have always been
captured but have not previously been
AUGUST 2020

How does the SIF-400, the training system
for Industry 4.0, work?
CLICK TO WATCH | 4:18
279
viewed through the lens of what they
mean to the culture or to the value
we provide.”
From a technological standpoint,
Loggins notes automation as one of
the key and recent elements of the
transformation. “SMC’s bread and
butter is making components that
allow other manufacturers to automate
their processes. Despite that,
a lot of our back-end, knowledgebased
processes are still very manual,
time consuming and require large
systems to complete the work at
scale. As we grew, those processes
could only be scaled by adding more
people.” The introduction of robotic
process automation (RPA) began in
Europe under Loggins’ leadership,
and is now being implemented for
the US operations as well. “The cool
thing, especially from an agile cultural
standpoint, is that we’re not leading
it, the other areas of the business
are. They’re assessing the processes
they want to be automated while we
provide the guidance and solutions
for them to conduct their own system
development and do what they need
to do.”
businesschief.com

SMC CORPORATION OF AMERICA
280
“We’re not picking tasks apart or doing
large, epic, seemingly endless projects.
We’re trying to break that down and
ensure value at the point of delivery”
—
Michael Loggins,
Global Vice President, IT,
SMC Corporation of America
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
281

SMC CORPORATION OF AMERICA
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“With changes made
over the last year, we’re
ready to pivot into fully
becoming a globally
operating company”
—
Michael Loggins,
Global Vice President, IT,
SMC Corporation of America
The streamlining of processes
through automation offers enormous
benefits both to SMC and its customers,
with faster delivery and
the labour saved for its workforce
being crucial. The core of the transformation,
Loggins says, is SMC’s
people. “Aptitude is important but
attitude is critical,” he says and,
as drivers of the transformation
on the ground, SMC’s staff have
been rewarded with an increase
in knowledge-based tasks in tandem
with the reduction of repetitive
ones, and positive shifts in work-life
LUCIDIA IT AND DELL
“Lucidia IT and Dell have
been our infrastructure
partners for around 10 years,
and over the last three years
they’ve been integral to
designing and building our
next generation end user
compute platforms in the US
and now, of course, globally.
We’re in the process of
building data centres in
Europe and we’re in the
architecture and design phase
for Asia, and both Lucidia and
Dell have done a great job of
partnering with our teams to
make sure they deliver
exactly what we need.”
283
businesschief.com

SMC CORPORATION OF AMERICA
284
MOSER CONSULTING
“Moser originally came in to help
SMC build security, governance
and compliance frameworks
around three years ago. Since
then, we have been leveraging
Moser Consulting to help with
governance, risk and compliance
maturity for our projects across
the globe. We’re trying now to scale
our US-implemented framework
and programmes with additional
maturity across the globe, and
Moser is essential to this. Moser
has a great deal of talent, and its
culture is very similar to our own
which helps with adaptability.”
AUGUST 2020

285
balances. This focus on employees
ensures high retention, and there
is considerable mobility between
different business units that enable
a breed of cohesion that is only possible
through mutual understandings
between departments. Not only
that, but these qualities ensure the
workforce is adaptable, emblematising
the Agile methodologies and
behaviours that Loggins and his
team have been seeking to imbue
across operations.
businesschief.com

286
AUGUST 2020

Bentley Systems’
cloud offering
drives business
resilience
287
WRITTEN BY
MARCUS LAWRENCE
PRODUCED BY
ARRON RAMPLING
businesschief.com

BENTLEY SYSTEMS
Jeff Richardson, CDO at Bentley
Systems, discusses the state of the
art cloud infrastructure that benefits
internal and external stakeholders
288
T
he global business community has
responded to the coronavirus pandemic
with considerably more focus on remote
working than has ever been seen before. For every
industry, from media to construction, demand
has rocketed for technological solutions that will
enable continued operations with minimal disruption.
Bentley Systems, a world-leading software
solutions developer serving major infrastructural
construction projects around the world, has long
been a proponent of this breed of tech, and today
boasts a cutting edge cloud infrastructure whose
benefits are more apparent than ever. In normal
times, its end-to-end suite of software solutions
for such large projects ensures a seamlessness of
delivery for its users while cutting-edge telemetry
capabilities mean development and subscriptions
are current, flexible, and fair. All of that remains true
during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the global
crisis has revealed that Bentley’s greatest strength
is perhaps in the flexibility it offers both external
and internal stakeholders.
Jeff Richardson,
CDO, Bentley Systems
AUGUST 2020

289
1984
Year founded
$700mn
Revenue in
US dollars
3,800
Number of
employees
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BENTLEY SYSTEMS
290
“We use the rules
of compliance
as foundational
guidelines, and we
always try to exceed
those guidelines by
orders of magnitude”
—
Jeff Richardson,
Chief Data Officer, Bentley Systems
Jeff Richardson, Chief Data Officer
at Bentley Systems, has been with the
company since 2004, rising through
the ranks from an SAP developer to the
head of the firm’s data lifecycle and data
strategies. In Richardson’s view, ‘global
mobility’ is 2020’s key trend, and it has
certainly become the undercurrent for
business in a world where face-to-face
contact is being kept to a minimum.
“Businesses have quickly tried to adapt
to global mobility now that face-toface
culture is out the window, and we
instead need to have a culture of ‘can
you do your job globally, but remotely
to where you are?’” he says.
The scope of the construction projects
that Bentley facilitates means
the capability required goes way
beyond the collaboration tools and
Zoom meetings that have come to
pervade many industries. Building a
100-storey skyscraper, for example,
comes with immense data requirements,
with file sizes spanning
gigabytes and terabytes. “A single
BIM model, made of the structural elements
of the building, could be many,
many gigabytes of data. The question
is: how do remote workers seamlessly
AUGUST 2020

Bentley Systems:
ProjectWise Components
Center Overview
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:26
291
access files of that size to make edits,
updates and run analyses?”
Bentley’s state-of-the-art
ProjectWise 365 tools provide the
answer, with distributed file sharing
and caching technology that enable
workers to easily operate within the
cloud regardless of where and when
they are, all with the confidence that
the system is secure and continually
stress-tested against potential threats.
“Living in a cloud-focused world,
security is huge for us. Our CIO, Claire
Rutkowski, came on board in October
2016 and has been heavily focused
on integrating a robust and industryleading
cloud security platform. Along
with instituting a security office, we
have beefed up our security staff and
infrastructure by around 800% in
the past five years, we’re constantly
running penetration exercises on our
cloud infrastructure, and we are just
now implementing mock data breach
scenarios with our larger cloud infrastructure
compliance and data teams.
As we store more and more of our
users’ data in the cloud, it is both our
responsibility and desire to be as safe
and resilient as possible.”
businesschief.com

BENTLEY SYSTEMS
292
During this period of business
instability and uncertainty, Bentley’s
protections for its customers have
extended beyond its cybersecurity.
Owing to the business disruptions, the
company has waived the pay-what-youuse
subscription fees for ProjectWise
through to 30 September 2020; a
measure that ties closely with Bentley’s
mantra that its success is measured
by that of its users. The firm has been
a pioneer of this payment-by-usage
subscription model, known internally as
‘ELS contracts’, Richardson explains:
“We were selling contracts like that as
far as back as 2006 - I’ve never heard
of another company that was doing
the same that far back in time. With
the light telemetry we had available
to measure usage, we were able to
do that.” Data gathered from across
software suites has not only enabled
reactive and incisive development of
successive products, but has made
the pay-for-what-you-use model the
norm for Bentley for over a decade.
AUGUST 2020

EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Jeff Richardson
Today, the latest data measurements
are even more precise and complex,
making for a robust service model
that is accurately proportionate to the
user’s needs. Not only does each contract
have an unlimited potential value
ceiling for Bentley, they also ensure
users are never encumbered with a
subscription that they don’t need and
actively use. The tech also paints a
picture of the usage increase that has
come with vaster proportions of workforces
working from home during the
Jeff Richardson is a seasoned data
and analytics executive leader with
a cloud-first focus on evolving
technology and trends.
Over a 17-year career, he has crafted
a results-driven strategy for growth
and delivered outcomes which have
helped Bentley achieve a leading
position in cloud technology, record
revenue and user growth.
A prolific speaker on the topics of
cloud, data and analytics, Richardson
can often be found at conferences
and networking events in the Greater
Philadelphia and mid-Atlantic area.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from
Providence College, where he
was also a Division I
swimmer, a master’s
degree in Statistics from
Central Connecticut State
University and recently
completed a business
capstone program
at Yale University.
293
businesschief.com

BENTLEY SYSTEMS
For an open
relationship
with your data.
Multi-cloud Data Integration & Analytics | qlik.com

295
COVID-19 pandemic. “When the crisis
hit, many companies who were using
other, server-based products in offices
became stuck and couldn’t access
those resources. For our customers,
the users of our distributed cloud products,
the transition was seamless and
we can actually see that in the telemetry.
It shows us that our work-sharing
products had no disruption in usage
during the country-based shutdowns
resulting from the pandemic. In fact,
our collaboration tools actually saw an
8-13% increase in usage, year on year,
from last year.”
“A single BIM model, made
of the structural elements
of the building, could be
many, many gigabytes
of data. The question is:
how do remote workers
seamlessly access files
of that size to make edits,
updates, and run analysis”
—
Jeff Richardson,
Chief Data Officer, Bentley Systems
businesschief.com

BENTLEY SYSTEMS
Partners
296
“Bentley tends to partner with
software vendors very tightly to
build solutions for things that work
for us and can be fed back into the
larger software development
ecosystem. SAP is a great example,
and we’ve been a tight partner with
them since about 2005. We use SAP
for all of our internal applications,
such as ERP and CRM systems, to
run operations internally along with
its people management and success
factors. We work very closely with
SAP to develop products that we’re
going to use, and I’m positive that
development is used to enhance
SAP’s only products too.”
“Over the past ten years, Qlik has
been a great software vendor and
partner for Bentley. We’re using the
most recent release of its cloudfocused
Sense technology, and it has
enabled us to build an analytical suite
in conjunction with our Microsoft
Azure partnership.”
“I have a close relationship with a lot
of the guys that started the company.
As an analytics and data storagefocused
cloud developer, Thoughtspot
is positioned to be the market leader
in cloud-based analytics.”
“We recently partnered with Snowflake
to support our cloud-first approach,
and it is rapidly growing to become
the leader in data warehousing and
storage technology. We’re going to use
Snowflake internally to store our featurelevel
data, which consists of huge
amounts of highly detailed telemetry
data. Their pricing structure is very
elastic, with a fair billing model focused
on pay-what-you-use, just like Bentley.”
AUGUST 2020

The sheer capability and flexibility
of Bentley’s cloud infrastructure, which
has in recent years been a huge investment
focus for the firm, has been
predicated on CEO Greg Bentley’s
insistence that its operations are
cloud-first and cloud-forward wherever
possible. This pioneering approach
to cloud, dating back to the launch
of Microsoft Azure and the subsequent
close partnership that the two
firms have shared since, has enabled
Bentley to both seize the opportunities
of cloud-centralised operations and
develop solutions in collaboration with
its key vendors to solidify its leadership
in the market. Not only that, but cloudbased
operations have made Bentley
enormously flexible in how it operates,
meaning that, of its 3,800 staff worldwide,
Richardson says that only 73
were unable to dive into the workingfrom-home
scenario of the coronavirus
pandemic from day one.
Across such global operations, this is
a great indicator of Bentley’s flexibility
at work. As the coronavirus pandemic
gathered pace, Senior Leadership of 297
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BENTLEY SYSTEMS
298
“Living in a cloud-focused
world, security is huge
for us. Our CIO, Claire
Rutkowski, came on board
in October 2016 and has
been heavily focused on
integrating a robust and
industry-leading cloud
security platform”
—
Jeff Richardson,
Chief Data Officer, Bentley Systems
IT meetings were held to workshop
worst case scenarios, and the preparation
that resulted has ensured what
Richardson calls a “totally seamless”
shift to the new normal. Questions of
access to vital resources from home,
including licences, hardware and
software were answered promptly in
a show of remarkable preparedness
in such unprecedented times.
“We use the rules of compliance
as foundational guidelines, and we
always try to exceed those guidelines
AUGUST 2020

299
by orders of magnitude; complying
whilst building infrastructure
that supports those guidelines in a
best practice sense, and exceeding
those standards as far as possible,”
Richardson enthuses, highlighting
the strategic focus that has ensured
Bentley Systems is ready for anything.
To close, Richardson shares the ethos
at the heart of Bentley’s operations:
“We don’t want to build cloud software
that’s reliable for today, we want to
build cloud software that’s reliable for
the next decade.” This sentiment is
reflected in Bentley’s continued ability
to serve its clients and continue as normal
internally, a powerful indicator that
Bentley’s cloud software will retain its
market leadership long into the future.
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300
AUGUST 2020

World Vision:
digitalising
operations to help
the vulnerable
WRITTEN BY
GEORGIA WILSON
PRODUCED BY
CAITLYN COLE
301
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WORLD VISION
Tim Covell, Supply Chain
Director, World Vision on
the organisation’s digital
transformation, COVID-19
and its efforts to help the
vulnerable
302
W
hen it comes to digital innovation at World
Vision, Tim Covell, Supply Chain Director
at the organisation explains that its strategy
is not necessarily ‘cutting edge’.
“We’re probably more on the other end of the
spectrum where we are intentionally not cutting
edge. Instead, we’re looking to be frugal, using
technology that has the highest return on investment
(ROI), as well as applications that provide the
most effective impact,” so when it comes to digital
transformation, World Vision is focusing its efforts
on its demand planning, fulfilment and distribution.
“In terms of demand planning, our stakeholders
and program leaders from around the world are
serving in various communities and they need to
have a simple and common tool that we can pull
from. Over time, we have developed a tool with a
fairly simple input process, and then we aggregate
all those answers into a global demand each year,
and this process has continued to be refined year
on year. When it comes to fulfilment and global
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303

WORLD VISION
“We are probably more on the other end of the spectrum
where we are intentionally not cutting edge. Instead we are
looking to be frugal, using technology that has the highest
return on investment (ROI), as well as applications that
provide the most effective impact”
304
—
Tim Covell,
Supply Chain Director, World Vision
distribution, I would say that we are still
on a journey about how we can build
global solutions. Here in the US, we
had a big win several years ago when
we introduced a common ERP system
for both managing donations as well
as ministry executions for serving
our communities. Now that we’re on
a common platform, the ability to move
products around to maintain control
has really been bolstered,” adds Covell.
He adds that, “Envista has been
our partner for a little over four years
and they have played an important
role in allowing us to utilise our ERP
for nonprofit application. A lot of what
we do is non-standard, we are using
an ERP built for profit in a nonprofit
organisation, so being able to manage
that efficiently and effectively we are
really thankful for Envista for providing
the expertise.” Other technology
World Vision has adopted to digitally
transform its operations include the
adoption of a new TMS system about
a year ago, “and so we are still going
through the learning curves of the system
and looking to be as effective as
AUGUST 2020

World Vision: supporting communities
to fight COVID-19 around the world
CLICK TO WATCH | 2:17
305
we can with that tool which has a huge
opportunity to be much more impactful
than the homegrown system that
we were using prior to that.”
Reflecting on the future of technology
at World Vision, Covell notes that
one area his team has been looking
into in the last year and will continue to
do so in the future is having an impact
assessment of donated Gifts in Kind
(GIK) to understand how to maximise
the freight dollar spend and where
the company can use it for the most
significant impact. “As a result we are
looking into improvements that we can
make to our operations when it comes
to technology to enable this in the future.”
When it comes to the importance
of technology, Covell believes that
“having connectivity to all of our
stakeholders, donors, carriers and
customers is critical. As a team – aside
from the ones who are continuing to
work in warehouses and distribution
– we are able to work from home.
The team that’s interacting with our
various stakeholders are able to work
from home and not miss a beat and
that has been excellent. However,
in my personal opinion, this is not
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going to be the new normal. I personally
believe that being together as
a team provides great value due to
the connectedness of the team.
Working from home creates challenges
that you need to overcome on a day
to day basis. So I don’t see this as the
new normal, I think the days of the
office aren’t numbered.”
Since the outbreak of COVID-19,
Covell explains that while its office
based teams have faced minimal
disruption, the operations of organisation
have not been without challenges.
“It’s interesting times for sure,” notes
1950
Year founded
$2.75bn
Revenue in
US dollars
10,000+
Number of
employees (Linkedin)
AUGUST 2020

Covell, “here in the United States we
have had to deal with not being able
to bring in our volunteers for our seven
sites in the US which we rely heavily
on to make our operations work. So
not having the volunteers has been
a significant disruption. In terms of
distribution, we are still getting donations
in from corporations which is
awesome, but the team has pivoted
to emergency response instead of
normal distributions, so we are currently
serving a global emergency
response as well as a local emergency
response, which putting all
these elements together makes a
very challenging environment,” comments
Covell. He believes that “the
US team has done an excellent job
setting up distribution hubs at 12 different
sites around the country and
have been ramping up efforts to get
food and essential supplies to each
of those hubs on top of serving 17 of
the most fragile countries impacted
by COVID-19.”
307
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Tim Covell
Title: Supply Chain Director Company: World Vision
Industry: Non-profit Organization Management
Tim has a BS in Operations Research/Systems Analysis from West
Point Military Academy, and a MS in Engineering Management
from Milwaukee School of Engineering. After some time serving
in the Army and then leading operations in transportation
services, he spent over 21 years at GE Healthcare in Milwaukee,
WI. During that time, he had experience in a variety of roles
from Mfg and Materials leadership to New Product Development
and Advanced Manufacturing Engineering. He recently joined
World Vision in Seattle, WA to lead the GIK Supply Chain
operation and has been serving there for 3 ½ years.
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WORLD VISION
308
When it comes to the future of the
industry, Covell details that “one of the
dynamics of poverty is the inability to
deal with emergencies or crises as
they emerge and you’re living paycheck
to paycheck, day to day just to get
by. Therefore, having an emergency
like COVID-19 reinforces the need for
organisations like World Vision and
many others to be engaged in caring
for and uplifting communities that
are struggling to break that cycle
of poverty. So for me, COVID-19
reinforces the criticality of our ministry
and services for the future.”
Reflecting on the organisation,
Covell explains that “World Vision
intends to provide a total business
solution for corporations, offering a
holistic approach with team activities,
kit builds, cash donations, and GIK.
We have an excellent team that works
with these corporations in terms of
developing relationships and working
AUGUST 2019

309
“Now that we’re on
a common platform,
the ability to move
products around to
maintain control has
really been bolstered”
—
Tim Covell,
Supply Chain Director, World Vision
with them. Then, once a donation
is made, my team then is the execution
arm, so our focus is on providing
a high level of service to the donor. In
particular, we focus on having a short
response time to get the product off of
their dock – which is typically a priority
for corporations – providing a reverse
logistics solution, integrating with the
donor’s operations. Finally, maintaining
that ministry focus and making
sure that we are a pull operation is key.
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WORLD VISION
310
“Having an emergency like COVID-19 reinforces
the need for organisations like World Vision and
many others to be engaged in caring for and
uplifting communities that are struggling to break
that cycle of poverty”
—
Tim Covell,
Supply Chain Director, World Vision
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
311

WORLD VISION
312
It’s important that we’re never taking
a product from a corporation
and then pushing it to a ministry site,
instead we make sure at every turn
that we’re responsive and sensitive
to what is needed at the ministry site
to care for people, making sure that
the product we’re sending is providing
value.”
However, this mission isn’t done
alone. Covell explains that World
Vision is a small team which relies
on its logistics partners significantly
internationally and domestically.
“In terms of international logistics
MX Shipping has been a core partner
specialising in access to really
challenging countries and last mile
scenarios. On the domestic side,
we have several core partners that
we work with including C.H. Robinson
“We make sure at every turn that we’re responsive
and sensitive to what is needed at the ministry site
to care for people, making sure that the product
we’re sending is providing value”
—
Tim Covell,
Supply Chain Director, World Vision
AUGUST 2020

313
and Radiant two key partners that
we lean heavily on. My philosophy is
to have a few core relationships and
not to jump around every year to build
strong relationships and grow together.
However, on the flip side, I’m not a fan
of being single sourced and not having
options, so having a few partners in
each category allows checks and balances
ensuring that we’re being cost
effective as we go forward.”
businesschief.com

314
A DIGITALLY
DISRUPTIVE
ORGANISATION
WRITTEN BY
GEORGIA WILSON
PRODUCED BY
SHIRIN SADR
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
315

MASTERCARD
Mohammed Kamal, Senior Vice
President, O&T, at Mastercard, on the
company’s unique operations, digital
transformation, technology trends
and its initiatives to combat COVID-19
316
W
hen it comes to the operations at
Mastercard, Mohammed Kamal,
Senior Vice President, O&T, reflects
on the history of the company. “Just looking
at Mastercard’s payment network, it has a
unique architecture with triple redundancy
built in, operating globally, peer to peer
and with local AI decisioning. The way
Mastercard and Mastercard’s network has
been built over the years is different from
some of our competitors, which I believe
provides a quicker and higher quality of
service for our customers. Beyond our historic
payments network, I think Mastercard
is in a position to disrupt itself. Where you
typically associate Mastercard with credit
card or debit card payments, being disruptive
has taken us into areas such as account-based
and bill payments, which have grown over the
years. While we’ve been diversifying into services
for some time, we’re also diversifying into
multiple payment rails that you typically wouldn’t
associate with Mastercard. For me this is one of
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
317

MASTERCARD
318
“Mastercard has very rigorous
business continuity plans
that are tested regularly
so we are ready to respond
when an unexpected crisis
happens, such as COVID-19”
—
Mohammed Kamal,
Senior Vice President, O&T, Mastercard
the big things that
makes Mastercard
unique compared
to some of our
competitors.”
Kamal adds:
“When I look at digital
transformation and
being disruptive, it is
important to move from a
place where the digital and
core businesses are not separate
to be successful. The core
business itself has to evolve into
being digital rather than adding a digital
veneer and keeping the existing
core processes in place.” This
approach is something that Kamal
sees as fundamental when digitally
transforming business operations.
“It’s visible when you look at a company,
which ones have added digital
as an afterthought, versus which
companies actually reinvented themselves
to be digitally native. Much of
the time the result is a hybrid.
Sometimes you’ll see competing
products within an organisation,
some that are digitally enabled but
which obviously started off in more of
AUGUST 2020

Inclusive access – Frictionless future of
payments
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319
an analog form, and then you have
new products, built from the ground
up that are digitally native. I believe
for companies to be successful, it’s
important to really reimagine what’s
possible without the confines and
design assumptions of the non-digital
legacy products. If you build new
products from the ground up, I think it
opens up new doors when it comes
to their flexibility and agility. There is,
however, a tremendous amount of
underlying infrastructure and plumbing
needed to successfully pull off a
digital transformation. Digital is
much more data-rich, so it typically
goes hand in hand with more
advanced warehousing and analytics
capabilities. In addition, digital
tends to be exposed through web
and application programming interfaces
(APIs), which require their own
sets of supporting infrastructure and
security capabilities.
When it comes to the application
of cloud, data and analytics and artificial
intelligence (AI), Kamal states
that “all are obviously important but
for various reasons and applied
across different industries. For our
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MASTERCARD
322
organisation, which accumulates
large amounts of data, being able
to draw insights based on data is
extremely important and I would rank
this the highest out of the three. A lot
of our fraud engines and insight platforms
run on aggregated data which
is invaluable. We’re also, however,
enabling the exchange of data
between participants in an ecosystem.
Mastercard is very well
positioned as a network where we
bring together different parties - merchants,
billers, acquiring banks and
consumer banks - in a network.
These new, digitally native products,
one of their selling points is that they
enable a richer exchange of data
than their analog counterparts
through ISO 20022 messaging
standards. These standards provide
the capability to carry a lot more
information back and forth, driving
value for parties in the ecosystem.
This exchange of data enriches the
whole ecosystem, and provides for a
more symbiotic relationship between
us and our partners.”
AUGUST 2020

Reflecting on the capabilities cloud
technology can provide, Kamal
explains that “you can gain tremendous
amounts of value. But first it is
important to determine the best use
case for this technology. Mastercard,
for example, has a good footprint of
data centres around the world in different
regions. In some instances,
cloud makes sense and other times it
doesn’t, but the flexibility of cloud and
the ability to leverage an OPEX model
versus a CAPEX model provides scalability
and flexibility. I think there are
use cases, especially in the face of
nationalism, where you may need to
have something hosted in the cloud.
For that reason, I have generally taken
a hybrid cloud approach when going
down the path of cloud enabling solutions.
The greatest value I see,
however, is that the techniques
applied when using a hybrid-cloud
enabling platform generally make the
platform more scalable, agile and vendor
agnostic, which in itself is valuable
whether actually deployed in a public
cloud environment or not.
323
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Mohammed Kamal
Title: Senior Vice President, Consumer Applications
Mohammed Kamal is a payments industry technologist with
a passion for innovation and the Fintech space. He is
currently serving as the COO of Consumer applications at
Mastercard, leading a cross functional team with a mission
of enabling new payment flows leveraging real-time payments
(RTP). His responsibilities include technology and
operations for retail payments (p2m), BillPay & p2p
payment products. He is also responsible for
corporate & commercial M&A integration within
the Consumer Applications division.
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MASTERCARD
324
Mastercard has been leveraging AI
for its fraud services for over 10 years.
“We have very advanced fraud detection
capabilities that we provide our
customers,” says Kamal. “One of the
techniques that I think is interesting
with AI is the use of assistive AI versus
fully autonomous AI - or a mix of the
two, depending on the use case.
There’s still tremendous value in having
human intervention and making
sure a human is kept in the decision
making loop, but drastically empowered
as a result of the AI. For example,
fraud detection is sometimes one of
those use cases where selectively
involving the user in the decision making
process can provide for a better,
more confidence-inspiring user experience.
But other use cases could be
in the space of bill payments, where a
manual enrolment process
can take a consumer half an
hour - if not longer – trying to
identify and link with the different
billers they have a
relationship with. An assistive AI
solution can bring this time down
significantly, reducing friction for the
customer, yet keeping them in control
of their personal and financial data.”
Another technology trend Kamal
has seen emerge is the use of open
banking, “we’ve seen a huge amount
of action in this space. I use the term
‘open banking’ loosely because it differs
in different regions of the world,
but it’s the idea that the bank is opening
their ‘walled garden’ in a controlled
and secure way so that a customer
can use the data for their
benefit with other products.” In some
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
“When it comes to our partners such as Fulcrum Digital Inc., a critical
hallmark that we look for in a collaborator is flexibility and agility.
When collaborating with others we are looking for long term partners
that we can share both successes and failures with and create future
opportunities. We look for the type of collaborative partners that will
share in the risks and the rewards and I think being able to share in
that makes for a better relationship in the long run.”
AUGUST 2020

“When I look at digital transformation
and being disruptive, it is important
to move from a place where the
digital and core businesses are not
separate to be successful”
—
Mohammed Kamal,
Senior Vice President, O&T, Mastercard
cases the banks
themselves are
building new products
based on this
Open banking paradigm.
The Consumer
Application division here
at Mastercard is helping our
partners do just that. More
generally, in the industry, I am seeing
an increase in partnerships and
collaboration between banks, which
are well positioned with bank grade
security and safety compliance
built-in, with fintechs that are providing
customers experiences the
banks have not been able to provide
in the past. At Mastercard, we want
to support all members of
the open banking ecosystem.
We’re focused on
delivering solutions that will
enable these experiences,
whether that is delivered just
by a bank, just by a fintech,
or in partnership.”
With many organisations
around the world being
affected by the impact of
COVID-19, Kamal explains that
325
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MASTERCARD
1966
Year founded
$12.5bn+
Revenue in
US dollars (2017)
16,000
Number of
employees
“It’s visible when you look
at a company, which ones
have added digital as an
afterthought, versus
which companies actually
reinventing themselves
to be digitally native”
—
Mohammed Kamal,
Senior Vice President, O&T, Mastercard
“Mastercard has very rigorous business
continuity plans that are
tested regularly so we are ready to
respond when an unexpected crisis
happens, such as COVID-19.
As you would expect, the teams
are executing our operations very
well. We work very closely with our
customers as well as having our
AUGUST 2020

own VCP processes to ensure that as
our customers encounter challenges
within their business we are able to
accommodate them. Our continuity
plan not only looks at how our company
could be impacted but whether
our customers could be impacted,
what policy changes we could make,
what rule changes? And what can we
provide to help them?” Since the outbreak
Mastercard has been
implementing a variety of initiatives in
order to help its customers navigate
the impact of the pandemic.
When it comes to digital transformation
and adopting the current trends
within the technology space, Kamal
highlights the importance of having
the right products and services to be
able to capture the opportunities innovation
provides. “I think that’s the key
message, it’s not always easy to predict
what the market will need in one
go, but much of the time we are investing
in flexible underlying product
infrastructure, while the use cases
themselves develop more organically. I
think it’s important to build with flexibility
so that, while you may build a set of
technology or products for a particular
use case, or you have a business case
in mind, you also need to be able to
pivot the technology for different use
cases if the need should arise.”
327
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328
MSU FEDERAL
CREDIT UNION:
DIGITAL
DISRUPTION
IN FINTECH
WRITTEN BY
SEAN GALEA-PACE
PRODUCED BY
SHIRIN SADR
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
329

MSU FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
BENJAMIN MAXIM, ASSISTANT
VICE PRESIDENT OF DIGITAL
STRATEGY & INNOVATION,
DISCUSSES HIS ORGANISATION’S
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
APPROACH AMIDST COVID-19
330
M
SU Federal Credit Union was founded in
1937 to help members achieve financial
success and stability following the Great
Depression. It has remained dedicated to that same
mission for more than 82 years. Its mission statement
is simple: providing superior service while
assisting members and employees to achieve financial
security, their goals and ultimately, their dreams.
Benjamin Maxim is the Assistant Vice President of
Digital Strategy and Innovation for the Credit Union.
Maxim is well aware of the importance of leading in
the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s vital that
you’re a strong communicator and offer transparent
messaging,” he says. “Given the situation, people
are concerned and uncertain, and they need someone
to speak to them with confidence, understand
their fears, and try to alleviate their worries. During
times like these, it’s also important to continue to
invest in technological advancements as these
allow the organisation to continue to move forward.”
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
331

MSU FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
332
The pandemic has resulted in many
industries accelerating their digital
transformation journeys and adopting
new processes in order to avoid disruption
as much as possible. However,
financial institutions like MSUFCU were
already ahead of the curve. “Digital has
always been a focus and a priority of
ours,” affirms Maxim. “We’ve built robust
IT and UX teams in house to allow for
greater control, which has enabled us
to be extremely responsive to our members’
needs. Having the in-house teams
allows us to be nimble, agile and ready to
“I’M FOCUSED ON
CHAMPIONING
INNOVATION ACROSS
THE ORGANISATION
AND ANALYSING
EMERGING TRENDS
AND TECHNOLOGIES”
—
Benjamin Maxim,
Assistant Vice President of Digital
Strategy and Innovation, MSUFCU
AUGUST 2020

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333
respond to the latest trends and technologies.
Additionally, we have established
several strategic partnerships with
vendors, allowing us to capitalise on
their strengths to enhance our own.”
In the last two years, MSUFCU
has launched its Member2Member℠
(M2M℠) transfer solution, in addition
to modernising its existing membership
and loan application process by
leveraging the ecommerce experience
of bundling products and services
together into one streamlined application.
“Within our membership base,
you can now send money through any
email address or phone number with
M2M℠ which has meant a decrease
in the volume of calls to our call center
and chats to our eServices team,” he
says. “This has improved efficiency
across the organisation.”
In October 2019, MSUFCU introduced
its first member-facing Chabot
to extend its service hours. “We have
an international membership living and
working in various time zones and it’s
important to us that we are accessible
to all of them as well as our members
in the U.S.,” explains Maxim. “This
solution enabled us to provide a better
businesschief.com

MSU FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
334
experience for our members – when
they need us. We continue to expand
our Chatbot’s capabilities, and through
this, our live chat employees and others
can focus on more complex and
meaningful transactions. In addition,
our eServices team has grown exponentially,
from just three employees
when I started 13 years ago, to more
than 75 employees today as our members’
behavior has changed over the
years becoming more comfortable
interacting through live chat and other
digital touch points.
“WE’VE BUILT ROBUST
IT AND UX TEAMS IN
HOUSE TO ALLOW FOR
GREATER CONTROL,
WHICH HAS ENABLED
US TO BE EXTREMELY
RESPONSIVE TO OUR
MEMBERS’ NEEDS”
—
Benjamin Maxim,
Assistant Vice President of Digital
Strategy and Innovation, MSUFCU
AUGUST 2020

“Whenever we release an innovation,
we do so in gradual stages. First, we
release it to a subset of employees and
members to gather feedback along the
way before going through the process
of introducing it to all employees, and
eventually to the full membership.
Receiving feedback early in the cycle
is key as it ensures we are able to
address any issues successfully.”
With a plethora of new innovations
on the horizon at MSUFCU, the organisation’s
digital drive shows no visible
signs of slowing. “We’re currently
investigating solutions with fintechs
335
EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Benjamin Maxim
Benjamin Maxim joined MSU Federal Credit Union in 2007 and currently
serves as Assistant Vice President of Digital Strategy and Innovation.
He is responsible for assessing emerging business trends and
technologies, facilitating innovation throughout the Credit
Union, and providing strategic direction for existing and future
digital channels. Maxim began work initially as a Web Developer
and in 2014, he became E-Commerce Manager before moving
into roles including Assistant Vice President of Programming
and Development and Assistant Vice President of Software
Development. He earned a bachelor’s degree from
Michigan State University.
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EFFICIENCIES THROUGH
AUTOMATION USING
TECHNOLOGIES LIKE RPA”
—
Benjamin Maxim,
Assistant Vice President of Digital
Strategy and Innovation, MSUFCU
and in-house innovation teams that
will help us increase member engagement
with our digital platforms, reduce
fraud and create efficiencies through
automation using technologies like
RPA,” says Maxim. “We understand
the importance of improving our
processes and the way we work; it’s
not just a case of bringing in another
person; there are ways we can leverage
technology to be both more
efficient and more effective. We are
also modernising our employee idea
submission process to encourage
collaboration and engagement from
337
MSUFCU’s Member2Member:
Send Money Effortlessly
to Your Friends and Family
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:00
businesschief.com

MSU FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
338
AUGUST 2020

all our employees as they are the ones
interacting with our members regularly,
so they have a better understanding of
member wants and needs.”
Maxim acknowledges the challenge
of a culture shift and is aware that some
employees might be reluctant to change.
“Our goal is to retain the employees we
have and to make sure they are in the
jobs that align with our business needs,
while also providing the training and support
they need to be successful in those
roles. However, if they are unwilling to
grow as individuals and learn new skills,
then it will be more difficult to retain
them long-term,” he explains.
Maxim understands the importance
of establishing key, strategic business
relationships and believes his organisation
is “only as good as its partners.”
MSUFCU has formed long-term and
mutually sustainable partnerships
with Jack Henry, their core banking
provider, and Visa over the past few
years, and Maxim credits them with
helping the organisation realise many
of its ambitions. “We’ve spent several
years solidifying our partnership with
Jack Henry’s leadership team and
developing a relationship with them.
339
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MSU FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
340
We’re at a point now where we’re cocreating
solutions in many cases. We
also provide feedback by beta testing
solutions they’re working on. We meet
with them regularly, and they provide
solutions that truly work for us. This
relationship is important to us because
if our core banking system isn’t strong,
then we can’t be as successful an
organisation as we’d like to be and
our members need us to be,” explains
Maxim. “Our relationship with our card
provider, Visa, is similar. We’ve worked
with them on a number of technological
initiatives. We were one of their first
clients to go live with their Card On/Off
“WE CONTINUE TO EXPAND
OUR CHATBOT’S CAPABILITIES,
AND THROUGH THIS, OUR
LIVE CHAT EMPLOYEES AND
OTHERS CAN FOCUS ON MORE
COMPLEX AND MEANINGFUL
TRANSACTIONS”
—
Benjamin Maxim,
Assistant Vice President of Digital
Strategy and Innovation, MSUFCU
solution, which enables people to lock
their credit card if they lose or misplace
it. We’re also working with them on
travel-related APIs and to reduce fraud
when travelling overseas. In addition,
we worked with Visa to develop our
Visa Signature cash back credit card.
Visa has been a great partner and has
enabled us to add many products and
services benefitting our membership.”
With the future in mind, Maxim has
an idea of the effect digital will continue
to have in the industry in the upcoming
AUGUST 2020

341
years. “I believe there will be varying
levels of comfort with people using
digital products,” he says. “People will
still want to interact with us in person
so it’s about how we use digital to augment
the experience they have with
us. We strive to provide a personalised
solution because everyone’s situation
is unique to them. As we innovate in the
digital financial space, we are focused
on personalisation, encouraging financial
wellness, and providing superior
digital service to our members. There
are many services, such as Netflix or
Amazon, that leverage their user’s data
to tailor an experience that is unique
to them, providing a personalised list
of options or recommendations and
the more the user is willing to share
the more individual the experience
becomes. We want to follow the same
process for financial services. The
influence of data is huge and its influence
will only continue to grow.”
businesschief.com

OTIP’s
technology
342
driven, peoplefirst
response
to COVID-19
WRITTEN BY
GEORGIA WILSON
PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
AUGUST 2020

usinesschief.com
343

ONTARIO TEACHERS INSURANCE PLAN (OTIP)
Stacey Rous, EVP & CFO at OTIP
discusses the company’s people-first
strategy, technology trends and its
response to the impacts of COVID-19
344
W
hen it comes to the workforce at Ontario
Teachers Insurance Plan (OTIP), Stacey
Rous, EVP & CFO, shares that the organization
understands that staying connected, whether
with coworkers or senior leaders, is key. “Creating
that sense of community at work is really important,
as is the ability to listen and evaluate opinions,” she
says. “After anything we do as an organization, we
ask for feedback to develop a safe space for people
to talk about the organization in a collaborative way.
This allows us to be both responsive and agile in an
ever-changing world.”
This mindset played a key role in OTIP’s response
to COVID-19. Rous believes that relocating the majority
of our workforce to home offices has been the
biggest disruption to the company from the COVID-
19 pandemic. “We moved more than 600 people into
home offices in less than two weeks, moving them
onto a technology platform that is compatible with
working from home. Protecting the health and well
being of our employees was top of mind, but at the
same time we managed to accomplish this task while
maintaining our service to members.”
AUGUST 2020

1977
Year founded
$1.5bn
Revenue in
Canadian dollars
500+
Number of
employees
345
businesschief.com

Success begins and
ends with people.
We help organizations optimize the health and
productivity of their people, through innovative
and entrepreneurial solutions.
Our technology, people and processes help organizations simplify
administration burden and increase productivity, while providing
industry-leading member support.
Morneau Shepell takes a holistic approach to beneÞts benefits administration,
retirement services, absence management and employee assistance.
We provide the tools and expertise to help organizations solve complex
problems to improve productivity and engagement, wellbeing, and
financial security.
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www.morneaushepell.com

HR Benefits: Technology
and Experiences that Exceed
Expectations
As the leading provider of technology-enabled HR services
that deliver an integrated approach to employee
wellbeing, Morneau Shepell has been a valued partner
to OTIP since 2014. We continuously deliver innovative
solutions to their members that support the mental,
physical, social and financial wellbeing of their people.
With unmatched industry experience, Morneau Shepell
has been providing plan administration services
for more than 50 years. We serve mid-sized and large
clients, including complex organizations with multiple
locations, across all industries, in both the public and
private sectors. We support nearly 9,000,000 members
through our administrative solutions and have an
average client size of 15,000 participants in our North
American Health and Welfare client group. Our teams
of industry professionals and IT specialists are trusted
advisors, subject matter experts and technology enthusiasts.
We provide flexible and integrated benefits and
pension administration solutions, employee and family
assistance, health and wellness programs, and recognition
and workplace learning solutions that support
organizations in helping their people be healthy and
engaged, all towards delivering measurable gains in
productivity and results.
Morneau Shepell’s proprietary benefits administration
software is a highly configurable system designed
to efficiently implement and execute client-specific
provisions and processes. The complexity of benefits
administration can be magnified and made prohibitively
costly to organizations that lack the right technology
platform. Our advanced enterprise technology provides
a comprehensive and innovative single system for all
benefit administration solutions, and is specifically
designed to support complex organizations. Our highly
flexible technology seamlessly integrates with clients’
existing platforms and infrastructures while providing
the security and compliance that is absolutely crucial.
Integral to our advanced platform is intuitive design
and navigation so participants can easily interact with
the system, and gain a benefits experience that meets
their consumer technology expectations.
Paul Sywulych @
Morneau Shepell
Online self-service on any device is standard, with features
and functionality covering all aspects of benefits
and pension administration, including decision support
tools and an AI virtual assistant.
“Morneau Shepell has been partnering with us for over
six years. They have helped OTIP through a digital transformation
process by streamlining our benefits administration
solution. The value of offering a single system to
our members that simplifies the administration process
and delivers the services that participants want and need
has enhanced the experience for both administrators and
plan participants. As our organization continues to digitally
transform and grow, having a proven and reliable partner
that understands our culture and truly cares about our
members is invaluable.” – Stacey Rous, Executive VP and
Chief Financial Officer, OTIP
Now more than ever, organizations need a complete
benefits administration solution that utilizes the
latest technology and a single platform to improve
accuracy and productivity, but also helps participants
improve their lives. Morneau Shepell’s solutions
deliver advanced technology for simpler, more
cost-effective management that improves participant
wellbeing, engagement and overall financial
security. Our approach spans services in employee
and family assistance, health and wellness, recognition,
pension and benefits administration, retirement
consulting, actuarial and investment services.
By improving lives, we improve business.

ONTARIO TEACHERS INSURANCE PLAN (OTIP)
348
“We are a people-first
organisation. There
will always be tweaks
to how we work, but
our core strategy of
‘people first’ has not
and will not change”
—
Stacey Rous,
EVP & CFO, OTIP
Achieving this incredible feat was
not easy, and not done alone. Rous
says that OTIP’s partners and stakeholders
have been vital in adopting
this work from home strategy. “Prior to
COVID-19 we didn’t have the system
capacity for everyone to work from
home. We had been planning for 20
to 25%, but certainly not 100%. Our
partners really stepped up to help us
implement this capability once the
healthcare sector was under control,
allowing us to stay connected to our
employees and members.”
The OTIP Story
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:53
AUGUST 2020

EXECUTIVE PROFILE:
Stacey Rous
Stacey Rous is the Executive Vice
President and Chief Financial Officer at
OTIP, Ontario Teachers Insurance Plan.
OTIP serves the education community
across Ontario, providing health benefits
and other insurance needs as a not-forprofit
Trust. At OTIP, Stacey is
responsible for Finance and IT strategy,
including financial operations of the
company and accountable for the
Project Management Office. Stacey is an
accomplished financial executive known
for achieving financial and service
benchmarks by creating a compelling
vision, clearly communicating strategies
and providing strong leadership.
Over the years, Stacey has been
helping insurance and health care
organizations grow and improve
member experience with her finance
and operational expertise. She has
more than 25 years of progressive
leadership experience in operational
finance. Stacey has provided executive
financial leadership to the Waterloo
Wellington Local Health Integration
Network, Allianz Global Assistance and
Cowan Insurance Group of Companies.
Outside of her role with OTIP, Stacey is
actively involved in building strong
partnerships with communities to
make a positive impact on social issues
such as social isolations, poverty,
inequality and mental health. She
serves on the Board of the YMCA for
Kitchener Waterloo, the Canadian
Mental Health Association for Waterloo
Wellington and International Women’s
Forum Waterloo. She previously served
on the IWF Canada Sponsorship
Committee to raise funds for the IWF
World Leadership Conference.
Stacey is an MBA graduate from
Athabasca University and holder of
CPA designations in Canada and the
US. Throughout her career, she has
continued to seek educational
opportunities and certifications that
enhance her finance and operational
capabilities, including: Chartered
Professional Accountant (CPA, CMA)
designation, Certified Public
Accountant (US designation),
Chartered Global Management
Accountant (CGMA) designation
and Advanced Health Leadership
certification from the Rotman School
of Management Executive Program.
349
businesschief.com

Making a positive impact
SOLUTIONS-DRIVEN CONSULTING
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Brooklin Consulting is a management consulting firm built on a
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info@brooklinconsulting.com
+1-647-261-6486

Brooklin Consulting: accelerating
productivity with OTIP
Brooklin Consulting is a management consulting organisation
with worldwide experience in several leading industries.
The firm helps companies overcome their unique
business challenges, discover their greatest opportunities
and achieve significant results. Brooklin Consulting has
over 30 years of experience in global consulting, primarily
focused on productivity improvement, strategic implementation
and digital transformation. Brooklin Consulting
specialises in achieving measurable results that improve
their client’s performance quickly and efficiently.
BizClik Media Interviews
Michael Flemming,
VP at Brooklin Consulting
Michael Flemming is the Vice President of Brooklin Consulting.
He leads projects to execute strategy and improve
productivity, working with both senior leaders and frontline
employees. Brooklin Consulting has formed a partnership
with Ontario Teachers Insurance Plan (OTIP) to help
improve productivity. Flemming believes this collaborative
business partnership is essential and is the “archetype”
of any successful consulting relationship. “We’re able to
build trust, and work closely with every level of the organisation,
which is the key to building solutions that drive
the largest impact and are sustainable beyond the term of
our engagement,” he says. “Every single change, large and
small, is developed with the front-line managers responsible
for the area. We work through the development and
testing of solutions, but most importantly, we see those
changes through to implementation. The collaboration
between consultants and operating managers ensures
changes are not just theoretical, but drive improvements
in the real world.”
When seeking to establish a mutually beneficial and sustainable
partnership, Flemming has a clear idea of what he
looks for. “We find that the most successful relationships
are the ones where we collaborate through every step of
the process, regardless if the problem is big or small,” he
explains. “We’re prepared to work with clients through
every step of the journey to find a solution that is going
to succeed. Solutions developed together are always
the most successful, and that is a key reason for the
strength of our relationship with OTIP, and a key reason
our projects have consistently generated 3:1 returns in
their first year, while at the same time improving customer
service and satisfaction.”
Over the next few years, Flemming expects the future of
Brooklin’s relationship with OTIP to continue to thrive as
new technology shakes up the industry. “Organisations
like OTIP need to be nimble and ready to change at a
moment’s notice in order to stay competitive, and I expect
key trends revolving around robotics and AI will push
analytical decision-making to the next level and provide
better quality to customers,” says Flemming. “We’ve
been able to install a culture of continuous improvement
with OTIP and help adopt those trends quickly and in a
meaningful way. I believe the continued strength of our
relationship will allow for those future opportunities to be
adopted efficiently and robustly.”
Stacey Rous, EVP & CFO at OTIP, says “The team at
Brooklin Consulting has supported OTIP through several
improvement projects over the past two years,
each resulting in a significant return on investment.
Their methodology has helped us transform our
management operating system, allowing for better
analytics, faster decision-making, and ultimately
improved service to our members. Most importantly,
they have helped our people to see challenges as
opportunities, leaving behind an approach to continuous
improvement that carries on internally beyond
the term of their engagements. I would strongly
recommend their services to organizations looking to
improve their operations.”
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“My best advice for
girls and women
looking to get into
tech is to seek out
a mentor or coach
in the industry”
—
Stacey Rous,
EVP & CFO, OTIP
Rous adds that she is extremely
proud of how OTIP’s employees have
adapted, driving new ways of connecting
with its members, clients and
employees, but at the same time not
exhausting them with the technology.
“Our members and our management
teams are very accepting that there
may be children in the background,
dogs barking or doorbell rings from
home deliveries, which previously
would have been considered very
unprofessional.”
She adds that the insurance industry
itself has not escaped impact from
the pandemic. “Our industry is under
extreme financial pressure. People’s
driving habits have changed, and there
is an expectation that auto premiums
will reduce accordingly. At the same
time, the closure of things like dental
offices and other health providers creates
a mountain of questions for us and
our members on how we handle things
like claim limits, cancelled procedures
and benefit premiums during and after
the pandemic.”
Rous believes that technology will be
key as COVID-19 continues to change
how organizations and the insurance
industry continues to operate. Post
pandemic, she says, a digital mindset
should be seen as a way of doing
business, whether that be on-line
virtual doctor’s appointments, or using
Telehealth and Telemedicine more
proactively. “COVID-19 should teach
us that it’s okay to do some things digitally.
We need to harness what we’ve
learned through this and not go back to
the old normal where it doesn’t make
sense. Many of these technologies
are so powerful, and they will be cost
effective for both our community and
our healthcare system .”
353
businesschief.com

ONTARIO TEACHERS INSURANCE PLAN (OTIP)
While Rous thinks that we are a long
way from a post COVID-19 world, she
does believe that “we are entering into
a new normal and that the industry is
going to have to settle. For me the future
is about the financial stability of a company
going forward. I think the finance
and the tech folks are going to have their
hands full for quite some time.”
354
TECHNOLOGY TRENDS IN INSURANCE
Looking past the current pandemic,
Rous highlights that digital innovation,
artificial intelligence (AI) and data are
still the overriding trends in the insurance
industry, adding that “these are
the technologies that allow us better
understand and service our members.”
She details that, at the core, OTIP’s
digital transformation strategy is designed
to streamline communication and harness
data analytics, using a data warehouse
and data mapping to provide a seamless
service to its members. “This is something
that is still ongoing for us at OTIP. We have
only just scratched the surface of this journey,
however, the recent hiring of a new
director of data and digital technologies
supported by a dedicated team is going
to allow us to really grow this potential.”
“COVID-19 should
teach us that it’s
okay to do some
things digitally”
—
Stacey Rous,
EVP & CFO, OTIP
AUGUST 2020

When it comes to adopting innovative
technology to drive this strategy,
Rous explains that the organization
started using robotics in collaboration
with RPAI and Blue Prism Software.
“We were one of the first in Canada
in 2016 using robotics to reduce the
amount of non-value-added tasks
from our people,” she explains. For
OTIP, Rous continues, the use of
robotics is seen as an extension of
its workforce. “Our employees like it
because they can focus on the valueadd
work for our members.”
Rous continues, saying that even
though OTIP was one of the first in
Canada to use robotics, it was doing
very small projects. “We were more
in the investigation stage, using it to
understand how our members wanted
to do business with us. Now, with our
new director and dedicated team, we
are ramping up our innovation and
adoption of robotics for automation.”
With regards to developing these
technologies, Rous stresses the
importance of strategic partnerships.
“Our strategic partnerships
with Rogers, our internet provider, or
Central Logic, lay the foundation and
355
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our insurance partners like Morneau,
Manulife, Economical and Aviva, are
all intertwined. We don’t want to build
our own tech, we want to build our own
intelligence around our members with
the help of the technology our strategic
partners provide. You don’t need to
own those technologies, you need to
leverage those technologies.”
WOMEN IN TECH
Rous believes strongly in the inclusion
of women in tech, a mindset that
is shared by the entire organization.
“From a woman in tech perspective, we
have a number of BSA and data specialists
– at least 50% – that are women,
which we are doing very well in,” she
explains. “On the traditional side of
tech, such as networking systems, the
figures are slightly less with about 25%
being women.”
Outside of the working environment,
Rous explains that the organization has
key people helping young girls learn
code, known as girls for coding, to
promote females joining the industry.
“However, I think it is still a generation 357
OTIP Sponsorship of Schools
Projects and Initiatives
CLICK TO WATCH | 1:54
businesschief.com

ONTARIO TEACHERS INSURANCE PLAN (OTIP)
358
away. Currently schools are working
to get the materials needed to show
girls the opportunities within the STEM
industry, but it is going to take time for
young girls to see themselves as coders.”
Rous, seen by many as a leader and
a mentor herself, shares that she did
not get where she is today by herself.
“My best advice for girls and women
looking to get into tech is to seek out
a mentor or coach in the industry. I
cannot underscore the importance of
finding people to help you through your
career. Gender isn’t important here. It
is about finding people who you trust
and are willing to help you navigate the
challenges you will face in this industry.
Don’t try and do it alone. You need
people out there advocating for you.”
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
Returning to the organization’s strategy,
Rous reiterates that regardless of
COVID-19 or changes in technology,
OTIP’s member-first approach has not
changed. “We are a people-first organization.
There will always be tweaks to
how we work, but our core strategy of
AUGUST 2020

“The recent hiring of a
new director of data
and digital technologies
supported by a
dedicated team is going
to allow us to really
grow this potential”
—
Stacey Rous,
EVP & CFO, OTIP
‘people first’ has not and will not change.”
Throughout the pandemic, OTIP has
been active in the communities it serves,
donating more than $250,000 to food
banks and mental health associations
across Canada. “I’m on the Canadian
Mental Health Association of Waterloo
Wellington and a recent study highlighted
that 70% of us are feeling
isolated due to that lack of connectivity,
which is having a detrimental effect on
all our mental health right now.”
In addition, she continues, 70% of
those same survey respondents said
they were concerned about becoming
sick from COVID-19, or losing someone
close to it. “This crisis remains at
the top of everyone’s mind. Given the
corresponding mental health challenges
we are going to see from an
industry perspective, we need to be
ready to help the people that maybe
unwell, and be there for both employees
and members to help them.”
359
businesschief.com

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