www.insightssuccess.

com
JUNE 2018

The
Companies
with Most
DIS
Innovation

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

Future-Bots
Catching-up with Robotics
for Better Future

Graciela Chichilnisky
Co-founder & CEO

Un-demonizing Carbon:
Global Thermostat and its Vision of a
Carbon Negative Planet
 Disrupt
or be
Disrupted

B ack in 1997, a professor of Harvard Business School Clayton Christensen coined the term
‘Disruptive Innovation’. Nowadays most of the startups often use disruption to label their
strategies or apply it to their products when it comes to pitching investors. However, the term
is now overused to the extent that it has almost lost all the meaning.

So, the term disruptive can not be applied for the sake of a trend or just to pitch investors, it simply
doesn’t make any sense. Disruptive guides, products and even projects have nothing to do with
innovation but have a lot of common when it comes to hype.

Disruptive innovation is such a process by which organizations which technologically straightforward

services and products target the bottom end of an already established market, and then move their
way up to the chain until they overtake the market leaders or create an entirely new market segment.

Clayton’s theory never gave a guidance on how to start or establish a disruptive company. However,
it described an impact and consequences disruption has on the already established players. Disruption
happens when there’s a gap in the market, mostly when the already established organizations starts to
ignore their low-end clients in favor of more profitable opportunities, consequently, putting
themselves in a vulnerable position. So, Clayton’s target audience is not those startups who runs for
the glory of Airbnb or Netflix but established organizations who often forget how easily they can be
eliminated by bigger companies and works for a better future.
So, with great enthusiasm Insights Success has shortlisted “The Companies with Most
Disruptive Innovation,” who are changing their respective industries with their innovative
products and services.

Featuring our cover story Global Thermostat, which is commercializing its advanced, multi-
patented technology to transform Carbon Dioxide from a global liability into an immense profit
center.

This issue also includes organizations like, MLG Blockchain Consulting, Ltd, a global leader
in blockchain development and consulting; Moblize, a trusted name applying Big Data
Analytics for the oil and gas industry to improve the daily life of enterprise knowledge workers;
LaptopsAnytime, which is “shaking up” the Public Access Computing Market by taking self-
service laptop/tablet lending, loans, checkout and borrowing to the next level. No longer do
facilities have to settle for incomplete solutions; Observit, which supplies professional video
surveillance solutions in close collaboration with the world-leading supplier of security cameras,
Axis Communications; Starwest Tech, which is Starwest Associates’ technology division,
Starwest Tech, was established in 1992 to develop the technologies and systems needed to
support Starwest Associates’ EMS operations and public fire systems; Trisotech, which provides
new and revolutionary ways for digital enterprise knowledge workers to collaborate and succeed
in this increasingly global and connected world; Vortal, a leading company offering worldwide
eSourcing and eProcurement solutions. Using its Cloud eMarketplace, thousands of public and
private buyers connect every day with an international community of qualified suppliers to do
business; WGroup, a management consulting firm with a peer-to-peer approach to IT
optimization and transformation.

Happy Reading!

Kaustav Roy
 10

Un-demonizing
Carbon:
Global Thermostat and
its Vision of a Carbon
Negative Planet
Articles Virtuoso’s Vision
Future-Bots Why Buying for
lifewill Save the Environment
Catching-up with the 20
Robotics for
30 and our Sanity
Better Future

Leader’s Talk
New Opportunities The World as we know
Big Data-Driven
44 it, does not Exist Anymore
Enterprises Must Catch-Up 40
with New Drifts

Industry Insight Expert's Viewpoint

An Insight on the How to be more
Opportunities in the 54 DISRUPTIVE
Big Data Industry
58
CONTENTS
All Aces Promotional Staffing, Inc.:
22 Helping Organizations Staff and
Execute Flawless Events

LaptopsAnytime
26 Making Technology More
Accessible For All

MLG Blockchain Consulting:

28 Building Decentralized Applications
using Blockchains

Moblize:
34 Using Disruptive Innovation to
Transform the Oil & Gas Industry
 Observit C3:
Providing Excellence through Mobile 36
Video Surveillance as a Service

Starwest Tech:
Continuity of Care through Accurate 42
Communication and Documentation

Trisotech:
Disruptively Innovating and 48
Empowering Clients

VORTAL:
Connecting Businesses 50
Since Inception

Wgroup:
The Premier IT Advisory Firm for 56
Crossing the Digital Chasm
 Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal
Managing Editor Anish Miller
Executive Editors Kaustav Roy
Assistant Editors Jenny Fernandes
Sourav Mukherjee
Contributing Editors Abhishaj Sajeev
Hitesh Dhamani
Visualiser David King
Art & Design Director Amol Kamble
Associate Designer Shubham Mahadik
Co-designer Sapana Shinde
Art & Picture Editor Paul Belin
Jayant Khanna
Senior Sales Manager Passi D.
Business Development Manager Peter Collins
Marketing Manager John Matthew
Business Development Executives
Steve, Joe, Alan, Mayank
Sales Executives
David, Kevin, Mark, Vinay
Technical Head Jacob Smile
Technical Specialist Amar, Pratiksha
Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza
Online Marketing Strategist
Alina Sege, Shubham, Vaibhav K
SME-SMO Executives
Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Irfan
Research Analyst Chidiebere Moses
Circulation Manager Robert, Tanaji
Database Management Stella Andrew
Technology Consultant David Stokes
sales@insightssuccess.com
June, 2018
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Cover Story
Un-demonizing
Carbon:
Global Thermostat and
its Vision of a Carbon
Negative Planet
F ew people remain unconvinced of the dire need to
reduce our carbon emissions. Most governments
and world bodies acknowledge that global warming
is a consequence of elevated atmospheric CO2 levels and is
wreaking irreversible or near-irreversible damage to our
climate.
The UN and thousands of the world’s scientists say what is
needed now it to remove the CO2 that is already there, and
in massive amounts.
The lack of consensus on how exactly to tackle the problem
means that - while those in power hold meetings, discuss
commitments, and debate an unending list of disputes, the
precipice edges ever closer. Spurred by this inaction and
lack of progress, one company has decided to act now and
let the world catch up later.
That company is Global Thermostat.
Who are Global Thermostat?
Global Thermostat (GT) is a company on the brink of
transforming carbon dioxide from a global liability into an
immense profit center. It has already developed and proven
functioning multi-patented technology to capture CO2
directly from the atmosphere and produce pure CO2 gas in a
concentrated form at low cost.
What does this mean for the world?
Firstly, it has given us a way remove carbon dioxide
cheaply and easily from the air, essentially combating the
root cause of global warming directly. Secondly, the fact
that the CO2 can be sold for profit gives individuals,
enterprise, and governments the most effective motivation
to participate in fighting climate change – economic
progress.
The viability of GT’s business approach is due to the fact
that carbon dioxide is used in a wide range of industries; a
global commercial CO2 market already is worth about a
trillion dollars. Some of the largest consumers of industrial
CO2 are plants that manufacture carbonated beverages,
wine, food, plastics, fire-extinguishing products,
biofertilizers, synthetic fuels, and polymers and carbon
fiber. The gas is also used in water desalination and for
refrigeration and enhanced oil recovery.
These industries represent enormous commercialization
potential for a company that can produce and deliver CO2
quickly, reliably and inexpensively. Global Thermostat can
do all three.
Global Thermostat was founded by Graciela Chichilnisky,
an A list star mathematician and economist that is Global
Thermostat CEO and Peter Eisenberger, a world leading
physicist and material scientist. Graciela and Peter
coinvented the technology that Global Thermostat
commercializes.
There is no doubt about credentials - Chichilnisky is former
lead US author of the UN IPCC and the creator of the
carbon market of the Kyoto Protocol which became
international law in 2005. Her concept of Basic Needs has
been adopted by 150 nations as the cornerstone of the
definition of sustainable development, which was selected
by the G20 as the world’s main indicator of economic
development.
Graciela has been awarded the UNESCO Chair at Columbia
University, the Keynes Chair at the University of Essex,
and the Salimbemi Chair at the University of Siena, Italy.
She is a professor at Columbia University and a Visiting
Professor at Stanford University and contributes frequently
to academic publications of the world’s leading universities.
Graciela has also created and trademarked the concept of
Carbon Negative Technology which won her the Hero of
the Environment award from Time Magazine.
It is this unique combination of in-depth physics, chemistry,
and economics knowledge that gives Global Thermostat a
solid basis in science, and the vision to transform it into a
business plan with enormous transformational power.
Graciela’s long and intimate involvement with the carbon
economy led her to conclude that taking carbon dioxide
from the ambient air was a potential game changer. After an
exhaustive search for the best way to extract CO2 from the
atmosphere, they discovered that the ideal supporting
device had already been invented – the catalytic converter
used in automobiles, known as a ‘monolith contactor’.
 Each GT monolith contactor is coated with GT’s own
proprietary sorbent and 640 of them are arranged in an
array to create a single Global Thermostat plant at SRI.
Fans force air through the array and, as it passes through the
porous monolith contactors, the sorbent absorbs all the
carbon dioxide but none of the other gases.

Clean air emerges from the other side of the array and
returns to the atmosphere.

However, this extraction phase constitutes just the first half

of GT’s process; the CO2 then has to be released from the
sorbent. This is achieved with the application of heat at
185°F (85°C), less than it takes to boil water.

The beauty of GT’s system is it uses very little electricity

running on low temperature heat (85C) and can use the
residual waste heat from many industrial processes. In fact,
waste heat is generated by every single industry, even the
ones which consume CO2 This is a remarkable opportunity.
to cut costs and close the carbon loop at the source of
contamination. The entire technology is new; it and each of
its parts are covered by GT’s own 50 patents.

Untapped Possibilities
The trillion-dollar commercial CO2 market is currently
dominated by large chemicals companies like Linde Gas
Air Liquide and Praxair.

These companies address the industrial CO2 needs of

manufacturers but employ the traditional approach where
the gas is created in large plants by burning fossil fuels
which themselves require huge amounts of energy and also

“
create massive volumes of waste products and heat
including CO2.

We are a part of a very The CO2 then has to be packaged and transported by truck
healthy competitive over what can be vast distances to their customers’
locations. This usually makes transportation the single
landscape and admire largest component of their costs. Ironically, transportation is
the companies in the itself a major contributor to carbon emissions.

space for the work Compare that to Global Thermostat, whose strength of
they are trying to approach lies in its incredible versatility and low cost.
push forward. Because the concentration of carbon dioxide all over the
world is virtually constant, they do not need to dig deep into
the ground nor travel to distant,
dangerous regions to obtain it; the CO2
far above in the atmosphere is exactly
the same as CO2 concentration in
Moscow, Sydney or New York.
This means that a fully-functional
Global Thermostat CO2 plant can be
built on-site and can pop up anywhere
that is most convenient and suits the
customer. Real estate costs are not an
issue – a GT plant has a small footprint
and can even be situated in the
cheapest areas where no one wants to
live or work.
“We can reduce production costs by
using waste heat from industrial
processes that is just lost into the
environment. With its capability to be
set up at any location and to remove
CO2 from industrial gases or directly
from ambient air, we can situate them
right next to the biggest sources of
waste heat and benefit from an endless
supply of heat to fuel our CO2
extraction process,” explains Graciela.
Another option is to locate Global
Thermostat’s CO2 extractors right at a
“
Our focus is on reliability
of supplies, quality, and
the lowest cost anywhere.
client’s location. The waste heat from
their own production processes can be
cycled into the array to fuel extraction,
closing the carbon cycle. Not only does
this eliminate transportation costs, it
significantly reduces waste and is
easier to manage in terms of both
oversight and logistics. This multi-
faceted range of benefits is responsible
for the incredible buzz building around
the Global Thermostat brand. The
combination of massive cost savings in
CO2 production and a market hungry
for it mean that a vibrant, lucrative
carbon economy is just around the
corner.
As Graciela says, “I see the whole
world’s economy based on carbon
now; not petroleum, but CO2.”
Resistance to Change
Graciela says that one of the most
common questions posed to her is that
if such a thing were possible – to
literally make money from the air –
why has it not already been done? As
an answer, she relates the story of the
Wright brothers who, in 1903, made
the first aerial flight in a heavier than-
air craft. There was widespread doubt
that such a thing was possible before
their flight, but the amazing thing was
that the disbelief persisted after it
occurred!
“People have the tendency to consider
anything transformational unrealistic.
The Wright brothers said, “Let’s just
fly!” And they did.”
In the same way, Graciela and GT take
the pessimistic naysayers in their
stride. Instead of engaging in debate
with them and trying to repeatedly
prove the science behind it on paper,
they have already started building
commercial CO2 extractors and begun
the process of cleaning the planet’s
atmosphere.
A Mammoth Task
Humanity has delayed reducing carbon
emissions for so long that we have
crossed the point where that tactic
alone can effectively fight climate
change. The only feasible option for
the survival of the planet is for us to
find a way to remove the
approximately 40 billion tons of CO2
that humans yearly have already put in
the earth’s atmosphere.
“It is the only way can we prevent
catastrophic climate change now,”
admits Graciela, but she is optimistic,
“Carbon negative power plants like
those produced by Global Thermostat
grow the economy, create jobs and
exports, and simultaneously clean the
atmosphere of the planet.”
Global Thermostat projects a need for
between 30,000 and 40,000 extractor
 initiatives by governments helped boost the solar power
industry in the 20th century, a CO2 revolution may be just

“
around the corner. The US government in February of 2018
passed a law that provides tax credits for the removal of
CO2 at $35 per ton, called the FUTURE Act a bipartisan
federal law.
We offer reliable
and practically Securing Our Future
unlimited supplies Global Thermostat is taking a very active public role in
changing the industry and, in turn, changing the world.
of CO2 anywhere They offer a worldwide licensing scheme to make their
in the world technology very accessible, particularly in developing
nations, at competitive costs.
and at low cost.
Their focus is on nations with the lowest incomes who have
the greatest need for the technology and also the best
markets to offer.

units to achieve significant change. If full-scale production
were to start today, not just by GT but also other companies,
it would still take between 20 and 30 years to achieve that
goal.
The delay so far can be attributed in large part to the lack of
economic viability. However, just like direct investment and
The company is steadfast in its commitment to reduce
harmful emissions and foster economic development while
cleaning the planet’s atmosphere. It is scaling up steadily to
combat climate change while offering economic advantages
to underprivileged groups as it works towards a carbon
negative world works towards a carbon negative world.
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 Company Name Management Brief

ALL ACES All Aces Promotional Staffing opened its doors with one goal:
PROMOTIONAL Lauren Raimondi help top marketing, media, advertising and PR companies
STAFFING, INC. Founder & CEO execute flawless events that build bonds between customers and
acespromo.com brands.

Formed in 2010, Global Thermostat (GT) is commercializing its

Global Thermostat Graciela Chichilnisky advanced, multi-patented technology to transform Carbon
globalthermostat.com CEO
Dioxide from a global liability into an immense profit center.

LaptopsAnytime is “shaking up” the Public Access Computing

LaptopsAnytime Matthew Buscher Market by taking self-service laptop/tablet lending, loans,
laptopsanytime.com CEO checkout and borrowing to the next level. No longer do
facilities have to settle for incomplete solutions.

MLG Blockchain
Michael Gord MLG Blockchain Consulting is a global leader in blockchain
Consulting, Ltd
mlgblockchain.com Founder & CEO development and consulting.

Moblize is a trusted name applying Big Data Analytics for the

Moblize Amit Mehta
oil and gas industry to improve the daily life of enterprise
moblize.com CEO
knowledge workers.

Observit supplies professional video surveillance solutions in

Observit Lars Floden
close collaboration with the world-leading supplier of security
observit.se CEO
cameras, Axis Communications.

Starwest Associates’ technology division, Starwest Tech, was

Starwest Tech Bob Ramsey established in 1992 to develop the technologies and systems
starwestassociates.com Founder & CEO needed to support Starwest Associates’ EMS operations and
public fire systems.

Trisotech provides new and revolutionary ways for digital

Trisotech Denis Gagne
enterprise knowledge workers to collaborate and succeed in this
Trisotech.com Co-founder & CEO
increasingly global and connected world.

VORTAL is a leading company offering worldwide eSourcing

Vortal Rui Dias-Ferreira and eProcurement solutions. Using its Cloud eMarketplace,
vortal.biz Founder & CEO thousands of public and private buyers connect every day with an
international community of qualified suppliers to do business.

Wgroup Jeff Vail Wgroup is a management consulting firm with a peer-to-peer

thinkwgroup.com CEO approach to IT optimization and transformation.
Omnichannel Agent
and Customer
Engagement Solutions
Simplify and personalize the customer experience,
empower agents and achieve business success
with one workspace for all channel interactions,
application integrations, and CX reporting.
Why Buying for life
will Save the
Environment and
our Sanity
O ur relationship with stuff is broken. The world is
constantly telling us that we need to have the next
great thing, but at the same time the quality of
products has gone down. This has led to houses full of
clutter, stressed out people who shop for the sake of
shopping and get into debt.
Most of the world’s scientist agree that we’ve got an
environmental crisis. All of this can be solved with more
mindful shopping of the things that we need long term, but
the products themselves need to meet that challenge.
It isn’t often talked about but buying for the long term can
save a huge amount of energy & pollution and it’s so easy
to do. E.g. if you buy a T-shirt that can last 2 years instead
of 1 you save 24% of the CO emissions. If you buy once
and buy well it means less mining, less factory pollution,
less truck pollution and less waste.
There are also many personal benefits to buying for life.
When you buy for the long term you naturally think more
deeply about what you want from your life which leads to
better decision making. You have less stress because the
things around you let you down less often. Everything you
do own brings you joy so you are surrounded by things that
20
nourish you, serve you well and reflect your values. You
also save money in the long term because you have to
replace things less often.
Brands are beginning to realise that people want more from
them than just cheap and cheerful goods. When companies
build great products that last they become classics, the
products that are bought as wedding presents or gifted on
special birthdays. They inspire customer loyalty generation
on generation which in turn helps the company to last
longer.
People are looking for reasons to trust brands and there is a
lot of marketing spin out there which is not backed up by
the strength of the product. People are looking for
authenticity and good brand stories and increasingly these
are coming through platforms such as Kickstarter where the
engineers and manufacturers with a real passion can talk
directly with consumer. These companies are able to deliver
a better product than if they had gone down a traditional
retail route where the marketers and buyers putting them
under pressure to reach certain price points.
I believe that people will do the right thing if it’s made
convenient and it’s clear what the benefit is to them. By
June 2018
Virtuoso’s Vision
doing all the research and finding the longest
lasting and most sustainable products my
company BuyMeOnce are making it easy
for people to shop in a more sustainable
way. We find amazing brands that
shoppers may not have heard of and
at the same time we campaign to get
other companies to up their game
and be less short sighted.

Buying for life is the first and

arguably most important step
towards what is called the circular
economy. While governments have
focussed on recycling very little effort
has been put into the real causes of our
environmental crisis which to a large degree
is over consumption. Governments don’t want
people to stop spending, but our economy must
shift in order to become sustainable. Encouraging
people to buy long lasting things that can be upgraded
and fixed or repurposed should be the focus of
environmental and economic policy. Already some
countries such as France and Sweden have made great
strides. France, with its laws against planned obsolescence
and Sweden with its tax breaks on mending show that there
is another way for business and the environment to co-exist.

Unfortunately, with people used to paying bottom dollar for

goods it is hard to persuade them that higher prices are fair.
The growing movement in ethical fashion has started to
open people’s eyes to the true cost of cheap clothing and the
exploitation of garment workers and this is opening the way
to a more ethically aware consumer. At the same time being
able to communicate the cost savings of long-term buying
is important.

As an example, the average British person buys 1.1

umbrellas a year at a cost of around 10-15 pounds. This Tara Button
means that buying one lifetime umbrella could save a CEO & founder
person hundreds of pounds over their lifetime. The data on BuyMeOnce
how long products lasts is hard to come by and often kept
close to the chests of companies. Therefore, it’s hard to
make this calculation across all categories.

I believe that for companies to be able to compete on

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

June 2018 21
All Aces Promotional
Stafng, Inc.
Helping Organizations Staff and Execute
Flawless Events
A ll Aces Promotional
Staffing, Inc. opened its
doors in 2007 with a clear
vision to help companies execute
events and manage the staff that
strengthen their bonds with their
customers.
Focusing on PR, experiential
marketing and advertising
companies, as well as food and
beverage companies, the organization
quickly developed a reputation for
providing the most friendly and
reliable talent in the industry.
Its event experiences include demos
and sampling programs, guerilla
marketing, mascots and characters,
street teams, staff for trade show
booths, program logistics assistance
and more.
All Aces’s commitment to top tier
event staffing has also caught the
attention of more conservative
businesses, and conferences now
make up a huge portion of its work.
The company believes that one event
experience can influence a consumer
for a lifetime, and works to ensure all
of its staff interactions are nothing
less than spectacular.
22
The company provides event staffing
and logistics solutions throughout the
USA, the UK, Europe, and Canada.
The Enthusiastic Leader
Lauren Raimondi is the Founder
and CEO of All Aces Promotional
Staffing, Inc. While studying to be a
brain surgeon, Lauren started staffing
and managing marketing campaigns
from her dorm room at Boston
University.
More than just an experiential
marketing staff expert, she is a
professional problem solver who is
always exploring ways to adapt
campaigns to maximize their impact.
Lauren is a true leader and banks on
her 15 years of experience in
promotional marketing, event
staffing, and brand management to
lead her project managers.
She believes that passion, creativity,
efficiency and a network of top
promotional talent are key to creating
successful events and client
relationships. She is an expert at
reading people and situations, a skill
she learned through playing poker.
Coincidentally, that is how All Aces
got its name!
Tackling Challenges and
Competitors
All Aces Promotional Staffing, Inc.
works with clients and talent, which
means keeping both sides happy in
the unpredictable confluence of
events and people. The work
experience for its brand ambassadors
is every bit as important as its clients’
satisfaction.
Large, busy events come with their
share of unforeseen obstacles. The
organization’s main job is to create a
win-win situation where customers
can focus on their event knowing the
staff management is taken care of.
All Aces believes that there is
enough room in the industry for
everyone to prosper. That might seem
like a cliché, but All Aces
Promotional Staffing, Inc. has
recently formed a referral-based
relationship with a number of
agencies, and combined that with
strategic partnerships with vendors to
provide greater value to clients.
June 2018
 ‘‘ Like poker,All Aces is about reading and
understanding the people
we’re playing with. That’s why we’re
successful. And that’s why our clients
and brand ambassadors alike always
come back to play at our table.
Lauren Raimondi
Founder and CEO

All Aces Promotional Staffing does
offer competitive rates as well as
services that minimize client risk,
such as a W2 system where the
organization takes on the
employment liability for its staff and
eliminates co-employment risk. The
company’s technology and talent
portal allow it to work efficiently
while streamlining the process for
clients.
When the Going Gets Tough
Lauren started the company when
she was 24 with no experience
working a “real” job. It took a few
years of trial and error to figure out
what a functioning company looked
like and establish various
components, like a robust talent
database, and a payroll partner with
back-office solutions once she had
employees.
Since Lauren was focused solely in
the beginning on getting clients,
there was no foundation on which to
scale once things really started to
pick up. All Aces has had to change
its operational procedures a number
of times in order to keep up.
As states became stricter about
employment misclassification, All
Aces decided to partner with a
company to hire all field staff as W2
employees throughout the country.
As a small business, this has allowed
the organization to operate like a
large agency and has greatly
streamlined the HR and payroll
process. This gives it a huge
competitive edge over other event
staffing agencies.
All Aces now can focus on its core
business and go after bigger clients
and companies, always meeting their
requirements, as well as offering
perks to its brand ambassadors that
most other agencies cannot.
The company has scaled its business
significantly as a result of
professional affiliations, awards and
its CEO’s participation in the
coveted, game changing Goldman
Sachs 10.000 small businesses
program.
Now, All Aces Promotional is in a
position to pursue projects that really
resonate with its core culture and
ethics. It will be shifting its focus to
events for nonprofit organizations,
retail, and natural, healthy snack and
beverage brands. The organization
has also been providing more
assistance with logistics at the
request of its clients and plans to
expand its services in this field.
All Aces is currently in the process of
launching a wellness program that
will offer breathing and meditation
guidance via online streaming. It
already provides its employees this
service.
Now that All Aces Promotional
Staffing has the award recognition
and WBE/WBENC certifications to
go with its solid foundation, it is
planning to expand its client base to
include the government and high-
level corporations and advertising
agencies.

June 2018 23
Making Technology More Accessible For All
LaptopsAnytime was founded in 2008 with the vision to
provide facilities with a convenient turnkey way to
transform their space while enhancing technology access.
The Company’s automated dispensing kiosks provide
access to the right technology at the right time.
Accountability is paramount. Space and staff time are
limited. The mission is to help facilities “Move Beyond
Desktops” and transform old and antiquated computer
labs, libraries and device-checkout areas no matter the
environment – office, industrial, educational, government
-- into modern and inviting cafe-style atmospheres, with
comfortable multi-use seating and innovative access to
“self-service” mobile technology at its core.
No longer does a facility need long rows of tables, chairs
and desktops or manual circulation counters with long
lines that never seem to grow shorter. Using the self-
service kiosks, facilities can be eco-friendly, efficient and
allow for staff members to focus on serving patrons with
value-added services rather than being constantly tied to
the never-ending checkout process!
Manual device checkout programs too often end up
being a support nightmare and morale killer even when
planned for large user populations. Don’t make the
mistake of overburdening your circulation and support
staff. Instead, use LaptopsAnytime automated dispensing
kiosks to meet the needs of large user groups.
Facilities around the United States and around the globe
26
have spent the last 30+ years deploying millions of
desktop computers and have more recently begun
questioning how to smartly move beyond desktops to
take advantage of the bene ts of mobile devices such as
laptops. While some organizations rely upon individual
ownership of mobile computers, when it
comes to ensuring that everyone within a
group has convenient access to technology
all the time, or at least when people need
tech access, this is a challenging task. Not
everyone can have their mobile device with
them all the time. Sometimes devices are
being repaired.
Manual circulation counters are simply a
staff burden and inefficient time-waster and
are not cost-effective over the long-term.
Furthermore, organizations have a responsi-
bility to meet the demands of their mem-
bers, patrons, employees and users. There is
a growing acknowledgment that automa-
tion, especially with a “1-to-Many” focus is
the answer to these long-term challenges.
LaptopsAnytime’s singular focus on automated dispens-
ing kiosks that allow for the checkout and return of
technology devices brings it a leadership position within
the market.
LaptopsAnytime’s magic is automating the process such
that when the laptop (or tablet or portable power
charger) is pushed back into the bay (yes, this is all end
user needs to do!) to the locked position, (a) the laptop is
docked to power and so is able to recharge automatically
and (b) even if laptop is returned in off state, it can be
turned back on, (c) device can be returned back to pre-set
state, (d) each laptop communicates its battery life to
LaptopsAnytime central server so that it is only checked
out when it exceeds minimum battery threshold set by
administrator, (e) each laptop communicates its presence
via RFID card and RFID card reader in every bay where it is
docked.
Unlike other products in market (think lockers and carts
and cabinets), there is nothing for end user(s) to do but
push laptop into bay. Everything else is automatic,
including sending noti cations out to end users and
administrators and authenticating to local databases (ILS
and/or LDAP/Active Directory being most common).
June 2018
 LaptopsAnytime Co-
Founders Matthew
Buscher and Jona-
Matthew Buscher, CEO A mechanical engineer
than Ruttenberg
were inspired by by training with a
their own experi- background in kiosk
ences with mobile development, Matthew
computers, which Buscher is Co-Founder
while generally an
and CEO of
improvement over
desktops, are not LaptopsAnytime. In
always easily 2002, Matt successfully
accessible within oversaw the startup of
both public environ- the Powerport, which
ments and some
offered a variety of
private facility
settings. technological connec-
tion solutions for the
LaptopsAnytime continues to expand the devices that it traveling user, e.g. laptop rentals, internet con-
dispenses from its kiosks including wide range of nected walk up computer stations, cell phone and
enterprise laptops from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Apple and laptop battery charging stations and more. Matt
Google, Apple iPads and even Portable Power Chargers
(see chargersanytime.com) that include 110V outlets.
was involved in leading the company as it
expanded to several prominent airport locations. In
It is important to move beyond desktops to make mobile 2008, Matt joined with fellow Co-Founder Jona-
devices easily accessible. than Ruttenberg and LaptopsAnytime was born.

It has been said that all beginnings are difficult as it takes

time to prove that a new approach is superior to the
status quo. LaptopsAnytime now does more than 2+
OVER 2 MILLION
Million Automated Checkouts annually at kiosks deployed
across the United States and on ve continents around
ANNUAL CHECKOUTS
the globe. LaptopsAnytime looks forward to
continually expanding its reach and helping more and
more organizations with their self-service device
checkout needs to move beyond desktops and to LaptopsAnytime.com
increase accessibility to technology devices.

June 2018 27
MLG Blockchain
Consulting:
Building Decentralized Applications
using Blockchains
T he blockchain industry is
drawing immense interest as
a disruptive way of driving
growth across startups, enterprises
and governments. One global leader
focusing on building decentralized
applications using blockchains and
smart contract technology is MLG
Blockchain Consulting.
With headquarters in Toronto,
Montreal and New York City, Major
League Growth (MLG) has a
distributed team across North
America, Europe and Asia. It aims to
become the premier organization to
help businesses enter the blockchain
‘major leagues’ through its
specialized team and global network
of strategic partners.
MLG also helps ambitious university
students and young professionals
enter the Blockchain industry by
hosting blockchain hackathons and
collegiate case competitions that
companies use to recruit top talent.
An Experienced CEO
Michael Gord, founder and CEO,
is the mastermind behind MLG
Blockchain Consulting. Michael
28
holds a degree in Entrepreneurship,
Marketing and Information Systems
from the Desautels Faculty of
Management at McGill University.
There, he founded the McGill
Cryptocurrency Club and co-founded
the McGill Students Fintech
Association. His goal was to grow
awareness and thought leadership for
blockchain within the university and
in the city of Montreal. Michael also
founded Bitcoin Canada while at
McGill to scale and connect the
operations of the clubs established
across Canada. He then joined forces
with the College Cryptocurrency
Network and helped rebrand it to the
Blockchain Education Network.
After graduating, Michael made the
first donation of bitcoin to the McGill
Alumni Association. He then
founded MLG Blockchain
Consulting to focus his energies full-
time on digital currency and
blockchain.
Michael has launched several global
annual events, including Bitcoin
Airdrop, Blockchain Education
Month, Blockchain Madness,
Blockchain Gauntlet and
BlockHacks. These events introduce
thousands of people global each year
to digital currency and to the
disruptive potential of blockchain
technology.
Michael has developed a reputation
as being at the center of the global
‘cryptokid’ movement to which
global enterprises are eager to gain
access.
Turning Hurdles into Triumphs
The blockchain space is incredibly
fast-paced and this brings uncertainty
to the table while discussions on
regulations impact clients’ prospects
in both the short and long term.
However, MLG believes that the
industry’s biggest challenge is also
its biggest opportunity and aims to
excel in the same space.
In Michael’s first year in the
blockchain industry, he lost 15
Bitcoins after mislaying his crypto-
wallet’s private key, a lesson worth
around $150,000 at today’s Bitcoin
price. It was then that he learned the
importance of proper security
measures for both personal and
organizational usage.
June 2018
 ‘‘ We are excited to pioneer
best practices that push
frontiers in the
blockchain industry.
With the demand for blockchain
projects skyrocketing, MLG
Blockchain Consulting is now
receiving well over one hundred
requests weekly for its array of
services. The firm is in a great
position within the industry and
wants to become the premier
blockchain venture creation and
consulting company in the world
with cutting-edge case studies across
multiple industries.
Beyond the Competition
MLG Blockchain has built a culture
of ‘intrapreneurship’ with a ‘get-it-
done’ mentality. The entire team is
aware that they can run with projects
without being micromanaged.
Its team of young and passionate
professionals who are hardworking
and flexible and who thrive at being
responsive and planning for multiple
scenarios. From Holland to Canada,
the United States, India, Vietnam,
Mozambique and among others, the
team members are all over the world
and represent many different cultures
and nationalities. By being in many
places at one time, the global MLG
Blockchain team is able to provide
June 2018
representation for clients all around
the world.
The company’s partnerships are a
primary driver of consistent growth
for MLG Blockchain. It is always
open to collaborating with the top
firms across the world who can add
value to its clients’ businesses and
help in growing the global
blockchain ecosystem. MLG is eager
to position itself strongly in the
changing industry landscape and has
launched new companies such as
Crypto Media Global which offer
complementary services and expand
their offerings to ensure that the firm
remains an industry leader in new
lines of business.
Infinite Potential
As the blockchain industry booms
around the world, large enterprises,
public companies and even
governments are beginning to invest
into Blockchain solutions, in addition
to the hundreds of new startups
entering the industry.
Scaling solutions for Blockchain
protocols, such as Raiden for
Ethereum, Lightning for Bitcoin and
Michael Gord
Founder & CEO
Trinity for NEO are being deployed
into production. These solutions have
the potential to quickly increase the
number of transactions per second to
a number far greater than what even
Visa, the historical leader in this
category, can handle.
There is a huge demand from
universities to offer classes and
degrees in Blockchain technology
while high school students are going
to hackathons and building next
generation applications. This seems
to be a great time for the industry.
MLG Blockchain is building the
foundation of the 21st-century
economy and is at the forefront of a
technology paradigm. It aims to
pioneer the blockchain revolution
and launch some of the most exciting
businesses to take the Blockchain
ecosystem mainstream.
As long as MLG Blockchain
continues to grow in the same
direction and at the same speed it has
so far, the young blockchain firm is
well on its way to making this a
reality.
29
Catching-up
with the

ROBOTICS
for
Better
FUTURE R obots have always been
pictured as a man-made
advanced technological
creativity, which do and will favor the
human species for future. As robotics
is vibrantly globalized, soon it will be
mainstreamed in various fields and
sectors. Currently, there are numerous
enterprises worldwide which are
implementing robotics into industrial,
healthcare and commercial use.
Whereas, robotics have experienced a
lot of up’s and down’s during this
tenure, but with the time, it held a
stronghold in the digital world.

Whenever the discussion arises about

the applications of robotics, the
industrial sector has bespoken
benefits’. Robots have become more
affordable, smart and productive over
the years. The sectors like agriculture,
construction, warehousing and
logistics, and customer services. By
investing more in robots, an enterprise

30 June 2018
Future-Bots
will be solving certain problems more
accurately and efficiently. Meanwhile,
utilizing robots will help enterprises to
push their limits in order to fill up the
productivity voids.
With each slippage of time, the
technology is upgrading so does the
robotics. The advancements in robotics
field will be a boon to the enterprises in
order to increase growth and
productivity rate. There are certain
parameters that should be considered
while implementing robotics in the
enterprise, such as
Following up Parameters before
Reaching the Depth of Robotics
Modifying; as per the user’s need
Generally, robots used to require
advanced training in order to operate
comfortably. It’s not an issue for the
big enterprises as they acquire the
skilled people to deal with, where the
small enterprises are not so gifted with
June 2018
loads of assets initially. But, with the
new advances in robotics technologies,
it has become easier for small ventures
to invest in robots for increasing the
productivity generating more revenue.
Just by giving wireless commands
from an IOT, demonstrating tasks to
the robots gets easier. Nowadays, there
are numerous varieties of robots to
carry out multitasks, thus as per the
user’s need, one can invest in robots
for the industrial purpose.
Easily Compatible
Unlike the big manufacturing robots in
huge industries, there are various
collaborative robots which are
specially designed to work alongside
and to assist human workers in a
variety of tasks. Earlier it was sort of
stressful for an enterprise to allot
specific man-power for certain task,
but by implementing co-bots such
issues are resolved. As the size and
shape of co-bots are getting more
compact, it may benefit the enterprises
in various terms.
Easy to Develop
Earlier robots were not able to program
easily due to the incompatibility
between the user interface and
hardware. But, now Robotic Operating
System (ROS) is dominating the
industry by providing solutions for
varied robots in order to perform the
task without lagging. It’s an open-
source framework which helps
developers to redirect the programming
in different ways. This open-source
framework is dominating the growth
towards the constructive direction.
Amplifying the Range of Applied
Robotics
The 21st century—is the era of
implementing new ideology and
technologies in various sectors. While
technological disruption has
collectively affected every possible
31
sector, robotics is still unaffected. From past few years, the
technology, as well as its implementation, has increased
substantially. Have a look on such few areas for possible
applications.
Obliging Enterprises through Robotics
Cobot’s: Assisting Humans
Unlike big manufacturing robots, collaborative robots are
designed to work with employees in enterprises and
corporates. The design is smart enough to assist humans
and also, compact enough to handle. Generally, the small
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are slightly boon by
implementing co-bots in day to day life, as they are easily
adaptable, easy to process and most importantly it’s
affordable. According to some experts, there’s a possibility
of enormous growth in the business, if Co-bots are
implemented widely. The main motive of industrial robots
is to the prioritized safety of employees and workers, yet
the chances of accidents are always at high risk. Whereas,
co-bots works as a service robot; they come in various
shape and sizes easing the workability and reducing the
liability of employees. In order to get sanctioned as service
robots, any co-bot has to pass certain testing parameters by
robot manufacturing companies, factors such as easily
compatible with other devices and programs, safe in
use, easy to command, and processing at a faster
rate. Currently, co-bots are used for processes
like machine tending, packaging, and material
handling. In spite of industries, co-bots are
used in various sectors such as in farming,
hospitals, healthcare and facilities, and
labs. It does come under robot-as-a-
service format.
with personal robotics cloud which will help robots to take
and give information directly. Depending on the robot, it
can process various functions such as lifting, leveraging,
handle vision, object recognition and other, thus certain
robots acquire such skills and will provide information to
the cloud. Then, this information helps other robots to get
enlightened. In simple words to say, robots will teach other
robots for the better good of the enterprises. On the other
hand, as robots are getting more and more evolved, filtering
of essential information from rest will get much easier. This
will comfort both big and small enterprises to manage big
data more precisely.
With the emergence of advancement in robotics, they are on
the verge to touch skies already. If considering the above
possible factors, this evergreen era of robotics is less likely
to get saturated due to technological disruption. As the
technologies are growing faster, the enterprises must to
catch-up with them accordingly. It’s high time to implement
new technologies especially of the robotics as its utilization
is not only subjected to warehouses but also, towards the in-
house enterprise work. Hopefully, there’s a possibility of
robot-oriented industries in the future.

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

32 June 2018
Moblize:
Using Disruptive Innovation to Transform
the Oil & Gas Industry
T he term ‘disruptive innovation’
refers to a new entrant in a
market who disrupts and
outperforms established players. When
disruptive innovation is executed
successfully, it is a force to be
reckoned with. Such a strategy is not
for the faint-hearted but choosing to
ignore it can be fatal.
The process begins with a new
company addressing a gap in the
market where a segment of the
population has traditionally been
overlooked. By offering an alternative
product or service that is usually more
convenient and affordable, the new
company is able to reach consumers
who had previously been ignored.
Over time they build a foothold in the
market and, through a process of
continuous improvement and
innovation, break into the competitive
market with which they were
previously not involved. Usually
equipped with a better product and
understanding of customer experience,
the company is able to push established
players out of the market.
A great example of successful
disruptive innovation is Moblize, a
trusted name applying Big Data
Analytics in the oil and gas industry to
improve the daily life of enterprise
knowledge workers.
The Inception Story
Headquartered in Houston, TX,
Moblize is committed to helping the oil
and gas industry exploit software to
34
simplify and streamline everyday
operations. The industry is very good
at hardware innovations but falters
when it comes to software, especially
in terms of using it as an enterprise
platform.
Moblize recognized that the oil and gas
vertical was in a prime position to be
disrupted via data analytics software.
They studied the gaps and limitations
that existing service providers had
chosen not to address, and then created
a product from scratch which tackled
those issues.
The end result was a revolutionary
Software As A Service solution that
eliminated pain points that had
previously been ignored while
integrating innovative features that
greatly simplified everyday
management.
An Adept CEO
Amit Mehta, CEO of Moblize Mr.
Amit Mehta has been featured in
numerous magazines such as Voyage,
Forbes, CIO Magazine, JPT, World
Oil, Hart E&P, Oilvoice, Oilman,
Mixergy, Entrepreneur to name a few.
Under his leadership, Moblize was
ranked as one of the best
Entrepreneurial Companies in 2016 by
the Entrepreneur Magazine. Amit
graduated from University of
Cambridge, UK with degree in Design,
Manufacture and Management. As part
of the curriculum he visited 50 plus
manufacturing plants across the globe
and worked in the manufacturing
plants of Peugeot, Jaguar and Boeing
implementing lean manufacturing
principles. Amit says that while
everyone else is focused on applying
big data or AI to make machines
smarter, Moblize is focused on making
enterprise users smarter. He cites the
company’s maturity in data
aggregation and data preparation
services to enable true data analytics as
a huge advantage.
Unique Products
Moblize has developed a SAAS
growth platform to create a consumer-
like experience for enterprise users.
The typical enterprise user in the
industry is overloaded with work
because of inefficient enterprise
workflows. Due to time constraints,
decisions are often made on intuition
instead of facts and this can lead to
potentially expensive failures like
overlooked opportunities and risk
underestimation.
The ProMPT platform was designed to
use data analytics to make humans
smarter first, not machines. It is a
technological breakthrough, an all-in-
one analytics platform that gives
enterprise users a single source of facts
for all daily tasks like well planning,
daily operations, and post-well
analysis. Detailed reports are available
anytime, anywhere.
This platform collapses all
inefficiencies into daily workflows so
individuals can spend time where it is
truly needed – engineering. It applies
machine intelligence on incoming raw
June 2018
 ‘‘ Our mission is to develop an
integrated platform to improve
the daily lives of enterprise
users in E&P companies.
data to provide actionable facts and
support big judgment from big data to
make humans more productive and
capable of smarter decisions.
Client Base
The platform strategy of Moblize is
driven primarily by its large customer
base. Their first project was so
successful that they signed over 40
E&P Clients in less than 18 months.
Today, the platform created ROI in less
than 60 days with no upfront cost to
the client. This has helped in shaping
the adoption of current products and in
the creation of the new products like
ProFRAC and ProWISE as part of
“ProMPT” Platform.
ProWISE is a private knowledge
platform for an enterprise that can
learn over time to help unlock human
potential. ProWISE allows enterprise
users from any discipline to effortlessly
share contextual insights from
ProACT, ProFRAC, or any third-party
applications through their mobile
phones or PCs, making it an Integrated
knowledge platform holding both
structured and unstructured data.
Over time, ProWISE “learns” things
about users through posts, decisions,
discussions, pictures, videos, and more.
Then, it mines that data to in future
give recommendations, generate
reports, and simplify workflows,
enabling big judgement in the era of
big data. ProWISE also aims to reduce
the knowledge insight deficit which
June 2018
frequently plagues enterprises as they
add new talent.
From Early Obstacles to Growth
Strategy
Moblize’s greatest initial challenge was
hiring the right talent, and this was
exacerbated by Houston’s standing as a
very hardware-centric market with a
scarcity of good software talent.
Adoption was the other major
challenge because Moblize was not a
known brand; it was an uphill battle to
establish a reputable presence.
However, when the market did
recognize their value, growth happened
so quickly that internal processes were
stretched thin. Balancing growth while
maintaining superior service was not
easy.
Some of the factors which the
organization considers it to be its
biggest assets are:
Ÿ Implementation of best practices
from Silicon Valley on how to run
software as a business
Ÿ Its team of talented people who are
self-driven, self-motivated and push
each other.
Ÿ Demanding clients who have them
constantly pushing the edge
Ÿ An international presence which
helps in ensuring competitive prices
and sustaining healthy margins
Amit Mehta
CEO
Delivering Fast-Paced Success
The crash of the oil and gas market in
2015 was a key contributor to
Moblize’s success because every E&P
organization began to focus on
operational efficiency and business
agility, functions which are at the heart
of the company’s products.
Moblize is growing by applying the
fail-fast concept of rapid experiments,
rapid learning, and rapidly adopting
success while moving on from failure
just as quickly.
The company gives its customers the
advantage of the latest technology in
cloud-based services and analytics. It
plans to expand their capabilities and
services to offer these concepts to a
much broader range of industries and
users.
Aiming to Thrive
Moblize has already marked its
presence in the Oil & Gas drilling
market and looks forward to expanding
its reach and providing its solutions
and services in new ones.
In the near future, they see themselves
expanding rapidly into other oil and
gas segments like completion and
production. The aim is to become a
leader in providing big data analytics
to oil and gas enterprises and then
replicating that success in other
capital-intensive markets.
35
Observit C3:
Providing Excellence through Mobile
Video Surveillance as a Service
O bservit was started in 1994
when its founders left the
Telecom R&D wing within
the Swedish Telecom, and started, as
pioneers, developing products and
services using Internet as a strategy.
The first hosted video service, VSaaS,
was released in 2000 and the brand
“Observit” was thus registered.
“We built IP connections to cameras
that had no IP back in 1995. We have
been developing products that connect
things for 20 years. Today, it is called
the Internet of Things or IoT. But with
20-years of experience we know that
the connection itself is not the hard
thing to do. The challenge is to make
small units of hardware, the cameras
and peoplecounters, a stable, reliable
and accessible enterprise system, all
put together as a service. Let the
customer use the system instead of
configuring and managing,” said Lars
Flodén, CEO.
In 2006, the first IP based Video
Management System for public
transport. The system was, and still is,
a unique product on the market where
the technology and the processes are
combined with the Enterprise design
from telecom solutions. Designed to be
the best solution in this particular
transportation market using the unique
experience from telecom to build
Enterprise Mobile services with
thousands of units and cameras.
36
C3, disruptive video surveillance for
the mobile fleet
With Observit C3, the company has
completely changed the prerequisites
for video surveillance systems in the
transport sector.
C3 brings this to a whole new level
through long-term lifecycle
management, business model and
technical architecture that effortlessly
and effectively minimizes complexity
and creates simplicity for different
kinds of internal and external
stakeholders. The objective of the
Observit C3 is the niche of mobile
fleets in the transport sector.
The Connected Camera Cluster, C3
Onboard mobile video surveillance can
be a complicated business, from
keeping hardware functioning and up-
to-date to making sure that authorized
stakeholders have access to the
evidence they need.
Yet there is an easier way to manage it
not just on a single bus or vehicle, but
on every bus in a complete fleet. With
a unique, cloud-connected subscription
service, customers can achieve a cost-
effective management of the onboard
surveillance. No matter how many
vehicles or how wide the area to serve,
customers can experience high
reliability and a low cost of ownership.
With extreme low complexity to install
and establish locally in vehicles and
centrally managed in the cloud,
Observit C3 is truly a disruptive
solution in this market and ready to be
used anywhere, anytime, without any
hurdles or limitations.
Using well-proven unique technology,
no geographical limitations and in a
partnership with the leading IP camera
supplier Axis Communications,
Observit C3 will be a success in the
fragmented market of enterprise
solutions in the transportation market.
Lifecycle management and low TCO
In public transport vehicles are often
running for 10 years or more. With C3,
it is equally easy to manage
surveillance equipment across your
fleet, regardless of the age of the
vehicle.
With C3 as a service all devices are
automatically updated with new
functionality when available,
regardless of the age of the vehicle.
Devices are configured and updated
remotely, having the same settings and
functions fleet-wide, even if the
business operations change, increase or
decrease. The C3 service will adapt to
the customers actual business.
Each installed vehicle and system
behaves in the same way, no matter
what the age of the vehicle or camera,
depot or geography. Better still, each
June 2018
 ‘‘ Our service and product
development is based on a
trusted partnership with a
broad customer base.
system checks its health and reports
this via the cloud. Systems are always
monitored without having to check
them in person.
Best-in-class Solution Offerings
C3 focus is in transport, a niche
market, where Observit has built the
system to be best-in-class. A centrally
monitored and managed cloud service
where it is easy to monitor and get an
actual status of all units and access
recordings and real-time streaming.
The C3 service does not require any
resource intensive specialist
competence to manage the system, the
company has put a lot of work and
development to make C3 extremely
easy to install, use and manage.
C3 reduces the large number of
hardware components used in normal
video surveillance systems. No other
recorders or rugged PC’s etc are
needed in the vehicle. Just connect the
C3 cameras to the network and it will
be up and running. Less hardware,
smarter software is making the solution
much more flexible and independent of
future changes in technology.
No expertise is needed to use or install
C3, no training to users needed. Easy
to access recorded video, audio and
real-time video. Designated resources
could be granted access. E.g. Police,
insurance companies or other
stakeholders, which speed up the time
June 2018
to access video and limit the resource
needed for management and support.
Future Expansion
The Observit C3 makes it easy to
expand within all segments of
transportation including all kind of
mobile units that need enterprise
remote management capabilities, not
only surveillance video system.
Observit have already expanded the
concept to also include people
counters. The C3 system also include
support for advanced event
management, making external signals
from the vehicle, GPS or telematics be
a part of the video. Event management
making actions such as alarm buttons,
indicators, speed, driver behavior etc.
all available as metadata in the video.
Still all managed within the C3,
Connected Camera Cluster.
With Observit C3 and the cloud service
there are no limitations, the company is
able to expand its presence
geographically worldwide. In the first
phase of expansion, Observit already
have partners reselling the service in
the western world which comprises all
European countries and the US.
Nobina Case Study - Public
Transportation
Nobina chose Observit, together with
Axis network cameras. The solution
had to be simple to configure and
manage while also satisfying Nobinas
Lars Flodén
CEO
requirements for quality and reliability.
More than 10,000 cameras installed on
buses in Denmark, Finland, Norway
and Sweden.
The Result
Nobina was able to increase safety and
security for both their bus passengers
and their drivers. The system is easy to
install and monitor centrally,
eliminating the costly requirement for
engineers to manually retrieve data
from each individual unit. The new
high-definition surveillance system
also makes it easy for police to
immediately and remotely access high-
quality image material in real time and
for forensic review, enabling an
effective and timely response. The
image material in vehicles can be
obtained in real time or downloaded
via the network for further analysis.
Knowing the CEO
Lars is a great relationship builder and
is able to see the bigger picture in
terms of strategy using his in-depth
technical as well as business
understanding. He deals with anything
and everything with calm and has an
open mind to find positive solutions to
difficult situations, whether they be
locally, regionally or globally. Before
helming the CEO role at Observit, Lars
held several positions at Steria, Sun
Microsystems and Capgemini.
37
The
World

as
we
know
it,
does
not

Exist
Anymore
T he myth of the game changing power of
“Digitization” has outgrown the garages in Silicon
Valley and the classrooms of Tech driven elite
universities. It is a driving force behind change and growth
in many parts of the economy.
Private Equity and Venture Capital investors are aware and
notorious to seek for the best ideas and equip some lucky
founders with funding, surreal to managers in traditional
industries. Technologies – such as Internet of Things, Big
Data, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence or Industry
4.0 – give basis for business model innovation and future
disruption.
Ramping up digital competencies and setting a CEO agenda
for the digital transformation is imperative for any given
business, in order to protect the competitive proposition in
tomorrow’s hyper-connected economy.
By 2020 at least 50 billion devices and a trillion sensors are
expected to connect individuals with economic processes.
The whiteboard drafts in research labs around the globe will
be available to consumers as devices and applications even
faster. Innovation to come will change all the rationales of
any business model in any given industry.
Observing the accelerating speed of innovation over the
past years, disruptive business developments will be the
40
Kolja
A.
Rafferty
Practice
Lead
Strategist
Leverage
Experts
About The Author
Kolja A. Ra erty is practice lead strategist
at Leverage Experts, a mid-market
strategy and corporate finance consulting
firm with a focus on start-up, scale up and
turnaround cases in the technology field.
e Leverage Experts team is operating
out of Zurich, Switzerland and Frankfurt,
Germany, with outposts in Toronto,
Canada and the Californian Bay Area,
USA, covering Europe and the Americas.
Kolja serves as executive and advisor to
companies in distress and turnaround
situations. He is a certified non-executive
director and renowned author and
spokesperson on conferences. His
personal view on various business
subjects, he is publishing on his private
blog. He concluded a legal education,
holds an US MBA degree from a
renowned business school and received
his non-executive degree from INSEAD.
June 2018
Leader’s Talk
major reason for businesses to fail.
This is leading to three elemental rules:
Do-or-die - excel on Digital Transformation
For existing industries - focusing on the digital
transformation is imperative.
Companies failing on digitization, as well as industries,
with a low level of digitization, will be prey to disruption.
An example is provided by the current digitization in the
healthcare industry.
Digital champions like Apple, Google and Amazon are
launching their health-initiatives and create new business
models as new-be’s to the industry.
Second will be first looser
Digital business models work are poised to scale.
According to the textbook, success is subject to technical
proficiency, speed of go to market, fast scaling of the
organisation.
From the perspective of a turnaround executive; authors and
academic lecturers are disregarding a simple, yet brutal
fact: Creating growth with investors’ money is exposing
entrepreneurs to a brutal reality. Only one in 10 start-ups is
considered to survive. Among those only one in 10 meets
the investor’s goals. Consequently, leaders from legacy
industries, face fierce attackers from the start-up economy.
Highly motivated, eager to enter and disrupt their target
industries, trained at top universities, masters of the very
latest technologies and equipped with sufficient funding,
they have nothing to lose but a lot to win. These
entrepreneurs have become a true nightmare for “old
school” managers.
The truth is simple. No one is really “too big to fail”. A
brand like Kodak disappeared practically overnight. Many
companies are just existing in a transitional phase, the
digital death is waiting just around the corner. Managers of
the automotive industry may relate to this very well. The
sound of the V8 engine might get you goose bumps, but the
soft sound of an electric car, serves as soundtrack industry’s
future.
Business is local? No way!
Business, hence competition, is global. The good news is: It
is easy, to address a global market from the remotest
location on earth. The cloud, available payment solutions
and logistic service providers take care of the rest. Yet there
is a bad message included: Chances are the same for
everyone else.
Capital, goods and services are moved almost without
limitations around the globe. Competition can hit at any
point of time, from any direction. It is no longer sufficient
June 2018
to engage with the local business community or visit the
national conferences to keep an eye on the competition.
Borders, taxes, tariffs and protectionism are out-dated.
With borders diminishing, it is a battle of the brains and the
talent for execution. As distances are irrelevant in a digital
world, the next disruptor might be working right now in her
lab on the other side of the globe, just to enter the local
market and provide highly competitive and well thought
through offers to the local customers by tomorrow morning.
Digital disruption is not the website or online store,
serviced out of China for customers e.g. in the US.
Evolving technologies like block chain and 3D printing, are
taking the mobility of funds, information and services to the
next level. Very few business owners and even less
representatives of regulatory authorities have yet
understood these technologies. Whereas this is opening
doors for a vast number of new business models, it is also
exposing new, as well as established business initiatives to
uncertainties, as the legal situation remains unclear in many
cases for the time being.
Learnings & Conclusion
· No promises made: A digital business model, plus
being on top of hype is no guarantee for long-term
survival. Digital heroes of their time like AOL or
mySpace, to just name two, have already left the
business community again and remind us, that even the
disruptors themselves are very vulnerable to
competition and change.
· Expect the unexpected: Globalization and technology
are tearing down the walls of protection. Even the
unthinkable will become a technological reality. As an
example, chatbots are considered to fully capable to
subsidize human customer service operators within the
next two years. Quantum computers will reshape the
world of IT and put a big question mark behind todays
security standards, protecting vital infrastructure, but
also open gateways to a new dimension of science. The
world as we knew it already doesn’t exist anymore.
· “Three words: Tempo, tempo, tempo” (Lt. Col. Stephen
(Godfather) Ferrando) The evolution of technology is
ever accelerating. For executives and business owners,
this creates the urge to adjust, test, innovate, deploy
and constantly re-invent, in order to maintain their
market position and command a relevant competitive
proposition. This is a global race for the best business
models and the fastest execution. Traditional industries,
with hierarchies in place and legacy issues, to deal
with, have often difficulties to catch with the speed and
agility of the new world order.
41
Starwest Tech:
Continuity of Care through Accurate
Communication and Documentation
I t was in 1979 that the need for
development and
implementation of new design
models with a focus on integrated
delivery systems and public/private
partnerships for EMS and ambulance
services gave the birth of Starwest
Associates. Across the southwestern
United States, Starwest Associates
built a variety of companies focusing
on integrating public/private
partnerships in municipalities and
healthcare in Arizona, Nevada,
Colorado, and California.
Starwest Associates’ technology
division, Starwest Tech, was
established in 1992 to develop the
technologies and systems needed to
support Starwest Associates’ EMS
operations and public fire systems.
Since 2006, Starwest Tech has
focused exclusively on improving
pre-hospital care through Zoi ePCR
solutions and real-time or near real-
time active management
technologies. Starwest ePCR systems
have been used in EMS and fire
department operations to replace
many other first-generation ePCRs.
42
The company has already had an
impact on the landscape of deep data
capture and information exchange.
Its Zoi ePCR system provides pre-
hospital care, web-based clinical
content management, and
information retrieval for QA and
reimbursements.
Zoi ePCR allows Fire Departments
and Health & Medical Organizations
and Agencies to contribute to local,
regional, and national databases and
improve patient care across the
country.
It itself can contribute datasets to the
Prehospital Information & EMS
Registry System, National
Emergency and Medical Services
Information Systems (NEMSIS), and
the National Incident Management
System (NIMS). among others.
Starwest ePCR data systems have
contributed in excess of 2.6 million
Arizona charts over the last three
years from fire departments and
ambulance services to AZPIERS,
SHARE, EPIC, ROC including areas
of behavioral health and crisis,
cardiac, stroke, and TBI.
The Experienced Leader
The Founder and CEO of Starwest
Associates, Bob Ramsey has
founded companies in various fields,
including ambulance services (in
Arizona and across the Southwest),
EMS, medical supplies, air
transportation, information
technologies, management systems,
real estate, and avionics.
He pioneered, designed, and
implemented one of the first
public/private partnership EMS
models in the U.S in the early ’80s.
Many of those high-performance fire
department models are still used
today by various municipalities in
Arizona and across the nation for
dedicated 911 emergencies, out-of-
hospital health, and “Treat and
Refer” response services.
Bob’s success can be credited to his
dedication to serving the needs of
others and his ability to design,
implement, and innovate high-
performance and clinical EMS
services.
June 2018
 ‘‘ EMS and healthcare is
a right for all people.
Entering the Industry and
Tackling Competition
Starwest Associates began in the
early days of modern EMS and
ambulance services to develop and
implement new design models with a
focus on integrated service delivery
to improve patient care. Through
public and private partnerships in
municipalities across Arizona,
Nevada, Colorado, and California,
Starwest Associates built a variety of
companies to improve service
delivery, improve care, enhance
technologies, and for better
reimbursement services.
Starwest Tech was established in
order to meet the needs of the
Starwest Associates family of EMS
companies and fire models. The
division was able to create agile,
more intuitive, and easy-to-use
solutions that set the standard for
quality data collection.
Unreliable, rigid, and cumbersome
products can have a negative impact
on patient care and achieving the best
June 2018
possible outcome for the patient.
Starwest also believes that no one
wants to see a software tool hinder
patient care due to weak factors of
ease of use and speed.
Starwest focuses on cultivating
adaptability, interoperable behaviors
in strong relationships with experts in
patient care who are familiar with
workflow timeframes and the tools
used in the field. Starwest takes pride
in itself that the customer is it.
Taking the feedback and ideas that
come straight from the field and
shaping it into a flexible solution for
any department any operation.
Teething Problems and Future
Plans
Starwest Tech and its data solutions
were established in order to meet the
needs of Starwest Associates’ family
of companies. As is the case when
developing any new technology
solution, this required quite a bit of
forward thinking and careful
planning in order to hit a “moving
target” involving changing state and
Bob Ramsey
CEO and Founder
national protocols, regulations,
standards, and technological
developments.
Starwest will maintain its steady
progress towards the vision of robust
active management systems for fire
departments and EMS.
Starwest Tech is focusing on data
solutions beyond ePCR - iOS and
Android native-hosted SaaS
solutions, web-based clinical content
management systems, operations and
resource control, expanded interfaces
and integrations with third-party
technology which give first
responders the tools to provide the
best outcome for any incident.
The organization has just completed
its robust fire reporting, Treat and
Refer Health information systems,
which will take the industry to new
heights.
43
44 June 2018
New Opportunities

June 2018 45
46 June 2018
Trisotech:
Disruptively Innovating and Empowering Clients
I ndustries appear to change more
quickly and drastically than ever,
and in many ways, that pace of
change is accelerating. Thus, there is
an evident uproar about exponential
evolution of technology adoption,
competition, and most importantly,
consumer behaviours. At present, most
organizations are not agile enough to
adapt and reconfigure their business
model as quickly as consumers’
expectations and business environment
demand. This is one of the main
triggers engaging businesses of all
sizes into the digital transformation
revolution.
Based in Montreal, Canada, Trisotech
provides new and revolutionary ways
for digital enterprise knowledge
workers to collaborate and succeed in
this increasingly global and connected
world. With its broad cloud-based SaaS
offering, Trisotech helps enterprises
realize their business transformation
goals by analyzing, modeling and
continuously improving how things get
done.
Trisotech’s innovation is at the center
of its DNA. On one hand, it offers a
toolset called the Innovation Suite to
clients in need for speed at creating
and planning the execution of
innovative strategies. On the other
hand, its Decision Management Suite,
a ground-breaking decision automation
48
solution, is disrupting the industry of
business process technology.
A Tech-Tuned Leader
Denis Gagné, the Co-Founder and
CEO of Trisotech, is the visionary who
leads the company and has guided it to
becoming a global success and a
driving force in international BPM
standards for over a decade.
Denis is a technologically intuitive and
professionally acute individual, with a
M. Math degree in AI from the
University of Waterloo and a BSc in
Computer Science from the Collège
Militaire Royal (CMR) de St-Jean.
He is a member of the international
technology standards consortium
Object Management Group (OMG),
where he serves as the Chair of the
BPMN Interchange Work Group
(BPMN MIWG) and is a member of
the BPM standard notations teams.
Denis is also involved with steering
committees in workflow management
and business process simulation.
Tools that Foster Innovation
The contemporary era is a time where
it is more important than ever to create
an environment that stimulates
innovation and facilitates the
implementation of new strategies. If
one is a business person who’s
experiencing difficult times of change,
the chances of being involved in
multiple brainstorming sessions with
other subject matter experts are
obvious. This traditional approach to
addressing strategic issues usually
includes using a whiteboard and sticky
notes to try and find the next
revolutionary idea.
Whilst a myriad of books has been
written on methodologies to capture
and structure ideas, documenting and
communicating new strategies remains
a problem for many organizations. This
is exactly the pain point that Trisotech
is addressing with the Innovation Suite,
a set of tools that enable creative
thinking methods and provides crowd-
sourcing tools for capturing and
communicating strategies.
With this offering, Trisotech lets
organizations of all scales leverage best
practices of existing methodologies in
a fully digital world where
documenting and socializing
innovative strategic intent and tactical
decisions is one click away. Businesses
around the world are now using the
Trisotech Innovation Suite on their
pathway to digital transformation.
Imminent Business Challenges in the
Digital World
Still, becoming digital does not solve
all problems. That is because digital
June 2018
 ‘‘
Trisotech is on a continuous path
to nd new ways of doing things
and helping organizations worldwide to
quickly capitalize on insights from the
market and the business environment.

Denis Gagné
Co-founder & CEO

businesses are insights driven: they
rely on their ability to make the right
decisions in time to turn insights into
action. The challenge is that business
decisions require real-time processing
of hundreds of calculations and data
sources. Being able to automate and
optimize operational decisions is
critical to a successful digital
transformation.
While decision automation has
traditionally relied on Business Rules
Management Systems (BRMS),
recently, numerous businesses are
turning to artificial intelligence (AI)
and machine learning systems.
However, the complexity and pace of
change in business rules and the
current inability for AI systems to
explain their decisions demand a new
era in business decisions applications
and platforms.
Conceiving Innovative Solutions
from Demands
At Trisotech, functionalities of every
solution are diversified for overcoming
challenges. For the company,
transparency and explicability of
decisions, are must-haves to enhance
businesses in the digital world.
“Companies must be able to explain
stakeholders how automated decisions
were attained. This is why Trisotech
introduced the concept of ‘Explainable
AI’ with its Decision Management
Suite,” states Denis while expressing
his insights on the company’s
innovation.
The Decision Management Suite rests
on the bedrock of an international
standard called Decision Model and
Notation (DMN), an approach for
describing and modeling repeatable
operational decisions. “The idea is
that, by creating a clear structure of
how decisions are made, organizations
can minimize the standard deviation of
outcomes and gain in consistency,”
Denis adds.
The consistency, flexibility and
traceability of this method now offer
an innovative approach to combining
both AI and BRMS into an effective
way of addressing the digital business
needs for decision automation. With
the Decision Management Suite and its
one-click user experience design focus,
Trisotech is delivering on the promise
of clear decision automation that can
be orchestrated in any sort of
applications, enabling the digital
business of the future to capitalize on
its key insights.
A Culture of Continuous Innovation
The quality of a leader is reflected in
the standards they set for themselves.
Lately, Denis has been working to
democratize the Decision Management
approach so that more and more
companies can start leveraging both
the technology and the methodology
behind it. He has been working both
behind the scenes refining the
technological solution and on
international stages presenting this
disruptive approach to enterprise
leaders.
The culture he established at Trisotech
is bolstering innovation on two fronts.
First, the company provides a
technological environment where
generating, capturing and sharing
quality ideas makes it easy to foster
strategic and tactical innovation.
Second, Trisotech brings disruption to
a market that previously had
organizations choosing between
complexity and opacity of business
decisions. The company is on a
continuous path to find new ways of
doing things and helping organizations
worldwide to quickly capitalize on
insights from the market and the
business environment.

June 2018 49
VORTAL:
Connecting Businesses Since Inception
A global leader in offering
eSourcing and eProcurement
solutions, VORTAL
possesses a cloud-based
eMarketplace, where thousands of
public and private buyers are
connected with an international
community of qualified suppliers to
make everyday business.
VORTAL has grown in stature to
support customers globally with
offices in Portugal, Spain, Germany,
Italy, UK, Mexico, and Colombia
from small Public Bodies (like small
municipalities), large Public Bodies
(large Cities, Regional Governments
in different countries, National
Central Procurement Bodies), to the
entire public administration of
several Countries, as well as from
SMEs to large multinational
corporations.
VORTAL is rated regularly by
Gartner in the Magic Quadrant for
Strategic Sourcing Suites and
mentioned by Forrester and Spend
Matters as a top player in the market.
The company has also been
consecutively distinguished as one of
“100 best companies to work for in
Portugal” in a survey carried out by
“Everis” and “Exame” magazine.
50
VORTAL is an international leading
eSourcing and eProcurement
platform for the public and private
sector, which connects thousands of
buyers with an international network
of qualified suppliers. VORTAL is
part of the project “ESPDint –
Interoperable ESPD (European
Single Procurement Document) and
VCD (Virtual Company Dossier)
services inside and between
European Countries”, financed by the
European Commission to develop
native integration of ESPD in
VORTAL’s platform. With the ESPD
and VCD implementation pilot,
VORTAL will make available to all
users these instruments integrated in
the platform so that it becomes a step
in the process taking advantage of all
previous documents and information
inserted. Once the Economic
Operator answers the ESPD
questions, it can be reused
seamlessly.
The Visionary Leader
Rui Dias-Ferreira, Founder and
CEO of VORTAL, is the visionary
who has led the company to what it
is known as today. Prior to founding
VORTAL, he served for 12 years as
an Associate Partner at Accenture,
managing Supply Chain projects in
the Engineering and Construction
sector. At Accenture, he worked on a
wide-range of projects involving
medium-sized and large companies
in Portugal, UK, Spain and Italy.
A regular guest speaker at seminars
and conferences, Rui holds a degree
in Engineering and has a post-
graduate diploma in Production
Management from APICS – The
Educational Society for Resource
Management. He has also completed
an Advanced Managing Program
from IESE, Universidad of Navarra.
Additionally, Rui boasts an
impressive profile in the public
sphere with his involvement in the
development of entrepreneurship as a
mentor of several start-ups at Startup
Lisboa and as a promoter of the
Junior Achievement award and is
extensively involved with social
initiatives like working for the
homeless.
Rising Above Imminent Industry
Changes
When it comes to tackling
competition, VORTAL always
prefers to focus on innovation. Now
the organization is working very hard
to create an ecosystem that is
completely innovation driven,
June 2018
 ‘‘ We help buyers to
buy better and
suppliers to sell more.
repeatable and scalable for turning
creative ideas into profitable business
models.
“We want to stress our innovation
methodology, our focus on
integrating the best of breed
technologies with a great focus on
usability and user interface
excellence.” asserts Miguel Sobral,
VP of VORTAL.
The organization also believes that
the biggest challenge now is rising
above the imminent industry
changes. “Procurement platforms
will be much more dependent on
supplier communities than before.
This means that users are
increasingly looking for dynamic
solutions to discover and qualify
suppliers that avoid searching the
web for potential suppliers without
references or credentials. Standalone
solutions where a buyer is closed in a
silo with the suppliers they are used
to working with for years will lose
the perspective of the market and will
become less competitive in the
medium term.”- added the CEO.
June 2018
Rui Dias-Ferreira
Founder & CEO
Aiming to Reinforce Co-operation to explore and develop innovative
with Integrations and Consulting products and services as well as new
Partners business models.
For several consecutive years, • Re-designing the R&D and
VORTAL has been growing at two- Innovation process in a multi-
digit levels and will continue to disciplinary and open environment.
develop the most innovative services
for buyers and suppliers, both in • Reinforcing its workforce with 40
private and public sectors. Soon the new and highly talented personnel.
organization will also be leading the
interoperability movement and will • Employing an R&D and
position itself as one of the most Innovation Coach reporting directly
complete providers of services to to the company’s CEO to lead the
suppliers. innovation programmes at VORTAL
and guide the internal teams and
The organization is also aiming to external partners in their innovation
reinforce its co-operation with efforts.
integration and consulting partners to
be able to deliver new services and
innovative solutions to deal with
corporate and public-sector spending.
VORTAL is now advancing its
approach to Research &
Development and Innovation
through:
• Creating a brand new 400m2
“VORTAL Innovation Lab”, a state-
of-the-art workspace, fully equipped
51
An Insight on the Opportunities
BIG DATA INDUSTRY
I n this era of changing technologies, the Big Data
domain has evolved in a very short period of time. It
plays the most pivotal role across all industries. The
ability of Big Data to mine critical data has radically altered
the dynamics of the way businesses function, drive sales,
and attract customers. It has become an essential
component of business strategy nowadays. A business tastes
success by uncovering insights locked inside data. The
overlaying trends will examine the evolving ways
enterprises can realize better business value with Big Data
and how improving business intelligence can help
transform organizational processes and the customer
experience. There is a demand for better data management
from most of the business executives for compliance and
increased confidence to steer the business. It will help them
in more rapid adoption of Big Data and innovative and
transformative data analytic technologies.
Insight-driven Organizations
In this present year, businesses will move beyond just data
handling to leveraging the insights that Big Data uncovers.
As understanding, managing, and manipulating Big Data
has now become fairly ubiquitous, most of the companies
have the ability to deal with it. Mining data will be the
center of attraction and it will help effectively to meet
organizational requirements and for precise targeting of
products and services. An insight-driven approach will
facilitate an evolved customer experience, competitiveness,
advanced security and operational efficiency.
Cyber security Applications
Today, everyone is dependent on the digital technology and
our dependence has reached an unprecedented level. Cyber-
attacks have also become much more prevalent. An
increased occurrence of ransomware has been registered
across the globe and cyber criminals are now targeting
personal data and devices. Concerning the prime industry,
cyber security can only be possible through big data
54
analytics which will become a major area of investment and
will grow swiftly. It is necessary for the enterprises and the
government agencies to upgrade their security systems to
next-generation software which can address ultra-modern
security threats.
Analytics across the enterprise
It can be said that the analytics will not remain isolated to a
few departments like marketing and risk management. On
the other hand it will infuse the entire enterprise. To
understand the dynamics of business operations, data
analytics will be utilized and will also reveal ways and
means to increase efficiency. Hence to derive overall
business strategy, insights from multiple departments will
be integrated and redundant processes will be eliminated. It
will also help the departments to increase efficiency,
growth, and productivity.
Bridging the talent gap
If the demand expands further, the talent gap in data
analytics will soar. It is expected that organizations and
academic institutions will collaborate closely to generate
skills and talent to meet the demand for data engineers. The
functions of all corporate employees will be expected to
understand, appreciate and work with analytics since it
emerges as one of the key instruments in every
organization. The academic institutions are also looking
forward to put together degree programs in data science.
IoT and People
There will be a transition from Internet of Things (IoT) to
Internet of People (IoP). Interactions, predictive analytics
around human behavior, and other subjective areas will
grow and start to filter all industry verticals. For example,
hospitals will increasingly deploy machine learning
techniques to predict the likelihood of the relapse of a
disease. This will enable them to work out a patient’s
readmission precisely at the time of the initial discharge.
June 2018
Industry Insight

Business-science collaboration
Businesses will have to learn and deploy traditional, scientific techniques of pattern-matching and artificial intelligence for
analytics use cases. For example, techniques to analyze gene sequences in DNA are being used in text-matching algorithms to
process bulk emails. It is expected to see very close collaboration between data scientists and the scientific community. For
example, image processing is widely used in ‘tagging’ in social media, while voice recognition is used in apps.

Technology
There will be brisk moving in the organizations from on-premise platforms to cloud and hybrid environments. Around 44
percent of applications used by Fortune 500 organizations are already on the cloud, and more than 50 percent of IT
applications will move to the cloud by the end of the year. There will be a rise in demand for analytics tools that are simple,
flexible, and capable of handling a variety of data sources. Hadoop enables to store an extremely large volume of data at a
significantly lower price point and hence it will continue to become increasingly popular. The share of unstructured data in
the data warehouse will continue to increase, which will further cause for Hadoop. Hadoop, now, is past the business
relevance and scalability assessment phase and its adoption is expected to accelerate strongly.

We are advancing towards a completely new era in the domain of analytics. Big data is disruptive and it has paved the way
for pioneering ideas and innovative techniques across industry verticals. It is now driving the stream of disruption and
expanding the scope of opportunities for previously untouched market segments. Organizations need to leverage Big Data
analytics to its full capacity so as to thrive in this competitive world.

June 2018 55
WGroup:
The Premier IT Advisory Firm for
Crossing the Digital Chasm

W Group is a management
consulting firm with a peer-
to-peer approach to IT
optimization and transformation. A
disruptor in the management
The experienced leader

Jeff Vail, CEO of WGroup, is a

business leader with over 20 years of
executive experience working with
Enterprise Communications); VP of
Enterprise Marketing at SAP Americas,
and General Manager of Infrastructure
Solutions at Unisys.

consulting industry, WGroup is known
for its outcome-driven, service
provider-agnostic approach that
optimizes IT operations and minimizes
costs.
The firm employs seasoned
professionals with a strong track record
of getting results. The WGroup team is
composed of consultants who average
more than two decades of experience
as former CIOs and IT leaders, and its
client roster includes many large and
midsized companies across a wide
range of industries.
companies such as Unisys, SAP,
Siemens/Unify, and Quintiq/Dassault
Systèmes.
Prior to WGroup, Jeff served in several
leadership roles where he played a
pivotal role in strategy development
and execution. These roles include
Chief Commercial Officer at Quintiq,
which increased in value from $120
million to $340 million during his two-
year tenure; SVP of Global Corporate
Marketing at Unify (formerly Siemens
Jeff is an avid golfer and fisherman. He
is a Philadelphia sports enthusiast, has
a passion for California cabernet
wines, and resides in Phoenixville,
Philadelphia with his wife and two
sons.
Entering the segment
WGroup was founded in 2004 by
Harry Wallaesa, the former CIO of a
multi-billion dollar global packaged
foods company. As a CIO, Harry

WGroup believes that every IT leader

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

56 June 2018
 ‘‘ We are experienced advisors,
guiding our clients in their
IT transformation journey
from lowering costs to
increasing speed.
became fed-up with consulting firms
that either had a bench of career
consultants or a leveraged model
where the partner was seldom present
and junior consultants who followed
cookie-cutter methodologies did the
work.
Harry decided to create a consulting
firm composed exclusively of former
CIOs and IT leaders—a firm of
individuals with decades of
operational, practical, and leadership
experience that could advise other
CIOs and IT leaders on a peer-to-peer
basis.
Tackling competitors and challenges
WGroup utilizes a unique staffing
model, and it focuses on practical
advice that will produce a tangible
impact on business performance.
The organization believes that the
singular mission of IT is to create value
for a business, and that value is defined
narrowly by initiatives that will
increase revenue, decrease cost, or
mitigate risk. If an initiative doesn’t
meet one of those three objectives,
WGroup would question whether it is
worth executing.
June 2018
WGroup believes that every IT leader
is on a path of digital transformation,
but there is a significant digital chasm
preventing them from advancing their
digital strategy. That digital chasm is
created by the legacy-centric IT
functions that lead to the following
challenges:
Ÿ Immature IT processes
Ÿ On-premise-centric delivery models
Ÿ High legacy technical debt
Ÿ Unconsolidated M&A
environments
Ÿ Significant skill debt with skills that
don’t match the needs of the
business
Ÿ Not enough separation of core vs.
context/commodity work via an
insourced/outsourced hybrid
delivery model
Ÿ Vendors supporting the IT function
through transactional relationships
vs. strategic outcomes-based
partnerships
Jeff Vail
CEO
Ÿ IT costs that are out of bounds
Ÿ Imbalance of run vs. grow activity
where 80% of costs and effort may
be spent on run
Strategy for future growth
WGroup began aggressive investment
in growth to build a foundation for a
premium-tier consultancy in 2012.
Jeff Vail believes that the team with the
best players is a team that wins and
that the company’s hiring strategy
addresses that requirement. WGroup
has experienced talent in every key
position, from all of its consulting roles
through to WGroup’s back office of
finance, marketing, sales, recruiting,
and operations.
The WGroup team consists of some of
the most experienced and well-known
IT leaders in the industry. By
continuing to maintain this talent
profile, the organization has been able
to tackle the challenges it has faced
both inside its business, and for its
clients’ IT functions.
57

How to be more
DISRUPTIVE
F rom blockchain to AI, technology is being used to
disrupt existing business models and create new
ones seemingly overnight. This evolving landscape
is shaping our attitudes and values, challenging the very
purpose of a company, and presenting a massive
opportunity for those with the vision and means to act.
So how do we as individuals become more disruptive? How
do we create a network and take our ideas to market? And
what will the advancement of technology mean for the
future? Entrepreneur and disruptor Lulu Laidlaw-Smith
shares her thoughts and experience with the next generation
of brand owners.
How to cultivate a disruptive attitude
My opinion is that you’re born with a disruptive attitude.
For many years, I was told that I was disruptive (in a
negative way). I would ask questions because I could see
solutions that were not yet applied. There is a naivety to
asking what might seem like obvious questions and finding
out why things happen in a particular way. Some people
give up their disruptive attitude and stop asking questions
as they accept the status quo out of politeness and
socialisation.
It’s difficult to stand up against this, especially for people
who have the ideas but don’t have the funding or the
connections to make them happen. This is one reason why I
founded Rip It Up, Start Again. I wanted to create a
community to promote discovery and connection. It’s
hosted at Runway East in London, UK and live-streamed to
audiences globally. The platform enables entrepreneurs to
share their business ideas and demonstrate how they have
developed unique technology-driven solutions that disrupt
the status quo.
58
Expert's Viewpoint
The difference between innovation and disruption
These terms are often used interchangeably. However,
innovation is a consequence and a delivery of something
that needs to change, while disruption creates that change.
Disruption is much more dramatic. It’s looking at an
existing business models and wondering how to deliver it
more succinctly rather than refining what is already there.
This is a large part of my work with Collaborate²;
transforming good ideas into smart business, leading
business transformation on an actionable scale through
defining the message for multiple user groups.
I recently spoke to a young entrepreneur who is working to
eradicate food waste. I remarked that he will no longer have
a business if he is successful. He looked at me like this was
an archaic way of thinking and then explained how he
would simply do something else. He was right. Times have
changed and the disruptive attitude is to create a business
model that serves a purpose now, regardless of how it might
develop in the future.
What makes us human: Imagination, communication
and collaboration
Humans are brilliant at imagination, communication and
collaboration. But we are bad at compliance, planning and
organisation. These are the areas where entrepreneurs can
use technology to make a difference. When people say that
technology will take away our ability to create, this feeds
the fear and leads to resentment.
In my opinion, the most exciting change with the strongest
potential for delivery is blockchain. Instead of being only a
ledger for finance, I believe it will deliver so much more: it
will remove friction from our interactions, allowing us to
spend time doing what we are good at and automating the
June 2018
 About the Author
Lulu Laidlaw-Smith
Lulu Laidlaw-Smith is an experienced Founder
sales and commercial director. She is
the Founder of Rip It Up, Start Again, a
platform that gives a voice to
disruptors and innovators. She is also
working with the video storytelling
platform Binumiand is a partner at
Collaborate, a business strategy and
transformation agency that accelerates
growth for this ever-evolving
landscape, implementing strategy into
real solutions.

rest. It will fundamentally challenge how companies are

structured and will help us to build true civilizational
wealth.

Find people to inspire you along the way

One of my main inspirations is my friend and mentor

Steve Kelsey. He understands emotional engagement as
well as having an aptitude for technology, which is
unusual. I am inspired by Elon Musk for the same
reasons. I am also in awe of the many entrepreneurs that
I have met through Rip It Up, Start Again. Tom
Blomfield from Monzo was one of our early speakers. I
respect him for taking on the banking industry having
never worked in mainstream banking. His journey of
getting a banking license also illustrates how disruptive
companies can still succeed against all odds.

Technology has the answers, but the problem for many

start-ups is compliance. As long as you keep ahead of
the game, things will happen regardless. I think we will
see technology disrupting areas like politics, economics
and law in a more significant way that we imagine. I
believe technology will ultimately allow us to use our
imagination and ability to communicate
by taking away the tasks that we as
humans are not good at. It will give us
the freedom to be who we are without
making apologies or excuses. How can
you prepare for these changes? Attend
events, read articles, talk to disruptive
people, keep an open mind – and, above
all, keep asking questios.

June 2018 59