Business Chief USA January 2019

HHH USA 

EDITION 

JANUARY 2019 

www.businesschief.com 

DIGITAL DISRUPTION 

IN ENTERTAINMENT 

Procurement 

transformation 

at a finance giant 

Inclusive digital 


NEELAM SANDHU ON HOW THE 

COMPANY HAS BECOME 

A PLATFORM FOR WOMEN IN TECH 

City Focus 

TECHNOLOGY 

FOR A SAFER CITY 

TOP 10 

BRANDS IN 

THE USA

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USA Edition 

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Harry Menear................ 

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WELCOME 

Welcome to the January edition 

of Business Chief USA. 

This month we sit down with Neelam 

Sandhu to find out how a desire to work 

in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, 

where she could utilize her skills 

in business strategy and be a genuine 

ambassador, lead her to become Senior 

Director of Business Operations, 

Office of the CEO at BlackBerry. 

We talk with Sandhu about how her role 

“touches every function of the company 

in some capacity”, and get her insider 

perspective on BlackBerry’s reinvented 

focus, the fast-emerging Enterprise 

of Things, and challenges faced by 

women in tech. 

It takes agility and an innovative mindset 

to carve out a place for yourself and 

your business in the fastest growing 

markets in the world, but Wendy Chen, 

founder and CEO of Omnistream is 

doing just that. Business Chief catches 

up with her to find out how her retail 

analytics company cuts through 

the “chaos and noise” of traditional 

consulting strategies. 

This month we also find out how mortgage 

investment giant Fannie Mae bridges 

the gap between the company’s business 

aspirations and the procurement space. 

Andrew Woods interviews the Managing 

Director of Strategic Sourcing and 

Category Management, Rajeev Karmacharya, 

about how he reconciles 

the two too-often disparate aims. 

This month’s issue also looks at Las 

Vegas’ partnership with an Israeli tech 

startup that uses artificial intelligence 

to reduce traffic congestion, and our 

Top 10 feature ranks the most valuable 

US brands. 

Enjoy the magazine, and join in the 

conversation on Twitter: 

@Business_Chief 

Harry Menear 

harry.menear@bizclikmedia.com 

05 

www.businesschief.com

CONTENTS 

Inclusive digital 


12

38 

City Focus 

‘We are Data 

Managementas-a-Service’ 

62 

Top 10 

Brands 

in the USA 

52 

A CUSTOMER 

JOURNEY 

DRIVEN BY DATA 

70

CONTENTS 

136 

Bray International 

86 

Viacom 

150 

Johnson 

Brothers 

108 

Radius 

Networks 

124 

Truliant Federal 

Credit Union 

164 

Fannie Mae

222 

Brown- Forman 

184 

Cincinnati 

International 

240 

Allegis Global 

Solutions 

258 

196 

Rosewood 

Hotels and 

Resorts 

University of 

Saskatchewan 

270 

208 

SSR Mining 

Proton International

Covering every angle 

in the digital age 

The Business Chief platforms offer 

insight on the trends influencing 

C and V-level executives, telling the 

stories that matter 

CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE 


12 

How BlackBerry 

is undergoing 

a legendary digital 

transformation and 

creating an inclusive 

platform for women 

in technology 

WRIT TEN BY 

LAURA MULLAN 

PRODUCED BY 

CRAIG DANIELS 

JANUARY 2019

TECHNOLOGY 

13 


BLACKBERRY 

Following BlackBerry’s incredible 

turnaround, we talk to Neelam Sandhu, 

Senior Director of Business Operations 

Office of the CEO, about BlackBerry’s 

reinvented focus, the fast-emerging 

Enterprise of Things, and challenges 

faced by women in tech 

14 

‘Do what you enjoy the most and you’ll 

never work a day in your life’ – this 

may be a well-versed platitude, but 

for Neelam Sandhu it has proven to be 

sound advice when navigating through 

her career. She knew that she reveled 

in fast-paced and dynamic environments, 

that she wanted to utilize her skills in 

business strategy, and most importantly 

that she wanted to work for a company 

for which she could be a genuine 

ambassador. This inevitably led her to 

the world of technology and ultimately 

the doors of BlackBerry. The rest, she 

says, is history. 

Now, Senior Director of Business 

Operations Office of the CEO at 

BlackBerry, Sandhu describes her 

role as one which “touches every 


TECHNOLOGY 

Neelam Sandhu, 

Senior Director of 

Business Operations, 

Office of the CEO, 

BlackBerry 

function of the company in some 

capacity”. One day she may be meeting 

with government officials and customers, 

the next launching a new internal 

expense management system, or 

executing on initiatives like the 

BlackBerry Shield. 

Sandhu has seemingly found her 

calling in the technology sector but 

unfortunately, women in this field are 

increasingly rare. A report by Accenture 

and non-profit Girls Who Code 

noted that women account for 34% of 

computing jobs today, down from 37% 

in 1995. Elsewhere, in the UK, figures 

from the Women’s Engineering Society 

(WES) show that just 15% of people 

working in STEM (Science, Technology, 

Engineering and Mathematics) 

roles are women – and only 5% of 

leadership positions in the technology 

industry are held by women. The 

statistics make for disheartening 

reading, but Sandhu is optimistic that 

we could see change on the horizon. 

“In my career, I’ve certainly 

experienced some bias from men and 

women alike,” she recalls. “However, 

I’ve been very fortunate that, for me, 

BlackBerry has been a great place 

to grow and learn and to advance my 

15 


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TECHNOLOGY 

career, with support from both 

genders. I wouldn’t be where I am 

today without that support. There are 

still a number of challenges that need 

to be worked on in every industry, not 

just in technology, when it comes to 

gender diversity and equality,” she 

adds. “But I think the conversation is 

changing – it’s becoming less taboo 

and men are getting involved in the 

discussion as well, which is critical.” 

One of the biggest hurdles, Sandhu 

believes, lies in the lack of female role 

models in male-dominated fields. 

“Women don’t have those same role 

models or examples as men to look up 

to or emulate,” she observes. “But I do 

think that's changing. For example, we 

can see that two leaders of General 

Motors – the CEO and the CFO – are 

both women. The automotive industry 

is one which is notoriously male-dominated 

so we are seeing change right 

there. Betty Liu is another example. 

She began her career in journalism, 

went on to start her own business and 

now she is the Executive Vice Chairman 

of the New York Stock Exchange.” 

Another hurdle, Sandhu believes, lies 

in education. Surveying over 2,000 

A-Level and university students in the 

UK, PwC found that only 3% of women 

say a career in technology would be 

their first choice. “We need to increase 

the pipeline of women in STEM and 

that starts with education,” notes Sandhu. 

19 


BLACKBERRY 

20 

“At BlackBerry, we’re very focused on making sure that 

whatever we do is positively impacting society – that’s 

something that is not traditionally seen in or associated 

with technology” 

— 

Neelam Sandhu, 

Senior Director of Business Operations, 

Office of the CEO, BlackBerry 

“We need to work on creating an envir– 

onment where women feel comfortable 

learning STEM topics. Not only is 

the professional environment male 

dominated, but the education environment 

is too. So, creating that environment 

or community where women feel 

comfortable in STEM is important.” 

Sandhu also suggests that creating 

the right messaging that appeals to 

women and encourages them to get 

involved in STEM could prove helpful. 

“For example, at BlackBerry, we're very 

focused on making sure that whatever 

we do is positively impacting society 

for the better – that messaging is not 

traditionally seen in, or associated with, 

technology,” says Sandhu. “Technology 

is often seen to be a more rational, 

colder environment. If we can change 

the messaging to highlight the value 

that technology adds to society, it will 

attract more women to the sector.” 

‘Impacting society for the better’: it's 

an admirable statement, and it’s one 

which BlackBerry is putting into practice 


TECHNOLOGY 

EXECUTIVE PROFILE 

Neelam Sandhu 

Neelam Sandhu is responsible for the operations of the CEO office, 

including supporting the CEO in managing key customer and government 

relationships globally, management of and content 

development for internal and external engagements, and driving 

strategic cross-functional projects to deliver operational efficiencies. 

Neelam also manages BlackBerry’s travel strategy and operations. 

Since joining BlackBerry in 2009 Neelam has held various 

positions, based out of the company’s United Kingdom, 

New York and California offices. Her responsibilities 

have included Brand Management, Brand Messaging, 

Marketing Operations, Go-To-Market for the Curve 

and Porsche Design products and Corporate Strategic 

Initiatives. Neelam holds a bachelor’s degree, 

with honors, in Business Management, from the 

University of Leicester and an Executive Certification 

in Financial Analysis from the University of 

California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. 

21 


BLACKBERRY 

22 

“BlackBerry represents 

the ambition in diversity 

and inclusion that RBC 

seeks out in our business 

partners, with its leaders 

fundamentally recognizing 

the power of humanity – 

and human values – in our 

tech-driven age. As a 

thought leader, Neelam is 

showing how this approach 

is esse–ntial to ensuring 

that we create technology 

for good, for all of our 

employees, customers, 

clients and communities ” 

— 

Bruce Ross, 

Group Head of Technology & Operations, 

Royal Bank of Canada 


TECHNOLOGY 

ever since it shifted its roadmap following 

a mammoth transformation. To say 

BlackBerry has reinvented itself in the 

past decade would be an understatement. 

At its peak, its smartphone was 

in the hands of almost every corporate 

and business professional, with sales 

reaching a crescendo between 2009 

and 2011. As the competition heated 

up, BlackBerry’s device sales slumped 

and it decided it needed a new roadmap. 

This is where John Chen, BlackBerry’s 

current Executive Chairman and CEO, 

entered the fray. A well-known turnaround 

expert, Sandhu says that Chen 

helped to herald in a new era for 

BlackBerry. “He stabilized the company 

financially and put us into growth mode. 

To do that, he had to develop a strategy 

which would take us into the future,” 

she says. “He decided to focus on what 

we do best: security and connectivity.” 

Recognizing that the market was 

shifting towards a software model, 

Chen helped to spearhead a new chapter 

in BlackBerry’s history, pivoting it 

from a smartphone hardware firm to 

an enterprise software and services 

company. “He led the company 

through a complete shift culturally, 

operationally and strategically,” notes 

23 


BLACKBERRY 

24 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘BLACKBERRY SPARK ADVERT’ 


TECHNOLOGY 

“At the center of financial 

markets, the NYSE plays 

an important role in helping 

great companies such as 

BlackBerry raise capital 

so that they can innovate, 

create jobs and drive 

purposeful programs 

that advance the global 

workforce and the communities 

around them. 

We commend BlackBerry 

for its work to foster the 

growth of its leaders, 

and we congratulate 

Neelam for being a strong 

role model for women 

in technology” 

— 

Betty Liu, 

Executive Vice Chairman, NYSE 

25 


BLACKBERRY 

26 

“At KPMG, inclusion and diversity 

strengthens our business, enriches our 

culture and enables us to develop 

relationships with our communities. 

We accelerate productivity by tapping 

into diverse talent and new markets. 

We are proud to team with BlackBerry 

in their commitment to unlocking the 

power of diversity and driving innovation. 

I am thrilled to recognize Neelam for 

representing BlackBerry, a company 

committed to supporting women in 

leadership and for being recognized as 

a powerful example of female empowerment 

in business and technology” 

— 

Tony Malfara, 

Partner, Risk Consulting Services, KPMG in Canada 


TECHNOLOGY 

Sandhu. “The future of the tech industry 

and the connected world lies in software, 

not in hardware, so we’ve evolved to 

become a software company, focused 

on connectivity and security. Chen also 

identified a new market called the Enterprise 

of Things (EoT) which we have 

positioned ourselves to lead.” 

Just as BlackBerry mobilized the 

workforce with smartphones – allowing 

employees to send emails on the go, 

for example – so too have other 

technologies and tools transformed 

the way we work. As more and more 

devices and tools enter the enterprise 

workflow, there is a greater need to 

make this workflow secure and this is 

where BlackBerry is making its mark. 

“The Enterprise of Things isn’t just 

about the assets that your employer 

provides you; the enterprise workflow 

is expanding to include other Things 

that aren’t provided by the enterprise. 

For instance, an employee might use 

a file sharing solution that isn’t provided 

by their employer or a device like 

an Amazon Alexa speaker. There are 

more Things being connected into 

daily work processes that aren’t under 

the enterprise’s control. This means 

that enterprises will demand BlackBer- 

27 


BLACKBERRY 

“BlackBerry is a company driven by strong 

corporate ethics. I believe there is strength 

in diversity and am committed to leading an 

inclusive organization. In an increasingly 

integrated world it is unification that unlocks 

the power of our platform and I am proud to 

be a champion for women and minorities in 

technology leadership positions” 

— 

John Chen, 

Executive Chairman & CEO, BlackBerry 

28 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘BLACKBERRY WATERLOO CAMPUS’ 


TECHNOLOGY 

29 

ry-grade security for more and more 

connected Things. We also expect to 

see the same request from consumers, 

as they become increasingly aware 

of their privacy landscape and demand 

greater transparency from technology 

companies.” 

With more endpoints comes greater 

risk and this is where BlackBerry’s 

expertise in security and connectivity 

come into play. “Today we’re very 

focused on securing all EoT endpoints 

and ‘all’ is the keyword here because 

we are platform agnostic in what we 

do,” Sandhu explains. “We are keen 

to make sure that everybody who is 

connected to a ‘Thing’ is benefiting 

from BlackBerry's best-in-class 

security, BlackBerry's data privacy 

promise, and our legacy and reliability 

when it comes to connectivity too.” 

The BlackBerry Spark platform is 

designed to tackle the growing EoT 

market. It delivers ultra-secure hyperconnectivity 

from the inside out. 

“There’s a scientific theory called the 

‘grand unification theory’ and it states 

that everything in the universe can be 


BLACKBERRY 

30 

brought together by a single unifying 

force, and that's how we describe 

BlackBerry Spark – it’s a single platform 

that unifies every connected ‘Thing’ 

securely, reliably, with user privacy at 

the forefront.” 

As more hacks and cybersecurity 

threats make the headlines, security 

has become a pressing concern for 

any firm. It’s a top priority for BlackBerry 

too. Sandhu describes the firm as 

one which “lives and breathes security”, 

proven by the fact it works closely 

with famously secure organizations like 

the G7 governments, NATO, and some 

of the world’s largest banks and medical 

institutions. On top of this, BlackBerry 

also uses its own technologies and 

products, ensuring its internal security 

is of the highest caliber. “We can't have 

a single conversation at BlackBerry 

without the word ‘security’ coming up,” 

she observes. “We live and breathe 

security so that the end user and the 

enterprise doesn't have to worry about 

it. Our security expertise has been built 

into our platform since day one. It’s been 

built into every layer of our solutions, from 

the kernel to the edge, and so I’d say 

security is definitely one of our key 

competitive tenets.” 


TECHNOLOGY 

“As Canada’s flag carrier, 

Air Canada takes pride in 

projecting Canadian values 

such as equality and inclusiveness 

around the world 

and we celebrate these 

qualities every day at our 

airline, as shown by the 

prominent role women play 

in all parts of our company. 

We are always pleased when 

we see other major Canadian 

companies, like Black- 

Berry, also promote these 

values and we congratulate 

Neelam on her remarkable 

accomplishments” 

— 

Catherine Dyer, 

Senior Vice-President and Chief 

Information Officer, Air Canada 

31 


BLACKBERRY 

32 

“Bell is committed to fostering 

an inclusive, equitable, 

and accessible workplace 

that provides all team 

members with the opportunity 

to reach their full 

potential. We are proud to 

partner with BlackBerry, a 

fellow Canadian company 

that proudly promotes 

women to key technology 

leadership positions, and 

congratulate Neelam on 

being recognized by 

Business Chief” 

— 

Devorah Lithwick, 

Senior Vice President, Brand, Bell 


TECHNOLOGY 

BlackBerry’s customers seem to agree 

with this sentiment. Today, BlackBerry’s 

software is embedded into more 

‘Things’ than it was when it had its peak 

of smartphones in the market – and at 

that point of time, it had the largest 

smartphone share in the global market. 

One of the most notable examples of 

its widespread use, Sandhu points out, 

is its mass notification solution called 

BlackBerry AtHoc which is used by 

organizations like the G7 governments 

and the Red Cross, in emergency situations 

like natural disasters or manmade 

threat situations. “They use BlackBerry 

AtHoc to collaborate and send mass 

notifications or alerts to other users. 

In the last year, the solution has been 

used to send around half a billion 

messages around the world. It enables 

users to be safe in their environment 

and to be warned of potentially unsafe 

situations.” This clearly harks back to 

the company’s core ethos of wanting 

to make a positive impact on society. 

BlackBerry’s turnaround is well 

evidenced and, for Sandhu, it has been 

thanks in part to the company’s security, 

its interoperability and, most importantly, 

its stance on privacy. “From the 

offset, we've promised data privacy,” 

33 


BLACKBERRY 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘BLACKBERRY CO–OP TESTIMONIAL’ 

34 

she says. “We don't monetize people's 

data. We believe that the data belongs 

to the person that's generating it, 

meaning the end user. We've had that 

promise since day one and we continue 

to commit to it.” This has allowed 

BlackBerry to foster sincere relationships 

with its users built on trust which 

may have given the firm a leg up in 

the sector. “People have to trust the 

solutions that they're using and that's 

one of the key reasons why BlackBerry 

is still successful and still a key brand 

name. People trust us,” she adds. 

On the road ahead, BlackBerry is 

keen to keep its finger on the pulse of 


TECHNOLOGY 

“At Sullivan and Cromwell, 

we believe fostering 

a diverse and inclusive work 

environment is vital. I am 

delighted that Neelam has 

been recognized by Business 

Chief as a woman 

in tech leadership and we 

are proud to partner with 

BlackBerry, a company that 

supports women in key 

leadership positions” 

— 

Alison Ressler, 

Partner at Sullivan & Cromwell and a 

member of the firm’s management 

committee. 

35 


BLACKBERRY 

36 


TECHNOLOGY 

“At Torys, we strive to 

uphold an inclusive and 

diverse workplace. The 

work we do for clients is 

fueled by individuals who 

are empowered to bring 

their best selves to work 

each day. It’s great to be 

able to work alongside 

like-minded companies 

such as BlackBerry who 

share the same ethos” 

— 

David Chaikof, 

Partner at Torys 

the latest innovations in the sector – 

for instance, as quantum computing 

comes more commonplace, security 

will have to get smarter too and so 

BlackBerry has launched a new quantum 

security solution to get ahead of 

the curve. Most importantly though, 

Sandhu points out that as the landscape 

changes the firm will continue 

to remain focused on the three-word 

mantra which got it where it is today: 

security, privacy and connectivity. “In 

the future, we'll maintain our data 

privacy promise and we'll continue 

to come up with solutions like 

BlackBerry Shield that help keep 

people safe,” she says. “We'll do 

whatever we can to make these 

solutions available to the whole 

market by remaining platform 

agnostic, and we’ll try to integrate all 

connected ‘Things’ into our platform. 

We will continue to stay true to our 

core tenets.” 

37 


LEADERSHIP 

38 


‘We are Data 

Managementas-a-Service’ 

Jaspreet Singh, founder and CEO 

of Druva, talks about how the company 

is making it simpler for businesses 

to take advantage of the cloud 

39 

WRITTEN BY DAN BRIGHTMORE 


LEADERSHIP 

40 

Druva started out ten years ago building 

disaster recovery software for the 

financial sector but by 2013 it had 

pivoted into building back up software and 

data management tools purely native to the 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. This 

was a strategic move so that any company 

considering using AWS could also benefit 

from Druva for its data solutions to and from 

the platform. Druva (featured in the Deloitte 

500) is now among the top three storage 

partners for AWS, protecting more than 

40 PB of data for 4,000 customers globally 

(including the likes of Lockheed Martin, DHL, 

Tata and Ikea). As the industry’s fastest 

growing data protection provider, Druva’s 

award-winning solutions intelligently collect 

data; and unify backup, disaster recovery, 

archival and governance capabilities onto 

a single, optimized data set. 

“The market wasn’t ready for mass cloud 

adoption a decade ago but has come our 

way in the last five years and, with the help 

of funding, we’ve been very successful,” 

recalls founder and CEO Jaspreet Singh. 

“As the AWS and cloud traction picks up so 

does the need for Druva - the industry’s first 

data management-as-a-service solution 

that aggregates data from endpoints, servers 

and cloud applications. We leverage the 


public cloud to offer a single pane of glass 

enabling data protection, governance and 

intelligence, dramatically increasing the 

availability and visibility of business-critical 

information, while reducing the risk, cost and 

complexity of managing and protecting it.” 

With today’s market featuring software 

providers such as Commvault, hardware 

providers like EMC or hyper conversion 

specialists like Rubrik, Singh saw a gap 

for Druva as there was no cloud native 

solution or SaaS tech to deliver a 

unified service across the globe. “It 

took us a few years to perfect delivering 

a service with a predictable service-level 

agreement (SLA) at a specific price point,” 

he says. “A combination of innovation and 

internal engineering was required to make 

the solution extremely native to AWS. It’s a 

custom build software service stack which 

means we take care of security, cost optimisation, 

DevOps etc. It’s been an interesting 

journey and as AWS improves there is a 

customer expectation we must also improve 

our offering. Every time AWS makes a new 

announcement for a new storage tier, an 

improved way of doing machine learning or 

input/output we are often the Beta partner to 

be first to market with those new technologies.” 

Druva’s partnership with AWS has been 

41 


LEADERSHIP 

42 

leveraged in this way with Snowball 

Edge. Druva supported its stack to sit 

inside Snowball Edge from its day of 

launch when private lanes were 

announced for the transfer of data 

between clouds so the company was 

able to offer this service between 

VMC, VLS and Amazon. “Now we can 

support our customers not only in the 

way the data can be protected, but also 

how it can be analysed appropriately 

and the value-driven,” adds Singh. 

So what are some of the key benefits 

Druva’s Data Management-as-a-Service 

can offer its clients? “There’s a lot of 

‘cloud washing’ right now…” counters 

Singh. “But if you look at the core 

benefits of cloud, it’s a lot more than 

technology. It’s a business model built 

around cost optimization, agility, innovation 

and time to market. Druva stands 

for all those things. Given that a platform 

can replace traditional hardware, 

software services and management 

it’s a much lower TCU compared to the 

typical workload where you have to buy 

peak capacity for five years. With Druva 

you can buy consumption on demand.” 

Singh adds that when it comes to 

business agility and innovation Druva 

Jaspreet Singh, 

Founder & CEO, Druva 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘CONQUER YOUR MOUNTAIN 

OF DATA WITH DRUVA AT VMWORLD 2018’ 

43 

is transforming enterprises by adapting to 

the new cloud native technologies much 

faster than its customers can do on their own 

and indeed quicker than any of its competitors. 

“The third main benefit is our speed to market,” 

he continues. “Druva is the only solution that 

can be launched in as little as a week. It can 

take months for our competitors to deploy a 

solution like this. The peace of mind we offer 

across the globe is something our customers 

can’t get anywhere else.” 

As data becomes more fragmented and risks 

increase - with ransomware, GDPR, back-up/ 

recovery requirements and the locality of data 

- a centralized way of managing information is 


LEADERSHIP 

44 

required so efficient data management 

becomes essential. Druva’s alliances 

with key partners drive that efficiency. 

“Our most prominent partnership is 

with AWS,” highlights Singh, who also 

notes that Druva is gaining traction with 

the likes of VMware for its virtualization 

needs, helping it protect and manage 

all customer data residing in private 

infrastructure, public cloud and hybrid 

virtual environments. 

Highly integrated with Amazon there 

are multiple tiers to Druva’s partnership, 

enabling it to offer customers the best 

integrated stack with a solution that 

can be built through AWS Marketplace 

and its unified billing model so AWS 

credits can be used to purchase Druva. 

“We’re also building further alliances 

where AWS field reps are compensated 

for selling Druva,” adds Singh. “We can 

go to market together and attack the 

best customer value together.” 

Druva has also partnered with Nutanix 

to offer a comprehensive hybrid cloud 

solution for backup, archiving and 


“As the AWS and cloud 

traction picks up so 

does the need for 

Druva — the industry’s 

first Data Managementas-a-Service 

solution 

that aggregates data 

from endpoints, servers 

and cloud applications” 

— 



45 

disaster recovery. “Druva provides 

workload mobility and data protection 

with seamless hypervisor-level backup 

to the Druva Cloud for Nutanix NX 

appliances,” affirms Singh. “As a result, 

customers get the simplicity and 

performance of the Nutanix hyperconverged 

infrastructure platform, with the 

elastic scale, global reach and cloud 

economics of Druva Phoenix cloudnative 

data protection.” 

Singh believes alliances like these are 

vital to keep up with the trends of the 

market and meet the changing needs 

of Druva customers. “Our clients want 

faster and more affordable ways to adopt 

and adapt to cloud,” he says. “Allied to 

this is the inherent desire from them 

to mine data in the cloud and analyse it 

to drive business value. Now, with data 

born in the cloud, enterprises want a 

holistic strategy to manage this new 

kind of data now out of physical reach. 

Druva plans to focus on all three,” 

pledges Singh. “Today we manage the 

business continuity and data protection 

for our customers looking at cloud in 

terms of secondary data, backup and 


LEADERSHIP 

46 

recovery data, disaster recovery – all to 

be stored in the cloud, where we also 

manage SaaS applications for them. 

We’re also looking at ways to help 

monetize and capitalize on the data 

they have stored with governance, 

compliance and analysis strategies.” 

Druva has found success across a 

diverse range of sectors. Among them, 

GameStop — an American brand 

which delivers online and offline gaming 

services across the globe— is a big 

AWS customer, with a successful online 

gaming portal which required a holistic 

data protection software solution. “They 

not only needed to protect data at 

hundreds of different locations across 

the globe but also the data born in the 

cloud where the architecture required 

better AR resiliency,” explains Singh. 

“Gamestop uses our platform to deploy 

its software around the world and also 

in its Amazon account to protect the 

data born there allowing them to build 

that holistic approach through Druva 

protecting and managing its data.” 

Elsewhere, Saint-Gobain (a construction 

materials manufacturer founded in 

France in 1665) is now one of Druva’s 

biggest European customers after it 

“Data integrations 

currently take days 

or weeks, but this will 

give us the ability to 

quickly backup an 

acquired company’s 

data and seamlessly 

incorporate it into 

our existing storage 

repository” 

— 

Brian Bagwell, 

Director of IT, North America, at ANDRITZ 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘DATA MANAGEMENT-AS-A-SERVICE: 

THE DRUVA STORY’ 

47 

adapted to the cloud for the first time. “We 

have helped them build a centralized backup 

and disaster recovery practice on AWS 

public cloud,” says Singh. “They are now 

procuring software through Marketplace 

to deploy where appropriate.” 

Druva is also working with an Asian oil 

mining company with rigs and platforms 

across the world. “They had a unique problem,” 

recalls Singh. “They had to find a way 

to support predictive data delivered to their 

ships across the fleet and return it for processing. 

To make sure data was not lost they used 

hardware throughout the fleet to physically 

return it. But with Druva they were able to 


LEADERSHIP 

48 

automate data processing across their 

oil rigs to automatically backup to cloud 

and their data centre for processing 

where results can be delivered. It was 

a dramatic change in how they managed 

their information cutting down their 

processing time from months to a 

matter of days.” 

Druva’s customers can testify to the 

strides made in transferring dozens of 

terabytes of data to the cloud - which 

can be an insurmountable challenge 

for companies located where internet 

bandwidth is at a premium. Steven Hill, 

senior analyst of storage technologies 

at 451 Research elaborates: “The new 

AWS Snowball Edge is designed for 

moving data at scale, and adds compute 

capabilities to its hardened, secure 

system for moving up to 100 TB to the 

cloud. With AWS Snowball Edge, Druva 

can offer a new model for data protection 

that’s tightly integrated with cloud 

migration capabilities.” 

Brian Bagwell, director of IT, North 

America, at ANDRITZ is excited about 

the potential of this offering, both for the 

management of his company’s current 


49 

global footprint and for future mergers 

and acquisitions: “Data integrations 

currently take days or weeks, but this 

will give us the ability to quickly backup 

an acquired company’s data and seamlessly 

incorporate it into our existing 

storage repository. An on-demand 

solution from Druva on AWS is a game 

changer for our approach to data 

management and data protection.” 

With more and more success stories 

of companies like these transitioning to 

the cloud, what are Singh’s predictions 

for the next major milestone in the space? 

“My view of the market is of a large 

enterprise segment,” he says. “In the 

next three years a third of businesses 

will adopt SaaS, a third will adapt to 

managing cloud directly (not through 

SaaS but by pulling their workloads) 

and the remainder will still manage 

on-prem. In the mid-market, which is 

the majority of Europe and the US, I see 

the split as 50% SaaS, 30% cloud 

workload and 20% on-prem.” 

Singh believes overall the market will 

transition to the cloud in two ways: 

moving to SaaS offerings like Druva or 


LEADERSHIP 

50 

“In the next two years, 

all major countries 

will have privacy laws 

which will regulate 

how data is supported 

and processed within 

a specified region 

and who can process it. 

The level of scrutiny 

will fuel cloud development 

because the 

traditional software 

stack of colocation 

and data centre 

cannot fulfil demand” 

— 




managing their own software stack on top 

of a public cloud. “This will be fuelled by two 

core trends,” he adds. “In the next two years, 

all major countries will have privacy laws 

which will regulate how data is supported 

and processed within a specified region 

and who can process it. The level of scrutiny 

will fuel cloud development because the 

traditional software stack of colocation and 

data centre cannot fulfil demand. We’ll see 

a massive shift to make the cloud inexpensive 

and more achievable at mid-market 

through server-less computing with outcomedriven 

pricing and machine learning which 

will be the new mobile 2.0. It will make 

software smarter, cheaper and easier to use.” 

Druva hopes to amplify its efforts to make 

the cloud more accessible while both easier 

to use and consume. “We want to double 

down and help our users mine and analyse 

data sitting the cloud to address the problem 

of how to utilize data in a much broader way,” 

asserts Singh. “We’re keen to grow as 

robustly as we did in 2018 - fuelled by the 

consumption of cloud we’re the fastest data 

protection growth company in the world and 

aim to keep up the pace.” 

51 


TECHNOLOGY 

A CUSTOMER JOURNEY 

DRIVEN BY DATA 

52 

Business Chief sits down with Omnistream 

founder Wendy Chen to find out how she’s 

using new methods and old tricks to survive 

and thrive in Singapore and beyond 

WRITTEN BY HARRY MENEAR 



53

TECHNOLOGY 

54 

Wendy Chen began her career in finance. 

She worked as a trader for both Barclays 

and Jane Street Capital, largely specialising 

in ‘quant’ trading: large transactions involving 

the sale and purchase of thousands of shares at 

once. “I was doing quant trading for a while”, Chen 

recalls, “and I saw this opportunity to bring that 

same type of thinking to enterprises in Asia”. 

With her trading experience, Chen saw an opportunity 

to levy her skills and experience from the finance 

sector and apply them to a new market and a new 

company. Reflecting on the genesis of Omnistream, 

Chen confides that “what’s really interesting about 

the quant trading business is that so much of the 

secret sauce is in how you operationalize the 

algorithms - how you think about business continuity 

and operational data.” 

She founded Omnistream in 2013 with the goal 

of using a ‘quant’ trading’s algorithmic, machine 

learning-powered methods to provide a statisticsdriven 

retail analysis service, capable of keeping up 

with “how fast things are changing” in South East 

Asia and other emerging markets. 

“Speed and automation are quite important”, Chen 

explains. “Given infinite time and infinite humans, 

you could probably replicate a lot of analytics. 

However, you’re talking about customers who want 

solutions in five days, not five months”. 

“It’s very hard for Western enterprises to service 

South East Asia. A lot of it is just costs structure. 


“GIVEN INFINITE TIME AND 

INFINITE HUMANS, YOU COULD 

PROBABLY REPLICATE A LOT OF 

ANALYTICS. HOWEVER, YOU’RE 

TALKING ABOUT CUSTOMERS 

WHO WANT SOLUTIONS IN FIVE 

DAYS, NOT FIVE MONTHS” 

— 

Wendy Chen, 

Omnistream founder 

55 


TECHNOLOGY 

56 

They’re earning nice, juicy margins in 

the US and in the UK. It’s really hard 

for them to take that really high-touch, 

high-cost structure they have for 

servicing customers and bring it to 

South East Asia.” Chen saw a gap in 

the market for a new style of analysis 

and consulting service. 

Talking about the difference between 

Omnistream and its competitors, she 

explains: “it’s a very different service. 

We probably don’t customize nearly as 

much, because we don’t spend nearly 

as much time consulting. We also don’t 

do as many in-person surveys; we’re 

more data-driven.” 

Omnistream’s more one-size-fitsall 

approach means it can offer its 

services at a rate that is significantly 

lower than those of traditional consulting 

and analytics firms. Chen laughs, 

“if you look at some of the income 

statements from these publicly traded 

companies, you’ll see that they cost 

a good soul.” 

“Because we answer the same 

questions the same questions over 

and over again, we don’t need to give our 

customers all the bells and whistles.” 

She explains the service Omnistream 


Wendy Chen, 


57 

provides as “just answering three 

questions: where do you put a store? 

What do you put in a store? And at what 

price do you sell it?” 

Omnistream answers these questions 

using three types of data which it feeds 

into its complex computational 

algorithms to create its insights. First, 

transactional data — “whatever it is the 

business generates by operating” — that 

can include everything from local foot 

traffic to loyalty program participation. 

Second, “there’s open, external data”, 

says Chen. “What we mean by that is how 

far away are your closest competitors? 


TECHNOLOGY 

58 

Are they down the road? Are there lots 

of them? Are they different?” 

Open data also deals with the number 

of people within a business’ “catchment 

area”. “It sounds obvious”, Chen admits, 

“but we’re talking about very dynamically 

changing countries, so the data from 

a year ago is very different to today.” 

“We think of a retailer’s addressable 

world as more than people who just walk 

by,” Chen says. “If there are 120,000 

people who live in your catchment area, 

how come you’re only addressing 

10,000 of them?” 

The third element of Omnistream’s 

service relies upon the application 

of proprietary and open data to the 

company’s artificial intelligence (AI) 

algorithms. Part of the service Omnistream 

provides is the ‘fine-tuning’ of its 

AI software from previously gathered 

data. Chen explains: “for machine 

learning to work, your algorithms 

basically need to have something 

called fine-tuning… you need to train 

your AI with lots and lots of data… So, 

you need to work with founders who 

have worked in similar markets”. 


“BECAUSE WE ANSWER THE 

SAME QUESTIONS OVER AND 

OVER AGAIN, WE DON’T NEED 

TO GIVE OUR CUSTOMERS ALL 

THE BELLS AND WHISTLES” 

— 

Wendy Chen, 


59 

While the majority of analysis companies 

gather this data, which clients then 

use in-house data analysts to decipher, 

and the majority of consultancies rely 

on the “high-touch, high-cost” approach 

that too often proves too slow and too 

expensive for the emerging market, 

Chen has designed Omnistream to offer 

data-plus-consultancy as a service. 

Chen reflects that customers just want 

to know: “Hey! How do I grow faster 

and make more profits?” 

“Everything in the middle is just chaos 

and noise.” She recalls that “yesterday 

we had a retailer tell us: ‘stop showing us 

dashboards. Just tell me what the answer 

is and why… I don’t want to see your data’, 

they just want to get to the solution.” 

The model is proving effective. In 

2018, Omnistream began operations 

in Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar, 

and Chen says the company plans to 

expand into Thailand, Japan, South 

Korea and Malaysia soon. 

“We use the beachhead strategy”. 

This method, Chen explains, involves 

specially selecting a client - ‘a sizeable 

retailer’ - who is looking to expand into a 


TECHNOLOGY 

60 

new market and open to operationalizing 

Omnistream’s insights. 

Omnistream’s lower cost model makes 

no attempt to “bill large amounts of 

money up front. We actually want to do 

a revenue split with them”: Clients simply 

pay a portion of any increase in profits 

related to Omnistream’s services. Chen 

describes it as: “making an investment”. 

While currently Omnistream’s operations 

are restricted to the Asia Pacific 

markets, its model of data-driven retail 

consulting is something that Wendy 


Chen knows “definitely applies to more 

than South East Asia.” She believes that 

anywhere where growth and market 

instability is outpacing the traditional 

models for consultation and analysis 

could benefit from the Omnistream 

model. “The people who win in this 

region are the ones who can adapt and 

capitalise on change as it’s happening.” 

“We’re definitely looking at the whole 

emerging world.” 

The faith Wendy Chen has in her 

venture is undeniable. She is throwing 

her startup into an ecosystem where, 

more than anything, being nimble is 

key. Omnistream’s outcomes-as-a-service 

structure is a testament to her 

confidence in its agility and ability to bring 

drastic cost reductions to its chosen 

clients. Chen laughs again: “How many 

big enterprise players actually say ‘Hey, 

only pay us if you win?’” 

61 


CITY FOCUS | LAS VEGAS 

City Focus 

LAS 

62 

Las Vegas partners with Israeli 

tech startup Waycare to increase 

road safety and ease congestion 




63


64 

S 

ituated in the heart of the Mojave 

desert, Las Vegas is the United 

States’ premier hub for gamblingbased 

entertainment. The city received 49.2mn 

visitors in 2017, representing a 1.2% increase 

year-on-year, according to the Las Vegas 

Review Journal. With a native population of 

641,000, and one third of all visitors traveling 

from California, mostly by car, Las Vegas is 

in the top 3% of the most congested cities 

in the world. 

Satellite navigation device manufacturer 

TomTom reported that, in 2016, its customers 

drove a total of 1,687,795 miles on Las Vegas 

roads. On average, drivers experienced 

76 hour delays annually, a 24% travel time 

increase in contrast to the national average. 


65 

To combat congestion, the Regional Transportation 

Commission of Southern Nevada, 

the Nevada Department of Transportation 

and the Nevada Highway Patrol have partnered 

with Israeli tech startup Waycare, in 

order to bring a technological transformation 

to the city’s largest highway. 

Interstate 15 runs from Primm, California 

to the Arizona border at Mesquite. Running 

through the centre of Las Vegas, it is the main 

artery for passenger and freight traffic in and 

out of the city. 

Waycare began its crash prevention pilot 

program in February. The software uses “invehicle 

information and municipal traffic data to 



66 

understand road conditions in real-time”, 

the Las Vegas Review Journal reports. 

Israeli journal Haaretz continues that 

“WayCare’s traffic monitoring technology 

is installed in Nevada’s traffic control 

center, seeing and reacting to everything 

relevant happening on Las Vegas’ 

roads and providing real-time solutions”. 

The software gathers information from 

sensor points and other applications to 

build a reactive, real-time model. Information 

harvested from microwave 

vehicle detection, data from on board 

devices, navigation apps, 

local weather forecasting, 

event data, construction 

reports, road closures, traffic 

incidents, public transportation 

schedules, and live 

camera feeds is all compiled and redistributed 

in order to ease the flow of traffic 

by the system’s Artificial Intelligence. 

“It even uses ticket sales from Ticket- 

Master to forecast crowd sizes at sports 

events and concerts”. 

The partnership between Waycare 

and Las Vegas’ traffic management 

entails near-complete control of sections 

of the city’s road network, including the 

ability to dispatch and regulate the movements 

of law enforcement personnel. 

“WayCare not only knows what is happening 

everywhere but can use the data 

to predict the likelihood of a traffic jam 

and what areas are at risk for accidents”, 

Haaretz notes, “and to respond by 

changing the timing on traffic lights, 

opening and closing roads, altering 

messages on road signs and sending 

out instructions to police officers.” 

Waycare controllers use the app to 

detect traffic incidents, sending a report 

“that includes a video… automatically to 


67 

the relevant party,” said Waycare CEO, 

Noam Maital. Law enforcement officers 

serving on the stretch of Interstate 15 

covered by the trial receive instructions 

via Waycare, rather than traditional 

two-way radios. 

Theresa Gaisser, a controller, told 

Haaretz that WayCare reduced response 

times to traffic incidents in the trial area 

“by an average of 12 minutes”. 

Elaborating on this, Tina Quigley, 

RTC general manager told the press: 



68 

“Groundbreaking partnerships like this 

enable Southern Nevada to continue 

to lead the way in leveraging advanced 

technologies to dramatically improve 

traffic safety and efficiency. These latest 

statistics coupled with the fact that 

we are identifying accidents up to 12 

minutes faster with the Waycare platform 

helps translate what public and 

private partnerships can do and that 

AI is working to modernize and create 

a better transportation system for all.” 

Maital admitted to Haaretz that 

Waycare’s interface required some 

adjustment after police field tests: 

“it began on the basic level of adjusting 

the keys on the tablets carried by 

police and patrol officers — they have 

the fingers of working people. Another 

was moving the screens and maps to 

night mode because they lit up the 

squad car like a flashlight”. 

However, after the eight-month 

trial period, accidents on the affected 

stretch of I-15 are reported as being 

down by 17%, and Waycare has 

received positive feedback from 

members of Las Vegas’ law enforcement 

community. “Traditionally, law 


WayCare 

reduced response 

times to traffic 

incidents in 

the trial area 

by an average 

of 12 minutes 

enforcement has relied on 

anecdotal evidence to 

determine where to deploy 

resources to respond to traffic 

related issues,” said Lieutenant 

Colonel Daniel Solow, 

Nevada Highway Patrol. “Now, 

with the technology that Waycare 

has brought to Southern 

Nevada, the Highway Patrol 

can proactively deploy units 

into an area when the system 

identifies a high likelihood of 

something happening and prevent 

crashes before they even happen. 

This translates into significantly faster 

treatment for those injured in crashes, 

quicker clearance and restoration of 

normal traffic flow, and untold millions 

of dollars in commerce related delays 

that are prevented.” 

Following the success of its pilot 

program in Las Vegas, WayCare is now 

in talks with the city of Tampa, Florida 

and with the state of Delaware. 

69 


TOP 10 

70 


Top 10 

Brands 

USA 

in the 

71 

Business Chief takes a look at the top 10 

most valuable brands in the United States, 

originally listed by Forbes Magazine 



TOP 10 

72 

10 

General Electric 

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, General Electric is 

a multinational energy conglomerate focused on developing and 

manufacturing products for the “generation, transmission, distribution, 

control and utilization of electricity”, according to Forbes. 

The company reported net sales of US$121.5bn in 2018, as well 

as net losses of $7.8bn. In October, General Electric promoted 

H. Lawrence Culp Jr to CEO and chairman of the board. He is the 

first outside hire to the position in the company’s 126 year history. 

www.ge.com 


73 

09 

McDonald’s 

The McDonald’s Corporation was founded in 1955 and is the most 

valuable restaurant conglomerate in the world, engaging in the 

management and franchising of chain restaurants globally. It is also 

the second-largest fast food chain by number of restaurants, with 

37,200 locations worldwide. The company reported a net revenue 

of $23.2bn in 2018, and profits totaling $5.4bn, the highest since 

2013. McDonald’s is headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, and its CEO 

is Steve Easterbrook, who has served in the position since 2015. 

www.mcdonalds.com 


TOP 10 

74 

08 

AT&T 

Dallas-based company AT&T Inc. engages in the provision of digital 

communication and entertainment services in the United States and 

abroad. The company is ranked 5th on the Forbes list of the largest 

public companies in America. AT&T also ranked 4th on the Forbes list 

of most profitable American companies, with a bottom line totaling 

$30.6bn in 2018, a 10-year high point for the company. Randall Stephenson, 

AT&T’s CEO, has served in the position since 2007. 

www.att.com 


75 

07 

Walt Disney 

Founded in 1923, the Walt Disney Company is headquartered in Burbank, 

California and functions as a “diversified international family entertainment 

and media enterprise” that operates through the “Media Networks, 

Parks & Resorts, Studio Entertainment and Consumer Products & Interactive 

Media” segments, according to Forbes. The company reported 

net sales of $56.8bn in 2018, with a net profit of $11.5bn. Both represent 

continuations of a nine-year growth period. 

www.thewaltdisneycompany.com 


TOP 10 

76 

06 

Coca-Cola 

The Coca-Cola Company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Founded in 1892, it is the second-oldest company in the Top 10, 

behind General Electric. Coca-Cola engages in the manufacturing, 

marketing and sale of non-alcoholic beverages, according to Forbes. 

Brands managed by the company include: Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, 

Coca-Cola Zero, Fanta, Sprite, Minute Maid, Georgia, Powerade, Del 

Valle, Schweppes, Aquarius, Minute Maid Pulpy, Dasani, Simply, 

Glaceau Vitaminwater, Bonaqua, Gold Peak, Fuze Tea, Glaceau 

Smartwater, and Ice Dew. In 2018, Coca-Cola’s assets totaled 

$93.3bn, an all-time high for the company. 

www.coca-cola.com 


77 

05 

Amazon 

Seattle-based company, Amazon.com Inc. provides online retail 

shopping services worldwide. With 566,000 workers, it is the largest 

employer in the Top 10, and is ranked 1st on Forbes’ list of US digital 

companies. Amazon reported net sales of $193.2bn in 2018, with 

record profits of $3.9bn. Jeff Bezos founded the company in 1994 

and serves as its chairman and CEO. His personal net worth is 

reported by Forbes as $126.2bn, the largest in the world. 

www.amazon.com 


TOP 10 

78 

04 

Facebook 

Founded by Mark Zuckerberg and headquartered in Menlo Park, 

California, Facebook, Inc. provides online social networking services 

to 2.28bn users worldwide, according to Statista. In addition to the 

Facebook brand and services, the company also controls Instagram, 

Messenger, Whatsapp and Oculus. In 2018, Facebook reported 

record high sales, profits, and valuation of its asset portfolio, with 

$44.6bn, $88.9bn, and $17.9bn respectively. Founded in 2004, it is 

the youngest company in the Top 10. 

www.facebook.com 


03 

Microsoft 

Microsoft Corp. has engaged in the development and marketing of 

software and hardware products for computing devices, servers, phones 

and intelligent devices since 1975, according to Forbes. “It also offers 

server applications for distributed computing environments, productivity 

applications, business solution applications, desktop and server 

management tools, software deveFounded by Mark Zuckerberg and 

headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Facebook, Inc. provides online 

social networking services to 2.28bn users worldwide, according to 

Statista. In addition to the Facebook brand and services, the company 

also controls Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp and Oculus. In 2018, 

Facebook reported record high sales, profits, and valuation of its asset 

portfolio, with $44.6bn, $88.9bn, and $17.9bn respectively. Founded 

in 2004, it is the youngest company in the Top 10.lopment tools, video 

games, and online advertising”. Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, has 

served in the position since 2014. 

www.microsoft.com 

79 


TOP 10 

80 


81 

02 

Google 

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Google Inc. is a multinational 

software company, focusing on the provision of services relating to 

internet-based services, including online advertising technologies, 

search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. The company 

has experienced a 10-year period of continuous revenue, profit, and 

asset growth, reporting $66bn, $9.7bn, and 18.5bn respectively. 

www.google.com 


TOP 10 

82 


01 

Apple 

Apple Inc. is based in Cupertino, California and engages in the design, 

manufacture, marketing and sale of mobile communication, media 

devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players, according 

to Forbes. The company is ranked 3rd on Forbes’ list of the world’s 

best employers, and is America’s largest public company in terms of 

asset valuation, sales, and profits. In 2018, Apple reported record high 

sales, profits, and asset portfolio valuations, with $217.5bn, $53.3bn, 

and $367.5bn respectively. Tim Cook has served as the company’s 

CEO since 2011, previously working under founder and owner Steve 

Jobs as Apple COO. 

www.apple.com 

83 


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TECHNOLOGY 

TRANSFORMATION 

86 

DRIVES AN EXCITING 

CONTENT EXPERIENCE 

AT VIACOM 

WRIT TEN BY 

OLIVIA MINNOCK 

PRODUCED BY 

GLEN WHITE 


TECHNOLOGY 

87 


VIACOM 

GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY 

VIACOM’S CTO DAVID KLINE DISCUSSES 

THE COMPANY’S TECHNOLOGY 

TRANSFORMATION AND HOW IT 

STAYS ABREAST OF A VAST, 

RAPIDLY EVOLVING LANDSCAPE 

88 

With universally renowned brands from MTV and 

Comedy Central to Nickelodeon and Paramount 

Pictures under its umbrella, for almost 50 years 

global entertainment company Viacom has been 

delighting viewers the world over. With a commitment to 

delivering quality content through a wide range of digital 

media, the company operates across a range of markets 

and places technology at the forefront of maintaining a 

quality, tailored experience. 

Behind the significant digital transformation Viacom 

has undergone in order to achieve such lofty aims is 

David Kline, Executive Vice President and Chief Information 

and Technology Officer. With eight years at the 

media behemoth under his belt, Kline has enjoyed a 

35-year career focusing on technology and has been 

fascinated by the development of digital. “I got to see 

technology from yesteryear – punch cards and reel-toreel 

tape,” he recalls. “And the world was changing 

because there were connectivity opportunities across 

longer distances… through to today, where you can 

connect via the cloud. 

“I’m really thrilled to have seen those journeys. They’re 

happening faster, almost at lightning speed, today.” All 


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TECHNOLOGY 

this experience lit up a fascination with 

the “art of the possible” for Kline, which 

he has brought to his team at Viacom. 

“We aim to identify what’s possible for 

the divisions we guide and influence – 

whether it’s advertising, production, 

research, distribution… it is important to 

understand what they’re doing and deliver 

the technology that works for them.” 

At the time of its fruition in the 1970s, 

Viacom was something of a “walled 

garden”. “It was very segregated from 

the rest of the world,” says Kline. “As 

the world grew, digital connectivity 

became more of an opportunity, like we 

see today with apps and connected 

devices – now, everywhere you go, 

there is some kind of digital footprint.” 

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY THROUGH TECH 

As technology has developed, so too 

have customer expectations across 

the various demographics Viacom 

caters for. “The millennial audience 

really took a whole new swing at what 

connectivity meant – they want what 

they want when they want it. We have 

to be able to deliver that,” he explains, 

adding that nowadays on-demand 

programming is an expectation rather 

93 


David Kline 

Having been at Viacom for eight years, David Kline provides 

strategic leadership for the company’s technology infrastructure 

and oversees Viacom’s Online Central Platform 

Technology and Interactive Services, Content Creation 

and Distribution Technology, Application Development 

and Information Security and Compliance. During his 

time at the company, Kline has led several successful initiatives 

as well as developing and promoting a strong, 

diverse team of talented people. Prior to working at 

Viacom, Kline served as Executive Vice President of Technology 

and CTO at Discovery Communications, having 

also held senior technology roles at Rainbow Media 


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TECHNOLOGY 

“THE MILLENNIAL 

AUDIENCE REALLY TOOK 

A WHOLE NEW SWING AT 

WHAT CONNECTIVITY 

MEANT – THEY WANT 

WHAT THEY WANT, 

WHEN THEY WANT IT” 

— 

David Kline, 

EVP and Chief Information and 

Technology Officer, Viacom 

95 

than an added extra. “How do we make 

that more dynamic?” Kline asks. “How 

do we update that content so that you 

have a larger library? How do we add 

advertising that’s not stale and 

changes with the times?” 

In an increasingly connected world, 

Viacom works to ensure a consistent, 

quality and above all exciting service 

for consumers regardless of location, 

device, platform or demographic. “We 

have 84 apps on 11 different platforms 

– whether it’s Roku, Apple TV, iOS, 

Android, PlayStation… We’re in 180 

different countries, so when you see 

MTV in the US, UK, Poland or Singapore… 

each brand has opportunities to 

be more effective in certain spaces. 

For example, Latin America is more 

Android-driven, and so while Roku is a 

great platform in the US, we have 

growing platforms in Europe like 

Amazon and Netflix.” 

In addition, short form content, like 

the video footage shared across 

Snapchat, Facebook or Twitter to 

promote a new TV series, is an 

increasingly lucrative focus, paying 


VIACOM 

96 

“YOU HAVE TO KNOW YOUR 

AUDIENCE, HOW THE DEMO- 

GRAPHIC IS SHIFTING, 

AND WHAT’S RELEVANT. 

IT’S VITAL TO STAY TUNED 

IN AND DELIVER ON 

WHAT THE CONSUMER 

IS EXPECTING” 

— 

David Kline, 




TECHNOLOGY 

growing dividends. “We need to make 

sure we’re aligned with the generations 

in terms of what they want to consume 

– creating original short form, not just 

taking pieces of a show. You have to 

know your audience, how the demographic 

is shifting, and what’s relevant. 

It’s vital to stay tuned in and deliver on 

what the consumer is expecting.” 

DRIVING A TECHNOLOGY 


With a mission to entertain and excite 

firmly at its heart, Viacom has used 

technology as a driver of growth – but 

has done so thoughtfully, ensuring that 

new technologies are implemented to 

make positive change for various 

stakeholders, rather than chasing what 

Kline calls the “bright, shiny object”. 

“Cloud computing is a great example,” 

he says. “We started looking at cloud 

when it first came out, and at the time 

we weren’t ready to make a jump.” 

While cloud technology offers storage 

solutions, Viacom already had extensive 

– and expensive – infrastructure in 

place for this. 

However, the business did implement 

cloud technology for its live 

events, posting interactive social media 

97 


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TECHNOLOGY 

content and creating live video footage 

at the likes of the VMAs and Kids’ 

Choice Awards. Since then, Kline’s 

team has felt enabled and empowered 

by the cloud, and after abating 

cybersecurity concerns by rolling out 

the new tech slowly and sensitively, 

Viacom now has its full Office productivity 

in the Cloud with Office365. “It’s 

about overcoming fears, being smart 

enough and strong enough to say, ‘we 

need to focus because change is 

coming’. That’s something you have to 

grapple with in any leadership role – 

especially technology.” 

As such, Kline is no stranger to the 

culture shift involved in a technology 

transformation – and he says both 

listening and educating are key to 

change management. “It’s important to 

listen to what’s going on in the world 

and within the company, and understand 

different needs. Rather than just 

putting in technology for technology’s 

sake, have a rationale and a really 

responsible understanding of why 

you’re doing it. As technology shifts, 

with Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G for 

example, it’s important to make sure 

everyone has an understanding of 

what it is and not to be fearful, but 

“AS TECHNOLOGY SHIFTS, 

IT’S IMPORTANT TO 

MAKE SURE EVERYONE 

HAS AN UNDERSTANDING 

OF WHAT IT IS AND 

NOT TO BE FEARFUL, 

BUT INQUISITIVE” 

— 

David Kline, 



inquisitive. What does this mean to me? 

To the people I serve? To our industry? 

And how do we approach it?” 

SMOOTH TRANSMISSION 

As well as improving the way content is 

enjoyed, technology has been vital in 

improving process within Viacom’s 

operations. “The product teams work 

very centrally with my technical teams, 

and we’re all focused on making sure 

anything across our platforms, from 

video to data, is functional, scalable 

and is being delivered,” says Kline. 

Over the past few years, a key 

achievement has been centralizing 

code to develop single code base – 

with WebPlex used for websites and 

99 


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TECHNOLOGY 

Play Plex used for apps. “We’re now 

down to a single web base so I can 

deliver the same backend for MTV in 

Poland as I do for Nickelodeon in the 

US. It’s the same with apps. This is a 

pleasing and lucrative opportunity for 

the business to be able to go out and 

sign deals, knowing they can get 

something up and running in a matter 

of hours.” 

Yet more technologies are set to 

improve Viacom’s operations, with 

automation affording staff time for 

more value-adding tasks. “We’re 

looking at innovative ideas around 

machine learning and AI, as well as 

RPA (robotic process automation). It’s 

given our team back some time to 

really focus on the next generation and 

what’s to come, while still delivering on 

what’s necessary today.” 

“We’re big believers in consumer 

likes and dislikes – how do I make sure 

it’s not disruptive for them while it’s 

disruptive for us? Obviously, changes 

– like introducing AR and VR – are 

disruptions. They could be good 

disruptions or dramatic disruptions, but 

the goal is to make it perfectly seamless, 

regardless of whether it’s on 

television or another device – perhaps 

eventually a HoloLens.” 

101 


VIACOM 

102 

Centralization enables staff to really 

concentrate on this frictionless 

development – for example, a single 

service desk within Viacom is available 

for any problem, from lost keys to a 

serious tech malfunction. “With that, 

we continue to automate a lot of the 

tools we have – we’re using chat and 

automated tickets,” Kline explains. 

Further, the company has created 

application stacks for staff to download 

all the software they need onto a 

device at once and has automated 

solutions from HR and payroll to ERP 

utilizing SAP’s best-in-class platform. 

THE PERFECT PARTNER 

No technology transformation can take 

place in isolation, especially one which 

takes place internally and externally 

across 180 markets. As such, Viacom 

works closely with its vendors and 

partners – including Adobe, Redspace, 

Canoe Ventures, Insight and Freewheel, 

to name but a few – to ensure 

technology can be a true enabler for 

the business. 

“Vendor management’s hugely 

important,” says Kline. “I have a vendor 

management office – a small group of 

people who work closely with my 


TECHNOLOGY 

103 


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TECHNOLOGY 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘COMPANY OVERVIEW 2018’ 

105 

“AUTHENTICATION 

WITH ADOBE PASS IS 

A GREAT EXAMPLE 

WHICH VIACOM 

HELPED CRAFT. IT 

SHOWS THE COMPANY 

HAS THE INGENUITY 

AND CREATIVITY TO 

REALLY HELP PUSH 

PRODUCTS FORWARD” 

— 

David Kline, 



internal group, third party parents and 

vendors, and our sourcing team. It’s a 

three-way connection. In many cases, 

Viacom has a rich history of enabling 

vendors to build products we inspired, or 

else we have built them ourselves and 

pushed the intellectual property off to a 

vendor if that makes sense for the rest 

of the globe. Authentication with Adobe 

Pass is a great example which Viacom 

helped craft. It shows the company has 

the ingenuity and creativity to really help 

push other products forward – not just 

content but technology.” 

While Kline is a keen negotiator – “I 


VIACOM 

106 


TECHNOLOGY 

believe everything is free until you tell me 

otherwise” – he also stresses that relationships 

must be collaborative to thrive. “The worst thing 

you can do is bleed a vendor to a point where 

they’re ready to go out of business, or can’t 

support something you’ve taught them to 

support… the best thing you can do is work 

together for the best cost and best possible 

product that shines for both them and you.” 

Together with its partners and vendors, the 

organization that brings us entertainment in all 

its forms from award ceremonies to movies will 

continue to utilize technology to ensure its 

diverse content is enjoyed. “At Viacom, we’re big 

on long range plans,” says Kline. The organization 

is already pushing its 2022 strategy, and 

though there is no telling what technology will 

look like in three years’ time, Kline is dedicated 

to keep to an overall vision of satisfying customers. 

“That really drives the type of technologies 

we’re looking to focus on,” he explains. “It’s 

important to really bond with what the company’s 

strategies are and make sure we’re thinking 

that through both the immediate lens as well as 

the long-range plans.” 

107 


108 


TECHNOLOGY 

109 

DIGITAL 

DISRUPTION 

IN A DATA 

DRIVEN 

WORLD 


RADIUS NETWORKS 

Marc Wallace, CEO 

and Co-founder of 

Radius Networks, talks 

digital disruption in 

a data driven world 

110 

I 

n an increasingly data driven 

world, businesses are 

identifying ways to unlock 

new opportunities and markets as they 

turn to data to reach their digitally 

enabled customer bases. US-based 

Radius Networks works with major 

brands to capture and utilize proximitybased 

data in order to reach the right 

people at the right time. 

As businesses continue to seek new 

and more innovative ways to use data, 

Radius Networks Customer Location 

Platform, which includes tableside and 

curbside service, asset tracking, and 

proximity cloud analytics, fits right at 

home in the current business landscape. 

However, as co-founder and 

CEO Marc Wallace explains, bringing 

disruptive technologies to market is no 

small feat. “The real challenge that we 

faced was from an R&D perspective. 

We were building a very new technol- 


TECHNOLOGY 

Engineer and Support meeting (left to right: Jason Wieringa, Brian Cabrera, 

Bhavin Vyas, Ami Desai, Alex Stone, Sam Kim, James Nebeker) 

111 

Chief Technology Officer, 

David Helms 

ogy concept, leveraging Bluetooth or 

wireless on mobile devices and this 

was a very novel thing,” he explains. 

“Nobody really knows how to use it or 

how to implement it and that caused 

teething problems.” 

Having co-founded the business 

with partners from previous, successful 

ventures in 2011, Wallace has spent 

the best part of his career in the technology 

and internet space. It was through 

this experience that the team saw an 

opportunity in using wireless signals as 

a means of engaging people on their 


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TECHNOLOGY 

smartphones. “You would walk into a 

venue and your phone picks up a Wi-Fi 

signal and we saw that you could use 

that as an opportunity to engage and 

say ‘welcome’ or ‘go here’,” he explains. 

“That’s why we built Radius Networks. 

It was all formed around that initial 

concept of engaging with people based 

on their location and proximity to certain 

points of interest. That was the beginning 

of Radius Networks.” 

Over the last seven years, Radius 

Networks has worked with major 

brands across the US and is active 

in more than 60 countries worldwide, 

with more than 27 patented technology 

solutions within its portfolio. The 

company’s success is clear to see, 

but Wallace notes that the key to that 

success lies in the people involved, 

as well as a smart approach to capital 

investment. “Once we knew what we 


Marc Wallace 

Marc is a serial entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO 

of Radius Networks, Inc., located in Washington, DC. Radius 

Networks is a location technology company focused on 

helping businesses locate, engage and transact with their 

customers. Prior to Radius Networks, Marc co-founded 

several other successful startups, such as District Taco, 

a Mexican-food fast casual chain in DC, where he serves 

as Chairman, and SwapDrive (backup.com), an online 

backup company acquired by the Norton division of 

Symantec in 2008. Before creating SwapDrive, he 

served at Orbital Sciences Corporation as an aerospace 

engineer and engineering manager across multiple 

successful rocket and spacecraft launch campaigns. 

Marc holds a B.S. in Engineering from Cornell 

University and a M.S. in Information Systems from 

George Washington University. 

113 



114 

were doing we developed strong expertise in 

the area,” he says, “but it took a number of 

years to really get to a productization that our 

customers, huge brands, could see true 

value in and a return of investment (ROI).” 

“The first four years of the company were 

really defined by R&D, but over the last few 

years we’ve moved into the operationalization 

phase. We are taking a product that is 

maturing and pushing it worldwide, so we 

have to be able to scale it and have third 

parties and partners that can sell and install 

the product.” 

With a career defined by technology it 

would be easy for Wallace and his team to 

assume that partners, suppliers and potential 

customers will have the same understanding 

and knowledge of innovative technologies, 

but as Wallace noted previously, proximity 

solutions are a very novel concept. The key 

to working with stakeholders and obtaining 

their ‘buy-in’ is communication and Wallace 

recognises this. Radius Networks has cemented 

itself within the market for a number of 

years and can begin to point to successes 

and tangible value that its solutions have 

brought for customers. “Real dollars,” says 

Wallace. “We have real dollars that our 

technology can enable through efficiencies, 

savings and of course drawing customers to 

“We install thousands, 

almost tens of thousands 

of locations a year, so 

in order to do that across 

the world, we need 

strong partnerships” 

— 

Marc Wallace 

CEO and Co-Founder 

Radius Networks 


TECHNOLOGY 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘RADIUS NETWORKS — 

CURBSIDE PICK-UP’ 

115 

Craig Brooks and Maie Lee 

their stores. We also have very solid data 

that can back up and highlight the ROI that 

we can bring.” 

Sales figures, through Quick Service 

Restaurants (QSRs) or instore delivery, are 

the key metrics that can speak to the impact 

of Radius Networks but there are also the 

less tangible metrics such as customer 

satisfaction that can really be the difference. 

Wallace can point to customer satisfaction 

increases of close to 25% over stores that 

do not use Radius Networks’ solutions from 

convenience alone and that he feels is in 

itself “real ROI”. 

Another key metric that Radius Networks 



has been able to store is wastage. 

Through its ability to pinpoint customers 

and drive them through a sales 

process, the company is able to help 

businesses manage the process 

entirely. “Let’s look at food ordering, 

whether its instore or delivery,” says 

Wallace. “We’re able to help a business 

manage the process, drastically 

cutting waste and wrong orders in half. 

People are getting the right order. 

They’re getting their food, not somebody 

else’s food, and they’re getting it 

After the customer places an order from 

kiosk, mobile, or counter, the staff can view 

their exact location for order delivery 

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TECHNOLOGY 

in a timely fashion so that their food 

doesn’t need to be thrown away. It’s 

very important, and a big ROI factor for 

a lot of those businesses.” 

Radius Networks is defined by data 

as much as it is defined by technology, 

and so the company collates and stores 

mountains of data. This inevitably raises 

the question of what Radius Networks 

is doing with sensitive data. Wallace 

says that the company saw a fork in the 

road a number of years ago in the 

collection of location specific data. 

117 


Dan Estrada has 20 years of start-up, technology 

business development experience. He is the Chief Strategy 

Officer of Radius Networks, Inc. leading the global business 

strategy and expansion initiative. Prior to joining Radius 

Networks, Dan successfully executed the worldwide 

channel distribution strategy for cloud service start-up, 

SwapDrive, from the company’s inception through its 

acquisition by Symantec for $123 million. Post SwapDrive 

acquisition, Dan successfully led the worldwide business 

development efforts for Symantec for the launch of Norton 

Online Backup, and served as VP, Business Development 

for SnappCloud, a leading White Label App & Content 

Delivery Platform for PC & Tablet OEMs. Dan is currently 

an advisor to several early stage companies. 



118 

“It can be very personalized and so we decided 

very early on not to aggregate personal data 

and sell it to third parties that were not related 

to our clients,” he says. “We work directly with 

the brands, and we will provide data back to 

those brands almost on a pass-through basis 

– rather than storing data long term on our 

systems that are related to their customers. 

“We will honor their relationship directly 

with their customers. When end customers 

are using our solution through one of our 

clients, they can be assured that whatever 

agreement they have in place from a privacy 

standpoint – we honor that. That is all part of 

the GDPR system, so we follow that standard. 

“We like being the center 

of expertise that our customers 

can turn to in order 

to give them an idea as to 

where the wind's blowing 

with regards to technology” 

— 

Marc Wallace 

CEO and Co-Founder 

Radius Networks 

Customers can place an order while 

on-the-go and opt to dine-in, pickup 

in-store, or pickup curbside. 


TECHNOLOGY 

That’s how we operate and we don’t plan 

on changing that.” 

Working with clients in more than 60 

countries, Wallace recognizes the importance 

of a trusting client relationship and 

being able to provide tailored solutions that 

fit different countries and different market 

dynamics and demands. To this end, Radius 

Networks has dedicated teams assigned 

to its biggest brand partners that work 

directly with them and are “embedded on 

site”. “It’s all about dedicating resources to 

that client and allowing them to focus directly 

on what their customer needs,” he explains. 

In this regard, the way in which Radius 

Networks goes above and beyond to provide 

additional services and give value to the 

client proves crucial. Despite its product 

offering, Radius Networks is not a ‘call us if 

you need us’ hardware company; it differentiates 

itself in the way it provides its solutions 

as a service. The company will install a 

solution, provide further solutions and then 

provide a service of services on that solution 

ranging from maintenance, monitoring 

analytics and feedback. “It’s similar to if you’re 

getting cable at your house,” says Wallace. 

“You get a set-top box. It’s hardware, but you’re 

paying a monthly subscription for the service 

that will be maintained and updated. That 

119 



120 

translates to real-time data that we 

obtain from the field that allows us to 

understand how the system is being 

used and then be able to optimize other 

processes around that.” 

As the market leader in an everevolving 

technology landscape, Radius 

Networks must ensure that its offering 

continues to be at the very forefront of 

the latest technology trends. Wallace 

says that the company’s technology 

and ability to implement solutions must 

always be years ahead of its customers. 

When working with some of the bigger 

clients in the market, whose ability to 

take solutions to market is measured in 

years, Radius Networks has to continuously 

bring innovation to the table in 

order to succeed. “We’ll work with them 

and say, ‘Okay, here’s what’s next, here’s 

what’s three years down the road or 

five years down the road’, and bringing 

it to them so that they can get it into the 

pipeline early and start to mature the 

product, because it will take years to 

get that out,” he says. 


TECHNOLOGY 

With Radius Networks location 

technology, the customer can simply 

drive to the store and have their 

groceries delivered directly to them, 

no action required. 

121 


Rebecca McFarland a creative and experienced 

marketing and event specialist with a honed expertise 

in branding and design. She is currently the Vice President 

of Marketing at Radius Networks, located in Washington, 

DC. She leads all marketing initiatives, including branding, 

design, product promotion, strategy, and advertising. 

Prior to joining Radius Networks, Rebecca was the Head 

of Marketing and Associate Publisher at Washingtonian 

Magazine, where she drove profitability through new 

business initiatives, multi-platform campaigns, events, 

and community partnerships. 



122 

“We like being the center of expertise 

that our customers can turn to in order 

to give them an idea where the wind’s 

blowing on the technology.” 

Despite considerable success over 

the last seven years, Radius Networks 

hasn’t been able to achieve this growth 

alone and Wallace can point to key 

strategic partners that the company 

has worked with that have been fundamental 

in allowing the company to 

achieve. Radius Networks has called 

upon the support of NCR, Diebold 

Nixdorf, Coates Group and Fujitsu to 

assist with service support and delivery. 

“We install thousands, almost tens of 

thousands of locations a year, so in order 

to do that across the world, we need 

partnerships to do that,” says Wallace. 

Technology partners have also been 

instrumental in enabling the rapid 

development and deployment of the 

products, such as AOPEN and EM 

Micro. “They have been key, not only to 

provide the right solution but helping 

us to evolve the solution.” 

Left to right: Craig Brooks, Maie Lee, Joe Grajewski, 

Ken McInerney, Amanda Wilson. 


TECHNOLOGY 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘RADIUS NETWORKS — 

CUSTOMER LOCATION SOLUTION’ 

123 

The industries of today will not be the 

same as the industries of tomorrow 

and technology will continue to steer 

that evolution. Radius Networks must 

be ready for whatever tomorrow will 

bring for its clients. Wallace believes 

that the hospitality market will become 

key in the near future for the company 

and that Radius Network’s approach 

to service, as well as its experienced 

team, is what will be fundamental in 

order to remain as the market leader. 

“If we need to react to the increasingly 

varying customer demands or 

requirements, we have the ability to 

quickly and nimbly do that,” he says. 

“We control the entire stack of our 

solution and we have incredible experience 

in this space. That’s a huge 

advantage that we have over anybody 

else that is either in the market or 

trying to get into the market.” 


124 


TECHNOLOGY 

Truliant Federal 

Credit Union 

A MEMBER-CENTRIC 

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION 

WRIT TEN BY 

ANDREW WOODS 

PRODUCED BY 

ANDY TURNER 

125 


TRULIANT FEDERAL CREDIT UNION 

WE SPEAK TO CIO SANDEEP 

UTHRA ON A MEMBER- 

CENTRIC GOAL OF DIGITAL 

TRANSFORMATION THAT 

IS ACCELERATING OPERA- 

TIONAL EXCELLENCE AND 

BUSINESS GROWTH 

126 

ruliant Federal Credit Union, a 66-yearold 

financial institution, has a singular and 

T 

important mission: to improve the lives 

of its members. According to Sandeep Uthra, 

Truliant’s chief information officer, the credit union 

focuses on helping members make decisions that 

improve and help manage their financial lives. 

Unlike for-profit financial institutions, Truliant 

stays away from pushing products on its members. 

“We are a different kind of company,” he says. 

Truliant has 230,000 members and assets in 

excess of $2.3bn and provides individuals and 

small businesses with products, services and 

guidance to reach their ‘life’s goals’, including 

checking accounts, online and app banking, auto 

buying, certificates and business/financial advice, 

and auto and home loans. According to Uthra, 

Truliant’s USP is its member-centric approach. 

“First and foremost, we are a not-for-profit organization,” 

Uthra said. “That’s the biggest difference 

between us and other banking institutions. 

But, more so, our goal is to improve each of our 


TECHNOLOGY 

127 



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TECHNOLOGY 

129 

“OUR CEO AND PRESIDENT 

TRULY UNDERSTAND HOW 

TECHNOLOGY’S GOING 

TO REALLY HELP TAKE 

US FORWARD IN MEMBER 

SERVICE” 

— 

Sandeep Uthra 

CIO, Truliant Federal 

Credit Union 

members’ lives, by working as trusted partner 

or provider of the right guidance to achieve 

their financial aims,” Uthra explains. 

“While traditional banking is more about rates 

and fees, all of our products and policies are 

consumer, not market, driven. We put people 

before profit. We are member-centric. We’re 

not just here to make money. This helps our 

members create financial security within their 

own aspirations. ” 

IN THE BEGINNING 

Uthra joined Truliant in late 2016 as CIO. 

He was charged with helping shepherd the 



130 


Sandeep Uthra 

Sandeep has over 20 years of experience developing and executing 

information technology (IT) strategies, including serving in executive 

roles in the financial services space. 

A native of New Delhi, India, Mr. Uthra has served in global 

IT leadership roles in product, consulting and financial 

corporations in Asia, Africa and the United States. Most 

notably, Mr. Uthra was Senior Vice President, Business 

Solutions Technology Executive at Bank of America. 

He leads Truliant’s Enterprise Service Delivery, Enterprise 

Architecture, Application Development, Systems 

Operations, Technology Support Services, Infrastructure 

Services, Information Security, and 

Telecommunications teams. 


TECHNOLOGY 

131 

strategic direction for Truliant’s overall 

technology landscape and to help 

drive its technology transformation. 

“As a trusted advisor in the company, 

I needed to get us to a point where 

we better understood business and 

members’ needs as per our company’s 

objectives.” 

Uthra’s highly strategic role was to 

help develop a roadmap that would 

achieve Truliant’s business plans by 

leveraging technology. “As part of the 

Chief Planning Team, I’ve worked hard 

to understand business needs as well 

as those of our members with technological 

solutions to achieve those goals. 

We really tailor our offerings as per our 

members’ needs to provide a top-notch 

member service.” Truliant targets 

locations where they are needed most 

and still operates a traditional guidancebased 

approach. “We’re very big on 

face-to-face interactions. We don’t 

want to remove the humanity in front of 

us. We will always keep face-to-face 

interactions.” 

THE HUMAN TOUCH 

While human-centric guidance is at the 

heart of Truliant’s approach, it is adopting 



132 

“I HAVE OTHER 

COMPANIES LIKE 

MERIDIANLINK WHO 

SUPPORT US FROM 

A LENDING PLATFORM 

STANDPOINT AND 

THEN SECURITY 

PARTNERS SUCH AS 

FLEXENTIAL WHO 

PROVIDES HOSTING 

CAPABILITY” 

— 

Sandeep Uthra 

CIO, Truliant Federal 

Credit Union 

more technologically advanced processes 

to better prepare for the future of banking. 

“Members are changing the way they interact 

with financial institutions,” he explains. “I think 

we all know that these days people compare 

our sector with companies like Amazon, right? 

They want us to be simple and nimble – like 

shopping on Amazon. This demand is driving 

us to create a simpler, more nimble and 

innovative personalization for all members. 

The consumer experience is king.” 

“On the other hand, data is at the consumer’s 

fingertips from many external sources to 

compare product or services so they are well 

informed. It is in our best interest to know 

consumers’ personalized needs in a faster 

and agile way, to provide them with the best 

in-class experience. To make all this happen, 

we have focused on technology architecture, 

because speed is the new currency in 

financial institutions. 

These days, technology architecture must 

be simple enough to support integrated 

channels and with an alignment of data to 

understand or predict members’ needs. 

“Simplification and Personalization is the 

game here,” Uthra explains. “Financial 

institutions should work to simplify their 

technology landscape and leverage microservices 

or APIs (application programming 


TECHNOLOGY 

CLICK TO WATCH: USING THE TRU2GO APP 

133 

interfaces), to support faster and more 

nimble integration with cutting-edge 

products and services.” 

DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS 

When Uthra joined Truliant Federal 

Credit Union, he hired an enterprise 

architect to help build out business 

technology ecosystems to understand 

dynamics around business units, 

functions, processes and underlying 

technology. He then sat with internal 

teams and critical partners to identify 

friction between those ecosystem 

constructs. This resulted in a maturity 

index of processes and technology, 

which gave Truliant a direction for 

future investment to achieve its goal of 

simplification and optimization of the 

members’ journeys/interactions. “Our 

vision is to enable consumers of our 

technology with a simple, faster and 

personalized experience. “Our CEO 

and President truly understand how 

technology’s going to really help take 

us forward in the personalized member 

service. 

“We know that it’s important to adapt 

and evolve quickly in line with the 

fast-paced changes in today’s financial 



134 

services landscape. Our goal is to create 

an impactful, best-in-class digital journey 

that is both dynamic and personal, and 

maintains an authentic human connection,” 

says Truliant President Todd Hall. 

The other important factor in Truliant’s 

technology transformation is partnership 

with fintechs and product companies 

for technology transformation. 

“Our strategic partners support us to 

achieve our vision. Companies like Fiserv 

who support our core banking 

platform perspective. MeridianLink 

provides lending capabilities and 

Flexential provides hosting capability. 

Veristor enables us with virtualized 

environment, to aid better manageability 

and performance and security of 

infrastructure – because it’s not just 

about spending or investing in infrastructure, 

it’s more about how to optimize 

that in terms of performance and security. 

Palo Alto Network really helped us to 

safeguard our technology and infrastructure 

and Secureworks provides 

information security capabilities.” 

FUTURE TRENDS 

For Uthra, the future of the industry lies 

in ecosystem-driven personalization. 

“I see these three things happening in 

the near future: simpler, faster and 

personalization. If I’m a member, and 

I need a home, normally I would reach 

out to a realtor or a mortgage or lending 

company. We reach out to the builder 

and to many other folks to achieve that 

goal for our family. But an ecosystem 

approach asks: ‘Why can’t we bring all 

these kinds of players into same 

ecosystem and make it happen? So, as 

a customer or a member, I will just reach 

out to a bank or financial institution like 


TECHNOLOGY 

34 

Number of office 

locations 

$2.3bn 

Approximate 

value of assets 

1952 

Year founded 

135 

Truliant and say, ‘I need a home.’” 

Uthra also sees increasing leverage 

of APIs for greater integration in sector 

technology with many third-party or 

indirect product companies. I see 

artificial intelligence and data playing 

a big role. Data is going to provide 

integration value because it will predict 

and say what our customers or members 

are asking and at what point in time. 

“I take pride in leading this vision 

because of our people and culture. I’m 

really fortunate to feel that I’m part of 

this high technology team that brings 

those kinds of innovations together.” 


136 

Changing 

mindsets 

through 

technology 


WRIT TEN BY 

SEAN GALEA-PACE 

PRODUCED BY 

ANDY TURNER 


TECHNOLOGY 

137 


BRAY INTERNATIONAL, INC. 

Brindesh Dhruva, Chief 

Technology Officer of 

Bray International, discusses 

the company’s ongoing 

technology journey 

138 

ray International, Inc. was founded in 

B 

1986 with a customer-centric objective 

to become the preferred flow control 

partner. Bray’s global footprint and distribution 

networks, along with a comprehensive line of 

innovative flow control solutions, has enabled us 

to become an international industry leader. 

Thanks to unrelenting commitment to quality and 

customer service, clients around the world have 

made Bray their trusted partner. After 30 plus 

years, Bray’s focus hasn’t changed. Bray International, 

Inc. remains your local flow control partner 

with a global reach. 

Our customers face the day-to-day prospect of 

operating in increasingly extreme conditions in a 

safe and environmentally responsible way. The 

product technologies and solutions that we offer 

must maintain pace with these demands,” states 

Brindesh Dhruva, Chief Technology Officer. Since 

joining Bray International in early 2013, he has 

been tasked with steering the company’s technology 

transformation, creating innovative solutions 

and products that its customers can rely on. 


TECHNOLOGY 

Raymond Technical Center 

139 

CAD design facilities 

Holding a Doctorate from Yale in Engineering 

and having previously worked in the 

Upstream O&G Industry for over 13 years 

across a variety of roles such as Marketing 

& Technology Manager prior to joining 

Bray, Dhruva believes his early engineering 

experiences in developing products with a 

high demand on reliability and performance 

helps him in his current role as CTO of Bray. 

“Over the past several years we have been 

able to develop world-class solutions and 

products. In doing so, we have utilized, for 

example, additive manufacturing techniques 

for control valve applications and smart sen- 


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“It’s about putting 

together a global 

team that has the right 

capabilities and infrastructure 

that allows 

us to develop, validate 

and produce products 

that exceed customer 

expectations” 

— 

Brindesh Dhruva, 

Chief Technology Officer of Bray International 

sors to develop real-time monitoring.” 

Just over 30 years ago, the Founders 

of the company – Craig Brown 

and Frank Raymond revolutionized 

the global rotary flow control market. 

Today, Bray provides global distribution 

and manufacturing with locally available 

service and expertise for a variety 

of flow control products. Bray’s products 

have extensive application in a 

wide range of critical services. These 

include butterfly valves in cryogenic 

conditions for an LNG application 

to Severe Service Ball Valves in very 

high temperature & corrosive condi- 


TECHNOLOGY 

Bray USA Facility 

141 


Brindesh Dhruva 

Brindesh is currently Chief Technology Officer 

for Bray Internationals Inc., responsible for Global 

R&D and Product Management. Brindesh holds a 

Ph.D. in Engineering & Applied Sciences from Yale 

University and has over 20 years of experience 

in Technology & Marketing developing high-tier 

products and delivering commercial success. 



“As long as we understand our customer’s 

needs and as long as we understand the 

moving technology pieces, we will continue 

to grow as the technology partner of choice” 

— 



142 


TECHNOLOGY 

tions in a refinery application. Bray’s 

extensive product portfolio includes 

resilient seated and high-performance 

butterfly valves, critical service triple 

offset valves, floating and trunnion 

ball valves, metal seated ball valves, 

actuators, and control accessories 

to enable smart technology. The application 

of this portfolio is even more 

diverse and includes circulating water, 

flue gas desulfurization, demineralized 

water, fuel oil (fire safe), service water, 

steam, fuel gas, potable water, water/ 

glycol, and various other compounds. 

Such rapid progress has been the 

result of Bray’s commitment to its research 

& development (R&D) and operations 

in the US, India and China where 

its main Manufacturing, Engineering 

and R&D Labs are located. Expanding 

similar capabilities in Latin America, 

Europe and Australia has also been an 

integral part of Bray’s growth. It’s this 

visionary commitment, which Dhruva 

affirms, has been important in building 

the foundations for long-term success. 

“Over the last several years we have 

reinforced the right technical teams 

by strengthening the link between 

manufacturing, engineering and 

sales. We have also reinforced the 

143 



144 

“I’m a firm 

believer that 

good product 

introduction 

doesn’t happen 

accidentally. 

It comes as a 

result of a very 

deliberate 

approach 

of bringing 

products to 

market” 

— 


Chief Technology Officer 

of Bray International 

right product development process which 

starts with the voice of our customers and 

ends with their satisfaction. It’s about putting 

together a global team that has the right 

capabilities and infrastructure that allows 

us to develop, validate and produce products 

that exceed customer expectations in 

terms of reliability and performance,” says 

Dhruva. “That’s the way we operate! That’s 

what defines the products, technologies and 

services we aspire to continuously provide.” 

Indeed, Bray continues to evolve and has 

transformed itself into a technology company 

that can deliver highly customized, highly 

engineered products and services for a wide 

range of severe applications. Dhruva points 

out that these types of transformations start 

at the top and percolate down. “Bray has a 

rich history, full of achievements, which we are 

all very proud of, but the Founders of the company 

continue to see an even brighter future 

in terms of growth and technology innovation.” 

INTRODUCING NEW PRODUCTS TO MARKET 

Recent technical and commercial successes 

include Tri Lok – Triple Offset Butterfly Valve, 

Series 98 Scotch Yoke Pneumatic Actuator, 

M1 Severe Service Ball Valve, S19 Segmented 

Control Valve and numerous other valves, actuators 

and controls accessories. The product 

capabilities along with global Applications 


TECHNOLOGY 

CLICK TO WATCH: WORKING FOR BRAY INTERNATIONAL 

145 

Engineers that understand the customer’s 

challenges enable Bray to provide 

not just good products, but good 

solutions for our customer’s needs. 

The technical success of our products 

relies heavily on the design and 

validation steps within the Bray Product 

Development Process all of which 

conform to ISO 9001 standards. Bray’s 

Global Technology presence spans 

multiple R&D locations around the 

world including India, UK, Brazil and 

in Houston’s Bray Raymond Technology 

Center – proudly named after one 

of its founders, Frank Raymond. The 

design decisions at Bray are made in 

line with customer requirements and 

with product reliability, manufacturability 

and product cost in mind. “Our 

Engineers must understand the difference 

between investment casting 

and sand casting…and they must 

understand how tight tolerances and 

surface finish requirements impact 

manufacturability (costs) just as much 

as product performance” says Dhruva. 

The qualification of products program 

includes not only design validation 

but also validation of the manufacturing 

process to be able to produce 



146 

“It’s important we keep 

up with what our 

customers face today, 

but also respond to the 

technology trends in 

the industry that will 

take them to the next 

level tomorrow” 

— 



product with consistent high quality. 

Commercial success doesn’t come 

serendipitously, even for great products. 

It begins during the early phases 

of a product development process in 

identifying customer needs, getting 

their input & influence into the design 

process and ensuring good market 

introduction. “I’m a firm believer that 

good product introduction doesn’t 

happen accidentally. It comes as a 

result of a very deliberate approach of 

bringing products to market,” explains 

Dhruva. “That means we engage our 

customers very early on during development 

to ensure we get the requirements 

right. It means we understand 

the voice of the customer, the customer’s 

needs and then incorporate those 

findings into our product requirements 

and our service & sales organization.” 

With industry 4.0 driving the manufacturing 

industry forward, companies 

such as Bray rely on innovation and the 

ability to understand the latest trends 

to leverage & provide products & solutions. 

“It’s important we keep up with 


TECHNOLOGY 

147 



1986 

Year founded 

2,500 

Approximate number 

of employees 

148 

what our customers face today, but 

also respond to the technology trends 

in the industry that will take them to 

the next level tomorrow. There are 

two examples that I would highlight 

here. One is on additive manufacturing 

where we’ve worked through a super 

partnership to 3D-Print metal components 

in a control valve application to 

significantly improve flow performance 

by incorporating design features that 

aren’t possible with traditional casting 

and forging processes.” says Dhruva. 

“The second example involves devel- 


TECHNOLOGY 

149 

oping predictive monitoring with near 

real-time measurements on valves 

that will provide performance diagnosis 

in a proactive and predictive way.” 

FUTURE PLANS 

With Bray several years into their 

technology transformation journey, 

Dhruva believes the company’s ability 

to quickly evolve to address the 

growing market needs and leverage 

technology trends is key to continued 

and sustainable growth. 

“As long as we understand our 

customer’s needs and as long as we 

understand the moving technology 

pieces, we will continue to grow as the 

technology partner of choice. Bray 

has the people, processes and the 

technology infrastructure to meet our 

customer’s most difficult needs.” 


150 

JOHNSON BROTHERS 

Enabling organic 

growth through digital 


WRIT TEN BY 

CATHERINE STURMAN 

PRODUCED BY 

ANDY TURNER 


TECHNOLOGY 

151 



In the alcohol distribution 

business for over 65 years, 

Johnson Brothers has built 

a digitally enabled workforce 

that delivers outstanding 

customer service each and 

every time 

152 

lcohol is big business. Amounting to more 

A 

than 16% of total beverage volume across 

the US, total alcoholic beverage sales 

in 2017 exceeded US$234.4bn, a figure which 

continues to rise. While beer remains a key staple 

with 185.57mn barrels produced in the US in 2017, 

demand for wine and spirits is also on an upward 

trajectory. As US consumers continue to drive up 

sales across the industry, opportunities have ascended 

for strong, market-savvy players to take full advantage 

and transform their service offerings. 

Providing exceptional services to its customers and 

supplier partners since 1953, wine, spirits and beer 

distributor Johnson Brothers has a long-term vision 

to leverage their longstanding values of excellence 

and team work to drive innovation as it enters new 

markets. Proud of its strong heritage in Minnesota, 

the business has acquired a number of businesses, 

launched a new distribution center and strengthened 

its supplier relationships as part of its ongoing 

strategy to enable organic customer growth. 

Our warehouse and 

delivery team members 

use technology to sort 

and manage product 


TECHNOLOGY 

153 


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TECHNOLOGY 

A Johnson Brothers truck 

in front of our warehouse 

155 

Michael Johnson, Chief Executive 

Officer, and Todd Johnson, Chief 

Operating Officer are the Johnson 

Brothers who run the company that 

was founded by their father Lynn. 

Todd describes how technology 

strategy will enable growth, “My dad 

started the company in 1953. He 

bought a used truck, rented a small 

warehouse and opened his doors for 

business. There was no technology 

back then – everything was done by 

hand. Over the next 65 years, we’ve 

grown across multiple states and 

developed partnerships with some 

of the best suppliers and customers 

in our industry. Today, technology is 

critical to our business, from providing 

tools to our sales consultants, sharing 

market trends with our customers, as 

well as improving the efficiency of our 

distribution operations.” 

Bringing this strategy to fruition at 

Johnson Brothers is Vice President of 

IT, Tim Dokken. Working for established 

Fortune 500 organizations, such as 

American Express Global, Thrivent 

Financial and Merrill Corporation, with 

a career spanning accounting, finance, 

consulting and all aspects of technol- 



Warehouse employee 

filling customer orders 

156 


Tim Dokken 

Tim is a passionate, senior technology executive with 

over 24 years of financial services experience, delivering 

solutions to businesses and consumers globally. He is 

currently serving as the Vice President — Information 

Technology at Johnson Brothers in St. Paul, MN. 

Previously, he was the Chief Technology Officer of 

LiveGiveSave, Inc., whose mission is to help people 

through their everyday spending to effortlessly give to 

causes they care about and save for their future. 


TECHNOLOGY 

“The focus was to support 

the infrastructure 

side: our data centers, 

servers, all of our 

networking, end user 

computing, IT service 

delivery, etc. It’s really 

the operational side 

of IT” 

— 

Tim Dokken, 

Vice President of Information Technology 

157 

ogy including leading large IT modernization 

programs, as well as launching 

a technology start up. Dokken’s passion 

to develop companies from the ground 

up led him to join Johnson Brothers. 

“The focus was to support the infrastructure 

side: our data centers, servers, 

all of our networking, end user computing, 

IT service delivery, etc. It’s really the 

operational side of IT. Everything that 

all the applications and data run on, 

that’s what I own,” he says. 

“A lot has changed in the last year. 

We’re moving to a brand-new data 

center which will go live in January 

with an entirely new production 

environment. That’s literally from the 

ground up. Storage, compute, networking, 

plus we’ve implemented a 

new IBM Power Series for our ERP 

system. We have experienced a 

dramatic amount of growth in the last 

year and part of what we’re doing is 

to prepare the organization for future 

growth and ensure that technology 

is an enabler and not a barrier.” 



“Our new production 

environment is at 

least 10-20x faster 

to accommodate for 

growth and the 

ability to process 

more business” 

— 

Tim Dokken, 

Vice President of 

Information Technology 

158 

Moving what had previously filled 

an entire room in its former data center 

onto two racks in its new environment, 

Johnson Brothers has invested in a 

hyper-converged infrastructure, and 

has embedded cutting-edge technologies, 

whether compute, all flash 

storage, unified backup or network, 

including a full SD-WAN. The company 

has developed strong relationships 

with Dell, Nutanix, Datatrend and 

others in turning its three-tier architecture 

into a state of the art hyperconverged 

infrastructure, delivering 

optimal compute and storage capacity, 

and most importantly, speed. 

“Our new production environment is 

at least 10-20x faster to accommodate 

for growth and the ability to process 

more business. For example, our 

backups for our ERP system used to run 

all night long on Sunday night and take 

everything offline. Now we’re down to 

less than two hours and that’s not even 

on our new IBM Power 9 Server yet,” 

adds Dokken. 

The complete modernization of its 

technology stack remains an important 

part of its strategy, leading Johnson 

Brothers to leverage the capabilities 


TECHNOLOGY 

159 

of its vendors. Putting workloads into 

Azure for sales applications and 

Amazon Web Services (AWS) for 

offsite storage, the business has 

sought to ensure both resiliency and 

redundancy, as well as recoverability 

through offsite data storage. Investing 

in Microsoft’s entire suite of security 

tools and capabilities, as well as 

third party products such as Cylance 

has also formed part of its ‘defense 

in depth’ strategy. All of this has 

worked to support Dokken and his 

team adhering to its internal slogan: 

‘Always on, Always fast, Always secure.’ 

Cloud technology has also been 

adopted to support both local and 

remote workers as the business continues 

to expand, becoming one of the 

fastest and most vital investments 

across the business. Utilizing sales 

tools and platforms from Inventive 

and Dimensional Insights has enabled 

our mobile Salesforce to effectively 

serve our customers. 

“Cloud has remained a key strategy 

for growth, where our sales team are 

now entirely cloud enabled, running 

all data and applications through both 

computers and iPads.” Promoting full 



160 

COMPANY FACTS 

• Amounting to more than 

16% of total beverage volume 

across the US, total alcoholic 

beverage sales in 2017 

exceeded US$234.4bn 

• Johnson Brothers has 

invested in a hyper-converged 

infrastructure, 

utilized solid state storage 

and has embedded cuttingedge 

technologies 

• The company has developed 

strong relationships 

with Dell, Lenovo, Nutanix 

and others, turning its threetier 

architecture into a 

hyper-converged 

infrastructure 

• Putting workloads into 

Azure and Amazon Web Services 

(AWS) for offsite 

storage, the business has 

sought to ensure both resiliency 

and redundancy, as 

well as recoverability 

through offsite data storage 

Technology improves efficiency and 

monitors processes in our warehouses 


TECHNOLOGY 

November 2018 charity food packing event where 70 employees 

packed more than 21,000 meals for local children and families 

161 

accessibility for customers who wish 

to speak to the sales team, anytime, 

anywhere will allow the business to 

deliver services in a rapid fashion, 

removing the constraints of an onsite 

data center. 

“We’re expanding many of our 

applications, so our core systems are 

cloud delivered versus having to host 

those in our data center. That frees 

up our team to focus on the systems 

which really drive business value. On 

the corporate systems, it’s a way to 

make sure that our resources can focus 

on what creates the most business 

value and leaves the other things to 

the SaaS providers,” explains Dokken. 

Nonetheless, the most important 

investment throughout the digital 

transformation of Johnson Brothers 

has been its team. The decision to 

move away from legacy technologies, 

overhaul the entire production environment, 

move to a new data center and 

rebuild the network has been met with 

excitement, and provided new opportunities 

for the personal and professional 

growth for team members. 



162 

St. Paul Warehouse and Headquarters 

“My focus is to continue 

creating opportunities 

for the team. If I’m gone 

tomorrow, my objective 

as a leader is that they 

will be self-sufficient and 

will provide a seamless 

service the business can 

be proud of” 

— 

Tim Dokken, 

Vice President of 

Information Technology 

“The team are the ones doing the 

heavy lifting; the most significant role 

I’ve played is to really clear the deck. 

I saw an opportunity and helped craft 

a vision, but the team is responsible for 

its success, looking at how to achieve 

this vision, the technology to use, as 

well as evaluating things like ‘what 

should our recovery strategy look like’ 

and ‘what data center should we run 

out of?’ So, they’ve been instrumental 

in these decisions, which has been 

very engaging and motivating. My team 


TECHNOLOGY 

is really proud of their work,” he states 

with pride. 

Making a conscious decision 

to partner with a consulting firm or 

provider has also proven advantageous 

in enabling employees to work 

on systems and technologies that 

drive the most business value without 

burdening the team and has allowed 

the company to reach some of its key 

goals in a shorter amount of time. “In 

terms of core engineers, I have a small 

team so we have to supplement that 

with outside resources. At the same 

time, making sure our employees get 

to work on the high-quality work is 

a core strategy.” 

Dokken went on to say, “My focus 

is to continue creating opportunities 

for the team. If I’m gone tomorrow, my 

objective as a leader is that they will 

be self-sufficient and will provide a 

seamless service the business can 

be proud of. The team can pick up the 

ball, move forward, are enabled and 

ready, and are open to new opportunities 

to take the business forward.” 

Clearly demonstrating that technology 

is an enabler and not a barrier 

at Johnson Brothers, Dokken remains 

keen to promote its internal slogan 

‘Always on, Always fast, Always 

Secure’, which will see the business 

reach new heights in the upcoming 

years and ensure its longevity and 

competitiveness across the industry. 

“As we continue to grow, we are 

thrilled that our IT infrastructure is 

ready to support our business and be 

a key part of our company’s success,” 

added Johnson. 

163 


164 

Procurement 

transforming the 

Fannie Mae way 

WRIT TEN BY 

ANDREW WOODS 

PRODUCED BY 

DENITRA PRICE 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

165 


FANNIE MAE 

We speak to Rajeev Karmacharya, 

Managing Director, Strategic Sourcing 

and Category Management at Fannie 

Mae, on how he aligns procurement 

with business at Fannie Mae… 

166 

A 

number of companies struggle to establish the 

bridge between their business aspirations and 

priorities and the procurement space. However, 

procurement is undergoing a sea of change at the 

moment with many businesses no longer viewing this 

service as merely a back-end function. Rajeev 

Karmacharya, Managing Director, Strategic Sourcing 

and Category Management at Fannie Mae, sees his role 

in procurement as much more business facing. 

“A lot of times procurement organizations tend to be 

too focused on the cost,” he explains. “However, that’s 

often not what the businesses are really looking for. 

Obviously everyone wants to be competitive with price, 

but there’s more to be had from procurement.” 

Karmacharya has over two decades of experience in 

procurement, supply chain and technology roles and has 

seen the procurement function evolve over time. He 

worked as a management consultant for over 12 years, 

including as a Principal for AT Kearney, a global management 

consulting firm. He consulted for a number of 

leading Fortune 500 firms where he often worked just as 

closely with the CIO as the CFO. “I really got to see how 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

167 


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FANNIE MAE 

170 

the priorities and perspectives could 

sometimes be different between the 

two groups,” he explains. 

Fannie Mae is a U.S. governmentsponsored 

enterprise (GSE) that 

supplies financing to mortgage 

lenders. Fannie Mae celebrated its 

80th birthday in 2018. Karmacharya 

joined the company in 2013 and has 

been working on transforming the 

procurement space through a more 

business-facing function rather than a 

traditionally administrative process. 

“When I joined Fannie Mae, we didn’t 

have a category management type of 

function here and what I found talking 

to senior executives across the 

company was that they didn’t see 

value in procurement that does just 

transactional work. Obviously, there 

are trade-offs with minimizing cost, 

minimizing risk and speed of delivery. 

This interesting dynamic gave me a 

perspective on how you should really 

design a procurement organization. 

How can a group be really effective?” 

FUTURE PROCUREMENT 

Fannie Mae was keen to recruit 

procurement experts that could supply 

$109.9bn 

Approximate 

revenue 

1938 

Year founded 

7,200 


of employees 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

market insights and industry knowledge 

to the organization. “Our business 

stakeholders are not expecting 

procurement to tell them whether they 

should buy this product or that product, 

but they certainly wanted us to bring in 

insights as to what was happening in 

the marketplace. What are the trends? 

Who are the key and emerging players? 

What types of innovation are happening 

in the industry? 

“Obviously, the transactional part is 

important, as is the supplier management 

and all the traditional procurement 

functions, but we have moved 

to a model where we are the category 

experts. Our category managers 

have a full understanding of their 

categories, including historical spend, 

contractual terms, key sourcing levers 

as well as industry knowledge – more 

than anyone else in the company. This 

creates a partnership, and even though 

the organization may change on the 

business side, it enables us to provide 

continuity as well as an enterprise 

perspective.” 

Fannie Mae’s sourcing and procurement 

transformation journey is about 

customer service. “For us, our internal 171 


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Planning a Successful 

Procurement Transformation Journey 

Wayne Gretzky once said that “a good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where 

the puck is going to be.” The same can be said for procurement leaders planning their organizations’ digital 

transformation. 

At Ivalua, we’ve had the opportunity to work with hundreds of the world’s leading companies on their journeys. 

The most successful have consistently been those that keep their eye on where they want their organizations to 

be many years down the road and plot their course accordingly. 

While people ultimately are the ones that deliver value and bring successful transformations to fruition, technology 

is a critical enabler. It frees capacity, provides necessary insights, enables collaboration at scale and much more. 

Successful procurement transformation journeys involve several core phases, and technology must be able to 

support each one when you are ready to progress. 

Typical 

Objectives 

Get up and running quickly 

Generate ROI 

Adopt industry best 

practices 

Digitize the full Source-to- 

Pay process 

Manage 100% of spend 

Improve data / strategic 

insights 

Bing your best ideas to life 

Establish agility for evolving 

requirements 

Technology 

Requirements 

Rapid deployment, adoption 

& onboarding 

Industry configurations 

Complete suite 

Unified data model 

Powerful configurability 

Industry-leading capabilities 

Getting Started Best-in-Class Competitive Advantage 

Procurement Digital Transformation Journey 

If getting started, ensure technology can deliver rapid ROI and deliver best practices. But remember that even if 

you are only digitizing part of your process now, when you are ready to build a truly best-in-class procurement 

organization you’ll want to digitize the full Source-to-Pay process, in which case an integrated suite to automate 

all activity will be needed, and a unified data model will be critical to ensuring 360 degree supplier visibility 

or generating process-wide insights from the latest artificial intelligence applications. Fannie Mae was able to 

onboard nearly 100% of their suppliers and achieved visibility into 100% of spend. Their team made it happen, 

empowered by technology. 

You should insist on best practice capabilities and configurations, but realize that as you mature you will inevitably 

find that some requirements are truly unique or have evolved. Be sure your technology has the flexibility to 

accommodate them through configuration. And remember that best-in-class does not create a competitive 

advantage. Top talent will want to innovate and do a few strategic activities differently, better than the competition. 

Technology should empower them to do so and bring their best ideas to life. Fannie Mae maintains better insight 

into cyber security threats than its suppliers, so implemented a unique process to automatically notify at-risk 

suppliers of threats, thereby reducing risk better than others. 

Every company’s journey is unique, but 

by keeping their eye on where they are 

headed, procurement leaders can achieve 

their goals. 

To learn how Ivalua can accelerate your procurement 

digital transformation, visit ivalua.com

FANNIE MAE 

174 

“Like many internal operations, procurement 

has undergone a digital recalibration of both 

its architecture, functionality and efficiency 

as Big Data, machine learning and AI start 

to filter into the procurement space” 

— 

Rajeev Karmacharya, 

Managing Director, Strategic Sourcing and Category Management 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

175 


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SUPPLY CHAIN 

CLICK TO WATCH: FANNIE MAE – NATIONAL HOMEOWNERSHIP MONTH 

177 

business unit stakeholders are our 

customers. Some procurement 

organizations don’t like to call their 

internal stakeholders ‘customers’. I 

think we’ve been very deliberate about 

viewing our business stakeholders as 

customers and really putting them at 

the center of everything we do. We 

seek to understand their business so 

we can see it from their perspective. 

We help our customers achieve market 

competitive costs and help identify 

and mitigate supplier risks, but our 

customers’ business objectives and 

priorities are at the core of what we 

focus on. Sometimes, that may mean 

higher cost for faster speed-to-market, 

or taking on a slightly higher level of 

risk. We may challenge them from time 

to time if we believe that’s in their best 

interest, or the company’s. Ultimately, 

we want our customers to have a 

positive experience in their interactions 

with procurement while knowing 

that we have their back. That’s the kind 

of model we’re building.” 

Like many internal operations, 

procurement has undergone a digital 

recalibration of its architecture, 

functionality and efficiency as Big 


FANNIE MAE 

178 

“I think the 

key for me is 

understanding 

business needs 

and viewing 

things from 

the customer’s 

perspective” 

— 



and Category Management 

Data, machine learning and AI technologies 

start to filter into the procurement space. 

“We have totally digitized contracts and can 

do a lot more with contract authoring and 

contract analytics, among others. We have 

started to test RPA (robotic process 

automation) where it makes sense – and I’ll 

be honest: RPA doesn’t always make sense 

for smaller scale operations, where there is a 

lot more thinking versus doing. From a 

business case perspective, the promised 

land of true digitization is full collaboration 

and transparency that enables harnessing 

the full potential of technologies, such as 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

machine learning and artificial intelligence. 

For our customers, that means greater 

efficiency and better analytics and insights.” 

A PROCUREMENT TRANSFORMATION 

With any digital transformation, robust 

technology solutions are key to continued 

success. “If you looked at the technology 

solution we had a few years ago, the context 

diagram of our procurement system and 

integrations was outdated. This complexity 

meant higher opportunity for errors and 

impacted our cycle times. We also didn’t 

have a good way to tackle approvals outside 

of Procurement – much of this was done via 

emails and lacked consistency. We had 

multiple sources of records for supplier data, 

but no direct integration between contracts 

and purchase as they were on different 

systems. So, we needed an end-to-end 

solution that was flexible to meet our unique 

needs, yet scalable to handle our volume. 

After assessing a number of established 

players, Fannie Mae chose an innovative, 

emerging supplier in source-to-pay space. 

We now have a more user-friendly procurement 

system that allows for integrated 

requisition and contract approval workflow 

and now, along with the adoption of e-signatures 

and mobile approval capability, we 

179 


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SUPPLY CHAIN 

have cut down cycle-time for standard 

purchases by 50%.” 

Karmacharya’s team utilizes an 

end-to-end procurement solution 

where all of the contracts are in one 

contract management system. The 

key metadata is captured and stored. 

Contract authoring has been piloted 

and the company is looking to expand 

its contract authoring and contract 

analytics capabilities. “Much of our 

contracting work happens electronically,” 

he explains. “Key contract 

meta-data is captured and we utilize 

e-signature for execution. We continue 

to be focused on ensuring data quality, 

capturing additional metadata, and 

some of the innovative things you can 

do with digitalization to drive efficiency. 

We have full spend visibility that really 

enables us to do all the associated 

analytics. Catalog management and 

automatic deal approval with the full 

workflow is also built into the tool, 

which makes the process very efficient. 

Moreover, with the workflow built into 

the tool, it is easier for customers to 

see where things are – with increased 

transparency, procurement is becoming 

less of a black box.” 

Karmacharya believes trusted 

relationships with suppliers are equally 

important to bring value to internal 

customers. The team has worked 

hard to build strategic partnerships 

with key suppliers. “We believe 

suppliers can help bring innovation 

and best practices with the right 

181 


Rajeev Karmacharya 

Rajeev a is Managing Director of the Strategic Sourcing 

and Category Management group in Fannie Mae. Rajeev 

leads a team of category management, strategic sourcing, 

contracting, and supplier operations professionals. In 

addition, Karmacharya currently serves in the Advisory 

Board of the Sourcing Interest Group, a global industry 

forum for Sourcing professionals. 


FANNIE MAE 

“From a business 

case perspective, 

the promised land of 

true digitization is full 

collaboration and 

transparency that 

enables harnessing 

the full potential of 

technologies, such 

as machine learning 

and artificial 

intelligence” 

182 

— 



and Category Management 

partnership and accountability. For 

example, we work collaboratively 

with them to drive efficiency and cost 

competitiveness. Annually, we work 

with them to plan out future demand 

so they can plan their resources 

accordingly and we get the benefit 

of readily available, qualified resources 

in areas of our greatest need. We 

also work with a company that helps 

us with benchmarks, and on key 

hardware and software deals, which 

helps bring a unique perspective into 

supplier pricing models we might not 

normally have.” 

Besides unit cost optimization, 

Karmacharya’s team is also focused 

on managing demand and seeking 

out substitution opportunities. For 

example, the procurement team 

worked collaboratively with the 

enterprise data team to manage 

data purchases and allocation. Prior 

to establishing an asset management 

program, budget planning, forecasting 

and cost allocation was challenging 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

due to the fragmented nature of the 

purchase across multiple business 

units. A new data management solution 

enabled the company to effectively 

manage its data purchases and reduce 

duplicative purchases. 

It’s Karmacharya’s customer service 

mindset that is driving tangible value. “I 

tell my team every day to think about 

the value we are bringing. You can 

always take the easy path, or you can 

take the path that drives the most 

value even though it may be a little 

more difficult. Sometimes you have to 

challenge your customer and say, ‘Are 

you sure you want to do this? Because 

here’s what the data is telling me.” 

“There are valuable insights you can 

draw from analysis of not just spend 

and buying patterns, but also from 

trends in the marketplace. What 

resonates with the customers might 

not be cost savings. It might be other 

things you, and the customer, might 

not be thinking about.” 

“I think the key is understanding 

business needs and viewing things 

from customer’s perspective,” he adds. 

“On the flip side, by having this analytical 

insight you really understand what 

the opportunities are and, in turn, are 

better able to challenge the customer. 

Do you take the easy path, the path of 

least resistance, with minimal value or 

would you rather be someone who is 

really helping drive the business? I 

choose the latter every time.” 

183 


184

SUPPLY CHAIN 

Launching 

innovative new 

products during 

Cincinnati 

Incorporated’s 

procurement 


185 

WRIT TEN BY 


PRODUCED BY 

DENITRA PRICE

CINCINNATI INCORPORATED 

Justin Atkins, Purchasing Manager at 

Cincinnati Incorporated, discusses the 

company’s procurement transformation 

and affirms the importance of bringing 

innovative products to market 

186 

I 

large-scale 3D product by extruding 

materials at a rate up to 80 pounds per 

hour. The system, Big Area Additive 

Manufacturing (BAAM), leverages 

proven design and technology from 

CI’s laser platform. The innovation 

was designed to enable 3D printing 

to be utilized for production manufacturing, 

where its size and speed allows 

for large parts to be created more 

efficiently. The system provides more 

options due to its open architecture 

system for material vendors. “The 

new system has enabled our customn 

order to keep ahead of 

its rivals, companies must 

regularly innovate amidst 

fierce competition to become the first 

to bring new products to market. For 

Justin Atkins, Purchasing Manager 

at Cincinnati Incorporated (CI), he 

believes it’s his company’s willingness 

to launch new innovations and react 

to the latest trends that acts as the 

catalyst for its success. 

CI, a global leader in 3D printing, 

has created one of the world’s largest 

3D printing technology which develops 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

187 

ers to print parts at a very large scale 

that was not possible in the past and 

has allowed some of them to do things 

that are new to the world. Customers’ 

reactions have been overwhelming 

and we’ve won numerous innovation 

awards based on it,” explains Atkins. 

TRANSFORMING OPERATIONS 

Over the past few years, CI has transitioned 

to become a company that can 

focus more on customer-centric 

product innovation, having solely 

operated with an engineering depart- 

BAAM (Big Area Additive 

Manufacturing) 



188 

ment in previous years. The introduction of 

dedicated product teams has enabled CI to 

improve the range of products, such as laser 

and plasma cutting systems, press brakes 

and shears, additive manufacturing, as well 

as powder metal presses. “We now have 

three product teams: CNC table products, 

vertical motion products, and aftersales. Each 

one of these product teams has dedicated 

functional support including: service, technical 

support, marketing, training, and engineering 

resources. It means they can jointly focus on 

their specific products and the customers 

that use them in an open team environment.” 

The company is also in the process of 

transitioning from its ERP system that has 

been in operation since 1992 and is set to 

switch to a state-of-the-art MRP ERP system 

called IFS which in the middle of a five-year 

implementation schedule. “It is going to give 

us the ability to have things like supplier 

portals and digital order acknowledgements 

and digital order systems. Technology is 

playing more of a role in our operations and 

we’re constantly looking at how we do things 

and how we can do better,” says Atkins. 

In a bid to reduce costs and lead times in 

its supply chain, CI has fully changed the way 

it operates. Atkins examines how CI’s supply 

chain has adapted over the years. “As a custom 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

189 

manufacturer of products, the design of our 

machine tools is fixed and the supply chain has 

never really had a say in the design, which puts 

us into a corner at some points. We have certain 

components within our supply chain and that 

we do not have full control of,” he says. “Over 

the past five years, we have looked at the supply 

chain more holistically and have seen where the 

pain points are. By adjusting our lead times and 

associated planning, it has allowed the supply 

chain to have more of an influence on what 

products we design into our products, which 

ultimately gives us a better chance of providing 

a lower-cost, on-time machine.” 



“25 years ago, the engineering team 

would make designs and we would 

have to try to source it. Now, everyone 

on all teams works very closely together 

to ensure that whatever products we’re 

designing is manufacturable and that 

there is a good supply chain pool” 

— 

Justin Atkins 

Purchasing Manager at Cincinnati Incorporated 

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191 

“25 years ago, the engineering team 

would make designs and we would 

have to try to source it. Now, everyone 

on all teams works very closely together 

to ensure that whatever products we’re 

designing is manufacturable and that 

there is a good supply chain pool.” 

FORMING KEY PARTNERSHIPS 

In order to diversify its business model, 

solely buying steel directly from the 

mill, CI decided to partner with leading 

steel supplier, O’Neal Steel, in a bid to 

reduce its lead times. However, with 

close to 50% of steel produced being 

Goform Electric 

Press Brake 



192 

wasted in the form of scrap, the company 

moved away from the O’Neal Steel model 

and explored other partner models. Ultimately 

after further consideration, CI reverted back 

to O’Neal Steel as it was emerging as the 

better option. “We had steel service centers 

competitively quote on every single piece 

of plate that we needed to buy and have them 

burn our parts out for us,” says Atkins. “However, 

we decided to move back to the O’Neal 

Steel model once again because they took 

a decent-sized hit on the business that we 

had with them when we started going to 

other companies. They assembled a supply 

chain team together to see how they could 

Small Area Additive 

Manufacturing (SAAM) 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

“We decided to move back to the 

O’Neal Steel model once again because 

they took a decent-sized hit on the 

business that we had with them when 

we started going to other companies. 

They assembled a supply chain team 

together to see how they could fix our 

problem and work with us to make 

our supply chain even more efficient” 

— 

Justin Atkins 

Purchasing Manager at Cincinnati Incorporated 

193 



194 

fix our problem and work with us to make 

our supply chain even more efficient.” 

The collaboration with O’Neal Steel 

has allowed CI to closely monitor the 

inventory at hand and ensure less 

wastage. Atkins affirms how important 

it is for the two companies to enjoy 

a strong working relationship. 

“We work very closely with them, and 

do forecasts twice a month, depending 

on how strong business is, which allows 

us to better predict exactly what 

inventory we require,” explains Atkins. 

“We are effectively able to have four or 

five times more efficient yield on our 

plate at a lower cost which is important 

given the current US administration 

imposing tariffs on foreign steel.” 

Looking to the future, Atkins points 

to the positive workforce at CI as a key 

factor in its success and believes it 

remains vital to continue to grow and 

enable innovation. “Our people are 

what makes Cincinnati Incorporated 

so successful. We are right here in 

southwest Ohio and we have some of 

the best people in the world. Every day, 

every member of staff comes in and 

they have such an immense feeling of 

pride in the products that we build. 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘BAAM 3D PRINTED SHELBY COBRA’ 

195 

I would give the credit to the people 

that we have at the company,” Atkins 

states proudly. 

Ultimately, Atkins would like to see the 

company continue to grow and innovate 

more and more every day. “We have 

long-term plans and I want to see us 

continue in the same direction that 

we’ve been pursuing for the past three 

or four years while continuing to bring 

bigger and better products to market.” 


ROSEWOOD CORDEVALLE: 

A GLEAMING EXAMPLE 

OF PROCUREMENT 

196 

TRANSFORMATION 101 

WRIT TEN BY 

LAURA MULLAN 

PRODUCED BY 

DENITRA PRICE 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

197 


ROSEWOOD HOTELS & RESORTS 

OFFERING EVERYTHING FROM 

WORLD-CLASS GOLF TO 

WINE TASTING, ROSEWOOD 

CORDEVALLE IS A HIDDEN 

GEM OF LUXURY THANKS IN 

PART TO ITS DILIGENT 

PROCUREMENT TEAM 

198 

N 

estled in the foothills of the Santa 

Cruz Mountains, Rosewood Corde- 

Valle might be Northern California’s 

best-kept secret. The four-star hotel rests on 

acres of rustic countryside making it the ideal 

spot for those craving to get some needed 

rest and relaxation. Yet, whilst guests enjoy 

golf courses and tranquil spas at their 

leisure, behind the scenes there’s a buzz of 

activity that ensures that guests receive an 

unforgettable stay. 

Scott Amarante, now Director of Procurement 

at Rosewood CordeValle, earned his 

stripes at the hotel. With almost 13 years’ experience 

at the property, he says that in essence 

his procurement team has one key goal: “By 

ordering products and services, managing 

inventory and more, we try to take away much 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

199 


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SUPPLY CHAIN 

“We never want to save 

money at the cost of the 

guest experience. We’re 

always pushing for the 

best of both worlds” 

— 

Scott Amarante, 

Director of Procurement 

at Rosewood CordeValle 

201 



202 

of the day-to-day admin from the front of house 

managers’ plates. This allows them to deliver 

better training to staff and, most importantly, 

deliver a high-quality guest experience.” 

Having worked at the hotel for over a decade, 

Amarante is all too aware of the importance 

of procurement. When he first started out in 

a food and beverage role, the hotel didn’t have 

a formalized procurement department. “We 

began to see some challenges: we were 

having problems with inventory and food and 

beverage costs,” he recalls. “There was a real 

need to centralize procurement and create 

a department. We went from nothing to a 

department of three and so whilst it’s been 

an organic development, we’re now a vital 

part of the company.” Whether ensuring 

inventory levels are accurate or overseeing 

spending, Amarante says that now the 

department has “really taken on a life of its 

own”. This is partly thanks to his colleague 

Luca Rutigliano, he adds. “He had the 

foresight to create this department and was 

really the pushing force behind it. He really 

helped everyone recognize the importance 

of procurement which was a new and unproven 

department at the time.” 

It didn’t take the procurement department 

long to prove its worth. In the past, Amarante 

points out how the golf shop’s inventory was 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘ROSEWOOD REGULARS — 

COMPLETELY REVOLUTIONARY’ 

203 

overinflated and unmanageable. “We completely 

took it over and managed what goes in and 

out,” he reflects. “We took an inventory that 

was worth around $500,000 and brought it 

down to $175,000 – now the business is 

operating beautifully.” By streamlining this 

function, it allowed Rosewood CordeValle to 

deliver a seamless guest experience. This same 

methodology was applied to the hotel’s food 

and beverage offering. “The food and beverage 

team were finding it difficult to meet their 

budgeted costs on a monthly basis so by taking 

over those inventories and tightening up the 

process we made sure everything’s accounted 

for and streamlined. We brought everything 



204 

“People don’t realize 

that procurement 

touches every 

single department 

on the property” 

— 




down to a manageable, functional 

level. We were able to really put our 

footprint there while maintaining a 

great experience.” 

Procurement may not always gain 

the spotlight but its influence is undeniable. 

“People don’t realize that procurement 

touches every single department 

on the property,” Amarante adds. 

“Whether it’s the spa or golf or food 

and beverage, we touch everything. 

It’s been a big help. When things get 

tough, we can help them tighten the 

belt.” Yet, whilst cost-saving is a critical 

task for any procurement professional, 

Amarante says that striking a balance 

between value for money and quality is 

a “tightrope walk” he does every day. 

“It’s tough,” he says. “We never want to 

save money at the cost of the guest 

experience. We’re also evolving and 

looking at market trends to really put 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

205 

our best foot forward. We’re always 

pushing for the best of both worlds.” 

Being part of the Rosewood Hotels 

& Resorts family undoubtedly lightens 

this load. With 24 hotels and resorts 

spanning 15 countries, the Rosewood 

umbrella is one which is synonymous 

with world-class standards and a 

memorable guest experience, evidenced 

by the variety of accolades 

and awards it has collected over the 

years. This reputation has proven to 

be an invaluable asset. 

However, for Amarante, the most 

important item in his toolkit are the 

strong relationships he has fostered 

with his vendors and suppliers. 

“Creating close, mutually-beneficial 

relationships with our vendors is really 

key to our success. How do we develop 

these relationships? Some of it comes 

down to purchase agreements, some of 



206 

it comes down to exclusivity. For instance, 

we have a signature whiskey and tequila 

that’s made for us. We make them part 

of our family. We showcase them to our 

members and hotel guests.” 

Whether managing the hotel’s inventories 

or purchase orders (POs), technology 

also undoubtedly plays a role, 

although it can be a double-edged sword, 

warns Amarante. “One of the paradigms 

of being technology-based is that having 

that face-to-face relationship with your 

vendors becomes more difficult,” he says. 

“This creates a challenge when you’re 

sending POs via email, for example. 

You’re not even having a conversation 

with the person when placing an order. 

It really forces us to go the extra mile 

to maintain these relationships but 

technology is still paramount for sure.” 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

“Creating close, mutuallybeneficial 

relationships 

with our vendors is really 

key to our success” 

— 




207 

Rosewood CordeValle has firmly put itself 

on the map as the ideal destination for any 

getaway and, whilst its procurement department 

may boast of a small team of three, it 

seems they’re making a lasting impression 

on the hotel and its guests. “Looking forward, 

we hope to continue to improve profitability 

and enhance the quality of the guest experience 

every day,” adds Amarante. “It might 

sound simple or cliché but that’s what it’s all 

about — it drives us every single day.” 


Undergoing 

a digital 


in cancer therapy 

at Proton 

208 

International 

— 

WRIT TEN BY 


PRODUCED BY 

TOM VENTURO 


HEALTHCARE 

209 


PROTON INTERNATIONAL 

Vice President of Design 

and Construction at 

Proton International, 

Jay Beranek, discusses 

how the proton industry 

has transformed over 

the last few years 

210 

D 

igital transformation is affecting 

all industries as companies adapt 

to the latest trends in order to 

achieve success with their offerings. In the 

case of cancer treatments, it has also 

allowed for proton therapy to have a more 

significant impact in the sector. Proton 

therapy, which is a type of radiation therapy 

used to treat cancer, utilizes protons instead 

of x-rays in order to battle the disease. As 

a positively charged particle, protons can 

destroy cancer cells and are often combined 

with chemotherapy, surgery, radiation 

therapy and immunotherapy. Vice President 

of Design and Construction at Proton 

International, Jay Beranek, has overseen a 

significant transformation in the construction 

of cancer treatment centers since arriving 

at the company in 2011. In the years since, 

Beranek believes that technology has become 

increasingly important to Proton International. 


HEALTHCARE 

“Technology in the proton industry is 

changing very rapidly. Less than 10 years 

ago, our industry thinking was to build 

multi-room facilities which would see us 

develop four or five rooms with larger equipment,” 

explains Beranek. “It meant there are 

four completely different gantries but there 

is still only one cyclotron that can deliver the 

protons to each of these rooms. Although 

cost is a major issue, technology has helped 

to reduce the size of this significantly. I believe 

the proton industry is going towards single 

room facilities, which will also substantially 

reduce the overall cost of the project itself. 

Technology decreases the size of the scope, 

equipment, physical facility and size of the 

space and it remains absolutely vital to us.” 

211 

REMAINING SUSTAINABLE 

Proton therapy centers began less than three 

decades ago with just a handful of centers in 

the US and Europe. However, in recent years 

the treatment method has become increasingly 

prominent in the industry and now holds 

just under 30 operating centers in the US as 

well as several in 28 other countries around 

the world. Beranek points out that protons 

have become more widely-used as a method 

of cancer treatment due to the influx of 

patients that have a greater understanding to 


BR+A CONSULTING ENGINEERS is the Global Engineering Leader in Proton 

and Carbon Center design. Our success stems from the talented Core Team 

of Engineers who have been collaborating for many years. We understand the 

intricacies of these highly complex facilities and possess in-depth knowledge of 

the technical requirements of the proton equipment operating systems. 

Overall, our portfolio consists of involvement in over 60 particle therapy facilities 

worldwide, of which, 14 proton centers are currently treating patients and 

approximately 12 will be brought ‘online’ and start treating patients by the end of 

2018 through early 2020. 

PARTICLE THERAPY LOCATIONS 

Abu Dhabi, UAE 

Adelaide, AU 

Al Sayh, Bahrain 

Atlanta, GA 

Baltimore, MD 

Bangkok, Thailand 

Birmingham, AL 

Boca Raton, FL 

Boston, MA 

Cairo, Egypt 

Cincinnati, OH 

Cleveland, OH 

Dallas, TX 

Dayton, OH 

Delray Beach, FL 

Doha, Qatar 

Dublin, OH 

Falls Church, VA 

Flint, MI 

Freiberg, Germany 

Halle, Germany 

Hefei, China 

Hong Kong, China 

Houston, TX 

Irving, TX 

Jacksonville, FL 

London, England 

Madrid, Spain 

Miami, FL 

Muscat, Oman 

New York, NY 

Newport, Wales 

Northumberland, UK 

Oklahoma City, OK 

Oxford, England 

Philadelphia, PA 

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 

Rochester, MN 

Royal Oak, MI 

San Francisco, CA 

Seattle, WA 

Singapore 

Somerset, NJ 

Stanford, CA 

Taipei, Taiwan 

Voorhees, NJ 

Warrenville, IL 

Washington, DC 

CONTACT Michael Fahey, Managing Principal 

m 347.752.2364 | d 646.205.7289 | e mfahey@brplusa.com 

RESPONSIVE BUILDINGS. RESPONSIVE PEOPLE. 

brplusa.com

HEALTHCARE 

“One of the best things 

about protons is it 

can focus on solid 

tumors in the brain 

or around the spinal 

cord, particularly in 

young children with 

little to no collateral 

damage to surrounding 

healthy tissue. From 

a quality of life point 

of view, it’s huge” 

— 

Jay Beranek 

Vice President of Design and Construction, 


213 

the benefits of the treatment. “I believe 

protons have found their place in the 

clinical treatment for cancer and one of 

the main reasons is because protons are 

particles, in comparison to a light wave 

which are x-rays,” he says. “One of the 

best things about protons is it can focus 

on solid tumors in the brain or around the 

spinal cord, particularly in young children 

with little to no collateral damage to 

surrounding healthy tissue. From a quality 

of life point of view; it’s huge.” 

Having treated its first patients at the 

University Medical Centre Groningen 

(UMCG) in January 2018, the UMCG 

became the first site to provide proton 

therapy in the Netherlands and is built 

with a 220-tonne particle accelerator 

and the most modern irradiation 

equipment. By launching facilities such 

as the UMCG, it has allowed Proton to 

remain sustainable and provide a vast 

number of proton facilities to the world. 

“The design process at UMCG was 



214 

very successful. UMCG had a strong physics 

presence on campus; however, not with the 

clinical aspect of using protons to treat people,” 

says Beranek. “As integral to our culture, we 

meld our operations experience with the 

culture and experiences of the Dutch or any 

other clinical partner. It is not just about 

working with our clinical partners, we actually 

develop strong friendships which instill trust 

and allow transparent conversations leading 

to very quick decisions. This bonded relationship 

also significantly reduces the quantity of 

changes during the construction process.” 


HEALTHCARE 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘THE CONCRETE POURING FOR 

THE PROTON THERAPY CENTER IN GRONINGEN’ 

215 

ESTABLISHING KEY PARTNERSHIPS 

Beranek believes that through unveiling its 

facilities, it has enabled Proton to set itself 

apart from its rivals while offering a diverse 

range of people the help they require. “We 

differentiated ourselves from anyone else. 

Proton International is the only company 

worldwide that has the track record of successfully 

bringing multiple proton facilities to the 

world. University of Alabama in Birmingham will 

be our eighth building and no one else has even 

come close,” explains Beranek. “Our Proton 

vendors provide equipment but it’s a lot different 

than just selling equipment because you have to 

put the whole package together. It’s important 



COMPANY INFORMATION — BR+A 

216 

BR+A is a global engineering firm 

that embraces challenging projects 

for organizations whose 

work makes a difference in people’s 

lives and the world. We 

engineer responsive, high-performing 

buildings where people 

and ideas thrive. 

Founded in 1975, BR+A creates 

state-of-the-art facilities by providing 

tightly integrated and 

coordinated engineering design 

services that touch every aspect 

of the built environment. These 

include MEP/FP systems design, 

sustainability consulting, 

building commissioning, infrastructure 

design, master planning, 

and more. Whether it is a small, 

quick-turn assignment or complex, 

large-scale project, BR+A is 

hands-on from inception to construction 

completion. 

BR+A has more than 350 team 

members, working together across 

eight US-based offices, bring 

unsurpassed technical expertise 

and wide-ranging creativity to 

everything they do. We assemble 

highly proficient, multidisciplinary 

teams, each led by a firm principal, 

to serve as trusted advisors 

throughout the project. Using the 

most advanced tools and technologies, 

BR+A provides lifecycle cost 

analysis, energy modeling, and 

proactive value engineering that 

helps architects and owners 

weigh the pros, cons, and holistic 

benefits of proposed designs. We 

have been successful in providing 

engineering services to our particle 

clients worldwide for over 15 

years, currently encompassing 15 

countries with that success stemming 

from our talented, and 

experienced, core group of engineering 

professionals. 

Above all, our diverse team is 

dedicated to serving as a true 

partner to clients and we strive 

to be seen a vital part of their 

organization. In the office, on 

the job site, or out in the field, 

BR+A fosters a culture where 

creativity and hard work are celebrated—and 

collaboration fuels 

mutual success. 


HEALTHCARE 

to think about location, financing, hospital 

and doctor partnerships before you can 

actually put a completed project together. 

We bring all those parties together.” 

In order to establish its success, 

Proton International formed professional 

partnerships with design professionals 

such as Stantec – Architecture Bard, 

Rao-& Anthanas Engineers and Goldstein-Milano 

which have collaborated 

with the company since its inception. 

The long-lasting relationships have 

seen all entities work together in order 

to deliver the best experience for its 

patients. “We also believe it’s critical to 

have regionally focused construction 

managers such as Brasfield & Gorrie, 

Gilbane, Linbeck and Hoffman to 

execute the building process. We 

conduct Lessons Learned sessions 

with these partners knowing that our 

next proton project will ultimately 

provide the best possible patient 

experience,” says Beranek. “We are 

a family and grow accordingly in that 

we can not only anticipate mutual 

needs but also respect each other’s 

responsibilities to act as advocates for 

Proton International while keeping the 

needs of the patients first and foremost.” 

217 



brasfieldgorrie.com 

We’re honored to partner 

with Proton International and 

the University of Alabama 

at Birmingham to deliver 

Alabama’s first proton 

therapy facility. 

www.stantec.com 

JANUARY 2019 

Particle Therapy Architects

HEALTHCARE 

“It’s not just about 

bringing the project 

to fruition, it’s about 

operating and having 

that expertise of 

understanding how 

patient delivery 

systems should be 

incorporated. This 

means we fully 

understand what the 

patient experience 

is and we have to 

ensure we maximize 

that experience” 

— 

Jay Beranek 



219 

As a pioneer for implementing proton 

therapy treatment, Proton understands 

how vital it is that patients remain the 

top priority in the company’s plans. 

Beranek is adamant that Proton can 

provide the best service due to its 

determination to get projects completed. 

“It’s not just about bringing the 

project to fruition, it’s about clinical 

operations and having that expertise 

of understanding how patient delivery 

systems should be incorporated. This 

means we fully understand what the 

patient experience is and we have to 

ensure we maximize that experience,” 

affirms Beranek. “We know that you 

have to deal with insurance and the 

actual treatment and clinical aspect. 

However, we’re also the only ones who 

can find the financing to get all these 



projects completed and considering 

the way our sustainability is right now, 

I believe we’re the only ones who can 

deliver this from soup to nuts.” 

220 

FUTURE PLANS 

With an eye on the future, Proton 

International are looking to expand 

their operations further with facilities 

in Delray Beach, Florida, and Birmingham, 

Alabama, expected to open next 

year. Beranek maintains that he never 

reflects on completed projects for too 

long following the completion of a facility. 

“Once the building gets up and 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘PLACEMENT OF THE PARTICLE ACCELERATOR 

(CYCLOTRON) IN THE UMCG PROTON THERAPY CENTER’ 


HEALTHCARE 

“We differentiated 

ourselves from 

anybody else. 

Proton International 

is the only company 

worldwide that 

has the track record 

of successfully 

bringing multiple 

proton facilities 

to the world” 

— 

Jay Beranek 


Proton International, 221 

operational, I’m pretty much onto the 

next project. Our Delray Beach facility 

is only a few weeks from opening to 

see patients for Linac treatments while 

our proton building will begin to treat 

patients in the Fall of 2019. We’re also 

building one in Birmingham, Alabama 

and we anticipate to be receiving 

proton equipment for that facility in 

February,” explains Beranek. “We’re 

a small privately-owned company and 

we make our own decisions. We will 

continue to bring protons and maintain 

our position as a major directive force 

in bringing a greater number of protons 

to the world. We’ve completed more 

projects than anyone else and that’s 

what we pride ourselves on. It’s what 

we do.” 


Brown-Forman 

222 


223 

WRIT TEN BY 

LAURA MULLAN 

PRODUCED BY 

ANDY TURNER 


BROWN-FORMAN 

Brown-Forman may be 

better known for its 

iconic repertoire of spirits 

and wines, but the 

American company is 

also earning its stripes 

as a digital trailblazer 

224 

F 

rom Jack Daniels to Woodford 

Reserve, Old Forester to Canadian 

Mist, today Brown-Forman’s brands 

are a mainstay of any bar or cocktail cabinet. 

The American wine and spirits company was 

founded almost 150 years ago when the 

founder, George Garvin Brown, created Old 

Forester, a brand that is often cited as America’s 

first bottled bourbon – and it seems that 

this pioneering approach is still present today. 

The century-old company is keen to preserve 

its long-lasting legacy but it isn’t naïve enough 

to think that the alcohol market will be 

untouched by the latest wave of digitization. 

In fact, Brown-Forman has put its weight 

behind a root-and-branch digital transformation 

that hopes to cement its brands as 

household favourites for years to come. 


“We look at every 

employee as 

a tremendous 

brand builder” 

— 

Tim Nall, 

Senior Vice President 

and CIO at Brown-Forman 

225 


Is the most 

transformative 

perspective the one 

you don’t have? 

In this transformative Age, the opportunities that 

emerge from disruption are ready to be seized. 

ey.com/betterworkingworld #BetterQuestions 

© 2018 Ernst & Young LLP. All Rights Reserved. ED None. 

The skill to make things work. 

The savvy to make things bloom. 

IT solutions to help design and implement new technologies. Managed 

services to help support and maintain your IT department. Deep knowledge, 

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FOOD & DRINK 

227 

With over 18 years of experience at 

Brown-Forman under his belt, this job 

has fallen partly into the capable hands 

of Tim Nall, Senior Vice President and 

Chief Information and Data Officer 

(CIO/CDO). With an acute understanding 

of the inner workings of the American 

company, married with a continuous 

improvement mindset, Nall and his 

team have ensured that IT no longer 

plays a back-end function but rather is 

a key strategic driver of Brown-Forman’s 

operations. “Brown-Forman used to be 

a traditional place where IT was viewed 

as a back-office function,” observes 


BROWN-FORMAN 

228 

Nall. “But a few years ago, we began to look 

at what tools Brown-Forman needed to really 

advance in this data economy. We began to 

view IT as an enabler and business partner, 

a function that could provide true solutions 

not just for the back office but for production 

teams, sales teams and marketing teams.” 

This has been a seismic shift in mindset for 

Brown-Forman, but it is undoubtedly an 

essential step for any company wanting to 

remain at the top of its game in today’s 

digital economy. 

Storytelling and brand building are the 

backbone of a successful food or beverage 

brand, and it is a skill which Brown-Forman 

has honed for decades. “We absolutely 

believe the consumer is king,” observes Nall. 

“Our ultimate goal is for our consumers to 

understand our product – we want them 

to make educated choices, we want them to 

be fans of our brands.” How best to connect 

with these consumers is a pressing question 

for any food and beverage business, and 

Nall believes that technology could be a key 

part of the solution. “Whether you’re 

communicating on social media with that 

consumer, whether you’re creating interactive 

tools for that consumer, how you’re 

targeting that consumer – it all requires 

technology,” he explains. 


CLICK TO WATCH: ‘WHO IS BROWN-FORMAN?’ 

229 

Over the past few years, the Jack Daniels 

maker has implemented a slew of technologies 

to become a more digitally savvy firm. 

These include everything from cloud-based 

productivity and collaboration tools to a modern 

data stack. “First, we realized our existing 

data stack was not adequate enough for us 

to really gather, harmonize and interrogate 

our information. We knew we had to modernize, 

so we started looking for a modern data 

ingestion platform that our employees could 

leverage and we settled on Talend as our 

partner working with the Talend Data Fabric,” 

explains Nall. 

“We knew we also wanted a modern, robust 


BROWN-FORMAN 

230 

“We want our consumers to know the 

stories behind Brown-Forman. We want 

them to engage with us so that we can 

tell them about Old Forester, the first 

bottled bourbon. We want them 

to understand our recipes so that they 

can create the perfect Manhattan” 

— 

Tim Nall, Senior Vice President 



warehouse for all this information to go 

into so we chose to work with Cloudera. 

Then we asked ourselves how our 

employees and our partners would 

really interrogate and examine the 

information that we give them. We 

wanted to ensure that we had modern 

toolsets out there as well, so we looked 

at different products and settled on 

Tableau as our visualization platform 

and RStudio as our analytical, statistical 

modeling platform.” Through these 

cutting-edge technologies, Brown- 

Forman has sought to democratize 

data and its analytics so that employees 

from all departments can utilize this for 

their own ad hoc analyses every day. 

Gaining the data is only the beginning. 

For this tool to really earn its 

stripes, Nall points out that you 

need to gain true insight and 

analysis of the figures. “We’re 

always cautious to say that, 

in a way, the data isn’t doing 

anything,” he explains. “It’s the 

insights we’re gleaning from the 

information that are important. 

Data without analysis is wasted 

money. We’ve transformed how 

we look at the information; it’s 

231 


BROWN-FORMAN 

232 

surfacing new ideas that are really driving 

positive action within the company.” 

At Brown-Forman, data has been the 

bread and butter of the company’s digital 

transformation and it’s helping to deliver 

insights that drive tangible, real-life 

results, such as more informed pricing 

decisions. “It’s helped us see how our 

competitors are moving with regards 

to their price and how that affects us. 

Over the past few months, we’ve been 

rolling out a revenue management 

application globally that’s been well 

received,” explains Nall. Data analysis 

has touched every corner of the 

American company, including the heart 

of its operations: its production division. 

“We worked closely with the production 

organization and we saw that there 

were issues that data analytics could 

help resolve. Using data, we’ve taken 

a hard look at our barrel yield to see 

what issues could be affecting it. 

Leveraging a lot of internal information 

and even external information like the 

temperature and other variables, we’ve 

provided dashboards that are really 

helping our production partners better 

manage and forecast barrel yield.” 

With its quintessential southern 

American charm, Brown-Forman is 

$3.25bn 

Approximate 

revenue 

1870 

Year founded 

4,600 


of employees 

well known for its captivating marketing 

efforts but the company has taken 

this one step further with its use of 

data technology “We’ve engaged 

with partners like Salesforce to help us 

provide modern toolsets, and we’ve 

also looked at exact target marketing 

and consumer journeys so we can 

better communicate with our customers 

and deliver a better experience,” says 

Nall. The wine and spirits firm has also 

made its first foray into chatbots and 

has used SMS text engagement at its 


FOOD & DRINK 

233 

distillery tours. Additionally, as a sponsor 

of the Kentucky Derby, Brown-Forman 

says it can use a balance of marketing 

and data analytics to track whether 

event promotions have been effective 

and to forecast the success of its 

future campaigns. This, in turn, helps 

marketing dollars go further and 

increases brand awareness. 

The biggest tool for marketing, though, 

is undoubtedly Brown-Forman’s team. 

With a 4,600-strong workforce worldwide, 

teams are not only seen as 

employees but are also viewed as 

brand ambassadors. “We look at every 

employee as a tremendous brand 

builder,” observes Nall. “We want our 

consumers to know the stories behind 

Brown-Forman. We want them to 

engage with us so that we can tell them 

about Old Forester, the first bottled 

bourbon. We want them to understand 

our recipes so that they can create the 

perfect Manhattan. I think that’s the 

real benefit for the consumer: they get 

this information and it’s digestible. 


BROWN-FORMAN 

234 

We view data and analytics as playing 

a significant role in our future successes.” 

Over the past decade, technology has 

undoubtedly revolutionized the customer 

experience. With a few swipes and taps 

of our devices, we can get the goods and 

services we want when we want them. 

Today’s consumers expect their experience 

to be seamless and indeed today’s 

workforces are no different. 

“Just like we want to understand the 

expectations of our consumers, we also 

want to understand the expectations 

our employees,” Nall adds. “Our 

employees expect a consumer-like 

experience.” Making working life 

simpler for staff in over 160 countries 

is not an easy feat, but by leveraging 

trailblazing technologies and 

processes Brown-Forman is 

hoping to bridge geographical 

gaps and bring its teams 

closer together. 

“Whether it’s regarding 

their paycheques, their 

communications or their 

training, we want to make 

sure that it’s delivered 

seamlessly and that our 

employees have a great 



235

BROWN-FORMAN 

236 

experience with it. We want to make sure 

that all our 160 countries are connected. 

You could do that by hopping on aeroplanes 

but that can be very costly and 

so we are leveraging modern technology 

to help connect our team.” 

Pushing for better communication, 

Brown-Forman quickly got on board 

with cloud technology like Google’s G 

Suite platform and Cisco’s Webex tool. 

“We believe these tools help eliminate 

borders and time zones,” says Nall. As 

a Salesforce customer, Brown-Forman 

has not only adopted the firm’s customer 

relationship management (CRM) tool 

globally, but is also using its Chatter tool 

that allows employees to keep in touch. 

“Our employees are used to tweeting 

and using instant messaging apps in 

their personal life so Chatter gives that 

to them professionally,” he adds. “It really 

allows all of these employees just to 


237 

“We definitely believe that 

technology isn’t a solution, 

but it’s an enabler for change” 

— 




BROWN-FORMAN 

“Data without 

analysis is 

wasted money” 

— 



238 


stay connected despite the time zones.” 

As more and more technologies come 

to the fore, it seems it’s an exciting time 

to be in the alcoholic beverage space. 

However, Nall is keen to point out the 

saying ‘if you have a hammer, everything 

looks like a nail’ – that is, if a business 

relies too heavily on particular tools it 

may miss out on the perfect solution or 

idea. Instead, he suggests: “When we 

think about digital we always think 

about our stakeholders, our employees 

and our consumers. We definitely believe 

that technology isn’t a solution, but it is 

an enabler for change.” 

239 


240 

Digital disruption 

of procurement 

talent acquisition 

WRIT TEN BY 

DALE BENTON 

PRODUCED BY 

ARRON RAMPLING 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

241 


ALLEGIS GLOBAL SOLUTIONS 

242 

Erin Hough, Senior Manager, North 

American Supply Chain at Allegis 

Global Solutions, discusses the digital 

disruption of global talent acquisition 

A 

s the supply chain and 

procurement industry continues 

to become increasingly 

professionalized, with businesses all 

over the world waking up to the value 

of procurement, it creates a need for 

skilled professionals in order to unlock 

the true potential and propel strategic 

growth. This is where Allegis Global 

Solutions (AGS) comes in. As a global 

talent solutions provider, AGS transforms 

the way the world acquires talent 

by delivering client-focused solutions 

that make a difference for businesses 

worldwide. AGS is the global leader 

in Workforce Management Solutions. 

This requires a deep understanding of 

a client’s requirements and expectations 

and AGS’ Supply Chain team plays 

a critical role in all of this. “We consult 

with our clients to ensure they are 

implementing innovative strategies that 

focus on risk mitigation, data governance 

and visibility, as well as operational 

efficiencies with their supply chain,” 

says Erin Hough, Senior Manager, 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

243 

North American Supply Chain at AGS. 

“What they want is to acquire the best 

talent, at competitive market rates and 

at the right time. AGS’ Supply Chain 

team provides the market insights and 

tools that our clients need in order 

to achieve this”. 

As part of the company’s Supply 

Chain Management team, Hough is 

tasked with leading a team of consultants 

across North America. These 

consultants must ensure that its clients’ 

goals are achieved by having the best 

supplier partners providing talent in 

specific industries, geographies and 

skill sets. Over the course of her 13-year 

career in the staffing industry, Hough 

has held a number of roles across 

North America. Prior to joining AGS, 

she worked for a staffing firm providing 

sales and recruiting services. It was 

then that she first encountered AGS 

and the growing presence of MSP’s. In 

2012, she joined AGS to help grow the 

supply chain team. “Having experience 

with a staffing supplier supporting MSP’s 


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provided the right foundation for my role here 

at AGS. It set me up for success as I have a 

greater understanding of suppliers’ pain points, 

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programs and provide them with key guidance 

and support in order to be successful.” 

Hough has seen first-hand the changing 

supply chain and procurement landscape, 

particularly in the way the company works 

with client partners. Historically, AGS would 

make supplier recommendations to its clients 

based largely on existing or previous relationships.” 

But, as Hough notes, while the importance 

of relationships has not changed, the 

methodology AGS uses to select its suppliers 

has evolved. “The relationship is still a key 

component for us but what’s important to 

procurement are proof points. With each 

recommendation we make to add, remove 

or even realign suppliers based on geographies 

or skillsets, our recommendations are 

driven mainly by data,” she says. 

“The strategies that we implement with our 

supply chain consistently aligns with our data 

analytics. The value of relationships is not 

eliminated, we know when a supplier’s team 

“We will continue 

to evolve to be 

a thought leader 

in the industry, 

continue to be 

open minded and 

to be a consultant 

to our clients. 

We will strive 

to be a true partner 

to our suppliers 

because without 

our suppliers 

we can’t deliver 

the talent that our 

clients need” 

— 

Erin Hough, 

Senior Manager, North American Supply 

Chain at Allegis Global Solutions 

247 



248 

is demonstrating a strong partnership 

to both AGS and our clients. The data 

simply paints a more complete picture 

and allows us to make the best business 

decision about their success or lack of 

success within one of our programs.” 

Hough acknowledges that industry 

wide we are experiencing digital 

transformation of both staffing and 

procurement. Technology, she notes, 

is changing the way procurement and 

hiring managers are attracting, motivating 

and retaining the right talent in 

the marketplace. “What we are seeing 

is growth in artificial intelligence and 

automation in order to meet the needs 

of our clients. We are educating our 

hiring managers to think differently 

about the way that work gets done,” 

she says. “They might look at a role that 

is knowledge driven or has repetitive 

tasks as one that can be completed by 

a robot, or artificial intelligence.” 

“The digital transformation we are 

experiencing in our industry will enhance 

our service offerings and streamline our 

processes to make AGS more efficient. 

This will not eliminate the need for a 

human to be involved. Roles that require 

relationship building or a consultative 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

CLICK TO WATCH: ‘AGS INTELLECT 2018 STEVE PARKER EXPLAINS’ 

249 

approach would still need to be completed 

by a person,” Hough explains. 

Both AGS and its clients must navigate this 

changing landscape and so it is integral that 

AGS identifies trends and understands the 

digital impact in order to continue providing 

the best talent and maintain those leading 

relationships. Hough admits as much and 

notes that as AGS works across multiple 

global sectors, the best way forward for both 

AGS and its clients is to invest, collaborate 

and share knowledge. “Supply chain and 

procurement are evolving and we are experiencing 

those changes across all of the 

industries AGS supports. In order to stay on 



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“These suppliers are part of 

our strategic supplier program, 

meaning they are our top 1% of 

suppliers across the globe. They 

have built strong partnerships 

and trust with us. We know that 

they are suppliers we can rely 

on. If we need honest feedback 

about what’s going on in the 

market place or a tough skill 

set that we need help with, 

we know that they’ll dedicate 

a team to help us to make sure 

we’re supporting the client. 

Each of these suppliers have 

also contributed by providing 

us with market intel. Telling us 

what’s going on in the market, 

what their pain points are, 

giving us suggestions for ways 

that we could improve their 

user experience. They’ve just 

been true partners to us. 

They’ve been great.” 

251 

top of these changes, we have an 

innovation team that is constantly seeking 

out and testing new ideas,” she says. 

“We’re also partnering with our 

suppliers to gain an understanding of 

what they are experiencing in the market. 

We are attending industry conferences 

to learn more about the evolution of the 

industry, artificial intelligence, chat bot 

and the gig economy, so that we can 

be better prepared.” 

A key example of how AGS has 

embraced technology and innovation 

is through the implementation of a 

proprietary workforce system called 

QUANTUM. The QUANTUM Platform 

acts as a single point of entry to all 

types of workers including contractors, 

consultants and full-time employees. 

QUANTUM simplifies the hiring manager 

experience and enables AGS’ clients to 

make data driven/fact-based decisions 



252 

more efficiently. Backed by robust data and 

the consultation of a talent advisor, QUAN- 

TUM has created a whole new user experience 

for hiring managers and is improving 

time to fill, cost and quality. 

“AGS’ talent advisors can work with the 

hiring managers to understand what their 

tasks and business objectives are and then 

create and develop a resource plan based on 

those specific needs. This approach coupled 

with client-specific data, comparative benchmarks 

and external market insights ensure that 

our hiring managers have evaluated the options 

and they have been advised on the best talent in 

the right location for the best price”, she says. 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

One example of how QUANTUM creates 

efficiency – “It helps to highlight quality 

candidates that will be coming available and 

allows them to be redeployed within the 

same company, rather than them ending an 

assignment and having them sit on the bench 

to wait for another opportunity to come along. 

For example, if a particular candidate is rolling 

off of an assignment and is perfect for 

another opportunity within the same 

organization, we can redeploy them and 

have them back to work the next day with a 

simplified onboarding process,” says Hough. 

Implemented last year, QUANTUM is already 

showing great results: better than 50% 

reduction in time to fill, time to submit went 

from an average of 48-72 hours down to less 

than a day (usually a few hours) and an 

improved user experience through technology 

and the interactions with the talent advisors. 

By removing the antiquated process of waiting 

to see what talent is out there or waiting for 

a hiring manager to detail their needs, AGS 

can provide access to the best talent of 

today and tomorrow. 

This is but one example of how AGS has 

transformed its procurement process through 

technology. Hough points to the implementation 

of artificial intelligence that helps suppliers 

with their pre-screening processes and 

253 



254 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

“From an operational perspective our clients 

and our operations can identify trends and 

start forecasting. Our suppliers that have 

access to this system they’re able to see how 

they’re performing in comparison to their 

competitors in that particular program” 

— 

Erin Hough, 

Senior Manager, North 

American Supply Chain 

at Allegis Global Solutions 

255 



256 

removing “black holes” that seem to 

exist after candidates are submitted. 

Another key technology that AGS now 

utilizes is the ACUMEN system. The 

ACUMEN system is a platform that 

displays and monitors key performance 

indicators across the entire AGS 

ecosystem of suppliers, clients and 

AGS’ internal teams. It highlights spend 

activity, as well as quality and speed 

metrics for a program. With this tool, 

AGS has been able to create automated 

scorecards that provide real-time 

performance analytics. “From an 

operational perspective, our clients 

and our internal teams can identify 

trends and start forecasting. Our 

strategic suppliers have access to this 

system and they’re able to benchmark 

their performance in comparison to 

their competitors within a particular 

program,” says Hough. 

“It also gives our program officers, 

our clients, and our suppliers the 


SUPPLY CHAIN 

257 

opportunity to make immediate changes 

as they start to see trends going in the 

right or even the wrong direction.” 

Industries all around the world will 

continue to evolve and so too will the 

skillsets needed to serve their needs. 

AGS embraces these changes by 

providing universal access to all forms 

of talent. The ACUMEN and QUANTUM 

systems are two examples of this. “We 

must continue to position ourselves as 

thought leaders in our industry, embrace 

change and approach our clients with 

strategy and innovation by implementing 

technologies such as ACUMEN 

and QUANTUM. This will allow us to 

continually impact the lives of others by 

matching great talent to great organizations,” 

says Hough. 


258 

University of 

Saskatchewan: 


WITH A RELIABLE 

TEAM 

WRIT TEN BY 

SOPHIE CHAPMAN 

PRODUCED BY 

ARRON RAMPLING 


CANADA 

259 

www.supplychaindigital.com

UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN 

260 

As the University of Saskatchewan moves 

away from manual operations to new 

technologies, a skilled procurement team 

remains essential, says Director of Enterprise 

Procurement, Richard LeBlanc 

ichard LeBlanc joined the 

R 

University of Saskatchewan a 

year ago when a new position 

as Director of Enterprise Procurement 

was created to modernize the establishment’s 

procurement operations. 

Procurement supports diverse areas, 

enabling the day-to-day running of 

most of the campus’ administration. 

“From students in the classrooms and 

lecture halls to labs and agricultural 

research, members of my team have 

bought something that helped 

enhance their experience, their work, 

or their research,” LeBlanc notes. 

With the university spending 

approximately $400mn (CAD) per year, 

effectively managing procurement is 

vital. The university has recently 

released its strategic plan for 2025, 

featuring pillars and aspirations which 

are guiding the procurement team’s 

ongoing efforts. As well as an almost 

entire overhaul of how procurement 


CANADA 

261 

processes are managed, the university-wide 

strategy covers projects that 

align multiple departments. “Some of 

the key themes of our vision includes 

the indigenization of the university; 

we’ve been working on a procurement 

strategy for indigenous business for 

several months,” says LeBlanc. “It 

aligns with the university’s main 

objectives and helps us further 

advance the university’s reconciliation 

efforts, as well as strengthen our ties 

with the communities that support us 

on the business side.” 

As well as reconciliation efforts, 

the vision targets modernization and 

the introduction of new technologies, 

which marks a transition from manual 

processes within the procurement 

department. Several concepts have 

been suggested as alternatives to the 

team’s current manual activities, with 

a focus on automation and streamlining. 

These ideas, which LeBlanc stresses 


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“From students in the classrooms and lecture 

halls to labs and agricultural research, members 

of my team have bought something that 

helped enhance their experience, their 

work, or their research” 

— 

Richard LeBlanc, 

Director of Enterprise Procurement 

263 

have all derived directly from the 

team itself, have led to projects varying 

in scale: from improving processes 

and policy work to integrating a risk 

framework. Communications and plan 

engagement functions will also be 

updated to improve the adoption rate 

of university-wide contracts. By modernizing 

the process whereby stock is 

replenished in the facilities warehouse, 

the team has successfully reduced 

buying time by approximately 20%. 

Despite many of the team’s goals 

being currently underway, others 

are “a little bit broader in scope” – 

however, even with an end in sight 

LeBlanc stresses the importance of 

always looking forward. “In regards 

to modernization, I think it is a journey 

that should never end. If you look 

back at the last five years, some of the 

enhancements, the new capabilities, 

and the technologies have advanced 

so much. You’ve always got to keep 

growing and stretching in order to 

take advantage of those advances, 



$1bn 

Approximate 

revenue 

22,400 


of students 

264 

1907 

Year founded 


CANADA 

or else you will just stagnate.” 

Essential to the university’s procurement 

transformation was the introduction of a 

procurement modernization working group, 

which has collected representatives from 

across campus. Through collaboration 

with the university’s Information and 

Communications Technology (ICT) group, 

the team has been able to better collect 

and store financial data. With greater 

access to data, the university has noticed 

an increase in efficiency and improved 

objectives with clear targets. “They’ve 

managed to pull all this information 

together for us and make it easy to gather 

a complete picture, and then analyze that. 

They’ve been working on improving some 

of the systems that we do use to make the 

team’s job easier and more efficient.” 

With key targets in sight, it is easy to 

keep members of staff motivated, 

LeBlanc reveals. The department has 

identified 15 categories for improvement, 

with staff constantly highlighting developments 

that could be made within their 

operations. LeBlanc notes the importance 

of ensuring any new processes or 

technologies that are introduced are 

compatible with the department remarking 

that a fundamental aspect of his role it 

to “make sure the team feel like changes 

265 



266 


CANADA 

“In regards to 

modernization, I think 

it is a journey that 

should never end” 

— 



267 



268 

are made with them, not to them”. 

“They’ve come up with a ton of ideas 

to improve our operations, he continues. 

“A lot of these are just little things 

that make the client’s life a little bit 

easier or better, or eliminate the need 

to go back to the client and improve 

time efficiency. This allows us to get the 

job done right the first time. The team is 

a constant source of ideas and energy, 

and they’re very invested in the work 

that they do. If we have a good idea, 

they’ll help build it up. If we have a less 

than optimal idea, they’ll help us 

strengthen it by identifying the challenges 

within it. They’re very engaged 

and committed and that makes it easy.” 

“You’ve always got 

to keep growing 

and stretching 

in order to take 

advantage of those 

advances, or 

else you will just 

stagnate” 

— 



As well as the focus on efficiency and 

using technology to streamline, the 

university has highlighted sustainability 

as a key target under its vision. With 

operations underway to improve the 

procurement team’s environmental 

impact, such as focusing on the 

materials selected when sourcing in 

order to reduce the campus’ climate 

footprint, the university is also targeting 

financial sustainability and sustainable 

business practices. The establishment’s 

procurement operations have 


CANADA 

269 

traditionally centered on a decentralized 

model, with each business unit 

having its own supplier base. However, 

in efforts to streamline buying and 

costs, the team are turning to a more 

centralized approach. 

Working within the collegial environment 

of a 100-year-old campus, 

LeBlanc has a big task ahead of him to 

bring processes up to date. The 

director has attributed the successful 

changes within sustainability and 

technology to the work of the team, 

from identifying issues to generating 

the concepts. With a long way to go, 

LeBlanc looks forward to continuing to 

build upon the department’s positive 

energy and introduce new operations 

that complement them. 


270 

SSR 

MINING 

Technology and growth through 

operational excellence 

WRIT TEN BY 

DALE BENTON 

PRODUCED BY 

RICHARD DEANE 


MINING 

271 


SSR MINING (SILVER STANDARD RESOURCES INC.) 

As SSR Mining embarks 

on a new digital future, 

operational excellence 

proves vital 

272 

fter more than 70 successful years of 

A 

operation, exploration and development, 

SSR Mining (formerly Silver Standard 

Resources) embarked on a journey to become an 

intermediate precious metals producer and one of 

the world’s leading premier mining companies. The 

company currently has three mining operations, 

including the Marigold mine in Nevada, US, the 

Seabee Gold Operation in Saskatchewan, Canada 

and the 75% owned and operated Puna Operations 

joint venture in Jujuy Province, Argentina. SSR 

defines its existing and future success on strong 

exploration growth opportunities and operational 

excellence. It is the focus on operational excellence 

that will prove key, as SSR Mining’s existing 

and future success can be pinned on one crucial 

component – the development of its people. 

“The mining industry today needs to be more 

focused on continuous improvement and the best 

way to move forward is not necessarily through 

more capital, but better collaboration and more 

results with people,” explains Kevin O’Kane, Chief 

Operating Officer. “Personally, this is where I get 


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273 


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MINING 

CLICK TO WATCH: SEABEE GOLD OPERATION 

275 

excited. I look at how an organisation 

can become more effective. One of the 

challenges and opportunities in SSR, a 

company that’s been in operation for 

over 70 years and made up of different 

cultures and experiences, is how can 

we create collaboration and consistency 

in an effective way.” 

O’Kane was appointed COO in early 

2018 and brought with him over 30 

years of industry experience across 

Chile and Canada, having worked with 

BHP for most of his career. He has 

worked at all levels of operations, 

project development, business 

development as well as health and 

safety. During his career, he gained a 

keen understanding on how to get people 

to where they need to go through 

collaboration and the standardisation 

of best practices. “I can see where the 

different operations are at different 

points, or people within the operations 

have different levels of understanding, 

and I’ve had the opportunity to see how 

that connects together.” he says. 

As SSR continues its growth journey, 

O’ Kane believes it must do so with the 

aim of maintaining the agility of a 

smaller company and the key for it to 



“The mining industry today 

needs to be more focused 

on continuous improvement 

and the best way to move 

forward is not necessarily 

through more capital, but 

better collaboration and 

more results with people” 

— 

Kevin O’Kane 

Chief Operating Officer 

SSR Mining 

achieve this is through collaboration, 

leadership and indeed, standardisation. 

This is where Operational Excellence 

comes to the fore and SSR established 

the role of Director of Operational 

Excellence to drive this focus. But 

what is a Director of Operational 

Excellence? “It’s a position based on 

asking questions. Where can we 

expand and add value, build on the 

ideas our people already have, shine the 

light on solutions, create an environment 

where we can challenge 

276 


MINING 

the ways of thinking and due diligence” 

says Liezl van Wyk, Director Operational 

Excellence with SSR. “It’s about 

creating different angles on problem 

solving and bringing in a new wave of 

discussion. It is about our commitment 

to Safety, it is about leveraging and 

empowering our workforce.” 

Van Wyk is no stranger to Operational 

Excellence, having spent the best 

part of her career looking at mining 

operations and creating ways in which 

businesses can enhance strategy and 

transform operating models through 

people, change management and 

technology to unlock greater value. 

Technology, as it is in most modern 

industries, continues to be one of the 

biggest drivers of change and SSR is no 

different. Van Wyk is a firm believer of 

using data and the accessibility of that 

data to quantify Operational Excellence. 

“One of the very first projects that I 

oversaw was centred around becoming 

more disciplined on data and starting to 

increase the connectivity of our 

existing systems more,” she says. 

“Across the industry, businesses are 

becoming cloud based because it’s a 

very centralised platform in which you 

can access information from anywhere 

and make data available to whoever 

needs to consume it.” 

“We’re an asset-centric business, so 

all our decisions need to be around 

maximizing, optimizing and independently 

coordinating the flow of assets 

and how it hands over from one to the 

next.” 

To this end, SSR built the necessary 

internal infrastructure that would allow 

the business to shift to this cloud-based 

platform where it makes sense. As a 

small, mid-tier company, SSR couldn’t 


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MINING 

CLICK TO WATCH: MARIGOLD MINE OPERATION 

279 

outsource this implementation to consultants 

or technology vendors and so 

this required a lean, targeted, fit-for-purpose 

problem-solving approach from 

Van Wyk and her team. Technology is all 

well and good but it is the people, and 

their capabilities, that ultimately turn 

potential into opportunity and value. 

O’Kane seconds this approach and 

speaks of how the company overcame 

this challenge through leadership 

and competency development 

programmes for all levels of operation. 

“Quite often, we focus on where we 

think the gaps are, and what we really 

need to do is look at the whole value 

chain, understand where our primary 

and secondary bottlenecks are, what 

the gaps are, against what good looks 

like, and focus on those gaps,” he says. 

“It’s obvious, but it’s not always easy, 

because when you’re somewhat of 

a personnel-driven organisation, you 

focus on areas that the senior people 

think are important, and that’s not 

necessarily always where the focus 

needs to be. 

“I’m trying to focus on those so that 

when we sit down with the management 

teams in each of the sites, we’re talking 



280 

“We focus on the whole value chain. Quite often 

people focus only on the gaps they see. 

We need to understand where our primary and 

secondary bottlenecks are, what the gaps 

are, against what good looks like, and focus on 

those gaps from a value chain perspective” 

— 

Kevin O’Kane 

Chief Operating Officer 

SSR Mining 


MINING 

281 

about where we’re going, and what the 

barriers are to us moving forward, to be 

more effective. It’s an opportunity to 

have interesting discussions about how 

you can determine where, in the value 

chain, you need to focus management 

attention, so you produce safer and 

more productive results.” 

The challenge then becomes one 

of implementing change, especially 

in a company that has successfully 

operated for more than 70 years. Van 

Wyk points to the one word that’s on 

everybody’s lips in any organisation is 

capital and the allocation of that capital. 

Talk of change is all well and good but 

eventually it’s going to come down to 

cost, timing and priority and how much 

is going to be needed to invest in this 

change. Van Wyk acknowledges this 

and again the key is around people. 

The importance of educating company 


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leaders in the value of what Operational 

Excellence together with new technologies 

can bring is fundamental. She points 

to a process of small-scale proof of 

concepts (POCs) as being key to this 

conversation as it enables a willingness 

to experiment and change the way of 

thinking. “If you’re going to spend money 

on drilling 100 exploration holes versus 

spending money on some kind of tech 

savvy data platform and tablet-based 

computing, you are more likely to spend 

funds or invest capital on 100 exploration 

drilling holes if that’s always been the 

mindset of the company,” she says. 

“I usually ask: Is it a tool or is it a toy?” 

And to move the sentiment, this is not a 

toy, it’s actually becoming a tool, so that 

those biases of where we are going to 

spend money are where we know we 

will get value. One way to mitigate that 

challenge or that risk is quick, small POCs, 

and showing where the risk sits and the 

willingness then to take it on or not.” 

These POCs prove fundamental in not 

only highlighting where Van Wyk and her 

teams are making progress and driving 

change, but also in unlocking future 

growth. O’Kane points to the company’s 

Marigold project as a shining example of 


283 

“It’s not just a singular 

problem you’re solving 

and in using Operational 

Excellence tools and 

a value-based approach 

to show the value, you 

can achieve many goals 

across all levels of the 

organization” 

— 

Liezl van Wyk 

Director of Operational Excellence 

SSR Mining 

this. He notes that historically, SSR had 

focused solely on improving productivity at 

the mine; but by making great improvements 

in truck productivity and Operational 

Excellence it has allowed the company to 

look at the next bottleneck. Through the 

centralised system at Marigold, operators 

now have access to real-time analysis on 

site performance which allows them to 

take immediate action and move forward 

faster than ever before. SSR is also completing 

its first multiple drills automation project 

to significantly improve both drilling and 

blasting, but O’Kane is keen to stress it 

goes beyond simple productivity benefits. 



1946 

Year founded 

500+ 

Approximate 

number 

of employees 

284 

“That project is really about us 

learning how to do the automation 

journey, so we’ll be able to then take 

what we’ve learned about how the 

organization adjusted to automating 

equipment, to apply it to other equipment 

and this benefits safety,” he says. 

“It has been accepted very well by 

the work-force, and the drillers, who 

you would think, if their equipment 

is being automated, would be quite 

resistant to it, but they’ve been a 

great help. I think that’s a testimony 

to the management team there, in 

how they’ve implemented it.” 

This is echoed by Van Wyk, as she 

feels that value is and will always be 

quantified at the business level by 

shareholder returns and employee 

engagement. “So, it’s the right answers 

at the right cost point and doing 

it very safely,” she says. “It’s not just a 

singular problem you’re solving and 

in using Operational Excellence tools 

and a value-based approach to show 

the value, you can achieve many goals 

across all levels of the organization.” 

“Our best ideas have come from all 


MINING 

285 

levels of the organization. We are 

proud of our employees. They are 

the ones whom have taken onboard 

the OE approaches as part of their 

day to day considerations. They 

have brought forward the safety 

improvement ideas, the cost savings 

initiatives, the production improvements, 

the different angles on old 

problems. And we assisted with 

the tools, the frameworks and the 

enablers. One needs trust, strong 

relationships, and great leadership 

to bring this all together.” 

Operational Excellence has become 

embedded into the company’s 

very DNA but as Van Wyk highlights, 

Operational Excellence is all about 

continuous improvement. “I look in 

terms of opportunities that are out 

there, and things do change quite a 

lot, but the foundational aspects don’t 

and these are what we build on,” she 

says. “It’s a combination of building 

on the foundational pieces as well 

as a culture of creativity and willingness 

to try something. Learn fast, fail 

fast, make corrections, improve and 



286 


MINING 

bring back an improved product. We are 

finding better ways to operate every day” 

“That’s the world of Operational Excellence. 

The job’s never done.” 

As SSR continues its journey into a new 

future of operating, Operational Excellence 

will continue to define and redefine the way in 

which the company achieves success. The 

very definition of success for SSR is fluid, it 

could be additional assets to its existing 

portfolio or it could be increased capital, but 

as Van Wyk notes, the future will be one of 

unlocking the value that Operational Excellence 

can bring. 

“This is happening through our workforce’s 

understanding and contributions together 

with management’s proactive challenging and 

support. We are on a journey to create value 

and enhance safety. As we grow from three 

operations, the impact and reward of the 

journey actually increases,” she says. 

“But Operational Excellence is not just 

projects. It is a combination of transactional 

projects, but also capability development, 

change management, foundational rollout, 

training, relationships and challenge. That’s why 

Operational Excellence is such a rewarding 

discipline to be in, because you have that 

whole spectrum to operate within.” 

“Learn fast, 

fail fast, make 

corrections, 

improve and 

bring back 

an improved 

product. We are 

finding better 

ways to operate 

every day” 

— 

Liezl van Wyk 

Director of Operational Excellence 

SSR Mining 

287 


Where Sourcing Innovators 

Connect and Inspire 

March 25 – 27, 2019 

Omni Amelia Island 

Amelia Island, FL 

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David Newton, Global Sr. Director 

Procurement – Indirects and 

Operations, KraftHeinz 

procureconeast.wbresearch.com

Business Chief USA January 2019

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