Tech means Business

With public spending cuts and a greater awareness of obtaining best value for money, the public sector in the UK has to get the best possible value it can from its IT provision. The answer may be, to some degree at least, making more use of cloud technologies.

But it's not as simple as a lift-and-shift process for IT leaders in the sector. There are multiple considerations: data integrity, security, governance, cross-platform compatibility, and above all else, value for the tax-payer.

In this podcast we talk to global IT partner and service provider, Wipro, about how it is helping the public sector realise full value from its cloud acquisitions and how its consultative and partnership-based approach is helping organisations provide world-class services to their users.

Hyperscalers may talk big and are recognised as de facto players, but are they always the best choice? And is the cloud the right answer to every situation facing the sector? We explore the issues and possible solutions with Anurag Aren (Director, Cloud Advisory Services, Europe) and David Asfaha (Managing Consultant) at Wipro, UK.

The Wipro public sector offerings can be seen here:
https://www.wipro.com/public-sector/
https://governmentbusiness.co.uk/company-focus/wipro-ltd

Anurag Aren is here on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anuragaren/

David Asfaha is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-asfaha-750942b/

And finally, your host's social media profile is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

Even relatively modern cybersecurity concepts and access management technologies like PAM are beginning to falter confronted with hybrid- and multi-cloud environments. How can today's privilege access management cope with multiple SaaS and IaaS apps and services, other than grant or deny blanket access?

We talk to Scott Hesford, the Director of Solutions Engineering, Asia Pacific at BeyondTrust, about applying granularity of privileges to multiple users at scale, and keep on top of it all, too. What could be a simple granting of privileges to a subcontractor for a day, can turn into a gaping cybersecurity hole that can bring an organization to its knees. And BeyondTrust is the company that's here to help!

We talk about implicit zones, movement through the IT stack to get a day's work done, and NIST's airplane analogy for cybersecurity: who can get through to the departures lounge, who can board the plane, and (even) where a user can sit Or, in more direct terms, allowing a subcontractor to restart a service without sudo.

It's all possible, it just needs the right partner; one with the cybersecurity tooling that's not out of its depth in a multi-cloud, mobile, cloud-heavy environment.

Read more about BeyondTrust here:
https://www.beyondtrust.com/

The NIST zero trust information we refer to is here:
https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-207/final

The US Federal Government directive on Zero Trust can be found here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/M-22-09.pdf

The CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model can be found here:
https://www.cisa.gov/zero-trust-maturity-model

Scott Hesford is on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-hesford/

Joe "economy class" Green is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

Making a few purchases on an online marketplace site seems simple: a few clicks here and there, a payment card, and then sit back and wait for delivery. But under the hood, the complexity is astounding.

Marketplace operators not only have to send and receive funds in multiple currencies, but they also have to do it quickly, and they need to do it reliably. It's that surety that keeps good vendors engaged with a marketplace and customers coming back, time and again.

So a payment gateway in this context is much more than a means of moving monies between different currencies. Keeping the fly-by-night characters out of the ecosystem and ensuring swift and reliable money transfers are the tasks of our guests today, Payoneer.

It's a name behind many gig economy sites, retail marketplaces, and online entities disrupting and changing markets worldwide.

The company behind this business model has to establish trust among the disparate players: customers have to trust the site, and sellers need to establish trust in the integrity of their customers. The basis of all this is reliable, fast, and secure systems that give value to all participants.

Our guest from Payoneer is Eran Tal, the Enterprise Sales Director EMEA. We talk about new business models created by smart tech, how monies can be moved quicker than the oddly-named SWIFT system, and why a banking presence on the ground solves 80% of finance problems when trading internationally at scale.

Eran Tal is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/taleran/

The Payoneer site is here:
https://www.payoneer.com/enterprise/

And Joe Green, the host of the show, can be found here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

Retail businesses involve a great deal more today than setting up premises and organizing wholesalers. The technology needed to run an omnichannel retail outfit has to be secure, powerful, reliable, and most of all, focused on quality customer experiences.

With shoppers today used to the "big label" quality of experience, smaller companies are facing significant challenges to raise their own standards to turn shoppers into brand advocates.

A company with a broad range of retail operations solutions is Wipro, a company whose AUS/NZ division we've featured before on the Tech Means Business podcast. Today we talk to Prabhu Ramaiah and Darren Gerry, the Director & Head of Retail, and UK and Europe Lead for Wipro Digital Interactive, respectively.

How can a retailer today scale and digitize without breaking the bank? And where to start? We talk solutions, industry trends, common and not-so-common approaches to the business of selling, and about the common pitfalls that await the unwary.

On the way, we talk about the D2C challenges faced by big brands, and the types of technologies that can drive change for the better in a retail business.

Learn more about Wipro's offerings for retail outfits of any size here:
https://www.wipro.com/retail/

Wipro’s “How Retailers and Brands Drive Revenue and Growth with Cloud” report is here:
https://www.wipro.com/retail/cloud-leader-roadmap-retail-consumer-goods/

Prabhu Ramaiah's LinkedIn is here:
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/prabhu-ramaiah-8328b06

Darren Gerry’s LinkedIn is here:
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/darrengerry

Joe Green’s LinkedIn is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

This podcast is produced in conjunction with BeyondTrust.

Many of the security tools we use to protect ourselves and our organizations came into existence at a time before "the cloud" was a thing and certainly before hybrid working practices. Can we use the same tools in a different way, or do we need a new toolset? Or a whole new approach?

These questions and more are the subjects for discussion on the Tech Means Business podcast with our guest, Morey Haber, the Chief Security Officer at BeyondTrust. We talk about zero-trust, privileges and access policies, geofencing, and cloud privilege brokering.

Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management is a catchall term that covers policy-based access, identity management, privileged access, and much more – the full toolkit and approach that organizations migrating to the cloud need to protect themselves and their employees.

Continuous validation needn't mean re-authenticating every time we switch to a different application or service, yet it's still the way many cybersecurity teams think. Listen in to discover how new security methods protect better and empower users to work more efficiently.

The NIST Whitepaper on Zero-Trust is here: [PDF]
https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-207.pdf

BeyondTrust's information can be found here:
~https://www.beyondtrust.com/

Morey Haber's books are available here:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Morey-J.-Haber/author/B078HDPHSN

Morey himself is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjhaber

Your host, Joe Green, appears courtesy of LinkedIn here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

Every piece of malware, every phishing email, reaches its potential victim via the network, the means by which the organization communicates internally and with the outside world. So who better to protect the company than the people who install and specialize in communications networks?

That's the premise of this episode of the Tech Means Business podcast when we're joined by Jonathan Magnell from Consolidated Communications, where he's the Director of Enterprise Solution Engineering for the Western Region.

For many years, Consolidated Communications has been designing and managing communications for companies in America. It was one of the first to offer VOIP at a time when copper cables and analog comms were the norm. Now it bakes cybersecurity at the network level into communications systems for its many clients, old and new.

When we understand how networks work, we get a better understanding of how malware and ransomware work, too, and Jonathan's background as a systems administrator gave him just that knowledge. It's expertise he shares with Consolidated's clients and with us at the Tech Means Business podcast.

Using high-end industry tooling, Consolidated Communications' cybersecurity offering makes protection an integral part of all types of networked systems for devices, voice, and digital commerce.

Read more about Consolidated Communications' security platform here:
https://www.consolidated.com/business/medium-enterprise/security-services

And more generally about the company:
https://www.consolidated.com/

Jonathan Magnell's profile is on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-magnell-58a5a8a1/

Joe Green's details via his ISDN line here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

The next generation of AI in the workplace is decision intelligence: the practical application of machine language in commercial settings. Applying AI in the workplace has, to date, being a slow process and one that involves a lot of resources. But that's all about to change.

Peak AI is the company that's driving decision intelligence in organizations, turning the typical 18 month wait between query and results into a matter of weeks or even days. Plus, there's no need to hire more data scientists and invest in ranks of super-expensive graphics processors.

The Peak AI offering is cloud-based, and while no ML solution is plug-and-play and operate-able by anyone, Peak AI's platform takes away the heavy lifting that's usually placed on data teams. In addition, it actively reduces the gap between the data science function (who may know little about business strategy) and pure-play business functions (who, in turn, know little about data analysis).

Peak AI's Decision Intelligence Index is drawn from its most recent survey of thousands of businesses that have begun an AI journey. We discuss the Index, the state of ML in the enterprise, and best ways forward to turn the "new oil" that's data into insights that will have positive impacts in the workplace.

Learn more about Peak AI here:
https://peak.ai/

Ira Dubinsky, Head of Go-To-Market Strategy at Peak AI is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iradubinsky/

Your host, Joe Green lives online here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

This podcast is produced in conjunction with DocuSign.

Many companies today are worried about the environmental impact their activities are having on the well-being of the planet. And every business cares about costs, too! So how come, years after the concept was first mooted, we're still not at a place where we all work in so-called paperless offices. Such a concept is clearly a win on both counts?

In this episode of the Tech Means Business podcast, we talk to DocuSign and one of the company's clients, BoardRoom, about the practicalities of moving from a paper-based workflow to one that's all-digital. Such an approach saves huge amounts of environmental costs (some of the statistics mentioned are truly alarming) but also speeds up the time taken to get complex agreements over the finishing line.

In addition to Iesha Berry and Andrea Dixon of DocuSign, we also host Tina Thomas of BoardRoom in this round table discussion that touches on every organisation's carbon footprint, and how it can and should be shrunk. From changing mindsets to implementing solutions, you'll hear how even small businesses can make big differences to the fate of Planet Earth, save valuable resources, and drive efficiencies with a truly paperless agreement workflow,

Start taking steps on this important journey by visiting here:
https://www.docusign.com.au

The BoardRoom ecologically-sound service is here:
https://www.boardroomlimited.com/

Iesha Berry, Chief Diversity and Engagement Officer and Head of People Experience at DocuSign is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iesha-o-deneal-berry-22a36a2/

Andrea Dixon, Senior Director of Marketing for APJ at DocuSign is here on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreacdixon/

Tina Thomas, Head of ESG at BoardRoom is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinasarathomas

Your host for the round table is Joe Green, who's found here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

From a background in software programming, today's guest Sydney-based Leon Friend specialised in cyber security, landing at ConnectWise a few years ago. Keen listeners will know the company from a previous episode of the Tech Means Business podcast: ConnectWise’s local remit is to help ANZ's MSPs (managed service providers) protect their many clients from the dangers that lurk on the internet in the form of hackers, bots and malware like ransomware.

We talk about whether MSPs are best-placed to be the cybersecurity experts the market needs (after all, they get plenty of experience working in multiple verticals) and what the differences are between cybersecurity tools designed for MSPs and most others conceived with only one organisation in mind.

"The biggest challenge is education," Leon says, and it's a challenge managed service providers have to take head-on, taking their clients on the journey to better working practices. One of ConnectWise's capabilities is to give MSPs the tools and the materials they'll need to pass on – after all, most companies haven't grown up as cybersecurity experts. Most are, Leon says, "mom & pop shops that have grown from being good at fixing people's computers."

With the numbers of ransomware cases on the steep increase (not just in Australia and New Zealand) alongside similar rises in the costs of those attacks, getting cybersecurity right is absolutely paramount, whether or not you run, work in, or are a client of an MSP.

The State of SMB Cybersecurity Report 2022 is available here:
https://www.connectwise.com/resources/smb-research-2022

More information at ConnectWise's website here:
https://www.connectwise.com/

Leon Friend on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonfriend/

Joe Green's LinkedIn profile is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

This podcast is produced in conjunction with AppDynamics.

The full IT stack has become highly complex in recent years, and parsing logfiles and relying on the nmaps of this world just don't cut it any more. Getting full visibility into everything that's going on everywhere (including use of cloud services) is a tall order, especially when finding sys admins and cybersecurity pros with the required skills is getting…expensive.

Our guest on the Tech Means Business podcast, Abhilash Purushothaman talks about how the AppDynamics platform not only gives 100% visibility down to the packet level, but also quantifies what it sees with reference to expected performance. That's the sort of insight that helps companies see where their customers' experiences are less than perfect.

We discuss prioritizing those findings in terms of what the business needs, rather than forcing overworked IT staff to jump at every red flag. That puts the IT team's focus on maintaining the quality of service that end-users demand, and, as Abhi puts it, stops a slow system being today's equivalent of a down system.

The platform also pulls metrics from an organization's competitors' offerings, so any application or service can be judged against those alternatives to your offerings that are – unfortunately, perhaps – just a screen tap away.

Full stack obervability just got its business mojo!

Check out the options from AppDynamics, including the new AppDynamics Cloud:
https://www.appdynamics.com/
https://www.appdynamics.com/product/infrastructure-monitoring/cloud-monitoring

Abhi Purushothaman on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhivp

Your host, Joe Green is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/