How To Build A Business Case For Endpoint Security

Bottom Line: Endpoint security business cases do much more than just quantify costs and benefits; they uncover gaps in endpoint and cyber protection that need urgent attention to avert a breach.

Bad actors and hackers prefer to attack threat surfaces that are isolated, vulnerable with out-of-date security patches, yet integrated into a corporate network to provide access. For these reasons and more, endpoints are now the popular choice for hacking attempts. Ponemon Institute’s Third Annual Study on the State of Endpoint Security Risk published in January of this year found that 68% of organizations were victims of successful endpoint attacks in 2019 that compromised data assets and IT infrastructure. Since 2017, successful endpoint attacks have spiked by 26 percent. The Ponemon study also found that it takes the typical organization 97 days to test and deploy patches to each endpoint. When the average endpoint is three months behind on updates, it’s understandable why breaches are increasing. In 2019 the average endpoint breach inflicted $8.94M in losses. The following graphic compares the escalating number of breaches and economic losses for the last three years:

How To Build A Business Case For Endpoint Security image figure 1

Exploring Endpoint Security’s Many Benefits

Think of building a business case for endpoint security as the checkup every company needs to examine and identify and every threat surface that can be improved. Just as all efforts to preserve every person’s health is priceless today, organizations can’t let their guard down when it comes to keeping endpoint security strong.

The economic fallout of COVID-19 is hitting IT budgets hard. That’s why now is the time to build a business case for endpoint security. CIOs and CISOs have to make budget cuts due to revenue shortfalls. One area no one wants to compromise on, however, is allowing endpoint agents to degrade over time. Absolute Software’s Endpoint Security Trends Report found that the more complex and layered the endpoint protection, the greater the risk of a breach. Overloading every endpoint with multiple agents is counterproductive and leaves endpoints less secure than if fewer agents were installed. Additionally, Absolute just launched a Remote Work and Distance Learning Insights Center, providing insights into the impact of COVID-19 on IT and security controls. An example of the dashboard shown below:

How To Build A Business Case For Endpoint Security image figure 2

Business Case Benefits Need To Apply To IT and Operations

Absolute and Ponemon’s studies suggest that autonomous endpoints are the future of endpoint security. Activating security at the endpoint and having an undeletable tether to every device solves many of the challenges every business’s IT and Operations teams face. And with the urgency to make IT and Operations as virtual as possible with budgets impacted by COVID-19’s economic fallout, team leaders in each area are focusing on the following shared challenges. COVID-19’s quarantine requirements make hybrid workforces instantly appear and make the budgets needed to support them vanish at the same time. The following are the shared benefits for IT and Operations that need to anchor any endpoint security business case:

The most urgent need is for greater IT Help Desk efficiency. While this is primarily an IT metric, the lack of real-time availability of resources is slowing down remote Operations teams from getting their work done.
Both IT and Operations share asset utilization, loss reduction, and lifecycle optimization ownership in many organizations today. Having a persistent, undeletable tether to every device at the hardware level is proving to be an effective approach IT, and Operations teams are relying on to track and improve these metrics. The Absolute and Ponemon studies suggest that the more resilient the endpoint, the better the asset efficiency and lifecycle optimization. Autonomous endpoints can self-heal and regenerate themselves, further improving shared metric performance for IT and Operations.
The more autonomous endpoints an organization has, the quicker Operations and IT can work together to pivot into new business models that require virtual operations. Education, Healthcare, Financial Services, Government, and Professional Services are all moving to hybrid remote workplaces and virtual operations as fast as they can. Using the business case for endpoint security as a roadmap to see where threat surfaces need to be improved for new growth is key.

Endpoint Security Benefits

The following are the benefits that need to be included in creating a business case for endpoint security:

Reduce and eventually eliminate IT Help Desk backlogs by keeping endpoints up-to-date. Reducing the call volume on IT Help Desks can potentially save over $45K a year, assuming a typical call takes 10 minutes and the cumulative time savings in 1,260 hours saved by the IT help desk annually.
Reduce Security Operations staff interruptions and emergency security projects that require IT’s time to run analytics reports and analyses. Solving complex endpoint security problems burns thousands of dollars and hours over a year between Security, IT, and Operations. Having a persistent, unbreakable connection to every endpoint provides the device visibility teams need to troubleshoot problems. Assuming the 2,520 hours IT Security teams alone spend on emergency endpoint security problems could be reduced, organizations could save approximately $130K a year.
Autonomous endpoints with an undeletable tether improve compliance, control, and visibility and is a must-have in the new hybrid remote workplace. For endpoint security to scale across every threat surface, having an undeletable tether to every device is a must-have for scalable remote work and hybrid remote work programs in the enterprise. They also contribute to lowering compliance costs and improve every aspect of asset management from keeping applications current to ensuring autonomous endpoints can continue to self-heal.
Reducing IT asset loss, knowing asset utilization, and system-level software installed by every device can save a typical organization over $300K a year. Autonomous endpoints that can heal themselves and provide a constant hardware connection deliver the data in real-time to have accurate IT asset management and security data teams need to keep software configurations up to date. It’s invaluable for IT teams to have this level of data, as it averts having endpoint patches conflict with one another and leave an endpoint vulnerable to breach.
Accurate asset lifecycle planning based on solid data from every device becomes possible. Having autonomous endpoints based on a hardware connection delivers the data needed to increase the accuracy of asset life cycle planning and resource allocation, giving IT and Operations the visibility they need to the device level. IT and Operations teams look to see how they can extend the lifecycle of every device in the field. Cost savings vary by the number of devices in the field and their specific software configurations. The time savings alone is approximately $140K per year in a mid-size financial services firm.
The more autonomous and connected an endpoint is, the more automated audit and compliance reporting can become. A key part of staying in compliance is automating the audit process to save valuable time. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) all require ongoing audits. The time and cost savings of automating audits by organizations vary significantly. It’s a reasonable assumption to budget at least a $67K savings per year in audit preparation costs alone.

Evaluating Endpoint Security Costs

The following are the endpoint security costs that need to be included in the business case:

Annual, often multi-year endpoint security licensing costs. Endpoint security providers vary significantly in their pricing models, costs, and fees. Autonomous endpoint security platforms can range in licensing costs from $750K to over $1,2M, depending on the size of the organization and the number of devices.
Change management, implementation, and integration costs increase with the complexity of IT security, Operations, and IT Service Management (ITSM) integration. Expect to see an average price of between $40K to over $100K to integrate endpoint security platforms with existing ITSM and security information and event management (SIEM) systems.

Creating A Compelling Business Case For Endpoint Security

The best endpoint security business cases provide a 360-degree view of costs, benefits, and why taking action now is needed.

Knowing the initial software and services costs to acquire and integrate endpoint security across your organization, training and change management costs, and ongoing support costs are essential. Many include the following equation in their business cases to provide an ROI estimate. The Return on Investment (ROI) for endpoint security initiative is calculated as follows:

ROI on Endpoint Security (ES) = (ES Initiative Benefits – ES Initiative Costs)/ES Initiative Costs x 100.

A financial services company recently calculated their annual benefits of ES initiative will be $475,000, and the costs, $65,000, will yield a net return of $6.30 for every $1 invested.

Additional factors to keep in mind when building a business case for endpoint security:

The penalties for non-compliance to industry-specific laws can be quite steep, with repeated offenses leading to $1M or more in fines and long-term loss of customer trust and revenue. Building a business case for endpoint security needs to factor in the potential non-compliance fees, and penalties companies face for not having autonomous endpoint security. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other laws require audit reporting based on accurate endpoint security data.
Endpoint Security ROI estimates fluctuate, and it’s best to get started with a pilot to capture live data with budgets available at the end of a quarter. Typically organizations will allocate the remaining amounts of IT security budgets at the end of a quarter to endpoint security initiatives.
Succinctly define the benefits and costs and gain C-level support to streamline the funding process. It’s often the CISOs who are the most driven to achieve greater endpoint security the quickest they can. Today with every business having their entire workforces virtual, there’s added urgency to get endpoint security accomplished.
Define and measure endpoint security initiatives’ progress using a digitally-enabled dashboard that can be shared across any device, anytime. Enabling everyone supporting and involved in endpoint security initiatives needs to know what success looks like. Having a digitally-enabled dashboard that clearly shows each goal or objective and the company’s progress toward them is critical to success.

Conclusion

The hard economic reset COVID-19 created has put many IT budgets into freefall at a time when CIOs and CISOs need more funding to protect proliferating hybrid remote workforces. Endpoint security business cases need to factor in how they can create an undeletable resilient defense for every device across their global fleets. And just as every nation on the planet isn’t letting its guard down against the COVID-19 virus, every IT and cybersecurity team can’t let theirs down either when it comes to protecting every endpoint.

Autonomous endpoints that can self-heal and regenerate operating systems and configurations are the future of endpoint security management. The race to be an entirely virtual enterprise is on, and the most autonomous endpoints can be, the more cost-effective and valuable they are. The best business cases bridge the gap between IT and Operations needs. CIOs need endpoint security solutions to be low-cost, low maintenance, reliable yet agile. Operations want an endpoint solution that has a low cost of support, minimal if any impact of IT Service Help Desks, and always-on monitoring. Building a business case for endpoint security gives IT and Operations the insights they need to protect the constantly changing parameters of their businesses.

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Enterprise Irregulars is sponsored by Salesforce and Zoho.

14. August 2020

News Analysis: Apple Brings New Post Pandemic Solutions To Remote Learning

K-12 Education Market Faces New Requirements

The latest CDC guidelines highlight the major challenges administrators and educators have for reopening schools. The general principle – the more interactions, the longer interactions, the higher the risk of #COVID-19 spread.

The CDC states that the risk of COVID-19 spread increases in school settings as follows:

Lowest Risk: Students and teachers engage in virtual-only classes, activities, and events.

More Risk: Small, in-person classes, activities, and events. Groups of students stay together and with the same teacher throughout/across school days and groups do not mix. Students remain at least 6 feet apart and do not share objects (e.g., hybrid virtual and in-person class structures, or staggered/rotated scheduling to accommodate smaller class sizes).

Highest Risk: Full sized, in-person classes, activities, and events. Students are not spaced apart, share classroom materials or supplies, and mix between classes and activities.

As a result, the following five trends are expected in the classroom and will require different tools, approaches, and cultural shifts:

Apple’s Spring 2020 Education Updates Address Post Pandemic Learning

Apple’s provided a broad base of educator tools over the years through the new Schoolwork 2.0, Collaboration, Shared iPad, Assessment Mode, and Classroom (see Figure 1)

Figure 1. Apple Provides a Broad Base of Educator Tools for K-12

Source: Apple, Inc.

The latest updates to its Spring 2020 Education line up include:

Schoolwork is an iPad app that gives teachers and students the ability to support remote learning and classroom environments (see Figure 2). Released May 2020, the latest version of Schoolwork 2.0 improve the ability to share content with students, put key apps to use, track student progress, personalize coursework and instruction to student needs, and deliver instant feedback and collaboration tools. Students can check assignments on their iPad devices by class and due date. Teachers can check in to see how students are doing. Coursework, handouts, and assignments can be managed. Teacher workflows can be optimized.

Figure 2. Inside Apple’s New Schoolwork

Source: Apple, Inc.

Figure 4. Classroom Provides Real Time Views

Source: Apple, Inc.

In addition, Apple has had a number of tools to improve student engagement such as:

Figure 5. Froggipedia – Using AR to Study A Frog’s Anatomy

The post pandemic learning environment can benefit from new tools and techniques to help educators in the classroom. Apple’s latest offerings bring the ease of use and user experience Apple’s known for with the much needed technology to improve the creation of curriculum, management of teacher workflows, and student engagement required in hybrid classroom modalities. The push to remote learning and the need to switch modalities require key technology tools and a community network to share ideas. Constellation recommends that K-12 educators, administrators, and technology teams consider Apple’s offering in vendor selection short lists.

Your POV

Are you an educator working on remote learning? Are you using Apple’s K-12 capabilitieas? Will you be ready to handle the coronavirus and other pandemics? Ready to build your post pandemic playbook? Let me know, we can help! Add your comments to the blog or reach me via email: R (at) ConstellationR (dot) com or R (at) SoftwareInsider (dot) org.

14. August 2020

Emotions at Work

Very interesting question early in the morning today from a younger colleague – “How do you keep away emotions from work ?” . I thought it is worth expanding on the point of view I explained to her on the phone.

I have often been told that we should not be emotional and instead we should be objective at work. That is rarely possible in real life in most scenarios – at least for me. So the closest to a good option in my mind is to manage these emotions as a “portfolio” so that I can survive and thrive without unnatural tactics. Before you ask me (since my colleague asked me today morning) – I will tell you that I do not practice breathing exercises or Yoga or chanting . Those are all probably good things to do – just that I have no first hand thoughts to offer.

So here we go .

Fear ,Anger and Courage are the ones that we need to confront the most given the consequences can be terrible. I feel both at times – and the way I control it is by thinking of the worst case. Am I going to lose a deal ? Lose a talented colleague from my team ? Can I fix this now or later? etc. Almost every single time I realize that the worst case is something I can mitigate. That is how I channelize these two emotions – I often convert them to courage to act.

Sadness and Joy – I do not hide Joy. When I am happy people know it. When I am sad – which is not often – people close to me can read it. On work, I feel sad most often when someone who should know better does a less than stellar job. I feel sad more often than I feel angry. And generally when the person realizes it – it helps them course correct.

Disgust , Surprise and Anticipation – Thankfully there are only two or three incidents in my entire career where I was truly disgusted. It just taught me to not work with certain kind of people. Surprise is actually a beautiful feeling in personal life – but unfortunately I am wired in a way that I do everything to avoid surprises at work. I try hard to not surprise anyone myself. I am not sure if this is good or bad – but the dislike for surprises is something I have to live with. I do a lot of anticipation – in the form of plan A/B/C . It is an intellectual pursuit that makes me feel good most of the time.

Trust and Respect – This is the ideal state of operation in my mind. Being liked at work or being feared at work are both long term problems for a leader. Obviously between the two – being liked is the pleasant and easier alternative . The world of business is not fair and often involves decisions that are hard on the people taking those and communicating it to others. If your objective is to be liked – you will be miserable when a hard decision needs to be taken, and others will feel a big let down. If you operate with fear as primary tactic – you will never have a motivated team. So the only real option is to aim for trust and respect as your operating parameters and help everyone get to a frame of mind that you will be fair in all cases.

Kindness and cruelty – This is pretty black and white . I heavily favor kindness. But there is a certain difficulty in how you execute on it. For example – let us say there is a colleague who cannot seem to operate at the next level to earn his promotion. The kind thing to do is to give him a chance to improve and then if he does not – tell him where he stands including the potential of leaving your team. The cruel thing is to tell him he is doing well and then fire him arbitrarily. Telling him that he is doing well when he is not – that falls under cruelty and not kindness in most cases. It is a thin line for a leader to traverse. I cannot say I have mastered it fully.

Shame, Pity and Envy – I do feel shame especially when I make mistakes repeatedly when I should learn and do better. I used to pity myself and feel envy for others – for a long time. That stopped after I got a better perspective from my mentors. There are always going to be some people who are better than you , were luckier than you etc and you are never going to be totally honest about evaluating yourself objectively. Once you make peace with that – Pity and Envy vanishes. It took me a long time to get there and I have had a few lapses – but generally I think I know when to catch myself these days and reorient my thinking.

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14. August 2020

Diversity & The Future of Work — We Can No Longer Sit on the Sidelines!

Over the last 48 hours, I have watched technology CEOs, industry executives, and leading VC firms voice their outrage by the killing of George Floyd and decry racism in America. Many of their companies have made official statements and even provided financial support towards nonprofits supporting racial injustice.

I admire their efforts but frankly I think they can, and should, be doing even more to go beyond the platitudes and philanthropic donations to create more impactful change. As leaders of people and organizations, those same executives can stand up to racism by the examples they create in their own companies. I’m encourage by CEOs like Ken Frazier, Merck CEO, who spoke eloquently yesterday on CNBC about equality and companies opportunity to create change. He leads by example!

As someone who has worked with HR leaders for nearly 2 decades, I encourage all companies to make a stand through your actions. Here is a small list of 10 things you can do today!

1. Define your diversity ethos. What do you stand for? How do you think about inclusion and enable ALL employees to create economic opportunity? Companies should use their resources like the company’s website or social media platforms to make a statement.

Inclusion & Diversity

2. Assign an executive responsible for diversity, inclusion & belonging. This person should be closely aligned with the executive team. Salesforce.com led the way a few years ago but creating a new role, Chief Equality Officer, that reports directly to CEO Marc Benioff.

Salesforce Names First Chief Equality Officer Tony Prophet

3. Make all promotions & compensation structures equal. Mellody Hobson suggests we set targets and create incentives for change. In her words, “you get what you incent.” SHRM has some great content on Managing Pay Equity.

4. Create mentorship programs that connect underprivileged employees with executives. Slack has developed a program called “Rising Tides”, a six-month sponsorship program to develop diverse emerging leaders.

5. Set a standard and goals for recruiting diversity. If the NFL can do it with The Rooney Rule, you can too!

Rooney Rule

6. Make diversity training and unconscious bias education mandatory. Linkedin Learning has 2 dozen courses on diversity and inclusion including a fantastic course by Pat Wadors, Chief Talent Officer at ServiceNow.

diversity inclusion and belonging: Online Courses, Training and Tutorials on LinkedIn Learning

7. Encourage employee resource groups with executive sponsorship support. ERGs have the ability to empower employee voices and socialize topics of inclusion. Just today, Airbnb published an “Activism and Allyship Guide” published by the Black Employee Resource Group.

https://medium.com/media/f40582975d4c3eb2b5045d071471b558/href

8. Share your progress. You can’t change what you don’t measure. I admire companies like Slack, ServiceNow and Atlassian that transparently show their diversity metrics and progress over time.

Diversity at Slack – Several People Are Typing

9. Create a diversity scorecard and measure frequently. Give your leaders the tools to make change. Salesforce.com provides a monthly diversity scorecard for all leaders that manage teams over 500 employees.

How a Diversity Scorecard Helps Salesforce Keep Equality Top of Mind for Its Leaders

10. Build a diverse executive team and board of directors. Nothing is more annoying that watching a company decry racism…

…and then showcase a lack of diversity within their executive team and board of directors.

Box Leadership: Executive Team and Board of Directors

No company is perfect but, in this moment, business leaders must take a stand. We all have an opportunity to create long-lasting change now!

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14. August 2020

It’s all about the data

We have heard from many analysts that this is HR’s moment to shine. For HRTECH vendors too, this is an opportunity to prove that their stuff really works. eLearning consumption is way up, for instance, as is use of survey tools. Processes like Kurzarbeit in Germany and furloughing in the UK mean that flexible and well configured payroll and time management systems show their value. Organizations that have their administrative processes well organized are far more agile and flexible when it really matters.

I worry though, when the desire to ‘innovate’ exceeds the quality of the data that the organization has about their employees and workers. Let’s start with some basic ones.

You would like to provide specific guidance to all line managers that manage contractors in their departments.
You have decided that independent contractors that have worked at least 20 hours a month for more than six months before the plant shut down will receive a hardship payment.
You would like your contractors to watch a new health and safety video before they return to work, and formally confirm that they have watched it.
You wish to model out alternative transport options for employees and contractors to get them to work when your main plant re-opens next week.
You would like to send several non-medical masks to all your workforce at home, so that when they return to the office it is easier for them follow safe guidelines.
You would like to send a gift to your retired employees.

Before you start, check if you actually have an up to date home address that you can actually post something to for all your workers. The sad fact is that many organizations don’t. No amount of fancy technology will help if your core master data is shoddy. Do you even know who your independent contractors are?

Some of those same organizations that can’t track home addresses think that they can predict workforce churn through some AI magic, or worse, track and predict covid exposure in the workforce.

If the postal code is on-premise and wrong, it is wrong. If the postal code is in the cloud, and wrong, it is still wrong.

Before you post stuff to the wrong John Smith, insist on an accuracy audit of your core HR data, pull a 100 or so random records and have them checked (bearing in mind GDPR etc). But start closer to home, and look at your own record. If your own key 30-40 data items aren’t spot on, it is very unlikely anyone else’s would be. If you haven’t watched the health and safety video yourself, it would be tough to expect your workforce to be held to a higher standard.

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Enterprise Irregulars is sponsored by Salesforce and Zoho.

14. August 2020

New Normal: A conversation with Aneel Bhusri, CEO of Workday

I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the “New normal” they can expect as the economy wakes up.

This time it is Aneel Bhusri, CEO of Workday.

He talks about leadership during this crisis and likely changes in executive suites as healthcare becomes a major market opportunity and bigger HR challenge for every entity. He talks about conversations with fellow leaders on how best to re-open work places as the economy wakes up. He describes acrobatics in his customer base like running a million-person payroll and financial closes with nobody in the office. He also describes how cloud applications have scaled very well during the crisis and easily supported work-from-home efforts of customers.

Aneel is one of the nicest guys in the industry and while he credits his mentor and co-founder, Dave Duffield for that trait, his calmness comes across throughout the recording. Workday has done backflips for its employees and customers during the crisis – he describes some of each.

There is a definite feel-good, “be kind to each other”, “have fun” vibe during the conversation. It is a small detail in the conversation, but I particularly appreciated his generosity with the Zoom background of Giorgio’s Pizzeria, one of his favorite comfort-food places and his hope they survive the crisis.

I could almost hear ‘Peaceful, easy feeling” by the Eagles playing as I was talking to him. Enjoy.

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14. August 2020

Pandemic, Future of Work & the Current Fundraising Environment

As a data-driven investor, we constantly track data. Fundraising data. Market data. Economic data. Over the last month, one question persists —how will COVID-19 affect venture capital fundraising particularly in the Future of Work?

We decided to look at our data to understand VC fundraising over the last month and compare last month’s data with the same period last year. We also wanted to analyze a full year of data to compare year-over-year trends. The early indications suggest the fundraising environment has NOT changed as a result of the pandemic. In fact, as you see the data below, if you compare fundraising in Future of Work companies in April 2019 vs. April 2020, it was actually up 40% year over year.

Please keep in mind a few considerations. First, the data is based on actual fundraising announcements so there may be a lagging affect from when the actual investments were made. Nonetheless, we believe a few things are happening…

In the “follow the herd” mentality of Silicon Valley, remote work has become a broad-based theme across all stages of investors.
Highly competitive deals will still get funded quickly with little-to-no impact on timing or valuations.
The large household names — those that have raised outsized funds over the last 2 years — are taking advantage of the uncertainty and being very opportunistic to land deals previously not in market.

That said, we also believe…

Deals are still getting done but a “reset” is just starting to happen that will have a lagging effect on venture fundraising later this year.
Valuations are increasingly being scrutinized and deals will inevitable take more time to close with increased dilution for entrepreneurs.
Investor will be going to the edges, either early seed and later stage. We foresee many companies at risk in the mid-stages as a result of the “frothy” fundraising environment of the last few years. Many companies are “at risk” as a result of high burn rates, high valuations, increased concerns on churn, and stalled net new bookings.

I had a chance to share notes ideas with some fantastic investors focused on the future of work including Roy Bahat (Bloomberg Beta), Kara Nortman (Upfront Ventures), Naomi Ionita (Menlo Ventures), and Lan Xuezhao (Basis Set Ventures). I encourage you to watch a replay of the discussion (coming shortly). Even though I broke Roy’s “no predictions” format, it was a great discussion with wide-ranging topics on remote work, the impact of government, and the future of “shareholder capitalism”.

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Enterprise Irregulars is sponsored by Salesforce and Zoho.

14. August 2020

News Analysis: Salesforce Commerce Cloud Quick Start Addresses Post Pandemic Requirements

Matrix Commerce analyzes the disruptive pressures influencing the commerce paradigm. Commerce faces rapidly changing business models and new payment options that are often misunderstood and poorly integrated.

Matrix commerce (TM) means the fusing of demand signals and supply chains in an increasingly complex world where buyers seek frictionless buying experiences. Friction in this new world originates from new regulatory requirements such as sustainability, taxation, and privacy.

As commerce continues to evolve around buyer preferences, channels, demand signals, supply chains, payment options, enablers, and big data will converge to create Matrix Commerce. Matrix Commerce spans across disciplines as people, process, and technologies continue to transform today’s commerce models.

Constellation has seen significant push for direct to customer, contactless commerce, buy online pick up curbside, digitization of channels, subscription and services ready, and automation and AI enablement. Conversations with matrix commerce business and technology leaders have led to 12 key trends in the post pandemic world:

14. August 2020

New Normal: A conversation with Tamas Hevizi of Automation Anywhere

This time it is Tamas Hevizi, Global Head of Private Equity at Automation Anywhere. He covers three very timely topics.

How bots, ML and other automation are helping with the massive volumes we are seeing during the COVID-19 crisis at banks processing emergency loans, the healthcare system handling tests, state unemployment offices handling applications and many more scenarios.

Using his long experience at SAP at Value Realization, he provides commentary on how to justify value from technology in a recessionary market.

Finally, he talks about the Private Equity market he has been part of for much of his career – how it has evolved in the last decade and how it is likely to change during this period.

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Enterprise Irregulars is sponsored by Salesforce and Zoho.

14. August 2020

New Normal: An inspirational talk with Ray Lane

This time it is Ray Lane who has had a remarkable career as exec at Oracle, Booz Allen and EDS, in board roles at HP and Carnegie-Mellon U, as investor at the iconic VC firm, Kleiner Perkins and now with his fund, GreatPoint Ventures. And I am just scratching the surface of other stuff he has done over his career. In the video below, we talk about leadership and acrobatics during this crisis, global trends and re-opening the US economy.

Listen to what he says because he is so generous.

He is generous to entrepreneurs. He says he likes to invest in the “jockey, not the horse”. When I asked him about acrobatics he has seen during this crisis he pointed to the CEO of one of his portfolio companies, Farmer’s Fridge. They sell fresh salads and snacks via kiosks in corporate cafeterias and airports. That market evaporated as travel dropped to near zero and everyone started working at home. The CEO could have furloughed most of his employees. Instead he started delivering food to hospitals and schools, which have struggled to find wholesome food as their cafeterias and meal services have shut down. The revenues are back to near prior peak. He also talked about Beyond Meat which is picking up on shortages in the meat supply chain.

He is generous to his partners – calls them operators. They certainly have that serial startup experience. He modestly calls himself a slouch in comparison. Actually, he is a Polymath – he mentions in passing the dinners with his family during the quarantine. He does not mention he is an accomplished fisherman and hunter, and could fend for his family anywhere, anytime.

He has been very generous to me over the years. The start of our relationship was rocky. I was a Gartner analyst, he was an Oracle executive. That pair, even in today’s world, is not cuddly to each other. But he saw beyond that and has made time for me often, for my books, or just to have a glass of wine every once in a while.

Listen to him because he is positive

While many of us have been miserable during the quarantine, and he is empathetic to those who have to manage young kids while trying to work from home, he talks about how much more productive he is on his Zoom board calls, in his recruiting and his meetings. He talks about having much more time for family and dogs. As he says, “what we are experiencing today, I hope that we can make 50% of it permanent”

He talks plenty about leadership traits he has used effectively over his career and what he looks for in his entrepreneurs. He talks about the big markets in IT and in wellness that he continues to be excited about and invests in. GreatPoint’s slogan on its website is “Make no little plans”

Listen to him because he is a patriot

When I asked him about global trends and politics around the pandemic, he invoked the US dependence on foreign oil in the early 2000s, and how domestic horizontal drilling changed that. I had written about his cleantech portfolio at Kleiner Perkins in The New Polymath. His investments would have done far better if oil and gas prices had stayed high. But fracking delivered energy independence to the US over the last decade. And he believes we can do the same with our other global supply chains now with similar innovations. He says funds which raise money this year and next will likely be the best performing this decade. You should hear his reasoning.

Ray ends the session with a timely message:

“..look if we are going up the open up our economy again the responsibility now transfers from the government to us…Get out …get back to work… bring all of these great technologies that we have seen during the COVID crisis ..bring them forward. I think you can operate in the month of May being socially responsible but let’s get the economy going again.”

I have known Ray for a while and he is no fan of big government, but both in the video and the conversations prior, I could hear his respect for leadership of many state Governors and the President during this stressful time. In our political divisiveness, we likely won’t thank them much. But in the private sector, as he says, we do need to grab the baton and get us out of the mess we find ourselves in. With his investments in healthcare, he has access to some of the best medical resources in the world. When he supports the economy opening up, he is fully aware of the health risks and wants us to be smart. As he says, leadership is about tough decisions around risk and reward.

And by the way, most C level executives I have been interviewing around the country are all talking about similar prudent opening of their facilities. They will continue with work from home wherever possible. Where physical locations need to be open ensure distancing, temperature checks, enhanced hygiene routines.

My wife saw the video and said wow, he is energetic for someone in his 70s, and you in comparison look a little subdued. Truth be told, I am nursing a chipped front implant that cannot be looked at till Monday morning. I was afraid I would cause it more damage if I was more animated:) Seriously, though, even if I had been 100%, I would have been quiet out of respect for the man.

Enjoy.

New Normal: An inspirational talk with Ray Lane is copyrighted by Vinnie Mirchandani. If you are reading this outside your feed reader or email, you are likely witnessing illegal content theft.

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