Insights Success has nominated, “The 10 Most Disruptive Automation Companies to Watch, 2018" who are conventional industry leaders with dedicates automation solutions that helps industries to modernize its process globally.

1. www.insightssuccess.com
September 2018
www.insightssuccess.com
September 2018
An Innovative Opportunity to Revolutionize the American Economy
Digi Connection
Benefits of Blockchain in the
Making of Smarter Energy Grids
Tech Trend
People Analytics: A Magical
Crystal Ball for HR Fraternity
Chaney Ho
Co-founder &
Executive Director of Board
Disruptive
Automation
10The Most
Companies to Watch
2018

2. Omnichannel Agent
and Customer
Engagement Solutions
Simplify and personalize the customer experience,
empower agents and achieve business success
with one workspace for all channel interactions,
application integrations, and CX reporting.

4. Modernizing
Industrial
Era through
Automation
n the wake of industrial era, automation plays a vital role for revolutionizing industrial ages and
Imanufacturing methodology. Through automation process, manufacturing industries are mass-
producing their products by incurring lower costs and ensuring high quality. It has recently
notched up to push its limits from manufacturing operations with unified robotic tools which have
modernizes the functionality of an organization.
For instance, robotic solutions are used to automate an organization’s whole process and warehouse
functionality by detecting inventory movements with automated alerts for procurement that adjusts
new storage location. Robotic solutions are highly compatible, rapid and perform multiple repetitive
tasks which results into more productivity. The new-age robots are combined with lighter, flexible,
fast and can perform task on their own. Hence, today numerous organizations are making immense
use of this automation solution to oversight its business processes. For future developments, the
emphasis will be on harmonizing basic system structures, communications, and user-friendly man-
machine interfaces, and on providing the appropriate engineering tools for developing, configuring
and maintaining automation systems.
Hence, Insights Success has nominated, “The 10 Most Disruptive Automation Companies to
Watch, 2018" who are conventional industry leaders with dedicates automation solutions that helps
industries to modernize its process globally.
Our cover story features Advantech a US based leading brand in IoT intelligent systems, Industry
4.0, machine automation, embedded computing, embedded systems and many other core sectors

5. which are at the heart of the American economy. The firm’s corporate vision is – enabling an
intelligent planet and toward the US market which can bring manufacturing back to America
with the most advanced automation solutions in the world. Advantech uses a data-driven
architecture incorporated with cloud platform service technologies as its core to create the
WISE-PaaS industrial cloud platform.
The issue also features Aerotech, a global leader in the design and manufacture of the highest
performance motion controllers, positioning stages, and automation systems for its customers.
The company offers its products to many industries including government, science, and research
institutions around the world, PHOENIX CONTACT Middle East an established company in
Dubai under TECOM in 2008 and a part of a network of global sales subsidiaries and
distribution centers. The company’s reliable presence in the region brings its products and
expertise into closer proximity to its clients and partners in the Middle East and Northeast
Africa.
Yazzoom, a European company that leverages its expertise in advanced data analytics and
industrial process control to deliver immediate value to its customers by improving company
processes. The software, data science and engineering firm is specialized in advanced control
and artificial intelligence solutions for industrial applications, Franka Emika, a young high-
tech robotics company from Munich with a leading sensitive, easily programmable, learning-
capable, and named for light-weight robotic solutions. Based on this technology, Franka Emika
introduces the world’s first CE out of the box solutions for industrial applications and forms a
strategic partnership with the technology company ’Voith’.
Also, make sure to go through the articles, written by our in-house editorial team and CXO
standpoints of some of the leading industry experts to have a brief taste of the sector.
Happy reading!
Bhushan Kadam

6. Contents
Tech Outlook
The Evolution of Testing:
Unmatched Acceleration
with Fifth
Generation Automation
Advantech:
An Innovative Opportunity
to Revolutionize the
American Economy
16
26
08
46
Tech-Know Insights
Minimize Risk
of Digital
Transformation Failure
Tech Evolution
How VideoAmp Evolved The Company
Culture And Process To Increase The Number Of
Engineers EmployedBy Dave Gullo,
Co-Founder & CTO, VideoAmp
Cover Story

7. Digi Connection
Benets of Blockchain in
the making of Smarter
Energy Grids
Strengthening Industries
with Motion Control and
Automation Systems
Aerotech:
Empowering Electrical
and Industrial Automation
Technologies Globally
Phoenix Contact:
A Global Robotics
Revolution
Franka Emika:
Leveraging Industrial
Data
Yazzoom:
20 30
4236
Tech Trend
People Analytics: A magical
Crystal Ball for
HR Fraternity
Reforming Benchmarks
The Signicance of
an Effective
Marketing Strategy
38
32
24

9. sales@insightssuccess.com
Corporate Ofces:
September, 2018
Database Management Stella Andrew
Technology Consultant David Stokes
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Anish MillerManaging Editor
Jenny Fernandes
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Contributing Editors
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10. Chaney Ho
Co-founder &
Executive Director of Board

11. We are the leader in providing trusted
innovative embedded and automation
products and solutions.
“““““
“““““
0
The Most Disruptive
Automation
Companies to Watch 2018

12. an you tell us a bit about Advantech and its
Cvision for the future?
Advantech is a leading brand in IoT intelligent systems,
Industry 4.0, machine automation, embedded computing,
embedded systems and many other core sectors which are
at the heart of the American economy. Since our inception
we have believed in leading the world with innovation. Our
corporate vision is simple – Enabling an Intelligent Planet
and toward the US market we are keen is to bring
manufacturing back to America with the most advanced
automation solutions in the world.
It is unfortunate that today the US is no longer the
manufacturing powerhouse in the world that it used to be.
It is discovered that there are only 250,000 total
manufacturers in the US and the total manufacturers in
China today stand at 6 million and around 3 million are
based in Europe. McKinsey Global Institute recently
conducted research pointed out only 50% of US
manufacturers have adopted digitalization. This is really
unfortunate as the American manufacturers stand to gain
over 500 Billion dollars in revenues if they invest in the
future.
According to Mckinsey research there are signs of trouble
in current manufacturing are already here. For example, an
average service period of US factory is over 25 years.
Similarly, the average age of equipment is 9 years. Hence,
employees and equipment are a constant investment for
companies in an extremely competitive world of
manufacturing. We believe automation led by Industry 4.0
can become a golden bridge between manufacturing and
delivering world-class products.
How does Advantech go about implementing its vision?
With the advantages of Advantech devices and solutions,
we make it possible for companies all over the world to
realize the potential and revolution that is Industry 4.0. To
realize Industry 4.0, Advantech partners with its clients
through three strategic phases.
In the first phase of the implementation of equipment
connectivity: devices, machines, production lines and
factories are connected to a central system. Once this phase
is implemented, executives could be sitting in an Air-
conditioned company headquarter in Chicago and get real-
time efficiency update on each machine from their
manufacturing plant in India. So, in the first phase, we
provide data transparency as well as information
visualization which is central to connecting disjointed arms
of our client companies.
In the second phase, data collection and integration, as well
as value-added products and services are introduced for
smart manufacturing services. For example, we have
provided innovative automation solution for hospitals
wherein nurses can simply voice the name of a patient as a
code to open software locked medicine box to provide the
patient with accurate medicines on time.
The final phase of intelligent innovative services is the
enabling of intelligent machinery and big data analysis. In
this phase, companies would truly realize the power of
automation. Using the big data, companies can predict the
failure rate of machines, products and build a true factory in
the future which governs itself.
To reach these goals, Advantech enables network-connected
iFactories and iMachinery to boost the transformation of
smart manufacturing.
Could you talk briefly about one of your leading insight
and solutions regarding the future IIoT World?
According to Dr. Allan Yang, Advantech’s Chief
Technology Officer, IIoT solutions must be able to integrate
the collection of industrial equipment data based on a
variety of standards with edge device management, wireless
communication, and data analysis. Such solutions must also
integrate the creation of visually intuitive reports on cloud
platforms as well as the creation of AI models and their
integration with expert knowledge. Other key areas include
compliance with data storage location and management
regulations established by each country, corporate policy
and the construction of stringent and trustworthy platforms
and data security mechanisms. Since the professional
technologies and knowledge required must come from
different domains, the co-creation model is truly an
effective and mutually beneficial model for realizing
these outcomes.
Advantech uses a data-driven architecture incorporated with
cloud platform service technologies as its core to create the
We cooperate closely
with our partners to
help provide complete
solutions for a wide
array of applications
across a diverse range
of industries.
“
“

13. WISE-PaaS industrial cloud platform. The platform can
move across multiple clouds and it offers flexible
expansion, multitenancy, superior reliability, multiple
database services, AI model training and deployment
framework services, visualization services for dashboards,
and multi-level data security/management services. With
the WISE-PaaS platform providing a foundation, Advantech
and its co-creation partners will work together to rapidly
deploy a range of IIoT solutions. By merging with the
innovative industrial cloud service business model, the third
wave of the digital revolution has officially kicked off to
successfully transform our industries.
We are in the process of announcing the co-creation of IoT
Solution Ready Packages (SRPs) which involves co-
creating with various domestic and international companies.
Thirty sets of SRPs will be officially released this year. The
key to success lies within platform technology suppliers,
such as Advantech, as well as in working closely with
industry professionals to integrate and form standardized
and easily duplicated SRPs based on a combination of
software and hardware products. These SRPs can then be
installed by system integrators at the client site. Eventually,
IIoT industry chains will be formed as SRPs become
established as comprehensive field solutions.
What are your short-term business objectives?
We see an enormous opportunity to bring the American
economy back on track. For us ‘Make America great again’
is not just a slogan but we want to do everything we can to
bring manufacturing jobs and processes back to the country.
However, we also aren’t simply limited in our vision of
innovation by a single market. Our growth in America
has been phenomenal including the consecutive
robust growth we experienced last year and
the year before that. We also lead
innovation globally. Today, we have
over8,000 employees all over
the world and our sales are
also a reflection of our true
strength. We are a Taiwan
based company but only 7%
of our sales are from Taiwan.
We are in the top-league of
companies in North America,

14. however, we are relatively less known. Our biggest client
base is based in leading manufacturing countries and
continents on the globe including China and Europe.
How do your products help clients improve productivity
and efficiency?
We are leading in the field of automation If you are a
manufacturing company, you need to follow a few simple
steps to remain competitive in the manufacturing world
today.
The first step is automation – wherein you adapt the robot,
adapt the equipment, avail video inspection equipment and
this will help you to reduce manual resources.
The second step is to connect the machine to the cloud –
real-time manufacturing status. Every machine is costly but
by keeping track of machines, you can visualize the data.
The third step is using the sensors and technology to perfect
the final product. Data. These machines can help you
predict the future of your manufacturing potential.
We have implemented these steps in the manufacturing
facilities of several clients and in our own plants well. We
have documented proof that since 2016, our production
value has increased by 16.9% and it has reduced energy
consumption by 7.8%. Additionally, the innovative touch of
automation has helped us increase the machine utilization
in an average of 15%.
It is not difficult to understand why. Let’s say you have to
finish the 1,000 by tonight and you only have finished 200.
It informs the worker by a certain time and tells him to
speed up. We have two factories. One in Kunshan and one
in Taipei. Both our factories have become a world-class
manufacturing plant within a short time frame. In summary,
every machine costs anything between a million or ten so a
simple 6.7% is worth its weight in gold in real
manufacturing terms.
Where do you think the future of Automation is headed?
Because the technology is progressing day by day, in the
future holds tremendous potential. For the applications of
AI. In the future, we will be able to predict the failure time
of the machine, the failure rate of products, after delivery
and after consumption too. In the future, the IoT will help
manufacturers connect to consumers. Once you deliver a
machine, the customers will monitor the status of the
machine and this will increase the value of machine to your
consumers. With the integration of IoT, the machines will
become more responsive in themselves and valuable
as well.
We want to be at the forefront of this innovation when it
takes the world of manufacturing by storm. We are a
visionary company. Our vision is based on our insight into
the social, technology and science. Hence, we can position
ourselves at the forefront of the technical revolution. This is
also the reason why we have become a trusted partner of
our clients throughout our journey. We believe in delivering
results. We believe in benefitting our clients.
What motivates you to go on every day?
We started the company a long time back when we were
young and we have grown in maturity today. We as a team
of founders have worked very hard to create a value for our
customers and humankind alike. When we roll our sleeves
to work today, we ask ourselves ‘How can we help the US
manufacturing won the crown back?’. The answer is
simple. If America wants to bring iPhone, vehicle
manufacturing back to the US again, Industry
4.0 is the answer.
To realize our corporate
vision of Enabling an
Intelligent Planet,
Advantech will continue
collaborating and
Partnering for Smart
city & IoT Solutions.
“
“

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17. Management BriefCompany Name
Advantech
advantech.com
Chaney Ho
Co-founder &
Executive
Director of Board
Advantech is a leading brand in IoT intelligent systems, Industry
4.0, machine automation, embedded computing, embedded
systems and many other core sectors which are at the heart of
the American economy.
Aerotech
aerotech.com
Mark Botos
President
Aerotech is a global leader in the design and manufacture of the
highest performance motion controllers, positioning stages, and
automation systems for its customers.
Agilent Technologies
agilent.com
Mike McMullen
President & CEO
Agilent is a leader in life sciences, diagnostics and applied
chemical markets. The company provides laboratories
worldwide with instruments, services, consumables,
applications and expertise, enabling customers to gain the
insights they seek.
AutomationEdge
automationedge.com
Uday Birajdar
Co-founder & CEO
AutomationEdge is the preferred IT automation and Robotic
Process Automation (RPA) solution provider. AutomationEdge
helps organizations automate their mundane ,repetitive rule
based tasks across verticals.
The Dresser-Rand business, part of Siemens Power and Gas
(PG), is a leading supplier of mission-critical, high-speed
rotating equipment solutions to the worldwide oil, gas,
petrochemical, and process industries.
Franka Emika is leading in the design and development of
innovative, high-performance, self-learning and easy-to-use
light-weight robots.
KUKA is world’s leading suppliers of intelligent automation
solutions. It provides complete turnkey solutions for
automation requirements.
PHOENIX CONTACT is a leading manufacturer of electrical
connection, electronic interface, and industrial
automation technology.
Yazzoom's mission is to help its customers create value from
data by applying artificial intelligence and advanced control to
industrial applications.
Belden
belden.com
John Stroup
CEO
Belden produces and sells a comprehensive portfolio of
connectivity and networking products into a variety of markets,
including industrial, enterprise, and broadcast.
Dresser-Rand
dresser-rand.com
Paulo Sternadt Ruiz
CEO
Franka
franka.de
Simon Haddadin
Co-founder & CEO
KUKA
kuka.com
Till Reuter
CEO
Phoenix Contact
phoenixcontact.com
Hugo Knuemann
Founder
Yazzoom
yazzoom.com
Jan Verhasselt
Founder & Managing
Director

18. The
Evolution
of
Testing:
Unmatched Acceleration
with Fifth Generation
Automation
Shoeb Javed
CTO
Worksoft
he Early Years of Packaged Applications
TFrom the inception of packaged applications, companies of
all sizes have taken advantage of the economies of building,
maintaining, changing and deploying functionality through
third party software providers. Why build a general ledger
or payroll/human resources system when you can license it
instead? Why not leverage out of the box functionality
offered by third party software and rely on the vendor to
offer support and maintenance and stay current on
regulatory, industry and process best practices.
The first generation of mainframe software transformed
quickly as the technology evolved, introducing client-server
as the better, more cost-effective deployment platform. The
applications themselves were still being developed and
deployed in functional silos – their interaction with other
critical functions of the business an after-thought. Although
less than ideal, interfaces were developed to transport data
September 201816
Tech Outlook

19. from one system to the next – leading to the introduction of
middle-ware as an economical means of “connecting” the
silos.
At that time, SAP emerged as the leader in delivering
comprehensive, end-to-end business solutions on the most
advanced platforms. They quickly captured the market and
cross-industry adoption continued to deliver best in class
results to their customers. PeopleSoft was also introduced
to the market during this era, initially focusing on the
payroll/human resources market. They ultimately started
developing and delivering ERP and CRM systems as well.
Change continued to accelerate as web-based systems were
introduced which impacted the economic and technological
dynamics of “user requirements,” development,
deployment, and costs.
Throughout this evolution, industries, companies and
individuals not only developed an incredible reliance on the
performance of their “systems,” but forward thinking
organizations saw this as a quick path to competitive
advantage.
The Need for Speed
The problem then as now – how do you accelerate the value
of the technology investment to the business? The
technology was purchased, licensed, and implemented to
achieve a specific set of business benefits. When it comes to
these large enterprise application investments, companies
conduct in-depth evaluations and build business cases to
map out exactly what results they expect to realize. This
typically involves a look at what financial and human
capital investments – time and money – will be needed to
achieve success with a product as well as the financial,
efficiency, and competitive gains that come with the
ongoing use of the software.
On one side of the equation, development methods have
evolved to meet this need for speed. Waterfall
methodologies are being replaced with Agile. DevOps has
become the new buzz-word. But there’s something else to
consider – the business side of things. There is an ever-
increasing reliance on packaged applications to execute and
deliver critical business outcomes. It’s important that
applications are developed and deployed quickly and
changes can be made regularly, but how do you ensure that
business processes are running flawlessly?
Surprisingly, many companies are managing their enterprise
application processes manually. This means hours of white-
Shoeb Javed, chief
technology ofcer, Worksoft,
is responsible for the
technology strategy,
software development,
quality assurance and
customer support for all
Worksoft solutions. As CTO,
Shoeb also works with quality
assurance and business
leaders of some of the
largest global Fortune 1000
corporations to help
automate testing of
complex packaged
enterprise applications to
speed up project timelines
and improve operational
efciencies.
board meetings spent trying to understand existing business
processes. Weeks during every project spent writing test
scripts that break when something changes. Delays in
delivery because manual testing can’t keep pace with
business change. The implementation and ongoing
management of enterprise applications is complex, and a
crucial component is making sure that end-to-end processes
work—every time, every day. Manual or first generation
testing means system downtime, errors in production,
wasted time and energy and companies left open to
technology risk.
The bigger picture is that those approaches are
fundamentally standing in the way of achieving the results
companies set out to achieve with packaged apps. How can
you make the financial, productivity, and competitive gains
About the Author
September 2018 17

20. two months. Consider how much more
you could accomplish if you could cut
weeks and months from every project.
Leaders across the globe have adopted
Worksoft as their weapon of choice to
improve their financial and operational
positions in their respective industries.
Lead the Way
First to market with autonomous cars?
Moving your business model from
DVDs to online subscription services?
that you were counting on if your
processes aren’t performing flawlessly?
The Evolution of Testing
Thankfully, the answer is today’s fifth
generation test automation that is
enabling business users and
organizations to adopt, accept, and
utilize new applications faster. When
processes across enterprise
applications are executed seamlessly
and as designed, companies can
harness the potential of their enterprise
applications to achieve strategic goals
like entering new markets, increasing
revenue, and maintaining a competitive
advantage.
Worksoft, the pre-eminent fifth
generation automation platform,
delivers unmatched speed in
automating the identification of current
business processes and automatically
creating tests to ensure that each
business-critical process works as
required. An independent study of
Worksoft customers by industry
analyst IDC identified many unique
benefits of Worksoft’s automation
platform, but chief among them was
accelerating delivery of these
applications by an average of nearly
Evolving from an online bookstore to
the world’s largest internet retailer?
These companies didn’t simply try to
keep up. They were determined to lead.
Today’s digital economy brings
massive opportunity to companies
looking to disrupt the market. There
has been a fundamental change to the
business landscape and companies who
are competitive innovators will win.
About the Company:
Worksoft provides the world's leading
automation platform for enterprise
applications. Companies worldwide
rely on Worksoft's automated business
process discovery, documentation,
compliance, testing, risk analysis, and
RPA to support critical packaged
applications, including SAP,
Salesforce, Oracle, Workday,
SuccessFactors, ServiceNow and more.
Our fifth-generation automation
platform helps enterprises accelerate
innovation and change, lower
technology risk, and increase
efficiency. Our ecosystem includes
partnerships with Accenture, IBM,
Cognizant, SAP and our Global 5000
customers include 3M, Intel,
Microsoft, Siemens and more.
18 September 2018

22. Mark Botos
President
Aerotech
No one can deny that the introduction of automation systems and controls exemplifies the biggest mechanization in
manufacturing industries. Automation is the key to more accurate and quicker results.
Aerotech is a global leader in the design and manufacture of the highest performance motion controllers, positioning stages,
and automation systems for its customers. The company offers its products to many industries including government, science,
and research institutions around the world. Aerotech’s precision motion control products provide the critical performance for
today’s demanding applications in medical device, life sciences, semiconductor, flat panel, optics, photonics, automotive, data
storage, laser processing, military/aerospace, electronics manufacturing, test, assembly, research and development, and other
markets.
Aerotech invests in the business regardless of fluctuations in the business cycle. The company also places a strong emphasis
on employee attraction, development, and retention to further bolster its long-term competitive position.
A Leader with an Insightful Approach
Mark Botos is the President of Aerotech. He has a unique vision towards industrial automation and has highlighted the
company’s R&D efforts that address its customers’ current and future requirements. The company provides a strong value
Aerotech:
Strengthening Industries
with Motion Control and
Automation Systems
20 September 2018

23. proposition to utilize an Aerotech solution. Mark’s focus
also ensures all aspects of the operation are optimized to
support its customers around the world.
Enabling Precise Automation and Control Systems
Aerotech’s controls and precise motion products continue to
drive the ACS market to higher levels of throughput by
enabling greater precision at faster speeds for today’s
manufacturing and testing needs. The company is
committed to advancing new products and pushing
engineering limits.
Mark states that, “The battle cry in today’s manufacturing
environment is ‘faster, more efficient and with lower costs!’
We listen to our customers’concerns, study the technical
issues and requirements of each market, and develop ideal
hardware and software solutions to address those needs.”
A Journey Thriving with Lessons
With nearly 50 years of history, Aerotech has seen many of
the trends that have shaped the automation industry. Since
1970, Aerotech has designed and manufactured custom-
engineered motion control solutions for some of the world’s
most unforgiving environments and mission-critical
applications.
Aerotech offers unified product ranges that appeal to its
customers and also follow customer requirements for new
product development. A commitment to research and
development allows the company to design and build
products that advance the state of the art. Pre and post-sale
support are also an important part of its value proposition.
Building Superior Automation and Motion Control
Systems
Aerotech’s philosophy of building superior automation and
motion control systems starts with designing and
manufacturing technically superior components. Other
suppliers integrate general-purpose components into their
motion systems and claim to sell a ‘superior’ system. An
Aerotech system begins with Aerotech motion components
that are already the best-in-class and specifically designed
for high precision operation and optimized to work
together. In the end, the result delivers unified systems with
exceptionally robust, precise, and efficient operation.
Compelling New Trends and Optimization for Customer
Needs
Aerotech always focuses on customer needs and desires.
The company engineers its products and operational
support to provide the ideal solution and support for the
customer’s application. Often, this requires a custom or
semi-custom approach.
To be prepared for the latest technology and process
execution trends, Aerotech continually searches for the
most talented individuals globally to improve its team and
invests continuously in R&D while constantly seeking to
improve its production and support operations. The
company stays close to its customers and understands all
aspects of their applications. The whole process begins with
a collaborative and open approach in the design process that
leads to an ideal solution.
The Future of the Automation Industry
The future of the automation industry lies in full
connectivity of all components and systems for both
process monitoring and preventative maintenance. All areas
of a business, including manufacturing, will be connected
so that management can get instant feedback on the
efficiency of their process, inventory and material control,
areas of concern, maintenance schedules, deliveries, and
accounting. Aerotech continues to invest heavily in
technology development related to automation as a
connected environment.
Motion control, positioning and automation
systems manufacturer.“ “
21September 2018

26. 24
Digi Connection
September 2018

27. Human beings have always looked up to nature and
made efforts to learn from its basic principles.
Sonars were inspired by dolphins, light bulbs by
fireflies, suction cups by octopus and robots itself to
replicate human beings. One such instance that has been
enthused by microorganisms is distributed ledger
technology (DLT), widely known as blockchain.
“The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of
economic transactions that can be programmed to record
not just financial transactions but virtually everything of
value.”
-Don & Alex Tapscott.
It records transactions between two clients without any
third party authentication which is an efficient process when
it comes to stable data. Blockchain provides data
management without the threat of unauthorized access or
manipulations. It is proving to be a solution for frequent
problems in various fields. Blockchain technology has the
capability to disrupt approximately every industry ranging
from finance, to education to power.
Blockchain Technology in Smarter Grids
One of the areas in the energy industry where blockchain
technology can disrupt the market is smart grids. Lately,
blockchain has been well-thought-out as one of the
developing technologies that can be used for developing
decentralized grid topologies and revising the distributed
management of energy businesses. Blockchain database is
shared by all the nodes in the system. A node is an active
device which can be connected to internet and has an IP
address. Examples of devices include computers, tablets,
phones and even printers. The job of a node is to upkeep the
network by maintaining a copy of the blockchain and
process transactions.
Benefits of Blockchain in Smarter Grids
Blockchain can aid numerous utility industry requirements.
It can act as a foundation stone with the possibility of
disrupting the prevailing ecosystem. With the promotion for
e-vehicles and individuals shifting to electric cars, supply
and demand of energy needs to keep pace. Here blockchain
comes in the scenario with its peer-to-peer interconnectivity
and sharing. This balances the demand from several
foundations and makes the grid smarter by directing
sharing.
As there are small and compact smart grids, consumers with
the help of blockchain can simply trade energy with one
another thus saving time and earning a few dollars. In the
power industry, blockchain technology can ensure a 5D
Impact: decentralization, digitization, democratization,
distribution and deregulation.
Smart Meters
Smart meters are used to record electrical usage. These
meters enable us to monitor our electrical consumption
more precisely which will help consumers make better
energy choices. Through blockchain, clients can directly get
the amount spent which eradicates middleman thus saving
money. This creates a more resilient network for gadgets to
run on. Smart meters can also provide accurate data to the
provider without needing a direct link to the meter of
particular users.
With the help of blockchain, producers of smart grids do
not have to invest a humongous amount. Here the producers
get paid instantly, which leads to less capital expenditure.
Besides this, blockchain can play a serious role in adjusting
power flows through the amalgamation and optimization of
local grids measured by the public or consortium modes. It
can aid in the maintenance of permanent records by
servicers, giving a flawless view of a particular object or
part of infrastructure at any given time. This information
can be retrieved easily as the structure is built on a shared
platform, while retaining the authenticity of the record.
While the possible benefits of the Smart Grid are usually
discussed in terms of renewable energy goals, economics
and national security, it has the potential to help save
money by managing your electricity usage and choosing the
best times to purchase electricity. Consumers can save even
more by generating their power with the help of blockchain.
Lately, due to the speedy growth in the deployment of
DEPs the smart grid organization problems can no longer
be proficiently addressed using centralized approaches,
thus, the necessity for visionary decentralized
methodologies and architectures is widely recognized.
It is assessed that the blockchain technology will add
another $3.1 trillion by 2030. Lately, due to the speedy
growth in the deployment of DEPs the smart grid
organization problems can no longer be proficiently
addressed using centralized approaches, thus, the necessity
for visionary decentralized methodologies and architectures
is widely recognized.
Lastly, blockchain technology may eventually fast-track the
evolution to what the power industry calls a “distributed
world.” It is the sum of both small and large power-
generation structures for communities, businesses and
home. To prosper in capitalizing the potential of distributed
generation and supervising less foreseeable and more
capricious renewable power sources, the trade's
infrastructure must first become more agile and less
centralized.
25September 2018

28. CXO 3
Dave Gullo
Co-Founder & CTO
VideoAmp
26
Tech Evolution
September 2018

29. Ÿ “Promoting out of hand” is another variation of
this where you don’t put someone through the
normal due diligence because they already
present. In our case, individual contributor (IC)
engineers don’t go through the rigorous
reference checks that new managers do.
Ÿ “Hiring under duress”, or lowering your bar
simply to meet headcount goals. I strongly
advise to hire fewer “full-full stack” senior
engineers vs. a bunch of junior or mid-level
career developers who require more time,
nurturing and precious attention units from your
senior staff.
Process
This is a moving target, and one which has definitely been
an ongoing series of blogs. In the early stage, we “over
prescribed scrum.” Something that a very early stage
company can do, along with too much agile processes too
soon.
For example, prototypes and proof of concepts should not
have a rigorous definition of done, with endless unit,
functional, and end-to-end tests because the product’s
requirements will probably zig-zag wildly.
Conversely, having too little process when you are
supporting enterprise customers can also be a
problem. I spent my prior days as an IC and
VideoAmp turns 4 years old this month. So many
memories, and so much growth. Let’s reflect on
some of the worst decisions and associated
learnings that have been fundamental to our growth. Why
the worst you say? Because when you accelerate your
learning rate in a fail-fast environment, it then allows you to
make fast decisions vs. the analysis paralysis predicament.
Reflection
One of my favorite wildcard interview questions for
managers is: “Describe the failure you’re most proud of.”
This sometimes catches people off guard, so I’ll share mine
first to get the conversation going. Inevitably it comes down
to choosing because there are so many.
You can’t talk about growth and success without talking
about these failures. Unless you’re some kind of hybrid
AI-robot-space-alien who’s absolutely perfect, there’s going
to be mistakes. What’s important is that as a leader you
own your mistakes and be transparent about them.
Hiring
Finding the right people is the single most important aspect
of growing a startup. The biggest mistakes in hiring have
been:
Ÿ “Hiring out of hand”, or short cutting the normal
processes because the candidate is well known by other
engineers in the group.
How VideoAmp
Evolved the
Company Culture
and Process to Increase
the Number of
Engineers Employed
27September 2018

30. contractor retrofitting and scaling CI/CD pipelines and
training engineers how to write better tests.
The challenge is right-sizing this all along the way, and the
trigger points on when to change may not be obvious. I say
this because we grew headcount by 22 engineers from Oct
2017 to Feb 2018, and in the process we did not modify our
simplified Kanban approach to a prescribed Scrum process
quickly enough. Growing pains emerged, to say the least.
Now we’re in a spot where we can withstand a magnitude
scale of growth with roughly the same squad and tribe-level
process.
Management
Riffing off rapid growth of Brains in engineering, we didn’t
scale management fast enough. Almost all startup
engineering orgs start very flat, with all ICs and no
management. You have “tech leads” who may split their
time doing light managerial functions, but they all write
code and dive into the operations.
The biggest fail here in scaling the ICs was not scaling the
org and management structure to follow. At ~44 engineers
and data scientists, we have a duty to deliver on our mission
to provide an environment where they have the opportunity
to do the best work of their lives and be worth more in the
marketplace.
Without this vital management structure, there is a vacuum.
Do not bolt this on later, build it as you go. We took
inspiration from Spotify’s model of engineering
organizational scaling.
Growth & Career Pathing
We’ve talked about all of these fails, how about something
that has worked well for us?
When doing initial contact with a candidate, I often ask
“why are you in market?” I have seen countless folks who
are looking because their current management does not
have their growth and career pathing in mind. In extreme
cases, they can do a day’s work in four hours, feel like they
are under-challenged, and have not learned anything in
years. They work in an environment like the movie Office
Space.
Taking an opposite approach is to engage in the growth and
pathing of every individual. We do this by:
Ÿ aligning the growth of the individual with the
company’s growth.
Ÿ having management check in frequently on the success
of this, and
Ÿ setting up formal quarterly check-ins on measuring
these goals. Google adopted this early on from John
Doerr in the form of OKRs, and there are great
platforms out there which can formally measure and
track these objectives.
Career pathing is a longer-term concern. I ask candidates
from the start “so what’s the next job after VideoAmp?”
This often catches them off guard, then after careful thought
most reply with a role 1-2 levels beyond where they’re at
now. It’s our goal to help steer them in whatever path they
currently see.
Many earlier-career engineers think management is their
ultimate path, but I have found that many will stay on a
tract of engineering excellence. Whether it’s a Principal
Engineer or a VP of Engineering, the goal is to orient the
new challenges in a manner which grows them in that
direction, even if we can’t fully realize their ultimate
pathing goal while at the company.
By paying careful attention to these details, we have found
our annual retention rate in the high 90%.
28 September 2018

32. the global market entry Franka Emika forms worldwide
strategic partnerships to provide customers with light-
robots, robot apps and software solutions, as well as
services and consulting as for instance the joint venture
Voith Robotics with the global technology group ‘Voith’.
CEO and Co-founder of Franka Emika Dr. Simon
Haddadin stated, “By bringing together a young company
with its unique product portfolio and an experienced,
family-owned and world-wide engaged company with a
global network, we are creating a role model for Industry
4.0”.Simon added, “We will be able to offer customers
throughout the world a combination of exceptional services
and support, based on unique technologies.”
For the groundbreaking technology development, as well as
the innovative commercialization of robot systems Franka
Emika’s team received the German President’s Award for
Innovation in Science and Technology 2017 (‘Deutscher
Zukunftspreis’ 2017’).
Panda from Franka Emika
The company has introduced ‘Panda’ as the first system of
an entirely new generation of tools, which are developed as
research robots, as colleagues in factories, and as assistants
in daily life for elderly or sick people. Inspired by human
agility and sense of touch, it is a sensitive and
extraordinarily versatile power tool. With torque sensors in
all seven axes, the arm skillfully and delicately manipulates
objects, flawlessly accomplishing tasks one programs it for.
With this, one can easily predict the robot’s behavior. The
robot is equipped with special controls that provide it
human-like compliance and sensitivity. It responds instantly
to the negligible point of contact with a human-like sense of
touch and exhibits human-like reflexes that help to prevent
humans from being injured during collision with the
machine.
Robotics had been a technology that was accessible
to only very few due to enormous costs, difficult
programming and the separation of humans and
robots through safety cages. However, the robotics industry
is being revolutionized at this moment, providing the
biggest opportunities for today’s business leaders. Large
enterprises and small-medium sized businesses (SMBs) are
queuing up to get their hands on robotics systems in order
to enhance their production capacities and to overcome the
continuously rising work load and manufacturing demands.
This shortage had been recognized by Franka Emika’s
founding team more than a decade ago.
Founded in 2016, Franka Emika GmbH is a young
Bavarian high-tech company from Munich, Germany that
envisioned the ideal robot of the future as a power tool
which is accessible to everyone and which supports humans
in carrying out unpleasant or even dangerous tasks.
Consequently, in 2018 Franka Emika introduced the highly
sensitive, easy-to-use, and learning-capable light-weight
robotic system ‘Panda’. Based on this technology, Franka
Emika introduced the world’s
first CE out of the box
solutions for industrial
applications. To tackle
30 September 2018

33. This system can be operated via Apps
on any device such as smartphones and
be taught new tasks within a few
minutes, without requiring any
programming skills. At the same time
the system is sensitive to such an
extent, that it can work side by side
with humans and easily take over
assembling, testing or inspection tasks.
And beyond that, the possibility to
simply multiply existing solutions on
an entire fleet of robots, an entirely
new level of scalability becomes
possible.
An Innovative Entrepreneur
Dr. Simon Haddadin, CEO and Co-
founder of Franka Emika, is a 32 years
old innovative entrepreneur who
earned his doctorate in safe physical
human-robot interaction. Simon
received the Managers of the Year
2018 award from Markt&Technik
Spitzentreffen 2018 magazine with
over 7,000 readers. The winner was
selected by the readers. Additionally,
he has more than 15 national and
international publications in journals
and conference talks, and a multitude
of national and international patents.
Simon has a great educational and
work experience including Military
service with Air Transport Squadron 62
in session 2005-06. In 2006, he did
Mathematics and physics studies at
Leibniz University Hanover and from
2006 to 2012 he completed Medical
studies from University Debrecen,
Hungary. In between, in 2010, he
participated in United States Medical
Licensing Exam, and in 2012, he
completed Dissertation to medical
doctor with excellence at the Institute
of Pathology and Neuropathology.
From 2010 to 2013, he worked as
research scientist at German Aerospace
Center (DLR), Institute of Robotics
and Mechatronics, and later, from 2012
to 2016, he was a PhD student at
Technical University Munich,
Graduate School of
Bioengineering, and many
more are queued further.
Distinct Competency
The thing that sets the robot Panda
from Franka Emika GmbH apart from
the competition is its manipulation
skills. While some of its specs, means
seven degrees of freedom, 80-
centimeter reach, 3-kilogram payload,
and 0.1-millimeter accuracy, are
comparable with those of other robots,
Panda is designed to perform tasks that
require direct physical contact in a
carefully controlled manner which
includes sensitive insertion, screwing,
and buffing, as well as a variety of
inspection and assembly tasks that
electronics manufacturers in particular
have long wanted to automate.
Summing up, the distinction towards
the state-of-the-art is: accessibility
through safety and usability, flexibility
in terms of easy-to-use in various
scenarios and scalability of existing
and novel solutions.
Future Endeavors
Franka Emika is the bleeding-edge
robot technology provider. Within the
short future Franka Emika’s online
platform, named Franka World, will go
online as the center of the ecosystem,
where the community will be able to
exchange ideas and developers will get
assigned to customers allowing them to
deploy worldwide new solutions and
applications. Besides that new
mechatronic systems will be presented
over the next years. Franka Emika’s
aim is to deploy 1 million robots by
2025.
31September 2018

34. arketing has been the real essence in the
Muplifting of any Organization in the long run.
While there are a number of other parameters
that foster a business, marketing certifies to be the base of
it, upholding the awareness and reach it requires, printing
its mark worldwide.
For all firms, whether any poor start-up or an MNC giant,
an effective marketing strategy can serve as a pivotal road-
map for the entire business. By developing a coherent and
well considered marketing strategy, organizations can
promote their business, target the right types of client and
allocate their resources correctly, all while safeguarding the
reputation of the firm.
Because one parameter of a marketing plan affects all of the
others, synchronizing activities is critical to eliminate
obstacles and maximize profits. A marketing strategy looks
at all the areas of the sales activities and helps each one
support the next.
One of the most important aspects of any marketing
strategy relates to recognizing growth opportunities. This
can be efficiently done by using the SWOT analysis. Once
an organization identifies its strength, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of any marketing scheme, it
becomes easier to en-cash those opportunities and
reconsider what course or action should be taken to
eliminate prevalent threats.
The underlying focus of the organization’s marketing
strategy should be based on the concept of developing and
increasing awareness of the company’s brand, and also on
developing trust assurance in that brand. A company’s
credibility or service is its most important asset. Hence,
attempts should be made to enhance and protect it during
the course of the marketing process
.
Understanding how to create an integrated marketing
strategy is the key help to make better individual decisions
with respect to specific marketing tactics. In order to
achieve this, organizations must implement robust and
efficient marketing strategies as quickly as possible. All the
key components of a marketing strategy, if catered and
applied in the best manner, helps to design and manufacture
successful business.
Here are some of the crucial parameters that play a pivotal
role in successfully implementing and nourishing effective
marketing strategies.
Goals and Objectives
As with all the plans, goals and objectives are the origin of
any target-oriented organization. Without a proper mix of
these objectives according to the prevalent resources, a
company proves to be inefficient in the long run.
It can begin by thinking through goal-specific
accomplishments, identifying basic marketing objectives,
which may include some of the following aspects:
The
Significance anof
Effective Marketing
Strategy
Marketing
Strategy
32
Reforming Benchmarks
September 2018

35. Ÿ Increased brand recognition
Ÿ Growth in the market share
Ÿ Market to New Customer Segments
Ÿ Digitization
Investment, Budget and Revenue
Once the objectives for the business are fully determined,
the concept of On-margin investments, Budget and End
revenue come into play. However, there is never enough
budget to cover all the marketing ‘wish-lists’ adequately.
The process of Investment is iterative and operates
continually. It may be a function of:
Ÿ Coming up with budget to shelter all the marketing
needs
Ÿ Identifying the objectives that are more critical and
inclined towards the success factor and reallocating
budget meet top-priority objectives on a ‘first-serve’
preference.
Ÿ Searching for innovating ways to stretch the marketing
budget. For example, content development, low-cost
crowd outsourcing etc.
Ÿ Constructing a big picture view and reviewing the key
marketing thrust areas. Others parameters such as spend
comparison, consumption of utilization channels,
website optimization etc. should be fetched under
consideration.
As far as revenue is considered, a marketing strategy is
used to determine the revenue that the campaign will
deliver. All of the parts that go into determining revenue,
including the budget allotted to the campaign, product cost,
selling price and the life span of the product, should all be
considered while developing the marketing strategy. The
estimated End-Revenue can be measured against the actual
revenue, and that information can be used to create future
marketing strategies that are more successful.
Target Audience and Buyer Journey
Tracking and analyzing the dynamic and changing needs of
the audience under radar is pivotal in effective marketing.
Identifying the demographic and psychographic
characteristics of the target audience aids to re localize the
radius under consideration. Based on the available data,
33September 2018

36. Ÿ Traditional marketing channels (TV, Radio, Newspaper,
Direct Mail etc.)
Ÿ Digital Marketing Channels (Website, Mobile
applications, Social platforms, online advertisements
etc.)
Ÿ Content Marketing (Blogs, Newsletters, e-books, Info-
graphics etc.)
Competition
Though the role of competition in devising an optimal
marketing strategy is limited, it helps to draw comparisons
among identical products and groups, providing scope for
‘brand-improvements’. In order to symbolize a powerful
campaign, marketing strategy needs to offer a detailed
description of the competition, according to the small
business experts at the Center for Business planning.
The objective of the marketing strategy is to provide
historical information on how the competition has
advertised products in the past, the target market the
competition goes after and the product features that the
competition offers. Some other factors include competition
pricing, the competition’s distribution network and the sales
strategies, which are also a part of the comprehensive
marketing strategy.
segmentation should be done to provide qualified and need-
based resources.
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal
customer based on statistical market research and the
prevalent data about your existing customers. After
developing buyer personas, developing the Buyer Journey
for each single persona and its interaction with the brand is
considered to be the key to implement trust and satisfaction
among the target audiences.
Media and Messaging
Messaging is a process which signifies the firm’s intentions,
and informs the actual purpose of your business to the
external world.
Based on a detailed evaluation of how target is reacting
with the various components of the brand, establish an apt
messaging media, tone, selling propositions and key terms
that are likely to resonate the most.
Determining the Channel Mix
Ÿ Analyze and decide where the business would get the
most Return on Investment (ROI). This can be done by
echoing the channels around three road categories:
34 September 2018

38. PHOENIX CONTACT, founded in 1923, with
headquarters in Germany is a leading manufacturer
of electrical connection, electronic interface, and
industrial automation technology. The firm’s worldwide
distribution activities are effected via a global network with
16,500 employees, 50 own subsidiaries and more than 40
subsidiaries in Europe and Overseas. Its production network
includes five production sites in Germany and eleven
production facilities in various parts of the globe.
PHOENIX CONTACT Middle East, established in Dubai
under TECOM in 2008, is also a part of a network of global
sales subsidiaries and distribution centers. The company’s
reliable presence in the region brings Phoenix Contact’s
products and expertise into closer proximity to its clients
and partners in the Middle East and
Northeast Africa. The firm’s highly trained and qualified
sales, marketing, technical support, logistics, and
operational teams are available to support and
accommodate the growing demand of our clients
throughout the area.
Phoenix Contact produces with a high vertical range of
manufacture in twelve countries all over the world. The
product range comprises components and system solutions
for energy supply including wind and solar, device and
machine building as well as control cabinet engineering. A
diverse product range of modular terminal blocks and
special-purpose terminals, printed circuit terminal blocks
and plug connectors, cable connection technology and
installation accessories offers innovative components.
Electronic interfaces and power supplies, automation
systems functions on the basis of Ethernet and wireless,
safety solutions for man, machine, data, and also surge
protection systems as well as software programs and tools
provide installers and operators of systems as well as device
manufacturers with comprehensive system solutions.
A Forerunner of the Company
Hugo Knuemann is the Founder of Phoenix Contact. In
the early 1920’s, the journey of Phoenix Contact has begun;
the company was founded in 1923 in Essen, Germany, as a
commercial agency for electrical products. The core
business at the beginning was for the contact wire terminals
for streetcars and also the company has continuously grown
over 90 years by people with ideas, drive and enthusiasm
throughout Germany and in every continent. Phoenix
Contact engaged with its key trends that were recognized
early and served with the right products such as terminal
blocks, electronics, fieldbus technology, and renewable
energies.
Advancing Automation Industry Space
The products of Phoenix Contact are used in all types of
applications in which processes need to be automated,
where the flow of current and data has to be connected,
distributed and controlled. The targeted application areas
include industrial production sites as well as solar plants,
building technology, tunnels, and energy or water supply
systems. The benefits for the customer often go far beyond
Phoenix Contact:
Empowering Electrical and Industrial
Automation Technologies Globally
The best solutions
integrated with unied
electrical engineering
for automation tasks.
36 September 2018

39. the mere function of the device,
because Phoenix Contact helps them to
design more efficient processes and to
reduce costs.
Projecting Passion for Technology
Phoenix Contact’s history has been
shaped by a passion for innovation and
technology. For generations, the firm
has been committed to offering its
customers the best quality in every
respect. This approach of ingenuity
goes hand in hand with real attention to
detail. In terms of the future, Phoenix
Contact continues to invest in
groundbreaking technology and in new
products which will lead the industry
in the upcoming times. The company is
also focusing on process execution
based on a truly unique component of
the company’s passion for technology.
Our mission statement is “To create
progress with innovative and inspiring
solutions while building trusting
relationships with our customers and
business partners and offering them
the best possible solutions for their
electrical engineering and automation
tasks”added Iyad.; the General
Manager at Phoenix Contact
Middle East.
Safeguarding Customer Involvement
At Phoenix Contact, the firm’s
approach is based on a solid foundation
of trust and partnership towards its
customers. This factor motivates the
company to take responsibility and
gives it the needed freedom to come up
with new ideas. Iyad also added that
the Phoenix Contact team really enjoys
working together to meet the
objectives. In this way, they’re also
safeguarding their economic success in
the future and remaining a competitive
and reliable partner for inspiring
technology. Also, in order to work
together as closely as possible with
their customers, they have established
reliable local structures, supported by
trusted channel partners to support
their customers in their business
wherever they are in the Middle East
and Northeast Africa.
Impelling Automation Industry for
Forthcoming Future
“This is an interesting time for our
industry, as we see several changes in
the way business is conducted. The
trend of digitalization of the industry,
also known as “Industry 4.0,” is a key
focus for Phoenix Contact, and we are
transforming our company so that we
too are ready and actively involved in
this new industrial revolution.” asserts
Iyad Madanat. The aim is to always do
things in a faster and more efficient
manner, so that the growing needs of
the population are always met in the
best possible way. With our local
presence and quality services that we
are able to provide through our local
teams, we will continue to be the
partner of choice for our customers
along their journey to a connected
world.”, he continued.
Executive Board 2018 - PHOENIX CONTACT
37September 2018

40. The secret of my success is that we have gone to
exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world”
- Steve Jobs
The said quote itself explains the power of recruiting ‘right’
candidate. A right candidate has the potential to transform an
organization fortune to a new level. A right candidate brings
quality and effectiveness that builds a brand and develops a
unique customer experience, while a ‘wrong’ candidate can lead
to a lot of extra stress and issues that can hinder the
development of a business. But at the core, hiring right talent is
important, and this is where HR personnel struggle the most.
With the advent of an emerging technique known as “People
Analytics”, hiring right candidate will get easy than ever before.
Necessity of People Analytics
Competition for onboarding top talent is getting fierce,
especially in industries, like IT, financial service firms,
healthcare sector, and manufacturing, that are going to witness a
massive transformation. Ever growing numbers of job seekers,
shaken economy and neck-to-neck ruthless competition are
making HR’s job even more challenging to find right talent for
the right job. One technique that is seen as a solution for the said
problem is “People Analytics”. It is an emerging field that is
pulling everyone’s attention due to its potential to assist HR
people in recruiting the right talent.
“
38
Tech Trend
September 2018

41. Understanding People Analytics
People analytics or HR analytics is the application of
statistics, mathematics, and modeling which collects and
process worker-related data to see and predict patterns. This
technique assist organizations to predict whether a
particular person fit for a given job or not. Due to its ability
to boost hiring and retaining the right talent, some people
have gone so far that they have even started calling it as a
“crystal ball for HR”.
How ‘People Analytics’ can help HR fraternity
• Identifying the features or variables in jobs and
employees that matter/counts most
• Matching those important job variables with a pool of
applicants or recruits
• Predicting the likelihood of a worker to stay on the job
for a long time or to “churn”
• And recommending salaries and other compensation to
bolster longevity
Importance of Peoples Analytics
There are lots of important questions that arise into the mind
of management peoples like: How can we find more top
performers? What do our most successful leaders do to
excel at their work, and how can we replicate that across the
organization? Which people are most likely to stay for long?
Which employees are likely to leave? With the right
analytical tool in hand, one can get the right and accurate
answers to these vital questions which plays a pivotal role in
shaping company’s fortune and can assist an organization to
maintain a robust workforce.
Popular HR Analytics Tools
Power BI
Power BI link multiple sources like SQL database with
people’s data, live twitter feed, machine learning API’s and
more. All these different data sources are then combined
with an aggregation process to create one large database.
39September 2018

42. The consolidated data then can be used to create pivot table to let end user get a quick insight in the key areas of the
workforce. And, all these meaningful insights then the end user can see in a user-friendly manner with Power BI’s
dash boarding capacity.
SPSS
Dealing with analytics requires some sort of technical capability to make the most of it. But what if the end user is not
a technical person but still want the same results which can be derived from the above tool. Answer to this said
concern is ‘SPSS’ tool. Without having extensive statistical knowledge, an end user can do an exploratory correlation
analysis or a quick regression analysis. This makes SPSS one of the most commonly used HR analytics tools in social
sciences.
Rstudio
It is a people analytical tool which is best suited to process huge data sets. It provides valuable insights that can help
an organization to maintain robust workforce. It’s potential to let end user visualize and statistically analyze candidate
data with the help of user friendly interface is the prime reason behind its popularity.
Interesting Research Finding
Many recent studies even proved the effectiveness and productivity of People Analytics techniques. Recently,
Deloitte’s Bersin found that organizations that use people analytics techniques at a sophisticated level reported 82
percent higher three-year average profits than corporations without properly-deployed people analytics methods.
Over the world more number of schools, colleges, and universities are opening up than ever before. There is an
increased awareness for education as well. More people want to get access to quality education to raise their living
standards. All these are resulting into increased number of job seekers. With business competition going intense with
each passing year, recruiting right talent has become the need of hour for HR personnel. The potential benefit of
People Analytics will then definitely assist HR fraternity in recruiting and maintaining a robust workforce if applied
meticulously.
40 September 2018

44. In today’s industrial landscape, the notion of “Data
Analytics” is rapidly gaining popularity in every
aspect of company processes. Data analytics helps
industries increase productivity and thus ultimately
profits by enabling better decisions and improved
production processes.
Yazzoom, a European company, leverages its expertise
in advanced data analytics and industrial process control
to deliver immediate value to its customers by improving
company processes. The software, data science and
engineering firm is specialized in advanced control and
artificial intelligence solutions for industrial applications.
Besides custom advanced data analytics software,
Yazzoom has developed two standard products, a
predictive modeling Software Suite and an AI-Powered
Solution for anomaly detection on data of machines and
production lines.
A Mentor with Engineering background
Jan Verhasselt Founder Managing Directoris the and
at . Jan holds Engineering diplomas inYazzoom
Automation, and Physics and a Ph.D. in Applied
Sciences with specialty in Automatic Speech
Recognition. When Jan founded Yazzoom, he had
sustainable growth in mind rather than the quick “sell
and cash out” of many start-ups in this field. Jan believes
in the use of revenues from projects to grow and invest it
in the development of a standard product with the vision
to transition later from a purely project-based company
to a product-based one.
“There’s always an exchange of ideas and discussions
between all team members around each of their projects.
This leads to innovative solutions and faster
development. For the data scientists and engineers of
Yazzoom it also keeps things interesting with a lot of
variation in the type of problems to be solved.”adds Jan
about the company culture.
Positioning Yazzoom in the Automation & Control
Systems Market
Yazzoom uses its expertise in advanced process control
and machine learning to allow its customers to create
more value out of process and machine data. The rare
combination of skills enables a wide range of
applications, for example auditing and improving
industrial production processes or AI-powered anomaly
detection for monitoring assets and production lines in
order to enable predictive maintenance or assist remote
service teams of machine manufacturers.
Shaping Journey through Experiences
“When you hear about companies in our field in the
press, it’s usually focused about how much money has
been raised rather than the product, service or
customers but that’s not the way we want to grow at
Yazzoom. Yazzoom is seven years old now, and we did
this without external funding,” states Jan.
The company now offers standard products and has
expanded its international customer-base. “At the time
[when Yazzoom only did custom projects - ED.], we
invested time and resources to expand in the Middle-East
Yazzoom:
Leveraging Industrial Data
42 September 2018

45. without result. It was a lesson for us: in our custom
project business, it’s really hard to find customers
without a strong local presence. There are enough
opportunities close to us to do the project, and new
products are now creating a better opportunity to expand
to more distant markets.” he continues.
Offering Unique Industrial Analytics
In the field of industrial analytics, there are two aspects
that make Yazzoom unique. The early start seven years
ago gives it more maturity and the capacity to evaluate if
new developments in the field of AI and machine
learning are reliable. The other unique thing about
Yazzoom is its expert team. They are highly skilled in
software development, data science and engineering,
with diverse backgrounds ranging from industrial
process control and physics to civil engineering and
chemistry. Yazzoom is one of the few companies with
top-level expertise in both AI and advanced control: the
predictive models and real-time optimization software
they develop changes the way the machines and
production lines are running in real-time.
Battling with Competition
Based on knowledge of the market and its customers
Yazzoom acquired over the years, the firm has thought
its products around their customers. While many
companies are coming up with IoT and data monitoring
platforms that include everything from data acquisition
and storage to some analytics capabilities, visualization
and dashboards, Yazzoom chooses to focus on AI-
powered anomaly detection. The system easily integrates
with new and existing platforms but also more traditional
SCADA systems and process historians.
In Yazzoom’s fields of advanced control, AI and machine
learning, the challenge is keeping up to date in a quickly
evolving domain. The firm places a strong emphasis on
continuous learning and regularly sends its data-
scientists and engineers for training, follow courses or
attend academic conferences.
Realizing the Digitalization of Automation Systems
“Digitalization is changing automation, but this didn’t
start with the internet of things and cloud platforms, it’s
an evolution of industrial networks and process
historians. It’s not an end in itself, but an enabling
technology that opens the door to more advanced
process control and monitoring of industrial assets.”
asserts Jan further.
Jan has also mentioned that “What you can do today
with artificial intelligence is make software that assists
humans in repetitive and boring tasks or have smart
systems that detect or predict anomalies in how
equipment works.”
We improve
company processes
by means of
data processing.
Jan Verhasselt
Founder & Managing Director
Yazzoom
—
“
“
43September 2018

48. ne of the greatest agonies in test automation is the
Otime and effort spent to continuously testing what
has been developed. The simpler and the more
straight-forward the mobile applications look to the
customer, the more complex they are in the background. As
the number of of mobile platforms and devices increases,
enterprises need to provide their developers with effective
way to test across the platforms — testing fast, verifying
the code quickly.
Why is it so important? Because continuous digital
transformation is an inevitable part of growing the business.
Often more than 60% of customer interactions happen
through the smartphones. What is the number like at your
business? Anyway, an effective mobile testing needs to be
in place to accomplish a successful and smooth delivery on
Digital Transformation promise, and to avoid loss of money
and prestige. Every kind of transformation project comes
across a certain resistance; a mobile application delivered
with no issues will minimize this resistance.
Better Application through Continuous Testing
Most of our customers in Continuous Software are
switching to agile project delivery in order to rapidly
evaluate and provide for the internal and external demands.
The traditional test processes, which are done at the end
phase of a project, remain insufficient for the agile
management. For better quality and a rapid outcome, testing
and development has to be a continuous process of DevOps
course. Thanks to test automation scripts throughout the
whole development process, softwares and applications can
be tested before going through end-user tests with minimum
amount of problems.
One of the key trends in the market is the increase of native
application development, which enables the usage of
mobile devices in a broader spectrum. With the increasing
demand towards more complex, stronger functionalities and
interface, the responsive design techniques are outdated. To
provide an optimum result for mobile testing, conducting
the tests with actual devices, a device lab, has a large
importance. The problem here is how the manual testers
and test automation systems will share devices. This is
solved by creating a mobile device lab according to
producers, models and operating systems.
Renting a device lab on cloud, uploading your scripts and
running your tests in a parallel execution costs you serious
amount of money. We couldn’t ignore the fact that this
method makes our customers’ apps less profitable every
minute. If you create an actual device lab by purchasing
every kind of smartphones out there, you still ned a web
interface to run all those scenarios and scripts to manage
your mobile device lab.
Continuous Software developed an interface, where you can
run your scripts on different devices with its own cloud
Hakan Turgut
Chairman
Minimize Risk of Digital
Transformation
Failure
Minimize Risk of Digital
Transformation
Failure
46
Tech-Know Insights
September 2018

49. device lab, observe text execution and integrate with source
control systems. You can use it with your own mobile
device server, or you can connect your device to your
mobile lab with client integrations. As a result you’ll be
able to observe your text execution in real time with
detailed results, clickable stack trace exceptions and
screenshots, and see how much of the resources (CPU,
Memory, System Logs) your app consumes. No matter
which language your scripts were written or no matter
which tool was used to write them, by integrating with open
source automation servers this interface allows you to
include mobile testing to your continuous DevOps process.
Continuous Software
Our first business line is application testing. Today we offer
a wide range of services such as Manual Sourcing, Test
Automation, Performance Testing, Security Testing, Service
and Network Virtualization and Mobile Application Testing
and Mobile Device Lab Management. Our philosophy lies
on the successful implementation of test automation
frameworks, enabling the rapid creation of test automation
scripts that are stable and easily maintainable. Our scalable
test automation framework optimizes every level of
application from network to code- speeding up he execution
and reducing test maintenance.
Our success comes from working together with
organizations to optimize every level of application- from
the network to the code. We have solved the complexities of
software testing through our unique solutions and helped a
multitude of enterprises in accomplishing desired results.
We believe our Mobile Device Lab will be a game changer
in the industry.
Case studies
One of Top 5 Banks in Turkey
This bank has decided to make a transformation project
with Mckenzie. Part of the transformation project they
found out that one of the biggest bottleneck is Software
testing. As they were planning to use Agile project
management approach within this initiative; testing was
becoming even more critical for the success of the project.
That is why they have decided to implement Test
Improvement Project. They have identified 5 areas and
Continuous Software has been involved in all these five
workgroups which are Functional Test Automation,
Performance/Load Testing, Service Virtualization, Test
Environment Management and Test Data Management. The
project scope covered core banking, alternative channels,
international banking and credit cards application suites,
they all are in-house developed application based on Java,
.NET and IBM Mainframe. This was a teamwork, which we
have worked together with the bank’s testing team.
Development team has also participated to the project when
it was needed. We have identified sample applications,
designed processes, decided on technologies that will be
used and finally implemented the best practice within
sample applications to prove the solution. We have guided
the bank’s team and prepared documentation for them to
continue after project has been finalized. During the project
we have used HPE UFT, HPE Loadrunner, IBM Service
Virtualization, CA Test Data Management and HPE Codar
and OO solutions for respective areas.
One of the Top 10 International Banks
Entered to Turkey by acquiring an old bank, which was not
able to invest in IT for a long time. After the acquisition,
they have been audited by BDDK (Banking Regulation
Authority) and BDDK gave them a deadline to resolve their
compliance issues. Within a very limited timeframe to
implement an end to end automated Devops process which
starts from demand collection till deployment of the
applications to production environment. The solution had to
be fully automated, no human interaction other than
development of the application and be traceable on each
level of the process. Continuous Software delivered end-to-
end DevOps project to make sure to have a complete
process from demand to production deployment. Created
five different pipelines for core baking (oracle forms),
alternative channels (java), credit cards (.NET) and ATMs
(.NET). Jenkins, SVN, Nexus, HPE Codar, HPE ALM,
HPE UFT, HP PM, HP SM are implemented in project
scope. Thanks to Continuous Software, this bank passed the
audit successfully and avoided to pay a big amount of
penalty.
Management
Levent Ozalp is a serial entrepreneur and the Founder and
CEO of OPTiiM. He created 3 startups in Turkey, 1 in
Ireland and 1 in UK from military tech to system
integration. Having launched Continuous Software now
boasts 100+ employees and customers all over Turkey,
Middle East, North Africa and Europe.
Hakan Turgut is the Continuous Software Chairman. His 30
years career span took him to executive positions in IBM,
CA and Nortel. He brings maturity and wisdom to the team.
About the Author:
Levent Ozalp is a serial entrepreneur. He created 3 startups
in Turkey, 1 in Ireland and 1 in UK from military tech to
system integration. Having launched OPTiiM now boasts
100+ employees and customers all over Turkey, Middle
East, North Africa and Europe.
Hakan Turgut is the OPTiiM Chairman. His 30 years career
span took him to executive positions in IBM, CA and
Nortel. He brings maturity and wisdom to the team.
47September 2018