Tag Archive for: News

The damage to reputation and business from information systems security breaches is difficult to reverse and hurt an organization’s future growth prospects. Despite the well-known adverse consequences of cybercrimes, why do organizations struggle to prevent them? Should we revisit the “people, process, and technology” triad used by organizations to fortify their information systems? Our Chief Information Officer, Rajendra Jodhpurkar’s take on this critical subject has been covered in The Hitvada. Head over to this link for some interesting insights.

As seen on Forbes.

Covid-19 accelerated digital transformation for enterprises in all industries — and today, cloud initiatives are at the core of digital transformation. Enterprises are likely to experience mixed success with their cloud initiatives in the medium term as they manage challenges such as severe skill shortages, evolving data architecture practices and myriad cloud vendors with similar offerings.

Drawing from our company’s experience of implementing more than 50 cloud initiatives across industries, here are my top five recommendations for business and IT leaders planning significant data and analytics (D&A) initiatives in the cloud.

1. Not everything that can be moved should be moved to the cloud.

Cloud migrations involve significant capital expenditures (CAPEX). In my experience, when you migrate old data applications to the cloud, you should not expect to see operating expenses (OPEX) savings for up to three years. In many cases, all layers are not migrated together due to interdependencies on other systems, leading to a hybrid approach with a combination of on-premises, private and public cloud hosting.

Carefully evaluate the suitability and need to migrate the following category of applications to the cloud:

  • End-of-life legacy applications or tool platforms
  • Applications built on comparable SaaS (Software as a Service) tools
  • Applications accessing data that requires stringent data security and privacy
  • Specific hardware-dependent applications

2. Plan to embrace a multi-cloud future.

Three leading public cloud players — Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) are adding capabilities, services and geographical locations at rapid pace. Most of their comparable services match each other in terms of cost and performance, and with no consolidation in sight, you can benefit from their competition.

Each of these cloud vendors do provide a few differentiating services. To enable the creation of cutting-edge data and analytics solutions, aim to leverage the best services available, regardless of which vendor provides it. For example, one of our clients — a leading media and entertainment company — uses a multi-cloud setup with AWS infrastructure and select AWS services for its data apps, Azure for email services and cloud native PaaS platforms like Domo and Snowflake for analytics.

Within your organization:

  • Discourage investment in single cloud vendor
  • Promote a culture of looking for the best services, comparing capabilities and costs across cloud vendors
  • Encourage technical teams to design data architectures that seamlessly use cross-cloud capabilities

3. Don’t let security be an afterthought.

According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), most cybersecurity incidents now involve cloud infrastructure. We can expect the threat of data breaches to grow in the foreseeable future, and the responsibility for increasing security protections lies with enterprises.

In our work, we have seen that most cloud initiatives, especially enterprises’ early endeavors, try to address security requirements through native services. However, due to inadequate design, these solutions fall short of addressing all risks. Thankfully, there are a number of solutions from third-party vendors available that you can use to address this critical gap. Use these tools to:

  • Carefully assess security requirements
  • Invest early in holistic security solutions
  • Conduct frequent vulnerability scans

A global bank that we work with has implemented a unified data-centric security model with sensitive data-flow discovery, real-time monitoring, behavior analytics and protection across all operational and analytical applications (both on-premises and on-cloud).

4. Monitor all D&A solutions through a unified platform.

Given the nature of cloud services, any data and analytics platform migrated to the cloud gets decomposed into many independent solutions. While this offers advantages, such as no single point of failure and scalable performance, managing multiple platforms can be complex. In case of service level failures, it can be difficult to ascertain the root cause, replay the sequence of events and recover from the failure.

DevOps staff supporting disparate platforms need to invest significant effort in scanning consoles of multiple services for any meaningful analysis — post mortem or change impact. It is highly likely that components of such systems will drift away from the initial architectural vision. To avoid this outcome, push for:

  • Holistic assessment of current and future monitoring requirements
  • Early investment in a comprehensive monitoring solution
  • Frequent “game day” drills to test responses, in processes and people

A global market research firm we work with uses a centralized monitoring platform to track its infrastructure, databases, analytical apps, workflows and security. It gives them the ability to have a 360-degree, single-pane view of its data and analytics ecosystem and provides greater operational efficiency.

5. Aim for an accelerated pace of innovation through the cloud.

For most enterprises, the first set of cloud initiatives includes migrating existing data and analytics applications to a cloud platform. Whether as-is (lift and shift) or re-engineered, these types of migrations don’t change the status quo dramatically.

But there is a constantly expanding set of cloud offerings that covers capabilities like IoT, blockchain, data science, machine learning, media, quantum, robotics, satellite, VR and AR. Explore how your organization can use cloud initiatives to power innovation. How effectively you do this will prove to be a competitive advantage in the Industry 4.0 era.

There are also countless focused solutions available on cloud marketplaces that significantly reduce the cost of experimentation. Take advantage of these cost-effective tools and encourage:

  • A culture of innovation with cloud at the center
  • A risk appetite based on leveraging cloud offerings and marketplace solutions
  • Thinking “cloud first” before costly in-house development of new solutions

Your organization has probably moved the first set of data stores and front end analytics apps to the cloud with varying degrees of success. Enterprises that don’t see measurable positive outcomes with their first cloud initiatives tend to delay the rest of their cloud adoption journey. Don’t fall into the same trap. Cloud initiatives will continue to be a critical ingredient for future business capabilities. By finding the right solutions and engaging the right partners, you can set your organization up to make well-informed choices, develop pragmatic roadmaps and avoid the pitfalls that lead to failure.

Infocepts is proud to be named a Customers’ Choice for Data Analytics Service Providers in Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Data and Analytics Service. Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice distinctions recognize vendors and products that are highly rated by their customers. We are honored to be recognized in the report for two years in a row. We believe this achievement is based on the level of customer satisfaction and business outcomes we provide and are grateful for our customers’ valuable feedbacks. It speaks to the holistic view we’ve taken of data and analytics, guided by our centers of excellence and reusable solutions. Working with Infocepts you know you have a trusted partner to solve your complex D&A problems.

We see the report shows a 100% customer willingness to recommend Infocepts (As of May 2021, 28 reviewers, Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Data and Analytics Service Providers).

Key Factors That Contributed to This Recognition

Infocepts simplifies your complex data and analytics problems through a framework that leverages people, process, and technology to drive business outcomes. Through a solution-oriented approach, we guide and support the modernization efforts of our customers, enabling them to become truly ‘data-driven’.

Customers in Gartner Peer Insights rated our over rating as a 4.8 out of 5 (based on 13 reviewers, as of 30 June 2020).

I believe this is a clear indicator that this holistic view of D&A aligns with successful business outcomes, that customers expect in their projects.

At Infocepts, we’re on a mission to help organizations become data-driven and stay modern. The rapid evolution of data & analytics is creating new opportunities, while presenting new challenges. You need a partner having a proven ability to complement your team with relevant cross-functional expertise and global experience in cloud, data, and analytics. Our customers have spoken and Infocepts is the solution of choice.

Here are some excerpts from customers that contributed to the distinction:

A Tech lead said, “Infocepts takes ownership and gets the job done! The associates I work with on a daily basis show tremendous professionalism and dedication. I feel like they are a partner to me. They strive for continuous improvement, and a specific example of is the automation of repetitive manual tasks using RPA technology to reduce cost and increase productivity. Infocepts resources are focused on individual and team commitments and show dedication to great products and services.” (As of March 15, 2021).

A Data and Analytics Manager in the Media industry said, “There is a tightly integrated team right from from the leadership to the developer resulting in collaboration & synergies across Data & Analytics Initiative. They are open and communicate timelines and what is possible and what not in a very honest manner rather than providing false narratives. They keep you informed throughout and provide multiple alternatives when faced with issues for resolution.”

The manager wrote that, “Try Infocepts out with a small project and see how they are different from other vendors. I have worked with many vendors in my 19 years of my experience & they are the best of lot for D& A initiatives. They are a company to watch out for.” (As of May 3, 2021).

A senior tech lead in energy and utilities industry said, “Overall experience of working with Infocepts has been positive. They always seem to have a pool of skilled resources with a high degree of professionalism. They bring in great ideas and use best practices and produce deliverables of high quality. All of them I worked with, are/were skilled, helpful, friendly and resourceful and great team players. We engaged with them to ingest, cleanse, churn data from various sources and host them for our Data Transformation, Analytics, gaining Insights and for Reporting needs within our organization. “ (As of June 21, 2021).

Interested in what customers are saying about Infocepts? Visit the Gartner Peer Insights page for Infocepts.

As seen on Forbes.

In the digital economy, data is our most valuable resource. “Data is the new oil” is now a popular saying, and it’s an apt metaphor. Companies that learn to extract and use data efficiently have the potential for huge rewards, driving profits, innovation and customer satisfaction.

Just like with oil, quality matters in data. Quality isn’t free; it requires time, money and attention, but it’s worth the investment.

What Is Good Data? 

Good data quality means the data is fit for use based on the business context and requirements. The business rules governing quality include both quantitative (e.g., “Is the date legitimate?”) and qualitative rules (e.g., “Is the date captured in the American notation?”). In addition, expectations of users regarding availability, reliability, usability, relevance and clarity may lead to perceptions of quality issues. Data quality initiatives need to address various aspects to ensure that data is trustworthy.

Think about global data related to Covid-19 vaccinations. Reliable data must include a patient’s date of birth, the date of each dose, type of vaccine, number of required doses and location of each dose. Quality issues become complicated when you consider that some users received shots from different vaccine manufacturers, or data may have been captured in different states or countries. Poor data quality can prevent various stakeholders — including public health experts, vaccine advocates, and the general public — from making informed decisions. If people perceive vaccine data to be unreliable, they may become more hesitant to get vaccinated and ultimately damage public health outcomes.

The Cost Of Bad Data 

In 2016, an IBM study estimated that bad data costs the U.S. economy $3.1 trillion a year, and in 2020, a Gartner survey found that organizations calculated that the average cost of poor data quality was $12.8 million a year.

In my experience leading a global data and analytics (D&A) solutions provider, I’ve seen that while everyone cares about data quality in theory, when it comes to actually making funding decisions, many customers want to cut corners.

But this is where the rubber meets the road. If you don’t finance data quality initiatives, then you won’t get the result you want. Poor quality data can lead to flawed decision making, top- and bottom-line consequences and decreased employee and customer satisfaction. Incomplete data may result in ineffective marketing campaigns, and a data breach can cause reputational damage or leave you vulnerable to litigation under laws like GDPR or CCPA.

Six Common Challenges In Data Quality Improvements

Improving data quality in your company will have significant long-term benefits, but you must be proactive. Here are six of the most common challenges to be aware of when improving data quality:

1. Lack of awareness: Because data is an intangible asset, it’s often hard to assess quality and address problems. Your stakeholders may not fully appreciate the state of data quality in your systems until a major issue impacts your business.

2. Difficulty justifying investments: To get buy-in on improving data quality, you need to be able to make a solid business case for it, showing how poor-quality data has had negative consequences in the past. But frontline staff may not be willing to document quality issues to build a future business case for something like automation, preferring instead to resolve issues manually.

3. Confusing shared responsibility with IT responsibility: Enterprise data is often used across multiple business units, moving through line-of-business systems into reporting and analysis systems. Quality ownership is delegated to IT as data flows through various pipelines, yet IT is not fully responsible for the source systems. Data quality demands shared responsibility.

4. Resistance to change: Data quality programs are heavily focused on continuous improvement, which calls for users in your organization to adopt new behaviors and perform additional checks and balances with discipline. If employees are unwilling to adapt, you will run into obstacles.

5. Fear of transparency: Data quality assessments and real-time quality dashboards may make some leaders uncomfortable. Looking into past data decisions and results may cause some in your organization to feel embarrassed or concerned, creating yet another roadblock.

6. Lack of sponsorship: Data quality initiatives often compete with new technology and product management investments. It can be tempting to throw money at a shiny new object, spending $X on a cloud computing platform instead of the same amount for a data governance consultant’s annual fee. Data quality is less glamorous and often loses out to modernization initiatives.

Five Ways To Improve Data Quality 

Once you’ve identified the challenges you’re facing, here are five actions you can take to address them:

1. Sponsor beyond budgets: To achieve successful data quality initiatives, you must be willing to invest more than dollars. Articulate the importance of data quality for the organization, inspire cross-functional collaboration, prioritize progress and hold frontline managers accountable for long-term success.

2. Invest in data quality and transparency tools: As the volume, variety and velocity of data increases, you need more specialized tools for quality management. Invest in software that automates quality management for profiling, catalogs, metadata and lineage.

3. Adopt DataOps automation practices: DataOps practices build on DevOps practices from the agile software engineering domain within data analytics. Integrate them to promote collaboration, communication and automation to bring business, applications, operations and data teams together to speed feedback cycles for quality issues and reduce cycle times for delivering D&A products.

4. Embrace a stewardship culture: To create a data-driven culture, you need to incorporate stewardship in your organizational norms and habits. This is a shared responsibility among various stakeholders and includes identifying and articulating quality issues and following governance practices to resolve issues.

5. Build a data management team: Data quality management requires dedicated skills, roles and positions depending on the scope, size and complexity of your organization’s data. Hire the people who can evaluate, design and execute the solutions you need, including Chief Data Officers, data analysts, business and technical stewards, tool experts and data management consultants.

Investing in data quality is a long but worthwhile journey. Evaluate your company’s needs and challenges, and invest in the practices, tools and leadership required to advance valuable data quality initiatives.

As seen on Forbes.

According to McKinsey’s 2020 global survey of 1,216 executives and managers across financial, retail, health, automotive and telecom industries, 87% of respondents said their organizations are either already facing skill shortages or they anticipate skill shortages within the next five years. The impact of such talent gaps will vary by industry, with healthcare, pharmaceutical and medical products industries least likely to be disrupted, and financial services, tech and telecom industries most likely to undergo a serious step change.

Forty-three percent of the survey’s respondents said they expect data and analytics (D&A) to be the area with the greatest skills gap, making D&A the most prominent area of concern, followed by IT management and executive management. Clearly, D&A leaders are under substantial pressure to deliver transformative results in today’s economy. The demand created by skill shortages is only exacerbated by rapidly expanding data, technology and digital economies.

In order for D&A leaders to deliver the transformation their organizations depend on, it’s crucial to connect the organization’s D&A roadmap to its corporate strategy in a way that’s both affordable and sustainable. If you are a leader responsible for D&A strategy and execution in your organization, this may mean you’re also responsible for getting buy-in from your CEO.

As the co-founder and CEO of a global top 40 D&A solutions provider, I’ve found success with three concrete strategies for accelerating the execution of an enterprise D&A roadmap by securing the right leadership, lowering TCO (total cost of ownership) and pursuing speed of execution to achieve intended outcomes.

Build sustainable teams for D&A outcomes.

Imagine you are responsible for enterprise D&A platforms at an organization. Chances are, you’re dealing with multiple complementary stacks of cloud and analytics technology, which you may have inherited as a result of inorganic growth. As your organization adapts to these changes and/or moves from on-premise to cloud infrastructure, hiring specialists may not be sustainable – not only is it hard to find and recruit these unicorns, but they’re extremely expensive at scale.

So how do you go about building a sustainable team? One approach is to build a team of generalist leaders supported by competent advisory teams with access to a pool of specialists who can offer best-in-class advice as needed. This arrangement affords you the best of both worlds.

Embrace simplicity, self-service and automation.

Organizations commonly spend north of 20% in annual maintenance fees covering support, upgrades and peace of mind, without asking if their fixed investments are actually worth the cost. On the flip side, simplicity, automation and self-service are three pillars of a simple framework to find cost-savings opportunities and make room for growth investments.

If your stack is stable and innovations aren’t solving your organization’s problems, consider self-service and intelligent automation in order to save a lot of time, effort and cost. Strategies such as automating your continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline for D&A combined with intelligent automation using robotic process automation (RPA) and data-driven intelligence can easily save organizations up to 75%.

Shift your teams away from a DIY mindset.

When modernizing D&A platforms, there may be a tendency for teams to operate with a DIY mindset. However, moving from one analytics platform to another requires an assessment of the current and target systems, as well as rationalization, extraction of the metadata, conversion of reports and validation. This process can be complicated by gaps in technical skills and a lack of built-in automation tools – thereby requiring manual effort, as well as more time and money.

But if you leverage reusable assets from partners that can mitigate migration risk, you may be able to save time and money while driving transformation. Specialized tools can significantly accelerate this process up to 80% by automating manual activities and enabling businesses to focus on what matters most for their bottom line.

As leaders seek to accelerate D&A roadmaps with affordable investments, these three strategies – building sustainable teams; embracing simplicity, self-service and automation; shifting away from a DIY mindset – can help organizations become data-driven, modern and competitive while substantially cutting costs and accelerating speed of execution. In a world where up to 30% of hours worked globally could be automated by 2030, it’s vital for organizations to stay ahead of the curve on a sustainable trajectory.

As seen on Forbes.

Businesses of all sizes are at risk for theft, leakage or ransom of data stored online. It’s crucial to ensure your information is protected through cloud security methods such as firewalls, encryption and VPNs.

As cloud usage in businesses becomes increasingly complex, security becomes an even hotter issue, and businesses must be especially careful about where and how their data is accessed. Below, 12 members of Forbes Technology Council share tips for maintaining security in a multi-cloud environment.

1. Know your data lifecycles.

One tip for maintaining security in a multi-cloud environment is to know the lifecycle of the data you care about. How is the data collected? Where is it stored? How is it used? How is it shared? And when and how is it destroyed? Organizations should start by conducting a data risk assessment, which will inform their data governance across the entire enterprise, including the cloud. – Bob Fabien Zinga, Directly, Inc./U.S. Navy Reserve

2. Automate as many processes as possible.

If your organization is using a multi-cloud environment, automate as much as possible. A multi-cloud system that automates several tasks greatly decreases the human risk factor. It also allows you to stay agile. Make sure you prioritize security while implementing your automation capabilities—this ensures that protection is a main focal point every time automation is leveraged. – Marc Fischer, Dogtown Media LLC

3. Educate yourself on encryption key management.

Ensure your business understands encryption key management. Major cloud providers offer key management systems, meaning they have control of both the encryption (or the lock) and the encryption keys. Each cloud provider’s KMS can’t be used in other clouds. For true multi-cloud key management, adopt a KMS that centralizes KM functions across all of your cloud and on-premises environments. – Jeff MacMillan, StorMagic

4. Take a policy-based approach to security.

Cloud security requires a policy-based approach to ensure only the right people are deploying only the resources they’re supposed to. Also, continuous automation is critical to enhance security and enforce compliance against standards like CIS, NIST and HIPPA. By continuously monitoring applications with automation, you can detect threats and improve shift-left DevSecOps practices to drive business outcomes. – Jeff Kukowski, CloudBolt

5. Use cloud-architected privileged access management.

One security challenge with multi-cloud is controlling privileged access to cloud workloads using the tools offered by each provider, since they don’t work with each other and create identity silos that increase risk. Using a cloud-architected privileged access management solution to centralize access controls and leave zero standing privileges can close vulnerabilities and reduce that risk. – Flint Brenton, Centrify Corporation

6. Regularly check and validate your controls.

Like everything else, we don’t have an issue with technology itself. The reality is that we don’t take the time to “complete” and “validate” all the controls with continuous monitoring. Bad implementation or “install and go” isn’t going to work and never has. Conduct periodic checks and validation. – Gene Yoo, Resecurity, Inc.

7. Centralize security governance.

Large organizations with disparate cloud platforms across siloed business units are extremely vulnerable due to the inability to govern their entire assets under a single pane of control. Centralized security governance with tuned DevSecOps pipelines, strong configuration and policy monitoring combined with SOAR and SIEM technologies will get rid of security blind spots and minimize the attack surface. – Shashank Garg, Infocepts

8. Establish standard methodologies for your team.

The key to securing multi-cloud environments is establishing standard methodologies and toolsets so your teams can identify and address potential risks and active concerns holistically and uniformly across environments. For example, use the same penetration testing, authentication and authorization services, and edge security threat monitoring systems across all of your environments. – Denis King, Solace

9. Automate security testing.

As businesses adopt multiple cloud services and their multi-cloud environments become increasingly complex, so too does their security stack. Companies should employ automated solutions that allow security teams to continuously test the effectiveness of their company’s security controls and ensure they are working to protect their multi-cloud environments as expected. – Stephan Chenette, AttackIQ

10. Explore SASE platforms.

As threat actors strike more frequently, outdated or disjointed security solutions are simply not enough in a multi-cloud environment. For successful multi-cloud adoption and consistent security across every app, device and more, businesses must look to a secure access service edge platform to provide comprehensive visibility and control wherever data goes—all from a single dashboard. – Anurag Kahol, Bitglass

11. Routinely back up your cloud data.

Companies focus and guard against outside bad actors, so that is where they focus their attention. Going online is great for ease of use and offloading hardware and support costs. The third-party provider performs backups in case of hardware failures. However, this does nothing to guard against an internal threat. Therefore, be sure to routinely perform backups of all cloud data. – Jay Marshall, EyeLock LLC

12. Create vendor-neutral security control policies.

Each cloud service provider has its own tools and even terminology for securing its platform, so it’s difficult to build consistent security controls in a multi-cloud environment. Try to create vendor-neutral policies and definitions for security controls you need and then map them to each platform. With greater consistency, you reduce the risk that some controls or activities fall through the cracks. – Ilia Sotnikov, Netwrix

As seen on Insider Tracking

Infocepts will be the exclusive distributor of ThoughtSpot in Southeast Asia, leveraging data and analytics expertise to equip organizations with augmented analytics

MCLEAN, Va., Jan. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Infocepts, a global leader in business analytics solutions & services, and ThoughtSpot, the leader in search & AI-driven analytics, today announced a new strategic partnership. As part of this new partnership, Infocepts will become the exclusive distributor of ThoughtSpot’s search and AI-driven analytics platform in Southeast Asia.Organizations in every industry are grappling with increased competition, a changing business environment, and evolving customer expectations. Effectively leveraging data has become a critical component to navigating these changes and delivering products and services that delight customers. The data visualization and analytics capabilities historically available to enterprises in Southeast Asia don’t provide the intuitive interface, scale, or cloud experience required to capitalize on this data.By partnering with Infocepts, ThoughtSpot will be able to expand its presence throughout the ASEAN region and bring search and AI-driven analytics to Southeast Asian businesses at a greater scale than ever before. Customers can take advantage of cutting-edge analytics technology from ThoughtSpot while relying on Infocepts industry-leading data and analytics expertise and unique understanding of the challenges ASEAN enterprises face to truly unlock the value of their cloud data, unearth insights, and drive action.

“At Infocepts, we’re dedicated to staying on the cutting edge of data and analytics to ensure our customers are capitalizing on the latest technologies and innovations. By partnering with ThoughtSpot, our customers will be able to tap into the power of their data through search and AI at an unprecedented scale,” said Pat Finan, CRO, Infocepts. “The potential opportunity for organizations when it comes to their data is massive. This partnership will further enable us to help our customers turn this opportunity into value.”

“In our work with global enterprises, it’s clear the need to equip employees at all levels with data-driven insights that guide decisions has never been greater. Our new relationship with Infocepts is a major step forward in bringing search and AI-driven analytics to businesses in Southeast Asia so they can empower their teams with analytics like never before,” said Toni Adams, SVP APJ and Global Partner & Alliances, ThoughtSpot. “Challenging the status quo in technology is never simple, and especially in data, but with a trusted expert like Infocepts by our side, I’m confident we’ll be able to help companies throughout ASEAN transform their use of data.”

For more information on the partnership: https://www.infocepts.ai/thoughtspot

About Infocepts

Infocepts, a global leader in end-to-end data and analytics, which enables customers to become data-driven and stay modern. We bring people, processes, and technologies together the Infocepts way to deliver predictable outcomes with guaranteed ROI. Working in partnership with you, we help businesses modernize data platforms, advance data-driven capabilities, support systems, and build augmented business applications and data products.

Founded in 2004, Infocepts is headquartered in Tysons Corner, VA, with offices throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Every day more than 150,000 users use solutions powered by Infocepts to make smarter decisions and businesses achieve better outcomes. For more information, please visit https://www.infocepts.ai or follow @Infocepts on Twitter.

About ThoughtSpot

ThoughtSpot is reinventing how companies make decisions by putting the power of their cloud data in the hands of every employee through search and AI-driven analytics. ThoughtSpot was built for the cloud era to seamlessly deliver insights instantly at a massive scale. With ThoughtSpot, anyone can use simple natural language to create new data-driven insights or surface those generated by others from across their entire enterprise. By leveraging AI, ThoughtSpot goes beyond answering known questions, detecting trends, anomalies, and patterns to suggest new questions users care about, but wouldn’t have thought to ask themselves. Customers can take advantage of ThoughtSpot as a SaaS offering through ThoughtSpot Cloud, connect and query cloud data warehouses directly with Embrace, and stay up to date on their business with the ThoughtSpot Mobile app. Customers like Walmart, BT, Daimler, Medtronic, Hulu, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of the West, Siemens, and Nationwide Building Society rely on ThoughtSpot to empower employees at every level and transform their organizations. By bringing data to decisions everywhere, ThoughtSpot is building a more fact-driven world. Learn more at http://www.thoughtspot.com

Media Contact

Katherine Gabriel, Infocepts, 571-348-3462, katherine.gabriel@infocepts.com

Most security professionals will tell you that the most vulnerable spot in a company’s digital security net isn’t any particular technology—it’s the users themselves. While digital protection policies start at the top of a company, every team member needs to be an active participant.

It’s wise for tech leaders to develop a set of digital protocols that apply across the company. Below, 12 experts from Forbes Technology Council share their tips for vital steps all employees need to take to ensure robust digital security.

1. Starting Security Education Early And Refreshing Often

Education is key. To help protect Elastic from attacks targeting our workforce, we provide a program based on communication and training to all personnel with access to Elastic systems, regardless of role. We establish policies in new-hire onboarding and insist on continued education via annual refresher courses throughout an employee’s tenure. – Kim Huffman, Elastic

2. Regularly Testing Security Awareness

Take constant tests and quizzes. My team has found this practice to be most effective when it comes to protection and security, as well as for staying up to date in the matter of new additions. After all, it is the most effective way to ensure that your company’s security rules and regulations are learned and well-remembered through time. – Daria Leshchenko, SupportYourApp Inc.

3. Using A Password Manager

It starts with password security. We require employees to use a company-provided password manager to generate and store strong, unique passwords for each account. While it’s required for use internally, it’s also an employee benefit we encourage people to leverage for personal accounts. A compromised personal password reused in a work context could enable criminals’ easy entry into your network. – David Endler, SpyCloud

4. Practicing Good Credential Hygiene And Enabling Auto-Updates

We strongly recommend all employees practice good credential hygiene. That means not using weak or default admin/system passwords; instead, consider using a strong phrase. Also, ensure your employees have proper security training to avoid phishing attacks and downloading malware. Lastly, enable automatic updates for the operating system you are using and update as recommended. These should be table stakes but are often forgotten practices. – Gaurav Banga, Balbix

5. Implementing Two-Factor Authentication

Digital protection starts with active security protocols. All employees should utilize two-factor authentication on all logins, as 2FA acts as a kind of “double lock,’’ securing private information while validating user identity. While a basic security protocol, it’s one way to ward off potential hackers with the added benefit of reminding everyone within your organization that security is there. – Robert Weissgraeber, AX Semantics

6. Using A VPN

Most executives feel the shift to remote work has increased the need for data loss prevention strategies and for good reason: Not all employees share the same security priorities. Tapping into unsecured Wi-Fi networks is just one example. Yet, the solution that can and will cover a lot of ground is to encourage employees to use a virtual private network before signing on. Encryption is key. – Meghann Chilcott, EHR Data

7. Purging Outdated, Unused Data

What all employees should be doing but usually don’t is purging outdated, unused data. Any data no longer needed for daily operations is a nuclear asset that increases the “blast radius” of harm if a business is breached. To manage and protect digital properties properly, companies should create annual mandates on cleaning out outdated, unused data to create good hygiene habits. – Caleb Barlow, CynergisTek

8. Replace Or Supplement Web-Based File Sharing

Utilize a unified file sharing application internally either alongside or instead of something Web-based such as Google Docs, which may be more prone to data breaches. This will not only keep internal data and documents safely stored, but it can also help protect any sensitive client information. – Andrew Jornod, VertexOne

9. Not Sending Sensitive Info To Personal Email

Never send sensitive company or client information to personal email accounts, even if it’s just to print a document out at home. Although the action is often well-intentioned, valuable data now sits in an environment that is not secured by the company, leaving it vulnerable to cybercriminals, and your company could be at risk of breaching data protection regulations such as GDPR. – Edward Bishop, Tessian

10. Limiting Access To Consumer Data

At Infocepts, we take customer data privacy very seriously. Our need-to-know policy is enforced, and only associates who need access to customer data are provided access to the systems and data stores. Data flow across project teams is restricted by physical and digital controls. Systems-based controls are coupled with training so associates are fully aware of why data privacy is crucial and how to ensure it. – Shashank Garg, Infocepts

11. Not Clicking Unknown Email Links

Since digital assets are very valuable to an organization, one key protocol is not to click on any links in emails that come from untrusted members or unknown sources. Conducting separate employee training with email protection software will go a long way to help. – Buyan Thyagarajan, Eigen X

12. Reporting Anything Out Of The Ordinary

If you see something, say something. If someone notices something out of the ordinary, such as an unusual piece of code or a newly created file, they should immediately report it. By definition, hackers and their activities don’t belong in the environments they target, so it is up to everyone to identify when things are out of place and up-level it to those who can prevent further intrusion. – Fabrizio Blanco, Viant Technology

As seen on Economic Times

Cloud implementation is one of the biggest changes businesses go through. Migrating to the cloud provides an opportunity to businesses to become more agile, improve their flexibility, reduce costs in the long run and focus on their core competencies. As important it is for organisations to embark on their cloud journeys, it is equally important to plan and strategize it properly.

Infocepts, data and analytics solutions and services providers while thinking to adopt cloud took a backward approach to decide whether it needed Cloud or not. It thought of an alternative to cloud.

“The alternative to the cloud is that you maintain your own servers, you have a team, you invest in that, you do CAPEX, and then you have your own backups etc. But if you are on cloud, you skip all this. Now when we are working on the cloud which is all hosted somewhere south of London where I don’t have to worry about it. I know, I have a very trusted partner who is taking care of all this for me. So, I don’t have to have my own IT team to maintain all of that. Being on cloud reduces my anxiety on the maintenance part” said Rajendra V. Jodhpurkar, Global Vice President, Head of Global IT, Head of Business Planning & Strategic Initiatives at Infocepts.

“The second reason was that any software has a new patch release every month or quarter. If it is hosted on-prem and I have the software on my server, it means that I have to undergo and upgrade it myself. On the cloud, however, this all will happen every quarter without our teams being involved as much,” he added.

The company started thinking about the cloud at the beginning of 2019 March. It did its Competency Maturity Analysis (CMA) to see what gaps exist and how they can make sure that we are up to industry’s standards. Infocepts hired a consultant to analyze the practices and processes the company had back then and compared with what industry followed.

Infocepts is on a journey to become a 100 million company by 2023 and it needs robust processes and systems to go ahead. This triggered the need for cloud, as the company thought it would be a major part of this growth process.

“From then on we floated the RFP, we got multiple vendors. We did a lot of pros and cons between each of the ERPs in terms of strength and weaknesses. The next step was of demos and workshops. We evaluated products from a lot of vendors but since people felt comfortable with Oracle, we decided our technology partner to be Oracle and went ahead with Oracle ERP and HCM Cloud,” he said.

Then came the time to decide on an implementation partner. Once again RFP was made and after careful evaluation, Infocepts chose KPMG as its implementation partner.

Jodhpurkar believes it is very important to make sure that one has the right implementation partner who understands the journey properly.

“And then there was a big kickoff where we invited all people to embark on the journey. We iterated multiple times why this journey is important to us and how it is going to help us and our people in our career path. We did the pilots and wrote all the requirements. We had a meeting every month to see what is going and how it is going and how to correct something if the need be,” he said.

Explaining the benefits and the business value added through these solutions, he said, “For the Board of Directors and for the leaders, one of the important things is MIS reports (Management Information Systems) where we have all the numbers. Earlier it used to come out on the 15th of every month and now we have it on the 9th of every month. So we are saving almost 6-7 days. The other thing is that earlier the confidence on the accuracy of data was low. People used to say that the data could be 50-70% correct but now we know it is 100% accurate.”

Infocepts works with a lot of vendors who demand quick payments. Earlier it used to take 7 days to process and complete the payment which now just takes a day or two.

Jodhpurkar believes that these solutions have drastically reduced processing time, thereby improving the overall experience.

As seen on Microsoft

A global leader of end-to-end data analytics solutions and platform modernization—with operations in more than 20 countries—Infocepts has placed its employees at the core of its digital transformation strategies. With Office 365 as its all-in-one collaboration and communication platform, for 1,000-plus associates across 20 countries, the company is not only ensuring seamless business continuity, but it’s also building in new levels of agility, efficiency, and productivity within the workplace.

Data is at the crux of every business decision, and it is the force behind every organizational strategy. Its ubiquitous nature and invaluable presence in the modern-day business environment requires that companies understand and ascribe appropriate value to the role of data in the overall operational framework.

How can businesses unlock actionable insights from the vast volumes of data that are generated on a routine basis? How can companies turn data-driven transformations into a competitive advantage? These are questions that Infocepts, a leading provider of data and analytics solutions, places at the heart of its value proposition and the solutions it provides.

Founded in 2004, Infocepts has built a formidable presence across the globe, helping companies resolve seemingly intractable challenges and find cutting-edge solutions through the intelligent use of data and analytics. With a robust team of 1,000-plus data experts working across 20 countries, the company offers modern analytics, cloud and platform modernization, managed services, and data management solutions, among others. Given its broad portfolio and geographic spread, cross-functional collaboration—with co-workers, customers, and business partners—is a critical business requirement.

Modern platforms for a modern workforce

A digital disruptor with a widespread global presence, Infocepts is always seeking new ways to connect and collaborate. In the past, the company had adopted a mix of platforms, with Skype for Business being the primary mode of communication. In 2017, the company began re-evaluating its tools to bolster security, cohesion, and to build a seamless chat-based information exchange through a unified communication platform.

“As a leading provider of data and analytics services across the globe, collaboration is a key facet of our business. We chose Office 365 as our internal collaboration tool to empower our 1,000-plus associates spread across eight different time zones,” explains Shashank Garg, Chief Executive Officer at Infocepts. “As more and more of our customers adopt Office 365, we are becoming much more agile and efficient.”

Furthermore, the company sought an opportunity for its young developer community. “We wanted a very simple way to navigate different hierarchies,” explains Rajendra Jodhpurkar, EVP Strategic Initiatives at Infocepts. “When we started looking at it from our IT roadmap perspective, Microsoft 365 was the natural choice. Its advanced features, familiarity, and enterprise-grade security best met our needs,” he adds.

This decision marked InfoCept’s transformation journey with Microsoft technologies.

A collaborative culture

Post-migration to Microsoft 365, all departments and functions within Infocepts have embraced Microsoft Teams as their collaboration platform. As the all-in-one, chat-based tool, Teams has helped break silos, bring in alignment, and drive transparency in the way people work. With Teams, Infocepts has switched from a culture swamped by emails to a culture of informational communication to get things done.

“The biggest value comes in when you have cross-functional teams,” Jodhpurkar adds. “We wanted to reduce the number of synchronous meetings. Now, on a Teams channel, we can easily create group chats and keep talking and exchanging action items any time. Whenever people find time, they can take a look. No need to find a time slot that fits everyone’s schedule. No need for everyone to make time for something. Also, it’s been providing a lot of transparency. If the CEO is talking to the HR head about something, and the heads of sales, delivery, and finance teams are also on the same channel, they’ll all be on the same page.”

Infocepts’ digital-first culture, enabled by Microsoft 365, was a critical enabler of business continuity when the COVID-19 crisis struck. The leaders could quickly ideate on Teams and support associates spread across countries. The company’s leadership came together on the platform to assess the needs and offer solutions. They went on to acquire approximately 400 laptops to meet IT requirements. The Teams framework also enabled the company’s business leaders to keep all channels of communication open at all times and ensure the well-being of employees and associates.

“When COVID-19 hit, Infocepts switched to a 100 percent remote working model in less than a week. This would not have happened without Microsoft 365. Our adoption of Microsoft technologies helped us stay connected with all our internal and external stakeholders,” Garg remarks.

Sharp focus on productivity, innovation

Over the last three years, Infocepts has accelerated its collaborative culture by weaving in these Microsoft products into its organizational fabric.

  • OneNote: To prepare for meetings and translate project goals into reality is now easier than ever. Everyone can share the call agenda, add feedback, and brainstorm new ideas on OneNote. Employees can co-author documents and access all relevant files in one place.
  • Forms: To understand how employees are coping with the pandemic, Infocepts is conducting surveys on Forms and collating feedback across the United States, India, Singapore, and other countries. “Through these surveys, we’re checking in with people about how they are doing, how their work-life balance is. Within a week, we share the results of the survey. Such insights are helping us address the pain points of our people and support them in any way we can,” notes Jodhpurkar.
  • Yammer: To engage with employees across the spectrum effectively and meaningfully, the company has been using Yammer as its professional networking platform. With Yammer, Infocepts has been able to spread positivity, keep its knowledge workforce engaged, and spark conversation within the community. Senior leaders are conducting monthly talk shows, to disseminate corporate communication and interact with employees on a casual note. The videos are stored on Stream to be accessed later by those who missed the sessions.
  • Sway: To share internal communication and update everyone about exciting things happening across the board, Infocepts is rolling out monthly newsletters. Known as InfoGram, these newsletters are curated and developed entirely from a remote working team on Sway. “Sway is one of those unsung apps in Microsoft 365. When we were looking for options, we found that it was very easy to create our newsletters on Sway, without any external involvement,” remarks Katherine Gabriel, Director of Marketing at Infocepts.
  • Power Apps: Given that the company operates in the data science space and uses various software to serve clients, it is also striving to simplify internal processes through apps strung together with Power Apps.

“We don’t want our people to depend only on the IT team to develop line-of-business (LOB) apps. We just want to give them the right platform and an easy learning curve so that they can build their own apps for their teams. In fact, our QA head built an app on Power Apps and is using it to track delivery risks. He has built another app where associates can record their achievements easily. At the end of the year, you will have a compiled list of everyone’s accomplishments at your fingertips. We’ve had such impressive use cases in other teams too,” says Jodhpurkar.

Moving ahead as a single organism

Building on its culture of chat-based collaboration and file sharing in the cloud, Infocepts has recorded remarkable benefits:

  • Seamless transition to a remote work ecosystem within one week.
  • Smooth collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, enabling remote go-live of its ERP platform.
  • A 58 percent increase in the adoption of Yammer during the COVID-19 crisis.
  • Reduction of generic emails by 20 to 30 percent. The company plans to reduce emails further by 50 percent, using Yammer to share birthday greetings, salary statements, and operations updates, such as server availability.
  • A 50 percent reduction in travel bills.

Encouraged by the success of its digital transformation, Infocepts intends to amplify its technology focus. The organization plans to use Microsoft Power BI as the visualization and insights generation tool of its data council.

“Microsoft technologies will have a significant place in our IT roadmap. How do we improve the employee experience? How do we make them more and more productive using various apps? That’s what we are trying to get at. With complete backing of the leadership to invest in the right technologies for these purposes, we’re planning to go all out!” concludes Jodhpurkar.