I have been doing video interviews with a number of C level executives, VCs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See the full list here.
This time it is Paul Wright, CIO of Accuride Corp, a major supplier to the truck making world.
He describes the Detroit auto industry as it opens up. Because Accuride supplies to an essential industry: trucking, they were never completely shut down. They also benefited from early experience at their Chinese plant.
He describes the differences in work from home experiences from "near cloud native" IT in the US, to those in the mostly on-premise set up in the EU. We also discuss the likely shifts in manufacturing around the world. He points out Japanese companies are already pulling out of China. Changes to NAFTA were already leading to more near shoring.
We discuss the impact that growing automation in the auto industry will have on its talent needs and the US education system.
Paul has the distinction of doing the session from his striking red barn. Hey why not? Others in the series have done it from their man caves.
I have been doing video interviews with a number of C level executives, VCs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See the full list here.
This time it is Sarvesh Mahesh, CEO of Tavant.
He talks about acrobatics he has seen at customers in the mortgage processing industry during the COVID-19 crisis. Even as dark clouds loom over commercial real estate, the residential real estate market has remained strong with re-financings as rates drop and people look at moves to suburbs and even across states as work from anywhere trends accelerate. That mortgage business has traditionally been paper intensive and he describes creative solutions to allow for face-to-face closings even as most of their employees moved to work from home. He also describes how the real estate sector is getting more digitized - from virtual house tours to title checks.
He also talks about his other vertical markets like media and warranties. He discusses his services business as they moved to work from home regimes. He expects more outcome based pricing - a move away from traditional headcount/time sheet based models. And work from anywhere to lead to interesting consultant residence trends.
I have been doing video interviews with a number of C level executives, VCs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See the full list here.
This time it is Ed Abbo, President and CTO at C3.ai, which blends cloud computing power, machine learning and sensory data to help accelerate digital transformation at asset-intensive manufacturing, utilities, oil and gas and other customers and in service-intensive industries like healthcare and banking.
He describes acrobatics at customers rapidly scaling up during the crisis like 3M and others which saw a dramatic increase in PPE and other product demand. Others scaling down like Shell Oil. He also describes Enel Energy, a utility with 60 million customers in 30 countries. Andre Blumberg of CLP had described some of the swings in energy demand they had seen in Asia/Pac - multiply that many times with Enel's global coverage.
He also describes their COVID-19 Data Lake which should hopefully dramatically improve the next-generation of pandemic modeling.
Finally, he spends some time on how C3ai helps corporate IT move to hundreds of bite-sized, agile projects which leverage traditional monolithic investments, not replace them in multi-year projects. It's a new way to approach digital transformations - a sea change from prior experiences in his long career at Siebel and Oracle.
I have been doing video interviews with a number of C level execs, VCs and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See the full list here.
This time it is Jack Barrett, President and CEO of First Citrus Bank, a community bank based in the Tampa Bay, FL area. It is an example of "Fortune favors the Agile". During the recent crisis, their hustle allowed to grow 25% and as importantly earned immense gratitude from their local, small business customers.
As part of the CARES stimulus package the US government approved a Payroll Protection Program (PPP) for small businesses. Jack describes the heroics as his bank processed more loan applications in a little over a month than they do over years. They did so while the PPP guidelines kept changing on an hourly basis. They did so in an atmosphere of existential fear in small business. The Small Business Administration (SBA) ETRANS system to approve the loans was also overwhelmed - in total it has approved nearly 4 million loan applications as part of the program.
His staff worked nonstop to get 1,180 loans approved for local businesses. Many other community banks did similar for their regions. In contrast, many of the larger, national banks fumbled the opportunity. He shares the outpouring of gratitude he has seen from his customers as a result.
He also shares what he is seeing in economic recovery in the area. Good reason to be optimistic as other states follow Florida in re-opening.
I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up.
This time it is Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho Corp.
We talk about some of their heroics. Zoho was one of the first technology vendors to launch a set of tools, Remotely to help customer employees work from home. And several thousand customers have been grateful for Zoho's emergency assistance of subscription waiver during the crisis. In a feel-good section he describes how many customers have asked them to save the offer for needier customers. We also talk about how cloud applications have scaled impressively to help businesses during this lockdown.
Just as impressively, Zoho's employees have been preparing and delivering 10,000 meals a day to the needy, been designing UV sanitation devices and have built a hospital on their campus.
When I last met him in Austin, TX in February we had talked about his passion for rural revival and the world of digital nomads. That was prophetic - we did not know the world would soon have severe food supply chain disruptions. We also did not know so many of us would be quarantined. We revisit his philosophy on both topics.
One of the most motivational sections in the conversation is when I ask him how he manages to stay so positive and lead during the crisis. He responds "Pain is real, suffering is optional". What a great attitude for our turbulent times!
By the wonders of modern technology, he did his session on a 4G mobile network from a remote village in Tenkasi in Southern India, at the edge of a wildlife sanctuary. I used Google Meet for the first time. Other sessions in this series have mostly been on Zoom. Next time, we will use Zoho Meeting, or even better, meet in person.
I have been doing video interviews with a number of CIOs, software executives and practitioners about acrobatics they have been seeing in various vertical sectors during the COVID-19 crisis and the "New normal" they can expect as the economy wakes up. See a growing list of interviews here.
This time we focus on local governments which have gone through a gut wrenching time as they are making stay-at-home, re-opening decisions, and having to continue to provide citizen services while facing daunting fiscal realities. I turned to Doug Belden, Tax Collector of Hillsborough County. The county spread over 1,200 sq miles and with a population in excess of 1.4 million, is the fourth largest in the state of Florida.
He is a straight shooter, and I urge you to listen to the whole conversation, not just focus on individual statements. He is a public servant, not a politician, and brings a nice blend of science, economics and public policy to the conversation. He is a winner of the Florida Governor's Sterling award and I have written about the impressive efficiency of his operation. Here he is being honored by the former Governor, Rick Scott.
His group is taking elaborate steps to protect both his customers (the taxpayers) and his employees during the COVID-19 crisis. They applied an antimicrobial shield called mPerial to every office surface and kiosk. That provides a first level barrier for a month. Then employees disinfect surfaces several times a day. Customers and employees go through thermal temperature screening. There are plenty of hand sanitizers.
For recently re-opened driving tests, the steps are even more elaborate to protect older testers from potentially asymptomatic young drivers. The testers stay outside the car and communicate with the driver via the mobile speakerphone or the bluetooth audio in the car. They grade 5 maneuvers on a tablet. Plenty of masks, thermal checks and whistles are involved during the steps he describes
He presents the pressure to reopen the county and state against the backdrop of low rate of testing and the need to safeguard our large elderly demographic. And if you think he is opposed to re-opening, he paints the daunting economics the county faces as sales taxes drop with small business bankruptcies looming, as driving and fuel taxes decline and as real estate tax delinquencies increase. He also points to the as-yet unaccounted costs of stay-at-home policies and social isolation - suicides, abuse, delayed chemotherapy, other elective medical procedures among other conditions.
I have profiled many acrobatics in the private sector during this crisis. Doug and other public officials are doing similar as they walk the tightrope balancing economics and health. They are doing their best, and as he repeatedly points out, he gets his decisions and protocols vetted by public health and medical professionals.
I appreciate Doug making himself available for the session from his home. He has underlying conditions and has to be careful. He is nearing retirement after a lifetime of public service and deserves a long salute for his work.
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