In the year 2014, while e-commerce was majorly a business-to-consumer (B2C) game a platform best constructed for consumer brands and retail transactions, business-to-business (B2B) was barely on the limelight. B2B ordering solutions were very few, pricey, and complex in nature. Because of this, it was difficult for small wholesale distributors and retailers to implement B2B ordering solutions in their businesses.
Cybersecurity Awareness Training Presentation v2024.03
B2B Wave- Creating Ripples in B2B Industry
1. JANUARY-2020
Vol 6 Issue 2
Cover Story
CREATING RIPPLES IN B2B INDUSTRY
PAGE 10
t h e t e c h n o l o g y h e a d l i n e s . c o m
ALEXANDER
SEIMANIDIS,
CEO
2.
3.
4. 10
EXPERT ANALYSIS
16 Waste: the elephant in the room.
How technology can help.
By Adrian Tylim, Chief Technology Officer,
Shift Energy Holdings, Inc.
18 Data is transforming the entire
business landscape
By Raj B. Vattikuti, CEO, Altimetrik Corp.
SOFTWARE COMPANIES
10 BEST
2020
ORDER MANAGEMENT
T O W A T C H I N
08 Purpose-Built AI Solutions Drive
Faster ROI for the Commercial
Insurance Industry
By Ron Glozman, CEO and founder,
Chisel AI
ALEXANDER SEIMANIDIS, CEO
JANUARY 2020 4
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
Contents
Cover Story
Creating Ripples in
B2B Industry
12
5. TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
INFOCERT
DANILO CATTANEO,
CEO
A Champion in the Field of Digital
Transaction Management
22
LAWTRUST
MAESON MAHERRY,
CSO
A High Security Digital Signature
Provider
28
NOTARIUS
CLAUDE CHARPENTIER,
CEO
A Trusted Digital Signature Solution
Provider
32
Contents
OPINION & INSIGHTS
38 Network Vulnerabilities
By Barbara Hunt, Chief Executive Officer,
NetAbstraction
40 Change your Workforce with
Technology Intersection and In-
person Communication
By Steve ZoBell, Chief Product & Technolo-
gy Officer, Workfront
42 Making US Again the Favorite Job
Destination
Contributed by Michael Meyer, CIO, MRS
SERVICE PROVIDERS
10 BEST
2020
DIGITAL SIGNATURE
T O W A T C H I N
TECH TALK
26 Few tricks on how blockchain
can improve your company’s
data
By Alin Iftemi, Head of Business, Modex
32 Start-ups are accelerating the
growth of Smart Cities
Urška Jež, Co-founder and Executive
Director of ABC Accelerator
JANUARY 2020 5
6.
7. Editorial
EDITOR IN CHIEF
CARLOS CHAVEZ
SUB EDITOR
NICOLE ANDERSON
EDITORIAL STAFF
ANAND J.S
SWET KAMAL
A. CHARLES
DEESHNA C
ADVERTISEMENT
ALEX BENNY
CREATIVE DIRECTORS
SREEJESH SREENIVASAN
DANIEL CHAKRAVARTHY
VISUALIZERS
FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ
KURT MILLER
MAILING ADDRESS
8101, MEMORIAL LN
PLANO TX-75024
For Editorial Enquiries: editor@
thetechnologyheadlines.com
Website: www.thetechnologyheadlines.com
Printed and published by The Technology Headlines.
Copyright 2020
All right reserved. Reproduction in whole or part of
any text, photography or illustrations without written
permission from the publisher is prohibited. The
Publisher assumes no responsibilities for unsolicited
manuscripts, photographs or illustrations. Views
and opinions expressed in this publication are not
necessarily those of the magazine and accordingly no
liabiliy is assumed by the magazine.
VOL - 6 ISSUE - 2 JANUARY 2020
EDITORIAL
TECHNOLOGY: CENTER OF EVERY BUSINESS
I
am sure I won’t surprise you if I tell you that today’s business rotates around
high-tech technologies and modern methods. We live in a technological
era where using the Internet of Things to connect, cloud to collaborate,
cognitive computing and artificial intelligence to enhance business operations,
and data analysis to extract meaningful information are at the center. And,
implementing advanced technical methods to simplify the complicated
processes, enhance our productivity, and bring better customer satisfaction is
widespread.
Today, organizations of every size are striving to grow and remain sustainable
in the market. They are increasingly adopting different technologies and
applications to achieve their objectives. Order Management Software and
Digital Signature are few among them. They are not only adding values to
industries but also transforming the way we do businesses in this competitive
environment.
While order management empowers e-commerce sellers to track their orders
from multiple channels through their entire journey, digital signature helps
organizations to chuck out the traditional ink signature practice and adopt a
secure and seamless signing transaction platform with full user authorization.
Theyhavetheimmensepotentialtotransformbusinesses,improveproductivity,
and customer satisfaction.
Hence, in this special issue of our magazine “The Technology Headlines” our
focus is on highlighting the conversation on both: Oder Management Software
and Digital Signature and their diverse benefits. To showcase these in a better
way to our readers, we have invited some of the best Oder Management and
Digital Signature solution providers of the industry to share their views on
different applications of both the technologies and how industries are moving
further by using them.
Do let us know your thoughts.
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
8. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
EXPERT ANALYSIS
PURPOSE-BUILT AI SOLUTIONS DRIVE FASTER ROI FOR THE
COMMERCIAL INSURANCE INDUSTRY
By Ron Glozman, CEO and founder, Chisel AI
F
rom chatbots to Netflix to “Hey Siri,” virtually
every aspect of our lives is impacted by Artificial
Intelligence. Now it’s commercial insurance’s turn.
While investment in new technologies by commercial
insurance companies has lagged behind personal lines,
this is changing as the industry looks to AI to help address
age-old cumbersome processes that hamper customer
responsiveness and growth.
With so many different types of AI available, it can be
confusing to select the right AI solution. A key consideration
is whether the AI solution is purpose-built for insurance or
general-purpose. Knowing the difference could be the key to
accelerating implementation and ROI.
What is a Purpose-Built AI Solution?
Purpose-built solutions are designed to address the specific
needs of an industry. For example, a purpose-built solution
for insurance like Chisel AI understands the specialized
language of commercial insurance documents and includes
intelligent out-of-the-box workflows that automate high-
volume routine brokering and underwriting processes.
While general-purpose AI is a solution in search of a
problem, a purpose-built solution starts with the real pains
that insurers face every day, and then harnesses the power of
AI to solve them.
Purpose-built Advantages
Artificial intelligence is an algorithmic method of evaluating
data and making predictions based on past results – this is
what allows AI solutions to learn and get better over time.
But algorithms are only as good as the data they are trained
on.
There are significant advantages to choosing an AI solution
purpose-built for insurance. These solutions will already
have been trained on data sets from many other brokers and
carriers, allowing you to benefit from the experience gained
from other customers in your industry. While the AI solution
will still need to be trained on your unique data and adapted
to your business rules, it speaks the language of commercial
insurance out of the box. This gives purpose-built solutions
a leg up when it comes to meeting your business objectives
quickly, efficiently, and at a lower cost. Purpose-built
solutions require less training time and less customization.
A Question of Trust
Ultimately, the choice comes down to peace of mind. One
well-known general-purpose AI solution was originally built
to win a TV quiz show – it doesn’t get more generalist than
that! Would you trust this solution to run your mission-
critical processes and comprehend the nuances of your data?
Does it stand to reason that a general-purpose solution might
take longer to get up to speed, and could put the success of
your implementation at, ahem, jeopardy?
AI that Speaks Your Language
Even for the most experienced staff, combing through
complex insurance documents can be tedious, and costly
errors and omissions do slip through. Chisel AI reads
unstructured insurance data 400 times faster than a human
– and with greater accuracy. It’s the only solution that
Ron Glozman
CEO AND FOUNDER,
CHISEL AI
JANUARY 2020 8
9. instantly recognizes 500+ insurance-specific data points,
such as limits, premiums, deductibles, types of coverage,
exclusions and endorsements. Chisel AI also supports
insurance industry standards like ACORD and CSIO. And
Chisel AI never gets tired – not even on page 46 of the
policy or after processing thousands of submissions.
Real-world Use Cases of AI in Commercial Insurance
For brokers and carriers, making sense of policy-level
data locked away in insurance documents is critical. By
using Chisel AI to extract data and digitally transform
routine tasks, insurers can free up their skilled
knowledge workers to focus on their customers:
Quote Comparison – Check critical elements in up to
ten quotes at once to identify the best coverage and
premiums for their customers. No need to manually
review each quote and rekey information into
spreadsheets for comparison.
Policy Checking – Digitize and standardize the entire
process of checking a policy against an application,
submission, quote, and binder—in seconds.
Submission Triage – Automatically extract key policy-
level data in real time and apply rules to submissions
to either auto-decline or auto-route them to the right
department.
Submission Prioritization – Slash broker response
times from weeks to days by quickly identifying the
best submissions to write. Chisel AI automatically ranks
submissions based on risk appetite, likelihood to bind,
and other key performance indicators.
Summing Up
By using purpose-built AI solutions to free insights
trapped in unstructured insurance data, brokers and
carriers can increase their underwriting capacity by over
50 percent, achieve better risk assessment and pricing,
reduce E&O exposure, and deliver a better customer
experience. Increasingly, commercial insurers are
learning that the key to unlocking the full potential of AI
is choosing a purpose-built solution. tth
JANUARY 2020 9
10. 10 MOST INNOVATIVE
2019
S O L U T I O N P R O V I D E R S
IMAGE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE
T O W A T C H I N T H E Y E A R
B
efore the introduction of E-commerce, orders were processed by fax or direct mail.
But the growth of online retailers required a unified system to streamline the
entire process and handle more orders with less delay. Customers began to look
for fluidity between online, brick and mortar sales, and all intermediate channels, and an
order management system was born.
Put it simply, order management is the end-to-end cycle of receiving and processing a
customer order through to fulfillment. Order management is not conducted in isolation.
On the contrary, it relies on almost every department in a company: from a customer
service team to the warehouse staff, the accounting department through to delivery
partners. When mastered effectively, order management ensures a business’s workflow
runs smoothly by establishing efficient processes to keep it moving forward, maintaining
customer satisfaction and protecting a company’s reputation.
Order management system has many key benefits for businesses including visibility at
every step of the sales process, time efficiency, reduced risk of human error and improved
accuracy.
In the latest edition of the ‘The Technology Headlines’, our editorial team has taken an
initiative to look into the current state of the cannabis market and have come up with the
list of “10 Best Order Management Software Companies to watch in 2020”. With this issue,
we intend to inform our audience that how these companies are growing and changing
the shape of the industry by delivering innovative and powerful solutions in the market.
ORDER
MANAGEMENT
ORDER
MANAGEMENT
10 BEST
ORDER MANAGEMENT
SOFTWARE COMPANIES
TO WATCH IN 2020
JANUARY 2020 10
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
11. LISTING
Apilayer
Wien, Wien
apilayer.com
Julian Zehetmayr
Co-Founder & CEO
Apilayer is a leading provider of cloud-based API and Software-as-
a-Service (SaaS) brands for developers, startups as well as Fortune
500s.
B2B Wave
London
b2bwave.com
Alex Seimanidis
Co-Founder & CEO
B2B Wave is a cloud-based application that allows wholesale
businesses and retailers to easily create and manage their
e-commerce portal.
enVista
Carmel, IN
envistacorp.com
Jim Barnes
CEO
enVista is a leading global software solutions and consulting
services firm enabling enterprise commerce TM for the world’s
leading manufacturers, distributors and omni-channel retailers.
Jagged Peak
Tampa, FL
jaggedpeak.com
Michael Mercier
CEO
Jagged Peak is a leading eCommerce solutions provider with
software and services that enhance the scalability, flexibility and
profitability of multi-channel online businesses.
Launchpad Intelligent Software
Austell, Georgia
liftoff.shop/
Andrew Alford
President
Launchpad Intelligent Software provides intriguingly robust,
flexible and scalable e-commerce and web-to-print software.
9to5
Southfield, Michigan
9to5partners.com
Paul Christy
Founder & CEO
9to5 offers its new A.I. software, Origami, as a cost-effective
alternative for small and medium sized print companies looking
for high-volume service and functionality at smaller-scale pricing.
ReadyCloud
Scottsdale, Arizona
readycloud.com
Chris Dunn
CEO
ReadyCloud is a Growth Marketing solution for online retailers
that gives them a host of invaluable customer retention,
marketing and relationship management tools that help
supercharge loyalty and improve conversions.
Smart Technology
Jeddah, Makkah Region
Smart.sa
Albara M. Bahjatt
Co-Founder & CEO
SMART is a MSP & IT service company, handling the IT backbone
of companies in the field of catering, engineering, consulting,
advertising, wealth management and more as their MSP
SmartMatchApp
Montreal, QC
smartmatchapp.com
Timur Mourtazov
Co-Founder & CEO
SmartMatchApp is an Award-winning Professional Matchmaking
Software CRM and Network used by more than 150 matchmakers
worldwide.
Square
San Francisco, CA
squareup.com
Jack Dorsey
CEO
Square is a one-stop run-your-business shop, which helps
customers from payment to payroll.
COMPANY MANAGEMENT WHAT THEY DO
10 BESTORDER MANAGEMENT
SOFTEWARE COMPANIES TO WATCH IN 2020
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
12. FOUNDER &CEO
“What separates us
from the rest is that we
always have feet on the
streets, with agents and
technicians that go to
the customer’s locations
to fulfill any concerns or
questions,”
CREATING RIPPLES IN
B BINDUSTRY
I
n the year 2014, while e-commerce was majorly a
business-to-consumer (B2C) game — a platform
best constructed for consumer brands and retail
transactions, business-to-business (B2B) was barely on
the limelight. B2B ordering solutions were very few,
pricey, and complex in nature. Because of this, it was
difficult for small wholesale distributors and retailers to
implement B2B ordering solutions in their businesses.
Alexander Seimanidis —who was an expert in
e-commerce and B2B industry, found this challenge
as a great opportunity. Along with his partners, he
decided to transform every aspect of B2B platform and
add value to it. Hence, in the year 2016, B2B Wave was
introduced which includes the entire workflow of B2B
transaction — from simple catalog features to complex
pricing rules.
Today, B2B Wave is a cloud-based application that
allows wholesale businesses and retailers to create
and manage their e-commerce portal. Headquartered
in London, UK, the company aims to help small
wholesale enterprises abolish the traditional way of
doing business and grow tremendously in the market.
Moreover, with its dynamic solutions and services,
the company empowers them to tackle their financial
impacts on their local communities.
JANUARY 2020 12
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
COVER STORY
13. “
“
ALEXANDER SEIMANIDIS, CEO
Eliminating communication
and custom solution costs,
and wholesale distribution
business can sign up, create
its private URL, upload
its products, and invite its
customers to start placing
their orders online.
JANUARY 2020 13
10 BEST
2020
ORDER MANAGEMENT
TO WATCH IN
SOFTWARE COMPANIES
14. “
“
ALEXANDER SEIMANIDIS, CEO
B2B Wave eliminates the traditional wholesale
business
Gone are those days, when wholesale distribution
companies used to communicate for their daily
jobs through conventional methods like phone, PDF
files, spreadsheets, and emails. With the emerging
digitalization, they are witnessing an unmatched era
of market change and true business innovations. All
thanks to B2B Wave!
The company offers wholesale enterprises a
sophisticated solution that enables them to
communicate effectively with their customers
through the online B2B portal. Without wasting time
and money, it allows users to create their online
e-commerce portal to operate their business and
directly approach their customers. Alexander says,
“Eliminating communication and custom solution
costs, and wholesale distribution business can sign
up, create its private URL, upload its products, and
invite its customers to start placing their orders
online.”
Customer-centric nature: an exceptional feature
B2B Wave is a customer-focused company. The
company considers each of its customers as a
potential partner. Hence, to fulfill its requirements,
the company always adopts unique approaches.
Unlike other solution providers who predominantly
sell their services to customers, B2B Wave focuses on
understanding each customer’s requirements. The
company deep dives into the customer’s businesses to
understand their needs and hence, develops solutions
that address their needs. Besides, the company
focuses on building a long-lasting relationship with
its customers by personalizing them. This is where
B2B Wave makes its identity in the market.
Working with resellers
from all around the
world will also be in our
top priorities because we
believe that proximity
can be a factor for
understanding
customers’ requirements
and offering good
solutions.
THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
OCTOBER 2019
JANUARY 2020 14
15. tth
EASY & PERSONALISED
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
EVERYTHING YOU AND YOUR CUSTOMERS NEED
B2B ORDERING PORTAL
SALES REP PORTAL
ADMIN DASHBOARD
EASY & PERSONALISED
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
GET YOUR BUSINESS IN ORDER
RECEIVE ORDERS ONLINE
FAST AND EASILY
tth
The company encompasses a team of experts who are
always ready to support customers in any situation.
They always keep themselves available to answer
customers’ queries without any failure. Alexander
adds, “Our employees are deeply engaged with the
customers & the industry, and customer satisfaction
is everyone’s top priority.”
What’s in the pipeline?
In these 3 years, B2B Wave had an amazing journey.
Alexander says, “We enjoyed every part of the journey,
taking the same approach whether we were talking
to a small family business or a large corporation.”
The company has achieved remarkable growth in
the market and has been rated 5/5 on Capterra/
GetApp. Furthermore, the company has built a strong
customer base in the US and New Zealand.
Now, B2B Wave is planning to take a step ahead
— aiming to become the easiest and standard B2B
e-commerce solution provider for every small
business. And for this, B2B Wave is planning to
greatly improve its existing integrations with
accounting systems. Also, create a relationship with
integration partners for companies requiring more
advanced solutions.
In the end, when asked Alexander about the future of
the company, he concludes, “Working with resellers
from all around the world will also be in our top
priorities because we believe that proximity can be
a factor for understanding customers’ requirements
and offering good solutions.”
THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
OCTOBER 2019
JANUARY 2020 15
16. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
EXPERT ANALYSIS
WASTE: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP.
By Adrian Tylim, Chief Technology Officer, Shift Energy Holdings, Inc.
T
he world is in dire need of solutions to help us all curve
and reduce our environmental footprint. Carbon
emissions from transportation and energy production,
deforestation and water quality are some of the most
pressing challenges we are trying to address today. Yet, there
is another significant problem that we need to get our arms
around, which is waste.
Mountains of trash left unattended in unmanaged landfills
and dumping sites are a significant source of methane
emissions from materials decomposing and left in open air.
These sites are environmental hazards also producing highly
toxic fluids that can and often do contaminate valuable
water. Even managed landfills pose a significant risk to
watersheds. Landfilling methods are essentially 2,000 years
old.
The treatment of waste is crucial to limit the increasing
environmental impact that humans are causing and
resulting in global warming. And it is a problem that can
be solved part with good policy and part with technology.
Policy is key and fundamental to create an environment for
investment in infrastructure that will enable populations
to have appropriate means to dispose of waste. It is also
a mechanism to regulate and prevent the occurrence of
catastrophic events that could harm the Environment.
The stakes are high. Misaligned policies and infrastructure
can produce instances where not all the waste that is
collected can be recycled or treated. Or, it can result in low
levels of recycling and misapplication of technologies not
capable of treating all the different types of waste produced.
Another complicating factor is that waste is composed of
multiple materials varying throughout the year from season
to season and from location to location.
In an ideal world, we would need to parse our waste
many times into many different components and treat
each separately and differently to convert them into new
materials. Japanese residents, for example, have ten different
bins to separate their waste to be treated appropriately.
Much of their waste is recycled and a significant portion is
then incinerated or burned to produce heat converted into
electricity.
Most technologies that treat waste are focused on a limited
portion of the total volume produced by a community. Some
recycling centers may deal with paper and plastic but not
with glass and electronics, for example. Many communities
do not have an appropriate way to dispose of paints or
chemicals they end up being mixed as part of the waste
dumped in a landfill.
Adrian Tylim
In an ideal world, we would need to
parse our waste many times into many
different components and treat each
separately and differently to convert
them into new materials.
“
“
JANUARY 2020 16
17. So, how can we deal with such complex issue
effectively and avoid damaging the Environment?
There are commercially available and proven
technologies that can enable us to finally address the
waste problem in an efficient and environmentally
sound way. A centralized site where all forms of
waste is received and treated accordingly could well
simplify the problem.
For instance, we can build a waste management
facility that has two process lines for recyclable and
non-recyclable materials. The first line made of
various commercially available sorting technologies
will separate recycled materials into various piles of
paper and different types of plastics and metals, for
example. This line can also separate inert products
such as stones, dirt, bricks, which could be recycled
into other construction materials.
The second process line would be similar to a
combination of a power plant and a refinery
together. The non-recyclable material is subjected
to a high temperature gasifier and converted into
a gas. The gas can then be used to run a turbine
and generate electricity or recombined into liquid
fuels, which by their own nature will be cleaner
and renewable! Newer gasification technologies are
more efficient and cleaner than existing incineration
plants. All this technology is available and working
around the globe. This should make the concept
appealing, quicker to execute, and less risk prone
than inventing something new!
The key to improving waste management to
eliminate emissions and environmental impact is
to educate and disseminate this information.
However, we need doing it quickly since time is
truly of the essence. tth
JANUARY 2020 17
18. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
EXPERT ANALYSIS
DATA IS TRANSFORMING THE ENTIRE BUSINESS LANDSCAPE
By Raj B. Vattikuti, CEO, Altimetrik Corp.
D
ata is fundamental for any business to see
real transformation. Relevant data can help
in transforming businesses and achieving
real outcomes. With data, we are able to understand
customer behavior and personas in a much better and
clearer way. Build services and various opportunities
to serve different segments of customers by analyzing
their behavior and personas. The right perspective
towards data is that it has to be relevant, and
technology has to be simplified to derive outcomes.
The other aspect is to connect different business
entities to make them more operationally efficient.
Today, the most important factor is the collaboration
of business and technology. Business needs to take
ownership of making sure that the data is aligned to
specified business outcomes. Only then you can apply
AI algorithms or any other technology to be more
effective.
Data is driving product opportunities by connecting
the consumers and evolving new business models.
However, today, many companies are trying a big-
bang approach to make sense out of it. In the pursuit,
business is of very little relevance to actual outcomes.
We are helping our customers take an incremental
approach based on the priority of their business
outcomes. This takes data in a sequential and
streamlined manner to the relevant data lake and
provides actionable insights aligned to the business
objectives and outcomes.
It could mean co-creating new products by listening
to customers in real time, which we are presently
working on with one of the largest global apparel
makers. It could also mean increasing marketing
effectiveness and fast decisions, connecting marketing,
sales, and the supply chain. We have had recent
success in doing this with a P2P lending platform
in the European market. Risk management and
compliance is another outcome that can be handled
with data, which is a rising problem in the banking
sector, and we are helping our BFSI customers in this
area.
When you take the incremental approach, the business
is able to map the entire process of data handling to
actual objectives. tth
Raj B. Vattikuti
JANUARY 2020 18
20. 10 MOST INNOVATIVE
2019
S O L U T I O N P R O V I D E R S
IMAGE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE
T O W A T C H I N T H E Y E A R
10 BEST
DIGITAL SIGNATURE
TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS
TO WATCH IN 2020
W
hen you hear about the term ‘digital signature’, you must be clear
that it is not a signature made by writing your signature with a stylus
on a device. On the contrary, digital signature is a method using
digital certificates from a trusted authority who has already taken the time to
verify your identity through physical means. Yes. Digital signatures established
on digital certificates.
Digital signature has many features such as authenticity, integration, non-
reputation, and many more. Digital signature helps to stop pretending from the
originator of a particular document. It helps to ensure that the content has not
been changed or altered as it was digitally signed. It also helps to stop documents
from being interrupt and changed without the awareness of the author’s
document.
Today, many companies are implementing digital signature method to automate
their procedures and company processes. For that reason, organizations across
the globe invest millions of dollars every single year. To support these companies,
several digital signature technology providers have come forward with their
innovative and robust solutions. In the latest edition of ‘The Technology
Headlines’, our editorial team has taken an initiative to look into the current
state of the digital signature technology and have come up with the list of ‘10
Best Digital Signature Technology Providers for 2020’. With this issue, we intend
to inform our audience that how these companies are growing and changing
the shape of the industry by delivering innovative and powerful solutions in the
market.
DIGITAL
SIGNATURE
DIGITAL
SIGNATURE
DIGITAL SIGNATURE
JANUARY 2020 20
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
21. LISTING
EasySend
Tel-Aviv, Hamerkaz
easysend.io
Tal Daskal
CEO
EasySend empowers banks and insurance companies to quickly
convert paper forms and clunky PDFs into beautiful and
compliant eForms without writing a single line of code.
Etion Limited
Waterkloof, South Africa
etion.co.za
Teddy Daka
CEO
Etion Limited has built a strong reputation in the design,
manufacturing and supply of technology–based solutions and
turns ideas into digital technology solutions that advance the
living and working environments of humanity.
Future Soft Solutions Pvt. Ltd
New Delhi, Delhi
fspl.co.in
Vipul Datta
CEO
Future Soft Solutions offers innovative, cost-effective, end-to-end
business solutions and services that are customizable, dynamic
and extensible.
HootBoard
Philadelphia, PA
hootboard.com
Satyajeet S.
Founder and CEO
HootBoard ensures guaranteed success and helps entrepreneurs
to engage their employees and better serve their customers. No
custom development, no page builders, No headaches. Deploy
within hours not months with HootBoard.
IdenTrust, Inc
Fremont, CA
identrust.com
Jesse Urena
Director
IdenTrust provides a spectrum of digital certificates and
associated services that ensure the “gold standard” for defining,
issuing and managing TRUST on a global basis.
InfoCert
Italy, Rome
infocert.digital
Danilo Cattaneo
CEO
InfoCert provide end-to-end Digital Identity and eSignature
Solution, fostering re-usability, user convenience, compliance and
security to enable trusted digital business.
LAWtrust
Pretoria, Gauteng
lawtrust.co.za
Christi Maherry
CEO
LAWtrust is a specialist security solutions provider that builds
trust in information systems through establishing authenticity,
accountability and privacy in data messages. It focuses on
applying digital signatures and positive identity to business
processes, saving time, lowering costs and reducing risk for
businesses.
Notarius
Montreal, (QC)
notarius.com
Claude Charpentier
President and CEO
Notarius issues and manages certifed digital signature since
1998. With Notarius’ digital signature, professionals can sign
electronic documents and grant them the same legal validity as
any document signed by hand.
Securemetric Technology
Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur
securemetric.com
Edward Law
CEO
Securemetric focus nothing else but into the niche yet specialised
digital security domains.
Verifyle
San Jose, California
verifyle.com
Jack Smith
CEO
Verifyle offers users the ability to disable password reset,
effectively closing the backdoor to their account and making it so
that no one can see their data except them.
COMPANY MANAGEMENT WHAT THEY DO
10 BESTDIGITAL SIGNATURE
TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS TO WATCH IN 2020
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
22. JANUARY 2020 22
CEO
INFOCERT
DANILO CATTANEO
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
Today, InfoCert is the largest
Certification Authority in
Europe, serving more than
2,000 enterprise customers
and millions of end-users.
The company supports its
customers in digitalizing their
business processes, ensure trust
in digital transactions, and
unlock new revenue flows – all
with the crucial element that
its procedures ensure eIDAS
compliance.
The Electronic Identification
and Trust Services Regulation
(eIDAS), approved in 2014 and
passed into EU Lax in 2016,lays
a single legal framework for the
use of electronic signatures and
contractual transactions. Under
eIDAS for a digital contract
or agreement to be valid and
legally binding in European
courts it must signed digitally
and certified by an approved
European Certification
Authority.
InfoCert encompasses a wide
range of Digital Trust Solutions,
including digital identity, digital
signature, e-delivery, long-
term preservation, e-invoicing,
and other trust components
required to assemble a reliable
and efficient digital transaction
management solution (DTM).
Building upon its patrimony
of 18 patent pending processes,
InfoCert has become one of
the top 10 digital signature
providers in the world based
primarily on two digital
signature platforms: Trusted
Onboarding Platform (TOP) and
GoSign.
TOP: remote onboarding of
new clients
TOP is an award-winning
solution for remote contracting
structured especially for the
internet. It is an end-to-end
patented solution for customer
onboarding and contract
signing. TOP allows our clients,
which include banks, finance
companies, utilities, telcos and
other companies, to complete
I
n the era of digital transformation, there
are many companies that offer solutions to
digitize document management in various
shapes or forms. Some are successful, some
less so. InfoCert has been successful because it
has focused on offering products that combine
compliance, security, technology, and trust.
In fact, InfoCert is one of the leading Digital
Transaction Management (DTM) solution
providers in Europe today. The company started
its journey in 2007 from delivering digital trust
solutions like digital signatures on smart cards,
and USB tokens.
In 2015, InfoCert extended its offers and enabled
companies to digitalize their business processes
by supplying its compliance expertise its portfolio
of trust-based solutions: GoSign (eSignature),
eSeal, and TOP (Trusted Onboarding Platform).
......................................................................................
InfoCert
The European Leader in
Digital Transaction Management
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23. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
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JANUARY 2020 23
any onboarding procedure or online identification
process with full legal value in less than 30 minutes. TOP
thus offers customers a dramatically faster onboarding
process (and therefore excellent UX), higher conversation
rates for sales, instant compliance, low pay back periods
and increased revenues. As of today, TOP has been used
successfully to onboard more than 10 million customers
across Europe.
TOP saves time and money while reducing fraud and is
compliant with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations,
Know Your Customer (KYC)policies and has been certified
by Trusted Services Regulation Authorities and by Data
Privacy Authorities in according to EU regulations.
The platform comprises several building blocks, integrated
by core services (orchestrator):
• The Customer Identification and Authentication Module
is based on artificial intelligence for a trustworthy live
detection, face recognition and automated matching of
biometric data with the data stored on the ID document;
• The Signature Module contains all the functionalities
to enroll and use all kinds of digital signatures with
different levels of trust from the Qualified Signature to the
Advanced Electronic Signature and biometric signature;
• The Document Composition Module includes features
for the document assembling, notification (e-delivery)
and long-term archiving. The platform allows customers
to utilize Digital Trust services combined with legacy
infrastructure by balancing their trust, security, and user
experiences.
InfoCert‘s versatile TOP platform allows customers to
choose either the single functionality or a full package
depending on their requirements and technical
capabilities by selecting the features desired and the level
of trust required.
GoSign
GoSign, the second product, is an eSignature platform
that manages digital signature and approvals within a
company and between companies. GoSign empowers
managers to easily interact with their colleagues,
suppliers, and customers and allow them to digitally
approve and/or sign electronically any type of transaction.
Importantly, GoSign is eIDAS compliant and is easily
accessible through web, mobile, App or API’s for OEM
integration.
GoSign was developed in 2015 and since then has seen a
rapid expansion in Italy and through Europe. Currently,
approximately 70 clients, of which 5 non-Italians have
chosen the GoSign solution. While it is used primarily
for sales/client contractualization, GoSign’s uses are
wide ranging: procurement, personnel hiring, finance/
invoicing, legal agreements (NDAs, compliance, MOUs
ecc), facilities management (leasing, permits) and product
management.
With GoSign companies undertake a real digitalization
of their business converting the masses of physical paper
contracts to a digital streamlining that saves money and
time and ensures the legal validity of documents for at
least 10 years. From a disconnected, manual approach
to document management companies using GoSign are
THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
24. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
OCTOBER 2019
JANUARY 2020 24
able to manage contracts in a connected, intelligent
fashion: drawing together sales, CRM and accounting/
administration/ERP. It is arguably the single most
important tool to managing companies in an efficient,
digital manner.
The product is in constant evolution and recently GoSign
Grapho has been introduced, which extends GoSign to
utilize touch screen devices to recognize screen-based
signatures, rendering the product extremely functional.
Differentiating factor
Danilo Cattaneo, CEO of InfoCert, comments
“Organizations need a reliable pool of experts who
understand the nuances of regulatory frameworks and
help them build a secure environment able to provide
the advanced UX which customers are expecting today
while guaranteeing full compliance with country-specific
and sector-specific laws and regulations. That’s precisely
where InfoCert marks its distinctive presence.”
InfoCert is certified by Italian and international
authorities and trusted by major European Banks,
Insurance companies and multinational industrial
companies. The company has a full-time legal and
compliance staff to keep itself up-to-date with all
legislative developments in Italy and at the EU level,
which enables InfoCert to deliver the most compliant and
updated products on the market.
Moving towards international growth
Within the last 12 years of journey the InfoCert has
grown on average over 10% per year and become the
champion of the European Trust market, both in terms of
size, footprint and innovative solutions.
“The Company has filed for 17 patents since 2015 and has
been mentioned in the recent Gartner report “Innovation
Insight for Decentralized and Blockchain Identity
Services” of June 2019 as the leading European provider
able to bridge digital trust regulatory frameworks with
decentralized blockchain-based identity schemes” notes
Marco Di Luzio, Chief Marketing Officer.
While there is still a great deal of room to grow in
Europe, the Company is extending its activities into
Latin America. There, InfoCert’s Spanish subsidiary,
Camerfirma, has opened a second office in Columbia
while it is expanding its activities in Peru. The legal
framework in Latin America is similar to that of Europe
and it consequently makes sense to pursue business in
the region.
The horizon for digital transaction management is
therefore expanding rapidly across the globe thereby
rendering digital transactions more efficient, secure and
trustworthy. InfoCert aims to continue its technological
and compliance leadership to accompany current and
future clients into the digital future. tth
INFOCERT: OUR DIGITAL TRUST YOUR BUSINESS VALUE
“ Our ultimate mission is to
simplify your transactions,
managing all of the complexity
related to regulatory compliance,
fraud risks and business processes
on your behalf. ”
26. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
ECH
ALK
U
ntil recently, the world has been looking
at blockchain from the perspective of the
immutability it offered to cryptocurrencies.
However, the advantages of this key feature weren’t
perceived in other domains, too. Once the crypto frenzy has
passed and the technology behind it became a mainstream
topic, the companies have started to see more clearly the
opportunities and the advantages brought by the adoption
of blockchain technology.
The first amendment: immutability
When it comes to companies, maximizing benefits and
lowering costs are crucial. Behind the pure technological
reality of blockchain there are other elements such as the
security offered, first hand. Blockchain technology aligns
itself very well with everything related to data security
on the corporate level, becoming a must for network
administrators. Of course, the immutability feature should
be studied in-depth as it can be applied contextually,
depending on each particular case. In my opinion, the
best large-scale use case is in the area of big companies
that want to manage more efficiently the data networks
or need not to lose or to alter the content of that data.
Here, millions of dollars can be saved with an accessible
technology, easy to manage, but harder to implement.
That’s where we, the Modex team, step in to facilitate the
adoption, to offer the necessary know-how and the right
solutions taking into account the business domain of each
company.
Ransomware, problem solved?
When we speak about the data security of some companies,
one of the fears these days relates to ransomware. Here, the
blockchain has an interesting approach. Although we can’t
say it’s the unique solution against ransomware, everybody
must know that blockchain minimizes the problem
of getting back the data because it’s very hard, almost
impossible, for a hacker to hijack and execute the same
attack on multiple nodes simultaneously. Therefore, here’s
how the functioning architecture of the blockchain sits at
the base of a fundamental security principle in a database
Thanks to Blockchain technology
and to its consensus mechanism,
companies can significantly
reduce the losses by increasing
the safety level of their own data
and winning an essential business
element: trust.
“
“
FEW TRICKS ON HOW BLOCKCHAIN CAN
IMPROVE YOUR COMPANY’S DATA
By Alin Iftemi, Head of Business, Modex
ALIN DANIEL IFTEMI
JANUARY 2020 26
27. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
ECH
ALK
because a node compromised by a ransomware attack is
no longer a problem if there are three other nodes which
have the same system and are available in production. This
is how we can help, but I must stress that we don’t prevent
an attack, the technology itself not being another form of
firewall or antivirus. Also true: if someone runs a database
without blockchain this doesn’t mean that he will be, for
sure, a victim of such an attack.
No need for backup anymore
Another solution which blockchain can offer and which
I’ve identified in my job as CTO is the back-up issue. With
blockchain technology you don’t need this anymore, it’s
basically one worry less and one advantage more. We all
know that Bitcoin doesn’t have back-up. By increasing the
number of nodes the need for a classic back-up decreases
and the trust given by a real-time back-up increases, but
also the availability on all data (100%). I’m saying this
because security is not only about data theft or erasing
data, but also about the availability of a system.
Data resistance to changes
I strongly believe that the best advantage of blockchain
is the potential of this technology to identify data
modifications, changes done through an unauthorized
route. Again, this doesn’t mean that such a system is
vulnerable, but in a traditional database, an administrative
error can generate data modification which doesn’t have
to be done with bad faith, but can affect the functionality.
Even worse, there’s the risk that this modification will
never be identified and will generate negative chain
reactions in the long run. The blockchain eliminates this
problem, and the data modified by other sources, or by
unauthorized sources, can be identified immediately.
Log-in and auditing systems
Here I will give you an example which I’ve met in my
previous activity for a bank. In a traditional database there
can be the so called “human errors”. What happens when
these human errors are hidden with bad faith? And my
example relates to an user from within the network who
performs operations which can generate legal problems.
For instance, a banking officer has accessed an account he
shouldn’t have accessed. What happens if that person has a
friend in the IT department who can erase those logs? The
traditional system is based on trust - and I’m not saying
this is wrong - but with blockchain there’s the technical
guarantee that the logs will stay intact and such a case can’t
be covered up. How much it helps us? That’s a problem of a
different nature.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the blockchain offers these basic
functionalities that are more elegant for companies which
manage databases or have a database. I’m not saying that
these companies can’t function without blockchain, but
thanks to this technology and to its consensus mechanism,
companies can significantly reduce the losses by increasing
the safety level of their own data and winning an essential
business element: trust. tth
JANUARY 2020 27
28. JANUARY 2020 28
CHIEF SOLUTIONS OFFICER ,
LAWTRUST
MAESON MAHERRY
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
digital signature and positive
identity solutions to business
processes which in turn save
time, reduce costs and risks
for organisations. But, how
LAWtrust is doing all these?
To know that, let’s start from
the beginning.
Let’s jump into the history of
LAWtrust
Before starting LAWtrust,
the founders of the company
already gained a huge
experience in the world of
information security. They
realized that customers were
not fascinated by technology
and tech words, but were
looking for business results.
The founders had a purpose
which was to make the world
a safer place for people to live
in and to work in, hence, they
founded LAWtrust in 2006
intending to turn their vision
into reality.
The trustworthy framework
Maeson Maherry, Chief
Solutions Officer of LAWtrust
says, “You can only do
business if you can trust the
identity of the people who
you are doing business with
as-well as the information
and communications you
are relying on.”. To maintain
that trust and secure business
information, the company
created a Trustworthiness
Framework— a pyramid
which consists of four layers.
Its four layers not only talk
about the solutions which
LAWtrust delivers but also its
culture.
The first layer starts with
Positive Identity. Positive
identity is not something
related to technical
authentication. It’s about
proving the identity of a
person or entity that you are
doing business with. Identity
I
nformation is one of the most valuable
assets of an organization. But, in today’s
ever-evolving world, information is exposed
to a wide variety of risks. Several malicious
attackers and cybercriminals seek a company’s
pivotal information to black mail the company
and become moneyed in a short time. Hence
undoubtedly, information security has become
one of the biggest challenges for companies they
are confronting these days.
LAWtrust — a leading specialist and application
security solution provider obtained a clear
understanding of this. By placing identity,
authenticity, accountability, and privacy at the
center of data messages, the company focuses
on building a trustworthy framework of
information security into key business processes.
The company is involved in supplying hosts of
amazing and powerful solutions including, digital
certificate-based security solutions, biometrics,
encryption, and many more. Besides, it delivers
......................................................................................
Lawtrust
A High Security Digital Signature
Provider
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JANUARY 2020 29
proofing with strong authentication is so important
that it is the foundational layer of the trustworthy
business model. Identity proofing for digital signature
purposes an essential part of creating a high assurance
digital signature. Many solution providers ignore this
fact, but LAWtrust has streamlined this process for easy
onboarding of signatories and ultimately improving the
legal reliability of signatures.
The next layer to talk about is Integrity. Here, integrity
is related to data integrity. Data is a crucial part of a
business for its existence in the market. In fact, if data
does not have integrity, it may as well not exist in the
first place as it is unreliable. This is especially true in
the area of electronic contracting and approvals with
digital signatures. LAWtrust ensures that data cannot
be modified by employing state of the art cryptography,
which guarantees that data stored in underlying systems
and databases must be altered without detection. This is
fundamental to establish evidential weigh in a business
dispute as well.
Next comes the layer of the Trustworthiness pyramid
called “Accountability”. Maeson says, “This is an
interesting stage because this brings us into the digital
signature space.” He further adds, “If you have proof
of identity and your data has integrity, then you can
meet the most important business requirement which
is accountability. By meeting the additional legal
requirements for a trustworthy signature which are
strong authentication and an impartial trusted timestamp,
you now have a meaningful business enabler.”
Now, accountability is the business enabler because
it’s not only about the digital signature, but also about
holding both the parties: individual and organization,
accountable for each other’s actions. Maeson explains it
as “It’s that when you and I do business together, you can
hold me to what I promised and I can hold you to what
you promised, which can even be upheld in court.”
Now, the ultimate component, which makes the whole
process trustworthy, is Privacy. It is one of the pivotal
parts of the digital trust model because through privacy,
LAWtrust guarantees the confidentiality of business’s and
individual’s private information.
By bringing together these four pillars — positive identity,
integrity, accountability and privacy, the company has
built a trustworthy, high assurance digital signature
service which ensures that their customer’s businesses
remain competitive by leveraging digitalisation for their
market with the lowest risk of security compromise of the
signature or non-compliance with signature laws.
A strong customer base
LAWtrust spent 13 years in the industry with its amazing
THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
30. tth
THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
OCTOBER 2019
JANUARY 2020 30
solutions. In these 13 years, the company has seen
lots of ups and downs. Without directly going to
the market and seeking for capital investment, the
company alone established a reputable position in the
market.
Today, LAWtrust is an established and successful
company with nearly 1000 clients in government,
banking, financial, and other industries. Its signature
services alone are used in 40 countries — an
outstanding achievement which speaks to the legal
reliability of the solution.
Furthermore,the company operates a WebTrust
certified trust centrewhich is included in both the
Adobe and Microsoft Trust Lists as a Trusted Root
Certificate Authority and was the first accredited
authentication service provider to provide advanced
electronic signatures.
Role in preventing human trafficking
In today’s world, human trafficking and crimes have
increased tremendously. Carrying a fake passport
and getting hold of fake identity has become common
acts for terrorists and criminal organizations. The
company plays a crucial role in managing national
identity and stopping such criminal activities on key
government systems by applying trustworthy digital
signatures and biometric strong authentication
at critical points where government officials do
transactions on critical systems during the course
of their duties such as birth registration or passport
issuance. This approach has effectively led to a change
in behaviour and has successfully prevented fraud or
crimes by business insiders which is far more valuable
that prosecuting offenders later..
Heading towards sustainable growth
Maeson says, “A signing solution with strong security
doesn’t have to be a difficult experience.” By applying
technologies like face recognition and mobile phones
apps, the company has created an amazing user
experience. Now, the company is planning to further
promote its message and global digital business model.
In the end, Maeson concludes, “We believe there is a
great opportunity to help organisations safely adopt
exciting new digital business models whilegiving
them security and high assurance. We have set up
operations in Africa, Europe, North America, Australia
and the Middle East to meet the global demand. "
“You can only do business
if you can trust the identity
of the people who you are
doing business with as-well
as the information and
communications you are
relying on.”.
31.
32. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
ECH
ALK
J
ust a quick ‘Google’ shows us that not long ago – to
be precise in 1980 - 1.731 billion people worldwide,
i.e. 39% of the world’s population, were living in
cities. By 2015 that number had increased to 3.968 billion
(54%). According to some projections, the urban share of
the world population will grow to 6.419 billion (66%) by
2050.
With 80% of Europeans expected to live in an urban
area by 2020, environmental pressure on cities is
growing fast. From plans to become carbon-neutral to
sustainable urban planning, many cities are actively
addressing these challenges, which is a positive sign.
And this also brings opportunities for startups.
Many of the solutions being introduced by startups
are designed to increase the level of individuals living
standards, and, not only that, butmost often they
also meet environmental and climate requirements.
Thinking about these factors is something which, it
could be said, is almost in the DNA of startups!
As we are witnessing in the ABC Accelerator, there are
indeed some magnificent solutions being introduced
by startups - from innovative fruit supply all across
the mainland, artificial intelligence that helps us
understand consumers behaviour and based on that
delivering custom-made offers, and smart travelling as
well as hotel solutions (like for example ABC’s startup
Flexkeeping),and smart solutions like Beeping, an
online booking platform which makes it possible to
order home cleaning quickly, safely and simply with
only a few easy clicks (by the way, Beeping hasalso been
awarded as a Slovenian Startup of the Year 2018) to a
very concrete ‘SmartCity Platform’ for ‘smart mayors’
to help them manage their municipalities and cities,
and not forgetting Symvaro, a very successful water
management startup.
Nevertheless, we mustn’t forget: water is recognised as
the ‘next oil’.
Moving from water to food, we are also seeing some
great startups, such as Italian Soplaya, which connects
the heads of restaurants with local food producers via
its own online platform.
Since the future society wants to be healthier too!
Another very important factor in making our society
START-UPS ARE ACCELERATING
THE GROWTH OF SMART CITIES
Urška Jež, Co-founder and Executive Director of ABC Accelerator
URŠKA JEŽ
CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF
ABC ACCELERATOR
JANUARY 2020 32
33. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
ECH
ALK
tth
With 80% of Europeans
expected to live in
an urban area by
2020, environmental
pressure on cities is
growing fast.
“
“
smarter is making it safer, and in this regard there
are startups such as NERVteh, with its simulator of
the same name - a perfect tool to study this situation
safely and measure human factor response, reactions
and perception while they happen. It makes sense not
only from a social but also from a business perspective,
particularly if we consider that more than 1.2 million
people die each year on the world’s roads, with
millions more sustaining serious injuries and living
with long-term adverse health consequences not to
consider all the insurance claims.
Going beyond ABC, we are seeing really smart
solutions introduced by individuals, such as designing
new products from waste, includingrecycled lifejackets
that were used by poor immigrants swimming
towards a better life in Europe – turning a terrible
situation into something at least useful and positive.
Therefore, design is not a ‘designers thing’ anymore –
it’s increasingly becomea ‘startups thing’ – one which
is overlapping with the challenges for cities to become
smarter and smarter.
So, a linkage between ‘smart’ and ‘startup(s)’ is no
coincidence. Do you want to try it?
Oh, and it is anticipated that the market size of global
smart cities willreach USD 2.57 trillion by 2025,
according to a recent report by Grand View Research.
Are you ready to give it a shot now?
JANUARY 2020 33
34. JANUARY 2020 34
CEO,
NOTARIUS
CLAUDE CHARPENTIER
TECHNOLOGY
THE
HEADLINES
Founded more than two
decades ago, the company
empowers users to sign
electronic documents and
grant them with the same
legal validity as any other
documents signed by hand.
History of Notarius
Incepted in 1996, Notarius
was originally launched as
a non-profit organization
by Chambre des notaires
du Quebec (Notaries). The
company’s purpose was to
swap the use of paperwork
with the digital one. Claude
Charpentier, CEO of Notarius,
says, “One of the key elements
of this transition was to be able
to provide a government-grade
digital signature to confirm the
notaries’ identity, designation
and right to practice.”
After a few years of significant
hard work and investment,
the company introduced
Notarius Certificate Authority
— a trusted digital signature
provider recognized by Quebec
Government.
Its high-tech digital signature
solution gradually became
widespread and embraced by
many professional associations
such as engineers, architects,
land surveyors, and lawyers.
Today, the company serves
more than 25,000 professionals
through 38 partners that
represent over 12 different
professions from various walks
of life.
I
magine you are working in a government
agency where time is a fleeting resource.
And you are employed for a time-consuming
task—hunting down for approvals and ink
signatures and then print, scan, fax or email
documents. How bothersome it would be!
But what if these government agencies ditch
papers, toss their pens and instead of manually
reviewing and signing documents, embrace
digital signature. The process can be much faster,
efficient, and secure. How amazing it would be!
That’s what leading government organizations
are practising nowadays.
In the world of technology, many government
organizations and private firms are moving
towards digital revolutions and enhancing new
way of operations by implementing digital
signature in their businesses. To support such
new endeavors, Notarius —a spearheading
solution provider—has stepped into the market
with its innovative digital signature solutions.
......................................................................................
Notarius
A Trusted Digital Signature
Solution Provider
“ The nicest compliment we get from our customers is
when they say they cannot envision operating their
business without our tools.”
10 BEST
2020
D I G I TA L S I G N AT U R E
TO WATCH IN
SERVICE PROVIDERS
35. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
OCTOBER 2019
JANUARY 2020 35
User, Issuer, and Recognition: Key parameters
Claude states, “Much like fire triangle requires three
elements: wood, oxygen, and heat to ignite a flame, a
digital signature also must have 3 key ingredients: user,
issuer, and recognition.” These three ingredients are
the game-changer for the development and deployment
of the digital signature. Here, how it works:
To issue a trusted digital signature without the
management of any technical complexities, Notarius
works closely with professional associations. Then,
Notarius works in tandem with individual users
and provides them useful tools to effortlessly sign
their official records. Lastly, the company reaches
out to government agencies or companies to spread
awareness about the recognition of the legal reliability
of electronic records produced by professionals and
digital signatures issued by professional associations.
This entire structure is supported by a variety of
technical tools and technologies which reduces the
workload of professionals and eases the validation
process.
CertifiO and ConsignO Desktop: Imperative Solutions
Notarius encompasses two prime solutions — CertifiO
and ConsignO Desktop —which enables the company
to offer services that ensure long-term reliability,
integrity, and authenticity of documents.
While CertifiO is the digital signature certificate related
to user’s identity, professional status, or organizational
affiliation, ConsignO Desktop is a PDF reader and
signing solution. Every CertifiO subscription includes
ConsignO Desktop.
Moreover, the company provides users the ability to
convert their documents into PDF/A format, which
increases the readability and long-term reliability. It
also provides users a series of functionalities including
stamping and merging of PDF documents to help
professionals modernize the validation process.
However, that’s not the end!
Notarius has introduced groundbreaking features
which include the integration of key functions into the
right click of a mouse. This implies that with just two
clicks, users can select files in windows explorer and
execute ConsignO Desktop function including PDF/A
conversion, signature, validation, and merger.
What makes Notarius a leader in the market?
With the advancement in technologies, organizations
and professional associations have also become more
innovative. Besides PDF files, now they have DWG,
THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
36. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
OCTOBER 2019
JANUARY 2020 36
Excel, 3D Models, and BIM as their electronic files. And
under any circumstances, they can’t overlook to read,
sign, and validate these files. They need a solution which
can help them to digitally sign, authenticate, and save
the documents for the long term. ConsignO Desktop,
in this regard, helps them achieve their objectives.
The tool provides them an option to integrate all the
functionalities required to sign and secure every type of
electronic files, digitally.
Also, ConsignO Desktop is free of charge. Hence, it allows
government agencies to roll out the solution at any
point of time without any charge. Such an innovative
approach makes Notarius stand out in the market.
Customer-centric approach always payback
Claude states, “The key to our success has been to work
with all business stakeholders (user, issuer, recipient)
and develop tools around industry requirements for
digital authentication.”
Unlike other solution providers who predominantly sell
their digital signature services to customers, Notarius
focuses on fulfilling customers’ requirements. The
company deeply dives into customers’ business to
understand their needs and develops solutions which
fulfil their requirements. Such a unique approach
enables Notarius to provide a remarkable customer
experience.
In Claude’s words, “The nicest compliment we get from
our customers is when they say they cannot envision
operating their business without our tools.”
Heading towards growth
Today, Notarius has become a valued provider of
trusted digital signatures, which allows its users to sign
documents using traditional digital signature via our
cloud-based solution.
In the upcoming days, the company is planning to
modernize its ConsignO Desktop and construct it as a
hub to store various types of identities and credentials
that may require signing electronic files.
Further when asked Claude about the future of
Notarius, he replies, “Notarius does not believe that
digital signatures are going to disappear any time
soon, but much like the entertainment industry’s
consumption model evolved, the method of consumption
of digital signatures is likely to expand and offer much
more choice.”
The key to our success has been to
work with all business stakeholders
(user, issuer, recipient) and develop
tools around industry requirements
for digital authentication.
“
“
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37.
38. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
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A
re company CISOs (Chief Information Security
Officers) aware of the vulnerabilities of the
networks they are using to transmit valuable and
proprietary data through their chosen communications
networks?
Anyone directly using the Internet exposes their IP
address, location and network identity. Any external
connection used by your company is a potential source of
attack on your data and systems. Even more problematic,
typical networks are fixed, static and easily located.
By the time you discover a network breach, you’ve
already lost the battle. Your adversaries have found your
network…they know who you are, where you are located
and have harvested invaluable metadata for a future
attack.
Since the advent of the Internet and worldwide
connectivity, how we are all inter-connected has changed
drastically, but the underlying network infrastructure
has progressed little from what was implemented 50
years ago. Have you ever asked or questioned how your
network connectivity is implemented? Is your network
exposing potential cyber-attack vectors?
There is a 90% chance of someone knowing the exact
routing of any particular data transmission.
What’s the Risk?
Reports of network and endpoint data exploitation are in
the news almost daily:
• “Attacker hit VPN firm Avast through its VPN”
• “NSA warns VPN vulnerabilities exploited by
nation-state hackers”
• “DHS Alerts to Remote Vulnerabilities in
Multiple VPN Applications”
• “Capital One Reports Data Breach Affecting 100
OPINION & INSIGHTS
NETWORK VULNERABILITIES
By Barbara Hunt, Chief Executive Officer, NetAbstraction
BARBARA HUNT
JANUARY 2020 38
“Enterprises must start thinking about
their networks proactively instead of
reactively, and consider reducing their
“network risk insurance” costs.”
39. Million Customers, Applicants”
• “Top VPNs secretly owned by Chinese firms”
• “Exclusive: China hacked eight major computer
services firms in years-long attack”
…and on and on!
Attack Vulnerability
An Internet Exchange Point (IXP) is where Internet networks
come together to peer or exchange traffic between their
networks. Peering is a process by which two networks
connect and exchange traffic. There are only a few large
global peering points around the world.
Because of this limited and well-established topology for
network transmissions, nation-states and organized crime,
even individual hackers, prefer to target attacks at the
closest router locations. These networks have become a huge
malware transmission vehicle.
Only 10% of malware is normally detected …90% of malware
gets through.
Today’s Reality
Carriers are points of attack for adversaries in order to
identify the carriers’ customers and as a point of attack for
their network management data. Subscriber information
located in data center/carrier records are a great source to
help identify the specific circuit that is being used by the
target customer.
Carrier network infrastructure is the single, most logical
point of attack for any given target.
As a result, users are open to the vulnerabilities of the
carrier’s infrastructure; e.g. malware infested routers.
What to do?
Many enterprises aren’t even aware of the risks they are
accepting with their endpoint and network configurations.
Although risk managers implement very complex and
expensive processes to mitigate all kinds of other enterprise
risks, they often overlook their network vulnerabilities. Just
as in any other risk mitigation policy, you need “insurance”
against loss.
We all carry different types of insurance policies. Hopefully
we never have to claim against them but when we do, they
are there to help mitigate costs. The same is true with
enterprise network risks…why wait to actually be attacked to
then worry about how you are going to react and what the
costs will be to your organization?
The Solution
Enterprises need to look beyond their current configurations
and reactionary processes. NetAbstraction is unique in that
the company provides a proactive foundation for smart
enterprise privacy. By transparently distributing network
communications within and across multiple clouds, and
regularly churning the underlying network infrastructure,
NetAbstraction effectively hides your enterprise’s network.
The dynamic shifting of communications across multiple
commercial providers and use of multi-hop transport, make
actual user information, origin location and identities a
nearly impossible target to find for hackers, search engine
optimization companies and other privacy threats. “If they
can’t find you…they can’t attack you.”
THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
OCTOBER 2019
JANUARY 2020 39
tth
40. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
By Steve ZoBell, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Workfront
CHANGE YOUR WORKFORCE WITH TECHNOLOGY INTERSECTION
AND IN-PERSON COMMUNICATION
T
he integration of technology
into the modern workforce has
drastically impacted what the
typical day looks like and the variety
of responsibilities expected from
employees. Between responding to
emails, providing status updates in
project management tools, attending
meetings and all the in between –
many find it difficult to focus on what
they were hired to do. At Workfront,
we discovered enterprise workers
spent only 39% of their day on
primary job duties. So what makes
up the other 61%? While there are
of course the occasional breaks, the
rest of the day is made up of what we
call Shadow Work. The concept and
necessity of shadow work will never
go away. But as technology in the
workplace is increasingly streamlined
to enhance productivity, there are
ways to bring these extra tasks out
of the shadows, illustrate impact and
provide visibility into work that is not
a value add and should be automated.
Here are four key ways to highlight
the breadth and depth of the work
you’re doing and harness the power of
technology to redefine your workday.
1. Estatblish a process by bringing the
online, offline
Before you can use technology
effectively, you must have a good
process in place. Leaders can
jumpstart this by bringing the
online, offline with an in-person
communication. As unnecessary
meetings are often cited as one of the
biggest time wasters, make sure there
is a clear, focused goal so everyone
walks away feeling productive. Teams
need to learn how to identify things
that are both urgent and important
– and to have that same shared focus
across the group. A common issue
is for teams to be misaligned on
priorities and the resources available
to get tasks done. By bringing this
focus together in-person, teams will
learn to better communicate and
think through which items are both
urgent and important. Once this
shared understanding is developed,
technology and productivity tools can
be integrated to further enhance the
process. Another simple measurement
you can use to validate the value of
your meeting is to simply multiply
the number of people in the room by
the length of the meeting, then truly
evaluate if, for example, the 9-person,
2-hour meeting is really worth
devoting 18 hours of total time.
2. Get everything into a trusted
system
Too much time and mental capacity
is spent trying to remember things –
to do lists, meetings, status updates.
Rather than spend our mental
energy trying to remember what the
last update was on a project, teams
need to aggregate everything into a
central, trusted system. This shifts
the administrative work online, and
allows you to free up your brain
power to solve bigger problems more
creatively. If you are a team member
and your technology resources
are seriously lacking, advocate for
yourself and your team. Do some
research internally on what you and
your team would like in a system,
and how you feel it would benefit the
company if you had the additional
resource in place. Then start doing
external research to find a product
that aligns with your goals and your
budget so you can make a strong case
to leadership for the addition.
Steve ZoBell
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OPINION & INSIGHTS
JANUARY 2020 40
41. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
Automated work is a higher order of the trusted system, so be sure that
process and systems are in place before automating anything.
“ “
3. Categorize your work
Once you have a trusted system in
place and can use technology to
provide some more visibility into
how you are spending your day,
start categorizing your work. How
much time is spent on responding to
emails? How much time is spent in
meetings? How much time do is spent
on administrative tasks? How much
time is spent on strategizing and big
picture items? Once you have a clearer
view, you can take ownership of your
time and start to identify things that
can be cut out or trimmed down.
We need to get rid of the notion that
meetings are unnecessary. Rather,
look at the amount of time you
spend in meetings to see what can be
combined or communicated online to
make better use of your time.
4. Automate non-value add work
Non-value add work (aka work that
doesn’t contribute to your company’s
goals) should be automated. This
isn’t to say all work will be creatively
stimulating 100% of the time. But
there are items that can be removed
from your day-to-day to relieve
some of this administrative burden.
Automated work is a higher order
of the trusted system, so be sure
that process and systems are in
place before automating anything.
This automation can be as simple
as having key rules set up in your
email solution that automatically
file and store certain emails based
upon sender or content, to more
sophisticated work management
systems that use machine learning to
learn the way you are working.
Shadow work isn’t always a bad thing.
But we need to be mindful of making
the right trade-offs and setting clear
priorities to bring visibility to our
days, and instill an initiative and
goal around it. It’s important to
acknowledge these extra tasks exist
and bring it out of the shadows. Only
then will we will able to streamline
for efficiency and spend more time
contributing in a meaningful way. tth
OPINION & INSIGHTS
JANUARY 2020 41
42. THE TECHNOLOGY HEADLINES
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S
tarting in the early 2000’s,
businesses of all sizes starting
sending customer and tech
support offshore to low cost English
speaking countries - as a way to save
money. The results of this off shoring
were mixed due to cultural knowledge
and communication issues. Companies
hadn’t realized yet that you can’t put
a price tag on the intrinsic value of
an empathic and understanding US
voice that can deeply connect with
customers.
Initially these businesses saved money,
but their customers grew increasingly
frustrated with the outsourced services
because they repeatedly experienced
representatives that couldn’t
understand them at a basic level or
weren’t able to emotionally connect
with them. Customers complained
everywhere they could - damaging
the company’s brands along the way.
Dell is an example of a company that
built a strong reputation on customer
service and tried outsourcing its call
centers. Dell saw customer complaints
rising and acted quickly in early
2004 to bring its business support
services back to the US. The trend that
Dell recognized, was that increased
customer experience and satisfaction
- were the true keys to profitability
and brand loyalty in an increasingly
competitive global environment. More
recently, other large companies such
as GM, have recognized these same
types of reasons to move a call center
back because “We want to provide the
best possible service” and “Every touch
point is an opportunity”.
Several other reasons to bring call
centers back have become apparent.
The most commonly cited reasons
are: increasing labor costs, security
concerns and brand protection. While
labor costs are important, in today’s
regulatory driven environment, most
companies are looking at the risks to
the business first and cost second. To
protect their brand, some companies,
especially those in the financial
industry are now contractually
forbidding the off shoring of any
processes or data. With compliance
and brand protection concerns
growing daily - it’s no wonder
reshoring has been increasing for
some time.
And there is reason to believe that
not only are call center jobs coming
back, but the new jobs being created
are staying here. To illustrate this,
the Bureau of labor statistics 2014
(latest available) shows there were 2.58
Million Customer Service
Representatives in the US and the job
outlook is growing by 10% through
2024. Even Congress decided to act
this year by introducing a bill in
both houses on February 24thcalled:
United States Call Center Worker and
Consumer Protect Act of 2016. This bill
would allow the Secretary of Labor
to maintain a public list of employers
who relocate jobs overseas and make
them ineligible for Federal grants and
loans along with other disclosures.
So the next time you call an American
business for service or support, the
likelihood is increasing - that it will be
an American who answers!
You can’t put a price tag on the intrinsic value of an
empathic and understanding US voice that can deeply
connect with customers.
“ “
MAKING US AGAIN THE FAVORITE JOB DESTINATION
Contributed by Michael Meyer, CIO, MRS
Michael Meyer
tth
OPINION & INSIGHTS
JANUARY 2020 42