The Business Exchange Bath & Somerset Issue 6: Winter 2017/18 | Seite 23

Nathan Baranowski is a director of ojo solutions. He is a leading digital and technology transformation specialist, helping businesses navigate the technology landscape and delivering cutting edge technology solutions.

Throughout 2018, ojo is inviting local business people to join them on the ojo Tech Couch to discuss all things tech, from the latest trends to digital transformation. This issue ojo and guests discuss the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and trends for 2018.

Who’ s on the couch?

TECHNOLOGY

Nathan Baranowki, Director

MAKING TECHNOLOGY WORK

Nathan

Mark

Simon

Andy

Nathan

Simon

With the rise of The Internet of Things- IoT( the network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances and other items connecting and exchanging data) we have the ability to aggregate data quicker and more smartly than ever before, creating an analytics revolution. Has this made an impact on your business as yet?

As a media business we have been working in a mobile-first, cloud first environment for a number of years now and this has seen rapid improvements in both efficiencies and the way in which we collaborate with our own team and clients alike. In effect it leaves us always-on and able to deliver results more quickly 24 / 7.

As a provider of services to manage security, privacy and permissions of personal data, the proliferation of IoT devices adds orders of magnitude to the volume of data that individuals create and is therefore processed by organisations. Without the investment that we’ ve already made in our cloud based solution we’ d be dead in the water, but with proactive capacity management our amazing operations team are able to stay on top of the situation.

As a cyber security company the exponential growth in insecure IoT has brought a number of challenges to our doors. Unfortunately, manufacturers in their rush to sell IoT are not securing their products adequately and as a result those devices are leaking information, being used as an exploitable vulnerability or being used as virtual armies to attack other networks.

In 2017, artificial intelligence became mainstream with the further integration of tools like Amazon’ s Alexa, Apple’ s Siri and the use of chatbots in customer service departments. Are you embracing these tools as an individual or as a business?

I’ m a lover of all things tech and any new gadget is a new toy for me to play with. However, I do feel very uncomfortable about uploading my living room conversations to Amazon’ s data centres to be stored and processed at their discretion. On demand, on my phone, when I choose to use the service then it can be a great productivity tool – when it works well it changes the user’ s relationship with the technology and it’ s definitely going to become more prevalent in the future.

Andy

Nathan

Mark

Paul

Nathan

Andy

Simon

Mark

As a secure business, we are avoiding these voice recognition tools, which are permanently listening to everything being said. If in the future we identify a genuine business need, then we might reconsider, though we would evaluate the risk.

Is tech improving your efficiency and / or profitability? And if so, how?

Yes, tech is instrumental to our business, as we rely on superfast broadband and collaborative mobile working solutions such as Office 365 and Google for Business to deliver availability to our clients across different geographies 24 hours a day. Ten years ago things would have been very different and costs would have prohibited many things we now consider the norm.

Better efficiency will improve profitability, and in a competitive market this is always of interest. We are always looking to work smarter, partly because we know it is the right thing to do, but also because our customers are looking for cost reductions so we have to remain competitive in everything we do.

What tech is set to change your business in the coming year?

Elastic search will be more thoroughly embraced to make the identification of security issues a lot more efficient. We are also improving our techniques for delving into the Dark Web for hidden information.

We’ ve been using containerised deployment( using Docker) since we started, but in the coming year the increasing scale of our operations means that the agility, scalability and resilience that containers provide will really come into its own.

I think we are set to create more for clients that utilises the benefits of things like Amazon’ s Alexa. For instance, chatbots for us and our clients are certainly something we are definitely going to be doing more with. We are seeing more demand for these in the websites we create.

Want to join ojo on the next Tech Couch? Or do you have a question to ask our tech experts? If so, get in touch. Drop us a line, give us a call or tweet us using the hashtag: # makingtechnologywork Email: press @ tbeswindonandwilts. co. uk Call: 01225 300043

Nathan

Simon

Paul

What is likely to be your biggest tech challenge of 2018?

Undoubtedly the changes to Data Protection from the incoming General Data Protection Regulation( GDPR) in May present the biggest challenge for us- as it will any businesses holding EU citizen data. Managing security, personal data and permissions for our corporate customers requires us to stay totally up to date with the evolving legal framework around data privacy( GDPR, ePR, PECR, MiFiD II, etc.), interpreting this to establish best practise and keep up to date with emerging case law.

Choice. There is so much innovation that nothing stands still for long, you have to make a commitment and go with it knowing too well that something better may be coming up.

The ojo view

IoT, AI and VR / AR have all been the buzzwords of 2017. Along with blockchain and bitcoin, it can feel at times we techies are just making up a whole new language.

However, 2017 has seen some amazing leaps forward and it has to be said that the UK and specifically the south west, really is becoming the new Silicon Valley.

Security and specifically internet security, has been a definite wake up call in 2017. With major cyber attacks, fake news and vote rigging, the power of the internet to inspire and corrupt has been brought to the fore of all of our attentions. With GDPR( General Data Protection Regulations) coming into force in mid-2018 it is no doubt a time for us to start to think about the internet and our data.

That said, IoT and the rise of chat bots and machines is only beginning. I am excited to see businesses large and small grabbing the opportunity to use technology to become agile, automated and streamlined. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, along with robotics, driverless cars and augmented reality will be continued buzzwords of 2018 as we start to understand how we can really apply them to our everyday lives. I look forward to seeing what is demonstrated at CES 2018( Consumer Electronics Show) this January, giving us a flavour of what’ s to come.

If you ever wanted to deep dive into technology now is the time.

For more info: www.. ojosolutions. com

@ ojosolutions

THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2017 23