Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: business advice

  • Amazon Web Services and the new rules of business

    Amazon Web Services and the new rules of business

    The one company that has driven both the adoption of cloud computing and the current tech startup mania is Amazon Web Services.

    Later this week AWS celebrates its tenth birthday and Werner Vogels, the company’s Chief Technical Officer, has listed the ten most important things he’s learned over the last decade.

    The article is a useful roadmap for almost any business, not just a tech organisation, particularly in the importance of building systems that can evolve and understanding that things will inevitably break.

    Importantly Vogels flags that encryption and security have to be built into technology, today they are key parts of a product and no longer features to be added later.

    Most contentious though is Vogels’ view that “APIs are forever”, that breaking a data connection causes so much trouble for customers that it’s best to leave them alone.

    Few companies are going to take that advice, particularly in a world where changing business needs mean APIs have to evolve.

    There’s also the real risk for businesses that their vendors will depreciate or abandon APIs leaving key operational functions stranded, this could cause major problems for organisations in a world that’s increasingly automated.

    Vogel’s commitment to maintaining APIs may well prove to be a competitive advantage for Amazon Web Services in their competition with Microsoft Azure, Google and an army of smaller vendors.

    Werner Vogel’s lessons are worth a read by all c-level executives as well as startup founders looking to build a long term venture, in many ways they could define the new rules of business.

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  • Cutting customer support

    Cutting customer support

    One of the greatest mistakes made by companies is cutting customer support. Nothing shows more a management focused on KPIs and financials than reducing its service staff.

    According to Buzzfeed, this is what Uber is doing as the company struggles to contain costs and compete in China.

    The ironic thing in Uber’s actions is the startup was so successful because in many cities the incumbent taxi operators had a culture of dire customer service.

    It may be that having seen Uber win the battles, the poor consumer is about to lose the war for better transportation services.

    Should that be the case, then Uber’s customer service woes shows the new generation of tech startups isn’t so immune to the old rules of business after all.

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  • Collapsing unicorns and business basics

    Collapsing unicorns and business basics

    UK e-commerce service Powa Technologies, once valued at £1.8 billion went into receivership after the lead US investor called in the £200 million loans it had made to the business.

    It turns out most of 1200 corporate clients the company had claimed as clients were actually expressions of interest in the service rather than firm orders.

    Powa now has the distinction of being the first of the tech unicorns to go broke – although it’s almost certain 2016 will see many of the companies with private billion dollar valuations join them.

    While the focus on Powa’s demise will be the deceased unicorn aspect, the company’s story illustrates some business basics.

    The key one is that sales only count when the money is banked, all too often cashflows, profits and valuations are inflated by booking income long before it’s received – if ever.

    Another aspect is valuations are not cash in the bank, Powa may have been valued at £1.8 billion but it only had raised £250 million in capital along with a similar amount in loans. This was not enough to keep the business going at what must have been a spectacular burn rate.

    While tech startups have unique aspects, the basics of business remain constant; Cashflow is king and adequate capital is essential. These are aspects managers, investors and employees need to watch closely.

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  • Disrupting professional services

    Disrupting professional services

    As Irish immigrants, the founders of San Francisco payments company Stripe, John and Patrick Collison, know too well the difficulties of setting up a US based corporation.

    So the company establishing Stripe Atlas, a service to help foreign entrepreneurs set up their US presence makes sense and the payments services bundled into the package may also generate business for the brothers.

    The Stripe Atlas service also illustrates the challenges facing professional services businesses as the service automates many of the bread and butter tasks that were good earners for lawyers and accountants.

    Until recently it was thought those ‘higher level’ occupations would escape disruption, now it appears software will eat the professions as well.

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  • Thinking differently about Cyber Security

    Thinking differently about Cyber Security

    “I get quite frustrated with the cybersecurity industry” says Andy France, Deputy Director of Cyber Defence Operations at British Intelligence Agency GCHQ. “We have to think differently.”

    France was speaking at the Telstra Cyber Security Forum at the company’s Sydney experience centre yesterday where he outlined how organisations are rethinking about protecting their data.

    “What we haven’t realised is just like the Bronze Age, the Stone Age, the Industrial Age and the Internet Age, we have to think differently about what that means to in terms of security and privacy. We have to think differently about how we build systems.”

    The biggest problem France sees in the industry itself are the lack of skills to build those secure systems, a situation he believes is partly created by the sector’s credentialism gaining certifications is several orders of magnitude more bureaucratic than becoming a fighter pilot.

    In contrast the bad guys who France splits into five groups – script kiddies, hacker collectives, crime syndicates, hackers for hire and nation states – have no such concerns about certificates and accreditation.

    “You have serial collectors of letters after their names,” he states. “We’re putting an artificial bar against the people with the new thought processes that are going to help us address this problem.”

    “It feels like the criteria has been set up to create a nice little market so we can control day rates,” French says, “in a world where we’re screaming out for talent and need people to come along who are interested and challenged by the subject.”

    Apart from the trap of credentialism, the real concern for businesses and users should be the integrity of data in France’s opinion. We need to be certain information is accurate, a problem that will be exacerbated as businesses processes are automated around data streams being connected by the Internet of Things.

    France suggests three principles should underlie an organisation’s data defences; having systems in place to spot early indications of a problem, obey the five ‘knows’ and understanding your network.

    Understanding your network, what France calls the ‘defender’s advantage’, is the most essential task of all for someone protecting their organisation’s data. “Is someone knows your network better than you then that should be a criminal offense,” he states. “To get the defender’s advantage in place you need to understand your network.”

    “Technology in itself with not keep you safe.” French says and describes security as being subject to Pareto’s Law where most vulnerabilities are mundane background noise, “we need to have a balance where technology looks after the 80% and we have the people and processes in dealing with the unexpected 20%.”

    “It’s certainly not going to get any better,” French warns about the trends for cyber security in 2016. For most companies and system administrators it’s going to be a matter of being alert and having the processes in place to deal with the unexpected.

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