IT Visionaries

Much like a snowflake, no two companies are alike. After all, something has to separate you from your competition — from mission statement, to products and services, to customers, nothing in the marketplace is exactly like the other. But regardless of what industry you serve, more than likely you’re dealing with many of the same issues that your peers are. From all sides of the C-Suite, every executive is dealing with similar obstacles. Maybe that’s designing an infrastructure to support remote work, or navigating a treacherous journey to the cloud, or fixing a workplace culture. No matter what the  issue is, there are more similarities than we may think.On a recent episode of IT Visionaries, special guest host, Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, the Executive Vice President, Global Customer Success & Strategy at Salesforce, was joined by two industry experts representing very different parts of the marketplace. The result is a conversation which brings together two executives from two different roles for a look at what makes their challenges similar, but different. Tony Wells, is the Chief Brand Officer of USAA, and Michael Smith, is the CIO of Estée Lauder, and on this episode, the two discuss why they believe that companies will inevitably embrace a hybrid work environment and how to bring employees back safely. They also touch on how to build a tech-first culture, and the need for IT and other departments to work together.Main TakeawaysDeep Thinkers: Non-technology executives need to constantly be thinking about how current or future technology could be a disruptor to their current business model. It’s important for members of the C-suite to understand the challenges they face, but also to work together to attack those challenges. Working with the CIO on a day-to-day basis to help optimize some of the company's responsibilities will pay dividends in the long-run.What do you Value?: The younger workforce we see today puts value in things other than just a steady paycheck and benefits. Now it’s incumbent on the employer to provide a state-of-the-art facility that can best set up employees to succeed, but they have to ensure that the value and image of the brand aligns with their workforce.Is That a Hybrid?: The future model of work will include both a physical office and provide employees with the ability to work remotely and with distributed teams. If companies are going to retain and recruit talent, that is likely the only model that will draw them in.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Security identity management comes in all shapes and sizes, and it’s an industry that continues to innovate at a rapid pace and there is no end in sight. Think of identity management like this: that card or fob you scan to enter an office or building, that’s security management. Or maybe the password you change every 30 days, that’s identity management. But while these processes seem simple and familiar, they haven’t been part of the security ecosystem for very long.“15 years ago, phones were different. We didn't know about online identities. We didn't have digital passports. We were using batches to access buildings. If you fast forward, the pace of what we are changing is pretty traumatic and fast.”Traumatic and fast are strong but appropriate words when describing the pace at which Martin Ladstaetter, and HID Global, are working at when it comes to making it easier for consumers to access their everyday necessities. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Martin, the Head of Consumer Authentication and VP of Product Management at HID Global, explains how the company is digitizing this new world and securing consumers across multiple networks. Martin also dives into the struggles enterprises are facing when it comes to securing distributed workforces and what the future of access identity management holds.Main TakeawaysCreating an Unknown Digital Experience: Customer experience is key in any sector. In identity management, the key to a good experience is to make it not feel like an experience at all. The future of this space involves users being able to make purchases, access buildings and cars seamlessly, without having to use security cards or fobs or other devices.Is This Ethical?: As distributed workforces rise in popularity, one of the hot discussion topics is how large enterprises should be securing their employees and what is the right line to toe when it comes to security procedures? You don’t want to be constantly monitoring an employee's actions, but at the same time you must make sure you protect sensitive data. Finding a good balance between security and privacy remains key.Securing Against a Single Breakpoint: Every building has multiple entry and exit points — this is necessary in case of an emergency. Your technology should be built the same way, You have to secure your devices and technology against having a single breakpoint. That way, if a a card is deactivated, a phone system breaks down, or a password fails, employees and IT professionals have other ways to gain access.. IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform  -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

The spirit of innovation is mostly positive. After all, innovation  leaps humanity forward. The wheel enabled transportation, space exploration led to the internet, the smartphone has connected the world.These are just some examples.  And the innovation wheel keeps turning. These days there is no doubt that  For our brief history of breakthrough innovation, we’ve rarely had to discuss or think about the ethics behind those efforts like we do with the next breakthrough; Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.A.I and Machine learning  are widely considered to be the tools that will leap humanity forward into the future, but there’s a catch...… who decides the ethics of AI and ML? Who tells the computer how it should think? What should the computer value? What is ethical? And at what point have we gone too far?“This technology is not fully developed, It's not an end state. So we don't know all of the consequences of using this technology.”When we think about innovation, we think about all the good that will come from it, and rarely think about the consequences that innovation leaves in its wake. Someone is thinking about that, though, and that someone is Beena Ammanath. As the Executive Director at Deloitte’s Global A.I. Institute., It’s her job to go through all the “what ifs” of A.I.  On this episode of IT Visionaries, Beena explains how she weighs all the outcomes, and she discusses the three paths companies are currently pursuing ethically A.I. .  She also talks about why trustworthy A.I. and machine learning will be the secret to all successful technology breakthroughs. Enjoy!Main TakeawaysCan I Trust You?: Trust must be at the center of all your A.I. models, which means you need a clear understanding of the data sets you are using and if the data you are using to build your algorithms is reliable. When using third party data, make sure you have a clear understanding of how that data was collected, what the subject matter was and if it truly fits into your modeling. When you can’t trust your data  sources, you end up with biases in your algorithms.The Secret Sauce: A.I. and machine learning continue to be the two big underlying pieces of technology that businesses are using today because of their ability to consistently digest data and learn on the fly. Traditional software used to rely on updates that may arrive every six months, now machines can continually be evaluated and taught new techniques at a moment’s notice.Driving Adoption: Getting people to use your product is always goal number one, but with A.I., and really any new form of technology, consumer adoption is key because in order for A.I. and machine learning to be successful, it’s reliant on the continuous feedback loops it gains from its users. When you’re designing UX, you need to think about how you are going to drive adoption upfront, and not just about how the technology is going to be deployed.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

On IT Visionaries, we talk a lot about security, but we mostly talk about cybersecurity and making sure that your networks are protected from cyber criminals. We don’t really talk about in-the-flesh criminals and how technology is helping to keep them out of your home.But what is the value of home security? Is it being able to constantly check your front door to see if a package has arrived? Is it the calmness that comes with being notified that there’s movement in your driveway? Or is it simply the piece of mind that you get when you know that if something goes wrong, you’ll know it? In 2014, Ring did something no other company else had done: andit gave homeowners a sense of security by providing a 24/7 view of their front door… “[We ] had a mission around how to create a better layer of security for people to always be home. Our slogan is always home. What that did was allow people to either answer the door comfortably from their phone, whether they actually wanted to go to the door, or if you weren't home, at least give the perception that you were home and the doorbell was really an amazing product to start with.Over the last seven years, Ring has built a businessan business empire fromoff of not just doorbells, tobut an entire smart home that is accessible to everyday homeowners. Josh Roth is the CTO at Ring, and it's his responsibility to build an ecosystem that gives those homeowners some piece of mind. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Josh discusses how Ring went from a start-up trying to find product-market fit, to an Amazon acquisition thatacquisition  billion-dollar company that now sells hundreds of thousands of security and smart devices every month.Enjoy!  Main TakeawaysMore Than A Doorbell: You products need to be able to make that initial connection with consumers, but your products and services must consistently remind the user why your technology is different from other products. For example, while a video doorbell was unique and gave users access to their home they didn’t have before, it was the software within the product and the Ring ecosystem which led to different consumer touchpoints and as a result added additional value.Letting Your Engineers Grow: Software engineers need the ability to explore new things, and they also need the freedom to fail. Your management style should cater to both those realities. And when you’re managing a group of engineers, it’s helpful to think about the product from their perspective, and also allow them to design and develop with as little friction as possible. When engineers feel as if they have more liberty, their creativity and innovation can break through.Customers Driving Innovation: Regardless of the size of your organization, you need to consistently be listening to your customers in order to drive innovation. Don’t just listen to your customer service team, especially when you are in the early stages of designing a product and customer feedback can make or break you. And when customers do come to you with problems, don’t pass them off, solve them yourself because if you can solve one problem for a single customer, you can solve that same problem for thousands.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Is chat support helpful or annoying? To me, it’s both. It’s helpful because it’s the way I prefer to be helped. It’s asynchronous, it allows for multitasking, and it can be done anywhere. But, it’s also annoying. It sucks when you type something in and your customer service agent or bot has no idea what you’re talking about. LivePerson is trying to make customer interactions smarter.Joe Bradley is Chief Scientist at LivePerson, and his mission is to define and anticipate customer needs and intent, via each and every single customer-to-brand interaction. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Joe explains the difference between creating conversational A.I. that not only can hold meaningful conversations with the user, but also understands the intent of the customer. He also gives a look into the future of how A.I.  will empower brands to create better customer experiences. Enjoy. Main TakeawayWhat’s the Intent: The future of conversational technologies is going to rely heavily on A.I. and machine learning to not only be able to process the question the consumer is asking, but to be able to understand the intent of what the customer is asking. Importance of the Hand-off: Conversational intelligence can coherently communicate with the customer on its own, but perhaps more importantly is able to store that information in a centralized location so that when a customer service representative gets to the case, the hand-off is clear and there is no breakdown in the conversation from the consumer’s perspective.How to Manage Your Data: When developing A.I. solutions, it's important to think of ways to creatively encourage your customers to engage with the platform so that you can collect useful first party data. By asking leading questions that get to the root cause of the customer’s issue, you can design a platform that is not only consistently learning from your customers, but also building trust.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Every company is undergoing some kind of digital transformation. Whether you’re upgrading your tech stack, migrating to the cloud, or analyzing your processes to improve your employee experience, every enterprise is saddled with the need to improve their systems. But what if that daunting process was a thing of the past? What if instead of having to undergo massive technology upgrades every few years that process was continuous? If you ask Jon Knisley, Principal Consultant, Automation and Process Excellence at FortressIQ, that’s the way of the future.“Process data is that missing puzzle piece that nobody's had access to. Once we get it in place, that's when you'll have a complete and comprehensive understanding of how [your company] truly operates. I'm starting to play with this idea that when we get to that point, is that going to be the end of our digital transformation journey? The end of digital transformation? Sounds too good to be true, but is it? In this episode of IT Visionaries, Jon explains why the reality of continuous system improvement through the use of automation tools is not far off. Plus, Jon dives into data-driving insights, powering continuous transformation across enterprises and why employees should embrace automation tools. Enjoy!Main TakeawaysBuilding a Roadmap for Tomorrow: Understanding how your organization actually operates is foundational to improving key business initiatives. Enterprises need to have a 360 view of how their organization operates on a day-to-day basis to have a better understanding of not only the knowledge that long-time employees possess, but how they can improve the overall experience for those employees as well.It’s an Ongoing Process: Digital transformation projects tend to be slow and take years to complete. Companies should not rely on large-scale changes every few years, but instead implement a continuous improvement model where they are consistently measuring their tech stack to understand what is being done today so they can improve, automate and optimize for tomorrow.Automation as a Companion: Employees should view A.I. and automation as a companion to their work efforts and not as a piece of technology that is going to eliminate jobs. When automation is implemented properly into an organization, it should free up employees to be more productive and more creative.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform  -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

In the last year, a number of auto companies have announced huge investments into the development of electric vehicles, with some committing to transforming their entire fleets over to clean energy. In the past, the biggest hurdle consumers and businesses had to overcome when switching to electric power was the question of battery life. Drivers were worried, and understandably so, about whether their car’s battery would be  powerful enough to get them where they needed to go, hassle-free. The answer is yes, and it’s thanks to some interesting software that a cleaner future is possible."By unleashing what we call depth of discharge and top of charge on a battery just with software, we can add five to 10% range. And so that may not sound a lot, but if you have a car that's 300 miles, now it's 330 miles that trip to the beach is no problem.” Anil Paryani is an EV industry veteran and pioneer who possesses more than 30 patents and currently he serves as the CEO of Automotive Power, where he is committed to getting the most out of your electric vehicle. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Anil explains what really controls an EV battery’s capacity and overall performance, and he reveals why you might not need that fast charging station afterall. Main TakeawaysCan I Get Some Charge?: In order for electric vehicles to become widely adopted, consumers need to feel confident that they can get to their desired destination. Fast-charging stations already exist, but there is still a mental hurdle consumers have to clear in order to feel secure in their ability to get from point A to point B. As such, more charging stations and options are still needed in more locations to give drivers the sense of security they require. Running to the Edge: Preventing lithium platinum plating is what will keep your car running efficiently for as long as possible. Lithium plating is what happens when the battery is pushed past its maximum abilities. In order to prevent this from happening, the software that the car runs on must be optimized to keep the battery running at the edge.Cool Car, Man: One of the main obstacles EVs face is the stigma that electric cars are not fun to drive. Initially, when manufacturers designed EVs, they were small and seen as practical, everyday cars for consumers. Now, the tides are changing as OEMs, such as Tesla, Ford and Audi, are now bringing EVs to everyday, classically-cool, performance-based models such as the Mustang. IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Industrial equipment lasts for decades, and the data produced by these machines are invaluable to the organizations that rely on them. So what happens when industries that rely on industrial equipment, with on-location workers, and limited digital reliance face a pandemic and limited to no travel. “I had a CEO of one of the big utilities [companies] telling me, he taught, given the last discussions he had with his leaders, that it would take five to six years to do digital transformation. When COVID started last year, they did a lot of what they thought would take five years in five weeks. It worked, so now the question is can you continue doing it?”Colin Parris is the SVP and CTO of GE Digital, a billion dollar software division dedicated to creating better outcomes using the immense data produced by industrial machines.At GE, Coliin leads software, systems, and analytics teams to push the boundaries of how data can power industrial digital transformation. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Colin explains one of the ways GE Digital is transforming industries with their digital twins program. He explains exactly how digital twins is helping factories effectively predict the lifetime of machines, maintenance schedules, and predictive optimum yields all with an eye towards safety to ensure their plants stay up and running. Colin also touches on the importance of gathering data at the edge and the impact that kind of computing will have on efficiency.Main TakeawaysMeasuring Success and Proving Value: Measuring success or measuring value from data and analytics is a difficult proposition. A best practice for measuring value is to set a baseline and make sure that you pick the right tool to advance your use case. Then you can measure that baseline to provide the value of those investments to gain the credibility to advance your analytics.It’s a Balancing Act: When you are measuring your data and setting baselines, you must be using both data at the edge and cloud-based data to predict the life expectancy of a system. When you manage data locally, you are consistently setting benchmarks with your local products, and then by sending that data to the cloud, you’re allowing your systems in other areas to use that data to then prevent potential problems.Industrial Problems: The two biggest issues currently facing the industrial industry right now are decarbonization, reducing a factory’s carbon footprint and cyber security, protecting that software that manages and runs their machines. The software that runs inside machines now must not only be able to predict when a machine might need maintenance, but that software must make sure the machine is not only safe and secure, but keeps it running efficiently in order to help it’s sustainability efforts.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

Nikola Mijic is the Founder and CEO of Matik, and he has one piece of advice of for anyone entering the start-up arena:“When people ask me what have you learned through this experience of starting your own company, I would say how to ruthlessly prioritize because your users and your customers and prospects are gonna want the world, and it's your job to be able to decipher what is valid and what is habitual.”Building, scaling, and maintaining success is every entrepreneur’s dream, and there’s one way to get there. By consistently meeting customer expectations and finding product-market fit. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Nikola peels back the curtain on how he stepped outside of his comfort zone of product management and took a chance in launching Matik, a personalization tool designed to automate Google slides and powerpoint presentations with customized data points. Nikola also explains why customer success is dependent on managing expectations and how data-driven insights are not here to kill dashboards, but to assist them.Main TakeawaysGet Your Priorities Straight: When you’re running a company, prioritization is not just a nice-to-have, it’s a necessity. When you are first starting out, prospects and clients are going to consistently be asking you to over deliver with your products and services. You won’t be able to do everything or meet every expectation, so you have to prioritize what is possible and be sure you can deliver on what you promise.Trust Your Data: Your products need to be rooted and consistently measured based on what your data is telling you. Is the user using the product? If they are not, use your data to understand why and get to the bottom of why a particular product is succeeding or failing.Not Here to Replace your Dashboards: Dashboards still serve a purpose of being exploratory while providing the ability to quick insights, but they don’t solve the entire problem of pulling all that data into a single place so that you can quick find those insights and make them accessible.-IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.

For years there has been a debate about whether video games are the next great learning tool, or gateways to desensitization due to violence and a lack of face-to-face interaction. The debate rages on, but regardless of the long-term side effects of video games, there are scenarios where they are being put to use in practical ways as it relates to military training.“The idea of training soldiers using computer games was like, ‘There's no way a computer game can train my guys how to shoot. You have to go out into the mud and do it for real.’ And while there's some truth there, what we offered was like an accelerator for decision-making processes.”Mark Dzulko had been serving in the military for 13 years when he recognized the potential that computer-based simulation tactics could have in the military. As the CTO and Director at Bohemia Simulations, Mark is now turning the potential into something practical. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Mark breaks down the difference between traditional consumer-based video games and Bohemia’s simulation device, plus, he explains how the company scaled despite having a limited customer base.Main TakeawaysAn Open World: By using open source tools, engineers are able to quickly draft up different scenarios to fit a potential need rather than completely build a model from scratch. This gives simulation a sense of agility and scalability that traditional training models, such as pre-built flight simulators, do not have.Game vs Reality: Video games are built with an end goal in mind: to achieve the highest possible score. Simulations are designed to recreate actual life tactics. By being put in a simulated scenario, soldiers can hone their response times and get a better sense of how to react before being deployed. How to Make It: When you bring any product to market, it’s important to have an understanding of if you have product-market fit first. But when your customer base is limited it’s even more important to know that you will solve a problem for that base of customers in a reliable way, which will help ensure your success from the start. Constantly testing and gathering feedback from potential buyers before you hit that market is a strategy to put in place so that when you are ready to launch your product, it’s already set up for the customer to succeed.IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform -- Brightspot is the leading content management platform built for modern teams. Your content lifecycle - from ideation to archival - moves faster, handling any volume, variety, or velocity with ease. Unlike legacy platforms that demand heavy dev work and struggle with scale, Brightspot is user-friendly, endlessly customizable, and enterprise-ready. Think dynamic, modern experiences, shipped in minutes—not months. Trusted by some of the world’s leading tech organizations, Brightspot reduces total cost of ownership, boosts productivity, and gives you the governance, security, and performance your teams need. Visit brightspot.com/ITVisionaries to learn more.---This episode was produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.