

IT Visionaries
Mission
Gain unparalleled access to the minds of industry-leading CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs. Enjoy episodes filled with expert insights, inspiring stories, and trend analysis, all brought to you by the people shaping the future of technology. Whether you're an IT professional, aspiring tech leader, or general tech enthusiast, IT Visionaries has something for everyone. Don't miss out on the chance to learn from the best – subscribe now!
Produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.
Produced by the team at Mission.org and brought to you by Brightspot.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 7, 2021 • 49min
How to Build a High-Value Customer Experience Products with Conga SVP, Eric Carrasquilla
As the Senior Vice President of Product for Conga, Eric Carrasquilla knows two things: No. 1 products can fundamentally change the workflow of any business. And No. 2, more times than not, customers will tell you what they need, even if they don’t necessarily know how to describe it.“We keep going back to this Apple example, the famous one related to the iPod… No one asked for your entire music catalog in a deck of cards. They asked for a bunch of other stuff. But Steve Jobs, being able to come back and say, ‘I understand the problem you're trying to solve.’ You don't want to lug all this stuff around and it's difficult to go through and do, so what about this?’ And having people go, ‘Oh, yes, it's what I need. And didn't know what to ask for.’” That's the challenge faced by anyone in the business of product development: to deliver revolutionary products and services, without having to be asked to do so. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Eric details how his team goes about meeting that challenge by developing services with the customer experience at the forefront. Plus, he explains the importance of working hand-in-hand with your developers.Main TakeawaysMight Not Be the Product they Want, But it’s the Product They Need: One of the defining features of any company is how it listens and gathers information from its clients. When it comes to product development, this is key. Your clients might not always be able to convey to you the exact problem they need to be solved, but through discovery, research, and multiple conversations, similar themes will begin to emerge that will help your product team understand what needs should be addressed.This isn’t Monopoly: As a product team, it’s important to understand that your department does not have a monopoly on good ideas. Remember, ideas can come from all departments — clients, R&D, product, etc.. Don’t back yourself into a corner and think that only your team knows how to solve problems. Siloed and structured approaches rarely succeed.Acquired Remotely: When you are going through an acquisition, the first thing you need to ask yourself is how do our products complement each other? What areas of the acquiring company are useful and how can we integrate those into our network? When you are doing this in a remote environment, communication is of the utmost importance. You should be constantly over-communicating with your teams to make sure you are achieving the best result, but also making the transition as easy as possible.---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jan 5, 2021 • 38min
Why Zero Trust Isn’t the Answer, but Full End-to-End Encryption is with Wire CTO, Alan Duric
Let's be frank. Security and the steps we take to protect ourselves are never top-of-mind. In fact, most users tend to operate under the mindset that bad things happen to other people and companies, never hitting too close to home. Until it does… Maybe it’s an email you click on, or a message that contains sensitive information you pass along to a coworker that ends up in an unsecured inbox. Regardless of the method or point of entry,, bad actors, or hackers will eventually attack if and when they can.“More and more people go into it with the same logic as when people are buying burglar alarms for [their] home. It usually sells greatly when a home in your neighborhood gets broken into. You hear about it and then say, ‘Maybe I should actually protect myself.’ Whenever something like that happens, then those circles start to resonate with it just unfortunately, they need to get burned in order to learn about it.”Alan Duric isn’t one of those kinds of people though. Alan is the CTO and COO of Wire, and he lives with three key terms always top of mind: Security, end-to-end encryption and prevention. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Alan discusses some of the leading trends happening in the security space — including addressing the age-old issue of how users should be more proactive and less reactive. Plus, Alan details why email continues to be the most troubling form of communication.Main TakeawaysYou are The Weakest Link, Goodbye!: Despite all the forms of cybersecurity, email attacks still remain the weakest link because it is tough to regulate and prevent outside actors from infiltrating a system. Instead, passing sensitive information back and forth through email, consider using encryption-protected messaging services.A Little Proactive and Less Reactive: The time is now for companies to take a hard look at how they are protecting themselves and evaluate all options. With various forms of security, including zero trust, encryption, etc. One of the biggest problems when it comes to security understanding the risk vs reward factor. So, Can you Hack this? One of the leading benefits of full end-to-end encryption is the ability to protect every message and every video conference — sending or receiving — from being attacked. When each individual form of communication is encrypted with its own unique key, it’s as if that message is being protected inside its own individual fortress.---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dec 31, 2020 • 46min
How Software is Powering the Blind to See Again
The idea of virtual reality has captivated humans for the longest time. After all, the ability to live a second life, free of the physical obstacles that the real world presents is a dream worth falling into. But what if there was a bridge between the powers of virtual reality and its ability to impact the real world? That’s the mission that Ammad Khan, the CEO and Co-founder of IrisVision, set out to make possible.“I have always believed that technology has the tremendous potential of really changing the way we do things every day. And it's become really evident, since the launch of the smartphones in our lives and using the platform capability on the smartphone that so many of the things that we previously could not even think of have become possible.”One way the impossible is becoming reality is through the work of IrisVision, which uses the powers of virtual reality tools to enable people who have been declared legally blind the ability to see again. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Ammad discusses the power of the IrisVision software and provides case studies on how the product is working in the real world. Plus, he details the company’s go-to-market strategy and why it was integral to develop multiple prototypes before making the product widely available. Main TakeawaysBut First, Science: Founded in 2016, IrisVision is based on Dr. Frank Werblin’s research around retinal functions. Werblin and Khan, who possessed a background in mobile technology, worked together to find a software solution for helping individuals with low-vision see again. Virtual reality, combined with the increasing use of technology, allows the eyes to put together pixels, in order to make blurred vision more clear. Test, Test, Test: Before you send any product to market, you need to make sure you have a sound basis for how the product works and perform multiple use cases. Rushing a product to market without understanding how it performs under varying variables could be disastrous. Make sure you take the proper time to prototype your device so when it hits shelves, you’re off and running---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dec 29, 2020 • 42min
Patent Pending: How the UPTO Office is Expediting the Time From Submittal to Approval
The United States Patent and Trademark Office wants to modernize its technology stack, but to accomplish its ambitious goal, Jamie Holcombe, the CIO for USPTO has two main objectives: snapping out of a spell that binds people to age-old projects, and scaling its current way of doing things.“What I saw was the ability to actually outsource a lot of our infrastructure, and that means not actually having the data center that we currently do in Alexandria, although it's very efficient. What we need to do is have resiliency. And so what I'd like to do is create the ability for our applications to work in the cloud on the internet, instead of having to come to the USPTO data center. And so that's what we're doing right now. We've stabilized our core applications to the point where in COVID-19 we've been able actually to increase our productivity metrics. It's unbelievable how great we're doing in this limited environment.”On this episode of IT Visionaries, Jamie details how his office is bringing its technology stack into the 21st century and how they are expediting the time it takes for a patent to get approved through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques.Main TakeawaysYou Better Check Yourself: The discovery process is integral when you are looking to deploy any kind of artificial intelligence or machine learning techniques. Before deploying these algorithms, you need to make sure that you are creating the necessary feedback loops and understand what the data is telling you and where your deficiencies are in your algorithms.Clean-Up Your Room: Before you embark on any digital transformation that affects your customer, you have to make sure that your house is in order first. This can mean updating your network’s infrastructure and finding new ways to manage your data. Same Old Song and Dance: Just because your department or office has been around for hundreds of years, does not mean your processes are perfect. When you have employees that stick around, that’s great! But make sure you are continuously challenging your team to think about new ways and processes to streamline your approach.---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dec 24, 2020 • 53min
The Algorithms that Bring you Style with Stitch Fix’s Director of Data Science, Tatsiana Maskalevich
The old saying, “look good, feel good,'' fits Stitch Fix perfectly. The direct-to-consumer, online personal styling service has boomed due to its ability to not only match consumers with trendy and comfortable clothes, but to make it a personalized experience for each buyer.“At the end of the day, we want to be rooted in personalization. First and foremost, it's important for us that [consumers] not only come to Stitch Fix to complete a transaction, but that you really think about us as your partner style.”From curating stylish experiences, to matching each individual with their own personal stylist, Stitch Fix and taken eCommerce and the subscription model to the next level. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Tatsiana Maskalevich, the Director of Data Science at Stitch Fix, takes listeners into the algorithms that help curate those experiences and the science behind it all.Main TakeawaysKnow Your Data: With so many avenues to collect data on the internet, the collection process is not the difficult part. The hardest part is how you turn your data into actionable insights that can benefit your customers’ experience. In order to manage your data appropriately, you must be constantly creating feedback loops so you can best understand what is working and what is not working.It’s a Preference Thing: The customer experience is the number one pillar for any successful company. When you are creating curated experiences for your customers, you need to constantly be listening to what works for them and what does not work. Create a great experience by constantly giving your customers reasons to engage with your platform through quizzes and games or other interactive features.Rooted in Data: One of the keys to building a successful data-centric platform is through the individuals constructing it. The algorithm you construct has to accomplish two things: It needs to continuously be learning about the person inputting that data, and it needs to continuously be relaying information back to the source. Focus on the foundation and infrastructure of your algorithm first, then experience second.---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dec 22, 2020 • 44min
Hiring Solved: How this Eightfold.ai Has Solved the Hiring Process through A.I.
What if there was a software that could take the guesswork out of finding a career or an employee? And what if that software could not only analyze your technical skills, but also those that could lead you to leadership positions down the road? That would be great news for the hiring managers and everyday Americans who struggle with and feel anxious about the complexities of completing a job search. Lucky for them then, that Eightfold.ai is working to make those worries a thing of the past through artificial intelligence.“What we are doing is using the latest advances in deep learning and machine learning to really understand, not what people have done, but what they are capable of being next. What is their learning ability for a certain skill? If you know statistics and signal processing, you can learn machine learning very quickly. If you are good in programming, you can learn Python quickly. So really trying to understand the learning ability of each individual and using that to assess and understand who can be a great fit in what enterprise, in which function.” With more than 100 customers, including AT&T, Cisco and Liberty Mutual, Eightfold.ai is using the power of data to solve the complexities that come with hiring thousands of employees. On this episode, Ashutosh Garg, discusses how A.I. can be used to identify which candidates are an ideal fit for an organization, and he gives an inside look at their process and the variables they look at to identify that perfect candidate.Main TakeawaysIt’s a Problem Rooted in Data: When you’re building any application that’s rooted in A.I., the number one priority needs to be data collection. The more data you have, the more inferences you are able to make. When Eightfold.ai launched its platform, it only worked with companies that hired more than 10,000 employees over a few years. The idea is that for every 10,000 employees hired, more than 1 million people were called, screened, etc., thus making the data sets they are able to pull from very large.It’s About Fit: Finding the right employee should never be based solely on a candidate's skills. Instead, when you are going through the hiring process, think about how this particular person fits within a role and within your organization as a whole. Just because someone works at Google, does not mean they will fit at Facebook. Instead, evaluate an individual on all the variables a job requires, cultural fit included.The Art of Possibility: Artificial intelligence is unlocking the possibility of not only creating a more diverse workplace, but providing opportunities to people who might not have the traditional background, but who have still found success. The technology unlocks for them the ability to find and pursue many more opportunities.---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dec 17, 2020 • 51min
Using Automation To Drive A More Personalized CX with HGS Chief Digital Officer, Virgil Wong
For years, marketers and technologists have envisioned a world where technology would be advanced enough and smart enough, that they could reach consumers on a deeper and more emotional level. Turns out, through the power of automation, that world may now exist.“I'm really talking about designing your digital channels so that they are cognitive. So you're reacting to what a customer might be feeling or thinking, being compassionate. So you're responding to the customer situation with a genuine effort to help. So we talk about implementing bots. It's not just about trying to impersonate a real-life human being. You really shouldn't try to do that, but we're about creating these solutions around automation that's very much attuned to the customer's emotions, their motivations, their challenges that they're facing.”Robots in the workplace are not new, but automation as a driver of empathy and not a way to accomplish repetitive tasks is a game-changing advancement. Virgil Wong, who you just heard from, is the Chief Digital Officer for HGS Digital, a company focused on making empathy a driving force behind the customer experience. Virgil joins IT Visionaries to discuss how artificial intelligence, machine learning, and intelligent automation are more than just buzzwords. In fact, they are actionable pieces of technology that can drive brand loyalty and create the optimal customer experience.Main TakeawaysLet’s Be a Bit More Empathetic: Whether your customer is interacting with you on a website, mobile app, or via chatbot, the experience they have with your technology must be based on empathy. When customers are working with bots, that automation needs to be able to identify that customers' pain points, and then react in a compassionate manner.Walk Before You Run: When it comes to implementing sweeping customer experience changes, it’s important to start slow and discover what the pain points are, the processes involved, and how the technology can better serve the customer. Time to Upgrade: Your data sets should be driving your roadmap and how you interact with your customers. When you have millions of conversations, take time to digest the themes of those calls and where some of your customers’ common pain points are. Then use that data to drive a better, more empathetic experience.---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dec 15, 2020 • 48min
The Next Normal: How to Prepare Your Workforce for the Next Big Pivot
If there is one thing 2020 made abundantly clear, it’s that the way in which workers operate will never be the same. As employees rushed to set up monitors and home offices in their new environments, businesses across the world were recognizing an inevitable reality:: that this new lifestyle was here to stay.“As this progresses, the next normal is going to be about mobility and flexibility. We've got a taste of this working from home thing that [we’ve] never had before, and they're going to want to do both, which is going to bring on new challenges.”Welcome to the “Next Normal,” where new remote working demands are establishing a host of lifestyle changes for employees, and concurrently creating a larger list of challenges for their employers. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Kim Huffman, the VP of Global IT at Elastic, opens up about distributed workforces and why Elastic believes strongly in them. But she is honest about the obstacles that work from anywhere creates when it comes to managing the endpoints of your fleet, and she discusses how IT leaders can handle the transition.Main TakeawaysKnow Your Fleet: For distributed teams, having an understanding of your endpoints is critically important. You need to always be thinking about where you are most vulnerable at those endpoints, and the points of attack they may be opening themselves up to to understand how they can be as secure as possible. Managing your endpointDrink Your Own Champagne: One of the more important operating principals at Elastic is its ability and willingness to test its own products in-house. When you beta test your apps with your own team, it affords you the opportunity to fix bugs or breakdowns within the system prior to that product ever reaching the customer.Is This Secure? Just because you are operating on a VPN network, does not necessarily mean your network is secure. Even when you are on VPN, the user is still subjected to various forms of cyberattacks. As IT leaders, it’s important to constantly be evaluating the incoming information from your devices and managing them at their endpoints.---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dec 10, 2020 • 39min
From the Open Road: How Dropbox CIO Sylvie Veilleux is Living the Brand
It is only fitting that Sylvie Veilleux’s current adventure finds her wandering the backroads of the continental United States, cruising across America’s highways in search of her next stop. It’s an odyssey that’s reminiscent of her career path: From a start-up, to Apple, with a pitstop in financial services in between, before finally landing at the powerhouse that is Dropbox as its CIO, Sylvie’s career has been anything but linear.“As an individual, I can get pretty bored easily. And if there was ever a moment that I felt bored, that's when opportunities came to me. I love adventure. I love being challenged. I love being busy. And if I can combine all those things together, then why not? It's been quite fun. This last experience, where I've been working virtually in an RV, is just another place that I've done something so new and different that's kept me going.”While Dropbox is known for its file-sharing prowess, the company, like Sylvie, has expanded its horizons and its footprint in order to aid distributed workforces. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Sylvie discusses her personal journey, the work she’s doing now at Dropbox, and why Dropbox is proving that remote work is here to stay.Main TakeawaysA Remote Worker, Living in A Virtual World: The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed companies to be more agile with their workforces. Just because your team is distributed, doesn’t mean simple company values like culture and team building don’t matter. Time to Unplug: Remote workers shouldn’t be accessible 24/7. Sure, an employee has the ability to be connected to their device at all times, but that does not mean the company should exploit that. When utilizing a remote workforce, find ways to allow employees to disconnect from the company on their days off so they don’t feel required to check things such as emails, or answer calls.Ready, Player One: The ways employees and teams meet in the future will change from the way they are meeting today. CIO’s and technology leaders need to constantly be evaluating the technology they use amongst their teams. This includes taking a hard look at it if it makes the overall experience better for the employee and if it’s not, finding a better solution.---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dec 8, 2020 • 48min
True to Form: Why Truepill is Reenergizing an Aging Healthcare System
When you’re labeled by Forbes as a “Billion Dollar Start-Up,” the expectations are set pretty high. But for Truepill President and Co-Founder Sid Viswanathan, the goal was never about earning accolades, it was about re-energizing and modernizing an aging healthcare system. “As consumers, we live in a world that's driven by [the fact that] you can order something on your phone and it shows up in that same hour, or that following day. Behind the scenes, that's been really hard to do in healthcare because of all the different interconnected dependencies, and all the complexities of our healthcare system in America. For us, it was really important to simplify that because at the end of the day, the consumer cares about getting their medication on time or getting that lab test in their home. So it was critical for us to make sure that we built our entire infrastructure with that consumer in mind.” The journey from the idea of simplifying the healthcare system to established start-up doing that and more wasn’t an easy one — but Sid knew it wouldn’t be. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Sid discusses how his first entrepreneurial adventure helped pave the way for Truepill, and he explains why the healthcare industry has been slow to implement new technologies. Plus he reveals that oftentimes you might not know your company’s true mission until a few years down the road. Main TakeawaysAdopt and Adapt: In healthcare, the adoption of new technologies has been extremely slow. While the industry as a whole has implemented new measures and techniques, the underlying issue for the lack of adoption centers on the fact that there is no real incentive for pharmacies to change their practices.If You Build it, They Will Come: When you’re first launching a platform, start with the mindset of doing the entire project yourself - no contractors, no DevOps personnel, or software engineers. When you develop the platform yourself it sets your team up to have a longer runway to success and allows you to build longer because you are not taking on the front-end cost of development.Customer Centric: One of the biggest challenges the healthcare industry has faced is the process has not been designed with the customer experience in mind. Regardless of which industry you are in, when you begin to build your products and services with the customer experience in mind, it provides you with the ability to streamline processes that dampen the overall experience.---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
-- This episode of IT Visionaries is brought to you by Meter - the company building better networks. Businesses today are frustrated with outdated providers, rigid pricing, and fragmented tools. Meter changes that with a single integrated solution that covers everything wired, wireless, and even cellular networking. They design the hardware, write the firmware, build the software, and manage it all so your team doesn't have to.That means you get fast, secure, and scalable connectivity without the complexity of juggling multiple providers. Thanks to meter for sponsoring. Go to meter.com/itv to book a demo.---IT Visionaries is made by the team at Mission.org. Learn more about our media studio and network of podcasts at mission.org. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.


