CenterGrid, a full-stack IT hosting and support services provider, identified a gap in the market for mid-market firms seeking data protection solutions. These firms found themselves caught between public cloud backup services, which were limited in scope, scalability, and performance, and on-premises solutions that were costly and oversized. Mass market cloud backup solutions were too limited and did not scale cost-effectively to their needs. On the other hand, on-premises enterprise solutions for backup and recovery were often oversized for their requirements, requiring costly investments in both infrastructure and highly skilled specialist personnel. These mid-size organizations were storing increasing volumes of business-critical data but lacked the internal IT resources to properly manage backup, recovery, archive, and retention policies.

Centre de Regulació Genòmica (CRG), a renowned international biomedical research institute, was faced with the challenge of sharing large amounts of genome sequencing data quickly and cost-effectively with worldwide research institutions. The volume of data available for analysis was growing rapidly due to advancements in genetic sequencing technologies. CRG partnered with the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) to improve the services of the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) to offer easier access for a global research audience. However, the EGA archive contained over two petabytes of data in a range of different formats, which posed a significant challenge. Research institutions required huge amounts of data very quickly, which may be distributed across multiple small files, a small number of very large files, or a mixture of the two. Traditional file transfer protocols were unable to deliver the required performance.

China Merchants Bank, under the leadership of Zhang Xiang, executive of open platforms, was facing a significant challenge due to the rapid changes in online and mobile requirements for banks. The competitive landscape necessitated the bank to increase new product development and enhance operations and maintenance agility. The traditional waterfall approach was proving increasingly inadaptable due to rapid transformations and growth in the bank's business. This led to more demands on IT infrastructure management. The bank needed to ensure stability and efficiency over the long term, while also being agile enough to launch applications fast, diagnose malfunctions in a timely and predictive way, and schedule apps based on wide variations in transaction volumes. To achieve these objectives, the bank had to conduct a performance capacity assessment, which required collecting huge amounts of historical data showing transaction volumes during normal and peak times, as well as growth trends.

China Minsheng Banking Corp., Ltd. (CMBC), one of China's leading retail banks, was faced with the challenge of meeting rising customer expectations for 24/7 banking services while keeping costs under control. In an increasingly 24/7 world, customers expect online and telephone banking services to be available whenever they need them. Banks that fail to provide seamless customer service risk losing market share to competitors. CMBC wanted to outperform its competitors by ensuring that its business-critical systems were online and available to customers at all times. Specifically, CMBC wanted to ensure non-stop availability of the mission-critical system it relies on to calculate the fees it charges for each transaction, as any delays or interruptions could have far-reaching consequences for customer satisfaction and the bank's reputation. The system supports billing and accumulation for CMBC's front-office operations, arrearage and inquiry statistics for the back office, and periodical and protocol billing for the entire bank, making 2.5 million calculations each day.

China Steel Corp. (CSC), Taiwan's largest steel company, faced a significant challenge in upgrading its IT environment. The company saw the generational shift as an opportunity to transform its corporate structure and better utilize its extensive historical data. However, the task was enormous, involving the rewriting of nearly 200 applications. The challenge was further complicated by the need to ensure that the transition from COBOL to Java did not disrupt the company's daily operations. The company needed a solution that would allow it to carry out real-time analytics, optimize pricing, better manage its supply chain, and increase revenue.

1-800-GOT-JUNK?, a full-service junk removal company, was facing a challenge in personalizing its communications to increase customer loyalty and revenue. The company's email program was primarily composed of batch and blast messages, lacking a strategic approach, segmentation, or customer experience consideration. The company aimed to transition to more automated, cross-channel programs that would convert first-time buyers into loyal customers and significantly drive revenue. The company also wanted to implement a customer loyalty program and a call center program to boost customer engagement.

Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP), a global provider of business outsourcing and human capital management solutions, was faced with the challenge of equipping its workforce with the latest technology in a cost-efficient manner. The company considered leasing equipment as a viable option, but the management of thousands of contracts quickly and simply was a daunting task. The ever-shortening development cycles of IT equipment also posed a risk of turning capital expenditure into sunk costs. Additionally, ADP was seeking to improve its existing lease management approach by enhancing insight into costs, expiration dates, and maintenance. The company was also preparing for new, more complex Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB) standards that would require all leases to be added to the balance sheet.

Afrostream, a subscription-based Video on Demand (VOD) platform, needed to efficiently and reliably transfer African and African American content from major film studios and content producers around the globe to the IBM SoftLayer® data center in San Jose. The company faced a logistical challenge due to its globally dispersed team and content providers. Afrostream's main office is located in California, the technical team is in Nantes, France, its IBM SoftLayer storage server is housed in IBM’s data center in San Jose, California, and Afrostream’s content providers and viewers are globally dispersed. Afrostream needed to ensure content could be reliably and efficiently moved across continents. This process was further complicated by the large volume and size of files that needed to be transferred, with digital files typically varying between 10 gigabytes to 1 terabyte each. Traditional transfer methods such as FTP were too slow and unreliable due to technical limitations, resulting in poor performance and susceptibility to network interruptions and latency over the WAN.

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) has asked TUVIT (the digital innovation member of the TÜV NORD company group) to conduct a study on how a cybersecurity architecture as part of the On-board Telematics Platform (OTP) can ensure data protection as well as IT security of a connected vehicle and the interconnected traffic as a precondition for future fully automated driving. The report linked belowdescribes a model design of security functionalities modularized in different security layers,suggests the grouping of different automotive stakeholders to suitable access rolesso that an Automotive Gateway (A-GW) inside the vehicle could control any remote access in a secure way andduring the whole lifetime. Rapidly developing information technology will also allow innovation for independent service providers (ISP). Local diagnostics and direct access to in-vehicle data, functions and resources in case of a car breakdown may in many cases be replaced with remote diagnostic support that allows a remote diagnostician to communicate with the driver over the air and resolve the cause of the breakdown. IT systems for prognostics by ISPs could also support the driver as he will be informed about problems inside the car before a breakdown is going to happen. Therefore, remote access must be feasible for an authorized ISP. Besides, implemented security functionalities must prevent unauthorized access attempts during the whole lifetime and need to recognize misuse.In all cases the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has to be fulfilled: If a vehicle is assigned to an owner and whenever persons are in the car, personal data will arise automatically. In order to ensure their consent to any data being transmitted to and from the vehicle, those persons should in most cases have the possibility to opt in or opt out.The International Automobile Federation (FIA) has asked TUVIT (the digital innovation member of the TÜV NORD company group) to conduct a study on how a cybersecurity architecture as part of the On-board Telematics Platform (OTP) can ensure data protection as well as IT security of a connected vehicle and the interconnected traffic as a precondition for future fully automated driving.

Balluff, a world-leading manufacturer of sensor solutions, was facing challenges due to growing data volumes. The company's sales and business development reports were taking longer to produce, and processing tasks scheduled to run overnight were almost running into business hours. This was negatively affecting information availability and application performance. The company needed to accelerate access to information to support its sales and business development functions. Balluff wanted to optimize its entire IT environment, including software, servers, and storage, to increase the performance of its transactional SAP ERP environment and boost productivity of its business users across all departments. The company also aimed to improve decision-making with faster, more accurate business analytics capabilities for its data warehouse.

Bluewater Health, a Canadian healthcare facility with hospitals in Petrolia and Sarnia, Ontario, faced several challenges. The organization, which includes a 10-year-old redevelopment and addition to a 60-year-old building and a 110-year-old building in the midst of redevelopment, had to deal with the complexities of managing multiple locations with varying infrastructure. The new construction incorporated many innovative and sustainable design features, but these also brought the challenge of consolidating many inputs of information and technology into one stream of collection and output. Budget constraints and the need to spread finances across every need were also a concern. The Bluewater Health team wanted to perform predictive maintenance, learning from operating data to see issues before they became problems. They sought an intelligent platform that could work with, learn from and grow with their current systems.

Tata Power, a leading utility provider in India, was faced with the challenge of restoring power to 350,000 households within seconds. The company identified two major challenges in delivering reliable power: unknown theft areas (commercial losses) and improper quantification at the point of occurrence due to lack of real-time data, and operational flexibility with a rigid and evolved grid that was overutilized and had increasing power demand with poor power demand planning. The goal was to develop a robust supply network that could support growth in the customer base, minimize revenue losses, and dramatically reduce restoration times.

Contaminants on conveyor, if not detected, can lead to an increased cost and machine downtime.

Outliers have often been seen as the low-hanging fruit for various manufacturing issues, whether it's root cause, machine issue, or raw material.

Like all medical facilities, Nemours Children’s Hospital continuously monitors patients’ vital signs. But patient health can’t always be assessed by clinical data alone. Seeing the minute changes in a patient’s color or noting increased restlessness can be a sign of escalating problems. Since it would be impossible for medical staff to be in every patient’s room simultaneously, the hospital wanted to install video cameras in each room so that paramedics remotely monitoring patient vitals could also visually see if the child was in distress and call for immediate medical attention.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of maintaining a healthy indoor environment, with parameters such as temperature, humidity, CO2 levels, and adequate ventilation directly tied to overall wellbeing. Building operators need a solution to gain remote intelligence on building conditions to monitor indoor climates. By having this information, they could proactively intervene to maintain optimal climate conditions. However, there is a lack of low-cost, end-to-end solutions available capable of ensuring that every home is not only a safe and healthy environment but can also do so in a way that gives the end user complete control in an end-to-end user-friendly interface.

The pulp and paper market, valued at USD519 billion in 2019, is projected to reach USD680 billion by 2027. With this rapid growth, safety standards, particularly fire protection, have become a priority. Paper dust, a byproduct of the manufacturing process, is highly combustible, leading to the risk of dust explosions at manufacturing facilities. A paper pulp mill in eastern Canada recognized the need for enhanced fire protection at their facility. The existing system, a vertical turbine pump, was insufficient. The facility managers sought a more comprehensive solution that would meet the future demands of the mill and provide peace of mind.

The citywide multi-modal transportation authority was facing a significant challenge due to the city's fast-paced development and growing population. The projected demand was expected to strain the public transportation system if not planned for properly. To serve these anticipated needs, the authority drafted its Land Transport Master Plan for transportation network investments that forecasted needs over a decade. In addition to a rapidly growing population, ever-expanding data volumes posed a considerable challenge to their technology infrastructure. The authority relies on data and applications to ensure smooth travel for all—capturing more than 12 million records on public transport each day. However, land transport IT systems were designed for quick response time, with priority given to keeping transactions moving; but not for keeping data beyond three months. Lost data meant a lost ability to conduct meaningful trend analysis, create long-term policy planning, or engage in data mining.

Jersey Electricity, a vertically integrated power utility, is the sole supplier of electricity in Jersey, serving around 50,000 domestic and commercial customers. The utility was in the process of replacing traditional meters with smart meters that automatically transmit readings and interval data to 650 local data concentrators situated around the island, every three hours or on demand. The challenge was to automate the entire smart metering process, from data collection through to information publishing. The company wanted to provide its customers with accurate and timely information on energy usage from the new smart meters, thereby improving customer engagement.

Provide innovative technology, solutions, and services to diverse industry sectors such as airlines (build and maintain turbines), hospitals (manufacture, install and maintain medical equipment), chemicals (water treatment), transportation industries, and hydroelectric (renewable) power plants, and transmission networks.

Speedy Hire plc, a FTSE-listed equipment rental and support services provider, faced a significant challenge in managing its complex network of 3,500 products across 200 depots in the UK. The company's commitment to excellent customer service meant always having the right products available whenever and wherever customers needed them. This was a complex task due to the variety of products, from simple cut-off saws to lighting towers, and the need to forecast not just one-off sales but also the likely duration of hire and expected product condition on return. Furthermore, Speedy had committed itself to a four-hour delivery and collection promise, adding another layer of complexity to its operations.

The client, a consumer electronics and networking company based in California, was facing several challenges that were affecting their customer engagement and overall sales. The primary issues included inadequate customer support, ineffective handling of customer issues on social media, and a lack of welcome emails for new customers who made purchases online. These issues were causing a significant decrease in customer satisfaction and loyalty, which in turn was negatively impacting the company's sales and reputation in the market.

Trainline, Europe’s leading independent train travel platform, faced a significant challenge in monitoring and improving their marketing acquisition. With paid campaigns running 24/7 and users interacting with those ads around the clock, static dashboards were no longer sufficient. The company needed a dynamic, real-time data solution to provide the most accurate marketing insights. They had a technical team within the marketing department tasked with creating aggregated, centralized dashboards focused on Trainline marketing acquisition efforts. However, this ambitious endeavor required data science skills and a tool robust enough to blend and support multiple data formats and sources to track acquisition according to certain parameters. The challenge was to find a tool that would allow the technical team to improve and upgrade their skills while also satisfying the marketing department’s requests quickly and efficiently.

Calligo, a data service provider, was facing a significant challenge in safeguarding sensitive customer data from phishing attacks and spoofing emails. The situation was exacerbated during the rapid transition to remote working in 2020, which saw an increase in the number of sophisticated phishing emails that their existing security tools were unable to stop. These included fake invoices sent to the accounting team. While their legacy tools were effective at stopping spam and other common threats, they failed to catch the novel attacks increasingly targeting the workforce. Calligo's Chief Information Security Officer, Mark Herridge, acknowledged that their existing email protection had gaps, particularly in dealing with phishing and spoof messaging. The company needed an email security solution that could provide better visibility across their vast digital ecosystem and stop advanced email-borne threats that would otherwise go unnoticed.

The hospital wanted to install video cameras in each room so that paramedics remotely monitoring patient vitals could also visually see if the child was in distress and call for immediate medical attention.

GeBBS Healthcare Solutions, a global provider of healthcare revenue cycle management (RCM) and health information management (HIM) solutions, was faced with the challenge of securing their office and ensuring compliance with HIPAA standards. The company handles a significant amount of private healthcare data, making it crucial to have a robust access control solution. With offices located internationally, GeBBS had to manage the constant inflow and outflow of employees and visitors at their Culver City headquarters. The company sought a solution that would not only provide stringent security but also offer the flexibility to grant temporary access to visitors and keep a record of all individuals entering the office.

Across Europe, billions of Euros are being invested in upgrading rail infrastructure with the aim of carrying more passengers, on more trains, more regularly, with on-time arrival, at a lower cost. Siemens, a leader in engineering solutions for the rail industry, is at the forefront of this transformation. The company uses data collected from over 300 sensors on each train, combined with historical data, to predict when components might fail. This IoT-driven approach, dubbed the 'Internet of Trains', ensures greater uptime for train operators, fewer delays for passengers, and more cost-effective maintenance. However, the challenge for Siemens lies not in the collection, but in the storage, management, and analytics of this vast variety of data. Furthermore, as an international company, Siemens must ensure that the data is stored according to local laws in the most cost-effective way possible.

Ticketmaster, a global leader in event ticket sales, faced a significant challenge in modernizing their tech stack to improve user experience and stay ahead of the competition. With over 40 years in the business and having acquired numerous ticketing businesses, Ticketmaster had 30-40 different ticketing platforms, each with its unique inventory and customer base. The company had been using a legacy Content Delivery Network (CDN) provider for over 15 years, which had become increasingly challenging to manage due to its complexity and the undocumented rules built over the years. The cost of delivery on their CDN provider was expanding, and the black-box nature of their legacy CDN required many professional services hours to configure, update, and manage. This made it difficult for the team to implement changes quickly and efficiently. Furthermore, the company had to support the needs of 16 different product teams within Ticketmaster, making the situation even more complex.

PepsiCo, a global consumer packaged goods company, faced a significant challenge in calibrating sales forecasting to supply the right product quantities to its retailers. The sales forecast incorporated a variety of data, including warehouse data, store stock data, and promotional forecast data, all of which were provided by retailers in different file formats and delivered using various methods. The primary challenge was the speed of preparing a sales forecast. With the existing Microsoft Access and Excel-based processes, the time required to prepare this data was so extensive that analysts could only leverage it once a month or not at all. This inefficiency risked under or oversupplying retailers, potentially impacting PepsiCo's business operations and customer relationships.

Konica Minolta, a global provider of multi-function printers, was faced with the challenge of ensuring the security of its network-connected devices. With the rise of cyber threats, the company recognized that device security was a significant concern for its customers, influencing up to 50% of their purchasing decisions. Despite conducting rigorous internal cybersecurity tests to meet PCI, HIPAA, FERPA, and GDPR regulations, Konica Minolta sought to further reassure its customers by investing in an extra layer of threat protection. The company aimed to identify any potential vulnerabilities in its new bizhub i-Series multifunction printers, thereby preventing hackers from exploiting these devices and causing data theft, business disruption, and financial turmoil.