Strategic Alliance Magazine Q1 2018 - 24

THE C HAN GIN G FACE OF DATA

Which means many companies are looking to simplify-and complex multi-partnering models provide
that much more incentive. The demand has resulted in
an upsurge in boutique software licensing companies
and vendors. "The thing to keep in mind looking at
any kind of collaboration is that organizations are not
necessarily looking to acquire tech or products. They
are looking to solve problems and acquire capabilities.
That's different than what's traditionally been the way
tech companies sell their offerings," observes Joe
Schramm, vice president of strategic alliances at BeyondTrust, which is presently working with partners
to bring new managed-services offerings to market.

Onboarding Office Culture
Company culture is also key to a successful digital
transformation. Some experts say it's the most important component in getting your organization
through the transitioning obstacle course-from
communications to security compliance challenges.
There are a number of things that you can do to improve compliance within a transitioning organization,
offers Alex Blau, a behavioral scientist and a vice
president at the New York nonprofit consulting firm
ideas42 (see "Why Company Leaders Underinvest in
Security," Page 28.) "One is around making awareness
programming more robust. Usually, organizations do
awareness programming both because they earnestly
want their teams to exhibit good cyber hygiene, but
also because it's one of those boxes you can check off
to ensure the organization is in compliance with an
existing security framework. However, because
awareness is often treated as a box to check, organizations don't really always do a good job."
Unfortunately, awareness programming is often thought of
as an annual requirement in which an employee "sits in
front of a lecturer or some computer training module for
an hour or so and learns about what they shouldn't be doing with the company's computers," he continues. "But the
best programs out there make awareness programming an
ongoing part of everyday operations. They're using simulated phishing tools, and providing teams ongoing feedback
about their computer behavior and what they can do better. A good incentive program might nominate security
champions within the organization and try to make security awareness more fun. There's a lot that can be done in
24
STRATEGIC ALLIANCE MAGAZINE | Q1 * 2018

"Blockchain only
hit the mainstream
in 2017. We're still
learning, and it's still
evolving with different
companies in the
ecosystem."
-Janine Grasso, vice president,

strategy and ecosystem development
for IBM Blockchain
this space, but the big takeaway is to try to bring a security
mindset into everyone's everyday," he concludes.
Schneider Electric embarked on a massive digital
transformation initiative on Jan. 1, 2018-not only at
the employee level, but also with customers and partners. The company renamed the IT department
Schneider Digital and assigned a chief digital officer
to create "a truly digital transformation."
"Schneider is heretofore an analog business that we are
digitizing-powered by people, process, and technology.
The business that I am responsible for is a very people-intensive, process-heavy, but tech-light business," explains
Tony DeSpirito, CSAP, vice president, general manager operation services. "To succeed and scale this business, I need

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine Q1 2018