Its All About Managing Your Business By Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO, AVG Technologies

Its All About Managing Your Business

Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO, AVG Technologies | Saturday, 30 May 2015, 06:01 IST

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AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG) is a provider of security software offering mobile security, PC optimization, Internet security offering complete protection for Business and individuals. Based in Chelmsford, MA, the company has a market cap of $1.11 billion.

It's often difficult to keep up with the rapidly developing technology industry, as new items and groundbreaking technologies are introduced to the market almost on a daily basis. Not only staying up-to-date with today's technology, but also remaining ahead of the curve, involves a constant struggle in today's marketplace. Regardless of how you are connected to these trends in technology, you are in the middle of all the action. Here are some that are shaping the industry today.

Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to grow faster and as things shape up, this growth may be even faster than smartphone and tablets and broader than anything we have seen before. The biggest transition that will happen in the world of data and IT is as we connect everything to the internet, it will equal the time we were connected to electricity in our homes. It will change business models, productivity and our everyday lives. With IoT impacting the industry, things have become more open than ever before. Privacy will become a significant issue in a much broader context than today and technologies that will provide people with more control and choices about their privacy in the hyper-connected world will accelerate the adoption going forward.

Mobility and Cloud services are re-shaping our industry. With people following the trends in mobile and with all the operations speeding up, expectations have been increasing in terms of the services to be delivered. To accommodate this transition, IT departments are going in for a shift in their mode of operation and have been investing to deliver to the best of the user brigade.

With everything connected and everything generates data that is sent to a backend cloud servers, Big data & Analytics are playing a strategic role in the IT world. Organizations are now starting to move away from the concept of a single enterprise data warehouse containing all information needed for decisions, for a shift towards "logical" enterprise data warehouse that is distributed in multiple places, powered by analytics for almost every action taken in the business. Although Businesses have many things in common to drive and secure shareholder value, securing such value to be able to enable businesses to win in their market has been the main challenge for the present technologies. Finding the right balance between productivity and agility versus security has been the top draw that needs more innovation than what is available today.

Predicting Business Initiatives
As part of my duty as a CTO I need to support the business growth in the 2-5 years horizon. Innovating and searching for technologies and products that the business will need and which can be the best seller in the future to support the long term shareholder value in the interest of the company has been the main task. This challenge requires understanding of the current and future business environment, the prediction on the direction the industry is heading and technology that can fit into that to make the revenue goals. In order to achieve that, we have established groups that combine skills from multiple domains of expertise focusing on the 2-5 years horizon while being aligned with the business without affecting the short term goals of the company.

In today’s highly competitive industrial world, the compelling demand an entrepreneur has to face is to first disrupt the industry you are already serving. Disruption in technology and innovation has been in the wish list for many others trying to put their nose forward to stay ahead of the curve. As Innovation goes beyond the financial results, it ensures a long term value for shareholders. Business leaders should allocate resources to ensure such future value as they ensure the short term value.

Security is a highly connected world that has become more than a competitive space to capture the next big ideas. Private and Government firms are at loggerheads and are always on a continual move going after data and information in all ways beyond the imagination. Securing the data and infrastructure that run our modern business environment has become crucial for business leader. It equals the times when you added another lock on the door to ensure no one will break into the business.

To Stay Agile, Flexible and Responsive
As the business environment is changing rapidly, companies have to adopt new strategies and need new operational models to accommodate new plans. Business leaders need to build companies that are more agile, flexible and responsive to changing market conditions for peak performance. Innovation is crucial for businesses to stay for long in our rapidly changing world. A business leader should have the ability to envision in a broader sense as to what can be more crucial than to serve right value for one’s business and customers in the long run. Currently we are living in a world where PCs are no longer dominant as they used to be, and while mobile is becoming part of our present day life, IoT will become part of our future life, providing simplicity, security and privacy in managing this hyper connected world. (As told to Derek Patrick)

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