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Blockchain guards peer-to-peer
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The Database Goes Autonomous ›
Rohit Arora, Cofounder
and CEO, Biz2Credit
Data Quality Made Easy. Your Data, Your Way.
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WINTER 2018
INSIDE ORACLE
16
IT’s Bold Future
34 Supercharged cloud
applications, the
LEDGER TEST machine learning
Oracle Blockchain Cloud revolution, and
Service helps cloud-native much more show-
fintech Biz2Credit provide cased at Oracle
CONTENTS
28 10
28 51
Ahead of the Curve Protective Measures
Oracle President Nimble technology
Thomas Kurian solutions can defend
says Oracle Cloud against today’s
is at the front of ever-changing
CONTENTS
16
4 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APHS AND ILLUSTR ATION: K ATELYN TUCKER /OR ANGE PHOTOGR APHY, WES ROWELL,SANDR A GARCIA
WINTER 2018
5 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: BOB ADLER / THE VERBATIM AGENCY
onstage at the event. This topic
WINTER 2018
W
e’re surrounded by more new approaches to engage with ties that are hidden deep within an
data than ever, but for their information, and transform organization’s stored data. They
many organizations, insights into action. Emerging tech- can provide visibility into what has
its potential still remains elusive. nologies like machine intelligence happened in the past, what’s hap-
Companies have a wealth of data (MI) and mixed reality are pointing pening now, and what may happen
they have accumulated in their the way toward a deeper relation- in the future. Armed with this knowl-
enterprise resource planning (ERP) ship with data. edge, business leaders can develop
system and other existing systems, the right actions to help transform
but gaining actionable insight from COMBINE MI AND EXISTING business outcomes.
all that data isn’t easy. SYSTEMS FOR DATA-DRIVEN For example, robotic process
To get more from this valuable ROI automation (RPA) is reshaping the
asset, organizations are looking for Machine intelligence and analytics way companies think about their
For more information, visit better ways to boost its visibility are powerful methods for revealing digital strategies. RPA is a pow-
www.deloitte.com/oracle and intelligence. They’re exploring patterns, insights, and opportuni- erful way to automate manual tasks
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like reading and writing to databases and ENABLE A MORE AGILE SUPPLY CHAIN The bot could learn where to look for poten-
extracting structured data from documents. Consider an example of how to apply MI tial issues, helping SC executives predict
RPA can interface directly with existing tech- to critical business processes. A global and prevent disruptions faster and more
nologies, including the ERPs that power so company with a complex supply chain (SC) effectively.
many of today’s critical business processes. might be seeking improved insight into its Interacting with the bot could be as
simple as asking it for a status report. The
bot could respond with:
• An overall performance update
• On-time delivery metrics
“The goal should be evolving engagement — • Inventory details
building more intuitive, immersive, and empowering • Exceptions and potential issues
If an exception turns up, such as a pur-
experiences that bring people closer to data, chase order that was not received, the bot
could alert the SC executive, and automati-
and amplify their ability to use it.” cally follow up with an email to a purchasing
manager asking for details.
MI gives the SC executive instant visi-
bility into the supply chain performance, and
That interface capability makes Oracle operational performance, and better ways to keeps her informed of potential disruptions
on-premises and cloud apps suitable for spot and respond to potential disruptions. and recommended solutions. Because the
industry-leading RPA software platforms. Bringing together MI with Oracle Cloud SC bot can be conigured and trained to
Recent use cases have shown that ERP can deliver real-time views of supply learn from past experience, it can continue
effectively layering RPA onto a company’s chain operations, so decision-makers can to improve its detection capabilities, and
existing Oracle ERP can result in a signii- respond faster. If the organization creates suggest better actions over time.
cant return on investment (ROI). In a recent a rules-based SC bot in Oracle Cloud ERP
assessment conducted at a major manufac- and uses machine learning, the bot can GET HANDS-ON WITH MIXED REALITY
turer, Deloitte found that an RPA program mimic human actions and judgement. It can Mixed reality technology can help organiza-
could unlock US$150 million in potential spot possible trouble in the supply chain— tions take user interaction with data a step
annual cost savings. and recommend the best way to take action. further. We’ve already seen interaction with
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the digital world progress from the keyboard and analysis from Oracle and other apps cess faster, more collaborative, and more
and mouse to touch and talk on tablets and into the user’s ield of vision. cost-effective.
wearables. Now, people are starting to con-
nect with apps and data through gestures DISCOVER BETTER, MORE INTUITIVE EMPOWER PEOPLE AND BUSINESSES
and gazes. PRODUCT DESIGN THROUGH DATA
Virtual reality (VR) can simulate a physical Look at how an organization could employ New technologies like MI, MR, and the IoT
presence in the real world or an imagined MR to power more effective product design. are advancing fast. Each of these develop-
world, so we can interact with that world. A product engineer working on an automo- ments can power new solutions and apps
Augmented reality (AR) works by adding bile component could share a design with that we could not have imagined just a few
multidimensional content on top of real his team using Oracle Social Cloud and years ago. To make the most of these new
world objects or locations, turning the phys- Oracle Product Information Management technologies, companies need to take a
ical world into digital media. Mixed reality (PIM). The team submits their ideas into the holistic view about how they will connect
(MR) brings them both together, along with system, and several designs move forward with their data and business processes.
the internet of things (IoT). It merges real and into the prototype phase. The goal should be evolving engage-
virtual worlds to produce new environments Instead of building traditional, physical ment—building more intuitive, immersive,
and visualizations where physical and digital prototypes, the engineer generates holo- and empowering experiences that bring
objects co-exist—and interact—in real time. graphic images of the designs based on the people closer to data, and amplify their
It enhances the real world with visual over- attributes stored in Oracle PIM. Using an AR ability to use it. By integrating today’s most
lays, spatial audio, and haptic feedback. device, he overlays the hologram onto a real advanced technologies with the applications
How can we apply MR to business pro- car for all the users to see. He can check that power their key operations, businesses
cesses? One of the promises of the tech- the parameters of every design option with can take a dramatic step forward in their
nology is its ability to allow a global work- voice commands or gestures, examining the journey toward digital transformation.
force of remote teams to work together to overall look and feel, and changing colors in If you’d like to learn more about the latest
tackle challenges. No matter where they are seconds. He then asks the smart assistant developments that are transforming the
physically located, an employee can strap to check an Oracle Costing database to get enterprise, check out the Oracle Special
on their headset and noise-canceling head- an estimate for building each design option. Edition report, “Tech Trends 2017: The
phones and enter a collaborative, immersive Finally, using an Oracle Procurement app, kinetic enterprise,” published by Deloitte
virtual environment. It can bring users closer he can conirm that components are avail- University Press, and the Tech Trends 2017
to data by feeding relevant back-ofice data able. MR makes the entire prototyping pro- web series.
SECURE THE FUTURE
SCAN
NATURALLY
So long, boarding pass. Some
NEED TO KNOW
Lab Rat
12 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: COURTESY OF THE DIAN FOSSEY GORILL A FUND
Need to Know
SECURE THE FUTURE
SECURITY CITY
There’s no doubt that technology is changing policing, says READY TO ROLL ON THE FLY
Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at the University of the Singapore’s OTSAW Digital Russia’s Hoversurf signed
District Columbia and author of The Rise of Big Data Policing. has created O-R3, a tiny an agreement to sell
Just take a look at Chicago, he says, where police are using an self-driving, self-charging Dubai police Scorpion 3
NEED TO KNOW
algorithm to create a list of likely victims and perpetrators of police car outfitted with hoverbikes, which offi-
violence so they can intervene before crime happens. thermal imaging, facial and cers can use to respond
But perhaps no city is quicker to embrace high-tech security license plate recognition, to emergencies in a flash.
solutions than futuristic Dubai, which plans for nearly a quarter and a drone in the trunk to Scorpions can hover at
of its police force to consist of robots by 2030—and show- deploy as needed. Look speeds up to 43 miles
cased two very shiny solutions at the GITEX Technology show for the cars to hit Dubai’s per hour—and you don’t
this October. Here’s what to look for next time you’re in the streets before the end of have to be a police officer
business hub. the year. More at to have one. You can buy
otsaw.com/o-r3-robot. your own for just under
US$60,000. More at
hoversurf.com/scorpion-3.
—Kate Pavao
Research
40
PERCENTAGE OF
AMERICANS WHO WORRY
SECURITY BY 2030
YEAR BY WHEN “THE
THAT THEY OR A FAMILY
MEMBER WILL BE A VICTIM THE NUMBERS TYPICAL NORTH
OF A MASS SHOOTING AMERICAN CITY
NEED TO KNOW
Bold Future
Supercharged cloud applications,
the machine learning revolution,
and much more showcased at
INSIDE ORACLE
by the way.
No one else does
this. This is the
most important thing
we’ve done in a
long, long time.
—ORACLE EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN AND
CTO LARRY ELLISON
From October 1 through tions and deep dives into from 175 countries; offered
October 5, Oracle cutting-edge technologies 2,300 sessions; provided a Oracle Executive Chairman and
CTO Larry Ellison announced
OpenWorld 2017 brought and innovative solutions at speaking platform for more
Oracle Database 18c in the first
together top technologists both Oracle and customer than 3,000 customers and of two keynotes he delivered at
and IT leaders for immer- companies. The conference partners; and featured more the conference.
sive, interactive demonstra- hosted 60,000 attendees than 500 Oracle technol-
Attendees gathered on
Howard Street to network,
lunch, and relax.
see our interview with Kurian rity, but that’s not working nology for decades. The
in this issue. anymore because today hard part is not the auto-
Finally, in his second breaches are very sophis- mation. It’s making the
keynote of the conference, JUAN LOAIZA ticated—involving people technology safer. It has to
Larry Ellison introduced the Senior Vice President, or criminal organizations be safer and more reliable
industry’s first cloud-native, Database Systems with extreme levels of than what you can do your-
integrated security and sys- Technology, Oracle resources. Enterprises need self—otherwise you’re not
tems management suite: to partner up with another going to use it to support
INSIDE ORACLE
the Oracle Identity Security Lately, enterprise cyber- company such as Oracle mission-critical workloads.
Operations Center port- that has the resources, the PROFIT: How does Oracle
attacks are making the
folio of services coupled with experience, and thousands Database 18c automate
news much too fre-
Oracle Management Cloud. of engineers that can be safety and reliability?
quently, putting the spot-
Like Oracle Database on their side to protect LOAIZA: To protect against
18c, these integrated cloud light on database secu- against cyberattacks. internal and external attacks
services rely on machine rity. Here Juan Loaiza, PROFIT: Why is it so critical and also against failure,
learning—a particular appli- senior vice president for Oracle Database 18c to Oracle Database 18c incor-
cation of machine learning of database systems be safer and more available porates a lot of technol-
designed to help com- technology at Oracle, compared to manual data- ogy that we’ve built over
panies forecast, quickly discusses why security base management? the years, such as Oracle
detect, and ward off security threats are escalating LOAIZA: Oracle has been Database Vault. The data-
attacks as well as system and how Oracle’s self- base offers a system avail-
performance issues. securing autonomous ability rate of 99.995 percent.
“The real problem is loss Oracle Database 18c is a Oracle understands that as
of information,” Ellison said. revolutionary solution. soon as a security issue is
“If your system is down and identified, it needs to be
you can’t sell tickets or sell PROFIT: Why are the stakes addressed, so the deploy-
flashlights or whatever you’re so high for enterprise secu- ment of security updates
doing on your online system, rity breaches? has been completely auto-
that’s not good—you’d like LOAIZA: Traditionally, com- mated and doesn’t require
the system to be available all panies have been in charge going offline.
the time. But you don’t get
If you lose data, that’s a big problem. And that’s fundamentally what . . .
our system is designed to protect against.
—ORACLE EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN AND CTO LARRY ELLISON
INSIDE ORACLE
additional privileges to others and the database are sepa- 18c, this service’s applied continuous improvements
to perform the required tasks, rate. The standardization of machine learning capabilities that are complementary with
giving fewer people access to the cloud environment offers can quickly detect risks and the automated processes.
sensitive data. consistent ways to monitor possible attacks from both Oracle Database 18c pro-
2. The security of Oracle and audit the environment, internal and external sources. vides mitigation for the risks
Cloud. The enhanced because every database has The database can utilize the of delayed security patching
security features of Oracle the same security in place and details discovered by security and the errors that stem from
Cloud are built into Oracle differences will stand out. Risk monitoring to adapt a secu- manual processes. Attacks
Database 18c. For example, is reduced by utilizing data rity posture by implementing are going to come through
data on the server and in protection features in Oracle changes in configurations. the weakest point—such
backups is encrypted, and Database 18c to monitor Because Oracle Database as known vulnerabilities—
DBAs are not able to make abnormal behavior or inap- 18c is handling the resource- and shorter patching cycles
changes to configurations propriate database access. intensive patching with auto- reduce these opportunities.
to allow more access to the 3. Integration with addi- mated processes, DBAs are Instead of worrying about
data. Using encryption and tional security features. available to review the secu- how to apply, test, and con-
access controls reduces the Oracle Database 18c can rity intelligence and use ana- figure the databases for secu-
risk of unauthorized data- utilize other security fea- lytics to continue to secure rity patching, database teams
base access. There is also a tures that are available in the databases. From a data- are able to focus on how to
natural separation of duties Oracle Cloud, such as Oracle base management perspec- thwart future cyberthreats.
in the cloud environment Security Monitoring and tive, this service provides a
that limits what an attack can Analytics Cloud Service. very powerful tool to find ACTION ITEM
do—access to the server Used with Oracle Database vulnerabilities and allow for ■ Oracle Autonomous Database
Multidirectional Security
in a Multicloud World
Gain end-to-end visibility and control
across diverse environments.
By John Maddison, Sr. VP of Products and Solutions, Fortinet, Inc.
John Maddison, Sr. VP of Products
and Solutions, Fortinet, Inc.
aintaining visibility into collaboration and on-demand infra- and dynamic as the cloud itself.
hybrid cloud environments, they’re actually while protecting the rest of the network. In organizations. A critical lapse in visibility,
creating multidimensional cloud ecosys- addition, migrating data, accessing large control, or coordination in any part of the
tems. That creates new challenges when it data sets, or using third-party, cloud-based distributed network, especially in the cloud,
comes to securing all these environments analytics services requires secure connec- can spell disaster for a digital business.
and the data traveling through them. tions to external networks. To protect today’s distributed business,
One of the top requirements for securing When it comes to multicloud environ- organizations need to adopt an integrated
a hybrid cloud is delivering single pane-of- ments, security teams need to be sure that security strategy that can collect, share, and
glass management across all the disparate their solution is scalable and elastic, so it correlate threat information; distribute miti-
cloud environments. Organizations need to can keep pace with environments that are gation instructions across all attack vectors;
maintain deep visibility, centralized policy changing and growing fast. And they need extend visibility and control across the net-
orchestration, integrated event correlation, to be able to easily and dynamically sepa- worked ecosystem; and enable a synchro-
and consistent controls and response. That rate and segment systems, workloads, and nized attack response. One effective way
requires a high level of integration. You need applications, based on unique risk proiles. to do this is to design a security fabric, or
architectural approach, that enables you to
tie your deployed security tools into a single,
“Fortinet and Oracle continue to expand their relation- holistic solution. The Fortinet Security Fabric
employs this approach to provide broad,
ship to deliver virtualized security solutions across powerful, automated security across phys-
ical, virtual, and cloud environments.
Oracle public and hybrid cloud environments.”
—John Maddison, Sr. VP of Products and Solutions, Fortinet, Inc. Q. Are cloud providers and managed
security service providers (MSSPs)
facing the same concerns when it comes
tools that are either natively designed to Q. How does Fortinet help organiza- to security as enterprise organiza-
operate together across different environ- tions maintain consistent security vis- tions? How does Fortinet address these
ments, or based on open standards and ibility and control across multicloud concerns?
APIs, so you can build a central security networks, spanning private and public A. An especially important part of the busi-
operations solution. clouds to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ness model for cloud providers and MSSPs
Securing the connections themselves applications? is the need to accurately bill customers for
is also key. Hybrid solutions must support A. The deluge of isolated, specialized secu- the consumption of cloud resources. This
robust VPN functions for secure, temporary rity tools being deployed has created a blind can be tricky for security services because
access to resources when it’s needed— spot in the overall security strategy of many many cloud-based security tools are simply
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virtual versions of their enterprise-based they do on their physical networks. That’s ized security solutions across Oracle public
appliances. These tools don’t meter and why we’ve extended the core capabilities and hybrid cloud environments. Available
track security consumption. of Fortinet Security Fabric to the cloud. For now as a BYOL offering in the Oracle
Fortinet’s VM On-Demand security example, we have enhanced our virtualized Cloud Marketplace, FortiGate VMs give
platform provides turnkey VM licensing and FortiGate to deliver cloud-scale perfor- Oracle Cloud customers a combination of
provisioning for cloud providers and MSSPs, mance for private and public clouds. Its VMs advanced threat intelligence from FortiGuard
as well as enterprises with large private now deliver up to three times faster per-core Labs, along with the industry-leading secu-
cloud resources. Metering capabilities throughput than before. rity operating system, FortiOS. Together,
enable them to deliver on-demand pricing We’re also improving public cloud secu- these solutions enable complete security
and automation to end customers. The VM rity automation with on-demand and auto- feature control, workload visibility, and man-
On-Demand security platform supports scale capabilities. Fortinet Security Fabric agement for physical, virtual, and cloud
consumption-based, pay-as-you-grow virtual solutions deliver complete content environments.
billing, with hourly or volume-based and network protection, and are avail- Fortinet is an early adopter of Oracle
metering options, as well as network able on demand or BYOL (Bring Your Own Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle Identity
functions virtualization (NFV) orchestration Licenses), taking advantage of elastic work- Security Operations Center (SOC), featuring
compatibility for MSSPs. When it’s paired loads and automated security that scales. its FortiGate VM. This close integration lets
with FortiHypervisor, VM On-Demand Additionally, we’re partnering with Oracle users securely move business-critical work-
offers cloud providers and enterprises the Security to bridge the gaps between net- loads from on-premises or private-to-public
widest choice of physical, virtual, and hybrid work, on premises and cloud. cloud deployments, and increase visibility
customer-premises equipment (CPE) form Fortinet has also introduced a new API- by integrating identity within the context of
factors to support managed security and based FortiCASB service, which lets IT threat-based events. This added visibility
software-deined wide area networking teams maintain security visibility for both from Oracle’s Machine Learning and UEBA
(SD-WAN) services. on- and off-network user access to some provides actionable intelligence across threat
of the most widely used SaaS applications, vectors. As Oracle Cloud scales through
Q. Many enterprises are embracing including Microsoft® Ofice 365™. multiple Availability Domains (ADs), FortiGate
Oracle Cloud as their public cloud solu- will complement the cloud services with
tion. How does the Fortinet Security Q. What are some of the ways Oracle highly available, multi-layered security to
Fabric improve security and compliance and Fortinet are working together to help support customers’ most critical workloads
for Oracle Cloud customers? organizations protect multidimensional across environments. Together, Oracle and
A. We want businesses to be able to expe- cloud environments? Fortinet will continue to deliver the on-de-
rience the same level of cybersecurity and A. Fortinet and Oracle continue to mand, multiple layers of security that today’s
threat intelligence in cloud environments as expand their relationship to deliver virtual- dynamic cloud networks need most.
Oracle President Thomas Kurian
says Oracle Cloud is at the front
of today’s cloud market. But how
does that help customers adopt
tomorrow’s technologies?
AHEAD OF
THE CURVE
BY AARON LAZENBY
28 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: K ATELYN TUCKER /OR ANGE PHOTOGR APHY
Cloud architecture must be engineered with future use cases in mind.
Otherwise, you’re going to be trapped in a cloud that is not keeping up
with the market—and that would undermine one of the core benefits of
cloud computing.
As the leader of one of the cloud stack in any data center. This run and use applications without
world’s largest cloud development affords us some very unique capa- having to manage the systems
organizations, Oracle President bilities as we look into the future.” themselves. All of that is clear at
of Product Development Thomas In the days after Oracle this point.
Kurian has an enviable view of OpenWorld 2017, Kurian spoke to Now, customers are making
the cloud economy. And whether Profit about some of those unique requests for novel uses of the
in private conversation or on the capabilities—including the impact technology. I’ll give you an exam-
public stage at events (such as of emerging technologies such as ple. We are currently working on a
Oracle OpenWorld), Kurian makes artificial intelligence (AI) and the project with an oil and gas explo-
a strong pitch for Oracle’s position Internet of Things (IoT) on enter- ration company. They are moving
in the marketplace. prise cloud computing. hundreds of terabytes of data to
“We’re the only cloud vendor Oracle Cloud as the foundation
that provides infrastructure as a PROFIT: Oracle is 10 years into of their exploration and science
service [IaaS], platform as a ser- its cloud journey. What have we algorithms. That critical part of
vice [PaaS], application software learned from customers about our their business uses Oracle Cloud
as a service [SaaS], and data as cloud portfolio? Infrastructure to run the compu-
a service [DaaS]”,” says Kurian. KURIAN: Customers today under- tations, and they’re using our ana-
“We have an unmatched breadth stand the value of cloud comput- lytics and Oracle Big Data Cloud
of functionality and integration ing—how much money you can Service as a platform to manage
across our platform and applica- save, how fast you can deploy the large data assets that they’re
tion portfolio. And we can run that workloads, and how easy it is to loading into the cloud.
tems are configured, at a substan- menting devices with sensors, and intracompany transactions. With
tially lower cost. it delivers the ability to respond blockchain, you can use the [open
when sensors send information source project] Hyperledger as a
PROFIT: Aside from AI and up to the cloud-based system mechanism to guarantee integ-
machine learning, what other that’s monitoring them. When you rity of data, validating data that
emerging technologies do you are able to monitor logistics and may be subject to regulatory or
see having the greatest potential assets in that way, you can make market scrutiny.
to radically change business in business process more efficient. Each of these new technolo-
the decade ahead? This will transform supply chains, gies will transform the modern
KURIAN: Three of the most for example, by digitizing the flow business in its own way. Our job is
important new technologies we’re of data from the physical world, to make sure our customers have
looking at are chatbots, IoT, and which allows algorithms to interact the platform they need to adopt
blockchain. The chatbot makes with physical space. these technologies as they see fit.
messaging a client to any appli- Blockchain is enabling any That is why I believe Oracle Cloud
cation, essentially becoming the business process that’s highly makes the strongest case for
new browser. It offloads the need centralized in a company to be what enterprise IT will look like in
for human beings to be involved decentralized or distributed in a the future.
in very mundane tasks—such as fundamentally different way. For
answering basic questions—by example, intracompany transac- Aaron Lazenby is editor in chief
having a digital assistant do the tions could be totally transformed. of Profit.
job. I believe chatbots will trans- Today, when two different divi-
form the human interface. sions of a company reconcile their
IoT is a way to improve busi- financial positions, they have to do ACTION ITEM
ness process efficiencies by instru- a lot of manual reconciliation of ■ Try Oracle Cloud for Free
LEDGER
TEST
BY SASHA BANKS-LOUIE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL S. HOWELL
US$2 billion
Amount in cash advances
Biz2Credit has helped
originate worldwide
After a lender approves an ny’s platform connects only to uses a credit card with Chase
application, it buys a fixed per- partner feeds from banks and a Bank to purchase some items
centage of the merchant’s future few credit card payment proces- for a store, and then the store
credit revenues, often at a dis- sors, limiting Biz2Credit’s ability to books US$10,000 of revenue,
count, with an average payback verify all of a merchant’s financial Biz2Credit gets a split fee of 10
period of between 6 and 12 transactions directly from the mer- or 15 percent directly from the
months. To date, Biz2Credit has chant’s book of record or general credit card receipts provided by
matched more than 350,000 SMBs ledger systems. the payment processor. Because
with hundreds of lenders and has As a result, Biz2Credit sees Biz2Credit collects the fee directly
helped originate more than US$2 only a limited view of transactions from the credit card processor, if
billion in cash advances globally. that have happened in the past. the merchant switches credit card
“Without real-time visibility into processors, it’s very difficult for
OPEN BANKING a merchant’s entire credit portfo- Biz2Credit to know that a switch
Because Biz2Credit’s dataflows lio, we’re exposing ourselves and has occurred, track down the new
are automated and available in the our lenders to significant risk,” processor, and then collect its fee.
cloud, lenders who participate in Bala says. For Biz2Credit, such collections
the Biz2Credit marketplace can But collecting all of the data can take weeks and require the
view the merchant profiles imme- associated with a merchant’s company’s underwriters to manu-
diately and return an approval credit portfolio can be a complex ally verify each merchant’s account
within seconds. But the compa- task. For example, if a merchant status by calling banks and other
financial institutions to get an coming from a trusted source. Platform, Bala and other execu-
accurate read on the borrow- However, using the built-in API tives from Biz2Credit decided to
er’s finances and ability to repay layer that connects to Oracle ERP test the platform for its market-
the loan. systems, the Oracle Open Banking place by creating a smart loan
The only way to get a com- Platform can help Biz2Credit pull contract using Oracle Blockchain
plete view of a merchant’s finan- payment processor transaction Cloud Service. Using the APIs
cial transactions is if the merchant data into a single smart contract from the Oracle Open Banking
opts in to give direct access to its that allows the merchant’s credit Platform, calls are made to the
enterprise resource planning (ERP) card receipts to be shared with the Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service
systems. Through this sort of per- company and its lender partners. application, which automatically
missioned access, Biz2Credit is Secured by Oracle Blockchain pulls in credit card receivables
able to track all of the merchant’s Cloud Service, an application and audited financial general
audited financial statements and within Oracle’s platform-as-a- ledger information from a mer-
credit card receivables, regardless service portfolio that catalogs chant’s ERP application, helping
of which card processor is used. and securely records financial Biz2Credit record the transactions,
The result is less risk for Biz2Credit transactions between participants share them with lenders, and
and its lenders and more favor- on a shared blockchain ledger, then enforce the loan contracts
able terms for merchants. the contracted parties can control securely and in real time.
Biz2Credit’s platform wasn’t which financial data is shared “Oracle Blockchain Cloud
designed to access third-party and with whom. Service gives Biz2Credit a direct
data directly, let alone ensure After seeing demonstrations line of sight to the cash flow, debt-
that the connection is secure and of the Oracle Open Banking to-loan ratios, and other financial
and total costs associated with tions as well as other sources. allow us to invest in our people
internal and external labor. In all, Previously, much of Anthem’s with confidence and sharpen the
PDC provides seven dashboards talent and other HR data was scat- associate experience.”
on “hire-to-retire” HR operations, tered among myriad systems and
50 summary views from which spreadsheets, making it difficult ONE DATA VIEW
users can drill down into detailed to aggregate and compare. Basic The beauty of the portal is that
reports, and links to other relevant questions such as “How many it presents and filters data in
data and training sources. open positions do we have?” and highly visual dashboards, reports,
The cloud-based PDC pulls “What’s our turnover?” would graphs, and other formats so that
together data from and is built yield different answers depending it’s easy to consume, comprehend,
on a range of third-party applica- on who was asked, even within and manipulate, Knytych says.
tions, platforms, and infrastruc- the same workgroup or location. Part of the Talent Insights
ture services, leveraging Oracle Getting a standardized enter- team’s responsibility is to help
Business Intelligence Cloud prise view of the data opens up users mash up different kinds of
Service and Oracle Human Capital the prospect of applying analyt- internal and third-party demo-
Management Cloud (Oracle HCM ics to derive higher-level insights, graphic, performance, compen-
Cloud) at its core. An extract, says Joe Knytych, the staff vice sation, and other data. For exam-
transform, and load (ETL) layer, president who leads the Talent ple, it’s working with Anthem’s
including the Data Sync service Insights team. wellness team to crunch data
of Oracle Business Intelligence “From ‘hire to retire,’ we’re on employees who make use
Cloud Service, pulls in internal and using data to zero in on important of company wellness credits, to
third-party datasets from a range needs and potential solutions,” determine a possible correlation
of cloud and on-premises applica- Knytych says. “These insights with reduced absenteeism and
and other talent outcomes. HR organization (diversity and and raise its profile across the
“Engagement is now a daily inclusion, benefits, HR busi- company. For example, the team
topic as opposed to an annual ness partners, and so on), as developed a model that identi-
event,” Knytych says. “More well as decision-makers outside fies causes of turnover and accu-
importantly, we’re learning what of HR, see “multivariant” views rately predicts first-year attrition,
drives a positive experience and of the people data, Knytych which Anthem leaders are using
what might happen following says. For instance, how are the to increase retention and inform
a downtick.” high-potential associates they’ve future hiring profiles.
In many cases, he notes, com- invested in advancing com-
pany leaders find nuggets they can pared with people elsewhere in DEEP-DIVE PROJECTS
act on immediately, such as ideas the company? In addition to standardizing on
to improve processes, enhance “The business partners typi- key metrics, managing the portal’s
systems, or reprioritize resources. cally have had access only to their self-service data capabilities, and
“The voice of our associates is business unit data, looking at their deciding which views and sto-
stronger than ever,” he says. people and talent,” he says. “Now ries have the most relevance, the
“We’re tapping into local insights they have access to enterprise Talent Insights team has commit-
and formulating long-term plans talent trends, either to benchmark ted to take on several high-impact,
based on data, not speculation.” against or to say, ‘Let’s connect deep-dive data analytics projects
with another group that seems to a year, which are chosen by the
BREAKING DOWN SILOS have solved this problem.’” senior HR management team in
More broadly, the Talent Insights As such, PDC is helping association with the company’s
team is helping the other cen- Anthem’s talent management other executive leaders. Among
ters of expertise within Anthem’s team forge new relationships the current priorities are projects
targeted and not neces- new wave of security attacks with the theft of creden-
sarily sophisticated,” says are different from the way tials, with miscreants then
ONCE PURELY Troy Kitch, senior direc- they were carried out in the using those credentials to
MALICIOUS, tor of Oracle cloud secu- past,” says Adina Simu, vice steal data, hijack devices, or
rity. “Over time, they’ve president of product man- install ransomware.
CYBERCRIME become more sophisti- agement, Oracle CASB This is why most security
IS NOW BIG cated and more targeted.” Cloud Service. experts recommend assum-
BUSINESS
BIG IDEAS
Both nations and individ- “They are no longer car- ing that your organization’s
uals have learned how ried out by humans; they are defenses will be breached at
to attack organizations, carried out by bots, hijacked some point, and it’s why they
There’s a reason cyber- he says, and there are real devices that start attacking emphasize the importance
attacks and data theft are incentives to do so. “There’s other sites and other orga- of having visibility into both
so much greater a threat this underground economy nizations. These attacks are your data and your users, as
than they were a few years that thrives on data breaches no longer within the network well as having an automated
ago: Cybercrime has become and selling information.” perimeter of the enterprise — way to immediately remedi-
very lucrative. Picture a And where data theft was in many cases they’re outside ate security breaches.
cybercriminal and you might once limited to those with in your DNS [Domain Name “The most secure compa-
imagine a nefarious igure the sophisticated knowledge System] service or your cloud nies in the world are get-
in a hoody, hunched over a of how to pull it off, these provider or your public- ting attacked. It’s a contin-
bank of computers in a base- days anyone who wants to facing application. ual thing,” Kitch says. “As
ment somewhere. But these can simply purchase on the And they’re not static: organizations, we have not
days it might instead be a black market tools to do someone could penetrate done enough to address
multimillionaire relaxing in a so and then earn back that some of your defenses these threats. A lot of peo-
mountaintop villa purchased investment by selling the and then lie low waiting ple think, ‘I’m secure today;
with the proceeds of his stolen data. for the right opportunity therefore I’ll be secure
ill deeds. And if today’s enterprises to move laterally and steal tomorrow.’ But as secu-
“We used to have imper- can beneit from automation, credentials.” In fact, many rity threats shift, that isn’t
sonal attacks, not necessarily so can cybercriminals. “The attacks these days begin necessarily true.”
assets. So you have some on ate security. for abnormal usage patterns of
premises and some in the cloud, “People are setting things up cloud applications. Such a ser-
and you need a single pane of with the wrong configurations,” vice offers the added benefit of
glass to manage both. That’s says Jules White, assistant pro- giving you insight into—and per-
where hybrid security comes in.” fessor of computer science at haps control of—shadow IT, espe-
Vanderbilt University. In one cially because the CASB can scan
PROBLEM: SHADOW IT AND recent case a defense contrac- many of the most commonly used
MULTIPLE CLOUD VENDORS tor stored personal data for job cloud-based applications such
SOLUTION: A CLOUD ACCESS applicants—some of it classified as Dropbox, Box, Evernote, and
SECURITY BROKER as top secret—in an Amazon Web Microsoft Office 365.
BIG IDEAS
While IT leaders might talk about Services S3 bucket configured to Using one can be eye-opening.
moving to “the cloud,” the fact is allow public access. There have “Ask an IT organization how many
they’re usually moving to several been other similar incidents with applications its company has that
clouds. Indeed, Simu says the other cloud providers. With per- access the cloud. For a small or
cloud is not just SaaS [software haps thousands of different con- midsize organization, they’ll say
as a service]—a lot of workloads figuration combinations available 10,” says Troy Kitch, senior direc-
are moving into platform as a for some cloud systems, it’s all too tor of Oracle cloud security. “Then
service [PaaS] and infrastructure easy to make a mistake. you run a CASB and it will turn out
as a service [IaaS] creating a het- A cloud access security bro- to be 300. In a large organization
erogeneous cloud environment ker such as Oracle CASB Cloud they may say 100, and in reality it
within the enterprise. "The aver- Service can take the guesswork will be 3,000.”
age enterprise will use six differ- and errors out of configuring
ent cloud providers just to run its cloud accounts, and it can give IT PROBLEMS: THE SECURITY
workloads,” she says. departments visibility into all their SKILLS GAP AND THE NEED
Customers share responsibil- cloud-based data. “CASBs include FOR SPEED
ity for security to varying degrees big data analytics and deliver sur- SOLUTION: IDENTITY
in each of these cloud engage- gical insight for forensic analysis,” MANAGEMENT
ments, so managing different Simu says. “Gartner says CASBs By 2019, there will be at least
cloud deployments can lead to will soon be what firewalls used to 2 million unfilled security jobs
confusion. A key danger is “con- be in the on-premises world.” worldwide, according to the
figuration drift,” in which cloud A CASB with machine learning House of Lords Digital Skills
students that this is one of those are not appropriate for a hybrid of business.”
eternal problems,” Vanderbilt's cloud environment. And that con- The best way to accomplish this
Schmidt says. “There will never be cern might be holding back cloud is to harness the power of artifi-
a time when security expertise will adoption. In a survey last year by cial intelligence. Prior to the avail-
not be a valuable skill.” consulting firm Baker McKenzie, ability of solutions such as Oracle
Automating as many processes 88 percent of respondents cited Management Cloud, existing tools
as possible is the only viable solu- security as the primary reason they depended on operators to ask
tion to the skills shortage, experts were hesitant to move to cloud. the right questions, according to
agree. So Oracle has introduced Putting identity at the center of it Ramamurthy. “We decided to use
orchestration and remediation all, Kitch adds, is the best method artificial intelligence to understand
BIG IDEAS
solutions that leverage context for protecting data. what normal behavior was. And
and automation principles. “We And while the skills gap puts when things deviate from that
can deliver both supervised auto- added pressure on IT depart- learned normal behavior, we give
mation, making changes only with ments and their mandate to keep intelligent information back to the
human approval, and unsupervised vital data secure, these teams are customer,” he says.
automation, which makes changes also under pressure to deploy new Over time, the service creates a
automatically,” Gupta says. technology at an unprecedented profile of a user’s typical behavior,
Sensitive data that’s unencrypted pace. For many veteran IT profes- he explains. So if a user accesses
is a good example of how unsu- sionals, the obvious solution is to only marketing systems and emails
pervised automation can be use- lock everything down, presuming from the United States 99 percent
ful, he adds. “Guess what? That’s that all users and processes are of the time, and the service sees
black and white. It’s unencrypted, guilty until proven innocent. But that same user’s credentials log-
and that’s wrong. It should be that doesn’t work in today’s world. ging in from a new geographic
encrypted. Turn encryption on.” “There is business pressure not location and accessing the compa-
An identity-centered approach to say no to innovation,” says Dan ny’s finance database, that might
is the best way to manage secu- Koloski, vice president of product trigger an automatic response.
rity in the cloud, Kitch says. “A management at Oracle. “People That response might simply
lot of security tools in particular in the business want to spin faster be that the next time the user
were not created with cloud in and demand more flexibility out of logs in, he or she is required to
mind,” he says. As a result, most IT. Saying no is not an option, so use two-factor authentication and
enterprise customers believe the we have to continuously update enter a five-digit code that has
tives, users and IT staff will simply applications the user is accessing.” ready. “GDPR has many organiza-
start assuming that every alarm And when time is of the tions concerned because a mean-
is unwarranted. Worse, if false essence, automation makes all the ingful 4 percent of your revenues
alarms prove too much of an difference. “Remediation needs to could be fined,” Ramamurthy says.
inconvenience, users might start happen in real time,” Simu adds. “That’s very, very tangible.”
looking for ways to circumvent “In many cases, these attacks are GDPR, which aims to protect
security altogether. carried out by bots and tools, and the privacy and personal data of
An identity-centric approach they don’t wait a lot. When they EU citizens, is merely the newest
also helps enterprises respond find a vulnerability, they move very compliance challenge for compa-
to threats without unduly incon- quickly to the next level.” nies already coping with Sarbanes-
veniencing users. “You can surgi- Oxley, the Health Insurance
cally remediate a specific user or PROBLEM: MAINTAINING Portability and Accountability Act
users rather than having to shut COMPLIANCE IN A SHIFTING (HIPAA), and the Payment Card
down an entire application,” Simu LANDSCAPE Industry Data Security Standard
explains. At the same time, you SOLUTION: ORACLE SECURITY (PCI DSS). Most IT organizations
can limit that user’s ability to do SOLUTIONS FOR GDPR are also responsible for comply-
harm. “Depending on what a user In May 2018, the European ing with internal and external
is doing, you can say, ‘OK, this is Union’s General Data Protection audit rules, as well as partner and
malicious enough,’ and remediate Regulation (GDPR) takes effect. customer agreements. Because
with actions that affect not only Many enterprise IT and security Oracle customers have had these
that application but also other leaders are scrambling to get responsibilities for years or some-
58 PROFIT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018 PHOTOGR APH: BOB ADLER / THE VERBATIM AGENCY
study estimates that 1 mil-
SECURE THE FUTURE
THE ANSWER and alert security officials or sider where information will Sophisticated cloud-based
Part of the answer comes take predetermined actions be stored, whether it will be security platforms, such
with new, cloud-based secu- to limit damage. encrypted, or how regularly as Oracle Identity Security
rity platforms that provide an Automation can also the associated servers will Operations Center and
integrated suite of services. mitigate another pervasive perform backups. Oracle Management Cloud,
With automation of security threat: the shadow IT sys- The latest security plat- give CIOs and CISOs the
processes as a key compo- tems people adopt without forms perform shadow dis- automation tools they need
nent, the best of these plat- getting approval from the IT covery—the ability to identify to forecast, prevent, detect,
forms offer everything from department. Common exam- applications running in the and remediate cybersecurity
identity management and ples include web-based ser- enterprise, who is using them, threats. Just as important,
cloud access security brokers vices for note taking and file the sensitive or regulated as security professionals use
to regulatory compliance and sharing, which are often free data that is flowing in and out resources like these to for-
configuration monitoring. to download and danger- of them, and whether hack- tify their organizations today,
By augmenting all aspects ous to use when they don’t ers are chatting about the they’re preparing their organi-
of security processes, enter- come with enterprise-class vulnerability of the programs zations for tomorrow’s brave
prise cyberdefense systems security controls. If employ- on the Dark Web. Based on new world of cybersecurity.
can automatically detect ees are storing customers’ the associated risks, CIOs and
vulnerabilities and fix them financial records in these CISOs can take appropriate ACTION ITEM
before an attack takes place. consumer-oriented platforms, action, whether that’s steering ■ How to Modernize Your
For instance, if an organized that’s a problem. Because end users to approved alter- Security Operations Center
group of hackers finds a way they’re focusing on conve- natives or licensing enterprise
to break through defenses, nience and productivity rather versions of the applications.
START WITH THE CUSTOMER the technology we look at, and Motorola’s Meyers says the con-
Every CIO interviewed prioritized how we evaluate it, starts and sumerization of IT has put pressure
one strategy when thinking about ends with that lens.” on CIOs to make their companies’
implementing emerging tech- Yogesh Malik, group chief tech- IT more modern—both internally
nologies: focus on the customer nology officer at VEON, a global and externally. “The next genera-
experience. Scott Dillon, executive telecommunications provider tion of employees as well as cus-
vice president, CTO, and head of headquartered in Amsterdam, the tomers are demanding that IT no
enterprise information technology Netherlands, is looking specifically longer be a back-office function—
at the global banking and finan- at AI and NLP as keys to a better it’s very much in the front office
cial services company Wells Fargo, customer experience. VEON has and plays a big role in customer
says companies need to start by already introduced chatbots with experience,” he says.
understanding their customers’ customers in Russia and some sur- Meyers says the customers
expectations and needs. rounding countries. of Motorola, an American data
“Everything we think about is “How can I make the end con- communications and telecom-
driven by the customer experi- sumer’s life easier? We are taking munications equipment pro-
ence—enabling that customer to AI and language processing to the vider, are looking for devices
do business the way they want to next level in practical applications that allow them to communicate
do it to get the experience they’re and simplifying our interface with as well as share data and intel-
driving to,” says Dillon. “And so customers,” says Malik. ligence. Motorola is working on
can participate in a two-way talk problem in the organization to the command center in real
group, so that a police officer today—for instance, forecast accu- time. This would eliminate the
or firefighter can interact with a racy—and be strategic about find- need for officers to place a call
chatbot when checking a license ing the solution,” he says. for additional help, and it would
plate or identifying a person. One of the most pressing prob- also send backup resources faster
Using AI and voice in this way lems for one of Motorola’s most and provide automatic video foot-
would speed up the relay of infor- important customer segments— age of the incident for legal and
mation and free up resources in law enforcement—is the identifi- training purposes.
the command center to perform cation of missing children. Using
nonroutine tasks. AI technology, the company is A SEEDBED FOR INNOVATION
BIG IDEAS
developing wearable cameras that VEON’s Malik says the first step
SOLVING PROBLEMS can use image detection to match to successfully introducing new
Wells Fargo’s Dillon says that when faces with a database of children technologies into the business is
thinking about technologies such that have been reported missing. developing the right people and
as machine learning or IoT, many The AI system could push images, culture. VEON is actively searching
technology leaders get lost in stored in the cloud, to the camera for new talent with skills in AI and
the “shiny object” and follow the as a police officer walks around an machine learning. Beyond that, he
“trend of the moment.” Instead, he area, alerting the officer if there is says, “we are constantly thinking
says, evaluate the technology to a match. about the question, how do we
find an outcome that leverages it. Another major concern for law build a culture that can embrace
For Wells Fargo, these out- enforcement is the safety of police these new technologies?”
comes include making the cus- officers. To solve that problem, Indeed, the role of the CIO
tomer experience frictionless, Motorola is using IoT technology and IT has changed drastically
automating routine business pro- to work on a system of sensors over the past few years, as IT
cesses to cut costs, and providing for law enforcement firearms. The becomes a business partner. All
better fraud detection. “Since day physical sensors can detect when three CIOs agree that compa-
one, we’ve been making sure that a gun has been pulled out of a nies must recruit and develop IT
our work is purpose-driven from holster and the officer’s heartrate leaders and staff who are able to
the business,” he says. is elevated. The system then sends straddle both worlds.
Motorola’s Meyers links the a message that automatically turns “As a technology-enabled
technology to a business issue. on the officer’s wearable cam- organization, our product is now
omnichannel experiences that new capabilities,” says Dillon. “You technologies. They are actively
understand where customers are can react faster, and your infra- experimenting with and imple-
in the pipeline and how they want structure is elastic. If your goals menting them now. But they’re
to interact with the bank. The are to drive speed to market, doing so strategically and
company is also using chatbots to drive down costs, and drive the with purpose.
handle self-service requests, and customer experience, simplifying “There’s a lot of overprom-
machine learning to detect fraudu- your infrastructure will allow you ising and underdelivering right
lent transactions. to use new technologies that help now,” says Dillon. “A lot of growth
Of course, security is para- achieve these goals.” needs to take place in the areas
mount to all three CIOs, and any Malik also sees a cloud-centric of emerging technologies. And
BIG IDEAS
new technologies that are rolled infrastructure with minimal cus- part of that growth is making sure
out must adhere to strict secu- tomizations as an important build- we’re operationally ready to han-
rity guidelines and procedures. ing block for next-generation tech- dle it, as well as understanding the
“Each of our programs is engi- nologies. He says switching off outcomes that we’re driving for.”
neered with security top of mind,” legacy systems is the biggest chal-
says Dillon. lenge CIOs need to address—but Monica Mehta is a freelance writer
the payoff is worth the investment. and a frequent contributor to Profit.
CLOUD AS THE “As software and hardware
BUILDING BLOCK become decoupled, simplify-
Because better customer experi- ing the back end has helped us ACTION ITEMS
ence is the most important out- reach the customer more eas- ■ Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service
come of a successful emerging ily,” says Malik. “We have more ebook
technology strategy, a modern time to spend on personalizing ■ Oracle Artificial Intelligence
infrastructure is the foundation of our user interface, building out
any emerging technology initia- new capabilities, and engaging
tive. Dillon says moving core tech- with customers.”
nology to the cloud is essential
for conducting successful experi- EMBRACE NEW TECH NOW
ments in AI and IoT. As exemplified by these three
“Being in a private cloud and technology leaders, success-
standardizing your platform allows ful companies aren’t waiting to