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Alarm.com, a pioneer in cellular communications for smart home services, operates one of the largest cellular-based M2M platforms in the world. The company needed to efficiently manage deployed solutions to meet rigorous reliability standards for home security and customer expectations. Additionally, they required unique visibility into connectivity costs to optimize rate plans and manage business growth cost-effectively. The challenge was to rapidly scale operations by leveraging partnerships with network service providers worldwide, enabling quick turnkey deployments in new markets.

The biggest challenge for Telular was ensuring that they collected the right data from their connected devices to provide value to their customers. With the vast amount of data available, it was crucial to minimize distractions and focus on the most relevant information. Additionally, Telular needed to transition from hardware-oriented discussions to delivering real value through recurring services and the power of the information obtained from connected devices. This required efficient data management and the ability to provide actionable insights to their customers.

Oil and gas companies operate extensive networks of facilities, often in remote and challenging terrains. Ensuring the safety and security of assets and personnel while keeping equipment in top working order is a high priority. Osprey Informatics needed a reliable infrastructure to manage mission-critical systems remotely. They required a solution that could provide real-time insights, streamline testing processes, and prevent unforeseen budget issues.

While there was no single event that compelled Pioneer Investments CISO Ken Pfeil to look at more robust endpoint security alternatives, he was increasingly concerned about the changes he was observing in the threat landscape. Pfeil had two good reasons for seeking out a better solution: the sheer number of advanced threats that appeared on his radar on a daily basis and the highly sophisticated methods used to infiltrate endpoints and networks. With 2,200 desktops and laptops to look after and a highly mobile, geographically dispersed workforce, Pfeil had his task cut out for him. When Pfeil embarked on his search for a better way to secure endpoints, Pioneer Investments’ security infrastructure had layered defenses typically found at most risk-conscious enterprises: firewalls, gateways, antivirus, full-disk encryption, USB and port control, vulnerability management, and patch management. But even all this, Pfeil realized, was not enough to defend his company against today’s clever, determined, and highly organized cybercrime rings with their complex, difficult-to-detect attacks.

ADP faced significant challenges in protecting customer assets against complex, advanced cyber attacks. The primary concerns were achieving true visibility and transparency across the enterprise and client platforms, and ensuring the efficacy of security controls. The goal was to shift from a reactive to a preventive security model, reducing the attack surface, particularly at the endpoint level. The need for an OS-independent, high-usability endpoint security solution was paramount.

The state & local government organization faced significant challenges with malicious email attachments, phishing (malicious links), and file downloads. These threats necessitated a robust cybersecurity solution to protect against advanced malware attacks. The organization needed a solution that could effectively isolate and neutralize these threats, ensuring the safety of their systems and data. The existing security measures were insufficient in providing the level of protection required, leading the organization to evaluate and ultimately select Bromium.

At Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, the primary challenge was to enable employees to work without risk while maintaining high productivity. The legal sector's unique environment, where end users are also company owners, necessitated the implementation of security products that run smoothly and transparently. Employees, particularly attorneys and legal assistants, spend significant time online, exposing the company's Microsoft Windows 7 PCs and laptops to various threats, including infected downloads and phishing attempts. Despite diligent efforts to secure the infrastructure, the company faced frequent re-imaging of PCs due to infections. The existing security measures, including antivirus solutions, whole-disk encryption, and spam filters, were inadequate against modern threats. The company needed a better way to protect its endpoints without disrupting users and enabling them to confidently search and download from the Web.

Jefferson Radiology needed to meet regulatory requirements to adequately protect patient data and prove HIPAA and HITECH compliance within their virtual data centers. The challenge was to maintain HIPAA compliance while adopting cloud solutions, ensuring that patient data is protected and compliant with HIPAA and HITECH. They struggled with expensive, manual processes to provide the evidence necessary to prove compliance and protect patient data. Additionally, they faced difficulties in managing and auditing their virtual environment, particularly with net flow visibility within the switches.

Regional banks must protect millions of dollars in assets, keep costs low, and comply with industry regulations. Thomaston Savings Bank faced increasing cyber threats and needed stronger security protection for their assets, particularly network security. They also confronted issues with power consumption for their servers, blowing circuits, and trouble cooling machines in the data center. To address these challenges, they decided to virtualize many of their servers, necessitating the need for virtualization-aware network security.

Toyota’s assembly data was trapped in spreadsheets, making it difficult to share data across plants or upstream. The company needed an enterprise application to collect data from the assembly lines and create a central database. However, IT was unable to justify the resources to build an application from scratch for a user base of fewer than 100 people. Existing applications offered by Toyota developers were not equipped to meet the specific needs without significant revision and lacked a mobile interface crucial for data collection on the plant floor. This led to frustration among non-developer line-of-business users like ergonomist Ben Atkinson, who saw the potential for data to drive productivity improvements but faced obstacles in collecting it from mobile workers.

Immediately after hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria made landfall in the Caribbean, causing billions of dollars in damages, Rotary International’s District 7020 Hurricane Recovery Committee was convened. The committee's top priority was to explore ways to optimize disaster recovery processes. They recognized that through the digital collection of information and automation of processes, non-profits like theirs could make disaster recovery supply chains—made up of volunteers, money, goods, and services—far more responsive and effective to the real-time needs of the communities they serve. The challenge was to develop a system that could effectively communicate with local community members when cell reception was almost non-existent and electricity and Wi-Fi were spotty due to severely damaged infrastructures.

Going from paper to a digitally-driven environment is never easy but the benefits are clear: a more productive, innovative and empowered workforce, streamlined business processes and lower costs. Companies in the construction sector struggle with a number of specific challenges. Projects are complex and unique, requiring different teams, equipment, planning and so on. There is also a growing demand for environmentally sensitive construction, more and more safety regulations to adhere to and an ever-increasing mountain of paperwork to manage, track and deal with as issues arise. Rolling out software solutions for multiple sites that are geographically dispersed is not easy. But there are good, cost effective solutions available. What is the most important decision a construction company must make as it pursues its digital future? Buy versus build. On the surface, buy might seem the obvious solution. There are a number of construction management software solutions that address project and employee management, field operations, logistics, quality control and safety. But this can be a pricey endeavor since a construction company’s work flow and processes are as unique as the job sites they work on. More often than not, out-of-the-box solutions must be customized to meet specific requirements.

DIRTT, a company specializing in interior construction, faced challenges in optimizing their internal operations and material tracking. Initially, dispatch coordination was managed through email, leading to inefficiencies and missed communications. Additionally, tracking customer-provided materials using Excel spreadsheets was cumbersome and prone to errors, as employees often forgot to make timely entries. These challenges highlighted the need for a more efficient and reliable system to manage internal operations and material tracking.

Avanade, a global professional services firm, faced the challenge of supporting a highly mobile and dispersed workforce. The company needed to simplify business processes and improve productivity for its employees, particularly its sellers, who required easy access to corporate data and resources while on the go. The goal was to create a digital workplace that allowed employees to collaborate effectively, regardless of their location, and to streamline internal operations to better serve and attract clients.

By 2014, Taylor Smith Group faced significant challenges due to outdated technology and obstacles to flexible working. Executives struggled with accessing information outside the office without using VPN, which was cumbersome. The company was also burdened with the costs of dedicated hardware for backup and archiving. The initial plan was to replace the in-house mail system, Lotus Domino, but deeper analysis revealed the need for a more comprehensive digital transformation. The goal was to create a dynamic working environment across the group without the long-term costs associated with maintaining expertise for a Domino upgrade.

TransAlta, a Canadian power generator, faced the challenge of needing more detailed analytics from the data collected by its SCADA systems. The existing data collection solution was off mainstream support, and a costly upgrade was proposed by the third-party vendor. TransAlta needed a solution that could add capabilities incrementally and quickly without adding fixed infrastructure. Additionally, the company required actionable alerts from the generated data to automate manual processes and increase savings. The proposed upgrade would have introduced significant licensing costs, prompting TransAlta to seek an alternative solution.

Wyong Shire Council faced the challenge of adapting to the changing ways residents accessed and interacted with local services. With many residents preferring to use mobile phones or computers for communication, the Council needed to integrate these mobile channels into its communication strategy. Additionally, many Council employees, such as those working on road works, as Lifeguards, gardeners, and maintenance staff, spent a significant amount of time in the field. The Council aimed to introduce a mobility solution that would allow field officers to remotely enter and upload data via mobile devices, eliminating the need for staff to return to Council premises to receive new data, file reports, or submit updated information. The Council also needed a solution that could integrate with its back-end systems, including Microsoft SharePoint and SQL Server databases, and ensure industrial-strength security.

In the past, sports supporters relied on printed newsletters and newspapers for information about their favorite teams. However, these sources lacked immediacy and were not always up-to-date. With the advent of websites in the 1990s and 2000s, sports organizations began to communicate more directly with their supporters, offering real-time updates and services. Despite this, the need for even more immediate and accessible information led to the exploration of mobile information services. The HSBC Waratahs rugby team recognized the potential of mobile services to enhance supporter engagement by providing timely and relevant information directly to their mobile devices.

Georgiou, a national building construction and engineering company, faced significant challenges with paperwork management. With around 550 computer or smart device users and a few hundred blue-collar workers, the company maintained approximately 180 different forms for various purposes, including project management, building and workplace health and safety compliance, and human resources. Most forms were still being completed as paper documents, which required remote staff to print, fill out, and return them to the office for manual entry into the appropriate system. This process was inefficient and cumbersome, especially for staff working in challenging environments like construction sites. The company needed a solution to streamline and automate forms capture and workflows, particularly for staff who were frequently out in the field.

Cumberland Council faced significant challenges in managing their waste services, including kerbside clean-ups and dumped rubbish pickups. The primary issues were a lack of visibility and inefficient management of these services. The existing process was cumbersome, leading to poor customer experience and inefficiencies in job allocation to the waste services contractor. The Council needed a solution that could streamline the booking process for residents, improve job allocation, and provide valuable data insights into the efficiency and usage of the waste services operation. The goal was to rethink the kerbside collection process to enhance customer experience, streamline operations, and gain better visibility into the day-to-day running of the waste services.

Lismore City Council faced inefficiencies and inaccuracies in their paper-based field recordkeeping and maintenance management system. The existing process required field staff to spend significant time in the office handling paperwork, which reduced their productivity in the field. The council recognized the need to streamline data collection processes to allow field staff and supervisors to spend more time on actual maintenance tasks and improve Work Health and Safety (WHS) standards.

Hornsby Shire faced significant challenges in maintaining consistency and accuracy in risk reporting across its various departments. The lack of a standardized approach led to potential downstream risks for Workplace Health and Safety (WHS). Different departments used their own versions of risk assessment forms, which created inconsistencies and inefficiencies. Additionally, the manual process of re-keying data into the Council's Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) was time-consuming and prone to errors. This situation necessitated a more streamlined and automated approach to risk management and data handling.

Industrial equipment rental and service is not typically seen as a technology-forward sector. Onsite Rental Group aimed to innovate and grow by mobilizing its business operations and workflows. They needed to replace paper-based worksheets with real-time data, ensure the solution was accessible across multiple business units and functions, and deploy it quickly with minimal impact on their small IT team. The primary focus areas were hired equipment fleet inspection and hired toilet servicing.

The efficient management and day-to-day operation of any airport involves a lot of paperwork. From flight departures and arrivals to security and baggage handling, there is information that needs to be captured and a myriad of forms that must be completed every day. Often the information is double-handled. Field and operational staff fill out a paper form or computer spreadsheet which is subsequently hand delivered or emailed to another staff member so that the data can be keyed into another information system. This may happen several times for a single dataset, not only consuming valuable time but creating multiple opportunities for data to become inaccurate. In early 2012, Ford decided it was time to find a better way of managing data capture and data flows. In place of clipboards and paper forms, she wanted to deploy an enterprise mobile platform that could communicate with all mobile devices and enable access to almost any QAL computer system or file. Her aim was to provide staff with a mobile tool that would allow them to read and update data in key information systems such as Microsoft SharePoint and Finance One.

In the last decade or so, technology has dramatically changed the way schools communicate with parents, and share and publish information. BCE hosts School websites, Parent Portals, and mobile apps to assist with this communication process and to more readily provide access to school forms, newsletters and student reports. This two-way communication also allows Parents to communicate more easily and readily with the school via the Parent Portal, to change personal details, advise of student absences etc. There’s an immediacy that did not exist previously which goes hand in hand with the expectation that there be less reliance on phone calls, paper forms and verbal advice. ParentSMSTM is a vital part of BCE’s communication strategy. BCE has worked with OneBlink for 6 years to provide an SMS service that directly links to the School and Student Administration System. BCE has continued this association in launching ParentSMSTM in 2016. It forms an integral part of BCE’s attendance policy to fulfil each school’s duty of care to students and parents.

The company faced a longstanding problem with the uncontrolled ordering of extra products or services during home construction. Site supervisors would place orders quickly to avoid delays, often with non-preferred suppliers or at different prices. This process involved manually noting orders in a 'run book' and matching them with invoices later, leading to a lack of visibility and control over actual expenses. This resulted in unrealized margins due to unseen orders, which usually ran to a few percentage points of the gross cost of a build.

The first challenge was the amount of time spent by valuable field technicians having to come to the office every day. Previously the team of around 40 AC/DC field technicians were required to come their local branch office every morning to collect their work/service orders for that day. This involved the AC/DC branch Team Leader or supervisor arriving early each morning to first print and then assign each service order/s within their respective field maintenance team. The teams would complete these paper-based forms during the day, building reports based on the data collected from each of their inspections. These paper-based forms were then manually entered into the Sankhya ERP the next day after the technicians returned to the office to collect the next day’s service orders. These paper-based forms were left in the office/s to become the responsibility of a data entry team. Re-entering this data was time-consuming, inefficient and susceptible to errors, this would often cause additional wasted time inside the ERP identifying and correcting data. Having identified that a focused ‘Service Orders App’ could streamline much of the service/inspection process, the second challenge any mobility solution had to consider was the broad mix of mobile devices in Brazil. AC/DC wanted to use their employee’s current devices as a way of minimizing additional investment, which forced a requirement that any app development cover multiple OS’s including Android, iOS and Windows. Therefore, to ensure one development effort could be applied to all device types and to make the maintenance and updating of the various apps as efficient as possible, OneBlink’s Enterprise Mobility Platform was the selected underlying technology.

In 2010, Sarju Sahu, the newly-appointed Manager of Information Technology at Auburn City Council, observed that 38% of the Council's workforce operated in the field. This included various inspectors and maintenance staff. Sahu realized that to provide effective productivity tools and solutions, mobility had to be integrated into the IT strategy. He developed an IT vision statement emphasizing productivity and connectivity anywhere, anytime, on any network, and with any device. After understanding the business's policies and processes, Sahu proposed automating processes for mobile and in-field staff to the Council Executive Team. The proposal aimed to enable staff to capture data and initiate workflows while in the field, promising significant productivity and efficiency gains.

In May 2010, Logan City Council's Information Services (IS) team and its City Standards branch began working together to solve a common problem: how to provide a mobile data collection capability so that Council inspectors could spend more productive time in the field rather than being back in the office attending to paperwork. Previous attempts had failed due to poor technology performance, cumbersome laptops, poor battery life, and lack of reliable disconnected-mode operation. This time, IS was determined to try something different by reviewing and documenting the business processes involved in inspections before approaching vendors with two key requirements: the solution must work with any mobile device, anywhere, any time, and it must make it easier to conduct business with and within the Council.

One effect of the region’s constant stream of visitors and new arrivals is that information about local services and events is in high demand. Tourists want to know whether beaches are open and safe. New householders want information about development approvals, garbage collections, and library hours. To meet this need, over the past two years the local council has worked hard to create a portfolio of innovative e-services. Among the first areas it addressed were the Council’s property information and planning, development, and building processes. In one project, a tracking service was added to the Council website enabling applicants to monitor development approval progress online. In another, the Council integrated its external GIS, document management, and planning systems so that landowners can view online all documentation related to their applications or search for information such as land codes that may affect their property.