Saint-Gobain needed an efficient way to deploy software patches and upgrades to 100,000 desktops across 6000 branch offices. Managing the IT network and architecture for a multinational organization of this magnitude is a sizeable task. The PC Solution Team is responsible for delivering all the tools to manage the company’s 100,000 workstations. In 2008 the team chose to implement Microsoft Systems Management Platform across the group to create better collaboration and improve productivity. The standard architecture for the Microsoft platform is for each geo-location to have a dedicated, or ‘branch’ server. For Saint-Gobain this would have meant investing in, and maintaining at least 6000 servers. The PC team sought an alternative solution that would avoid having to put a server into each branch office. The team decided to research the possibility of using SCCM and Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) GPO and found a considerable reduction of servers would be possible but that they would still require a 1,000-strong server farm.

The pharmaceutical giant needed a quick and easy way for its 60,000 users to select and download software that they need, when they need it. There were two challenging areas that needed to be radically improved, the long lead times to get things packaged and to get software onto desktops which was, in the main, a manual process. The situation was far from satisfactory and so the company sought to automate the process and selected 1E Shopping whereby users would be able to select, download and install software in just a few minutes by themselves.

Already using 1E Shopping and NightWatchman Enterprise, the company wished not only to quantify software application usage across the company by deploying AppClarity but also save money by removing unused applications from its environment. It wanted to be confident, when presented with a request for a vendor software audit, it could give an accurate and compliant response with hugely reduced time and effort required.

With the management of its desktop-class application environment already in hand, the company was keen to identify any areas for improvement. AppClarity analysis confirmed that the organization had a common software waste problem: 8% of the deployed application instances were flagged as not being used in the previous three months, representing a waste of $405,805.91.

The company was looking for a quick and easy way for its 51,500 users to select and download the software they needed, when they needed it. There were two areas that had to be radically improved: the long lead times to get things packaged; and automating the delivery of software. To achieve this, the company needed to migrate from Vista to Windows 7 and Windows 8 quickly and seamlessly, while continuing to support certain applications. The organization was still using SMS 2003, so it also needed to migrate to SCCM 2012.

The environmental firm faced significant challenges with its imaging depots, which were designed to build and distribute computers to users across the company. While the depots provided excellent customer service, they were not sustainable from a business perspective. The process was labor-intensive, costly, and time-consuming, leading to significant backups and inefficiencies. Storage was another major issue, as maintaining a large quantity of equipment at non-warehouse locations was impractical. The firm needed a more efficient and cost-effective solution to streamline the computer delivery process without compromising the quality of service.

Handle Financial initially relied on a traditional on-premise solution for load-balancing, security, and traffic management. As the company grew, it moved all resources, applications, and workloads to Amazon Web Services (AWS). However, this created two significant problems: the large volume of workloads in AWS led to razor-thin margins, and the Elastic Load Balancers (ELBs) lacked technical capabilities such as static IPs and SSL client-server authentication. Handle Financial needed better solutions for managing, securing, and controlling its environments.

Leucom, a major ISP in Eastern Switzerland, faced a critical challenge as IPv4 addresses were no longer being issued, and their existing addresses were running out. The secondary market for IPv4 addresses was prohibitively expensive, and acquiring or merging with another company that had free IPv4 addresses was not a viable option. This scarcity of IPv4 addresses posed a significant threat to their ability to continue providing seamless internet services to their growing customer base.

Greenville Health System needed to secure devices and sensitive medical information across a large and growing network of employees and devices. They required a scalable, always-connected security solution to lock down devices, remotely delete sensitive information, and ensure encryption to industry standards. The organization faced challenges in measuring risk exposure, monitoring device theft, and maintaining compliance with HIPAA regulations.

In order to bring this initiative forward, the budget needed to be approved by the board. Demonstrating device utilization rates on and off the school network was required to drive consensus that teachers did need to have a laptop and take them home, and that students were intensively using their laptops in the classroom. Additionally, even though in the past some desktop computers were occasionally stolen, laptops were obviously more vulnerable to theft and security was required on the device to protect the new investment.

Rogue IT assets such as laptops, smartphones, and other devices are a primary way that important intellectual property is stolen. CLS takes this problem seriously as the company relies on a network of remote salespeople spread across the United States who have company-issued devices. Managing computing assets among a distributed workforce and protecting the proprietary information they possess is of utmost importance. As CLS grew, they realized the need to protect their proprietary information stored on laptops when remote workers left the company. That’s when Aaron Seamans, Director of Information Technology, made the decision to purchase Absolute. With Absolute already embedded in a remote user’s laptop, CLS has the capability of disabling any device, thereby protecting the company’s proprietary information and eliminating any reason to retain possession. CLS had the opportunity to put this technology to the test when it discovered an active employee working for a competitor. With the click of a mouse, the laptop was locked down.

With most endpoints off the corporate network on a regular basis, it was difficult for Asplundh to manage and secure their deployment efficiently and ensure endpoint protection at all times. Despite their best intentions, users would unintentionally compromise endpoint security and compliance by either disabling DLP, anti-virus or other security applications or installing incompatible software that would remove corporate protection processes and policies. The impact of just one vulnerable device could severely impact their business. If a criminal targeted an Asplundh vehicle, the device and data was at risk, potentially damaging Asplundh’s brand and resulting in penalties for non-compliance.

Trimont Real Estate Advisors faced significant challenges in providing 24x7 security monitoring for their global enterprise. Their previous in-house security solution was unsustainable due to the overwhelming number of alerts, many of which were false positives. This made it difficult for the security staff to distinguish between major issues and simple noise. Additionally, the previous solution was difficult to manage across Trimont’s global footprint, which includes offices in North America, Europe, and Australia. The high stakes of commercial real estate, combined with a complex web of local, federal, and financial industry regulations, made robust cybersecurity a mission-critical requirement for Trimont. The firm needed a solution that could effectively monitor their environment and allow their in-house security staff to focus on higher-value initiatives.

The healthcare company faced a significant challenge when it discovered that its existing security controls were bypassed by malware spreading from newly deployed IoT medical devices. These devices, intended for patient monitoring, were observed dropping malware on decoy systems set up by the company. The primary concern was the potential for this malware to spread to other critical systems within the healthcare network, posing a risk to patient data and overall network integrity. The company needed a robust solution to detect and mitigate such threats promptly to ensure the safety and security of its operations.

Existing perimeter defenses were not providing adequate visibility into the organization’s complex network environment. Their environment was diverse, with systems and topologies unique to their business, such as SCADA systems and the typical user and datacenter spaces. Any solution needed to scale and be able to detect intruders in this diverse environment without adding excessive workload to the Information Security team.

Penetration testing conducted by a 3rd party red team revealed security gaps in several areas of detection and visibility. The financial institution wanted to improve their detection and response capabilities against insider threats, Man in the Middle (MitM) attacks, and adversary internal reconnaissance. The organization decided to pilot the ThreatDefend platform in their production environment and planned to roll deception out to their entire infrastructure pending the results of the pilot program. Following a successful pilot, the Information Security team saw immense value in the solution and chose to move forward with a full, enterprise-wide deployment the following fiscal year. The organization had a small Information Security team with limited resources, which required tools that met their needs without adding to their workload. Ideally, they wanted to reduce the time it took to detect an attacker, leverage automation to improve their efficiency, gather improved forensic information, and streamline incident response. Any new solution was also required to efficiently scale to meet the security and limited staffing needs of their remote branch offices.

Information Security senior management sought to gain better visibility into their diverse and international network environment and address the often-challenging question of whether their security controls were working reliably. They needed to understand what threats had bypassed these controls and whether these threats were doing anything that could negatively impact operations. With a diverse infrastructure and assets in numerous countries, gaining adequate visibility into remote locations and providing consistent data security compliance was especially challenging. The specific restrictions in some regions posed additional challenges requiring unique solutions. The organization needed a solution that would be easy to deploy and manage, even in remote locations, and would not unduly increase their information security team’s workload.

Aligning to its mission to deliver 'outcomes that make life better,' Koch has been focused on transforming its organization and disrupting how it typically manages business operations. A key part of this initiative has been transforming current processes and adopting new digital technologies that push the boundaries on what’s been done before in order to move Koch’s business into the future. Transitioning its organization to the cloud has been a huge driver for their digital transformation. As a part of the transition to the cloud, Koch needed to decentralize its network which in turn required them to rethink the company’s network security model. It was struggling with visibility amidst an actively growing corporate footprint and needed a way to easily see what was happening on the expanded infrastructure. Koch chose the cloud-based endpoint security platform, Crowdstrike, because it allowed the company to easily drop the agent on every server or endpoint to know its status. Similarly, Koch’s legacy patching and endpoint hardening solutions no longer worked with the new network architecture. Again, visibility was the main issue as well as having trouble patching and updating a diverse environment. Koch Business Solutions, LP (KBS) discovered Automox, the cloud-native companion to Crowdstrike that could accommodate its needs and offer the same level of visibility for patching and updating its vastly distributed servers. Recognizing Automox’s unique solutions and what it could offer the Koch enterprise, KBS introduced the Automox team to KDT, whose origination and investment strategy involves identifying technologies that create value for Koch Industries more broadly.

In healthcare, one of the most challenging areas to secure is the radiology department. The images need to be very detailed, doctors usually request to see multiple images at once, and they often need this information in real time. The machines that interpret radiology scans and other medical images are regular Windows-based workstations running GE-PACS. They are connected to the network and can be potentially exposed to web-borne malware or threats that hide inside malicious email attachments if or when employees use these machines to check their email or browse the Internet. Protecting radiology machines against cyber attacks is essential, but when Summitt’s team tried introducing antivirus software, they were notified that it caused substantial degradation in performance. The Moffitt security team needed to find a solution that would shield the machines from threats, known and unknown, while preserving usability and performance.

In addition to the core banking processes, SUCO Bank followed many other processes which were unique to its organization. For example, a monthly appraisal management system based on set goals and targets, lead management, procurement management and more. These processes were either email or paper-based, making them error-prone, slow, and non-transparent. The turnaround time for these processes was long because of the manual handling and the bank was looking for a solution to reduce this time. There were a number of ready-to-use software available in the market for every process, but being a non-IT organization, instead of buying a different solution for each process which may or may not be configurable as per the bank’s needs, SUCO wanted one general-purpose automation platform that could be used to automate all processes as per their unique needs and become their single source of truth for all the information. This would mean that the bank would have to manage only two platforms – one for core banking and another one for all remaining applications.

Like any other organization, Compass had various interdependent processes between different departments, including finance, procurement, HR, and admin. These processes included vendor onboarding, budget approvals, procurement, and data collection, to name a few. Most processes were based on paper-based forms, e-mails, word documents, and spreadsheets, leading to an enormous lack of visibility over any process. This made information management tedious and complex, as data traceability, governance, and adherence became significant problem areas. As the data was collected and processed through non-structured mechanisms, redundant entries made it difficult to keep a repository of the accurate master data. Multiple and scattered records also meant that meaningful data was getting lost through this mechanism. There was an immediate need to establish standard processes that would ensure transparency and data uniformity throughout the organization, leading to effective data management. After Compass identified these bottlenecks, they decided to adopt Business Process Automation. Wanting to avoid the time and cost disadvantages of traditional development, they decided to go for nocode. They were on the lookout for a platform that provided easy-to-use and effective features like drag and drop designer, workflow configurator, and CRUD application capability. They also wanted the platform to design both simple and complex approval workflows, depending on their need. After careful evaluation, they chose Quixy to be their trusted digital partner as it fulfilled these criteria perfectly.

Processing and delivering safe and quality shrimp to its customers is the core focus at Nekkanti. The processing plants produce thousands of tonnes of processed shrimp annually for export in various value-added forms. Naturally, there were numerous workflows associated with the overall food processing and support processes. The organization was facing several challenges with these processes, which included:\n\nPaper-Based Data Processing: At each stage of seafood processing, data was recorded using paper-based forms. The manual recording system led to errors and discrepancies for both data related to the material being processed and the workforce involved in the processing. This form of data recording also led to issues for HR, as the workforce was divided across locations, type, efforts, shift process, etc. They had to depend on the paper-based effort tracker followed by the supervisor, which was quite tedious and time-taking.\n\nInformation Silos Proliferation: As the discrepancies and errors happened across various processing stages, it became challenging to pinpoint the root cause of the issue. During reconciliation, the company found discrepancies when comparing the raw material to the end product. Due to the silos, there was no single source of truth, and rectifying discrepancies became very difficult.\n\nIssues in Performance Measurement: Due to the obliteration of accurate and effective data, it was becoming quite challenging to manage resources effectively and measure the performance of the workforce involved and the various stages involved in the process. Even for quality control, the company had to rely on paper-based data for different processing stages such as grading, soaking, and freezing.

Cordeiro Campos, a family-owned Portuguese textile company, faced significant challenges as it expanded into the international luxury market. The company needed to remain competitive and meet high customer expectations for quality and efficiency. Initially, the company manufactured garments by hand, which resulted in wasted time, materials, and money. The need to reduce inefficiencies and time to market became critical as the business grew rapidly.

Jack Victor, an international men's fashion company, faced the challenge of maintaining high-quality production while managing costs and meeting growing demand. The company was committed to keeping its operations in Canada, which necessitated upgrading to advanced technology to stay competitive. The management team sought a technological partner that could provide solutions to enhance their manufacturing process, ensuring product quality and customer service while respecting the company's traditional values.

With increasing demand from its customers, Tata Advanced Materials (TAML) was faced with the challenge of reducing design cycle time and cutting manufacturing costs while delivering the best quality in the most efficient way possible. Given this challenge, the company prioritized speeding up the manufacturing process and optimizing the consumption of their specialized materials. But with their wide variety of clients creating designs in a variety of CAD programs, it was also critical to have a system that could work with different imported formats. In choosing a technology partner, TAML insisted on having access to the latest, most reliable and proven technology backed by active research, long-term return on investment, and prompt customer service.

Industrias Haber’s, a leading Mexican manufacturer of suits and uniforms, faced the challenge of managing the production of 130,000 garments per month efficiently. The company needed to reduce its time to market and keep its offerings cost-competitive without sacrificing quality. With increasing competition and the need to deliver orders on shorter turnaround times, Haber’s was under pressure to make its operations more cost-efficient while maintaining high standards of fit and quality.

In the aviation equipment industry, ensuring the highest quality standards is paramount for safety. However, timely delivery is also crucial to meet customer assembly and release deadlines. Corse composites aéronautiques (CCA) faces the challenge of balancing ultimate quality with speedy production. Additionally, controlling costs is a significant issue due to the high expense of composite materials. Prototypes need to be accurate on the first attempt, and nesting and cutting processes must be efficient. Proper post-cut marking for perfect traceability is also essential.

Façonnable was exploring ways to check and track major events in the product lifecycle to enhance collection development. Structuring information presented to supply partners and allowing information to be easily archived and analyzed to support development and brand evolution were top priorities. Product quality, on-time deliveries, and business growth were key goals when researching ways to control the development process and harmonize communication from design to the final product.

Imperial, an Italian fast-fashion company, faced a significant challenge in reducing their time to market. With a global presence and a need to deliver 35,000 pieces of each style weekly, the company struggled with internal complexity and the need for faster development cycles. The primary challenge was to streamline operations and improve the efficiency of their collection process to stay competitive in the fast-paced fashion industry.

Art Stone designs and manufactures dance attire, which requires handling intricate fabrics and managing a wide range of styles that change frequently. The company needed to achieve fast turnaround times with shorter production runs while remaining cost-effective. Inefficiencies in the cutting process and poor fabric utilization were significant challenges that needed to be addressed.