WebRTC Expert Feature

June 25, 2013

Ensuring Success with Cloud Computing, BYOD, Security


As always, highly successful businesses are differentiated from their competitors by the way they are able to leverage resources to drive maximum efficiency and revenue. The rise of cloud computing, the emergence of the mobile imperative – in particular, the BYOD phenomenon – and upstart communications technologies like WebRTC, are the latest in a long list of evolutionary technologies that allow business to reinvent their operational models to stay ahead of their respective markets.

But, despite the rapid adoption of these new technologies, the simple truth is that the majority of businesses fail to leverage these opportunities fully, often simply due to a lack of education. In fact, even in businesses that have deployed new solutions, technically becoming adopters, real use can remain low due to a lack of proper training. 

I’ve often noted that, as critical management buy-in is to adoption, more critical is buy-in by the front lines, the staff and employees who must not only understand how to use their new tools, but also why they are useful. They need training on proper utilization, as well as an understanding of the benefit to them; if they understand how their new capabilities will make their jobs easier or more productive, they are much more likely to become true adopters.

Jeff Kalwerisky, executive vice president and CISO of CPE Interactive, explained that businesses often fail to achieve maximum return on their investments simply because they do not properly educate their employees or, equally importantly, don’t do it in an effective manner. The key to realizing the benefit of technology is getting users to believe in its benefits.

CPE Interactive’s objective is to help businesses effectively train their IT professionals – specifically IT security and IT audit teams – through well-designed, comprehensive professional training sessions in three capacities: training for large professional organizations, corporate training and education, and sessions for individual users looking to develop their own skills.

The latter is clearly a massive opportunity for CPE Interactive, but it also represents an easy mechanism for businesses to provide a consistent training experience for their entire teams, rather than relying on individuals to seek out education on their own.

“Most businesses are going to train their people; we provide and an easy and cost effective way of doing it,” Kalwerisky noted. “We focus on advanced courses on leading edge technologies, such as cloud, mobility, and IPv6.”

Image via Shutterstock

One of the keys to CPE Interactive’s success is its own use of technology in delivering its education. Specifically, it provides a fully virtual environment tailored to the needs of its clients by using an advanced version of WebEx.

With businesses constantly seeking ways to reduce budgets without sacrificing their business success, the company’s fully interactive video and collaboration experience, independent of geography, allows executives to provide proper training without the significant expense of sending employees to training sites. In addition, programs can be designed to ensure limited disruption of workflows. Rather than spending two or three days at an off-site training, employees can spend three or four hours a day completing the courses, and still have plenty of productive hours left in their work days.

“With our programs, not only can businesses provide effective training without travel, but accomplish it without leaving the office or losing much productive work time,” said Kalwerisky. “It’s a unique concept that nobody else has done.”

Based on the overwhelming majority of cloud vendors I’ve spoken to in the past weeks, it’s clear that while security, for instance, should be a top concern for businesses, it isn’t a problem. Rather, it’s about proper understanding that, implemented correctly, cloud can actually be more secure than traditional on-premises technologies.

CPE Interactive encourages business to see the bigger picture with cloud, security, and other groundbreaking technologies, to ensure they not only maximize their benefits, but don’t get burned by a limited understanding.




Edited by Rich Steeves
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