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3 episodes with devon watson
5 episodes with devon watson
4 episodes with devon watson
The Unconventional Path: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Stories and Ideas With Bela and Mike
In this episode of the podcast, we are joined by repeat guest Devon Watson. Devon was previously featured on episodes 24 and 142. We engage in a three-way conversation with Devon, Mike, and Bela on the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Devon has written several posts about AI and is quite knowledgeable on the subject. We discuss the potential impact of AI and some of the positive aspects it can contribute to society. We also conducted a small experiment using AI, and the response we received was 90% incorrect. You can find more info about Devon Watson here: www.Twitter.com/watsondevon https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/great-divide-how-ai-automation-creating-bifurcated-labor-devon-watson Please give the episode a listen! Our podcast is now also available on YouTube and your favorite podcasting app. Just search for The Unconventional Path. If you know of someone who would be a good guest for the show, let us know and we will try to get them as a guest. We also love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at bela.and.mike@gmail.com - we will answer your questions in a future episode. Thanks for listening, Bela and Mike --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bela-musits/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bela-musits/support
The Unconventional Path: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Stories and Ideas With Bela and Mike
In this episode of the podcast, we are joined by Devon Watson, Devon is the Executive Vice President of Global Banking & Chief Marketing Officer at Diebold-Nixdorf. Within his organization, he is also responsible for business development and acquisitions. The most common exit for entrepreneurs is being acquired or merged with another company. In my conversation with Devon, we discussed, what qualities Diebold-Nixdorf looks for in a potential acquisition, how Diebold-Nixdorf evaluates acquisitions, and why a good strategic fit is critical. You can find more info about Diebold-Nixdorf here: https://www.dieboldnixdorf.com/en-us/about-us/ If you know of someone who would be a good guest for the show, let us know and we will try to get them as a guest. We also love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at bela.and.mike@gmail.com - we will answer your questions in a future episode. Thanks for listening, Bela and Mike --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bela-musits/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bela-musits/support
What are the keys to staying relevant for a long time? How do legacy brands do it? It takes a lot of effort and observation to keep up with the times and Devon Watson's experience in Diebold Nixdorf attests to this. Listen closely as he talks about some of the challenges that come along and the marketing strategies to employ in the aim to transform a brand over time. Connect with Devon Watson | Follow us on LinkedIn
295 new - now 1698 cases, 14 in Nobles, 0 in ICU. Our Green Future 1 with Andrew Langan-Newton (Green) & Devon Watson (Manx Lab) on solar panels, nuclear power, opinion v fact & diabetes. It's Mannin Line with Andy Wint #iom #manninline #manxradio
A look at the way people use social media, whether comments need regulating, and what impact online criticism is having on local politics. Include interviews with an industry experts and those who put themselves in the public firing line. David Christian, Michael Josem, Devon Watson and Laura-Anne Williams feature.
We are joined by the Manx Labour Leader, Joney Faragher along with Devon Watson and Ciara Sowerby. Does the Isle of Man act as a microcosm of capitalism?
The trial of Officer Collins for the death of Devon Watson has begun. But what really happened the night of Devon's death? Meanwhile, Kai and Amar set a plan in motion... Make sure you subscribe, leave a rating, and write a review! Subscribe to our email list at http://whoisjohnmark.com/ Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/whoisjohnmark/ Contact us at cspacemediaofficial@gmail.com
Latest covide update from Chief Minister, David Beard from Manx Fish Producers on 50% reduction of queenie prices, Devon Watson on formation of Working Peoples Party on Island and Jan Wozniak from Freedom Travel on possible air corridor between Island and Majorca
Summary: On this episode of COMMERCE NOW, you will hear from Diebold Nixdorf CMO Devon Watson, who recently was a guest on the Stacking Benjamins podcast. Devon spoke with Joe Saul-Sehy, and was on their Friday FinTech segment, where they discussed the hottest new tech hitting your wallet, and the merchants you'll someday shop with again. Resources: COMMERCE NOW Podcast Diebold Nixdorf Devon Watson Stacking Benjamins Podcast Joe Saul-Sehy Transcription: Speaker 1: 00:15 On this episode of COMMERCE NOW, you will hear from Diebold Nixdorf CMO Devon Watson, who recently was a guest on the Stacking Benjamins podcast. Devon spoke with Joe Saul-Sehy, and was on their Friday FinTech segment. We hope you enjoy this special segment of Commerce Now, as we come together with the Stacking Benjamins podcast. Doug: 00:42 Live, from Joe's mom's basement, it's The Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Hey there Stackers. On our Friday FinTech segment, we'll talk to a guy sitting at the backbone of some of the hottest new tech hitting your wallet, and the merchants you'll someday shop with again from Diebold Nixdorf, It's Devon Watson. And now the guy that can blah, blah, blah, all this away, except now with a mask, it's Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe Saul-Sehy: 01:27 It's amazing. When I was seven, I always wanted to wear a mask and now I get to do it. It only took me a few more years, but sadly we are at that point. Hey everybody. Welcome to another quarantined edition of The Stacking Benjamins Show. I'm Joe Saul-Sehy. Average Joe Money on Twitter. So I'm so happy today that we're going to hello to Devon Watson. How are you, man? Devon Watson: 01:46 Fantastic. Glad to be here. Joe Saul-Sehy: 01:49 I'm so happy you could talk Friday FinTech with us. You guys, I think different than a lot of the FinTech companies, Devon, that we talked to, you guys are a little more in the background. We are more consumer facing where I think you guys, I think of you as more B2B, but you're really right at the intersection of a lot of these solutions that we talk about every week. Tell me about what you guys do so we can kind of bring everybody up to speed. Devon Watson: 02:15 Sure. So you can really think of us as B2B to C. Diebold Nixdorf is a top 10 global financial company. We're in about a hundred countries worldwide, about four and a half billion in revenue. We're really the software, the services and the devices behind many of the, every day banking and shopping channels that people use. So, from the digital experience, you might have banking or shopping on the go to the self checkout that you're using at the grocery store, to the ATM that you're using outside the branch. Even the point of sale device that you interact with at maybe one of your favorite retailers, we provide those solutions. In the branch, in the store or online with your mobile, we're there automating and digitizing the way people bank and shop. Joe Saul-Sehy: 03:07 It's actually funny Devon. I think about you guys the same way that I think about Cisco for the internet, like you're everywhere. We just don't really, you know, as a customer, we don't see you a ton. Every once in a while we'll see the name Diebold but not that often. Devon Watson: 03:20 Yeah, exactly. And you know, if you start looking for it, you'll see it all over the place. When you're not looking forward, it's one of those seamless things that just keeps running and keeps powering the way you bank and shop. Over 2 million ATM and checkout devices globally, if you look hard enough, you'll see us about a third of the time. Joe Saul-Sehy: 03:40 Well, I want to start out with banking. I want to talk about two different things. Let's talk banking first and then let's talk commerce second, but pain points, as you know, better than I do Devon. Every day, you've got bank branches closing down, right? Making it harder for people to do face to face banking, which means that we're relying on devices even more than ATM's. Tell me kind of what you guys are working on there. What are the big pain points you guys are trying to solve for customers now? Devon Watson: 04:07 Sure. So in the banking sector, innovation these days is really about digitizing the user experience. You know, as you rightfully observed, there is a reformatting of the bank branch networks globally. That's a global phenomenon. They're not always just closing, they're reformatting, they're making smaller ones or opening different ones in new locations. And I'd say right-sizing, but you know, more than anything, the bank brands have to compete for consumer's attention. It's a global war for the attention of a consumer, and that applies to every participant in the ecosystem. So for a bank, they've been focused for the last several years on this vision of omni-channel, which for many bank brands meant taking their branch experience, their online experience, their mobile experience, and making those things cohesive. That's been helpful, right? That's I'd say step one of the journey, but when you kind of look at what that did, it made it a better journey for a very small piece of what somebody might be trying to do. So the example I use is, Joe, if you decide that you want to have Joe's Famous Donut Shop, and you can go to your bank to open up a small business loan, the technology trend over the past several years around omni-channel would say, let's make sure that that loan origination process for Joe is pretty seamless, no matter what channel he uses. But that's not enough to really compete for Joe's business, because to Joe, opening up the small business loan is only a small piece of your journey to being a small business owner. You got to figure out where's the best place to put a donut shop? How am I going to run my checkout? What's the merchant acquiring I'm going to do so I can swipe a credit card when somebody comes in and tries to pay with their Amex? Where am I going to get my equipment for the back office? Do I need insurance? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The brands that can help you and can address the larger journey that you actually have, are going to be the ones that win. The vision that we have for our bank clients is to really engage that larger consumer journey, use API ecosystems in order to work with other players, that can bring value to Joe is he's on his small business, opening a process and compete for that. If you look at what's happening in the retail world, that's already playing out. So I'll use the quick example of Amazon. They follow me every single place I go, whether it's at home with an Alexa device in the living room, I got an Echo Dot in my little gym area, I've got their app on my phone. They're absolutely following everything I do so that whatever the need is, they can be there to try to fulfill it. That's what the leading brands are doing, and the banking industry is quickly learning from that and trying to figure out how do we also compete along all those steps of the journey to own that customer relationship. So that's the big idea. Joe Saul-Sehy: 07:21 It's funny you mentioned Alexa because Gertrude, our social media manager had a joke online recently about, she told her husband a joke and she laughed, Alexa, laugh, Google laughed. Like everybody's listening to you. It seems like Devon, there's a fine line between being helpful and feeling a little big brotherish. I bet That's got to be difficult for institutions to navigate those waters. Devon Watson: 07:45 So that's a key backlash. I actually use a tweet, a screen capture of that exact joke in a talk I give to banks. And I think that's something that the bank brands have learned from. There's in all technologies, there's this helpful versus creepy line that you don't want to cross. There's definitely a little bit of a pushback on the retailing side of this. You're starting to see consumers take their privacy more seriously. We have GDPR in Europe, which is, I think the right move for protecting consumer privacy's online. Bank brands are very cautious about how they experiment with whatever the technology might be. Whether it's banking by voice, things like that, not crossing that line. But at the same time, if you don't experiment with these new technologies, whether it's biometrics, whether it's voice banking, et cetera, you're going to be left out. So the trick is to learn from some of those mistakes, to be very, very smart about how you're handling consumer privacy and security, especially, but still innovate. Joe Saul-Sehy: 08:57 It sounds like what you're talking about, Devon, is still much, much, much, much more than having a more robust banking app. You're talking about something many, many degrees larger. Devon Watson: 09:07 Exactly. And you know, this is something that we see as a longterm trend towards this kind of vision of connected commerce. A more robust banking app would be certainly just a small piece of that. The end to end orchestration is how I would think of it, that's really the game changer. Just doing one step along the way really well, isn't going to be enough. And I'll give you another example. You know, right now we have a lot of pretty interesting challenger banks, online, pure plays, kind of reminiscent of what we saw in the early days of the.com boom popping up. Europe in particular has a lot of these. There's this interesting experiment being run on pure play digital. And one of the best examples of that is Ant Financial. Ant Financial, which is associated with the Alibaba Group is as deep pocketed and capable a digital organization as there is on planet earth. A little over 12 months ago, they made a bid to buy Money Gram, which is a international remittance company. On the surface of that, you would say, okay, they're trying to get into the remittance business, that's smart. But if you dig a little bit deeper, I never really thought that was a compelling explanation because from a technology perspective, they can whip up the anti money laundering rule systems and all of that software that they need to conduct a remittance business. What would they have gotten if they actually were successful in acquiring Money Gram? They would have gotten a few hundred thousand over the counter location and a few tens of thousands of kiosk locations around the world. That gives you the biggest physical distribution network for banking services ever seen. Joe Saul-Sehy: 10:54 Game changing. Devon Watson: 10:55 Absolutely. The kind of aha moment that I talked to our clients about what that is, that's a pure play digital and one of the most sophisticated ones in the world, making a very bold move to get into physical distribution. So this intersection of physical and digital channels, and being able to traverse the two and compete very, very effectively in either, I think that's really what the best brands of the future are going to be doing. Joe Saul-Sehy: 11:24 I think that's exciting and fascinating, making digital more human and human, a little, a little more digital. Devon Watson: 11:30 It's a great way to put it. Joe Saul-Sehy: 11:31 Let's go over to the commerce side. I was listening to your podcast Commerce Now, which for people that are geeks in this industry, I think I can highly recommend that. They're short and fun and kind of a view of the future. But the people on the show, were talking about your shopping cart, and how physically going down the aisle at whether its a grocery store, convenience store, wherever, that the shopping cart is, is changing. Tell me about that because I found this technology really fascinating Devon. Devon Watson: 12:02 So when you're thinking about retail, and it doesn't matter if it's grocery, whether it's fashion, whether it's fuel and convenience stores, all of these retail formats are in a race to digitize their physical shopping experience. Just like we were talking about before in the banking world, this intersection of physical and digital, super, super important. What's the one advantage that an online retailer has over a physical retailer? It's data. As soon as you go onto a online web front, to go shopping, I know everything you're doing Joe, right? If you go onto my website, I can see that Joe went to this page, then this page, then this page, and then he put this in the cart and then he took it out and he put this other thing in instead. And then he backed up and then he actually got three quarters of the way through the purchase decision, and then he added this other thing. As I see that data stream, that payload of information if you will, gives me the chance to influence it. So I can suggest extra things, I can put smart advertisements around your shopping experience on my website, and some of the greatest minds of the last generation have fundamentally been spent, trying to figure out how to get us to buy an extra pair of socks online. I say that somewhat jokingly, but quite seriously. The Manhattan Project of my generation since college has been driving digital shopping. Now with that advantage of the online folks, what is it that a physical retailers want to do? They want to be able to have that data payload. And if you just wait until the person shows up at your checkout lane, it's too late. So as one of our very smart industry pundits, Richard Crone says, check in is the new checkout. Starting that shopping data payload early is something you can do through technology. That can be done with some of the innovations in shopping carts. That can be done with some of the innovations in self scanning. Many grocery stores you're going to start to see, if you haven't already, when you walk in, there'll be this rack of self scanners, and you pick one up off the rack. You associate it to your payment card and account, you wander around the grocery store scanning things, as you go on your merry way, you drop them in the cart. And instead of having to go through the checkout lane, take everything out of your cart, put everything back into your cart, you just walk out of the store. It's great. And what that does, besides the fact that made the queue shorter for you, made things easier for the retailer, now they actually have in technology terms, a user session for the whole time you're in the store. They can recommend things that can influence what you're buying. It's a real game changer. Joe Saul-Sehy: 15:05 Everybody wins their Devon. I mean, on my end, I get rid of the pain point of having to stand there in line to buy the stuff that I've already decided 20 minutes ago, maybe half an hour ago that I wanted to buy. And on your end, you're getting data on me. I don't really want to be followed, but I also don't want to stand in line. So I'm willing to make that trade. Devon Watson: 15:24 Absolutely. It really is a win, win. I think at least for me, as a shopper myself, I think the innovations in in store shopping that's digitally enabled just makes life easier. Right? Joe Saul-Sehy: 15:36 Yeah.I also think though, as a consumer, the store of the future, I got to be even more mindful of my pocket book, and maybe use those online tools better because it's going to be awful easy Devon, for you to put stuff in my cart and walk away with that purchase that I might not have, before that technology hits. Devon Watson: 15:57 At the same time, if you're Christmas shopping, hopefully you won't give the kids a toy that you don't have the batteries for. So there's an upside as well. Joe Saul-Sehy: 16:09 That is very true. You're going to have a much better holiday season because he got all the accessories. Devon, how can people reach you guys if they've got more questions for you? Devon Watson: 16:19 Sure. So www dot Diebold Nixdorf.com. That's the webpage. You can also search for us. Our podcast is COMMERCE NOW, or look us up on YouTube Diebold Nixdorf. We got a lot of content, podcasts, videos up there, great way to follow us. Or at Diebold Nixdorf on Twitter. Joe Saul-Sehy: 16:38 Well, thanks for hanging out and talking about the future of banking and commerce with me. I really appreciate it. Devon Watson: 16:43 You betcha. Thanks for having me, Joe.
Being able to stack Benjamins has as much to do with stacking less stuff as it does with accumulating more money. It takes far less money to reach your goals if you're mindful of your spending. However, there are other advantages. Today we'll focus on the intersection of minimalism, frugality, and environmentalism, as we discuss with our roundtable team of contributors a fantastic piece from the Frugalwoods blog on the topic. Joining us today we welcome the host of the Marriage, Kids and Money podcast, Andy Hill. He'll join Paula Pant from Afford Anything and Len Penzo from Len Penzo dot com on today's show! Plus, halfway through the show, we'll talk about a company working all over the FinTech front. Diebold Nixdorf is a company you may not have heard of, but on many fronts, they're the firm that helps the apps you live and the companies you use to show with, actually work. We'll talk about innovation in shopping, commerce, and banking with Devon Watson during our Friday FinTech segment. Of course, we'll still feature a MagnifyMoney question from one of our Stacker friends AND debate some Ford Mustang pricing trivia....all just another day on Stacking Benjamins!
Following Tuesday's budget, Dollin speaks to Treasury Minister Alf Cannan MHK, Debbie Halsall of Unite the Union and Devon Watson of the Fare Free Campaign and Climate Change Coalition to reflect on the 2020 Pink Book.
Summary: Devon Watson, Chief Marketing Officer for Diebold Nixdorf recently traveled to Dubai UAE and sat down with the Dubai Future Foundation - a government initiative driving accelerator programs - as well as a special block chain consultant, to discuss how the region is approaching growth and innovation. Resources: Dubai Future Foundation Website Dubai Future Foundation LI page Mark Balovnev, LI Profile Educhain Website Accelliance Website Diebold Nixdorf Website Transcription: Devon Watson: 00:14 Hello again and welcome to this week's episode of COMMERCE NOW my name is Devon Watson, Chief Marketing Officer for Diebold Nixdorf. Today I find myself in Dubai, UAE. We're at the Dubai Future Foundation, a government initiative driving accelerator programs in the region. I'm joined today with Ghaith Abdulrahman and Karin Gabriel, both of whom are project leads at the Dubai Future Foundation and a special guest Mark Balovnev. He's the founder of Educhain and a partner at Accelliance, a blockchain consultancy based here in Dubai. So maybe to start off, Ghaith, if you could tell us a bit about Dubai Future Foundation and some of the programs you guys are running here. Ghaith Abdulrahman: 00:54 Sure, absolutely. Dubai Future Foundation was born out of the belief in the need to drive future in Dubai. As you know, Dubai is one of the global cities and a major, major regional player and it's been doing really well in a lot of sectors, primarily specific sectors that drove it out of turbulent times in the past and it created a successful business community and society. We've had brands come here and stay and we've had homegrown brands that have gone global. So the need to start planning for the future comes out of the belief that we need to continuously be number one, and it started in the World Governance Summit where we had an exhibition around the Museum of The Future, where we wanted to demonstrate what the future could look like. And instead of demonstrating relics of the past, it was more about what could future sectors look like, what could human interaction technology look like and how could society look like in the future? Everything from government to private sector and the society itself. From that very, very humble beginning. The foundation has over 200 employees, a vast portfolio of projects that range from everything from building capacity for society, government and multinationals around explaining what the future could look like when when emerging technology comes into their sectors to building disruptive programs around with multinationals government about how could we lead on certain sectors? How can we transform government from a nascent and inactive player to a proactive player? Which has been the case for Dubai government for a long time, where they've been pushing and driving the innovation in any economy or any sectors or in the economy, since their inception, and the private sector has been kind of following rather than leading. So that's really to build and capitalize on that effort quite a lot. Some of the programs that we host range from connecting government to very bright startups to entrepreneurs to building capacity on a leadership level to help them understand how is technology changing their sector? How it could change your organizations to working with private sector as well around a similar scope to building capacity with university students and high school students around breaking down myths, breaking down misconceptions around things like AI, blockchain, other parts of technology and how could they be part of that new wave of entrepreneurship, but also how can they use that technology moving forward. So the scope's quite vast. We get into a lot of programs, what we primarily focus on building programs that link regulators or government with a private sector and startups and how do we build the value chain around these three. Devon Watson: 03:38 Got it. And one of the things that you mentioned that I thought was pretty interesting, so as I look around Dubai, the desire to be number one is pretty obvious, the world's tallest buildings and very impressive engineering feats. But there's also this kind of clear trend towards the societal aspect, the satisfaction or happiness. I've noticed that those measurements are kind of stitched in every place I go in the user experience. Can you talk a little bit about how the user experience, as it pertains to really a societal benefit here right, the government is what's actually driving this and how does that marry up to this desire to be number one because many other governments or institutions would view it as one or the other? Ghaith Abdulrahman: 04:23 Absolutely. You're spot on. I mean the general vision is to be number one and that, to different stakeholders and government, that could mean different things, right? From a government centric perspective, one of the things that means is that, beyond creating government entities that are stellar, that are continuously innovating and taking the lead in their sector, there's a huge services mandate towards the people, towards a society that needs to be fulfilled. And that's been a primary concern and primary focus of the government entities here. How can we provide world-class services to the citizens, to the users, whether they're commercial, residential, and everybody who even passes by or transits Dubai, right? How can we give them an experience around service that's not comparable, right? And there's been a lot of focus. Everything from gearing the Government entities internally, whether they're from an organizational perspective or from a services perspective, operational perspective, but also how can we team them up with the best technology that can facilitate providing the best services. So that's been really the focus. And ultimately the common denominator across all that is that we want everybody who hand or deals with Dubai government to be happy with the outcome and the transaction and the experience. Devon Watson: 05:36 Got it. And one of the things that I've always thought a lot about when I go to a different city and I see how they're trying to stimulate innovation is, how you bring the right mix of participants together, right? And you need students, right, that are graduating and becoming risk-takers and new ventures. You need often some sort of government support. You need large corporations that can be acquisition vehicles for these different startups and things like that. And you need capital, right? And one of the things that I noticed that I thought was really interesting is that you've brought a Techstars program here, so maybe you could tell us a little bit about that. Ghaith Abdulrahman: 06:12 Sure. So Techstars program was launched the beginning of last year and it was the first accelerator program we hosted in our flagship project Area 2071. So Area 2071 is an experimentation space between government multinationals and startups focused on identifying a disruptive business models and technology. And out of that we hosted a Techstars for the first time in the region. It was the first endeavor in the region there were sponsored by one of the big family businesses in in the UAE. And we really liked the outcome of the program because the way it was organized and the way that it was structured was in a way that ensured that the companies would not just succeed, but find a home in Dubai. So we found that quite attractive to our mandate and our positioning. So we hosted them for two cohorts over two years. And a lot of these companies are going to get special visas around that enables them to stay for a long period of time, sponsor their teams, and sponsor their families to be based here out of Dubai. So that's the support that we've usually provides any accelerator program or any startup. But that Techstars experience has been quite stellar because it also pushed us to launch a project recently, it was one of the reasons that focuses around how can we incubate ideas on a university level where it's safe to fail, it's safe to experiment with new ideas for businesses and how can we play a role along with the private sector and the government funds around seeding these ventures and graduating a lot more of these ideas. And that's the problem that you find in the Middle East in general, is that there's a lot of talent, there's a lot of bright ideas, but there's very few mechanisms that enable it to go from idea stage to execution stage or a POC stage. And that's kind of where this project, which is called Genie Zones or Alchemy Project has come out from. Devon Watson: 08:01 The way I often phrase that problem when I'm thinking about it. It's something that recurs in different regions as well as solving the get to market problems, not the go to market problem, right? And it's a different mindset, right. And you need, in particular, permission to fail, right? And that's not always culturally viewed as an okay thing. Ghaith Abdulrahman: 08:21 And that's why universities are the best place to do it, especially when you embed that program within the credit system that the university student goes through. It becomes more of an incentive and it puts the parents at ease as well because they say what, he or she are focusing on the degree and at the same time that this program that they're doing is contributing towards that degree. So that program really fits in quite well with everybody's needs Devon Watson: 08:45 And then that changes the perception, right. And opportunity to learn rather than a blatant risk, right? Ghaith Abdulrahman: 08:52 Absolutely. Devon Watson: 08:52 That's excellent. So thank you Ghaith. That was super helpful. I really liked the kind of the mission around what you guys are trying to create here with the ecosystem. So Karin, maybe we could move over to you and tell us a little bit about, as this ecosystem is coming together, you're trying some new things, what are the technologies, what startups maybe are starting to capture your attention that you're bullish for that will have a great future. Karin Gabriel: 09:18 Absolutely. And I think, I just want to start off giving a bit of context of the kind of programs we run here. So my colleague mentioned earlier Techstars, which is one of the programs that are invited to set up an Area 2071. And Area 2071, as mentioned earlier, is an ecosystem that comprises of three main stakeholders, private sector organizations, government organizations and talent in the form of startups primarily. And they're all situated here in Area 2071 in Emirates Towers. And our goal is to make sure that we harnessed experience and expertise of our members in this ecosystem. And we work on specific programs that are all driven by a specific challenge. So challenge is a need, a problem statement that we identify together with our partners. Then our goal is to find the right stakeholders, bring them on one table, and then we create a program that allows the different stakeholders to work together and co-create a solution for the challenge statement. And these challenge statements usually revolved around technologies and we have seen all kinds of technologies from AI to a block chain artificial intelligence. Sorry, let me move [inaudible 00:10:29]. Yeah. So we have seen all kinds of technologies being represented in our programs from artificial intelligence to blockchain, virtual and augmented reality and so on. And I think what's interesting about our programs is that they are driven by a specific need. So in Dubai future accelerator, if we work with their road and transport authority that looks into autonomous driving, for example. The electricity and water authority looks into new forms on energy savement, energy generation, but it was a water generation. The knowledge authority of course really wants to revolutionize the education system to make sure that it's ready and prepared for the 21st century. I think what we have seen interestingly is, in the beginning a bit of question on the government side on why should we work with startups? Because for them this was a new field. As you can imagine, even for us in Dubai Future Foundation, we are very young organization. We are less than six years old. But if you want to buy let's say new furniture and new equipment, we have to go through an RFP process which is very strict, which doesn't allow us to work with startups, which means all of the solutions that startups provide around innovation. I think that we can access on a legal basis. That's why Dubai future accelerators was set up as a test bed to allow startups to work with government entities and explore during the nine weeks program how they can collaborate. And we have really seen a shift in the mindset of the government from being in the beginning very careful when it comes to working with startups. They wanted to know which were the partners that the startups have worked with before and they wanted to do have references. To really switch integrate, you have never tested it before. I want to be the first one you test it with. I want you and us to sit down and further develop your technology. Now I can give you an example here, we had a company from the UK called Desolenator and they brought to Dubai a solar powered water desolination technology sit in MVP stage. They signed an agreement with the electricity and water authority from Dubai and over course of one and a half years, defer to develop the technology and have now building a community size plant in Dubai using this technology. Devon Watson: 12:46 It's a great success story. Karin Gabriel: 12:48 Absolutely. It's brilliant and I think it shows the risk appetite the government has and the confidence in the startups and really understanding that emerging technologies can help them offer better services to their customers. Devon Watson: 13:02 So the self-awareness and government's part to understand that there probably was a lot of red tape and things like that. I did a similar interview with another accelerator in a different part of the world and they were telling me that at first when they got started, they were bringing these brand new startups in and the government form had to make the startup list of the number of fire extinguishers they had. No startup has any clue why you would even, right? They don't even think that way. Right? So it's interesting that the government here was kind of self aware that there was impediments and red table, whatever you might want to call it, to that progress and then and then fixed it. What was that conversation like through the education process though? Was there an aha moment or was it just kind of a continual collaboration to help refine how the government looks at it? Karin Gabriel: 13:52 Yeah, that's a good question. And I think it's an ongoing process. So they have been a lot of aha moments and I'm pretty sure they will be a lot of aha moments moving forward. So for example, one of our partners really looked into changing or adapting their procurement system, right? Because our procurement based system sometimes takes months. And months are not an issue for large corporations, but months are an issue for a startup because they have limited resources. And I really think it's by having the government partners and private sector organizations as well, work with the startups over a period of nine weeks, every single day side by side to really see the potential that they have in transforming the services or the way we offer the services to our customers. And not only our customers, but we had one example where a smart Dubai office who is kind of like the tech department of the Dubai government so to say, and they are also in charge of the software used in their houses, the inventory, management and planning system, which until recently was very much focused on paper and it was very manual. It was sometimes very frustrating for the employees, right? Because you know you have to print a lot of items. There's just a lot of time that is gets wasted from employees time on this admin tasks. They teamed up with a company from the US called Ensosoft. Now they changed the name to Nybl. And over the period of nine weeks they went to one of the warehouses. They looked at the processes and they recommend to the director training of smart Dubai office and how they can change it and they agreed. Then they signed a contract and they're now using IOT and AI to digitize the system, which means the employees have now more time because they can focus really on the important tasks. So again, looking into happiness. Devon Watson: 15:40 Excellent, interesting. In all of these different entities that you're working with. Can you give us a couple of examples of other interesting technologies that you know you guys are maybe doubling down on or really focused on? Karin Gabriel: 15:52 Yeah, I mean, one very interesting one is around virtual reality for example, and augmented reality. This year we run a very interesting competition with Burj Khalifa and HTC. And Burj Khalifa was looking into providing a new touristic experience at the top of Burj Khalifa. They already have one, but they wanted to edit a new one. And instead of just creating it internally, they wanted to harness the creativity of the VR ecosystem globally. We ran a competition, 115 companies applied. The top six came to Dubai. They presented the demo and then we had two winners and they walked away with... the winner walked away for prize money and the second run app their experience will now be placed in the Dubai mall, which is attached to Burj Khalifa and the winners on top as well as the global port of HTC. What do you have seen as well with Emirates for example, they focused in our core this year on transit pass passengers. There are a lot of passengers we have coming to the Dubai airport, it's the busiest airport in the world, so we are very lucky. A lot of transit passengers, a lot of flights that are being missed or people don't find their gates. So they developed a very interesting solution and the country [inaudible 00:17:03] too much. How they can really personalize the support, the customer service support, after transit passengers and they worked with a startup during this program. Devon Watson: 17:15 So virtual and augmented reality is something that I think the banking sector has taken interest in a few times. Nobody's really figured out quite how to use it. And so there's some things with the signage that helps direct traffic flows and stuff like that. And it's an augmented reality if you will. But it's very interesting to think of the different use cases you could have at the top of Burj Khalifa. And I can't imagine trying to catch Pokemon, running around on the top floor. That would be a dizzying experience. Karin Gabriel: 17:44 Yeah. But I mean it's interesting because we talked about banks and of course, I mean as mentioned earlier, blockchain is massive, right? And the hype around blockchain has slowed down a bit now. We really talk about proper applications in blockchain. But there's still a bit of a question mark around that. And in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we hosted a blockchain governance accelerator. So again, we brought together private sector organization, public and startups who have either looked into implementing doctrinaire already done. So at a certain extent and using the World Economic Forums toolkit. So it's a guide book that they have created. We analyze the Skybook through case studies and the outcomes were fed back to the toolkit to now be presented next year to World Economic Forum. But this really goes back to our goal. We believe that innovation is driven through collaboration. I think that's the way forward and Dubai is doing its best to position itself as the global test but for emerging technologies. Devon Watson: 18:50 Fantastic. Great, thank you. Mark, I'd like to switch over to you and you've been the founder of a company called Educhain. You're a partner at Accelliance, which is a blockchain consultancy. Maybe just to get your macro perspective on blockchain first, how do you see things as they've evolved over the past couple of years, right? From the hype cycle and what do you see moving forward as we kind of get to the industrial phase with blockchain? Mark Balovnev: 19:19 Yeah, sure. So I am a bit of a unique experience and I guess I came in as a hobbyist. So before they were cryptocurrencies, they were virtual currencies. And back in 2009 2000 time we were trading those currencies and we were the market makers for various types of virtual currencies. And of course when Bitcoin came around we were one of the first to adopt it and start trading. And so before there were really big exchanges, I hear about these days where you can go and buy and sell different types of cryptocurrencies. We were actually doing that manually with a team of agents across several countries connecting different markets from China to the US and beyond. So we've seen everything in the space from the emergence of big point as a new way to facilitate payments all the way to blockchain in 2015 and early 2016 when financial institutions started taking notice. So we've seen a dramatic shift in the way that blockchain has been approached from the early days when there was a lot of hype and a lot of over promising and under delivering to a new sort of environment where people have gone and they've invested a lot of money, they've seen what works and what doesn't. And they started the drill down on the fundamentals. So there was a time in 2017 2018 where people thought blockchain could be applied to everything. And of course there was that corresponding investment and time. And we've definitely seen that die down a bit. But what that means is that now that the people who are in the space, they understand what to do and what not to do, and they've really to focus on the applications and technologies that work. And so for me personally, it's a time of great excitement and rates anticipation because this is really where the production applications are coming out and the technology is really started to impact the end users. Devon Watson: 21:04 Got it. And I think you're exactly right. And in 2018 I was personally convinced that if my coffee wasn't enabled by blockchain, I wasn't cool. I would those 100% convinced to that. But now as the tech is industrializing, there are more developers trained up. Right. Because that's been something that's kind of starved that ecosystem is that, you know, if you don't have a really good grasp of not just comp side but mathematics, it's very hard to get into the core development of it. That shortage is slightly alleviated. What are the areas where you're seeing kind of the most promising traction? Mark Balovnev: 21:42 Well, I would even add to that in the sense that people and the governments and banks and others didn't know how to work with the technology. So not only were they missing those technical capabilities, but they didn't know how to structure governance. They didn't know how to work with their competitors. They didn't know how to collaborate with startups and emerging technology. So that was one of the things that we as well saw a lot of development and a lot of maturity. And so with that said, I think there's this moment where we saw blockchain being applied to everything. Everyone was talking about blockchain for every single industry. But these days it's really come back to the fundamentals, which is the same industries that they emerged from financial industry. So financial services clearing and settlement, supply chain, trade finance, a lot of international use cases around financial services and the financial industry at large. So that's definitely one of the biggest ones as well as things like records and data notarization. So blockchain is a very good at a few things. It does some very well, but when you tried to make it do everything, it breaks down, right? So one of the things that we see a lot of traction in is digitizing processes, digitizing documents, and using blockchain as a way to find out where things are coming from, who's issued them or who's shared them and if they're legitimate or not. And that can be applied across a variety of industries from education to supply chain and beyond. Devon Watson: 23:01 Got it. Final provocative question. Is Bitcoin a currency or an asset? Mark Balovnev: 23:07 Well that that is a tough question and I'd love to prefix this by saying that I'm not a financial advisor and this is not the official position of any of the companies organizations that I represent, but I think that it is a payment token or something like this. We've seen a definitive sorting of these types of tokens. For example, Finma Switzerland looks at utility payments and securities and I think securities represents a non-tokens of shares and companies, shares and debt shares and other assets are the real asset back tokens. Whereas, so you have to open some utility that provide access to a certain right or certain products in payment tokens. So we like to categorize on and look at them from that perspective. Devon Watson: 23:56 Fantastic answer. Thank you, Mark. That was excellent. Well, thank you all for joining us on this episode of COMMERCE NOW, if you enjoyed listening to this, please follow us or subscribe to Commerce Now on iTunes or your favorite podcasting app. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn at Diebold Nixdorf.
Manx Radio's weekly programme looking at Manx life from a different angle, exploring the historical, social, linguistic and academic issues. This week we join the annual ceremony in memory of Illiam Dhone, William Christian, who was shot to death on Hango Hill near Castletown on 2nd January 1663. We hear Mark Kermode of Mec Vannin and the Manx Branch of the Celtic League, Devon Watson of the Climate Change Coalition and former teacher and now a promoter of information about climate change, Paul Craine, and also briefly from Maxine Cannan, who laid a wreathe on behalf of the Isle of Man Post Office.
Talking to the BBC at the annual Illiam Dhone commemoration ceremony at Hango Hill on Thursday, 2 January 2020, Ralph Peake MHK said Tynwald had the opportunity to "show some real leadership" in tackling climate change. The topic dominated this year's event, with speeches in English from Devon Watson of the Climate Change Coalition and Fare Free Campaign, followed by the author of the Isle of Man Population Atlas, Paul Craine, who is also the Isle of Man leader of the Climate Reality Project. Mr Peake attended the event, having been one of the members of a Climate Emergency Consultative Transformation Team, appointed by the Manx Government in July. That team was made up of representatives from government departments, climate change specialists, as well as two politicians - Mr Peake, and Jane Poole-Wilson MLC. It was chaired by a so-called independent expert, Professor James Curran, who was given six months to report back with an action plan for how the Island can play its part in mitigating the effects of global overheating. Those six months are now up - and the findings of that team, presented as a report, are expected to be laid before Tynwald at this month's sitting, which will take place on Tuesday 21st. On this week's episode of Perspective, we hear how that team was appointed in the first place, we listen back to what Professor Curran had to say about his project in October, and we listen to the speeches from the Illiam Dhone ceremony - all looking ahead to the release of the report this month. Ralph Peake says the subsequent examination of the document in Tynwald will prove "probably the most important debate we've had for decades."
Your company has just acquired or merged with another, and now it’s time to rebrand. How do you ensure buy-in from the C-suite to the mailroom? Devon Watson, Chief Marketing Officer for global fintech hardware and software provider Diebold Nixdorf takes us through the dos and don’ts of rebranding after a merger. Diebold Nixdorf: https://www.dieboldnixdorf.com/en-us DN on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/diebold/ DN on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DieboldNixdorf Commerce Now podcast: http://commercenow.libsyn.com/ Find More Episodes: https://www.interactohio.com/podcast.html Discover the Interact Conference: https://www.interactohio.com/#sec-id-2 Grab Interact Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/interact20-digital-marketing-conference-tickets-65693911257?_eboga=1815010325.1570201507 Elevate Your Brand: https://www.goupward.com/
Describing itself as “an environmental initiative that would improve the lives of working and middle class families on the Isle of Man,” we hear all about the ‘Fare Free Campaign’ on this week's episode of Perspective, which is calling for public transport on the Island to be made free for all. Devon Watson, the spokesperson for the campaign, joins Dollin Mercer in the studio. But first, we remind ourselves of previous discussions about this issue. Back in May, Daphne Caine MHK asked the infrastructure minister a question in Tynwald about the impact of free bus travel on the Island's environment. The idea of free public transport has cropped up on Perspective before, too - Mr Watson argued in favour of the idea on a previous episode, alongside Manx Utilities chairman Dr Alex Allinson, who dismissed it.
Environment Minister Geoffrey Boot, Manx Utilities Chairman Alex Allinson and Joney Faragher & Andrew Netwon of the Climate Change Coalition talk climate change policy and solutions. In the second half of the program, we're joined by Devon Watson also of the CCC and representatives of the Isle of Man Student Climate Network, Ciara, Emily and Archie.
Summary: Devon Watson and Thomas Karakalos discuss emerging trends in retail and banking services. Resources: Blog: Services for a Connected World Diebold Nixdorf AllConnectSM Services Transforms Bankdata IT Strategy Diebold Nixdorf Website: www.dieboldnixdorf.com Podcast site: www.commercenowpodcast.com Transcription: Amy Lombardo: 00:00 This is Commerce Now. Devon Watson: 00:14 My name's Devon Watson, chief marketing officer at Diebold Nixdorf. I'm joined this week by Thomas Karakalos, who's our head of the services business in Asia Pacific. So Thomas, why don't you give us a quick background. Who you are, what you do out here. Fantastic to have you on the show. Tom Karakalos: 00:30 Thank you, good to be here. So I've been with Diebold Nixdorf for the last three years. So prior to the integration with Diebold, heading the managed services business for Asia Pacific. Devon Watson: 00:39 Okay. Tom Karakalos: 00:39 My history, my background is deep in the systems integration room. So, heavy in tier one, systems integrators ... did a decade there, then moved into more niche kind of data storage security. Devon Watson: 00:50 Okay. Tom Karakalos: 00:51 Working in a global role, driving engagement, driving sales, driving project management. From there, a little entrepreneurial blood in the system. Devon Watson: 00:58 Fantastic. Tom Karakalos: 00:59 So then moved out, did my own thing. Still having in the background, but then it got to the point where I said, "Okay, next challenge." The next challenge was, Diebold was transitioning at the right time. Jump in really help move this ship towards services. Devon Watson: 01:11 Fantastic, fantastic. Tom Karakalos: 01:12 Yeah. So the focus is all about managed services, yeah. Devon Watson: 01:14 Great and that's a perfect segway. And I love the fact that you have an entrepreneurial background because, as I look at how banks and retailers are going to have to navigate all this change that's happening around them, you need some entrepreneurial blood there. Because we're solving new problems, we don't even know sometimes what the next problem's going to be and how to kind of navigate all these forces. Devon Watson: 01:32 So talk to us a little about what you're seeing is kind of the emerging trends in the services business in managed services and how our customers, in Asia Pacific in particular, are kind of looking at the partners, like us, that they have to help drive their business. Devon Watson: 01:48 What is it they're trying to get out of this general shift towards services? Tom Karakalos: 01:51 Well, as we know the whole industry is transitioning. It's transforming at the moment. So an organization, be it either in the financial industry or a retailer, is really thinking about, "What is core to my business?" There are so many moving parts, there are so many technologies and input points that they're interacting with their consumers, that they really have to take a seat of, "Okay, I cannot do everything, I cannot be everything to all men. I need to really focus on what is my core business and I need to trust partners that can come in and support." Tom Karakalos: 02:16 So, there is a tendency and an increased tendency towards outsourcing, that's something that we're seeing heavily in the region. We're seeing it on two sides, we're seeing organizations that have never ever outsourced anything that are actually saying, "You know what, I've finally realized, take the whole thing because it really isn't part of my core business." And we're also seeing a lot of organizations come together as consortiums and think, "How can we drive the investment that we've already put into either solution or product or technology," to bring high utilization, a better card holder experience for their people. Tom Karakalos: 02:46 So that situation is opening a lot of conversations with us because, from a managed services perspective, when we come in and give them a business outcome, that's exactly what they're looking for. So, they're great conversations what we're having. Devon Watson: 02:57 Absolutely, absolutely. Obviously, that storyline around focusing on your core competency and then taking the things that are ancillary to that and pushing them over into the partnership landscape, right to those subject matter experts, like ourselves, that can take that on. It brings a lot of operational efficiency of course, but one of the things that I think is particularly interesting, and I'd like to have you add some color to this, is the agility that that brings, right? So in particular, one of the things that I know we're working with customers around the world on, is things like branch and store lifecycle management, total implementation services, things like that. And to me that's also the cost story and it's a lot more of an agility story. So, maybe shed some color on that. Tom Karakalos: 03:38 Absolutely. Well, I'll hit the retail one to begin with because that's more predominant. So if you think about store lifecycle management and our offering, which is new store opening, this is something that is accelerating our customers' ability to go out there and actually dominate and participate in new markets. Tom Karakalos: 03:54 So, even here in Asia Pacific, we've got customers, be it H&M, be it Decathlon, be it whoever it is, where, the fact that we're in there with a cookie cutter way of basically getting them from an initial thought on, "I'd like my retail store to be there," to an up and running VIP night, is painless. It's cookie cutter, it's risk free, and we can do the whole thing while they're concentrating on, "Where do I put my products? And which VIPs do I organize for that event?" Tom Karakalos: 04:19 So, it is very much a risk component that they're able to shift across to a company like us that has done it time and time again, where we don't have those issues whatsoever. Devon Watson: 04:29 Got it. I love that storyline because, to me, that's really taking your physical infrastructure, those branches and stores, and almost turning it into an as-a-service model in some ways, and ... If I think about how our customers are going to compete with online incumbents, right? Being able to take that physical distribution, that physical infrastructure, make it more agile, make it more responsive, change adaptation to the market demand, we can help them do that. That seems incredibly powerful. Devon Watson: 05:00 So, we talked a little about the efficiency side, we talked about the agility that we're bringing to our customers ... Maybe give our listeners a just little flavor of what's new, what's top of mind. You know, what are you really gunning for? Tom Karakalos: 05:13 Well, one of the big ones that we're really trying to head out there, in terms of being a forefront of power in the industry, is to give a complete end-to-end integrated solution to our customers. So, ATM as a Service, or Store as a Service is something that we're heavily pushing. We've spent a lot of time investing in building this offering in a way that is extremely robust, that gives you the flexibility that you need to deal with the nuances of each retailer and financial organization. Tom Karakalos: 05:36 So, an end-to-end solution where they don't have to think about the asset, they don't have to think about the technology, they can disconnect themselves from some of those IT, technical decisions, and they can basically take the position of, "The business outcome we want is x." Tom Karakalos: 05:50 We can assure everything, so we can give them the business outcome they need, but we can manage behind the scenes. Everything, in terms of how the technology comes together, how the software layer integrates with the hardware layer and all that kind of stuff, without them having focus on it. Tom Karakalos: 06:01 I think that's something that's going to radicalize and really change the way that they go to market. Devon Watson: 06:05 Got it. And, if I'm a customer hearing about this for the first time, it's a pretty new approach, right? They probably haven't heard a lot of other partners out in the market place talking about this kind of soup to nuts as a service model. Devon Watson: 06:19 So, if I'm a potential customer thinking about that, who are the right people within my organization to bring to the table to explore that with us? Because it's a different way of thinking about an end-to-end problem and an end-to-end customer journey, and that's something that we've talked to the customers a lot about, is thinking about, "What is it you're trying to enable across the spectrum, for the consumer." Devon Watson: 06:40 So, what's the right time to engage with us? Tom Karakalos: 06:42 So, I think there are a number of people in both banking and retail, where, from a banking perspective, you really need your CTO, your CIO, a lot of that C-level. I mean, these are senior-level conversations that you need to have, right? Because it means that the company has to ... to make a decision as to how much it wants to hold parts of the pie that it will hand across to you. Tom Karakalos: 07:02 So, having the technology part of the business, the business itself and having the innovation and information part of the business coming together ... They're the ones that we need to have that effective conversation. Tom Karakalos: 07:15 From the retail side, it's really looking at ... the people that are involved in driving the expansion of that business out, and looking at, both the profitability of the stores but also the site location, the placement and the markets that they want to enter into. They're the ones that we want to be speaking to. Tom Karakalos: 07:29 If you look at the spectrum of solution that we're providing, it is something that is soup to nuts. It's everything, right? So, a lot of times what happens is, you commence the conversation at a senior level, so that, from a vision perspective, you're seeing eye to eye. And then you see very quickly it trickles down. So it really means that we partner at every level of the organization, be it at a direct, technology level, at an infrastructure level, at a solution level. Even at a business vision level. Devon Watson: 07:53 To me that's such a great way of going to market and engaging because, really, it's their team powered by ours, right? And that's just a great storyline. Tom Karakalos: 08:02 Powered by Diebold Nixdorf, absolutely. Devon Watson: 08:04 Fantastic. Well Thomas, thank you very much. This is a great conversation. Really appreciate the time. I hope our listeners are learning from these and look forward to seeing you again somewhere else around the world.
The Unconventional Path: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Stories and Ideas With Bela and Mike
Devon Watson spent summers as a professional wakeboarder. Enjoying the sun and jumping wakes while getting a great tan. After Devon graduated from Clarkson University, he joined forces with his brother, and they started a business. He then got the "bug" to join the venture capital industry. His story on how he approached getting the attention of VC firms is a great lesson in getting yourself in the door. Now as Chief Marketing Officer of Diebold Nixdorf, a $4.5 Billion global financial technology business. This podcast is produced by Bizi Media, they can be found at www.bizimedia.co We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at bela.and.mike@gmail.com We will answer your questions in a future episode. Thanks for listening, Bela and Mike --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bela-musits/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bela-musits/support
Summary: Devon Watson and Michael Engel discuss all things Connected Commerce. In this episode, both touch on the unparalleled services and technology that are essential to evolve in an 'always on' and changing consumer landscape. Resources: Blog: Connected Commerce: It’s Not Just for Retailers Exploring the Path to Connected Commerce Advertorial: Michael Engel on Pymnts.com COMMERCE NOW (Diebold Nixdorf Podcast) Diebold Nixdorf Website Transcription: Devon Watson: This is commerce now. My name is Devon Watson, chief marketing officer for Diebold Nixdorf. Really excited this week. We have Michael Engel here with me. We're in Phuket, Thailand, meeting with our Asia Pacific team and talking about all things connected commerce. So Michael, if you could please just give us a quick intro, tell us a little bit about what you do with the company. You and I bumped into each other all over the world. Uh, give us, uh, just kind of quick background, who you are, what you do. Michael Engel: Well, my background has been in suffer all my life more or less professional life, um, and in banking. So, um, I've been traveling around the world talking to different customers and my job is officially being responsible for our software sales globally in banking. But the nice side effect of that is that you can talk to customers and you listen to customers and having that privilege, getting so much knowledge from the different geographies and then being able to consolidate all of that and drive that back into our R and d organization. That is the fun part really of the job. So really getting to know what is happening in the market, where the concerns of our customers, but also see the different cultures, the different drivers in those markets really bring together that knowledge that we can then utilize and transformed that into innovations and products and solutions so that that's what it's basically all about. Devon Watson: Yeah. So you're, you're kind of a really important glue between the customer base and the product slash r and d organization, which is just a fantastic place to be in. You obviously are in a global role. So I imagine that you might have a fantastic frequent flyer mile account. Do you know how many miles he did last year meeting with customers? Michael Engel: A bunch. So accumulated there probably in the seven digit number. So I'm not truly sure if that's a good number. Yeah, Devon Watson: it's kind of like winning the, uh, the race that you never wanted to enter. Exactly. Exactly. Well, so this customer connectivity, right? The amount of time that you spend around the world meeting with customers. Can you give us a little bit of flavor about the Fintech Revolution? Right. So, uh, I think last year there was some like $26,000,000,000 went into financial technology, startups and innovation and a lot of the customers that I talked to at conferences and in my travels they're wrestling with how do they respond to that? How do they incorporate that? Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what you're hearing around the world. Michael Engel: Well, I strongly believed that fintechs are positive disruption of our industry. The reason why I say this is banks are there to provide the element of trust which very good and very important. However, in the past you to regulations and also the tendency to stick as human beings to the known and that's also in business and the business processes created an environment where although bangs for very sound, organizations that were also very hard to move. And if we look into our society today, then technology has made an amazing seeing happen. And that is the cadence and speed of innovation that we see today. So if you look into the past then you had like every hundred years and major invention then every 50 years, every 20 years, every year, and now we're not talking years anymore. It's really down to months or weeks or even days when you see the new and next thing coming up. Michael Engel: So that speed of innovation at the same time is a very good thing because it's enabling us today was utilizing that technology. So just think about what you do today with your smartphone or your tablet in terms of ordering your ticket for coming here, checking in, organizing transportation to the hotel, getting recommendations were to die and where to stay. So you basically organize everything that took in the past couple of weeks to prepare that trip. You do that and a couple of clicks. So that enablement is what people like today, this is what people want, but that is also what they know because in every commercial transaction there's this financial element involved. Now expect also from the bank to support that. So this is the big challenge where now these fintechs are coming in and say, okay, here is little sweet spot and we create based on that technology, a solution for that particular sweet spot, which is good because that gives some or bring some dynamic into this whole world at the same time it starts a thought process within the bank to say, okay, we need to be in a similar way like those fintechs. So how can we embrace the results coming out of the Fintech, how can we integrate that into our own it environment and how can we even leverage our strengths of the element of trust being a sound financial organization and that speed of innovation and bring all of that together. That's Devon Watson: the real trick, right? So, so at a, at a corporate level, you know, we've engaged some different ways in this wave ourselves. So we're a, we're a member of Fintech 71, which is a selarator primarily for financial technology companies, uh, bringing together a bunch of different innovation hubs in the U. S we're also a member of workbench, which is a venture capital and startup, a innovation fund in New York City, and we're working with startup companies and large companies as well in R and d portfolio. Clearly. So, you know, we're engaged in it. The banks are engaged in it. When you talk to a customer for the, you know, for the bankers listening to us, you know, what would your advice be on how our customers and dibels next door can work together to kind of ride this wave navigated as partners? Michael Engel: Yeah. You mentioned the term glue in the beginning in terms of how we transform, um, so to speak knowledge that we pick up from the market and bring that back into our own organization. If I'm in a certain way, bangs need similar glue because on the one side they, they sit on a wealth of data and information about what we do as customers was any financial transaction that we execute. Well, leveraging that information is still yet to come. Um, second thing is you have all this existing financial, uh, information including the business processes sitting in different core banking systems, but they're very much siloed, so there's not much connectivity between data in one bucket to the data turn, another bucket, and if you think about the evolution of the IT industry is all about taking data, taking processes that are manual today and automate them and really bringing this together as the fundamental idea of what we do in connected commerce. Michael Engel: So we're kind of the glue bringing all of these elements together and bring that to the end consumer because that's the important thing. So how can we get better, more automated processes to a customer because to me it's beyond the traditional view of you have a bank and you have a Fintech, the Fintech as the innovator that shakes things up and let you think to innovate and to thrive. Now some of the technologies that are used in there, like the whole idea of the API economy, blockchain, all of that. These are just enablers, but these enablers go beyond the financial industry per se. It involves us as a consumer. It involves every solution provider or retailer or merchant that's out there because in any transaction we don't think banking. We think buying a car, getting a new house, I'm traveling to book it now. That is what we want to do and if this consumer customer journey, we need to involve a sort of financial transaction, whether that's buying flight ticket or whether it's getting the mortgage for the house. Michael Engel: If we bring those elements together through an API economy, that is what really consumers are expecting from us and this is where I also see as the role of the bank being that aggregator, being that glue and as Sdi service provider, we need to provide the frameworks, the components that make that process faster so banks will not start from scratch building that way. So they are looking to guys like us to say, okay, is there something in the box that is open source technology that are prebuilt components that are frameworks, that are tools that are interfaces precertified based on all the government regulations that you have from the world. Services that you can give me to gain more speed to accelerate, to be in the best meaning of the word. More Agile. Devon Watson: No, that's very helpful. And I think one of the things that I'm hearing kind of loud and clear, you know, talking to clients, talking to you know, our subject matter experts and thought leaders like yourself is this mind shift from thinking in terms of channel silos to now thinking in terms of more holistic consumer journey and how to enable that end to end and play a larger role in that kind of commerce supply chain if you will. Well this has been a great conversation. I always love learning from, you know, our guys that are out there with the customers on the front lines talking to customers around the world and I think that ability to take knowledge from one place transpose it on a global basis is probably one of the more powerful things that we bring to the market. So like kindle. Thank you very, very much. Michael Engel: Maybe one last word on that. I'm traveling around the world has two aspects to it. On the one side, you'll see all the variety and differences in the different geos and is important for us to understand that there is no one size fits all on the one side. However, there are certain similarities and fundamental elements that we need to provide and to really find a balance of how much standardization infrastructure of frameworks that can be reused globally do we need to provide, which is important for r and d organization, but how can we also be very flexible to put in the regional flavors, what is really needed in a certain society, in a given economical environment. I think that is what we've learned out of history that no, there is not a one size fits all, that we drive from the US, from Europe, from wherever into the world is really understanding the local needs while bringing that together in a standardized set of components and frameworks and that is represented in the whole connected commerce idea. Devon Watson: Fantastic. No great stuff. Really appreciate the time. This was a fun conversation. I hope. I hope our listeners are learning from these and uh, look forward to seeing you again somewhere else around the world. Thanks.
Podcast Summary: MKB Fintechlab in Budapest, Hungary discusses banks vs. fintechs and tradition versus innovation. It’s a narrative we’ve been hearing far too much, from far too many sources. How do these two organizations, which at face value seem so disparate, find a balance? It starts with looking at the needs of the consumer. During this episode, we’ll hear how fintechs are positively disrupting the banking industry and providing new ways for financial institutions to connect to their consumers, while making a bank’s job easier through automation. Resources: Blogs: It's Time to Get Physical: How to Differentiate Your Business from Emerging Fintech Startups: https://blog.dieboldnixdorf.com/its-time-to-get-physical-how-to-differentiate-your-business-from-emerging-fintech-startups/ 4 FinTech Predictions for 2017: https://blog.dieboldnixdorf.com/4-fintech-predictions-for-2017/#.W03wodJKjIU DN website: www.dieboldnixdorf.com COMMERCE NOW website: www.commercenow.libsyn.com Transcription: Amy Lombardo: 00:00 Banks vs. Fintechs, tradition vs. innovation, it's a narrative we've been hearing far too much of. So how did these two organizations, which at face value seem so disparate, find a balance? It starts with looking at the needs of the consumer. During this episode, we'll hear how Fintechs are positively disrupting the banking industry and providing new ways for financial institutions to connect to their consumers while still making a banks job easier through automation. When banks, service providers, and fintech innovations come together, they can find a holistic approach to the consumer journey and manage the end to end in a more insightful, valuable way. I'm Amy Lombardo, and this Commerce Now. Devon Watson: 00:45 I'm Devon Watson, Chief Marketing Officer at Diebold Nixdorf. This is an episode I've been looking forward to for several weeks. Let me give you a quick background on why I'm so geeked out. So prior to joining Diebold Nixdorf, I spent my career at Venture Capital as an early team member of two start-ups. So I know firsthand all the ups and downs and adventures of building a venture from the ground up. In the Fintech space, I think this is even more difficult than other domains. But the opportunities I think are absolutely huge. So if you're curious to hear the rest of the backstory you can check out the Serial Entrepreneur podcast I did with J.P. Nichols several months ago. So the quick backstory, several weeks out, I looked at my travel schedule and noticed I'd be in the backyard of one of the interesting Fintech accelerators that had caught my eye a few times. I reached out, cold called the managing director and he graciously answered my introduction and agreed to do this show. Without further ado I'm on site here with János Pereczes, managing director of the MKB Fintechlab in Budapest, Hungary. János, welcome to the show. János Pereczes: 02:05 Hi everyone. Thank you for opportunity of joining. Devon Watson: 02:08 Absolutely. Couldn't be happier to be here. Budapest is a beautiful city and looks like there's a lot going on in the Fintech space. Maybe you could start off just giving us a background to yourself and how you came to be director of this Fintech lab? János Pereczes: 02:23 Okay. Yeah, actually I agree because I actually think Budapest is one of the greatest places in the Earth so anyone who hasn't been here should just come and join us. Once again my name is János Pereczes and I'm leading MKB Fintechlab, which is the innovation lab and startup accelerator of MKB bank. My story before joining MKB Fintechlab is that, straight out of the university, after graduating with a finance major, I joined the venture capital. I was working for a firm where we managed both early stage, later stage, and turnaround funds as well, and I just fell in love with the space. I fell in love with investments, and working with, motivating, and inspiriting entrepreneurs. And I fell in love with early stage investments where risk is high, but returns can be really high as well. And I also fell in love with Fintech because of my finance background, because I think that there is still so much friction in the financial life of people. Like, if you look at me, I'm here in my mid-twenties, and I'm not the biggest saver in the earth. I could be saving, but the level of finance literature and the level of access to finances is not the easiest, I think globally. I fell in love with Fintech. I started a Fintech meetup series with one of my best friends in Budapest, it became a couple of thousand people community and then I get an opportunity to join MKB bank two years ago. I became an executive assistant to the CEO and was working with the CEO to have him oversee digitalization projects inside the bank. The bank started to become, from a traditional bank, into a digital bank. It started the course system replacement, we launched a new loan application, we launched online identification services, and the bank was going through digitalization but we realized that we can't do everything ourselves and we don't know everything ourselves. So we decided to open ourselves up to the Fintech space, we decided to do something in the Fintech space and decided to create a gate between the technology start-up world and the bank. And this became, MKB Fintech Lab one year ago. Devon Watson: 04:24 Gotcha. So it's interesting you mentioned both the innovation in financial technology, the payments ecosystem itself but you also hit on something that I think is really important which is the education that goes along with it. We've got this interesting dichotomy right now where access to financial services is higher than it's ever been but financial intelligence, or financial acumen, is measuring the lowest it ever has in recent years when you look at many, many developed countries. So is financial literacy and financial education something that you guys look at for the lab? János Pereczes: 05:02 It's part of the lab, but I wouldn't say it's the main thesis of the lab. But we believe education is key to actually scale products up in the Fintech space. Because obviously as a bank as well we launched so many cool features and so many cool opportunities for the clients but sometimes the clients don't understand it. It's really hard to reach those clients because they don't understand it and in order for us to be successful in the future as a bank we have to educate our clients, educate the whole economy basically. Devon Watson: 05:34 Got it. Interesting. So maybe tell us a little bit about some of the start-ups you've been working with over the past year and some of the success you've seen so far. János Pereczes: 05:45 Maybe before getting into the start-ups themselves I would start what are the three pillars of what we do here in Budapest. So as the innovation lab has set up extra of the bank, we do three things. First is we build innovative community around the bank, so we run regular challenges, regular developer hackathons, regular meet-ups for people that are interested in developing financial solutions and are interested in helping us validate financial ideas. The second thing we do is we invest in and accelerate startups. So we run a mentorship program every year, we select up to ten startups into these programs and we have been working with 40 amazing companies from six countries in the whole sea region. Because our target is not just Budapest but actually the countries next to Hungary. And the third thing we do is we create partnership opportunities for the startups and for the bank. So what we do is we constantly work with the bank and helping the bank identify the frictions in the customer journeys and for the frictions we have what's called for startups inside the startups we invested in and inside the whole Fintech ecosystem. And one of the, maybe the company that I would highlight from the previous batches is a company called Fintech Blocks. It's Budapest based Fintech startup that's developing an innovation platform for banks through which they can more easily connect to Fintech startups. So the problem they solve is that A, they solve your PSD2 compliant problem by opening up the relevant APIs for the Fintech ecosystem and B, when you deal out the right APIs you can easily connect to startups in a plug and play mode and not in like 12-18 months that usually happens. Devon Watson: 07:28 Got it. So drilling down on PSD2 for just a second, from purely from an innovation perspective PSD2 is in my mind kind of like a shot of adrenaline directly into the heart of the startup ecosystem. It's kind of forcing the opening of banks, the collaboration there. Do you see that being a big driving force for innovation in your community? János Pereczes: 07:56 I see PSD2 as part of a bigger trend. And I think the bigger trend is open data, big data and data sharing. Because what you see in other investors as well and what happened to a couple of other industries, is that all the huge players at some point started to open up the data sources in order to innovate with outside companies, in order to enhance the level of services they provide to the customers. And I think PSD2 is part of this trend. I think the regulators realized that open data and open banking is the future for the banking services, and so now they say to our European banks, "Guys you have to open up those couple of APIs so that other players can innovate with you." And I think it's not a destructing force actually but an opportunity for banks to embrace it and collaborate with the right startups in the right way. Devon Watson: 08:48 Got it. And as you were getting off the ground with this lab, what did you find that just didn't work out? János Pereczes: 08:57 That's actually one of the hardest questions to talk about. So the- Devon Watson: 08:59 In the entire portfolio if you will. János Pereczes: 09:03 Maybe I would highlight one or two key learnings we had. The first is that even if you think you know what the bank behind you needs, even if you know what the Fintech provides, making partnership a reality is really hard. Because the cultural differences, the speed differences, the infrastructure differences are huge between a Fintech startup and the mid-level bank of Hungary. I think we overcame this after the first year and the second year, by appointing a partnership lead inside our team as well. So we became project managers between the startup firm and between the bank and we could use these differences, but it's still really hard. And the second thing I would say is that what we realized from the first batch is that the most important criteria in early stages is talent. So you can't overcome this. You can't go next to it, because how we select startups is based on a score card. In the first year, the score card consisted of five categories based on we've decided who to invest in. And it was team, product, direction, market, and relevance to MKB's partnership. And in the first year relevance to MKB's partnership was too important to the score card, but what we realized is that you have to put the emphasis on team in early stage and if a team is talented, it will find a way to create direction, to create a partnership, but if it's just a product fit, it's not enough. You have to have real talented people in the startup. Devon Watson: 10:34 In most races it comes down to the jockeying. Right? If you can't steer the horse, no matter how good a horse it is, you're not going to get to the end of the race before anybody else. You started to mention the fit with MKB, maybe drill down a little bit on that and talk about how this fits in with the MKB strategy and how you're helping the bank directly. János Pereczes: 10:56 I think we're helping the bank directly in three ways. The first is more on the HR and culture side. I think by launching MKB Fintech lab, by working with innovative young talented people in startups, we help the bank create a new culture. It's not just us, it's the top management that embraces new ways of working, being faster, being more agile, making more structure. Where I think we're helping MKB become a better bank in a cultural way. The second thing we help the bank with is actually startup investments. The bank has a strategy to become the number one investment bank amongst universal banks in Hungary and a key pillar of this strategy is including venture capital part of the bank. And by learning how to work with startups, by learning how to work with fast growing startups inside Fintech lab, we help the bank's venture capital arm become better. And the third thing is, is obviously the partnerships. So when the bank wants to develop a new service, when it wants to develop something inside, now it has the option to go through the startup firm. And select startups, select the partner from the startup firm. And usually when you work with startups it's not just cheaper, but actually usually you get access to better technology. And usually you get access to better talent and better speed. Devon Watson: 12:20 Got it. And when you work with startups, are they exclusively local or are you expanding the realm of what you look at to perhaps import things that are working in other regions? János Pereczes: 12:31 In terms of investments, our thesis is to invest into startups from Central Eastern European regions. We believe that the level of technical talent here is just enormous and amazing. And we believe that there is a valuation gap between the western world and here and this is a good opportunity to invest because usually valuations are better. But when we scout for partners on the partnership track, we look locally, so we are in constant talks with our partners in Singapore, in New York, London, so we have a really good overview of the global attractions and global transitions. Devon Watson: 13:08 So looking at how Fintech is evolving both globally, and then here locally, what do you see as some of the most interesting areas in the space? There's a lot of ground to cover in Fintech, everything from authentication, and identity, to use of data and personalization, what areas are you staring directly at and looking for opportunities in? János Pereczes: 13:30 I would highlight three areas. The first is obvious because every is trying to get into blockchain. We're also evaluating the potential uses of blockchain. To be honest, it's not easy. We are a bank based in Hungary, Budapest and we don't have any branches outside of Hungary, so we are a mid-sized bank even in Hungary. Globally we are a small bank and so far economics haven't made sense, but we believe that blockchain has the power to change financial services, but we also believe there has to be business value behind. And we haven't found the right team to go into blockchain. The second thing is automation. We believe that a lot of things inside the banks work in ways it shouldn't work. So a lot of manual work, a lot of work without added value. And we believe that this part of the banking sector will be automated in the next five to ten years. So we look for startups that help banks become better organizations and faster organizations. And the third one is obviously big data and AI and the combination of these two because we believe that the sales of financial services as of today are not personalized and not optimized enough, and we believe if you have a better understanding of the customer's data and have a better understanding of other customer's data you can make more personalized offerings to the clients, which will make them happier and which will make us a more profitable company. Devon Watson: 14:57 And for listeners that want to learn more about what you guys are doing, where can they find more about you guys online, follow what you're doing, or get in touch? János Pereczes: 15:06 I would obviously follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. We constantly share our lives and share our thoughts on these platforms, but also if someone is around in the region we have regular meetup series in Budapest. We have a yearly so-called Fintech academy every fall in Budapest and this is where we gather the best presenters and best talents here in Budapest. It's a couple of hundred people and we get together and talk about the most important trends, the most important challenges of Fintech. So I believe that there are ways to find us, and if anybody's interested, please reach out. Devon Watson: 15:41 Fantastic. Well János, this has been absolutely interesting. I've learned a lot, the lab you have here down in downtown Budapest is very cool and I really appreciate you having me here at the MKB Fintech Lab and for sharing your insights with our listeners. János Pereczes: 15:57 Thank you. Thank you for having us join and good luck for the remaining of the podcasts. Devon Watson: 16:01 Thank you. Alright, favorite this channel for more interviews on these and other topics impacting the world of commerce, from banking to retail, and all the payments and Fintech in between. See you next.
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