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In this episode of TechCentral’s Impact Series, CYBER1 Security president and board member Rob Brown and Palo Alto Networks regional director Trevor Coetzee are in the studio to chat about the latest in the ever-changing world of information security.

In the show, Brown tells TechCentral’s Duncan McLeod about the decision to change the name of Dynamic Recovery Services (DRS), which had been in the market for 25 years, to match parent, Sweden’s CYBER1 – what it means for the company and its clients.

CYBER1 recently attained diamond partner status with Palo Alto Networks, and Coetzee unpacks what Palo Alto does and its market positioning.

The conversation then turns to some of the big trends in the information security market, and some of the incidents that both Palo Alto and CYBER1 are seeing on the ground in South Africa, including the ransomware menace and what can be done about it. Brown and Coetzee also take a look at the next generation of cybersecurity threats and where they’re coming from, including threats to OT (operational technology) systems, and why OT has become a big focus of attackers.

Other areas of discussion include the impact on security from the shift to cloud computing as well as the dire shortage of security skills in the IT industry and why automation might help alleviate this problem to some extent.

If you’re involved in infosec, or are in any way concerned about your organisation’s defences against increasingly sophisticated threats, don’t miss this discussion.

The context of how businesses engage with customers is vital: it reassures clients that they have been heard.

Clara Wicht, Telviva senior product and marketing manager, and Rob Lith, chief commercial officer, join James Erasmus to discuss current developments in the customer service industry in this Impact Series episode.

Long gone are the days of PBXes and Post-it notes. Customers engagement is becoming more unified, and agents are now more empowered to respond with a single view of the customer’s profile and historical engagements in a meaningful and useful way.

Telviva Engage is a locally developed and scalable platform that integrates into existing CRM and other business systems, on premises or in the cloud (or a combination both).

Wicht explains: “It’s an all-in-one platform that aggregates multiple engagement channels into a single view, all while empowering quicker and more informed responses to customer engagements.”

Lith suggests putting the platform to the test by visiting the Telviva Engage and seeing how the company can synchronise multi-channel engagement, including Web, social media, WhatsApp, and fixed and mobile voice and chat.

“We believe that contact centres, customer service centres and customer-facing teams should be empowered to have a single, user-friendly view of all the channels on a browser that they can access anywhere, on any device, for a more authentic, immediate customer experience,” Lith says.

* Impact Series episodes are paid for by the party concerned

Sascha Sauer, the head of Audi South Africa, believes local electric vehicle sales are poised for take-off, despite challenges such as high importation taxes and customer concerns about load shedding.

In this TechCentral Impact Series interview, Sauer says South Africans have started taking a much keener interest in electric cars, with a wide range of electric vehicles having been introduced into the local market in the recent past – and more to come.

Models already available locally from Audi are the e-tron, e-tron Sportback, e-tron S Sportback, e-tron GT Quattro and the RS e-tron GT.

In this Impact Series episode, Sauer unpacks Audi’s EV strategy for South Africa, chats about the EVs Audi has introduced to local consumers already, and the German marque’s roll-out plans in the years ahead.

He also talks about Audi’s plans to stop manufacturing models with internal combustion engines entirely, and how that will impact Audi buyers in South Africa.

The move to electric is a big deal for car buyers, manufacturers and the dealer networks. Sauer unpacks in detail what to expect and the work that Audi South Africa has already done in anticipation of a sharp uptick in EV sales, including rolling out charging infrastructure and ensuring the service network is retooled and ready for their mass arrival.

Sauer also busts some of the myths around moving to electric – from the obvious one, load shedding, to concerns about vehicle range, battery lifespan and the availability of charging stations.

If you’re interested in the future of motoring in the South African context and are keen to know more about what Audi has in store, don’t miss this fascinating interview.

Unless you have 100% visibility and are continuously scanning your cloud environment, you are vulnerable. According to recent research by Orca Security, 78% of identified attack paths use known vulnerabilities (CVEs) as an initial access attack vector.

This is significant because most entry points that are exploited can relatively easily be prevented since these CVEs are already known and the vast majority already have remediations available.

Praven Pillay, MD of Maxtec and Sagy Kratu, director of enablement and an evangelist at Orca Security, joined James Erasmus for a brief but fascinating conversation about the harsh realities of public cloud security.

Maxtec is the exclusive distributor for Orca Security in Southern Africa and has offered to guide anyone watching or listening to this episode of TechCentral’s Impact Series through a free-risk assessment and a free 30-day trial of the Orca platform.

With local support from Maxtec, the Orca platform connects to your environment in minutes and provides 100% visibility of all your assets. It detects and prioritises cloud risks across every layer of your cloud estate, including vulnerabilities, malware, misconfigurations, lateral movement risk, weak and leaked passwords, and overly permissive identities.

The adoption of public cloud is accelerating. The security postures, which are your responsibility, have been radically innovated, automated and no longer depend on agents. Consider your cloud investment and ask if you are properly protected.

* Impact Series episodes are sponsored by the party or parties concerned

Africa Data Centres’ newly appointed CEO, Tesh Durvasula, says investment in ICT in Africa is creating nearly boundless opportunities for growth.

Investments in new undersea cables, terrestrial fibre networks and data centres – the latter led by companies like ADC – is helping meet fast-expanding demand from a youthful African population that is coming online for the first time.

Speaking on TechCentral’s new Impact Series technology show, Durvasula explains why he thinks population trends are fuelling infrastructure investments in ICT.

He unpacks the investments that Africa Data Centres, fresh with funding from the US International Development Finance Corporation through its parent, Cassava Technologies, is making on the continent – including expansion into Egypt, Morocco, Senegal and Morocco.

In the interview, Durvasula also talks about:

* His career background and how he came to Africa Data Centres;

* How Cassava Technologies is structured and how Africa Data Centres works with other companies in the group;

* The size of Africa Data Centres today and its plans to build new data centres across Africa;

* Why new data centre builds are becoming increasingly focused around population centres rather than centres of biggest GDP;

* The power-supply challenges associated with building data centres on the continent;

* How new submarine cables like Equiano are going to change the ball game; and

* Technology trends driving cloud adoption in Africa.

Don’t miss the discussion.

Retail Capital identified Sage Intacct as a cost-effective solution for its business, which has been experiencing exponential growth.

Chief financial officer Tyler Posthumus studied Retail Capital’s requirements to scale, and quite specifically stipulated the need for a robust ERP solution with API (application programming interface) capabilities for automation. There also needed to be minimal disruption to the business.

Through an existing and well-defined partnership with AWCape, Retail Capital switched from Sage 300cloud to Sage Intacct. The immediate and long-term benefits are discussed in this podcast and so, too, is the importance of trusted human interaction.

Listening to this episode will give you great comfort in planning your own modernisation as well as insight into why systems can create efficiencies that far outweigh any perceived inconvenience associated with change.

For an overview of Retail Capital’s story, and to hear to the company’s experience, watch or listen to this podcast as Posthumus, along with Jeff Ryan, MD for AWCape (the implementation partner), and Gerhard Hartman, vice president: medium business, Sage Africa and Middle East, talk about the project.

Visit www.awcape.co.za for more information.