Tech Talks Daily

Cheetah Digital is a marketing tech platform that has collected over 2 billion data entries for brands including Arsenal FC, Hilton, BBC, Citibank, Vodafone UK, and the Postcode Lottery, McDonald's, Pizza Hut UK, Godiva, Urban Outfitters.

Richard Jones, CMO of Cheetah Digital, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about why smaller enterprise-specific marketing technology and unified data model platforms provide far more benefits for customers than those from more prominent players. For more than 20 years, I have learned how Richard has worked in technology, specifically, building marketing technology for the likes of Adobe, Oracle, and how he has been a CMO integrating martech to deliver business results.

We discuss the growth of customer engagement suites that ingest various kinds of data, batch data, streaming data, point of sale data, and weather data according to a businesses' requirements. We also talk about how companies can use machine learning and artificial intelligence to segment and analyze that data.

Finally, we discuss why leveraging the same data model with the customer engagement data platform at its heart is key if you're building software from the ground up.

Rich Nanda is a principal in Deloitte Consulting LLP, where he serves as the leader of Deloitte's US Monitor Deloitte practice. He has significant experience in guiding clients through strategy-led transformation to achieve profitable growth. He routinely advises boards, CEOs, and executive teams at consumer products companies on topics spanning growth, business model innovation, operating models, capability building, analytics, and technology adoption.

Nanda has also co-authored a new book and sequel to The Technology Fallacy. The Transformation Myth takes a deep dive into how companies that use disruption as an opportunity for innovation emerge from it stronger, while companies that choose to weather the storm miss an opportunity to thrive.

All of this is especially noteworthy as the pandemic has disrupted business – yet many companies have emerged better-positioned than before and innovated in response to changing circumstances. As a leading expert in digital transformation, Rich discusses his experience guiding clients through strategy-led transformations and key findings featured throughout the book.

Baracoda Daily Healthtech has a strategic vision focusing on preventive healthcare in a digital environment. At CES 2022, the focus is on The Bathroom of the Future. With a focus on balance, posture, spine health, oral health as an indicator of systemic health and wellness, using predictive technology to alert you about changes in your skin, your heart rhythm, your risk of falling if you're a senior.

Healthtech makes it possible to monitor your wellness in a noninvasive way. And physicians have a way to monitor whether a prescribed treatment is working, all in a very non-invasive way. And for the first time – a thermometer that doesn't need batteries, so it's always ready when you need it while using minimal plastic.

Healthtech meets sustainability. One example of Baracoda using proprietary software to scale a product can be seen in the partnership with Colgate. Thomas Serval, the CEO, reveals more about Baracoda's Open Innovation model, which encourages collaboration to further the preventive health mission through the bathroom of the future.

We also discuss how Baracoda Daily Healthtech has received two Innovation Honors at CES 2022. The first award is for BBalance, the first connected product to use footprint recognition and merge medical indexes — posture and balance, weight, and BMI (body mass index). And the second is for bcool - the first thermometer to operate without batteries, combining healthtech with sustainability.

Finally, we discuss how their partner Colgate also earned an Innovation Award at CES 2022, For their new low-price smart toothbrush - Bringing the benefits of smart technology to the general population, as we all strive for optimal wellness.

Mobile DevOps company Bitrise recently announced Arpad Kun as its VP of Engineering and Infrastructure. In his time at Bitrise so far, he led the development of their new enterprise-grade platform, which increased the business's speed to app market by 50%, saving them time and money.

Now, Kun is scaling Bitrise's technology to support enterprises with an all-in-one platform fully. In addition, the platform will automate mobile app workflows, allowing organizations more time to concentrate on creativity, customer-centricity, and innovation.

Previously Arpad served as Chief Architect for Network Services at IBM Cloud and TPM at Facebook Infrastructure. Arpad shares his years of experience in the development space and discusses the importance of platforms that streamline workflows so developers can keep up with the growing demands of consumers and app stores.

In today's episode, Arpad shares his story and what is on the horizon for Bitrise and mobile app development as a whole.

Dublin-based climate action fintech is a climate donation app that empowers conscious shoppers to amplify their positive impact by earning free, personalized climate donations from their spending. Amplify partners with a network of sustainable brands, allowing their customers to earn a donation for a high-impact climate cause of their choice on every purchase, at no added cost.

Users choose a climate charity, securely link their bank card, and then 2% of each transaction they make with a sustainable brand in Amplify's network is automatically donated to their chosen cause for free. Supported by Enterprise Ireland and approved by the world's leading card networks, Amplify is setting out to transform the donation experience for sustainable brands and conscious shoppers, empowering them to amplify the climate action of every sustainable purchase.

David Beakey, Co-founder of Amplify, shares how they combine their passions for sustainability and technology to help conscious consumers transform the impact of their sustainable spending.

Assaf Gedalia is the co-founder of WalkOut, the developer of an autonomous end-to-end checkout platform that created a smart cart solution to provide an efficient, frictionless checkout.

This smart cart is an AI, computer vision-based solution mounted onto shopping carts in the form of a screen and cameras and becomes shoppers' personalized advisory board. WalkOut can identify every item placed in the cart with high accuracy, tally them up, and notify the shopper of an anomaly. That means knowing when an item is what the shopper is looking for, if it goes against a dietary need, or contains an ingredient that will cause an allergic reaction.

Walkout provides shoppers with a unique experience where all they have to do is walk in, place items in the cart, and walk out. Unlike other checkout options, the tally, bagging, and payments are all done on the cart itself.

Assaf Gedalia is the co-founder of WalkOut, the developer of an autonomous end-to-end checkout platform that created a smart cart solution to provide an efficient, frictionless checkout.

This smart cart is an AI, computer vision-based solution mounted onto shopping carts in the form of a screen and cameras and becomes shoppers' personalized advisory board. WalkOut can identify every item placed in the cart with 99.2% accuracy, tally them up, and notify the shopper of any anomaly.

So shoppers have prime convenience, and grocers can implement the affordable WalkOut solution that involves very little changes to the shop's environment and compete with the bigger players.

In today's episode, Assaf shares how technology upgrades traditional brick & mortar shops and improves the shopping experience. We also chat about why smart carts are the best integration for a shop and the benefits of in-store shopping compared to online \ delivery \and even Amazon GO. Finally, we discuss the intricacies of the different proprietary algorithms WalkOut developed to reach a 99.2% accuracy rate on product identification.

Casa is a US-based provider of Bitcoin security services, which enables users to have total self-custody over their crypto holdings, without the risk of theft or hacks like those experienced by exchanges. Bitcoin can be purchased through Casa and deposited directly into a user's wallet on the service where they control the funds, without the company having custody over the holdings at any point.

Nick Neuman, CEO of Bitcoin self-storage startup Casa shares his view that despite sovereignty being the biggest issue in the Bitcoin space, it's ultimately the one that's being addressed the least. It's not a technology problem or a process problem, but rather that the big challenge is how to make security technologies standard in an industry with an overall poor track record for keeping its customers' coins safe. Nick discusses the different Bitcoin safety solutions on the market that holders need to be aware of and why they should consider taking their coins off exchanges altogether. We also talk about why a wallet alone might not be enough and what questions investors should be asking of their Bitcoin partners to ensure they can always keep sovereignty of their coins.

Joaquin Viramontes, Director of Personalization at digital experience agency R2i, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. The seasoned expert in analytics, personalization, and all things data shares insights on personalization and why it's much more than a buzzword for marketing professionals.

R2i is a digital experience agency that creates digital solutions that connect and accelerate customer experiences to drive impact for brands. I learn more about their relentless focus on combining data, insights, and technology with creative design to drive engaging and high-impact digital experiences.

Joaquin shares how businesses can go beyond making a case for personalization to implementing a long-term program that shows ROI. He also explains a marketer's ideal toolkit of analytics and optimization tools that can be used to identify wins and optimal ways to invest time and resources.

Finally, we discuss how to establish a company culture of data-driven decisions and build excitement around the value that tech and data can bring to all decisions in every department.

In January 2021, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC)began administering blanket mechanical licenses to eligible streaming and download services (digital service providers or DSPs) in the United States. The MLC will then collect the royalties due under those licenses from the DSPs and pay songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers.

The MLC has built a publicly accessible musical works database, as well as a portal that creators and music publishers can use to submit and maintain their musical works data. These tools will help ensure that creators and music publishers are paid properly.

It is also striving to ensure songwriters, composers, lyricists, and music publishers receive their mechanical royalties from streaming and download services in the U.S. accurately and on time.

In order to pay these royalties, The MLC utilizes a portal where creators and music publishers submit their musical works data, which is then matched to the appropriate monies. Therefore, the importance of getting the word out to self-administered songwriters and collecting the necessary data is paramount in ensuring that creators are being compensated for their work. The MLC's CEO Kris Ahrend shares insights from its first full year of operations and how it has already distributed more than $106 million in royalties to songwriters.

Grant McDougall is a marketing and advertising veteran who hit a tipping point in the agency space after working with brands like AT&T and Chevron. He started BlueOcean, an AI driven platform helping companies like Google and Microsoft track, measure, and compare their brand health to competitors using AI. The company also recently announced a $15M Series A funding.

As we all know, branding is one of the most critical assets for a company. It can significantly impact customer loyalty, stock price, employee retention, and other key metrics of success. So I invited Grant on the podcast to explore how conventional marketing agencies are not capable of giving their clients relevant and actionable information to outpace their competition.

The growing and future of consumer privacy compliance have allowed users to manage their data tracking, but this popular option has developed challenges for marketers across all platforms. We discuss how AI technology for data insight has become the core for services like BlueOcean who offer data input reports to help financial institutions.