CIO Straight Talk - Issue 10 - 25

prevent it from happening again. We also try to
keep our software versions up to date, to make
sure we are always running the software with the
latest security patches. With no exceptions.
Getting suppliers to work on this same level
has been a challenge. When we work with
partners, customers, or universities, we require
them to follow a few security rules. Whenever
we sign a new contract, we always have certain
security and data privacy guarantees that are
non-negotiable, particularly with respect to our
suppliers. That's an ongoing challenge, however
- we work on that, I would say, every week.

"NoRMALLy WhEN you SPLiT, you
CoPy WhAT iS ThERE AND ThEN you
oPTiMiZE. BuT i hAD A 45% CoST
CuTTiNG TARGET To MEET, So WE
DiDN'T Do iT ThAT WAy. iNSTEAD, WE
MoVED iMMEDiATELy To ouR FuTuRE
WAy oF DoiNG ThiNGS."

Over the past 10 years we have been moving
from a conventional lighting business, going
through the transition to LED and other new
technologies. Now, we not only sell white light,
but also color, and we can do a lot more with
it than we could ten years ago. For instance,
we have special lights for tomatoes and special
lights for roses. We even have a light that
helps chickens grow so that the meat actually
tastes better.

business models also generate a lot of data,
which brings us to the Internet of Things, and
new challenges having to do with how you
handle the data and how you monetize it. Some
of these IoT applications are very exciting:
already our data scientists in India have found
insights that may have a significant impact on
the business.
At some point in time, too, LiFi - WiFi with light
- will be big. It has a number of advantages but
I think the key will be security: you need to be in
the room to have access.
We've also been fairly early adopters of robotics.
Around Q1 of next year, we are going to start
using robots for some of our customer support.
I'm very excited about robots: I think that the
extent you can use them is determined by the
extent of your imagination. I'm really pushing the
team very hard to come up with new projects.
The real challenge is deciding what to focus on
first because if you let them, people would start
100 things at the same time. I want to have an
impact and then move on. Let's start with this
one, then do five, then do 10.

"i'M VERy ExCiTED ABouT RoBoTS:
i ThiNK ThAT ThE ExTENT you CAN
uSE RoBoTS iS DETERMiNED By ThE
ExTENT oF youR iMAGiNATioN."

The IT component of light keeps getting bigger
and bigger too, in part because we're really
going into selling light as a service, and we are
moving more and more into the systems and
services business. These new applications and

25
CIO Straight Talk - Issue 10

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CIO Straight Talk - Issue 10
