Did you know that CIO positions have a very high rate of turnover compared to other Csuite roles? In this episode, I’ll share some of the role-specific challenges of the CIO, the difference between a CIO and a CTO, and offer some tips and advice for CIOs that I’ve learned over many years as a consultant to various organizations.

I’m Ori Weizman, Sr. Solutions Architect for Silk, and not only am I your guest host for this episode, but I’ve been ‘elevated’ to co-host of this podcast. In each episode, I’ll throw in a healthy dose of pop culture to keep things interesting and hopefully offer a lighter tone to our highly technical topics.

Silk is focused on delivering high-powered cloud solutions within the eCommerce, healthcare, and financial services industries. Join us each episode for in-depth discussions across different elements and aspects of the cloud, from the technical to the absurd, with a focus on helping you understand the capabilities and limitations of various public cloud offerings. Our goal is to explain how a blend of cloud technology can be effectively married to business outcomes that help you be better prepared to smartly approach and solve your business problems with cloud technologies.

Getting Loud About the Cloud podcast is powered by Silk. With acrobatic cloud flexibility and unshakeable data resiliency, Silk offers the greatest database performance of your life. Silk is rewriting the rules of the cloud to make businesses smarter, faster, and fully prepared for whatever the world has in store for them next.

Discussion Points

• Differences between CIO and CTO roles - both in the Csuite, but CTO’s often report to the CIO. CIO focuses on internal resources, and CTO’s often focus externally on clients/customers
• A Case Study: At the fictitious ACME Corporation, they make cartoons. The CTO will build the platform to stream to users. The CIO determines what provider to run the platform on and all the costs
• CIO’s are people managers
• Productivity - example of creating a document and how the CIO assists
• Productivity - example of a sales team pitch - what the CIO needs to provide
• The CIO knows what’s best for their customers, and interacts regularly with all levels of the organization
• Anecdotes in an addition to data - Jeff Bezos uses anecdotes to support/clarify data
• Diffusing the “fear” of the Csuite execs in your organization will help you collect anecdotal data
• Don’t push your employees to the brink!
• The CIO role has one of the highest turnover rates in the Csuite

Resources:

Silk Website

Ori Weizman on LinkedIn

Losing business-critical data is not recoverable. Is your company a transformative organization, or are you simply keeping the lights on? I’m Ori Weizman, Sr. Solutions Architect for Silk, and your host for this episode. I’ll be talking all things data, with a few doses of pop culture woven in for fun.

In this episode, I’ll not only share some mind-bending statistics about the amount of data that currently exists but how much our data will increase in the next decade. We’re currently in the “zettabyte era” but heading toward yottabytes, brontobytes, and even geobytes within the next ten years. So I’m asking – are you prepared? The cloud, and multi-cloud systems, are the ONLY way to maintain your business-critical data.

Silk is focused on delivering high-powered cloud solutions within the eCommerce, healthcare, and financial services industries. Join us each episode for in-depth discussions across different elements and aspects of the cloud, from the technical to the absurd, with a focus on helping you understand the capabilities and limitations of various public cloud offerings. Our goal is to explain how a blend of cloud technology can be effectively married to business outcomes that help you be better prepared to smartly approach and solve your business problems with cloud technologies.

Getting Loud About the Cloud podcast is powered by Silk. With acrobatic cloud flexibility and unshakeable data resiliency, Silk offers the greatest database performance of your life. Silk is rewriting the rules of the cloud to make businesses smarter, faster, and fully prepared for whatever the world has in store for them next.

Discussion Points

• Statista reports that by 2025, there will be 181 zettabytes of data in the world
• The yottabyte era is approaching in 2030-2035
• Byte definition and the multiples
• B2C/retail/eCommerce company data
• Hyperscaling at Amazon
• Customer data drives innovation - Amazon is the sultan of data
• You may be surprised by the data you mine from your customers, and maybe you should pivot
• AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud adoption frameworks
• The cloud is the only place to transform your business
• Google’s phases: tactical, strategic, and transformative
• Recommended: read Google, AWS, and Microsoft white paper on cloud adoption
• Reach out to Silk for easy cloud migration solutions
• We welcome your suggestions– reach out to Silk for topics for upcoming episodes

Resources:

Google’s Whitepaper

More reasons why retailers need to move to the cloud

In our last episode, we discussed the concept of “slow is the new down” for eCommerce sites. I’m Derek Swanson, CTO of Silk, and in this episode, I’m going to take you through all the issues (or perceived issues) that can affect your business’s migration to the cloud, and take you through all the ways Silk can prevent or negate the reasons for cloud migration hesitancy.

In this follow-up episode, I’ll share some more staggering statistics about cart and website abandonment. Did you know that if a customer has to wait three seconds or more for your pages to load, they will leave, and many times, never come back? Price Waterhouse Cooper has gathered some shocking stats about consumer perceptions and behaviors in the eCommerce industry, and you’ll want to hear just how to prevent these customers from leaving your shopping site. Here’s a hint: Silk can prevent cart abandonment by easily managing your cloud migration, protecting your data, and enabling future upgrades that will increase your speed and efficiency, and lower your costs.

Your host, Derek Swanson, is Chief Technology Officer for Silk. Derek has over 25 years of experience writing code and building solutions. From his work on Novell networks in the 90s to server virtualization in the 2000s, Derek has the experience and knowledge to guide you through all the ups and downs of the many public cloud services available today.

Join us each episode for in-depth discussions across different elements and aspects of the cloud, from the technical to the absurd, with a focus on helping you understand the capabilities and limitations of various public cloud offerings. Our goal is to explain how a blend of cloud technology can be effectively married to business outcomes that help you be better prepared to smartly approach and solve your business problems with cloud technologies.

Getting Loud About the Cloud podcast is powered by Silk. With acrobatic cloud flexibility and unshakeable data resiliency, Silk offers the greatest database performance of your life. Silk is rewriting the rules of the cloud to make businesses smarter, faster, and fully prepared for whatever the world has in store for them next.

Discussion Points

• Smartphones have brought augmented/virtual reality to shopping – think of Houzz, Warby Parker, and Wayfarer
• In 2021, ⅔ of customers wanted VR/AR, but only ⅓ of retailers were providing it
• Next-gen shopping requires increased personalization and bespoke experiences
• Some of Price Waterhouse Cooper’s statistics
  • 42% of customers would pay more for a more welcoming experience
  • 52% would pay more for faster, reliable service
  • 63% would share more data with companies who gave them a better value shopping experience
• AI for inventory management– exponential improvements in forecasting, reordering, stock management
• Most shoppers abandon carts because of extra costs
• 57% will leave if they have to wa...

Did you know that “cart abandonment” is a whopping 69.5% across all industries? And that it goes up to 85% on mobile devices? That is an awful lot of money being left on the table. Performance issues lead to loss of revenue, exhausting IT departments by constantly putting out fires, and push your customers to leave your site and head over to the competition. There’s a saying in the retail/Ecomm industry, “Slow is the new ‘down’” – customers are more tolerant of your site being completely down, than it being slow or having glitches.

I’m Ori Weizman, Sr. Solutions Architect for Silk, and your host for this episode. My guest today is Keith Lyon, Sr. Solutions Engineer at Blue Triangle. Keith will walk us through the main reasons that customers abandon websites and shopping carts, and has some valuable advice for companies to ameliorate these issues and benefit their bottom line.

Getting Loud About the Cloud podcast is powered by Silk. With acrobatic cloud flexibility and unshakeable data resiliency, Silk offers the greatest database performance of your life. Silk is rewriting the rules of the cloud to make businesses smarter, faster, and fully prepared for whatever the world has in store for them next.

Discussion Points

• “Slow is the new “down” for websites – what are some of the reasons people abandon websites when attempting to shop?
  • Performance - doesn’t load, too slow to function
  • Content - blurry, wrong image formats, descriptions are wrong
  • Function - menus, carts, flyouts, hamburger menus don’t work
  • Psychology of user - if cart doesn’t work, they fear personal data is not safe
• Cart abandonment rates are staggering: 70% across all industries, and 85% on mobile devices!
• What are some of the crucial points to consider when performance testing?
• Scalability is big– some retail sites saw 800% increase during covid times
• Data is extremely critical
• The GDPR in Europe, and the CCPA in California
• Relational databases are preferred by retail and eCommerce
• The metrics of business success and how performance issues affect your business
• The energy of IT departments is wasted on putting out fires all the time
• Any advice for non-performance issues?
• Allocate the necessary resources and time to do it right the first time around!
• Reach out to Silk for an easy cloud migration solutions
• We welcome your suggestions– reach out to Silk for topics for upcoming episodes

Resources:

Keith Lyon LinkedIn