Tech Talks Daily
Neil C. Hughes
If every company is now a tech company and digital transformation is a journey rather than a destination, how do you keep up with the relentless pace of technological change?
Every day, Tech Talks Daily brings you insights from the brightest minds in tech, business, and innovation, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways.
Hosted by Neil C. Hughes, Tech Talks Daily explores how emerging technologies such as AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, fintech, quantum computing, Web3, and more are shaping industries and solving real-world challenges in modern businesses.
Through candid conversations with industry leaders, CEOs, Fortune 500 executives, startup founders, and even the occasional celebrity, Tech Talks Daily uncovers the trends driving digital transformation and the strategies behind successful tech adoption. But this isn't just about buzzwords.
We go beyond the hype to demystify the biggest tech trends and determine their real-world impact. From cybersecurity and blockchain to AI sovereignty, robotics, and post-quantum cryptography, we explore the measurable difference these innovations can make.
Whether improving security, enhancing customer experiences, or driving business growth, we also investigate the ROI of cutting-edge tech projects, asking the tough questions about what works, what doesn't, and how businesses can maximize their investments.
Whether you're a business leader, IT professional, or simply curious about technology's role in our lives, you'll find engaging discussions that challenge perspectives, share diverse viewpoints, and spark new ideas.
New episodes are released daily, 365 days a year, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways around technology and the future of business.
Every day, Tech Talks Daily brings you insights from the brightest minds in tech, business, and innovation, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways.
Hosted by Neil C. Hughes, Tech Talks Daily explores how emerging technologies such as AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, fintech, quantum computing, Web3, and more are shaping industries and solving real-world challenges in modern businesses.
Through candid conversations with industry leaders, CEOs, Fortune 500 executives, startup founders, and even the occasional celebrity, Tech Talks Daily uncovers the trends driving digital transformation and the strategies behind successful tech adoption. But this isn't just about buzzwords.
We go beyond the hype to demystify the biggest tech trends and determine their real-world impact. From cybersecurity and blockchain to AI sovereignty, robotics, and post-quantum cryptography, we explore the measurable difference these innovations can make.
Whether improving security, enhancing customer experiences, or driving business growth, we also investigate the ROI of cutting-edge tech projects, asking the tough questions about what works, what doesn't, and how businesses can maximize their investments.
Whether you're a business leader, IT professional, or simply curious about technology's role in our lives, you'll find engaging discussions that challenge perspectives, share diverse viewpoints, and spark new ideas.
New episodes are released daily, 365 days a year, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways around technology and the future of business.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 3, 2022 • 22min
2163: Analysys Mason Predicts Increased IT Spending by SMBs
In its latest SMB technology forecast, Analysys Mason predicted that IT spending by SMBs will grow at a growth rate of 7.5% between 2022 and 2027. In addition, cloud-based categories are expected to grow from USD $600 billion in 2022 to USD $1.0 trillion in 2027. Bob Takacs, Research Director and SMB IT practice leader at Analysys Mason, commented on the forecast, "Our latest forecast reveals the shift in SMBs' behavior and priorities since the pandemic. We see increased investments in categories driving resiliency and efficiency. This is an important release because we accounted for the impact of three critical drivers, including SMB's changing behaviors post-pandemic, macroeconomic headwinds, and the global political unrest." Bob joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how the report suggests that SMB's spending priorities include IT solutions that support efficiency, resiliency, and business continuity. We also discuss how three categories will account for almost half of all spending; managed services, infrastructure, and cybersecurity. Finally, we talk about how a distributed workforce and hybrid working practices will continue to influence IT spending.
Nov 2, 2022 • 34min
2162: HarperDB - Jaxon Repp Shares His Tech Startup Story
HarperDB's CEO Stephen Goldberg shared the story behind the company with me in July on episode #2028. We discussed how their technology is changing other companies in unique and innovative ways. But this time, I have invited Jaxon Repp, Head of Product, on the podcast to learn more from his twenty-five years of experience architecting, designing, and developing enterprise software. Jaxon is the founder of three technology startups and has consulted with multiple Fortune 500 companies on IoT and Digital Transformation initiatives. The partially-reformed developer understands what it's like to wrestle with technology instead of benefiting from it, He also believes that if the Jetsons never had an episode where a config file error brought down the food-o-Matic, it surely should not be a problem now. Join me in learning more from Jaxon Repp.
Nov 1, 2022 • 24min
2161: ManageEngine - From Self-Service to SaaS Evolution
Rakesh Jayaprakash from ManageEngine joins me on Tech Talks Daily as discuss how Analytics Plus was originally an on-premises IT analytics solution. Recently though, Rakesh and his team finished transforming the product into a SaaS solution that allows IT to connect several data sources into an integrated analytics platform that can be deployed on private and public clouds including AWS and Azure. This will help organizations attain faster time to market, increase productivity, curb expenditure, and garner more revenue. Rakesh also discusses the decision to evolve Analytics plus into a SaaS offering, share the journey of doing so, and the value this update will bring to IT teams.
Oct 31, 2022 • 21min
2160: How AtlasEdge Is Shaping the Future of Edge Computing
There is so much hype around emerging technologies, but I want to move beyond the buzzwords, demystify the technology, and understand the business value and tangible results it can offer. So today, I want to talk about Edge Computing. AtlasEdge, the leading pan-European edge data centre provider, recently appeared on my radar after they announced the acquisition of Datacenter One ("DC1"), the leading German provider for data centre development. The company is also rapidly gaining a reputation as a leading European Edge data centre platform with over 100 locations across 13 countries. Giuliano Di Vitantonio, CEO of AtlasEdge, joins me on Tech Talks Dailyto discuss how their distributed data centre portfolio allows their customers to plan and shape their technology and network infrastructure to meet the growing requirements for lower latency, higher performance, and localised solutions.
Oct 30, 2022 • 26min
2159: Third-Party Lifecycle Management Technology
Experts are predicting an economic downturn in the coming months. Tech companies across the US have already implemented hiring freezes and are trimming up to 20% of their workforce. Unfortunately, this means that corporate sustainability initiatives will also likely fall by the wayside to save cash. In the wake of the recession and the new wave of globalization, Jag Lamba, founder of Certa, discusses specific practices that businesses can implement to prioritize ESG, mitigate risk, and maintain visibility into their supply chain, where 70% of all risk lies. Jag also shares the story behind Certa's no-code platform and how it was designed to make it easy to digitize and manage the lifecycle of all suppliers, partners, and customers. With automated onboarding, contract lifecycle management, and ESG management, Certa eliminates the procurement bottleneck and allows companies to onboard third-parties 3x faster.
Oct 30, 2022 • 18min
2158: Enabling Secure Remote Access Experiences Everywhere
On this podcast, I pride myself on sharing stories from all over the world and have interviewed guests from more than 75 countries. Today, I am going to take you on a trip to the Czech Republic, where Artur Kane from Good Access is going to discuss the importance of establishing an encrypted connection between employees and business systems from wherever they're working. Artur is also regarded as a passionate speaker on protecting remote workers and company data in a digital world at industry events and often contributes to security/networking magazines. We discuss how zero trust access control provides a more secure alternative to corporate VPN for remote working security and how companies can move from VPN to zero trust access.
Oct 29, 2022 • 29min
2157: The All-Female-Founded Tech Startup on a Mission to Open up the Workforce
According to a recent Gartner study, DEI is one of the top five business priorities for businesses in 2022. However, hybrid and in-person work environments could jeopardize company access to talent. So while more organizations are doubling down on diversity and inclusion efforts and implementing consequential reporting, meeting those goals still remains a challenge for many corporations. One way to help increase diversity in an organization is to provide opportunities for growth from the entry-level employee sector. Ahva Sadeghi, Co-Founder & CEO of Symba shares with me how remote internship programs allow employers to access diverse talent and fill their future hiring pipeline. Ahva also shares her inspirational tech startup story and ways remote positions can feed an overall DEI strategy, and how they contribute to tenure, culture, and overall company wellness.
Oct 28, 2022 • 46min
2156: Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether and Bitfinex Discusses Plan B
Lugano's Plan ₿ Forum is a Bitcoin conference bringing together world leaders, technologists, and entrepreneurs to discuss nation-state Bitcoin adoption, economics, financial freedom, and freedom of speech. Although I am not attending the event, I did get to spend a little time with Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether and Bitfinex to discuss the Plan B forum. We discuss how Bitfinex and Tether's actions for financial freedom might influence the rest of the world and fight for innovation through governmental, corporate, individual, and technological tracks. We also talk about how Bitfinex is participating in Adopting Bitcoin in El Salvador in November. Finally, we dare to imagine IT without any infrastructure or reliance on the cloud.
Oct 27, 2022 • 40min
2155: Databricks - The Story Behind the Lakehouse Company
Many are citing open source as the future. The UK Government's National Data Strategy even talks about the importance of opening public sector datasets to form the backbone of innovation, efficiency, and growth. This is a trend that Databricks is betting on in a big way. Databricks is the lakehouse company. More than 7,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, H&M, and over 40% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform to unify their data, analytics and AI. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe. Founded by the original creators of Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow, Databricks is on a mission to help data teams solve the world's toughest problems. I have invited Dael Williamson, EMEA CTO, Field Advisory & Engineering at Databricks, to join me on Tech Talks Daily to share the story behind the company and how they are helping data teams solve the world's most challenging problems.
Oct 26, 2022 • 23min
2154: The Supply Chain Innovations Transforming Parts Town
Kenny William is the "Senior Director of Distribution Center Wizardry" at Parts Town, the world's largest distributer of OEM parts for the food service industry. Parts Town has made significant automation improvements at its recently expanded 300,000 sq. ft. distribution center. The company implemented AutoStore, an automatic storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) that has helped improve picking accuracy by more than 50% and handles 72% of parts picks in only 7% of the total distribution center space. The distribution center also features over 100 robots and an elevated conveyor belt that moves parts throughout the space without taking up additional floor space. Kenny joins me on Tech Talks Daily to talk about their supply chain innovations in this unique market segment and discuss how these investments are transforming Parts Town team members into tech-savvy professionals. Kenny shares with me how they are using technology to circumvent supply chain challenges for OEMs and the purchasers of these parts (restaurant owners, service companies, etc.).
