For years the security industry has worked to solve the quandary of how to best deliver the most relevant information to right people at the right time. While various security management software platforms have done their part to streamline the massive amounts of data generated by surveillance cameras, access card readers and various other sensors an organization may have into an easily digestible format for security operations personnel, there has been little innovation in terms of how this and other information from the field is aggregated and presented to security executives and other senior-level managers.
Enter Bloom Consulting, which has developed a custom Microsoft Apportal leveraging the Windows 10 operating system that provides visibility across the organization into the key performance indicators of security - number of incidents, type of incidents, response times, etc. – and can also be viewed in real-time by not only the CSO but the entire C-suite if need be. Based in Redmond, Wash., Bloom Consulting specializes in providing enterprise solutions and services focused on information architecture, big data analytics and user experience design.
According to Heather Zindel, the firm’s CEO, Bloom has become very focused on the security market over the past year as they have identified a real need within the industry for some of the services they provide.
“I would say we are one of the disruptive, innovative companies doing bleeding-edge work to disrupt the status quo a little bit in security,” said Zindel. “We are pretty forward-thinking in the way security could be leveraging technology and some of the services we provide to get more out of what they do in security and to reduce risk. We think the biggest opportunity for us right now in security and really our mission is to help executives, who are in the business of security, modernize what they’re doing.”
Rob Hile, director of strategic accounts for SureView Systems, recently joined Bloom’s board of advisors along with several other security industry veterans. He believes the Apportal the firm has developed could be a game-changer for the industry.
“In our world, typically what happens is at the end the month, the SOC generates a report which goes to the security director, he reviews it and sends it up to the CSO about what happened last month or, in some cases, maybe a month and a half or two months ago. That information then gets to the risk people – CEO, CIO, etc. – and they review it,” explained Hile. “If they had an incident a month ago that impacted their business they are just now finding out about it in some cases. The Apportal Bloom is bringing to the table is real-time information that they don’t have to have special login privileges for or access to the security systems themselves.”
However, being at the forefront of technology innovation and making the commitment early on to develop applications on the Windows 10 platform hasn’t come without its own set of challenges.
“We are so in front of the marketplace that we’ve spent the last year talking to security professionals, seeing what these applications can do in the modern workplace and we’ve gotten a ton of excitement about it,” said Zindel. “But then the next thing is (people say), ‘Well, we’re not moving to Windows 10 until 2016,’ and it is going to take a few years for the enterprises to completely adopt and upgrade to Windows 10 so they can start modernizing what they do.”
While he agrees that waiting on organizations to migrate to Windows 10 will be a significant challenge, Hile said that on the other hand, as companies begin realize what they accomplish with Bloom and the Apportal, it could also encourage some of them to make the switch faster than they initially anticipated.
“The biggest barrier to success early on is going to be to find the early adopters of Windows 10, go in and then pitch the concept,” he said. “Typically, the concept pays for itself once they see how easy it is for these KPIs to be served up with a really nice user interface and experience to the stakeholders. The good news is the Apportal could almost be the pilot for them to kind of stick their toe in the water with Windows 10.”
Zindel believes many current technology providers and their partners are not thinking enough about the "customer journey" and their experience in using particular solutions.
“How many people sit down and really think about what the user experience is for an executive from the time they wake up to when they go to bed? The modern executive is on a treadmill at 6 a.m.; they are looking at their Fitbit or their smartwatch and getting a notification about some high-priority thing they have to pay attention to. They are getting up, taking the kids to school and while they’re dropping their kids off they’re quickly checking their mobile phone and answering a couple of emails. Then they are on the road and a call comes in on Bluetooth, they have a quick conversation and they are at their desk working on their desktop before rushing off to a lunch meeting where they turn their two-in-one into a tablet,” she said. “They are so mobile and most Americans have an average of seven devices per person. What people need to think about is not just selling to the CSO or even building a relationship with them, it is really about do you understand the 10-K, their business and if you’re selling something to them specifically, do you really think about their day and how they interact with information, tools and data, as well as how they interact with your service or solution?”
