Businesses reduce cloud security risks with latest addition to centralized platform

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global cybersecurity leader, today announced the next evolution of its cloud container security capabilities for its flagship platform. The latest addition to the platform delivers end-to-end protection, detection, and response to drive secure digital transformation. 

The new capabilities simplify investigations by enabling analysts to prioritize incidents faster and with greater accuracy—reducing the time spent on each container security incident by up to two weeks.*

"Nothing is more important than reducing business risks, which we do through increasing the efficiency of our cyber threat detection capabilities" said Fernando Gadelha, head of cybersecurity at ZUP. "Honestly, containers are only a percentage of our efforts, but it is critical to be able to streamline any operations and manage them alongside our broader security efforts – Trend Micro makes that easiest. Big picture, that translates to less time spent on training and moving between screens, and more time and resources driving business transformation."

Kevin Simzer, chief operating officer at Trend: "We see modern enterprises increasingly turning to containers to accelerate and scale development alongside evolving market demands—but these advances can lead to missing cloud visibility and new security vulnerabilities. Our platform empowers teams to protect and respond to threats in cloud container environments, using the exact same console and user interface they rely on for managing risks across the rest of the attack surface."

The Trend Vision One™ platform is designed to deliver comprehensive, cross-layer capabilities that eliminate the cost, security gaps, and administrative overhead associated with point solutions. Trend's latest innovation in container security brings unparalleled visibility to the security operations center (SOC) to accelerate threat detection, response, and containment. Specialized cloud security teams will benefit from a tailored approach that protects containerized applications and enables organizations to leverage the full potential of cloud environments securely.

According to independent analyst firm Gartner, "Integrating previously isolated security capabilities simplifies security workflows and reduces the complexity associated with managing multiple tools, thus providing better visibility into the security landscape. A centralized platform allows for better coordination and communication between security and development teams, fostering collaboration and enabling incidents to be handled more efficiently."**

Trend Vision One™ – Container Security benefits include:

• Consolidated security: Centralizing container security within a unified platform streamlines security management while delivering unprecedented visibility through deep, correlated telemetry across more native security layers—including endpoint, server, workload, identity, email, and network. This consolidated approach enables security teams to identify threats earlier in the attack lifecycle leading to rapid and effective containment. A platform approach ensures security policies are consistently monitored and applied across the organization.
• Optimized operational efficiency: Drastically reduces the time spent by SOC teams on container security operations, saving up to two weeks per incident. This efficiency improvement can free up resources for other critical tasks, enabling organizations to operate in the cloud with less risk.
• Consistency across all cloud environments: Ensures seamless security management is in place across both Kubernetes clusters (multi-cloud and on-premises) and Amazon ECS by simplifying the management of security policies and minimizing the risk of potential security vulnerabilities.
• Enhanced security: Proactively mitigates risk by searching for bugs in Amazon ECS and Kubernetes. Supports end-to-end protection that secures containers from build to termination, ensuring seamless security across the container lifecycle.

Eviden, the Atos business leading in digital, cloud, big data and security, partners with Cryptsoft, the renowned supplier in the Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) market.

Cryptsoft, a distinguished supplier in the KMIP market, is set to play a crucial role in augmenting Eviden's existing encryption services, provided by the Trustway business unit. Cryptsoft's expertise in the key management field will be instrumental in assisting Eviden to navigate the complexities of the digital landscape with increased confidence and security.

As Eviden continues to leverage technology to create opportunities and provide secure solutions, the integration of Cryptsoft's products marks a significant step in enhancing their service offerings. This collaboration signifies a concerted effort to elevate the standards of data security in the digital era, fostering innovation and safeguarding critical information.

Philippe Duluc, Chief Technology Officer for Big Data and Security activities at Eviden, Atos Group, highlighted, "In our relentless pursuit of excellence and innovation, we recognize the value of integrating Cryptsoft's superior KMIP technologies into our solutions. Their products are pivotal in enhancing our capabilities, allowing us to further secure and protect valuable data assets. This collaboration with Cryptsoft is a clear indication of our dedication to offering secure and forward-thinking solutions to our clients."

Marc Briceno, VP Sales at Cryptsoft, expressed Cryptsoft's pride in this collaboration, noting, "We are delighted to be chosen by Eviden to support their mission of revolutionizing data security. Our KMIP technologies, aligned with Eviden's expertise and Trustway's cryptography capabilities, promise to foster a new era of digital security. We are committed to aiding Eviden in achieving their strategic objectives, contributing to a safer and more secure digital environment."

Core knowledge about your data, such as information about how to use a particular dataset, or what data to trust, is still largely trapped inside data people's brains and data systems, such as dbt projects. Until now, this information remained inaccessible to business users—leaving data people constantly answering annoying questions about data quality status and more. With Workstream.io's updated dbt-integration, it's easier than ever for data teams to effectively communicate data knowledge to business teams.

The update features two major improvements to our dbt cloud integration: the ability to expose data status pages for your critical data assets; and, the ability to leverage your dbt project to build business-facing documentation. 

"Now when you connect your Workstream.io instance to your dbt project, core information about data outages, including failed tests and data freshness checks, become automatically communicated to users via data status pages, " says Chris Ibarra, CTO of Workstream.io.

New Status pages are automatically created and updated for each data asset in your environment with a valid dbt exposure. This includes the current status of the asset, a graph of historical up/downtime in the last 30 days, as well as a list of any current or historical data incidents, including their status and core context.

This integration also provides an unlock to dbt-based knowledge about data via end-user documentation features. When leveraging any of the documentation features, including asset content overviews, you can pull in dynamic definitions of your dbt nodes.

"These new integration points allow us to expose critical knowledge to our business teams and partners via dbt-powered documentation and automates workflow around data incidents and quality via data status pages," says Workstream.io customer Dan Antonson, Director of Marketing & Analytics Technology at Collegis Education.

This is a meaningful departure from manually building documentation in an intranet, or manually tracking data incidents in spreadsheets—and then having transactional conversations to convey temporal trust.

With this update, your investments in dbt are transformed into available data knowledge that can be easily accessed and understood by everyone in your organization.

"In our continued commitment to improve upon your investments, we acknowledge that nobody wants to buy software right now. We've heard feedback, and in addition to the new dbt-integration features, we're also announcing a new pricing structure that offers a low-commitment and fast way to get started," says Nick Freund, CEO of Workstream.io.

New data reveals the rapid adoption of AI in enablement solutions, but not without implementation and integration challenges

Seismic, the global leader in enablement, today released the findings of The State of AI in Enablement: 2023 Report. More than 600 full-time employees in a sales, enablement, or customer success role at the management level or above in the United States were surveyed, with findings indicating AI-powered enablement technology is a game changer for businesses looking to quickly and efficiently drive revenue growth as they continue to weather the economic storm.

The report found that go-to-market (GTM) leaders expect investments in AI to pay off in dividends, as 85% of respondents believe the fusion of AI and GTM strategy will lead to revenue growth for their organization. Among this group, leaders predict an average of 23% growth will be directly attributed to AI utilization over the next five years. The report also found that the majority of GTM leaders use enablement technology, and of those, 84% say that it’s mission-critical to achieving revenue goals. So it comes as no surprise that 89% of those who use the technology already have plans to further invest in 2024. These leaders anticipate enablement budgets to increase by 19% next year – a decision they largely attributed to the significant advancements in AI. What’s more: 93% agree that advancements in AI – and specifically the ways they can bolster enablement efforts – are a major driver for their company’s increasing investment in enablement technology going into next year.

However, the impact will not be immediate – overcoming challenges, driving adoption of new tech, and seeing results takes time. Over half (66%) of GTM leaders who have deployed AI tools report that they encountered initial hurdles before eventually realizing positive outcomes. Notably, 51% say that implementation and adoption are their greatest areas of concern in regards to using AI in enablement, which is why enablement tools like Seismic are critical to help facilitate seamless integration within a business’s revenue operations. But these hurdles certainly haven't prevented the march toward progress, with 83% reporting they would like to deploy more AI solutions for their team within the next 12 months.

“The past year has been wrought with market challenges, which makes AI-powered enablement technology more crucial for business success than ever before,” said Doug Winter, CEO and cofounder, Seismic. “The proof is in the pudding: When an organization's enablement efforts are streamlined with AI technology, it drives greater GTM efficiency, operational optimization, and better buyer experiences – all of which translate into a stronger bottom line. At Seismic, we are leading the charge to define the future of AI-powered enablement and look forward to working closely with our customers and partners on this endeavor.”

Additional key report findings include:

• In 2024, a significant majority (93%) of GTM leaders who intend to boost their investment in enablement technology attribute their decision to the significant advancements in AI
• In fact, over half (54%) of GTM leaders say their organization already uses AI-powered tools for sales enablement
• The three top functions that GTM leaders are leveraging AI-powered enablement tools for are:
  • 53% use it for content analytics
  • 50% use it for content distribution
  • 48% use it for learning and coaching
• And businesses are reaping the benefits: 91% of those who have implemented AI tools say that their company has noted an increase in customer satisfaction since implementing AI into their enablement processes
• However, implementation of AI technology takes time and does not come without challenges. Of those who faced challenges, 54% report integration issues, 41% report a lack of understanding, and 34% report security or privacy concerns
• That said, the data is clear: the benefits far outweigh the challenges
  • 63% of GTM leaders believe that AI is the primary force behind evolving customer experiences today
  • 73% believe that companies that fail to effectively incorporate AI into their GTM processes will fall behind their competitors within the next three years

Former Meriplex Executive Joins the Leading Advertising Success Platform

Simpli.fi, the Advertising Success Platform that provides programmatic advertising and workflow solutions to agencies, brands, and media companies, announced today the appointment of Evan Kolter as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Kolter is succeeding Andries Marx, who led Simpli.fi's finance and human resources teams through rapid growth over the last 10 years, and is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities. Marx will remain with the company through the end of the year for an orderly transition.

Simpli.fi Chief Executive Officer Frost Prioleau stated, "I would like to thank Andries for his outstanding contributions to Simpli.fi over the past 10 years. Andries has played an instrumental role in the growth of the company. Not only has he built strong financial and HR teams, he also helped form the positive culture at Simpli.fi that we still enjoy. We are thankful for all he has done, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors."

"At the same time, we are very excited for Evan Kolter to join the Simpli.fi team. Evan is an accomplished CFO with broad experience in driving value creation across multiple industries," said Prioleau. "Evan's team-based approach will be a great fit for Simpli.fi as we continue to expand our team, our customer base, and set of solutions."

Most recently, Kolter served as Chief Financial Officer for Meriplex where he had responsibility for finance, accounting, taxes, and compliance. With over 17 years of experience in finance, Kolter was responsible for providing the financial foundation that enabled the organization to reach its strategic objectives. Prior to Meriplex, Kolter led organizations as both a CFO and EVP of finance. His experience spans multiple industries, focusing on banking and technology-enabled service providers, including TD Bank and Cardtronics. Kolter has overseen successful implementations of change management and guided companies through M&A activities. Kolter Holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Tennessee in Accounting and Finance.

"I am excited to join a leading player in adtech and I look forward to helping Simpli.fi achieve its next chapter of growth and transformation," said Kolter. "I'm also very thankful to Andries as he has built an exceptional team of talented professionals that I look forward to partnering with as we plan for Simpli.fi's next chapter."

Medallia, Inc., the global leader in customer and employee experience, today announced the addition of Simonetta Turek as Chief Product Officer. Turek brings decades of leadership with a focus on innovation and customer experience globally. She will lead product management and design at Medallia as a member of the executive leadership team.

“By adding an experienced, talented leader like Simonetta as our new Chief Product Officer we add a proven innovator to an already accomplished product team. Her passion for customer success, AI, machine learning, and driving results at scale will be invaluable as we accelerate and expand what we bring to our customers,” said Joe Tyrrell, CEO at Medallia. “With our existing world-class customer and employee experience solutions at Medallia, this exciting addition to our leadership team gives us a phenomenal opportunity to create even more competitive advantages for our clients.”

Turek is a proven executive product leader with an impressive background in delivering innovative solutions to the market at global technology companies like Genesys, Nokia, and AWS. Most recently she was GM of the Customer Experience Products division at Twilio.

“I am excited to step into the chief product officer role at Medallia and help to continue to deliver high value product development for our clients,” said Turek. “The customer and employee experience landscape is prime for innovation. Medallia’s deep domain expertise, proprietary data, and powerful artificial intelligence give us an incredible opportunity to accelerate that and help the largest companies in the world deliver more personalized experiences to their customers and employees.”

Medallia Experience Cloud, the leading enterprise experience platform used by the largest and most admired brands in the world, captures signals across in-person, digital, and contact center interactions along with social media, transactional, and operational data, and democratizes insights across the enterprise in real time. By enabling everyone from the front line to senior leadership to make the right decisions and take immediate action, organizations are delivering more personalized experiences at scale using Medallia’s AI.

Traackr's 2024 Influencer Marketing Impact Report highlights the potential for influencer marketing to make or break a brand

Traackr, the leading performance-driven influencer marketing platform, today released its annual Influencer Marketing Impact Report, which surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers to reveal the impact of influencers, social content and platforms on engagement and purchase behavior. The research found that while influencers still motivate their followers and drive sales for brands, consumers are becoming more selective about where and with whom they spend their money.

More than half (61%) of respondents are at least somewhat likely to purchase a product from a brand if an influencer they know and trust posts about it. However, as influencer marketing has become more ubiquitous, the competition to break through the noise and win the loyalty of consumers is hotter than ever. Traackr's Influencer Marketing Impact 2024 report reveals new insights into the most popular channels for social commerce and the biggest considerations consumers make when purchasing from a brand.

Consumers weigh brand and influencer values before opening their wallets

Consumers are more discerning about which influencers they follow and ultimately trust, making authentic influencer partnerships all the more important and valuable. Earning that trust is contingent upon both the influencer's and the brand's values.

The survey found that 60% of consumers at least somewhat agree that they will not buy a product from a brand if it says or does something that conflicts with their values, and 63% at least somewhat agree that they would stop following an influencer if they say or do something that conflicts with their values. Female-identifying consumers were 13% more likely to have this sentiment about influencers than their male-identifying counterparts.

"In just the past year, we've seen stock prices tank and market share lost for high-profile companies when influencer collaborations don't land with fans," said Pierre-Loïc Assayag, CEO and co-founder, Traackr. "When the risks are this high, marketers must do their homework to thoughtfully select influencers who align with their values and set up the partnership to accurately and authentically represent their brand mission."

YouTube ranks most popular for product research, but Meta dominates social commerce

Respondents ranked YouTube as their most used social platform when viewing influencer content or doing product research, followed by TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. However, when asked where they are most likely to purchase products on social, respondents ranked Facebook as the most used platform, followed by Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest. When comparing Gen Z and Millennials, Gen Z was more likely to rank TikTok, Instagram and YouTube ahead of Facebook.

"These differences highlight the need for marketers to tailor their influencer marketing strategies to exactly who they are targeting and what they hope to achieve with their campaigns," said Assayag. "Awareness campaigns may perform better on YouTube, where Meta-owned properties might drive more conversions, depending on the target audience. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to winning influencer marketing, and the brands that continuously experiment, analyze and iterate will have a competitive advantage in the market."

"The consumer behavior evolves heavily on Pandora's social media channels," said Kristi Bajrami, global influencer strategy and creator lead of Pandora. "We see that most of our community on TikTok and Instagram are interested in snackable content formats; either focusing on storytelling, product or engaging angles. We offer our consumers a variety of different content formats they love, like trends, viral products, styling and how-tos, which gives us the opportunity to share quick content and engaging messages that resonate with our audience. As a result, tailoring our content to this preference has led to higher unique reach, high engagement rates and an interactive exchange."

Brand partnerships remain a vital component of creator revenue streams

Influencers are on the fringe of a creative industry that's involved in tenuous labor rights debates, still figuring out how to earn a fair wage creating content – especially those with small or mid-sized followings. Some industry insiders have suggested paywalled content or branching off to develop their own product lines as ways to add revenue streams. However, this survey shows that this might be fairly challenging for influencers. Only 41% of consumers at least somewhat agree that they would pay for a favorite or trusted influencer's exclusive content, while 56% are at least somewhat likely to purchase a product from an influencer-owned brand they follow.

"Creators are looking for better financial security and stability and will start focusing on brand partners that can help them get there," said Christen Nino De Guzman, founder of Clara for Creators. "Brands that want successful influencer programs should not only invest in long-term creator relationships, but they should start also dreaming up new ways to work with creators beyond a single paid post."

Brands can look to distinguish themselves by focusing on long-term partnerships over ad hoc posts and out-of-the-box collaborations that go beyond traditional sponsored content and allow influencers to do what they do best – create entertaining, informative and resonant content.

Tofu, a generative AI platform for creating hyper-personalized, omnichannel marketing campaigns at scale, today announced it has raised $5M in venture funding. Index Ventures led the round with participation from SignalFire, Stage 2 Capital and Liquid 2 Ventures.

In today’s fiercely competitive B2B marketing landscape, revenue teams have struggled to find effective ways to reach their target customers. As the Tofu team spoke to over 100 enterprise CMOs, they found the biggest bottleneck to be lack of resources for creating personalized content, especially in this economic environment where teams are leaner than ever and are forced to do more with less.

Tofu solves this problem by allowing marketing teams to easily mass generate on-brand and personalized content for any channel. Tofu starts by creating a proprietary Playbook, or AI knowledge graph, for each customer. Tofu ingests the customer’s website and marketing/sales collateral to ensure that all generated content seamlessly aligns with their brand, messaging, and positioning. Tofu then leverages the Playbook and uses generative AI to create unlimited variations of personalized content in minutes such as emails, landing pages, blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, and an array of other content formats.

It’s a clear answer to the top needs of CMOs today - in the Boston Consulting Group’s recent survey of over 200 CMOs, 89% of organizations are already using or testing generative AI, with personalization (67% of respondents) and content creation (49%) being the top use cases of focus, which are the primary use cases the Tofu platform solves for today.

Today, Tofu is in beta with a handful of enterprise customers. Customers have seen significant ROI from hyper-personalization, where Tofu creates, manages, and analyzes thousands of personalized pieces of content tailored to individual accounts. They’ve further been able to optimize team resources and scale content efforts through repurposing existing content - taking an anchor piece of content and automatically generating derivative assets. For example, Tofu can take content from a case study and create a blog post, email and social media campaign to go with it.

On average, customers are seeing an impressive 230% increase in email open rates, a 300% increase in time spent on page, and a 200% boost in opportunity generation when comparing Tofu-generated content to other personalized campaign tools.

Tofu was founded by a team of B2B Marketing and AI Experts. Elaine Zelby spent 8 years building and leading marketing teams at Slack, Consensys and Capriza. Eunjoon (EJ) Cho and Honglei Liu collectively spent decades as Product and Engineering leaders at companies like Google, Facebook, Affirm, and Twitter.

“Our goal is to have customers focus on their core-messaging and strategy while Tofu puts the creation and execution of campaigns on autopilot. Tofu will bring the technological leap in AI directly into enterprise workflows and super power the next generation of GTM teams,” said CEO EJ Cho.

“AI is a huge unlock for marketers. Reaching an audience with the right message at the right time is a Holy Grail for businesses, and Tofu is making that a reality. Tofu enables marketing teams to run more effective personalized campaigns at scale by bringing AI into the team's workflows. We’ve been excited about EJ, Elaine and Honglei for a long time, and are thrilled to join them on the journey from Day 1. This fits our broader thesis in Applied AI to back great teams in software categories that are being reshaped by this new technological shift. ” - Mark Goldberg, Partner @ Index Ventures