The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the economy all around the world. Most industries are paralyzed and several businesses had to close down due to the crumbling financial market. From sustenance to safety, everything is compromised and people are struggling to keep roofs over their heads. The biggest factor that contributed to such detrimental effects is the lack of preparation and business continuity plans. Keeping aside the sectors such as travel, food, retail, supply chain, and logistics, etc. that had to take a direct hit due to lockdown situation, many threw up their hands simply because they had no idea how to tackle it or were crippled by the lack of resources at hand. Others started looking for long-term solutions in terms of remote working, safety, and risk management in the end-to-end value chain. In this feature, we place our focus on the industry which is playing a key role in this battle: the IT sector. Let’s hear it from a leading expert in the field, Thomas Charlton, the CEO of Goliath Technologies, that specializes in end-user experience monitoring and troubleshooting software, with embedded intelligence and automation, that enables IT pros to anticipate, troubleshoot, and document performance issues regardless of where workloads, applications, or users are located.
Thomas talked about how his company supports businesses by empowering proactive IT especially in this time of crisis, describing their approach to creating offerings around client and market needs. He also discussed how building a winning work culture helps translate into business success.
Today what concerns me most is our current crisis and the impact on the economy in the short and long term....Looking at the problem through the eyes of today’s IT department, we want to help them keep applications and infrastructure up and available to their end users so that they are more effective at meeting their performance goals.
Overcoming complexities
Thomas: “At Goliath Technologies we are passionate about helping today’s IT departments manage the complexity of the changing IT delivery landscape. This includes cloud, hybrid IT, hyper-convergence, and now remote workforces that must be produced to ensure business continuity and progress. Our focus is to develop software to help manage these challenges. Today what concerns me most is our current crisis and the impact on the economy in the short and long term. We haven’t experienced this type of forced business shut down in my lifetime, and I believe the true negative impact remains to be seen. But looking at the problem through the eyes of today’s IT department, we want to help them keep applications and infrastructure up and available to their end users so that they are more effective at meeting their performance goals. Although we have been doing this for years, overnight due to COVID-19 there has been an immediate shift to 100% work from home. This is a tremendous opportunity for our organization. We are thoughtfully approaching how we enable clients to manage this unforeseen new paradigm on limited budgets with declining revenues. It is important for us to create solutions with new pricing models that contemplate our clients’ difficult business situation.”
Finding the right solutions to offer
Thomas: “This very much depends on the idea and context. But let’s take decisions related to products for example. We take an approach that might sound counterintuitive at first. Instead of supporting or pushing an idea, we attempt to prove the weaknesses in the idea or hypothesis. For a product idea, we evaluate the market, technology, and ultimate distribution model. So often people come up with ideas and look for reasons to support it, but this often leads to confirmation bias. This can be damaging to a software company because the ultimate product idea could be flawed and ultimately fail when brought to market. It takes professional discipline to generate an idea and come up with all the reasons it might fail. Once we have validated the hypothesis or idea through a rigorous and exhaustive market validation process, we turn our efforts to executing against that idea. Once we have committed to a product idea, we will not fail to have it realized. For instance, looking back, early in the company we knew that Healthcare IT was going to be a market focus of ours. However, we also were aware that gaining beachheads and building credibility in the healthcare vertical would be difficult. We were able to bring technology and partnerships together that offered us an opportunity to seize that market. We are now known as the health IT standard by our clients, which include the largest and most complex health systems in the country. Most IT organizations not only hear about our technology but have the ability to leverage the solution. We have made very deliberate product and pricing decisions so that organizations on the full spectrum from Fortune 500 organizations, of which we have many, to SMBs can acquire and benefit from the technology.”
My style is to focus on the team of individuals who are responsible for our collective success with empathy and respect. Hence, I am very proud that we have a culture that takes opinions, viewpoints, and important ideas from any individual based on the merits alone.
Team-effort before individual excellence
Thomas: “I would describe my leadership style as very straightforward and focused on business execution while understanding that this happens only through people. My style is to focus on the team of individuals who are responsible for our collective success with empathy and respect. Hence, I am very proud that we have a culture that takes opinions, viewpoints, and important ideas from any individual based on the merits alone. We really don’t concern ourselves with who offered the idea but rather the strength of a viewpoint. Our EVP and CTO is fantastic when it comes to developing software and overcoming very difficult engineering challenges. The product management leader is able to communicate with the development team and clients so that our products, when launched, reflect market requirements. The company’s CMO is tremendous at all aspects of product marketing, digital demand generation, and analyst relations. Our SVP of WW Sales has a unique combination of sales leadership and operational skills that are difficult to find. Finally, my CFO manages all financial operations with precision. Fortunately, my passion is overall business execution and this team allows me to engage this area of interest daily.”
Looking towards the future
Thomas: “It is important to me that people are better off professionally and financially after contributing to one of my organizations. When someone joins our team, I want them to have an opportunity to advance their career and enjoy the pride of business accomplishment and corresponding benefit in their personal lives. To date, over my past 6 software companies, we have promoted over 25 people to executive positions. Many more have been promoted at other levels. Speaking of Goliath, we have well communicated, organized, and deliberate training programs for team members who want to dedicate themselves to improving their careers. As a pioneer in the industry, we are closely watching the evolution of IT infrastructure and application delivery. We are in a good position no matter where these trends lead but it is important to prepare for any eventuality.”
To learn more about Goliath Technologies, visit https://goliathtechnologies.com/.
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