Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Lars Olrik, Group CEO of Verdande, and Jo Kinsella, CEO of Financial Services of Verdande (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: If you look at an entrepreneur working in Houston, for example, there is a strong likelihood that that entrepreneur may have also [gotten involved] in the oil & gas industry, whereas somebody working in San Francisco may not.

Lars Olrik: What is interesting to see, if you look at healthcare, for example, is all the major players are recognizing they can’t develop new technologies fast enough. They have access to all the hardware. They can put in the big data infrastructure. Now they need to put clever technology on top. How do they do that? They can’t develop it quickly enough. They need to go out and identify clever entrepreneurs with clever technology that they can then put on top of their platforms and take advantage of. Those entrepreneurs can then take advantage of the huge network and relationships.

SM: Is that something you are doing?

LO: There are 600 cardiovascular hospitals in the U.S. There is no way that we can build up a sales force that can get to market quickly enough and create a profitable business. We are driven down the path of partnering with the big guys. This is what Jo is doing in financial services, because it is the same thing. They can’t develop fast enough, and we can’t develop a global workforce – it is too expensive. We have to look for partners and alliances to get to those markets quicker.

SM: Are you opening up your platform to people with more domain knowledge in specific segments, like value-added reseller networks or entrepreneurs who can build on top of your platform?

LO: Entrepreneurs building on top of our platform, as of today, no. We might be driving down that path as we develop. But at the moment we are extremely focused on case-based reasoning. That is the only thing we are interested in. In order to do what you described, you have to start diverging from your core.

SM: I do not think so. I think it is going to be difficult for you to have the heuristics for every single domain without acquiring that domain knowledge. I think there are niche people who have that domain knowledge and who can potentially take your technology and build on top of it.

LO: That is very true. That is why we have focused predominantly on three verticals, and we are developing the platform as a toolkit. We could call the Ministry of Defense and say, “ Here is the CPR platform and here is the toolkit. Go ahead. You can license all that and build your own solutions and tools. This is the way you do it.”

SM: If I observe something in your company, there is the opportunity of that 70%-80% infrastructure to do that kind of case-based reasoning, and then let the others do the rest. Let’s say there is an entrepreneur who wants to work in the logistics segment. You don’t have to necessarily build a logistics practice; you could work with someone who wants to specialize in logistics.

LO: I agree. That is why we have this platform and the toolkits.

SM: When you do that, please come back and talk to me. We work with a lot of corporate partners, and we plug our entrepreneurs into corporate networks. When you are ready, we can look into how to help with the process.

LO: Even better.

SM: Thank you very much, it was nice talking to you both.

LO and JK: Thank you. Goodbye.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Lars Olrik, Group CEO of Verdande, and Jo Kinsella, CEO of Financial Services of Verdande
1 2 3 4 5 6